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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

110th MEETING

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY,

MARCH 23, 2016

+ + + + +

The meeting convened at 9:00 a.m., 

Eastern Time, in the Hilton, Tampa Airport 

Westshore, 2225 N. Lois Avenue, Tampa, Florida, 

James M. Melius, Chairman, presiding.
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PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., 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

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

COATES, DONNA*

COLLEY, VINA*

CRAWFORD, FRANK, DOL

DARNELL, PETE, DCAS

FESTER, JOSH*

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FROWISS, AL*

GRIFFON, MARK, DCAS Contractor

HAND, DONNA

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

JEWETT, BILLY

KROLL, DONNA

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

NETON, JIM, DCAS

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

SHEPPARD, ROBERT

STIVER, JOHN, SC&A

STRICKLAND, MARGARET

TALBOT, KATHY LUDWIG

TAULBEE, TIM, DCAS

VAUGHN, DAVID

VON SOY, LARRY

WOLZ, GERALD*

WORTHINGTON, PATRICIA, DOE

ZINK, BRIAN*
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*PARTICIPATING VIA TELEPHONE
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Contents 

WELCOME .......................................... 6

INTRODUCTION/HOUSEKEEPING ........................ 6

ROLL CALL ........................................ 9

NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE ............................. 9

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR UPDATE ...................... 19

DOE PROGRAM UPDATE .............................. 23

SEC PETITIONS UPDATE ........................... 126

ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY-WEST SEC PETITION 

EVALUATION REPORT .............................. 131

READING OF LETTER INTO RECORD .................. 185

BOARD WORK SESSION ............................. 189

WORK GROUPS/SUBCOMMITTEES ...................... 192

AMES LABORATORY ................................ 192

BROOKHAVEN ..................................... 194

CARBORUNDUM .................................... 194

FERNALD ........................................ 196

GRAND JUNCTION ................................. 197

LAWRENCE BERKELEY .............................. 198

KANSAS CITY .................................... 199

MOUND .......................................... 200

LANL ........................................... 201

NEVADA ......................................... 202

OAK RIDGE ...................................... 203

PACIFIC PROVING GROUNDS ........................ 204

PANTEX ......................................... 204

PORTSMOUTH-PADUCAH and K-25 .................... 206

ROCKY FLATS .................................... 206

SANDIA ......................................... 207

SANTA SUSANA ................................... 208

SCIENCE ISSUES ................................. 210

PROCEDURES SUBCOMMITTEE ........................ 211

TBD-6000 ....................................... 213

URANIUM REFINING ............................... 214
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SURROGATE DATA ................................. 214

PUBLIC COMMENTS ................................ 217

PINELLAS PLANT SITE PROFILE REVIEW ............. 222

PUBLIC COMMENT ................................. 251

ADJOURN ........................................ 309
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 9:01 a.m.

3 WELCOME 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Welcome to the 110th 

5 meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

6 Worker Health. And let me turn it over to Ted for 

7 the housekeeping introduction.

8 INTRODUCTION/HOUSEKEEPING 

9 MR. KATZ: Right. Thank you. 

10 Preliminaries and then I'll get to roll call.

11 So, welcome, everyone in the room and 

12 on the line, to the Advisory Board meeting. For 

13 folks on the line, just a few preliminaries. One, 

14 all of the papers, all of the presentations, any 

15 background reading materials related to the 

16 presentations for today that are relevant are 

17 posted on the NIOSH website. So, you can go to the 

18 NIOSH website, to the EEOICPA section of that site, 

19 under DCAS -- or OCAS, I think it's still titled 

20 -- schedule of meetings, today's meeting. 

21 If you bring up today's meeting, all 

22 those files are on the website and you can read 

23 those materials as we go through them, along with 
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1 the agenda for the meeting today. And on that 

2 agenda also is the information for Live Meeting. 

3 If you have the connection to Live Meeting, you can 

4 join by Live Meeting and that will allow you to see 

5 the presentations in realtime as they are given 

6 here in the room.

7 Phone etiquette for folks on the line: 

8 we ask that everybody on the line mute their phones 

9 when they are listening. And if you don't have a 

10 mute button, press *6. That will mute your phone. 

11 Press *6 again to unmute your phone. But press *6, 

12 mute your phone for the meeting, unless you are 

13 addressing the group, and that will improve the 

14 audio quality for yourselves as well as our ability 

15 to hear people on the line here in the room.

16 And at no point, please, put your phone 

17 on hold, because that will be a problem for everyone 

18 else on the line and in the room. So hang up and 

19 dial back in if you need to leave for a piece.

20 We have a public comment session. I'll 

21 notice it again after lunch, but it's today at 5 

22 o'clock, from 5 o'clock to 6 o'clock this evening 

23 is a public comment session. So, normally we will 
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1 take comments in the room first related to the local 

2 site and then on the line.

3 So, if you would like to comment and you 

4 are on the line, then, please, be at that session 

5 at 5, be on the line by 5 and we will get to you.

6 For folks in the room who would like to 

7 comment this evening, there is a sign-in sheet 

8 outside. There's Zaida Burgos outside these 

9 doors. Please sign-in indicating that you would 

10 like to comment and you can do that at any point 

11 today. That would be great.

12 Alright. Let's then go to roll call. 

13 And let me just also note, for folks in the room 

14 with your mikes, your mikes have an on/off button. 

15 I think all but Dave Kotelchuck's, which is broken. 

16 It's constantly on. Everyone else has an on/off 

17 button. Please press on your light, you have a 

18 green light that should go on when your mike is 

19 live. And please speak directly into the mike, so 

20 that we get good transcription and the people on 

21 the phone can hear well.

22 So I'm going to run roll call, and I will 

23 address now conflicts when I do this. And then 
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1 we'll take care of those also just before the 

2 sessions where the conflicts occur. 

3 ROLL CALL 

4 MR. KATZ: Very good. And that takes 

5 care of roll call. And the meeting is yours, Dr. 

6 Melius.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

8 Ted. And we will start, as usual, our first 

9 speaker is Stu Hinnefeld from NIOSH who will give 

10 us an update. Go ahead, Stu.

11 NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. Melius. 

13 Just a few news items. We have a personnel action 

14 or two to mention. Many of you probably recognize 

15 we have an old friend in the room with us today, 

16 Mark Griffon. Mark's working for us now. We've 

17 contracted his services to assist us in evaluation, 

18 first of all, of the dose reconstruction process 

19 for ambiguities, things like that, so we can try 

20 to make sure that we are as consistent as possible 

21 on our dose reconstruction process.

22 We have some checks and balances in 

23 there already, but we think an outside look, 
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1 because those of us who do it sometimes are too 

2 involved in it to really look terribly critically 

3 at it. And so we will have that, and probably some 

4 other tasks as well as we go forward that Mark will 

5 be assisting us with.

6 I guess you can all chat with Mark as 

7 the day goes on. And so if there are any questions, 

8 I'll try to answer them. We still, you know, have 

9 only firmed up like one task for sure, and we're 

10 still sort of firming up the tasks, but he will be 

11 working pretty closely with us and NIOSH and our 

12 contractor, ORAU, as we go forward.

13 Okay. I have just a very slight amount 

14 of news, in case you are interested, about the 

15 Advisory Board on Toxic Substances and Worker 

16 Health, what I like to call the Part E Board. It 

17 has -- of course, it was authorized, I think, more 

18 than a year ago. And the membership, as I 

19 understand it, has been selected and it will be 

20 announced in the Federal Register.

21 And until that announcement is made, 

22 DOL is being very, you know, silent about the 

23 membership. But they have scheduled their first 
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1 meeting for around the 26th of April. And I 

2 believe it's maybe even a three-day meeting that's 

3 scheduled.

4 And Rachel Leiton at DOL tells me that 

5 much -- there are several items on the agenda where 

6 DOL is presenting to the Board on essentially a 

7 primer, "this is how the program works," and there 

8 is some of that.

9 Denise Brock, our Ombudsman, has been 

10 asked to present to the Board, and I think she is 

11 fretting about that, but I believe she -- is she 

12 planning to go?

