1 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON ANL-EAST

+ + + + +

FRIDAY

MARCH 10, 2017

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time, Bradley 

P. Clawson, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Chair

JOSIE BEACH, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

BOB BARTON, SC&A

NICOLE BRIGGS, SC&A

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

ROSE GOGLIOTTI, SC&A

LARA HUGHES, DCAS

MARK LEWIS, ATL

JENNY LIN, HHS

VINCENT KING, ORAU Team

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

LaVON RUTHERFORD, DCAS

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

ELYSE THOMAS, ORAU Team
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Contents

Welcome and Roll Call............................. 4

SC&A 2016 Review of Site Profile Issues &......... 6

NIOSH status/preliminary responses................ 6

Plans for March ABRWH Meeting Presentation....... 71

(including issues to solicit from ANL-E.......... 71

workforce)....................................... 71

Adjourn.......................................... 77
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 (10:30 a.m.)

3 Welcome and Roll Call

4 MR. KATZ: First of all, welcome 

5 everybody to the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

6 Worker Health. This is the Argonne East Work 

7 Group. And the Argonne East Work Group is working 

8 on a review of the Argonne East Site Profile.

9 The agenda for today is very simple. 

10 It's on the NIOSH website. The scheduled meeting, 

11 today's date. But it's almost not worth going 

12 through the agenda. Although there is a document 

13 there which is the SC&A review of the current Site 

14 Profile. So, or the issues that are being resolved 

15 related to that.

16 So that SC&A review is posted on the 

17 website. And people can go to it and read that 

18 background material for the lead part of the 

19 discussion for today. And then, also, I think at 

20 the end we'll try to work out then what's going to 

21 be presented at the Board meeting, which we're 

22 having a Board meeting in a couple weeks in 
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1 Naperville, close to the facility. That's on 

2 March 22nd we'll be having a presentation, a brief 

3 presentation about the review of that Site Profile. 

4 And what we'll be looking for, also, is issues that 

5 we can ask people who've worked at the website --

6 at the site there about, you know, holes there may 

7 be to fill and questions we may have.

8 So, anyway, that's more or less what's 

9 going on today.

10 For roll call, I have all my Board 

11 Members. My chair of this Work Group is Mr. Brad 

12 Clawson. And then we have Ms. Josie Beach, Dr. Gen 

13 Roessler, and Ms. Loretta Valerio. And none of 

14 them have conflicts of interest.

15 And we'll go on to the NIOSH ORAU team 

16 and please keep the conflict of interest as you run 

17 through your roll call. Thanks.

18 (Roll call.)

19 MR. KATZ: Brad, it's your meeting. 

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Great, I kind of don't' 

21 know where to start with this. If Lara wants to 

22 start first and give us some background, where they 
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1 are at or if SC&A wants to go over the Site Profile 

2 Review issues.

3 DR. BUCHANAN: I'd prefer seeing if 

4 SC&A could bring up the issues and then have NIOSH 

5 respond to them, if that would be okay with you.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: That would be fine. 

7 Ron, go ahead.

8 SC&A 2016 Review of Site Profile Issues &

9 NIOSH status/preliminary responses

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

11 Buchanan, SC&A. And Bob Barton is doing the 

12 display today. If you'd put up page 5 of the SC&A 

13 2016 report. That is the introduction part.

14 And what I'd like to do today, okay, 

15 it's been a long time since we visited this site. 

16 Many of you might not be familiar with it. And even 

17 SC&A, it's been a while since we've worked on it 

18 much. And so I'd like to do a little review, set 

19 a little background so that we're all on the same 

20 page.

21 And I think that's one of the main 

22 things we want to do today is to get everybody up 
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1 to speed, get all on the same page and then see where 

2 we want to go from here.

3 The TBDs for this site were issued way 

4 back in '05 and '06. And so most of you know TBD-6 

5 was revised in 2014. Now, as we progressed, then 

6 nothing was done on that till about 2008. Back in 

7 those days NIOSH and SC&A had back and forth 

8 conversations so that we could discuss questions, 

9 answers, clarifications, issues. And that is what 

10 is contained in Attachment 4 of our 2009 report.

11 And so this was some -- we asked 

12 questions, NIOSH responded. And on a few of them 

13 we replied back. And so that's then pages 91 

14 through 102 of the 2009 report, Attachment 4, which 

15 gets referred to sometimes. And so I wanted to 

16 give a framework of where that fit in.

17 So then in March the 11th of 2009, we 

18 actually issued our evaluation of the Site Profiles 

19 for Argonne East. And that included Attachment 4 

20 in the appendix, or in the attachments.

21 And so nothing more was done on it until 

22 TBD-6, Revision 1, was issued the 16th of October 
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1 of 2014. And, again, nothing much was done until 

2 the Board tasked SC&A to do a status report in March 

3 of 2016, about a year ago. So, SC&A gathered this 

4 information up which, as you know, was kind of 

5 mothballed. So we gathered this information up 

6 and tried to put it in a report that brought it all 

7 together. And did some Site Profile issue 

8 recommendations in June of 2016. So not quite a 

9 year ago. So that's the introduction page you see 

10 displayed on the display at this time.

11 And in that, what we tried to do was 

12 bring together some of these issues and accomplish 

13 three things:

14 Look at what the revised TBDs may be at 

15 that time. And the only one was the TBD-6 from 

16 2014;

17 And perhaps address some of the issues 

18 we brought up by other Board venues at other sites 

19 and other documents to see if some of those answered 

20 some of the questions;

21 And number three was to look at new 

22 procedures or OTIBs and such that might address 
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1 some of the issues. And, for example, OTIB-6 for 

2 medical X-ray did address some of the issues.

3 So that's where we were last summer. 

4 And then recently this information was put on the 

5 BRS for everyone to look at and try and consolidate 

6 it so everybody could follow that roadmap. And 

7 this was put on in February by SC&A.

8 And then we noticed, about day before 

9 -- well, we noticed yesterday that day before 

10 yesterday NIOSH had responded or had responded day 

11 before yesterday on the BRS to our 13 findings. 

12 And so, obviously we haven't had time to digest so 

13 we can respond to them.

14 And so what we'll do today is outline 

15 the finding and then have NIOSH give us our current 

16 response and then we'll decide, you know, whether 

17 that's a NIOSH action. Some of them they're going 

18 to do further work on. A few of them, SC&A needs 

19 to read and then provide a written response. And 

20 then I think one of them perhaps can be closed.

21 Now, I would like to make a point of 

22 clarification in that the 2009 Site Profile Review 
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1 lists items number in Attachment 4. And there's 

2 13 item numbers that we discussed back and forth 

3 with NIOSH. These correspond somewhat with our 

4 2016 report but not exactly. There's not always 

5 a one to one correspondence because some of those 

6 items we took and put into topics.

7 And so on the BRS and then today and here 

8 forward we will use our 2016 numbering system for 

9 our findings so we don't get confused and we have 

10 a uniform method.

11 So, if that's agreeable to everyone, I 

12 will start on Finding 1. If Bob will put up the 

13 BRS Finding 1.

14 Any comments or questions before we get 

15 started?

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: I don't have any at 

17 this time.

18 Is everybody hearing that cut-in or 

19 cut-out? Or is that maybe my fault?

20 MR. KATZ: He's clear on my phone, 

21 Brad.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: What's that?
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1 MR. KATZ: He's clear on my phone.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. I might change 

3 the phone. But I'll plug in there. So, okay, go 

4 ahead, Ron.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So we see that 

6 Finding Number 1 is potential missed dose from lack 

7 of definition of radionuclide compositions and 

8 radionuclides not addressed in the Site Profile. 

9 And what SC&A was concerned with when we did this 

10 review in 2009 was issues with the source term, 

11 really.

12 For example, the percent enrichment, of 

13 enriched uranium, what would be used? Because 

14 most of the time back in those days they had gross 

15 alpha, gross beta, so how would you assign dose? 

16 Or what was the radioisotopes because it wasn't 

17 completely described in the TBD? And so 

18 plutonium, what radionuclides of plutonium were 

19 there?

20 Accelerator-produced radionuclides, 

21 which are usually fairly short-lived activation 

22 products. And back then what we called exotic 
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1 radionuclides such as californium-252, et cetera. 

