Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH) 

Subcommittee for Procedures Reviews 

Meeting Minutes 

February 16, 2023 

Summary Proceedings

The Subcommittee for Procedures Review meeting convened via teleconference at 

11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), Ms. Josie Beach, Chair, presiding.

Attendees

Members

Josie Beach, Member

Loretta Valerio, Member

Paul Ziemer, Member

Non-Members

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH contractor

Bob Barton, SC&A

Kathy Behling, SC&A

Ron Buchanan, SC&A

Grady Calhoun, DCAS

Doug Farver, SC&T

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A

Ashton Habighurst, HHS

LaVon Rutherford, DCAS

Mutty Sharfi, ORAU

Tim Taulbee, DCAS
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Roll Call/Welcome - Dr. Rashaun Roberts, DFO

Dr. Rashaun Roberts called to order the Subcommittee for Procedures Review at 11:0

a.m. EST on February 16, 2023, via teleconference. A roll call of all Subcommittee

members confirmed that a quorum was present. The quorum was maintained 

throughout the meeting. Subcommittee members, federal staff, and contractors

announced conflicts-of interest during roll call. Dr. Roberts turned the meeting over to 

Ms. Beach, Subcommittee chair.

Carry Over Items from September 29, 2022, SPR Meeting

Discussion of ORAUT-OTIB-0052

Kathy Behling, SC&A, presented the history of the Subcommittee’s discussions 

concerning ORAUT-OTIB-0052, “Parameters to Consider When Processing Claims for 

Construction Trades Workers.” The Subcommittee presented OTIB-0052 to the Board in 

December 2017. That presentation showed how revisions to OTIB-0052 had resolved 

the sixteen findings from the Subcommittee’s review of rev. 0 of the OTIB. Board 

members had a number of questions that could not be answered at that meeting. At 

today’s meeting, the Subcommittee discussed whether DCAS should respond to each 

of those questions, since the new co-exposure Implementation Guide, and DCAS’s 

work to update models to conform to that guide, will make several issues moot. The 

Subcommittee decided to ask DCAS to prepare responses to questions that could be 

answered in short order. The implementation of new co-exposure models at each site 

will satisfy the others.

List of Sites with Template Methodologies

Kathy Behling, SC&A, led a discussion on this topic, referring to a handout that was 

provided to Subcommittee members. A copy of that handout is on the DCAS website 

page for this meeting. It lists 33 sites where DCAS uses dose reconstruction 

methodologies and templates for guidance when performing dose reconstructions, 

rather than site profiles. Site profiles are being prepared for four of those sites. There 

was general agreement that a review of an affected dose reconstruction should be part 

of the review process for methodologies and templates.

Table 2 of SC&A’s handout lists seven Program Evaluation Reports (PERS) and one 

report that have not yet been reviewed by SC&A. Additionally, Ms. Behling reported that 

SC&A’s reviews of two other PERs, PER-047 and PER-005, did not include Subtask 4, 

which has been a part of PER reviews for some time.

After some consideration the Subcommittee and DFO tasked SC&A to complete 

Subtask 4 for PERs -047 and -005, to perform complete reviews of PERs -040, -051, -

067, and -083, and to perform reviews of methodologies and templates for Amchitka 

Island Nuclear Explosion Site and Albuquerque Operations Office.
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ORAUT-TKBS-0060, rev. 00, “Grand Junction Facilities” Observation 3 radon 

chamber

Dr. Ron Buchanan, SC&A, presented SC&A’s observation 3 from their review of 

ORAUT-TKBS-0060, Rev. 00. This observation concerns the potential for radon 

exposure from radon calibration chambers located at Grand Junction. The 

subcommittee discussed this observation a year ago, and asked DCAS to provide 

documentation about the radon chamber to SC&A. DCAS provided five documents in 

May 2022. Those documents describe how radon exposures were calculated and 

recorded for workers at the radon chamber for three years of its operation. The highest 

exposure recorded during that time was about 0.0022 working level months. ORAUTTKBS-0060 calls for radon exposure of 0.340 working level months per year for all 

Grand Junction employees. Consequently, the Subcommittee concluded that ORAUTTKBS-0060 bounds the radon exposures for Grand Junction employees, and the 

Subcommittee voted to close this observation. This was the only remaining open 

observation from SC&A’s review.

DCAS-PER-049, Subtask 4 case internal review

Kathy Behling, SC&A, led this discussion. She remarked that the Subcommittee had 

previously accepted SC&A’s Subtask 4 PER review of a case from Paducah Gaseous 

Diffusion Plant. PER-049 was prepared because of changes in the external dose 

methodology for Paducah. SC&A had no findings in their review, but they noted that the 

internal dose in the reworked case increased significantly over the original value. This 

was surprising since the reworked case used the individual’s actual bioassay data, while

the original version of the dose reconstruction utilized OTIB-002, which is expected to 

overestimate internal dose. In response, Scott Siebert, ORAUT Team, explained that by 

the time the case was reworked as part of PER-0049, OTIB-002 had been cancelled. 

Consequently, the dose reconstructor used overestimating techniques that employed 

the individual’s detectable and non-detectable bioassay results. Mr. Siebert explained 

that the intakes in the reworked dose reconstruction would cause bioassay results that 

were higher than the individual’s bioassay results roughly 80% of the time. When Mr. 

Siebert re-worked the internal dose for this case, using intakes that would result in 

bioassay results that more closely matched the individual’s results, the resulting dose 

was lower than either the original dose reconstruction or the rework. Since the 

Subcommittee had already accepted SC&A’s review of PER-0049, there was no further 

action for them to take, but they plan to discuss this situation at the next Board meeting.