13 MR. KATZ: I think actually she's not 

14 going to present.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: She's not going to go? 

16 Okay. And then I think, Dr. Melius, you were 

17 invited, right? So there is some -- there will be 

18 some modest interaction, I suppose, at the start. 

19 The meeting is a public meeting. I mean, people 

20 can go and attend. Whoever wants to attend, it 

21 will be in the DOL Frances Perkins Building in 

22 Washington, D.C.

23 So we did have -- we have a number of 
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1 outreach activities that we continue to 

2 participate in, mainly through the Joint Outreach 

3 Task Group, that's a task group that includes DOE, 

4 DOL and ourselves, as well as the Ombudsman for DOL 

5 and our Ombudsman.

6 And in February, they were down in this 

7 neck of the woods. There was an outreach meeting. 

8 There were outreach meetings in Orlando and here 

9 in Tampa. We will also have meetings sponsored by 

10 that group in Idaho Falls and Pocatello in Idaho. 

11 I think it is kind of towards the end of June.

12 An outreach-type activity that we are 

13 conducting on our own is a one-day dose 

14 reconstruction and SEC workshop. This is sort of 

15 a scaled-down version of the three-day workshop 

16 that we give in Cincinnati once a year. We are 

17 doing this one-day site-specific workshop in 

18 Richland. And that is in late April.

19 And if anyone is interested in any 

20 information about the Joint Outreach Task Group, 

21 there is a -- the Department of Energy has some 

22 information about it on their website, and the 

23 citation is here on the slide.
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1 I just want to run real quickly through 

2 the statistics. We're at the point now where they 

3 don't change terribly quickly. We are up to almost 

4 -- in fact, I think since this slide was prepared, 

5 I think we did receive our 45,000th case number 

6 since this was -- so we're up to about 45,000 in 

7 total cases received. Most have been sent back to 

8 DOL with dose reconstructions completed. The 

9 number in our house is -- the data is relatively 

10 constant where it is now.

11 Here's a breakdown of the ones that have 

12 been sent back, those that were sent back with the 

13 dose reconstruction. Some were pulled for SEC 

14 consideration, and others were pulled for other 

15 reasons by DOL before they were completed.

16 Here's the summary of the Probability 

17 of Causation, how they worked out in dose 

18 reconstruction. The greater than 50 percent comes 

19 out to about 28 percent. About 28 percent have 

20 been compensable by dose reconstruction, of the 

21 claims that have gone through dose reconstruction. 

22 That value has stayed relatively stable, I think, 

23 for the past year or so.
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1 I have got up here again my slides on 

2 the first 5,000, first 10,000. Unless someone 

3 objects, I think I'll drop these out of the 

4 presentation going forward, because it's pretty 

5 far in the rear view mirror by now.

6 You'll notice there is one initial 

7 claim on there, and I had to look that up to be able 

8 to explain that. So there's one initial claim 

9 there. This was a claim that was referred to us 

10 for dose reconstruction quite some time ago. And 

11 while we had it for dose reconstruction, we added 

12 an SEC Class that included this claim. And so that 

13 claim was pulled and sent back to DOL and the person 

14 was compensated through the SEC process.

15 Subsequently, the person came down with 

16 a non-SEC cancer. And so the Department of Labor 

17 sent it to us for dose reconstruction to determine 

18 if there should be medical benefits granted for the 

19 non-SEC cancer. Since we have never done a dose 

20 reconstruction for it, it still is on Version 0 in 

21 our system, Version 0 of the dose reconstruction. 

22 So it appears an initial in the statistics, even 

23 though we've only had it for a short period of time, 
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1 had it back for a short period of time.

2 So I suppose that could continue to 

3 happen. I can continue to give that explanation, 

4 but, on the other hand, if I don't report on the 

5 first 5,000 and 10,000, I won't have to give that 

6 explanation anymore. And the 10,000 statistics 

7 are very much the same. That one initial is the 

8 same one that was in the first 5,000.

9 Okay. Records requests. You can see 

10 that almost nothing is over 60-days old from the 

11 Department of Energy in terms of our records 

12 requests. They did have a contractor change at the 

13 Y-12 plant fairly recently and there was some 

14 effect on the timeliness there, but I think they 

15 have rectified that now.

16 And the history of submittals versus 

17 production. As you can see, we are hanging pretty 

18 close to 500 new cases a quarter, and not much sign 

19 of dropping significantly below that. So that's 

20 how their dose reconstruction load continues to go.

21 We had a relatively small up-tick in new 

22 cases in February. I don't know if that was 

23 attributed to anything in particular, but it 
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1 up-ticked a little bit in February.

2 And our contact information, for anyone 

3 who, in the public, wants to get a hold of us, is 

4 there. I think there's probably a copy of my 

5 presentation in the back. And I know it's on our 

6 website, if anybody wants to look at this, you can 

7 find our website and the information there.

8 Okay. Any questions about this today?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for Stu? 

10 Yes, Henry?

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: Just quick, Stu. So 

12 what's the total eligible population? Do we have 

13 a sense?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don't know --

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: You have 45,000. Do 

16 we know what is -- do we have an estimate?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: The estimate, going 

18 back quite a long time, they said it was around 

19 600,000 people worked for the Department of Energy 

20 contract at these sites.

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 

22 MR. HINNEFELD: So is that the DOE 

23 only, not AWE? That wouldn't include the AWE 
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1 sites.

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. Thanks.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: That would be the DOE 

4 sites, right.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Since you appear to 

6 have cleaned up all but one of the initial 10,000, 

7 how about just updating us next time on the first 

8 20,000?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Would you like a 20,000 

10 slide?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, we're giving 

12 you a break there, you know.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Sure. We will do it 

14 for 20,000.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You won't have to do 

16 the 15, we'll just go right up to 20.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Go to the 20?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, we will go for 

19 it.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Okay. We'll 

21 give it a shot.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

23 MR. HINNEFELD: Since I don't have to 
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1 write the code to do the query, I say that sounds 

2 really easy.

3 (Laughter.)

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Unless other 

5 Board Members have a different number they would 

6 like to get lucky with? Okay. Twenty-thousand it 

7 is.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Alright. 

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Stu. We 

10 would advise you to keep an eye on that Griffon guy.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, yes, some 

12 contractors you've got to watch more than others.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah. Next up, DOL 

14 Program Update. I'll try to go slow here so Stu 

15 can find it. There we go. Okay. Department of 

16 Labor Update, Frank Crawford. Welcome back, 

17 Frank.

18 MR. CRAWFORD: Good morning. Thank 

19 you, Dr. Melius. Well, let me just launch right 

20 in. Stu already stole most of my thunder about the 

21 Part E Board, so --

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I was wondering 

23 about that.
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1 (Laughter.) 

2 MR. CRAWFORD: And I know nothing more 

3 than he knows at this point, so that's it for that. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We can name names. 

5 I mean, there is lots of rumors around.

6 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR UPDATE 

7 MR. CRAWFORD: I'm just glad I'm not on 

8 it, but that's another story. This is supposed to 

9 come up, I think, but we've gotten too fancy on the 

10 slideshow. I no longer know how to even change the 

11 screen. Oh, here it comes. I hit the spacebar, 

12 maybe that's it. 

13 Well, let's get right to it. Give me 

14 the next number, please. There you go.

15 I think what's of interest, at least to 

16 me, here, is that I think Part E is going to be 

17 catching up to Part B in terms of dollar outlays.

18 So, the program so far has dispersed 

19 $9.6 billion in compensation of various kinds, with 

20 Part B leading so far, but I think the number of 

21 potential cases for Part E is much, much larger.

22 Here's a figure that I hadn't seen. We 

23 have 185,000 cases filed. And that's out of both 
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1 the DOE and the AWE universe, I assume. And we have 

2 the medical bills added into this compensation 

3 figure.