2 And so we felt there needed to be some further 

3 description on that for the dose reconstructor 

4 tiers. And so that was our Finding Number one.

5 So now I'll turn it over to Lara and she 

6 can provide her response to that.

7 DR. HUGHES: Okay. We had some 

8 discussion with the group about the dose 

9 reconstruction part. I meant to point out during 

10 roll call, we are expecting some folks from ORAU 

11 to call in. But I was notified that they might be 

12 running a little late today. So I just wanted to 

13 put that on the record.

14 As for the uranium mixtures, what's 

15 typically done in the dose reconstruction is a lot 

16 of the uranium bioassay that we see in front of 

17 units, not in mass units but in radiological units. 

18 And in that case it would be assigned as uranium 

19 -- was whatever uranium -- let me see, typically 

20 it would be assigned as uranium-234.

21 I haven't seen a lot of mass units in 

22 the claims. But in case a claim has uranium 
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1 bioassay mass units it would be assigned depending 

2 on the individual scenarios. So there would be 

3 some research into where does this person work at, 

4 and would we assume that the person most likely 

5 worked with National Uranium.

6 So, and then some might assign it in a 

7 claimant-favorable way but also in a reasonable 

8 way, depending on the individual claim.

9 For plutonium mixtures we typically, I 

10 think some of it is discussed in the TBD. It's 

11 often with plutonium-231 -- 239 because it's 

12 claimant favorable.

13 So but that's in a nutshell. I mean, 

14 there could certainly be some additional guidance 

15 in the TBD, and we're currently assessing to see 

16 if any information is available regarding any other 

17 exotics such as accelerator turns. I believe the 

18 accelerator startup at ANL was in the 1950s.

19 So, we have currently mostly looked at 

20 the very early periods in focusing on to see if we 

21 find any infeasibilities in the 1940s. So in that 

22 regard, yes, there could be some more information 
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1 in the TBD, but we're still assessing and we have 

2 not come to any final conclusions whether or not 

3 the information is available.

4 I'd like to point out that since the 

5 TBDs were written 2006, we have currently about 

6 4,000 documents in the SRDB. And would say 

7 probably half of those have been added since the 

8 TBDs were issued. So we have a very large 

9 information, very large amount of information to 

10 go through and to research to see how we're going 

11 to refine these TBDs. And also to assess the 

12 status and feasibility of the early, the early 

13 period, especially for internal dose 

14 reconstruction.

15 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So I guess the 

16 procedure at this time is we should wait to evaluate 

17 this until you, you are planning a revised internal 

18 TBD. Is that correct then?

19 DR. HUGHES: Yes. There will be a 

20 revision.

21 There will also be an assessment 

22 whether or not there is any infeasibilities and, 
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1 you know, whether or not there will be an SEC added. 

2 That's obviously going to go along very similar to, 

3 to other sites.

4 At this point I cannot -- we have 

5 obviously not come to a conclusion. We're still 

6 in the middle of doing the research. It's a lot 

7 of -- it's rather time consuming.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

9 Brad, then I assume that you would 

10 prefer SC&A to wait to provide a written response 

11 to Finding Number 1 and NIOSH's response until we 

12 see a revised TBD-5. Is that correct?

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: That is correct, Ron.

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So I think that 

15 probably on a lot of these findings we will be 

16 looking for a revised TBD. But we will address 

17 each one individually and then make sure that the 

18 SC&A is clear on what we should do next.

19 So is there any questions or comments 

20 or clarification anyone wants to ask on Finding 

21 Number 1?

22 MR. KING: This is Vincent King from 
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1 ORAU. I just wanted to -- I think I missed the roll 

2 call. And wanted to let you know I'm on the line.

3 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Any comments on 

4 1, Finding 1?

5 MEMBER BEACH: Ron, this is Josie. I 

6 don't have any right now.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: I'm good for right now. 

9 This is Brad.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen. I 

11 don't either.

12 MEMBER VALERIO: This is Loretta. I 

13 don't either.

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

15 So, Bob, you want to bring up the 

16 Finding Number 2.

17 Okay. Finding number 2 was missed dose 

18 from the use of gross alpha counting for bioassay 

19 from 1946 to 1972.

20 And this had to do with, kind of related 

21 to Finding 1 in that not knowing the radioactive 

22 material was present. And back then, again, they 
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1 did gross output. In the early years they didn't 

2 have any way to do spectrometry much, especially 

3 on a routine basis.

4 And so it would be important to know 

5 what isotopes we were counting for. And so this 

6 is, like I say, similar to 1, only this is concerned 

7 more with the bioassay results themselves. And so 

8 that is the issue that we have.

9 And so, Lara, do you want to address 

10 that?

11 DR. HUGHES: Yes. I mean this is 

12 obviously the early internal. It's always a big 

13 issue. And we're still assessing. It's true that 

14 mostly it was alpha in the late '40s, early '50s.

15 We're trying to figure out at what point 

16 they actually, they had the capacity to do all the 

17 specific analytes if needed. The current -- it 

18 looks like they were I think attempting to analyze 

19 for specifics if needed. But I just think we need 

20 to kind of figure out, you know, what the capacities 

21 were, what were the methods used and all that. But 

22 we're still, we're still assessing that.
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1 Again, that's obviously one of the 

2 major issues to look at with regards to potential 

3 infeasibility. And we're still assessing it.

4 What we did, our main -- well, one of 

5 the big things we looked at was the comparison 

6 between the Metallurgical Laboratory and ANL-East 

7 because of the, as you might be aware, but the Met 

8 Lab is an SEC based on that there was no monitoring 

9 data available at the time. And so isn't -- Now, 

10 we're trying to figure out what, what happened in 

11 the meantime, like once ANL-East came up and 

12 running, so to speak.

13 It was a transition from the Met Lab to 

14 ANL-East which essentially not so much the same 

15 facility but it's the same contractors, the same 

16 people working. So there is a continuation at this 

17 facility. So what we're trying to figure out is 

18 what changed? Why, why did they -- were the same 

19 infeasibilities there that were at the Met Lab?

20 And we found that, no, indeed there were 

21 not. They did have a potential to be internal in 

22 the late '40s, which is somewhat, not necessarily 
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1 unusual, but we don't see it at many of the other 

2 sites.

3 So there's no clear indication that 

4 they didn't do the bioassay. However, we still 

5 need to assess whether or not this program is indeed 

6 robust enough for our requirements. And this is 

7 an effort that is still ongoing. As I said, there 

8 are additional documents regarding health and 

9 safety. Regarding the program that has been 

10 captured, that has not been, that information has 

11 not been included in the TBD. And that is all on 

12 our to-do list currently.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you. So 

14 that is saying this Finding 1 will be issued, a new 

15 TBD, and like I say, SC&A will review it. And any 

16 questions, comments, clarification at this time on 

17 Finding Number 2.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: This is Brad. I'm 

19 good.

20 MR. KATZ: I think that's all good, 

21 Ron.

22 Just could I ask everyone that's not 
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1 speaking please mute your phones because there's 

2 a lot of sort of static that's coming through and 

3 interfering. Thanks.

4 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Finding number 3 

5 is -- what that was concerned with was assuming the 

6 TBD said that they assumed the inhalation pathway 

7 for radionuclides if no other information was 

8 available. And mainly SC&A wanted to point out 

9 that ingestion also needs to be included. And 

10 looked at a pathway for some organs such as the GI 

11 tract.

12 And so that was our issue there was, is 

13 ingestion considered in some dose reconstruction 

14 where it would lead to a higher dose, or should be 

15 included with the dose? And so that was our 

16 question on that.

17 Lara, do you want to address the Finding 

18 Number 3?

19 DR. HUGHES: Yeah. Based on our 

20 discussion with our contractor that is involved in 

21 the DR processes, I was told that ingestion, 

22 intakes are included as appropriate. However, 
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1 inhalation is our default intake mode based on, you 

2 know, all the program documentation.

3 So, I mean, that's really it. It would 

4 be considered if needed or if appropriate. And I 

5 think that's always been the case. So I mean it's

6 not ingestion, it's --

7 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro.

8 DR. HUGHES: -- considered.

9 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes?

10 DR. MAURO: Yes, I just wanted to ask 

11 a question because it may help clarify.

