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Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

125th Meeting

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

The meeting convened via teleconference at 11:00 

a.m. Eastern Time, Ted Katz, Designated Federal

Official, presiding.
2

Members Present:

Henry Anderson, Chair

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

R. William Field, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

James E. Lockey, Member

David B. Richardson, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member

Phillip Schofield, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer, Member

Ted Katz, Designated Federal Official

Registered and/or Public Comment Participants:

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

Barrie, Terrie

Barton, Bob, SC&A

Crawford, Chris, DOL

Fitzgerald, Joe, SC&A

Harmond, Lokie, DOE

Lewis, Greg, DOE

Naylor, Jenny, HHS

Neton, Jim, DCAS

Rutherford, Lavon, DCAS
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Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 125th Meeting 

Wednesday, October 17, 2018 1

Roll Call/Welcome 4

Procedures Subcommittee 4

Metals & Controls Subcommittee 4

Dose Reconstruction Review Subcommittee 5

New Petitions 8

Adjourn 15
4

Proceedings

(11:00 a.m.)

Roll Call/Welcome

Mr. Katz: So let me just welcome everyone. This is 

the Advisory Board on Radiation Worker Health. It's 

our Board administrative teleconference we use to 

prepare for face to face meetings. We have a face to 

face meeting in December.

The agenda for today's meeting is not posted and 

that's my faux pas. Somehow I left -- I sent it to 

everyone but the person who posts these things. 

But there's not much to the agenda. It's pretty 

routine reporting to get us up to date so we know 

what to expect in December.

So let me get started with roll call. We have no issues 

that we're discussing substantively today so we don't 

have any conflict of interest matters that we need to 

address during roll call.

So I'll run down the list. Those of you that I know 

are on the line I'll respond for you. If I don't -- and 

I'll just do this alphabetically. I believe I heard Henry 

Anderson, right?

(Roll call.)

Mr. Katz: Why don't we just, while we're waiting for 

LaVon, why don't we just swap items and get started 

with Work Group Subcommittee chairs who have 

something they want to report.

Procedures Subcommittee

Metals & Controls Subcommittee

Member Beach: Yes, Ted this is Josie. I'll go ahead 

and start. I have two Work Groups that are going to

meet, well, one Subcommittee and a Work Group. 

The Procedures Subcommittee is set to meet on 

October 31 and Metals & Controls will meet in 
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Cincinnati on November 20.

Mr. Katz: November 22 I think, right?

Member Beach: I have the 20th. I just set my flight.

Mr. Katz: I think that's Tuesday, isn't it? November 

22.

Member Beach: Let me check. Yes, it's the 20th, 

Ted. Tuesday, the 20th.

Mr. Katz: Right you are. I had that swapped around 

with something else. Thanks.

Member Beach: And I think for LANL we will be 

setting a Work Group call in the next month or so.

Mr. Katz: Yes, so that actually, I'd like to set it this 

week actually, the date. Even though we don't have 

anything ready yet. But we can set the date. So I'll 

be sending out a notice for LANL that everybody can 

respond and we can pin down a date in those last two 

weeks before the Board meeting.

Member Beach: Okay. Sounds great, thank you.

Dose Reconstruction Review Subcommittee

Member Kotelchuck: And this is Dave from Dose 

Reconstruction Review Subcommittee. Working on 

the new report on the 2018 report just to say that 

we're moving along on that.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, Dave. And for everyone that's the 

report to the Secretary following up on the last report 

which was a couple of years ago, I think 2016.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Katz: Thank you.

Member Roessler: Ted, this is Gen. I could probably 

say a word about Carborundum because I think we 

have it on the agenda for the December meeting.

Mr. Katz: Yes.
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Member Roessler: Okay. The Work Group needs to 

have a discussion on some Site Profile issues 

primarily on modeling of external doses. We plan to 

-- hope to have a Work Group meeting at the end of 

November, early December. And if we get that done 

we'll make a presentation at the December Board 

meeting.

That should clear up everything for this site.

Mr. Katz: Right, thanks, Gen. Just like Josie's 

meeting for LANL for Carborundum I'll be sending out 

a note to all the Members and staff today or 

tomorrow so we can get that scheduled. Just as you 

were saying.

And the one uncertainty we have about that. Bob 

Anigstein who is our sort of lead staff person for 

SC&A on Carborundum, I think he's been unwell and 

so I haven't been able to get confirmation from him. 