Newly issued SC&A reviews

DCAS-PER-092, “Weldon Spring Plant,” Subtask 4 case review

Dr. Ron Buchanan, SC&A, described SC&A’s Subtask 4 of PER-092, which consisted 

of reviewing two cases that were reworked as part of this PER. DCAS prepared PER092 because of revisions to the Weldon Spring site profile that could result in higher 

internal doses and external ambient doses. For one of the cases, SC&A had two 

observations. In both cases, DCAS’s rework had adopted approaches that slightly 
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overestimated the doses. For the second case, SC&A had one finding and two 

observations, The observations, again, were that DCAS’s rework had adopted 

approaches that slightly overestimated the doses. The finding was that DCAS’s rework 

had used a constant distribution for external ambient dose, rather than the log-normal 

distributions that the site profile called for. SC&A recalculated the ambient dose using a 

log-normal distribution and got a slightly higher combined probability of causation (POC) 

for the case. The POC was still far below the 50% compensation level, though. 

Subcommittee members asked if the error that led to the finding could have affected the 

compensation outcome for other reworked cases. Scot Siebert, SC&A reported that, 

upon learning of this finding he had reviewed all the reworked cases and found nine that 

included this error. All those cases had POCs less than 1%, so this error would not 

affect the compensation outcome. He also reported that the approaches that led to the 

observations were common efficiency approaches that were used in non-compensable 

claims. The Subcommittee asked DCAS to provide Kathy Behling, SC&A, a brief 

statement summarizing Mr. Siebert’s comments for her to include in her 

finding/observation tracking. Then the Subcommittee would close the finding. Lori 

Marion-Moss, DCAS, agreed to provide that.

DCAS-PER-093, “Texas City Chemicals,” Subtask 4 case review

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A, presented the results Subtask 4 of SC&A’s review of PER-093. 

DCAS issued PER-093 because of the issuance of Rev. 1 of the site profile. That 

revision changed the start date of the residual period and increased certain doses 

during the residual period. SC&A’s review resulted in four findings and one observation. 

The first finding involved the selection criteria DCAS used to determine which Texas 

City claims to rework under the PER. Ms. Gogliotti noted that a claimant whose 

employment ended between April 1, 1955, and October 1, 1955, would have an 

increased dose due to Rev. 1 of the site profile, but they would not be reworked based 

on the selection criteria that DCAS employed. The other three findings found that the 

reworked dose reconstruction did not comply precisely with the instructions in Rev. 1 of 

the site profile. Those deviations would result in slight underestimates of dose. The 

observation concerned the ease of use of the software tool that DCAS used to complete 

the reworked claims. DCAS reported that they had not developed a response to SC&A’s 

Subtask 4 review but would do so in the future. The Subcommittee considers the 

findings and observation to be “in progress.”

Peak Streat Template case reviews

Mr. Doug Farver, SC&A, presented the results of SC&A’s review of two cases from 

Peak Street. Cases from Peak Street are completed using guidance from a site 

Template rather than a Site Profile. Templates are less formal dose reconstruction 

technical documents that are used for sites that don’t have many claims. SC&A has 

previously reviewed the template itself and developed findings. Resolution of those is in 

progress. For external exposure, the cases that were selected for SC&A review 

included only ambient dose, so they could not be evaluated in light of the earlier findings 

about external dose. The cases did involve internal dose so they could be evaluated in 
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light of an earlier observation about bioassay detection levels. In 2017, DCAS 

developed a co-exposure approach for estimating internal doses. One of the cases 

SC&A reviewed was reworked by DCAS using that co-exposure approach, and that 

rework essentially resolved SC&A’s previous observation. However, the other case the 

SC&A review was performed before the co-exposure approach was available, and that 

case used bioassay detection levels that were the cause of SC&A’s observation. SC&A 

suggested that they be assigned to review additional cases so that they could review 

cases that would be affected by their earlier findings related to the Template itself.

The Subcommittee decided that SC&A should review additional cases that included all 

the dose pathways that the Template addressed, and DCAS agreed to provide such 

cases to SC&A. All participants agreed that future reviews of Templates should 

incorporate case reviews from the outset.

Preparation for April 2023 Full ABRWH Meeting: Review of technical 

guidance documents ready for full Board approval

The Subcommittee decided to present their completed reviews for six documents at the 

next full Board meeting. SC&A will prepare the presentation. The documents that the 

Subcommittee plans to present are PER-045, PER-076, PER-077, PER-043, PER-059, 

and PER-049. Kathy Behling, SC&A, reported that some of the documents the 

Subcommittee has reviewed have very extensive discussions and don’t lend 

themselves to the type of presentation that the Subcommittee has been using when 

presenting completed reviews to the full Board. The Subcommittee expects those final 

reviews to involve considerably more discussion at full Board meetings, and 

consequently doesn’t intend to present very many at a single meeting. Ms. Behling 

proposed to use OTIB-052 to provide an example of how one of those presentation 

might be put together at the next Subcommittee meeting. The Subcommittee agreed 

with that idea.

Newly-Issued Guidance Documents and Supplemental Topics

For the next Subcommittee meeting, SC&A has been assigned one new document, 

PER-073 which relates the Birdsboro facility, for review, and they believe that review will 

be ready. As was agreed, DCAS will provide some text that summarizes the response 

to the Weldon Spring Subtask 4 finding and observations. SC&A will review additional 

Peak Street cases, and also will provide a presentation of the Subcommittee’s OTIB052 discussion, as an example of a more complicated report to the full Board.

Meeting Adjourned

The Subcommittee tentatively scheduled their next meeting for Wednesday, June 21, 

2023, with a backup date of June 28. The meeting was adjourned at 3:29 p.m. EST.