12 Typically in the more recent cycle of 

13 files there is a coupling between the methods you 

14 use to do inhalation and ingestion where you draw 

15 upon OTIB-9 and on the airborne activity. In this 

16 case, since you have biological data and on your 

17 Findings 1 and 2 you're going to clearly take 

18 advantage of the unit samples, and then if you find 

19 yourself, well, you know, usually -- this is not 

20 how I would speak if I was NIOSH -- include the 

21 OTIB-9 approach. Knowing the airborne activity 

22 during operations, let's say, you have your 
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1 protocol to convert to ingestion, which always 

2 turns out to be a relatively small contribution.

3 Do you, or I guess the question posed 

4 is, do you plan on taking that sort of line of attack 

5 whereby either you use available airborne activity 

6 or you back-calculate what the airborne activity 

7 might have been, given the biological data, and 

8 then go forward with the ingestion pathway on that 

9 basis?

10 DR. HUGHES: That's how I understand 

11 it, yes.

12 DR. MAURO: Okay. I'm bringing it up 

13 only because there seems to be a tractable problem. 

14 And if you are able to get to the point where you're 

15 able to reconstruct the inhalation or the internal 

16 dose, in theory then you could also come up with 

17 a way to get airborne activity if you don't already 

18 have the measurement.

19 So, I bring this up as just a line of 

20 approach that might work.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. I think that's 

22 one then that, yes, if NIOSH has completed with 
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1 their response that's one that SC&A will have to 

2 evaluate and provide a written response on. If 

3 that's okay with everyone?

4 MEMBER BEACH: Sounds good, Ron.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay, if there's 

6 no further questions or comments, we'll go on to 

7 Finding Number 4.

8 MR. KATZ: Am I the only one who's 

9 hearing a lot of static?

10 MEMBER BEACH: I'm not hearing any 

11 static at all.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, clear as a bell 

13 for me, too.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: I can hear 

15 everything fine.

16 MR. KATZ: Okay, thanks. It's strange 

17 because I have a hard line here. Okay, thanks.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: I had to change phones.

19 MR. KATZ: Go ahead, Ron. It's just me 

20 then, apparently, who has the problem.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So Finding 

22 Number 4. We had concerns about insufficient 
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1 information on the calculation of the MDA, minimum 

2 detectable concentration, and uncertainties in 

3 bioassay methodology.

4 And so our concern there was that there 

5 was too little information to really give the dose 

6 reconstructor confidence in what the MDA values 

7 were and the associated uncertainties there. And 

8 so we would like to have seen, you know, further 

9 investigation into perhaps finding more 

10 information on that.

11 And so I'd like to turn it over to Lara 

12 now for her response.

13 DR. HUGHES: Yeah. The MDA values 

14 that are in the TBD are based on the information 

15 that was available at the time. Often they are 

16 taken from individual bioassay results. So we 

17 will not necessarily find a report that states 

18 explicitly to any effort in this method of what, 

19 you know, this value that we reach from the 

20 available bioassay data.

21 And anything that's included in the TBD 

22 is what was available at the time.
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1 And we can certainly attempt to refine 

2 that based on, you know, any additional research 

3 from data that has been collected since that time. 

4 But I have no indication at this time that we 

5 necessarily have any more data than we had nine 

6 years ago.

7 There might be some, yes. I mean, but 

8 I mean essentially what's included in the TBD is 

9 usually all of the information that we have. And 

10 it's almost early if minimum detectable levels are 

11 quite high, which gets resolved in a large missed 

12 dose. That's pretty typical.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Now, in your 

14 reply you say records between ANL are being 

15 reviewed to determine if they may refine the 

16 current estimates of the MDA values. What are you 

17 -- should we evaluate this as it stands now? Or 

18 do you anticipate any changes in TBD-5 when it's 

19 reissued?

20 DR. HUGHES: It is quite possible there 

21 might be some changes. I cannot -- I do not have 

22 any, you know, refined values in front of me at this 
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1 time. We have not gotten to that point.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: I think probably it 

3 would be best then for SC&A to postpone further 

4 evaluation until we see the revised TBD in case 

5 there are additional values in it; if that's 

6 agreeable to everyone?

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: That's fine, Ron.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: All right.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Sounds good.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Finding Number 5 

11 is guidance for missed dose for unmonitored 

12 workers, for large gaps in monitored workers' dose. 

13 And this is concerned, of course, with the issue 

14 of what would be done when there was a gap in the 

15 bioassay records for people. And, of course, at 

16 this time we had no coworker data for this site.

17 And so, Lara, do you want to address 

18 that issue?

19 DR. HUGHES: Yes. There's no coworker 

20 model for this site. We at this point do not know 

21 if it's possible to develop one. I would think 

22 that at some point it's probably possible.
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1 Currently, you know, the guidance that 

2 is followed in the TBD is that for unmonitored work 

3 -- the TBD states that all workers that needed to 

4 be monitored were monitored. And where it's often 

5 questionable, we have found some reasonably 

6 reassuring information that ANL actually had, you 

7 know, workplace restrictions in place and that it 

8 had a fairly good program.

9 We found program documentation that 

10 was, like, all the way to 1948. So, there is a 

11 reasonable amount of confidence that the workers 

12 that were rad workers were indeed monitored.

13 So the current approach is that 

14 somebody who wasn't monitored is not considered for 

15 that period that they weren't monitored, is not 

16 considered to be going into a radioactive area and, 

17 therefore, wouldn't receive an occupational 

18 exposure other than the environmental exposure. 

19 And that's how this is currently used in the dose 

20 reconstruction.

21 Now, this is always an issue. And we 

22 certainly need to look into it some more. It's 
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1 quite difficult to produce. We're currently 

2 reviewing all the available claims in NOCTS to kind 

3 of see what job titles are available and, you know, 

4 whether or not the worker was monitored to see if 

5 we can somehow, you know, correlate the job with 

6 their monitoring status. And then that is still 

7 ongoing.

8 There is surprisingly large number of 

9 claims that have early bioassay data, even from the 

10 1940s, especially compared to the data I've seen 

11 at other sites. Now, that being said, there is 

12 also a fair number of workers that were not 

13 monitored in their early years. So we're still, 

14 again, still assessing. This is somewhat of a 

15 difficult problem to prove. It's essentially 

16 proving the negative. But, yes, I mean it needs 

17 to be worked out because we often run into this 

18 issue.

19 DR. MAURO: This is John again. Just 

20 another sort of observation is Jim Neton put out 

21 a superb guideline document on coworker modeling 

22 and the criteria. And I see this as a perfect 
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1 opportunity to apply that. That is, you know, when 

2 you start to sort out the bioassay data and you see 

3 its completeness, accuracy, et cetera, the degree 

4 to which you could build a coworker model from that 

5 is following Jim's procedure.

6 I don't recall the number. I mean, 

7 this is the perfect place to try it out. We have 

8 used that procedure in the past and found favorably 

9 regarding that protocol for making these kinds of 

10 determinations.

11 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen. Am I 

12 off mute?

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: You are.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. On this issue 

15 of whether people were actually monitored or not, 

16 and especially in the early years here, what have 

17 you found out from worker interviews? Are there 

18 people still available who can give us some 

19 information on that?

20 DR. HUGHES: This is Lara. NIOSH has 

21 not done any worker interviews in the recent past.

22 MEMBER BEACH: SC&A did some, what was 
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1 it, back in 2009 I think, 2008.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. They did 32 

3 workers' interviews. And they're outlined in one 

4 of our reports, the 2009 report I think, Attachment 

5 1 or 2. And outlined not by the interviewee but 

6 by the subject matter and content.

7 And so, yes, the last interview we did 

8 was we did these 32 in two thousand -- before 2009, 

9 obviously, because that's when the report came out. 

10 And so at this point we are looking to find out, 

11 you know, where SC&A stands, where NIOSH stands and 

12 what's coming down the road really before we 

13 approach any more interviewees to get any 

14 additional information, unless we seek points like 

15 this like who was monitored and stuff. Then that 

16 might be helpful at that point.

17 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay, thank you.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So it looks like 

19 Finding 5, again, is one that we're waiting to see 

20 if they have -- what information they need and 

21 probably that will appear in TBD-5 whether they 

22 think we need a coworker model or not or whether 
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1 the records support the fact that people needing 

2 to be monitored was monitored, and those who 

3 weren't monitored did not need to be monitored.