4 Okay. We finally outsmarted ourselves 

5 completely here. No numbers coming up. However, 

6 they will be on the website, so I'm not going to 

7 go into it too deeply. It's the usual business of 

8 how many cases have been referred to NIOSH and how 

9 many we got back and how many were paid and that 

10 sort of thing.

11 I'm going to go see if the next slide 

12 works. Okay. I won't read the numbers to you. 

13 They're all on the website. And everybody, I 

14 think, can view them there a lot more easily.

15 We do show 2,100 cases, approximately, 

16 at NIOSH right now, and I can more or less agree 

17 with their numbers. These numbers also more or 

18 less agree with Stu's numbers. So, you can see the 

19 approvals are about one-third of the total.

20 As far as Part B cases, no surprises 

21 here. Again, the "Other" includes a lot of things 

22 that we don't see very much here at the Board or 

23 NIOSH so much. The beryllium sensitivity problem, 
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1 the chronic beryllium disease, chronic silicosis, 

2 those take up a pretty large slice of that pie there 

3 of 30 percent.

4 And we have about 92,000 cases with a 

5 final decision under Part B only, which the 

6 majority are approved. That would include, I 

7 believe, SEC cases. Well, we are almost 

8 half-and-half here with approvals and denials. 

9 The top four work sites are -- well, 

10 they don't change too much, because they're mainly 

11 the largest work sites.

12 The AWE percentage took a mysterious 

13 dip in January, and then came back in February to 

14 its normal 12 or 13 percent range. Again, I'm 

15 expecting the AWE cases to slowly fade because they 

16 are so far in the past. Most of those sites were 

17 closed in the '50s or '60s.

18 Now, for our site discussions, we see 

19 there's a range in the number of claims per site, 

20 with Argonne having about 1,100; Idaho National Lab 

21 about 5,500; Lawrence Livermore about 3,700.

22 It looks like, from looking at the Part 

23 B and the final decisions, that there are quite a 
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1 few cases left to be adjudicated or are in some 

2 stage of adjudication right now.

3 And Pinellas Plant, which is probably 

4 most germane to our site today, we have about 1,400 

5 claims, 600 final decisions, 135 Part B approvals, 

6 196 Part E approvals.

7 I'll move on to the town hall 

8 presentations. So far -- well, since December --

9 as you see, we've had presentations of various 

10 sorts in the Denver area; Grants, New Mexico; 

11 Farmington, New Mexico. That's from the Denver 

12 office, I should have said. 

13 And then in December we also had a 

14 Niagara Falls presentation. There are a bunch of 

15 AWE sites there. We had a town hall here in Tampa 

16 in February, and then Orlando, also February, about 

17 the same time, another town hall meeting.

18 And the end of this month, coming right 

19 up, we are going to Bridgeton, Missouri. And in 

20 June, yes, Pocatello, followed the next day by 

21 Idaho Falls. And I believe that's as far as we're 

22 looking out right now.

23 There is much more available on the 
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1 website in terms of explanations of the program, 

2 eligibility, compensation, and that sort of thing. 

3 So I'll leave that to the Board Members and the 

4 public who need a review on that.

5 Any questions?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for Frank?

7 (No response.)

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

9 MR. CRAWFORD: Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

11 DOE PROGRAM UPDATE

12 DR. WORTHINGTON: Good morning. It's 

13 a pleasure to come to the Board and present some 

14 updates on where we are with the Department of 

15 Energy's roles and responsibilities. I'll be very 

16 brief today. We don't have any major changes in 

17 any of the activities, but just some updates.

18 I want to first acknowledge that I'm 

19 joined today by Greg Lewis, who's the director for 

20 this office, and by Dr. Isaf Al-Nabulsi, who is a 

21 senior technical advisor, who has a lot of 

22 responsibilities, but a lot of it is focused on 

23 supporting the EEOICPA programs. So, again, good 
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1 morning.

2 I want to just mention this slide. We 

3 mention it every time, but I want to focus on it 

4 again: that we recognize the responsibility of 

5 Department of Labor and NIOSH for DOE workers, and 

6 our role is to provide support to them. We want 

7 to make sure that all available working facility 

8 records and data are provided to DOE, NIOSH, and 

9 the Advisory Board.

10 And when we say "all available data," 

11 sometimes it's difficult -- and we'll talk about 

12 that a little bit during the course of this brief 

13 presentation -- but we, again, we feel we have a 

14 huge responsibility to make available the data 

15 that's important for making decisions.

16 DOE responsibilities. I'll mention 

17 them briefly. A couple of years ago we developed 

18 this secure electronic records transfer process to 

19 kind of ease our fears of releasing data, PPI data, 

20 when we shouldn't do that, but also to just expedite 

21 things and to make it easier. And I believe we are 

22 getting some good feedback from DOL and NIOSH on 

23 this, so we continue to work on that. It certainly 
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1 expedites our response to employment verification 

2 and exposure records for individuals.

3 We want to provide support and 

4 assistance to DOL and NIOSH and the Board on 

5 large-scale research projects, and we'll talk 

6 about some of those as we go through the 

7 presentation today. But characterization 

8 projects, looking for records or whatever it is, 

9 I mean, DOE has that responsibility. We are 

10 well-suited for that. They are things that are 

11 within our system, whether they are old or new, and 

12 so we want to work hard to do that.

13 Let's talk about sort of, again, 

14 another group of individuals that are helping us 

15 to deliver this very important mission, and that's 

16 what we call EEOICPA site PoCs. The data, for the 

17 most part, is not really in headquarters. It's out 

18 in the field, at the sites, and so we certainly have 

19 points of contact. They are very visible and 

20 working very hard to help us to deliver that data.

21 And sometimes the data is in different 

22 forms. It may be tours or other things that the 

23 contractors or NIOSH or the Board would need to get 
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1 a better sense for sort of what was going on and 

2 what decisions ought to be made and recommendations 

3 that are made. So, we want to provide all those 

4 services and we rely very heavily on our site points 

5 of contact to help us to do this.

6 A little bit about the individual 

7 records. We keep putting this slide up, and if you 

8 look at it, it's pretty much the same numbers. 

9 Over the years, they've changed only just a little 

10 bit. We haven't seen any major trends yet in the 

11 program that would direct us to take, you know, 

12 dramatic cuts or anything like that at this time, 

13 but we continue to provide a large number of 

14 employment verification, because that's very 

15 important.

16 People need to understand, know, and be 

17 able to verify whether their workers were actually 

18 part of a DOE network or not. Dose records 

19 certainly provide that information to NIOSH, and 

20 the DARs are very important. A lot of information 

21 there about the history, exposure, other kinds of 

22 things related to those individuals.

23 A little bit about sort of the DOE 
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1 climate and the way things work at DOE. We find 

2 that many of the workers, over time, they may move 

3 around to other DOE sites. And so when they are 

4 looking, you know, for data, it could be in the form

5 of being a primary contractor, subcontractor. It 

6 could be multiple sites.

7 I remember when I first started working 

8 for DOE, there were a lot of things going on in the 

9 Fernald area and they were doing some major cleanup 

10 and kind of putting themselves -- at first, it was 

11 the view they would be out of business for a job, 

12 but what happened at Fernald, and many places 

13 across DOE, is that we have individuals who become 

14 experts in doing certain kinds of remediations or 

15 other kinds of activities, and they move around, 

16 which is lucky for DOE, that this experience can 

17 be used at other sites.

18 And so it's important for us to be able 

19 to gather this information from the various 

20 locations. Because we talk about sort of a long 

21 period of time for many of the workers at DOE, we 

22 have many different types of systems, then, that 

23 need to be communicated. Some things that are only 
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1 available on microfiche or hard copy records.

2 And most of the sites, they have some 

3 very sophisticated records management systems in 

4 the way that they manage the data, but it may not 

5 talk to the data from the past, and so we have lots 

6 of places to go and look.

7 And going back to the first slide, we 

8 want to make sure that all available data, you know, 

9 can be found and made available. And so it may be 

10 difficult, but we remain committed to doing this 

11 and looking for ways, you know, like SERT and other 

12 things that we can be more productive in getting 

13 this done.