He received certainly NIOSH's latest work, the 

modeling work and the follow-ups on the other items 

that have been addressed by SC&A. I know he has 

all of those things. I'm not sure whether he's had a 

chance to look through those and confirm that he's 

good and will be ready. But I expect he will be. And 

I'll let you all know if anything happens there in terms 

of what he responds between now and then. That 

takes care of Carborundum. Any others?

Member Clawson: Ted, this is Brad. This is more a 

question for Greg Lewis. We've been having a little 

bit of a hard time getting information from Savannah 

River. I'd love to address if you've had any luck in 

helping with that.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, a little trouble is probably an 

understatement. It's been a significant issue with the 

classification reviews.

I've been updating NIOSH. We have management 

level involved in Savannah River. They haven't come 

up with a plan to resolve this yet. I know on the 

federal level their federal classification officer had left 

and they've been unable to fill that spot so that's 
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been a real challenge for us because our recourse, 

my recourse is the feds sponsor the programs to go 

through the federal site management.

But without a federal classification officer the federal 

management there is very supportive and is trying to 

identify a solution. They're trying to work with 

headquarters. They're trying to call in additional 

support.

We're hopeful that we'll be able to get some I don't 

know if the right word is either a waiver or sort of 

approval for an alternate review process because the 

majority of these documents are most likely not 

classified and in fact many of them to me are sort of 

data. It's not all numbers, but they're very, it's 

dosimetry entries, things that are very repetitive and 

just pages and pages. So it would seem like we may 

be able to facilitate a quicker review.

We don't have a firm plan yet. Again Pat's been 

involved. I've been involved talking to site 

management. In the next week or so if we haven't 

heard anything more we'll have Matt call the site 

manager. But I think the issue is not the willingness 

of the site, it's been on coming up with a strategy 

that's going to work because there is a significant 

amount of documents that is in the queue as you're 

well aware.

Member Clawson: I appreciate that. It's just that it 

is creating a problem. I appreciate that.

Mr. Lewis: We're very concerned. That's probably 

our number one priority, our number one concern 

right now with the program is this delay at Savannah 

River. But this isn't one of those situations where it's 

just a matter of getting them to do the work or they 

don't understand the importance. There's actually a 

manpower issue. 

With the amount that we have it's actually just a real 

challenge in order to come up with a way to resolve 

this. 
8

Member Clawson: I appreciate that.

Mr. Katz: Yes, thanks, Brad. It's important. And 

thanks Greg for what you're trying to do to get 

something done there. Because it has been awhile 

and we would like to move forward with this site and 

we can't until we get through this.

SC&A has produced some responses to NIOSH work 

on some items but the larger matters on the table 

rely on this work. Thanks.

There's a similar situation with INL I think, right. 

They also have a manpower issue that is holding up 

to some degree our -- SC&A's review on the existing, 

proposed SEC Class. 

So as everyone, I think knows, among Board 

Members -- SC&A is reviewing claimant cases to see 

how those work with that. And they still haven't a

full sample of those cases to be able to complete that 

review which is why INL will not be on the agenda for 

this upcoming meeting in December. That's not 

ready as well.

Any other Work Groups want to report? We have 

LaVon back.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, this is LaVon Rutherford. I 

apologize to everyone that I'm late.

Mr. Katz: That's okay. But I think we've gotten 

through the Work Group reports and you can do your 

report now.

New Petitions

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Really, there's only two new 

petitions that we will be presenting at the meeting in 

December. One is Superior Steel and that's an 8313. 

And the other is an 8314 for Y-12.

Those are the only new petitions. I'm sure that there 

will be some updates on Los Alamos National Lab and 

Sandia. And that's about it.
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Mr. Katz: Thank you. Any questions for LaVon? 

Okay, then I think everyone else will get covered in 

my reporting to you on staff's agenda for the 

December meeting.

So and the December meeting is going to be in 

Redondo Beach, California. It's December 12 and 13. 

And the 13th right now we have quite a full agenda 

and it's quite a lot of action items, SEC action items 

possible. A number of these are tentative. It 

depends on getting work done in time and reviewed 

in time.

But right now it goes from December 12 through 2:30 

p.m. on December 13. So it's most of the day the 

13th as well.

Member Ziemer: What was the time on the 13th?

Mr. Katz: 2:30 p.m. it would end.