4 So, again, I would think that we would 

5 wait to see what their finding is and decide on 

6 that. And we will evaluate that at that time.

7 If there's no further comments or 

8 questions, I'd like to turn it over to Nicole. And 

9 she has the medical part. These 13 findings are 

10 divided up into internal, which I have covered and 

11 medical which is on 6, 7, and 8. And then we'll 

12 come back with the external and environmental for 

13 the remainder of the findings.

14 So, Nicole, are you ready for your 

15 medical X-ray?

16 MS. BRIGGS: Yes. Yes.

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

18 MS. BRIGGS: Before I get into the 

19 individual findings I just wanted to give a little 

20 background. There was something that emerged 

21 since the publication of the findings related to 

22 occupational medical. So I'll start with that.
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1 So, there was limited information about 

2 the X-ray screening program at ANL-East before 

3 1988. So the TBD recommends that dose 

4 reconstructors use guidance in OTIB-6, which is the 

5 general site-wide guidance document for assignment 

6 of occupational medical dose.

7 The TBD was published in 2006, so it 

8 references the 2005 version of OTIB-6, which I 

9 believe was Revision 3. And since that time there 

10 has been a complete revision of OTIB-6, which was 

11 published in 2011, which is Revision 4.

12 So, the first thing we did a few months 

13 ago when we revisited this Site Profile Review for 

14 occupational medical is we looked at this new 

15 Revision 4 of OTIB-6 to see if anything was changed 

16 or added that would affect the guidance in the TBD. 

17 And also to see if any of those changes would have 

18 an effect on our findings, which were published in 

19 2009.

20 So we did note that the conventional 

21 X-ray doses have not changed from Revision 3 to 

22 Revision 4 of OTIB-6. But there were changes to 
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1 the recommended PFG doses and the lumbar spine 

2 doses. So in our report, I believe it's pages 9 

3 and 10, we've got Tables 1 and 2 which compare those 

4 changes for the occupational medical dose as 

5 published in the 2006 TBD, which were -- which is 

6 from the older version of OTIB-6, as compared to 

7 the new published values in the revision of OTIB-6 

8 from 2011.

9 The changes are relatively small. But 

10 that's something that I guess would be included in 

11 a new revision of the TBD, like we had mentioned 

12 earlier. So, I think we could probably just leave 

13 it there until there is another revision of the TBD.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, that sounds like 

15 we're going to do that this draft.

16 DR. MAURO: Nicole, this is John. One 

17 of the matters that I recall was once you move into 

18 PFG world, which we all understand the changes were 

19 made, is there any -- and this may be another 

20 finding coming later -- but is there any issues 

21 related to whether or not there was PFG at that time 

22 or was that just another issue that you'll be 
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1 looking at shortly?

2 MS. BRIGGS: Yes, yes, that's correct. 

3 That's covered in Finding 8. So I'll do that when 

4 we're there.

5 DR. MAURO: Okay. Thank you. 

6 Thanks. Sorry about that, okay.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: John, just wait your 

8 turn now.

9 DR. MAURO: I know. I can't help it.

10 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. So, I guess I can 

11 move on unless anyone has any questions about the 

12 OTIB-6 revision. I can start on SC&A Finding 6.

13 Okay, so this one was described as a 

14 failure to adequately define and assess 

15 occupational medical exposures in the pre-1988 

16 years, and potentially missed special employment 

17 exams.

18 We found when we revisited these 

19 findings that the findings have some overlap to 

20 them. And a particular finding sometimes 

21 addresses more than one issue. So I'm going to do 

22 the best I can to sort of tease out those issues 
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1 and try to address them individually.

2 For example, for this finding there are 

3 essentially two main issues that were included 

4 here.

5 The first one addresses doses that 

6 could have been assigned from special screening 

7 exams.

8 And the second issue has to do with, in 

9 this particular finding, Number 6, has to do with 

10 the frequency of the X-ray exams.

11 So I'll back up. For the issue of the 

12 special screening exams, which would include 

13 things like screening for beryllium workers, 

14 asbestos workers, exams that were performed at the 

15 end of employment for a termination exam, Revision 

16 3, which is an older version of OTIB-6, had 

17 recommended that those doses from these types of 

18 exams should be included in dose reconstructions.

19 So we just noted that this is another 

20 one of the examples where the TBD would simply need 

21 to be updated to include I guess some of the 

22 language from the revision from OTIB-6.
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1 And then for the second part of this 

2 finding, which relates to the frequency of the 

3 X-ray exam, the TBD recommends a finding X-ray 

4 exams every four years. Now, in the Attachment 2 

5 of this document which contains the interviews that 

6 were performed with the ANL-East workers, some of 

7 those workers indicate that annual X-ray exams were 

8 in fact performed as part of their annual physicals 

9 beginning in about 1950. And they had stated that 

10 that extended some time into the 1990s.

11 And then during the 1990s it seems like 

12 the X-rays were done once every, every two years.

13 So, for this we, SC&A recommends that 

14 the finding stay open for discussion. So, I'll 

15 pass that over and see what the NIOSH team proposes 

16 in the BRS for that.

17 DR. HUGHES: Okay. So, yeah, the 

18 medical TBDs will be updated with the data that's 

19 in OTIB-6.

20 As to the frequency, I'm not sure we 

21 considered it that much of an issue because the site 

22 typically reports all the X-rays, all the X-ray 
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1 dates with each individual claim. I think that's 

2 what I've seen in the claim data. So I think that's 

3 what's used at least in best estimate cases.

4 There might be some cases where they do 

5 an annual, assume an annual as an overestimate. I 

6 would have to refer to the ORAU dose reconstruction 

7 team to provide details. But, I mean, in general 

8 we will use claimant-favorable assumptions, or in 

9 most cases the actual data that is available.

10 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. I guess for this it 

11 was I looked specifically in cases where the dose 

12 reconstructor doesn't have data to work from and 

13 has to refer to OTIB-6.

14 DR. HUGHES: Right. I'm not sure how 

15 frequent that is at the site.

16 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. So, Ron, I guess 

17 we'll just leave that open.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So we're 

19 planning on, Lara, we're planning on revising the 

20 TBD-3 to reflect OTIB-6 current recommendations?

21 DR. HUGHES: That is correct. It 

22 needs to be updated with the current 
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1 recommendations.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

3 DR. MAURO: Lara, this is John Mauro. 

4 A thought has come to me and I think it might be 

5 helpful.

6 One of the areas that I've encountered 

7 more recently is that there is a degree of 

8 discretion used. There was a time when it was 

9 automatic at a DOE site to assign some type of 

10 medical X-ray, usually just a chest X-ray. And it 

11 was automatic annually. But I've seen more and 

12 more where you go into a particular, on a 

13 case-by-case basis and see what the records are for 

14 that worker. And at that point decide whether or 

15 not you will be assigning medical X-ray doses to 

16 that case or not.

17 And I always felt that that was -- how 

18 you go about doing that is that simply you just look 

19 at, you know, you presume that if no records are 

20 there related to the X-ray to that person that it 

21 did not get the exposures? That was always a bit 

22 troubling to me because there's a presumption 
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1 inherent in that. When previously, if I recall 

2 correctly, you usually universally just assigned 

3 that.

4 Maybe I'd like, if you wouldn't mind, 

5 just a little bit of how you come about this more 

6 refined approach, more, I guess you would call more 

7 realistic, but also a little bit more vulnerable 

8 in terms of being claimant favorable.

9 DR. HUGHES: Right. I'm not sure. We 

10 either use an assumption or we try to use the 

11 claimant favorable, or we use the actual data 

12 that's available. Anything else I would have to 

13 defer to the ORAU team that actually did the 

14 hands-on dose reconstruction because I have not 

15 done any of those myself.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes.

17 DR. HUGHES: So other than that, I 

18 can't really elaborate on that.

19 MS. BRIGGS: I guess our just concern 

20 here was that because it says, because the TBD 

21 states that the exams were done every four years 

22 that it may be misleading in cases where there is 
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1 no data. I guess if there is data for most cases, 

2 then that's fine and the dose reconstructors use 

3 that information for the particular individual.