14 The large-scale research projects, 

15 they are driven by DOL and NIOSH. They're not 

16 dictated by DOE. Certainly, we share our 

17 information and knowledge and experience and make 

18 some suggestions, but we are being responsive to 

19 the needs of DOL and NIOSH in these large-scale 

20 research projects.

21 And, of course, we accommodate all 

22 requests. Certainly, sometimes we have competing 

23 things, maybe some priorities associated with it, 
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1 but we are working to deliver this information.

2 Large-scale research projects. Many 

3 of the major ones are mentioned here: Pinellas, 

4 Kansas City, Hanford. We talk about the Hanford 

5 Reservation here in sort of two different pieces. 

6 We mentioned Hanford as a research project. We 

7 also mentioned the laboratory as well, but these 

8 are all part of things that occurred on the 

9 reservation. And there is a lot of interaction 

10 from time-to-time with PNL providing the science 

11 and all the parts of Hanford providing cleanup 

12 mechanisms and so forth.

13 Savannah River, again, a lot of complex 

14 things going on there. We have several labs: 

15 Sandia, Los Alamos, Idaho, Livermore, and Oak Ridge 

16 National Lab. So, again, you'll see that our 

17 large-scale research projects cut across a large 

18 number of DOE facilities, a lot of different types 

19 of operations and activities.

20 Document reviews. DOE is committed to 

21 providing documents, again, to NIOSH, DOL, and the 

22 Advisory Board. Again, we have a balancing act in 

23 terms of the things that we are responsible for in 
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1 doing this in a secure manner, but also expediting 

2 and getting information out to the various 

3 organizations.

4 Some years ago, we developed a security 

5 plan that would provide sort of a framework on how 

6 we would do these various things. I think it's 

7 been successful over the years in terms of keeping 

8 us out of trouble, but also being able to deliver 

9 things at the earliest possible date.

10 We have a typical turnaround date of 

11 eight workdays. If you think back to when we got 

12 into this business some time ago, I think this major 

13 change has been fairly consistent. In terms of 

14 that, we always certainly look for opportunities, 

15 you know, to make it better, but we also recognize 

16 the need to tailor things, from time to time, 

17 tailoring them in our response to a specific 

18 situation. So when we need to expedite, we work 

19 with our organizations to make that happen.

20 We are fortunate -- I'm actually 

21 talking about the previous slide -- but we are 

22 fortunate in that many of the roles and 

23 responsibilities of other offices that need to 
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1 interface with us to make this happen are within 

2 our organization, so we are able to reach to them 

3 and set some priorities within our overall 

4 organization to get these reviews and so forth 

5 done.

6 Facility research. Our research and 

7 maintenance of the Covered Facility Database, we 

8 want to have the database that's up-to-date, that's 

9 accurate, that's current, that people can go to. 

10 We've listed the link for that database here and 

11 so it's available for people to use it.

12 Stu introduced what we were doing in 

13 terms of joint outreach. DOL, I think, mentioned 

14 that as well. It's something that we, the three 

15 organizations, value as an important interaction 

16 that we're working together, where we can, to go 

17 out to communities and make information available 

18 to them.

19 I want to mention another program that 

20 we have that's interrelated with the EEOICPA 

21 program. We think it's important, because when we 

22 think of workers coming to EEOICPA, you know, with 

23 claims, it could be current workers or it could be 
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1 former workers. So our commitment is actually to 

2 both of those organizations, current and former 

3 workers.

4 Former workers. We have a program that 

5 has been in place for some time, what we call Former 

6 Worker Medical Screening Program. DOE has some 

7 very unique hazards and operations that you may not 

8 encounter any place else, and so it may be 

9 difficult, if you're going to just your regular 

10 primary care physician, you know, for exams and 

11 updates of some frequency. So we offer, once you 

12 exit DOE, an opportunity for you to come through 

13 the medical screening program and have a nice 

14 interview and then have an exam that is tailored 

15 towards operations and hazards that you were 

16 associated with during your work experience at 

17 Department of Energy.

18 And based on what the feedback we get 

19 from these former workers, they are very pleased 

20 with that, they think it's working very well and 

21 I think it certainly addresses a gap between just 

22 a regular physician versus is there something that 

23 I should be looking at adverse health effects as 
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1 a result of my work experience?

2 We are able to offer that to all former 

3 workers from all DOE sites. Maybe a year or two 

4 ago, I think, we may have announced at this meeting 

5 that we had hit 100,000 screenings of former 

6 workers. And I know the question is, well, how 

7 many are you really trying to reach? 

8 We heard this morning about 600,000 as 

9 sort of a number for DOE workers. Certainly, that 

10 number is questionable. We believe it may be a 

11 little higher than that. But I think that's why 

12 the Joint Outreach Task Force reaching out to 

13 workers and other things we are doing to make them 

14 aware of the screening so that they can come back 

15 if they want to do that.

16 We publish an annual report. If you 

17 haven't seen that report, we have a website here 

18 with more information. We would suggest that you 

19 look at that. I think it has some very interesting 

20 insights, in particular the ones that come from the 

21 former workers themselves. Their testimony, 

22 their feeling about sort of the merits of the 

23 program and what it brings to them.
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1 I want to mention here, or at least put 

2 up on the slide here, Pinellas. We are certainly 

3 in the Florida area. It makes people especially 

4 aware of the things that are available here and the 

5 websites that are available for these former 

6 workers to reach out to and request an exam, if they 

7 so desire.

8 Again, so it's just a very quick 

9 overview. We haven't changed our process. We are 

10 looking for ways to certainly enhance it, to 

11 improve it. And sort of this is the way of just 

12 restating our commitment to this program and the 

13 importance of the program and sort of continuing 

14 to work with the various groups that are associated 

15 with it.

16 I'll be happy to address any questions, 

17 especially since I have my colleagues here with me 

18 to help out with any of them, if you have any.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions? Yes, 

20 David?

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thank you very 

22 much. One of the ways, historically, that DOE I 

23 think has helped decision making in this program, 
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1 and even helped kind of understand the scope and 

2 the nature of the issues, was through supporting 

3 research into the health of workers and 

4 understanding of the exposure conditions.

5 I've got a very specific question, 

6 which is does -- DOE used to have what was called 

7 an Access Handbook for conducting health research 

8 for studies at Department of Energy sites. Does 

9 that still exist and is that -- are those the rules 

10 under which you are operating?

11 DR. WORTHINGTON: In terms of the 

12 Access Handbook, we did update that handbook maybe 

13 about three years ago. And many of you here may 

14 know Marsha Lawn, who was involved with many of 

15 those programs, actually it was one of sort of the 

16 last things that Marsha did at DOE. She was very 

17 focused and committed to getting that handbook out.

18 So, yes, it is available, and we will 

19 make sure that, as a part of the record, we will 

20 make that available, the link, in terms of how to 

21 get to that. But, yes, it does drive how we do 

22 worker studies in the Department.

23 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So, in making 
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1 requests, we, the community of external 

2 researchers, can still refer to that document and 

3 the procedures within that last version of the 

4 document, or the ones which will be followed?

5 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yes. But also, at 

6 any time, if you have some specific request, or if 

7 it doesn't seem to be covered in the handbook, you 

8 know, feel free to contact me or people from my 

9 staff and we'll be happy to assist you.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. Thank you.

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yeah, just a quick 

12 question. Do you have any analytics on your 

13 websites? I mean, there's a lot of information out 

14 there and I'm just curious as to if you have 

15 measures of the number of the individuals that are 

16 going to the various sites or the specific web 

17 locations for information.

18 I would assume, for instance, when 

19 there are various town hall meetings or whatever, 

20 typically, at least at the state, we would see an 

21 increase of people visiting the website. I'm just 

22 curious have you had a sense of how well it's 

23 working for reaching people?
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1 DR. WORTHINGTON: There are numbers on 

2 how many hits we have on various topics on the 

3 website. I don't know if the data was collected 

4 in such a way that we could draw upon it to say that 

5 when we made these kinds of announcements, we got 

6 a big increase. But we probably could still look 

7 in it, look for something like that to give you some 

8 idea, because we know when we actually did that.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. 