Member Ziemer: 2:30, okay.

Mr. Katz: So those of you that are on the east coast 

or even Midwest you probably won't get home that 

day. You'll probably stay over that night.

Let me run through what I have right now and I'll 

give you the provisos for where they apply.

So on the first day we have the usual reports. And 

then still in the morning the one Site Profile review 

we hope to do is Carborundum as Gen mentioned 

earlier. And we'll follow up on that.

Then we have, LaVon mentioned we have Y-12 plant 

8314 SEC petition that morning. And then to the end 

of the day we have the two California items. We have 

area 4 Santa Susana field lab. I'm assuming still, 

haven't heard otherwise that reports we'll need from 

NIOSH, from SC&A and the Work Group to review will 

be ready by then. Before then we'll have a Work 

Group meeting.

So that's another Work Group by the way we need to 

schedule. And I'll be sending out a scheduling 
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request for the tail end of November or the very 

beginning of December to allow as much time as 

possible for that work to get done.

With that said that's in other words two SEC 

petitions, the Santa Susana one that we have and the 

De Soto one that we have that are possibly actionable 

at that meeting. 

And then public comment session ending the day.

On Thursday we begin with Superior Steel. LaVon 

also mentioned that's an 8313 new SEC petition that 

will be presented to the Board. And then we have, 

and this again depends on what happens at a Work 

Group meeting that Josie mentioned, Metals & 

Controls potentially actionable following that.

And then finally, also potentially actionable but 

depends on that Work Group meeting, LANL at the 

end of the meeting taking us to 2:30 p.m. So those 

are the items I have presently.

If any Board Members have any questions about 

those or about items that are not on the list right now 

you can discuss those. 

Okay, not hearing anyone I also wanted to, since I 

have you on the line --

Member Kotelchuck: Sorry, I was on mute. Dave. I 

was trying to get a copy of something to send on the 

Secretary report for that meeting. I'm not sure. But 

I think there's a reasonable possibility. I would put 

it on the tentative agenda.

Mr. Katz: Okay. We need a Subcommittee meeting 

first to go over a draft report. So I don't think you'd 

be ready to present a report at that meeting.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: But certainly you can update the Board on 

your work during a work session.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure. In other words we should 
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go through the DRR Subcommittee first.

Mr. Katz: Correct.

(Simultaneous speaking)

Mr. Katz: I mean, that's normal protocol.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, that sounds good. I was 

figuring I would go directly to the Board. That is 

circulate -- hopefully every Board Member would 

have a chance to look at a draft and give input. But 

either way.

Mr. Katz: It's up to you really. The normal protocol 

is you develop the report in the Subcommittee and 

then you bring it when the Subcommittee feels it's 

ready to bring it to the Board.

You can circumvent that but no reason not to. 

There's no required protocol in a legal sense to do it 

in that order. It's up to you, Dave. But that's the 

normal way we've done these.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. I just remember the last 

time and I don't think I went separately to the 

Subcommittee but I went to everybody on the Board. 

You know what? It doesn't matter.

(Simultaneous speaking)

Mr. Katz: We discussed it multiple times in the 

Subcommittee before we discussed it at the Board 

level.

Member Kotelchuck: Did we? Okay.

Mr. Katz: Yes, we did.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay, well that's short-term 

memory. Fine. Let's do it. Anyway I'll give a report 

of some sort.

Mr. Katz: All right, that sounds good. Okay. I just 

wanted to raise then David Richardson I think is still 

on the line. David had asked at the August Board 
12

meeting of DOE about DOE's budget for all of its 

records provisions et cetera that it does, records 

provisions, queries of records and all that that for 

NIOSH and also for DOL on employment verification 

and so on.

I followed up with Ms. Harmond, Lokie on that and 

she sent me a note. She's on the line so she can 

speak directly saying it.

It seems like the annual budget is about $4.5 million 

and some portion of that is for -- I don't know how 

that breaks out, but either Lokie or Greg, if you want 

to address that in more detail you can do that now or 

we can follow up in writing if you need to do more 

work.

(Simultaneous speaking)

Mr. Lewis: Oh, go ahead, Lokie.

Ms. Harmond: I can try to explain the best I can. I 

guess, Greg, you can kind of fill in.

So the figure that I sent you it was for EV NIOSH and 

NIOSH supplemental and DAR requests. And so that 

was $4.5. So that is not our whole program budget, 

that was just the cost of going up until August 2018 

of the cost for those responses.