4 But I guess that's why because we were 

5 concerned because it said every four years in the 

6 TBD.

7 DR. HUGHES: I believe that statement 

8 was put in the TBD based on information that was 

9 found in the records. However, it's quite 

10 possible if it was more frequent that we have 

11 additional data to update this with.

12 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. I guess any 

13 comments about Finding 6?

14 (No response.)

15 MS. BRIGGS: All right, I'll keep going 

16 on Finding 7.

17 For this one the description was for the 

18 -- described there's a lack of techniques and 

19 protocols for medical examinations prior to 1988, 

20 increases the uncertainty of dose conversion 

21 factors listed in the TBD.

22 So, so this finding it seems that SC&A 
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1 was concerned about a lack of documentation of the 

2 type of X-ray equipment that was used before 1988. 

3 Along with the, seems like the beam quality, the 

4 calibration of the equipment, and the protocols and 

5 the techniques that were used for their dose 

6 calculations.

7 I am not going to get into the details 

8 of the different types of X-ray equipment used at 

9 ANL over the years. I think we can simplify that 

10 for the finding. Both Revision 3 and Revision 4 

11 of OTIB-6 were reviewed by SC&A. And all of those 

12 issues associated with those reviews have been 

13 resolved and closed.

14 So SC&A found the protocols and the 

15 assumption in OTIB-6 to be claimant favorable. 

16 And since the TBD relies on the guidance in OTIB-6, 

17 I think we might be able to select them in closing 

18 this finding, if others agree.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, do we need to see 

20 this in the reference to OTIB-6 though in the 

21 revised TBD before we recommend closure? Because 

22 it looks like OTIB-6 answered some of our questions 
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1 but it has not been incorporated into the revised 

2 TBD-3 yet. Is that correct?

3 MS. BRIGGS: Yes. I guess that's 

4 true.

5 MR. BARTON: Well, I think in this 

6 situation we would probably recommend waiting 

7 until we can actually see the changes.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Right.

9 MS. BRIGGS: Okay.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: I would agree.

11 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. If there is 

12 nothing else, I think I will move on to the last 

13 finding related to occupational medical dose, 

14 which is Finding 8. And, again, that has to do with 

15 the frequency and the types of X-ray exposures and 

16 their uncertainties.

17 So, again, there is a little overlap 

18 between some of these findings. So this again 

19 includes the issues, the issue of special screening 

20 exams and the issue of the frequency of the exams 

21 that were raised in Finding 6. But it also raises 

22 the issue of PFG exams.
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1 As we mentioned, some of the PFG doses 

2 have been changed from Rev 3 to Rev 4 of OTIB-6. 

3 And we included them there in our tables. And, 

4 like I said, those just needed to be updated to 

5 include the new values.

6 The TBD did state that although it was 

7 unlikely that PFGs were performed after 1948, some 

8 claimants' files indicated that it was possible for 

9 PFGs to be performed through 1956. So the 

10 recommendation in the TBD is that PFGs be assigned 

11 through 1956.

12 Now, as part of the Site Profile Review, 

13 SC&A referenced a paper from 1961, authors Januska 

14 and Smith. And in that paper it suggests that the 

15 type of equipment that was used at ANL through 1958 

16 was actually capable of photofluoroscopy. So SC&A 

17 as part of its finding brought up the suggestion 

18 that the PFG assignment should be extended through 

19 1958 as opposed to stopping in 1956.

20 I'm not sure how, where to go with this 

21 one. I didn't even spend a lot of time analyzing 

22 the equipment here. I was going to see if others 
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1 on the SC&A team remember the details about when 

2 this finding was put in related to PFGs.

3 Because it seems that there's, you 

4 know, with the exception of the paper from '61 to 

5 discuss the material, there really doesn't seem to 

6 be evidence that -- I'm actually going against the 

7 findings -- doesn't really seem to be solid 

8 evidence that PFGs were performed as late as 1958. 

9 And that their claim is that assigning PFGs through 

10 1956 would be claimant favorable.

11 I don't know if anyone has any other 

12 opinion about that.

13 MS. THOMAS: Yes, hi. This is Elyse 

14 Thomas. And I'm the medical dosimetrist for the 

15 ORAU team.

16 And I think that paper -- I haven't 

17 looked at it recently -- but it think it mentioned 

18 fluoroscopic, that the equipment at ANL had 

19 radiographic and fluoroscopic capability. And 

20 that's different from PFG.

21 MS. BRIGGS: Right.

22 MS. THOMAS: So, so just because it has 
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1 fluoroscopic capability which is, you know, 

2 dynamic, realtime viewing moving organs, that is 

3 a different technology than photofluorographic. 

4 And they're often confused.

5 So, you know, we looked into that to 

6 make sure that that equipment didn't have PFG 

7 capability. But if I recall from that article, I 

8 don't think that's the case. I think it was 

9 fluoroscopic capability, which is different.

10 MS. BRIGGS: Okay.

11 MS. THOMAS: So we'll look into it.

12 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. All right. Yes, 

13 we'll keep that open for discussion for the 

14 revision of the next TBD.

15 MS. THOMAS: Yes. Okay.

16 MS. BRIGGS: Okay. I think that 

17 completes the finding for occupational medical 

18 dose.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

20 MR. KATZ: Ron, before you get started, 

21 just to SC&A, just for proper accounting of this, 

22 we've talked all along about keeping things open. 
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1 Next time when BRS is in progress, once they're 

2 engaged, please do that.

3 MS. BRIGGS: I'm sorry. I think I'm a 

4 little unfamiliar with the terminology.

5 MR. KATZ: Ron did it too. But it's 

6 quite okay. It's just that way we know that the 

7 Board needs to have a discussion on that issue. 

8 That's all.

9 MS. BRIGGS: Okay.

10 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, you want to -- so 

12 it stays open. Is that your point, Ted?

13 MR. KATZ: Yeah. Right.

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

15 MS. BRIGGS: Ron, I'll take care of 

16 that.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So that 

19 concludes our medical. And generally all of those 

20 will be addressed by revision on TBD-3. And so 

21 SC&A will review that when it comes out and make 

22 a written reply at that time.
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1 So we can move on now to external, which 

2 is Finding 9. And so, Bob, do you have Finding 9 

3 up there.

4 MR. BARTON: Yeah, Ron. It should be 

5 good to go.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Well, I guess 

7 you got the very top of it cut off. Otherwise 

8 that's fine.

9 MR. BARTON: Okay.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Anyway, that's 

11 good. Thank you.

12 Okay, we've got uncertainty and 

13 undocumented aspects of the film dosimetry needs 

14 reexamination. And essentially this was, you 

15 know, like at most sites back when they used film 

16 dosimetry up to about '88 or so, before TLDs took 

17 over, and there was a question on the response of 

18 film to the beta and gamma radiation.

19 And this is especially important at a 

20 research facility like Argonne where you have 

21 accelerators, reactors, solid-state sources, so a 

22 number of radiation-condition equipment. And so 
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1 dosimeter needs to respond correctly to the 

2 radiation field.

3 And so in our original findings in 2009 

4 we did do a pretty elaborate listing of things that 

5 could affect response, and saw that there was more 

6 information needed to justify using the thought 

7 that the ANL dosimeter was similar to INL. And so 

8 we could use their parameters and such. And that 

9 might be true, but we needed some documentation and 

10 some more investigation of the ANL-East dosimeter, 

11 either in itself or how it compared to INL 

12 documentation that it was the same.

13 But then beyond that you need to say, 

14 okay, was it made for the fields that were present 

15 at ANL? And so that was our main issue there with 

16 Finding Number 9.

17 And so I will turn it over to Lara to 

18 have her response.

19 DR. HUGHES: Okay. Yes, same with the 

20 internal issues, this is ongoing because we have 

21 to evaluate what additional data that, you know, 

22 has been collected or still needs to be collected. 
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1 And then we will evaluate and try to refine the 

2 approach that's in the current TBD.

3 The ANL Work Group has been updated 

4 since, since the TBD was issued, or at least since 

5 the original TBD was issued in 2006 I believe. So 

6 but, yeah, any refinement would require us to find 

7 additional data.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So, like the 

9 internal, we can expect to see that reflected in 

10 Rev 2 of the external dosimetry TBD?

11 DR. HUGHES: Right. Probably Rev 3, 

12 but yeah.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay, any 

14 questions or comments on this?