10 DR. WORTHINGTON: But we'll try to 

11 provide you some additional information on that.

12 (Off-microphone comments.)

13 DR. WORTHINGTON: And thank you for 

14 your attention.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Alright. In the 

16 early days there were, like, lots and lots of people 

17 working there, I mean, bringing, I don't know, 

18 construction workers and other workers in from all 

19 across the country to some of these sites to get 

20 them ready and operational. 

21 DR. WORTHINGTON: We believe that the 

22 numbers are higher, but we haven't published 

23 anything that would say that. So we have to look 
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1 for a way to do that.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

3 DR. WORTHINGTON: Alright. Thank 

4 you.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: I have a question here, 

7 Dr. Melius.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, I'm sorry. Go 

9 ahead, Paul.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yeah. Dr. 

11 Worthington, I have a question on the Former Worker 

12 Medical Screening Program. It's a two-part 

13 question.

14 Number one, is the budget for that, is 

15 that budgeted through your group?

16 And number two, is there any limit in 

17 terms of the budget as to how many former workers 

18 you could actually handle?

19 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yes, it is budgeted 

20 through our organization. And I believe your 

21 second question, is there a limit to how many 

22 screenings from former workers we could do? The 

23 budget right now, there is probably not an 
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1 opportunity to increase the budget. We are under 

2 some tight budget constraints, but for the Former 

3 Worker Program, we have not, and we don't have a 

4 plan to, decrease the funding for that.

5 When we go out and do outreach or we do 

6 mailings and other kinds of things, our goal still 

7 is that if we have people that respond to us that 

8 they want to be screened, that we do it within a 

9 30-, no more than 60-day window from the time that 

10 they made the request.

11 I believe that we do not have a backlog 

12 that goes beyond that. Certainly, it's my goal 

13 that we do not have that. We want to respond 

14 quickly. And so, yeah, there are limits. Have we 

15 exceeded that, are we concerned about closing the 

16 door and not telling other people? No. 

17 So, for the moment, things are working 

18 okay for us in terms of the funding that we have, 

19 the screenings that we do, and the outreach that 

20 we are doing to get other people to come in for 

21 screening. So, so far so good. Does that answer

22 your question, sir?

23 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Thank you.
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1 DR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any other 

3 questions? Okay. Thank you.

4 We will now spend some time talking 

5 about our report to the Secretary on dose 

6 reconstruction reviews. And we will start with 

7 Dave. How we're going to do this, it's not a well8 oiled machine, but I think we can figure this out.

9 Dave will talk about the report itself 

10 and so forth. And then I'll do a presentation, 

11 because we need to add our conclusions and 

12 recommendations to it.

13 And I have sort of broadly outlined 

14 those, because I think we need to have some sort 

15 of general agreement on those before we actually 

16 write them out and, you know, do our usual, you 

17 know, five years of wordsmithing or whatever it 

18 will take to get it through, but hopefully not quite 

19 that long.

20 But it took us a long time the first 

21 time, I remember, a few meetings. But I think we 

22 can do it quicker this time. But it will certainly 

23 help if we can reach an agreement.
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1 And then I want to talk a little bit 

2 about some of the possible changes in the dose 

3 reconstruction review process, because those need 

4 to be at least, again, in a broad way, included in 

5 our letter to the Secretary. So we'll do that. 

6 But we'll do Dave. And someplace in there we'll 

7 take a break also.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. So you all 

9 have copies of the report. Basically I'm going to 

10 be going between two files: the text of the report 

11 and the graphs that were done by folks at SC&A which 

12 are very helpful.

13 So first let me talk about the 

14 background to this. As Chair of the Dose 

15 Reconstruction Subcommittee, I wrote a first draft 

16 of this. The Committee met and went over this in 

17 great detail. That is -- and to give credit to the 

18 members, Josie Beach, Brad Clawson, Wanda Munn, 

19 John Poston and myself went through, reviewed it, 

20 made many good changes.

21 I then changed that and then went back 

22 to the Subcommittee. So we've gone over it twice 

23 and wordsmithing and content smithing. And here 
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1 we are at the Board.

2 So perhaps something for the 

3 Subcommittee, Set 6 through 13 were Cases 101 to 

4 334. And if you'll remember, Subcommittee members 

5 will remember, I spent a lot of -- I talked about 

6 101 to 334.

7 But there were, within the group, two 

8 cases that were never reviewed because they are 

9 subject to rework under a PER, so a Program 

10 Evaluation Report.

11 So as a result, we had 232 dose 

12 reconstruction review cases. And I changed the 

13 construction in the titles of some of the graphs 

14 so that you all -- originally the way I wrote it 

15 was you'd see 101 to 334. But we only had 232 

16 cases, not 234 cases. I felt it was rather 

17 confusing.

18 And when the folks at SC&A suggested on 

19 the graphs some changes, I just went ahead and made 

20 that change in the title. And the graphs, as 

21 you'll see, have a slightly different title always, 

22 rather than just case numbers which I essentially 

23 eliminated, just 232 review cases within Sets 6 
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1 through 13.

2 Okay. Maybe the best way to go through 

3 it is simply to go page by page here. The first 

4 section, Part A, let's go on Page 1, Findings, Part 

5 A.

6 This is, if you will, a little piece of, 

7 a little intro paragraph that, obviously, I think 

8 will be changed as we finish up the report. If you 

9 will, it's a little, a holding introduction.

10 So let's go, unless there's something 

11 significant there, let's go to cases sent to NIOSH 

12 for reconstruction. Now, we had to have a date. 

13 We started this a while back, so in fact, we picked 

14 November 1st, 2015, the dates of our last meeting, 

15 excuse me, two meetings ago.

16 We had a total of 44,789 total case 

17 claims sent to NIOSH of which 95.4 percent had been 

18 returned to DOL with compensation recommendation.

19 Is there anything that folks would 

20 suggest within that little section? That's just 

21 some dates. We now, as we work on this, we may want 

22 to update those dates. But then we would have to 

23 change the graphs. And I'm rather hoping we can 
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1 stick with this. And we'll finish the report early 

2 enough that this will not feel like it's old 

3 numbers, like this is 5,000 when we're actually up 

4 to 20,000 or whatever.

5 So any thoughts about that or any 

6 suggestions for change in that little section?

7 (No response.)

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. You know, 

9 I'm going over section by section. Maybe I --

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Let me interrupt you--

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Maybe I got 

12 started too quickly. Hello?

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Can I interrupt 

14 you with a question?

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Pardon?

16 MEMBER MUNN: It's Paul.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Paul, yes. 

18 Surely.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: The wording that says 

20 that 95 percent of the cases had a compensation 

21 recommendation, I know what you mean, but it sounds 

22 like that they're actually recommending that they 

23 be compensated, that percentage of the cases.
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. And of 

2 course that's not true. So --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, that's right. 

4 That's why I'm asking about the wording.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Is there a 

6 better way to suggest -- that's why I said 

7 recommendation, but recommendation can be positive 

8 or negative. With a compensation decision 

9 perhaps?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, decision would be 

11 better. Because recommendations --

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That sounds good.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: But the decision means 

14 that it could go either way. That was a little bit 

15 --

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Compensation 

17 decision.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know how the 

19 others feel about it, but that was a question I had 

20 on that wording.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Others agree. I 

22 saw some, yes, some heads nodding.

23 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I'm not sure I 
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1 would agree. I mean, this is maybe quibbling. I 

2 don't think NIOSH returns it with a decision. 

3 NIOSH just returns it with a value, I think. So, 

4 I mean, I think you could just strike it and just 

5 say returned to DOL.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. What do 

7 other people think? Wanda?

8 MEMBER MUNN: No, no. It sounds like 

9 it's not enough.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: It's true. They don't 

11 recommend the compensation either way, do they?

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well actually, of 

13 course, we don't make a decision either. We 

14 recommend to DOL. DOL makes the decision. We're 

15 an advisory board to that.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I move that Ted 

17 correct that.