And then the other number that I sent was for NIOSH 

projects. That was 106. So, $106,000. And so that 

total does not include the $4.5. I'm not sure if I 

answered your question?

Mr. Katz: I guess I'm just, I'm unclear about, like, I 

don't know what NIOSH projects is versus the rest.

Ms. Harmond: Greg, do you want to?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I can jump in. And just again to 

clarify she basically gave you the amount that we've 

spent through when the question was asked what we 

had. I think we may even have a more updated 

number now but that was through probably 10 or 11 

months of the year in terms of our overall budget. 
13

So it's actually not $4.5, it's probably between $5 and 

$5.5 plus the project costs plus administrative costs 

here and some other things that we spend funds on.

Our overall program budget for the year is probably 

closer to $6 million in terms of what we actually 

spend, between $5.5 and $6 million. 

When we put NIOSH projects that's anything besides 

pulling dose records for Bob Smith for Bob's EEOICPA 

claim. I mean that's any of the SEC research, SC&A 

going out to a site, making a records request, pulling 

people to interview, all the administrative time it 

takes to do that. So basically all of the work done for 

this Board would fall under the $106,000 number in 

terms of the projects.

I will also say that that number is likely -- in fact I 

know that that number is low. For big projects when 

NIOSH or SC&A brings a team out to a site and is 

there for a week pulling boxes and reviewing things 

and then there's a classification review or places like 

Savannah River, Hanford where we've been doing big 

projects, we're pretty good at separating out that 

work.

But as the folks that are doing the research, the SC&A 

and NIOSH folks know a lot of it is there will be a big 

initial effort but then a lot of small follow-up 

questions, a small follow-up request or working with 

smaller sites or at a major site for some information 

about an AWE.

And a lot of that stuff, remember, to show up under 

this $106,000 on our list someone's got to -- whoever 

is doing that work has got to stop, they've got to bill 

it out under a separate charge code or make a note 

of it so they can somehow segment that from the 

other work.

And I know a lot of times for these smaller requests 

that doesn't happen which I'm okay with because the 

administrative cost associated with separating this 

out is just not always worth it. We want to have a 

general tracker of what we spend for this NIOSH 
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project.

Or we do the same thing for Department of Labor 

when they're out there doing their research to 

enhance their site exposure matrix. We try to 

segment that out as well.

So when we say about $100,000, one it would be 

higher than that because that's through basically 10 

months of the year or 11 months that we'd add some 

for the work that was done in August and September 

so it's a little bit higher.

And I would also say it's probably low because we're 

not tracking, we're not going in the lawyer seven 

minute increments of time that people are tracking 

as they answer phone calls and work with NIOSH and 

SC&A. 

I don't know, did that answer the question? I believe 

that's what you all were asking.

Mr. Katz: Well, that answered my question about 

how it breaks out but the NIOSH -- the SEC work is 

maybe only a couple -- and Site Profile work is maybe 

only a couple of percentage points of the whole 

budget.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, and like I said it's probably under 

reported here. But it is accurate to say the vast 

majority of our funding dollars goes toward the 

responding for individual claims for DOL and NIOSH. 

Mr. Katz: David, is this answering what you wanted 

to know about?

Member Richardson: Yes, thank you.

Mr. Katz: Okay. All right. So, thank you, Greg and 

Lokie for that very much.

Mr. Lewis: If there's any follow-up questions or you 

want any clarification we'd be happy to do our best 

to answer.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Any other matters before we 
15

adjourn?

Member Anderson: What's the location of the 

meeting again?

Mr. Katz: So we're going to be meeting in California 

in Redondo Beach which is close to the airport. That's 

sort of the point. 

Member Anderson: You'll send out all of the --

Mr. Katz: Yes. It will be a very easy commute from 

the airport to the hotel.

Member Anderson: Okay. Which airport?

Member Clawson: Is that LAX?

Mr. Katz: Yes, LAX.

Member Kotelchuck: And Redondo Beach is in the 

L.A. area, right?

Mr. Katz: It is. It's very close, David, to LAX, to the 

airport.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Adjourn

Mr. Katz: And it's also very easy. You don't need to 

rent cars because you can walk to places and eat 

there and so on. 

All right. Well, thank you everybody and I think then 

if we're all in agreement we can adjourn.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 11:29 a.m.)