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: This is Brad. Not at 

16 this time.

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay, we'll move 

18 on to Finding 5 which is similar. It's neutron 

19 dosimetry -- Finding 10, excuse me. Finding 10 

20 which is neutron dosimetry. And of course this is 

21 the standard questions.

22 We used NTA film for neutron dosimetry 
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1 up until about '87-'88 when TLDs took over. And, 

2 of course, I'm sure you're all aware, NTA film had 

3 the rapid drop-off and response to about 1 MeV. 

4 And if you put shielding around neutron sources 

5 then you get lower energy neutrons which some of 

6 them fall below 1 MeV.

7 So our concern is did the NTA film see 

8 the dose the workers were receiving? And also if 

9 they're worn for a month there can be fading of the 

10 tracks, and of the heavy count individual tracks 

11 in the neutron interaction. And that even if they 

12 did it every month, there's still fading from the 

13 first part of the month till they're read. And so 

14 fading is an issue, especially for lower energy 

15 neutron tracks.

16 And then we addressed this some at 

17 Mound. And resolved some of those issues there.

18 Now, also the energy response of NTA 

19 film was checked to know how it was calibrated and 

20 then if there was any compensation for the energy 

21 response to see if it's calibrated from a frontal 

22 radiation and the worker might receive it from the 
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1 sides or the back.

2 And so this was our issues with, in 

3 Finding 10 with the neutron dosimetry, the standard 

4 issues that we have. And then at ANL, of course, 

5 they had, again, accelerators which produced a lot 

6 higher energy neutrons. And the beam ports and 

7 such reactors, and then your solid-state sources 

8 which can give you a pretty wide spectrum of neutron 

9 energy.

10 And so I'll turn that over to Lara for 

11 her response at this time.

12 DR. HUGHES: Right. NIOSH concurs 

13 that the improvement of the guidance is needed. 

14 Again, any new information will be incorporated. 

15 However, the NTA issue is, you know, well known and 

16 somewhat overarching. So, we will look into if we 

17 can, you know, develop a neutron-photon ratio model 

18 henceforth to address this issue.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

20 DR. HUGHES: Again, this will require 

21 additional data evaluation.

22 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.
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1 Any questions or comments on Finding 

2 Number 10 then?

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: No.

4 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

5 MR. STIVER: Ron, this is John Stiver. 

6 Before you move on, if I could back up to Finding 

7 9.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

9 MR. STIVER: For our June report we had 

10 stated that, you know, because the work book has 

11 changed for each one of those calculations and it 

12 had not yet been reviewed as we had recommended to, 

13 you know, possibly review that work book in a little 

14 more detail. Is that something that you feel would 

15 be appropriate to do now or to wait until a new 

16 revision could come out?

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Go ahead.

18 MR. KATZ: This is Ted. If the TBDs 

19 get updated that will result in changes to the work 

20 book too, right? So that fix this issue?

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, that's why I want 

22 to ask Lara does she anticipate the work book being 
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1 updated with the TBD change?

2 DR. HUGHES: I'm not sure at this 

3 point. I would assume so if there's any 

4 significant changes or numbers would result. 

5 Yeah, absolutely.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So, John, I 

7 guess we would probably wait until the TBD is 

8 updated and the work book is updated and then review 

9 them both at the same time.

10 MR. STIVER: Okay. Yeah, that sounds 

11 good.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

13 Okay. So that brings us to the 

14 environmental section. So we did the internal 

15 X-rays and then the external. Now we have the 

16 environmental section which is Finding Number 11.

17 And this has to do with the 

18 environmental data before 1972. And there just 

19 does not seem to be much information available at 

20 the time of our writing in 2009 of any environmental 

21 data to be used for TBD-4. And so I guess my 

22 question is have we found any additional 
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1 information? And I see briefly in their response 

2 they talk about using Procedure 60. Is that going 

3 to be incorporated in the new TBD-4?

4 So, Lara, you want to address those 

5 issues?

6 DR. HUGHES: Yes. As far as I've seen, 

7 there have been no additional data found. And I'm 

8 not sure if we're anticipating to find anything 

9 else.

10 So, yeah, I mean as you mentioned, any 

11 procedure that is used would be incorporated in the 

12 revised TBD.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Thank you.

14 Any issues, comments, or questions on 

15 that one?

16 MEMBER BEACH: None here, Ron.

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

18 Okay, now we move to the general kind 

19 of overarching issues in Question Number 12, 

20 Finding Number 12. And this was the outdoor 

21 exposure, inhalation exposure associated with 

22 waste disposal operations in Area A and near 
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1 accidents.

2 And so in this case Area A workers could 

3 have been exposed during waste disposal or if there 

4 is accidental one-time or, you know, acute 

5 releases. And so we would like to know, you know, 

6 if that's been investigated and to what extent 

7 that's been addressed.

8 If you could address that, Lara?

9 DR. HUGHES: It has not been 

10 investigated yet. It's certainly something we can 

11 look into.

12 I would, based on our -- the information 

13 in TBDs and review of the claims, I would assume 

14 that any worker who's involved in hands-on disposal 

15 of waste would have received some kind of 

16 monitoring. Other than that, the Site A waste 

17 disposal operations starts in the early '40s, '43 

18 to '49, which would be covered under the Met Lab 

19 -- well, no, I'm sorry -- up until '46 would be 

20 covered under the Met Lab SEC.

21 So, no, at this point that has not been 

22 investigated. Typically with incidents, not 
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1 every single incident that is in our Site Research 

2 Database would be, you know, addressed in the TBD 

3 just because the TBD is meant to be more an 

4 overview-type document. Now, if there's any 

5 indication that a worker was involved in an 

6 incident, it would be something that would be 

7 addressed on an individual basis during those 

8 reconstructions.

9 It's not going to be ignored if that 

10 information is available.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So, is this a 

12 finding we should evaluate then at this time? Or 

13 do you see any upcoming changes in TBD-4 that would 

14 address this issue?

15 DR. HUGHES: This is information that 

16 would have to go back into the 1940s. I have not 

17 a good indication of how much additional data we 

18 could possibly find.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So, you will 

20 look at that and incorporate it in TBD-4 if you find 

21 any?

22 DR. HUGHES: That's correct.
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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay, so I think 

2 that we will wait because we don't have any 

3 additional information to evaluate. And so I 

4 think we will wait on any changes to TBD-4, and look 

5 and see if we find any documentation that would 

6 impact this finding, and then evaluate that and 

7 reevaluate TBD-4. If that's agreeable with 

8 everyone.

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: That's fine, Ron.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

11 A similar finding in Finding 13 is a 

12 lack of consideration of occupational radiation 

13 exposure in Site A and Site M. This is part of the 

14 Met Lab and was indicated that it would be addressed 

15 outside ANL-East TBD. And there is currently no, 

16 I guess, TBD for the Met Lab but there is 

17 instructions for the Met Lab. Dose reconstruction 

18 procedures guidance.

19 We just didn't know what was -- how that 

20 was sorted out and what took place during dose 

21 reconstructions for the -- we addressed this a 

22 little bit earlier -- but perhaps for the 
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1 environmental part, translation from the Met Lab 

2 to the ANL-East. What is the current status of 

3 that?

4 DR. HUGHES: Yeah, this falls into the 

5 covered sites issue that was done by the Department 

6 of Labor. But the Met Lab, Metallurgical 

7 Laboratory is a covered site under EEOICPA up until 

8 June 30th, 1946. And then the ANL site designation 

9 starts July 1st, 1946.

10 There was basically a continuing of 

11 operations, however, at the cover sites if one 

12 switches to the other, regardless of where the 

13 workers actually worked. So, you see that for the 

14 Met Lab they initially worked at the campus of the 

15 University of Chicago. Then they moved operations 

16 to Site A in 1946, I believe to what's called Site 

17 B, which is the current ANL-East. Wasn't even 

18 fully operational at the time. They were still 

19 constructing the facility. I think they didn't 

20 really start up at Site B until the 19 -- until 

21 around 1948.