18 (Laughter.)

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: At this rate, we'll 

21 be here for another week or two.

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But why don't we, you 
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1 know, flag these issues, and then we can figure out 

2 -- And I would also add that I think that everyone 

3 needs to, either at this version or perhaps the next 

4 version, depending on what we decide here today, 

5 we'll talk about this later, is we can then ask 

6 people to submit written comments within a, you 

7 know, relatively --

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Good.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- reasonable but 

10 tight timeframe so that we can get comments in. 

11 But if we try to wordsmith it in a general meeting, 

12 we'll --

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. By the way, 

14 Jim, as we start, maybe should I have asked for 

15 rather broad overall comments by Board Members 

16 before we begin going through details?

17 My sense is I should have. And maybe 

18 I'll just ask. I'll stop for a moment and go back 

19 and just say, folks, overall what is your sense of 

20 the strengths, weaknesses, what needs yet to be 

21 done beyond what Jim had said earlier. Any 

22 comments, general?

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just will --
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, the comment is, 

2 if you want to hear it now, this is Ziemer again.

3 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes?

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Maybe Dr. Melius' 

5 introductory things are going to take care of this, 

6 but I realize -- and you quoted in your first 

7 paragraphs that our responsibility is to comment 

8 on scientific validity and quality in the dose 

9 process. So we have all these statistics, but I 

10 don't think that comment has yet been made on the 

11 main point that we're required to provide to the 

12 Secretary.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. And --

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: And, Jim, I assume that 

15 was what you were suggesting, but I hadn't seen it 

16 yet.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct. 

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.

20 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, this is the 

21 data and not the conclusions, or only some limited 

22 conclusions.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I have one 
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1 other general comment which --

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Please.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- I wasn't going to 

4 cover as much or get comments on, later on. But 

5 I think we also need an introduction to this that 

6 sort of explains a little bit more background of 

7 what we do and get away from the jargon we're so 

8 used to using to put some of this in a little better 

9 context so people can understand what we're talking 

10 about.

11 I think we had some that in our first 

12 one and in our letter. But I think we need to add 

13 it to this report. And again, I don't think it's 

14 difficult, but it's something we will need to do.

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. And as I 

16 said, I even, as I said initially, this is, like, 

17 this introduction is just like a holding text.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And I agree. 

20 Okay. Wanda?

21 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. I just wanted to 

22 say that I try to keep reminding us that, if my 

23 viewpoint in what this report should be is skewed, 
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1 as someone just pointed to me, from my perspective 

2 this needs to be the 30,000 foot view. 

3 And trying to make sure that we cover 

4 an adequate amount of information but not 

5 belaboring it to the point that it far exceeds a 

6 truly administrative executive review is, to me, 

7 the difficult point that we tried to identify.

8 So my personal request from the other 

9 members of the Board who haven't been involved in 

10 actually putting this together is to, please, I 

11 would appreciate it if they would identify it from 

12 the point of view is this adequate information, is 

13 this too much information? That defining line, 

14 those guidelines, I think, are most difficult for 

15 me personally.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Good. Thanks.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, I agree with 

18 you, Wanda. I would just add that, at this point, 

19 it's probably better that we have too much detail 

20 in there so that we make sure that everybody 

21 understands and agrees with what the results being 

22 presented are and understands that.

23 Then we can go back through and cull out 
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1 what needs to be culled out. Because I agree with 

2 you. I think it's, you know, we don't need the 

3 level of detail all the time.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But it's easier to 

6 cut than it is to add later on, I think.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Going on, 

8 the next section, types of dose reconstruction, 

9 Page 1 through Page 2, that's virtually lifted, of 

10 course, from our first Secretary's report back in 

11 2009. That's just -- so is there any comment about 

12 that or -- that's more or less just informational.

13 (No response.)

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: If not, let's go on 

15 to the dose reconstruction cases which starts to 

16 get a little more into the meat of it.

17 The DCAS reported a total of 31,534 

18 claims with completed dose reconstruction sent to 

19 the Department of Labor. And this is the list as 

20 of November 1st, 2015.

21 And as you'll see -- and it was 

22 interesting to me, certainly as a relatively new 

23 Board member, that of course the overestimates, the 
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1 largest number, the majority, were over 

2 overestimates which is to say pretty well it was 

3 determined that the claim was unlikely to result 

4 in compensation, and there was an overestimate 

5 made, overestimated dose assessed. And indeed, 

6 these were not compensated.

7 So are there any comments that folks 

8 want to make on this section?

9 (No response.)

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Again, okay. And 

11 we will have time later, as people look it over, 

12 as I've looked over this and have few suggestions 

13 today of things that I didn't pick up before, you 

14 will have a chance to give me written reports or 

15 written comments later as you pick up other things.

16 Dose reconstruction cases reviewed, 

17 basically of the 232 recently reviewed cases, 82 

18 percent were best estimates. And that was a 

19 dramatic change from -- did I say 82 percent? Wait 

20 a minute, 193, 82 percent.

21 There is a difference between the text 

22 and the table, folks. There's a round-off error 

23 there. One of those is incorrect, not rounded off 
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1 correctly, round-off error in best estimate. But, 

2 well, surprise.

3 However, basically in the Case Sets 6 

4 through 13, we really focused on the best estimate 

5 cases. Whereas in the early first 100 cases, we 

6 had only seven percent best estimates.

7 And I discuss in here and we discuss in 

8 here why the best estimate, why doing reviews, dose 

9 reconstruction reviews on best estimate cases are, 

10 of course, the best way of assessing how well we're 

11 doing in terms of accuracy and reliability of our 

12 estimates, consistency of our estimates, I should 

13 say.

14 Are there any comments on that section, 

15 any of the --

16 (No response.)

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I made note of the 

18 fact -- I want to make sure that the Secretary 

19 understood that there is a lot of work behind these 

20 dose reconstruction reviews by the different 

21 site-specific Board Work Groups and that, with the 

22 limited number of members that we have on the Board 

23 now, which is what, 22, 18, something. I didn't 
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1 count the number of Board members.

2 But we have 37 work groups for about 

3 half as many members. And of course we have the 

4 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee, and we also have 

5 the Procedures Review Subcommittee. So all of 

6 that work is done.

7 Any comments on that?

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I have one brief 

9 comment. This is David Richardson.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, David.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: The last part of 

12 the text, as I'm looking at it, describes a few 

13 reasons why there's been less reliance on 

14 overestimates and underestimates and a focus on --

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- this next set on 

17 best estimates. And there are some technical 

18 reasons that are given, and sort of 

19 administratively. It think it might be worth 

20 noting that it was a conscious policy decision to 

21 move away from, to move towards best estimates 

22 where possible.

23 And I think part of that came out of the, 
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1 whatever it was, the ten-year review of the 

2 program, that it was easier to communicate to 

3 claimants, if my recollection is correct, when 

4 doing best estimates, and some of that had to do 

5 with people who had subsequent re-estimates and 

6 their doses went down.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's fine. I 

8 thought I was communicating that. But I certainly 

9 agree that if it's not emphasized enough that this 

10 was a conscious policy decision, do you remember 

11 or do folks remember about when we -- was this at 

12 the time of the first Secretary's report that we 

13 decided --

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It was after the 

15 first Secretary's. It was around the time of the 

16 ten-year review so --

17 MEMBER MUNN: It was. But also the 

18 more pressing reason for that change was very 

19 clearly the fact that you stopped having the 

20 enormous influx of continually high numbers of 

21 claims for which people were eager to have a 

22 decision.

23 And once you have an established 
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1 program of this sort where -- and the bow wave of 

2 claims begins to diminish and you get -- then it's 

3 an entirely different administrative activity to 

4 try to get the decisions to the people as quickly 

5 as possible.