22 So all the operations in the early 
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1 what's considered Argonne National Lab was done at 

2 Site A. And it would be covered under the current 

3 ANL-East site designation. So, when we say, well, 

4 we do dose reconstruction for somebody who worked 

5 in 1946, that would be somebody who worked at Site 

6 A most likely. Even somebody who would have still

7 worked what's commonly referred to as the West 

8 Band, that would still be covered under ANL-East 

9 site designation if they worked, if they were 

10 employed after July 1st, 1946.

11 Did I confuse everybody? I'm sorry.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, I think that SC&A 

13 needs to evaluate the response. Actually we just 

14 received these about 24 hours ago. So we will 

15 evaluate that if you don't plan on doing anything 

16 else with the TBDs.

17 DR. HUGHES: That's right. Just keep 

18 in mind that this was not something that NIOSH 

19 designates. We cannot, it wasn't covered by 

20 versus another covered site.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Well, we'll look 

22 further into that. And then provide a written 
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1 response on that, if that's agreeable with 

2 everyone.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: That's fine, Ron.

4 DR. MAURO: This is John. I've got a 

5 question. The Met Lab world was the Chicago pile. 

6 And I remember -- now this goes back years -- that 

7 then that was terminated and they continued reactor 

8 operations but they had a new generation of 

9 reactor, a new reactor. And that was the boundary.

10 And I guess I'm asking the question, is 

11 that the boundary, when you leave the Met Lab and 

12 you go to ANL-East where the rest of the pile went 

13 to this new generation reactor? Or am I 

14 misremembering?

15 DR. HUGHES: That would be considered 

16 what's called Site A.

17 DR. MAURO: Okay.

18 DR. HUGHES: That was the interim site 

19 where they operated at least two reactors and 

20 various laboratories. And that was operated from 

21 I think 1942 till 1954 when the lease at the site 

22 ended. And it all, whatever was at Site A was 
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1 transferred, was either shipped out or transferred 

2 to what's called Site B, which is the current 

3 location of ANL-East.

4 DR. MAURO: And then there were this 

5 waste area that we talked to, talked about earlier. 

6 Was that a continuum, that just continued that 

7 waste facility area where apparently there was some 

8 significant potential for exposure? Was that 

9 something that was a continuation of operations 

10 going from the Met Lab days to the ANL-East days? 

11 Or is there a boundary there also?

12 DR. HUGHES: That is outside the 

13 boundary of Site A, as I understand. However, it 

14 is in the vicinity of Site A. And it was associated 

15 with the operations at Site A.

16 From an employment standpoint, it would 

17 be workers who were employed either by the Met Lab 

18 or ANL-East that would be conducting work there. 

19 At least that's my understanding of who would work 

20 there and who could potentially get exposed.

21 DR. MAURO: But there is an SEC for the 

22 Met Lab. I guess part and parcel of that was 
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1 inability to reconstruct doses associated with 

2 that aspect of the Met Lab operations. And I guess 

3 I'm just alerting that if the personnel continued 

4 working in that mold and the transition, I guess 

5 I would be interested in what changed between the 

6 Met Lab and ANL-East that put you in a position to 

7 feel much more comfortable that we don't have an 

8 SEC situation when we move into the ANL-East realm. 

9 We'd be glad to discuss management part. Which did

10 -- it did break with the reactor, but I was 

11 wondering if there is also a clean break with regard 

12 to waste management?

13 DR. HUGHES: I can't speak 

14 specifically to the waste management issue. But, 

15 of course, one of the first things we did was look 

16 at what changed, as we said, --

17 DR. MAURO: Right.

18 DR. HUGHES: -- between Met Lab. 

19 Because here we have an SEC based on having actually 

20 very, very limited, almost no useable data --

21 DR. MAURO: Right.

22 DR. HUGHES: -- to, you know, this site 
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1 obviously not being an SEC ANL-East, even though 

2 many of the major sites in the early period have 

3 an SEC. So we're kind of trying to evaluate.

4 And but we found is that it seems with 

5 the startup of ANL-East they made a conscientious 

6 effort, they were aware that they needed to monitor 

7 their workers. And they made an effort to do as 

8 good a job, I believe, as they were capable of doing 

9 at that period of time.

10 Now, if the data is indeed robust 

11 enough, and it remains to be seen, but they did, 

12 we have found information they did start up their 

13 health and safety program with the health physics 

14 program and also a medical program that would do 

15 the bioassays and that sort of thing.

16 So there's not necessarily 

17 continuation of those issues, especially with 

18 internal infeasibilities. It's not a clear cut, 

19 you know, transition from Met Lab to ANL-East. 

20 There seems to have indeed -- there was indeed a 

21 ramp-up of a program that was in place starting in 

22 1946 sometime.
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1 So it's not clear cut. It's a little 

2 more refined. That's why we haven't really 

3 arrived at any conclusion yet. Because there's 

4 definitely the data there. There's relatively 

5 good documentation for this. It's much more 

6 tricky to determine, you know, do we have an 

7 infeasibility or do we not.

8 DR. MAURO: Oh no, thank you. And 

9 that's the only reason I raised it. Thank you very 

10 much.

11 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen. I have 

12 a question, too, on the Met Lab.

13 As I was reading SC&A's report, and in 

14 this particular item they mentioned that this issue 

15 should be transferred to the Board Work Group that 

16 oversees Met Lab. So I went on the website to look 

17 to see if that Work Group had been established. 

18 And I don't find anything. And, in fact, I can't 

19 find anything on the website about the Met Lab. 

20 But am I looking -- not looking in the right area 

21 or is it just not on there?

22 MR. KATZ: Well, Gen, this is Ted. 
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1 With respect to Met Lab, there is no Met Lab Work 

2 Group.

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. I suspected 

4 there was.

5 MR. KATZ: No, no. So, and anything 

6 related to Met Lab I imagine will end up using this 

7 Work Group to address if there's anything left to 

8 address. I don't know if it's -- but as far as 

9 whether there's information on Met Lab on this, if 

10 you go to the worksite section, that's where it 

11 would be. If it's not there, I don't know, but.

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, I couldn't 

13 find it under the M's. I was wondering if -- I 

14 looked under University of Chicago. I just 

15 couldn't find it anywhere.

16 MR. KATZ: Yeah. Lara, you should --

17 Lara should know.

18 MS. BRIGGS: It's listed under the 

19 Metallurgical Laboratory.

20 MR. KATZ: Ron, have we run the course?

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Now, that is the 13 

22 primary findings. Not shown on the BRS is seven 
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1 secondary issues. And I don't know if NIOSH has 

2 prepared any response to our secondary issues or 

3 not other than that the 1 and 2 are covered by the 

4 OTIB-6, and perhaps 3, 1, 2, and 3, the medical 

5 issues.

6 Where does NIOSH stand on the secondary 

7 issues?

8 DR. HUGHES: I do have brief responses. 

9 I did not put it under BRS.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Right.

11 DR. HUGHES: The list of issues. I 

12 mean I can, I can at least attempt to respond.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay, Brad, do 

14 you want to continue on with the secondary? Do you 

15 want to take a break? Or what do you want to do 

16 at this point?

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, from everything 

18 we've already gone through, the secondary issues 

19 on this is there much to say, Lara, or are those 

20 still under evaluation with a new TBD?

21 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I mean pretty much. 

22 There is not anything -- I can go through it. Do 
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1 you prefer to go through it piece by piece? I can 

2 attempt to respond. I have some of the -- there 

3 was one issue that was, asked the question whether 

4 or not the human radiation experiments would be 

5 covered or that they're not addressed in the TBD. 

6 They are not addressed in the TBD.

7 But in the rare case that an actual 

8 worker would be one of those individuals that were 

9 involved in the human radiation experiments and 

10 that they were actually experimented on, that would 

11 be an occupational, considered an occupational 

12 exposure and that would be addressed in the BRS. 

13 I did clarify that with the dose reconstruction 

14 team. And --

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: Lara, I really, I 

16 really don't see any use really until we get this 

17 information out. And I understand, Lara, that, 

18 you know, it was kind of a push to be able to get 

19 to this. And you put out an earlier email that, 

20 you know, you'd do your best for it, and stuff like 

21 that.

22 But this time I really don't see, Ron, 
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1 until we see kind of their finished product even 

2 going through it. I think we'd better spend our 

3 time figuring out our path forward on this. But 

4 that's just my personal opinion.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. What about 

6 addressing the secondary issues, if we posted on 

7 the BRS could Lara put her response so that we could 

8 respond to them? Because we don't know their 

9 response to the seven secondary issues.

10 MR. KATZ: Well, that's okay, Ron.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So we will put 

12 our, we will add the seven secondary issues on the 

13 BRS.

14 And, Lara, if you could put your written 

15 response on that, that way we can evaluate them, 

16 you know, on our own and see where we need to go 

17 from there.

18 DR. HUGHES: Absolutely.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

20 Okay. So, Brad, that's all I have.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Is there any 

22 questions from any of the other Board Members that 
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1 they have?

2 MEMBER BEACH: This is Josie. I'm 

3 just curious. Is there any plans to do an 

4 Evaluation Report for this site?

5 DR. HUGHES: That would depend on 

6 identifying an infeasibility. It's definitely 

7 not ruled out. But at this point we're still 

8 evaluating. I mean, we may -- we haven't 

9 identified a clear infeasibility. We now, 

10 however, we do have a lot of issues. But, you know, 

11 early internal data is often an issue. We have the 

12 neutron data.

13 Although, yeah, that remains to be 

14 assessed. So I would not rule it out. But at this 

15 point I cannot speak to it.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So still looking 

17 at it. Thank you.

18 DR. MAURO: Along those lines -- this 

19 is John again -- so I'm presuming that there's no 

20 83.13 in the mill. But you're saying that your 

21 research may trigger 83.14?

22 MR. KATZ: Right. Right, John.
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1 DR. MAURO: Okay, thank you.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: So that's, putting it 

3 in a nut shell, that's kind of where we're at now, 

4 if I'm taking this right, Lara, that you guys are 

5 still evaluating the data, you're still collecting 

6 it, and you're trying to figure out basically where 

7 we're at on it. And with 83.14, we may not. It's 

8 just, well, that decision has not been made yet; 

9 correct?

10 DR. HUGHES: That's correct.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So I guess, 

12 Ted, you know, I guess the one question I have, 

13 Lara, from the Work Group chair is this: what kind 

14 of a time frame do you think that we are looking 

15 at on this?

16 DR. HUGHES: Okay. Well, that's the 

17 question.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: I know that's the 

19 million dollar question and stuff, but I'm just 

20 trying to get a basis.

21 DR. HUGHES: Yes. Maybe I could defer 

22 that to Mr. Rutherford because it depends a lot on 
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1 our resources.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon. I 

3 think, you know, we can probably give you a feel 

4 for what the project plans are right now. But it, 

5 as Lara said, it depends a lot on resources and 

6 priorities. So, you know how things go, depending 

7 on what the hot item is at the time.

8 But I think we can give you the 

9 estimates based on the project plan now. And I 

10 don't have it in front of me or I'd do that.

11 MR. KATZ: We can get this in the Board 

12 coordination report, LaVon.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

14 Plans for March ABRWH Meeting Presentation

15 (including issues to solicit from ANL-E

16 workforce)

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Right. So, Brad, 

18 part of the Board materials for the meeting will 

19 be a Board coordination report. And so they can 

20 put in there what their current time frame is for 

21 the new regs.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: I was just kind of, 
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1 well, I figured if Bomber was doing it would be, 

2 you know, they call him Two-Weeks Bomber for --

3 (Laughter.)

4 MR. KATZ: So I think what would be 

5 useful now to have on the agenda is opportunity to 

6 talk to the folks in the audience there about where 

7 this stands now. And, you know, again, issues for 

8 which people in the audience might either 

9 themselves or know people who could help contribute 

10 information on sort of that.

11 So I think if you both could just speak 

12 a little bit about what you think some of that might 

13 be. And then we need someone to sign up to -- Lara, 

14 you are giving a presentation, I believe?

15 DR. HUGHES: I can. That's a good 

16 question. I would assume so. I mean, I can 

17 definitely give an update on, you know, the issues 

18 and the path forward if that's, if that's desired.

19 MR. KATZ: Yeah. But I think, so the 

20 punch line of that though ought to be here are some 

21 areas where we have a lead and we'd be happy for 

22 information from people who worked at the site. 
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1 You know, for example, you talked about the issue 

2 of whether, you know, everybody indeed was 

3 monitored, or whatever. But that's really up to 

4 all of you to discuss what might be some sort of 

5 key questions to ask of the public.

6 That's why there's no need to decide at 

7 this point for the Board meeting.

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Ted, this is LaVon. 

9 I think we can come up with some key points or key 

10 issues. We can then offer the presentation to kind 

11 of prod the audience to offer up some additional 

12 information.

13 MR. KATZ: Thanks, LaVon. And I'll 

14 just say to the Work Group Members and to SC&A, if 

15 you all would just send some emails. You don't 

16 have to do it on the spot but we've had this 

17 discussion now, and it may be clear to you something 

18 that's been particularly salient or as worthy of 

19 input from the public. If you would just send 

20 then, Lara, by email some suggestions for questions

21 or issues that we'd like to hear from the public 

22 about, that would be great.
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1 DR. MAURO: This is John. One thought 

2 I had, since we had this Attachment 2 to our report 

3 where we -- the original one, all the way back to 

4 2009, where I think quite a bit of interview work 

5 was done and there was answer material. That would 

6 serve as a nice platform to say, okay, here's this 

7 platform of the original round of interviews. And 

8 then build from there given the fact that we're back 

9 into this discussion again. So, you know, 

10 marrying the two might be helpful.

11 MR. KATZ: Yeah, John, you guys are 

12 familiar with what you covered in the interviews. 

13 So, I mean, by all means you can refer to those in 

14 considering what might be some key questions to 

15 ask.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes. That's why I bring it 

17 up.

18 MR. KATZ: Yeah, thanks. Yeah.

19 So, and then schedule-wise, you know, 

20 we have Ron on short lease. But I think 

21 presentations that could be, those presentations 

22 have to be in by close of business Monday. That 
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1 means we'll first have questions from Lara to 

2 highlight once we get system update here. But need 

3 to get them in this afternoon, the end of the day 

4 I think, for her to be able to make any use of them.

5 And, Brad, I don't know whether you want 

6 to be part of the talking on the update or do you 

7 just want introduce Lara --

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: No.

9 MR. KATZ: -- you want to introduce 

10 Lara.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yeah, you know, we can 

12 do whatever we need to be able to do. But I just, 

13 right now I agree with you, especially where we're 

14 in the venue we are, a lot of these questions that 

15 we have, and they're also what NIOSH has, there may 

16 be people in that venue that might be able to help 

17 with this.

18 MR. KATZ: Sure.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: I just want to make 

20 sure that we have something to be able to put out 

21 to them.

22 MR. KATZ: Sure. Now, so you'll just 
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1 be introducing Lara basically. And then Lara can 

2 give a brief presentation. Is that, are we all 

3 good with that? Lara, can you?

4 DR. HUGHES: Yeah, absolutely.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Sounds good.

7 MR. KATZ: All right, if there's 

8 nothing else, I think we can, I think we can 

9 adjourn.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, that sounds 

11 good. I was just going to ask if -- I've asked this 

12 once before, but if any of the Board Members or any 

13 of the SC&A or ORAU if they have any questions, you 

14 know, we can help with. Is there any?

15 DR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron with SC&A. 

16 And I just want to summarize.

17 Our responsibility will be to address 

18 Finding 3 and 13 and provide a written response. 

19 The remainder of the findings we will wait for 

20 changes in TBDs to evaluate them, and perhaps the 

21 work books that go with them.

22 And we will also put the seven secondary 
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1 findings on the BRS. And then, so when Lara has 

2 time she can go in and address those with their 

3 response so that we can move forward on that area.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes. And as new TBDs get 

5 issued, you know, I'll pass those right away. They 

6 won't have to wait for a Work Group meeting.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes.

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. That being 

10 said, we'll see you all in Naperville.

11 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes. And thank you, 

12 everybody, for the work on this meeting.

13 Adjourn

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Thank you.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: Have a wonderful day. 

16 Thanks. Bye.

17 (Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the meeting 

18 concluded.)