6 There was enormous pressure to get 

7 decisions out. And there were no, these were not 

8 shortcuts, they were just legitimate scientific 

9 reviews, quick reviews, of what was likely to come 

10 out. And so, yes, so --

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, again, when 

12 I think about it, that seems to me something we 

13 should just flag.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: But essentially, 

16 let's sharpen the emphasis here because I thought 

17 we were trying to describe that. Let's sharpen it 

18 a little bit. And I have that noted. And of 

19 course it's noted in the transcript.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I have another --

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- somewhat related 

23 question. What I found to be missing in this 
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1 report was a statement or a description up front 

2 of how cases were selected for --

3 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: This is like viewing 

5 it as you have this universe of cases, and you're 

6 working backwards: how many from each site? And 

7 there was much more, but it sort of implies that 

8 there's sort of the random selection or maybe one 

9 or two strata or something. And it's not, it was 

10 a very directed selection of cases.

11 And it was based on, I mean, so I think, 

12 good criteria and appropriate criteria, but you 

13 never really described them. And I think --

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's true.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- we may know them 

16 internally, because we, you know, they're in our 

17 Board transcripts. The Board was usually involved 

18 in reviewing, if not certainly the Subcommittee 

19 was.

20 And I think that would be more helpful 

21 as a paragraph or two up front explaining that.

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Because that's what 
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1 I'd want to know, you know, if I were, you know, 

2 someone totally unfamiliar with the program and 

3 looking at these results. Well, random selection, 

4 where do these come from?

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And it ties into some 

7 of Wanda's comments. There was also other 

8 decisions made about trying to catch up with 

9 certain sites and types of cases and so forth.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. So you're 

11 right about that.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And I agree with 

14 you that that should be in there. So let's try, 

15 add something, add a discussion of that in this dose 

16 reconstruction cases reviewed. And first, how did 

17 we decide on the cases, and then what were the 

18 results in Table 2.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I would just say, 

20 for the time span that's involved here, that I'm 

21 not sure anybody remembers off the top of their 

22 head, maybe people on the Committee, Subcommittee 

23 do, but you may have to go back through some of the 
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1 earlier transcripts or get SC&A to do that to sort 

2 of, you know, get a listing and so forth. Because 

3 it did change over time.

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And usually, when we 

6 selected cases, it was mix of different sort of 

7 criteria or focus of what we're to sample within 

8 the available cases.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, it's very 

10 nice to have Mark Griffon around --

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- who was 

13 original chair of the Subcommittee. He might 

14 remember that.

15 MEMBER MUNN: I'm sure the original 

16 Chair remembers all of that clearly.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Okay. 

18 Good, very good. And that will be done. And I 

19 will -- findings among the reviewed cases, now here 

20 I found, pardon me, just one second. On Page 4, 

21 here I see something that I think is a mistake 

22 operationally.

23 If we are not going to consider the two 
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1 cases that were ready to be reworked, then we 

2 shouldn't include their findings. And you'll 

3 notice that, at the end of the first paragraph, it 

4 said the four findings from the two cases not 

5 completed were assigned their original finding 

6 rating.

7 They're not in among the 232 cases we're 

8 considering. Therefore, we should not have 

9 included them. I think that's operationally a 

10 mistake and that we should then have not 626 

11 findings, but 622.

12 And if folks agree with me, then we'll 

13 have to make a couple of small changes. It may 

14 affect the distribution down below in a very 

15 limited way, on Page 5. And it will also result 

16 in a slightly different ratio of findings per case 

17 reviewed. It's not 2.7 on the next page, but 

18 something close but not the same.

19 So would folks agree that that's just 

20 -- I think we made a mistake. We just shouldn't 

21 have added those findings. I didn't notice it 

22 myself until I was reading it over for this meeting.

23 Yes. Ted, do you want to say 
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1 something?

2 MR. KATZ: No. I think everyone was 

3 concurring, nodding heads. It doesn't end up on 

4 the transcript. So I was just going to say that. 

5 But also, I wanted to note for the record that we've 

6 been joined by Dr. Lockey during this session.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Very good.

8 MR. KATZ: And also note he has no 

9 conflicts for any of the sessions this meeting.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Fine. So 

11 I will ask our SC&A consultants to remove those and 

12 then give me the distributions that follow from 

13 that, the numbers that follow from that in the next 

14 section.

15 Any comments on that section beyond the 

16 one I just said or in the next section on the 

17 findings, in particular the one that the 

18 Subcommittee worked over was on Page 5?

19 As might be expected, there were 2.70 

20 findings per case, 32 percent less than the 3.98 

21 reported in 2009. However, the distribution of 

22 impacts in this report is quite similar to those 

23 from 2009.
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1 While this result might first appear 

2 anomalous, with the Subcommittee, we said it may 

3 reflect the fact that dominant over- and 

4 under-estimations from the first report were broad 

5 assessments not likely to present major errors. 

6 Whereas in this report, dominated by best 

7 estimates, the chances for errors are far greater. 

8 Improved assessment procedures and protocols and 

9 the percentage of high-impact findings has been 

10 kept low. That is, the two effects counteracted 

11 each other.

12 I mean, that's not a hard argument, 

13 right? It may be that -- and I wondered if people 

14 had feelings either of sharpening it, or making a 

15 slightly different argument or even -- it just was 

16 unexpected that we should have the same 

17 distribution impacts, but there it is.

18 And it may not even be worth a lot of 

19 comment. But did anybody have trouble with that, 

20 particularly any folks outside the Subcommittee or 

21 those in the Subcommittee having second thoughts? 

22 Anybody?

23 MEMBER RICHARDSON: This is David 
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1 Richardson. I'm on the Subcommittee, but if 

2 there's -- and so the fact that I'm on the 

3 Subcommittee means that I'll take some apology 

4 ahead of time for this statement.

5 But in reading through this again, I 

6 feel like there's, I mean, this has been an ongoing 

7 concern. We evaluate these samples for several

8 reasons and from several perspectives. And one of 

9 them is reflected here in the language of what we 

10 call impact.

11 And at the start, we described this as 

12 low-impact on a funding decision. And so that 

13 might be one sort of scale that we could put these 

14 findings. How much do they shift under the 

15 quantitative score?

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And we say low 

18 impact means there's little impact on the score. 

19 But the classification gets muddled as we move 

20 through. We have one dimension which is impact on 

21 a compensation decision. The intermediate 

22 category is impact on a procedure.

23 So that becomes, it's not like a 
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1 quantitative thing, but it's a finding. We've 

2 reviewed the case, and we have a finding which is 

3 broader. It means that there's something 

4 anomalous or a disagreement of a procedure. Often 

5 it's lack of clarity in guidance to the dose 

6 reconstructors.

7 That may or may not be impactful in a 

8 quantitative sense on the case's score, certainly, 

9 but it may have broad implications. And then high 

10 impact is explicitly stated as either/or of these 

11 two dimensions. It could have a high impact on the 

12 Probability of Causation decision for that 

13 claimant, or it could, I think we say, it could 

14 prompt a major change in procedures that would 

15 affect many cases.

16 And it's almost as though we want to --

17 there are two different perspectives on why we're 

18 doing this review. One of them is like case 

19 findings when you investigate a case, and you're 

20 trying to kind of describe something that may be 

21 more generalized. And the other one is a sort of 

22 population perspective. It's a statistical, how 

23 we shifted the distribution.
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1 We could make that much clearer if we 

2 would say low impact is a, you know, a change of, 

3 you know, I would say less than two percent or, I 

4 don't know.

5 Anyway, as an observation, I found that 

6 the reasons we're doing this could be clarified a 

7 little bit more to talk about procedural findings 

8 and individual case findings. And we might want 

9 to think about, at least in the future, kind of 

10 breaking out this classification in a different 

11 way.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Well, well 

13 taken. I mean, other folks want to comment on 

14 David's comments?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't have a, I 

16 don't know exactly how to address it in the report. 

17 I think certainly going forward we can. I think 

18 it's always the tension we've had in doing the 

19 various kinds of reviews that we do do by this 

20 Board.

21 We obviously do much more than just, you 

22 know, individual case dose reconstruction reviews. 

23 And what we do in those reviews, the procedures to 
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1 make the Site Profiles, the SEC, have a big impact 

2 on individual cases also. So it goes in two 

3 directions in that. And how we pull that together 

4 and explain that is not easy. It changes over 

5 time.

6 I do have -- one of the conclusions I'm 

7 going to suggest is, you know, talking about that, 

8 at least bringing that up, that that's one of the 

9 things that we do do. But it's hard to capture. 

10 And I'm not always sure at the time that we do the 

11 dose reconstruction review we understand the full 

12 impact outside, also.

13 But it's only something to consider for 

14 more specification in terms of our dose 

15 reconstruction reviews, I think, as a 

16 recommendation going forward, how we classify, 

17 without getting into your 28 different 

18 letter/number combinations or whatever, to do 

19 that.

20 Because they are different. And I 

21 think it can be confusing. And I think it also 

22 affects how we would target our dose reconstruction 

23 reviews. And certainly if we want to streamline 
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1 the review process, I think it's important to make 

2 sure we don't overlook what may seem to be a low 

3 impact or a lower impact, a finding that may have 

4 bigger implications in other cases.

5 You know, it may be an issue with a 

6 procedure that only affects a small impact on an 

7 individual case, but for many other people, you 

8 know, longer work periods or whatever, could have 

9 a very significant impact on their findings. And 

10 we don't want to overlook that.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: One other 

12 observation which, it's something that has been an 

13 ongoing kind of concern of mine is about the 

14 language of saying, language of low impact.

15 What falls into that pool right now of 

16 low impact are many things that we call quality 

17 assurance issues. And I am happy to see, I think, 

18 that some of the, over time the nature of some of 

19 those quality assurance issues has changed. And 

20 some things have been resolved.

21 I'm sort of surprised, in fact, that 

22 this distribution of low-impact findings is 

23 similar in 2009 and --
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- report, to the 

3 other report, to the recent report. But at some 

4 point, I mean, those are -- we might want to think 

5 about flavors of those, of quality assurance 

6 findings, at least, again, looking forward.

7 You know, to me the fact that there's, 

8 I mean, there's several things. There's kind of 

9 transcription issues, there's missing information 

10 that, you know, was found upon re-review.

11 You know, we're doing a very small 

12 sample, and yet we're finding observations of those 

13 and not inconsequential numbers of those. But the 

14 impact, it's different than a procedural problem, 

15 I think.

16 And it's something which different 

17 steps can be taken to remedy than a change in 

18 procedure, a scientific procedure. It's a QA 

19 procedure that needs to be implemented. And I 

20 think those could be highlighted.

21 And the language of low impact, because 

22 in the cases we have reviewed, they have small 

23 percentage impacts on changes, I don't think it 
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1 means that they should be dismissed. I think we 

2 can work towards quality improvement. And I think 

3 all organizations try and do that.

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. I'm not sure 

5 how we move ahead on this. I look to the Chair for 

6 guidance whether that's the Methods Subcommittee 

7 or -- because these are important or rather -- Let's 

8 go on and I will --

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me make one 

10 comment. This is Ziemer. I'm not sure how much 

11 of that detail we need to put into the report to 

12 the Secretary. I think internally we need to 

13 clarify that and make it very simple in the report 

14 itself.

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Okay. Yes?

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, kind of 

17 following up a bit, you know, it would seem we kind 

18 of have two issues. One, our sampling scheme 

19 really isn't representative of the overall group. 

20 But we're really making comments here on impact on 

21 the individual cases that we've reviewed versus 

22 impact this could have on, you know, the broader 

23 total population.
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1 I mean, one thing we could think, maybe 

2 in the next time to look at, would be the percent 

3 change to impact if the assessment of score is 

4 relatively low, then a, you know, a low-impact 

5 change of three or four or five percent change in 

6 the estimate doesn't really impact the pay 

7 decision.

8 But when we focused on those who are 

9 right on the cusp between pay and don't pay, we may 

10 want to look at whether these low-impact things 

11 were on that group versus the broader group that 

12 we use which would be the overestimate group. It's 

13 quite different than this group.

14 So I don't know how we do that, but you 

15 could look at where the impact would have the 

16 greatest likelihood of becoming a significant 

17 change as opposed to using a fixed percentage to 

18 say, well, it's only --

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: It doesn't matter as 

21 much when it's at the lower end versus or well in 

22 the compensation range to reduce it a little bit 

23 as long as it stays there. So we're kind of in a 
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1 dichotomous assessment here of pay/no pay. And it 

2 would seem, the way we're approaching it here 

3 doesn't necessarily --

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Reflect.

5 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- reflect pay/no 

6 pay impact.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. That's an 

8 interesting consideration. Okay, so noted. 

9 Shall we continue? And by the way, I didn't check 

10 my -- let me see what time it is. Okay, whether 

11 I should, okay, I think we're okay on time in terms 

12 of what we have.

13 Further discussion, we talked about the 

14 type of deficiency: A, B, C, D, lettered 

15 deficiencies. Those were interesting. We don't 

16 have much to say about them other than what findings 

17 we found.

18 Shall we go on to Page, the bottom of 

19 Page 6, observations? Again, I think that was just 

20 simply informational. I don't think we had 

21 anything of great substance to say other than that 

22 none of the observations resulted in a change of 

23 PoC. Because if they didn't result in a change of 
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1 PoC, they would have been a finding. And we would 

2 have gone over them.

3 So that's -- so let's go, if we will, 

4 to the bottom of Page 6, number of dose 

5 reconstruction cases reviewed. Here I'm very 

6 happy to say, and I had talked to the Board once 

7 before in the preliminary discussion of this report 

8 that we had only reviewed 0.86 percent of the cases 

9 that the Board had considered.

10 And in fact, there was an error. And 

11 I was not using the correct denominator, and folks 

12 in NIOSH and DCAS pointed it out to me. Grady, I 

13 believe, you know, said wait a minute. You're not 

14 using the number of cases in which we did a dose 

15 reconstruction which was 31,534 claims filed which 

16 required dose reconstruction.

17 Then, 332 cases reviewed out of those 

18 is indeed over one percent. It's 1.05 percent. 

19 And so I'm happy to say we hit our goal. And I put 

20 a little note to the Board in red in this report 

21 just to say this is very good. We certainly want 

22 to hit that one percent.

23 We originally, as you'll recall, we 
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1 talked about 2.5 percent back in the days when the 

2 first 100 cases for review, when we were doing a 

3 lot of the over- and under-estimates.

4 And now we're, of course, doing a 

5 smaller number but doing them in cases where we 

6 think we have a much better handle on errors or a 

7 much better handle on the impact of errors in dose 

8 reconstruction.

9 And so we're going to just take that 

10 little thing in red out. But suffice it to say we 

11 have hit our one-percent goal. And I'm happy, and 

12 I hope other Board members are happy with that 

13 finding. That is what it is. And it's a measure 

14 of success on our part, on the whole Board's part.

15 Unless there's comment, I go on to Page 

16 7, distribution of dose reconstruction sites 

17 across employment sites. And that's an important 

18 one. And here we should go to Figure 2. If folks 

19 would like to just go back to the figures that we 

20 have.

21 And the second figure, I'm just pulling 

22 it up on my screen, which I like very much, I hope 

23 others do too, where folks from SC&A basically gave 
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1 us the number of cases reviewed in the first 100 

2 cases, the number reviewed from each site, by the 

3 way, for the next 232 cases, and then what one 

4 percent of the total claims would be.

5 And so if you're looking at Table 2, 

6 there are quite a few cases where the blue bar, the 

7 goal, the one-percent goal, is higher than the sum 

8 of the other two. So just take a look on this 

9 graph. And when you see the blue bar, being the 

10 higher bar, then you know we didn't reach one 

11 percent.

12 And it was noted in the report that 

13 there were six of these plants were, six of these 

14 cases were very large plants. Y-12, Paducah, 

15 Gaseous Diffusion Plant -- oh, I took cases where 

16 there were 15 or more. I just said a large facility 

17 is one with 15 or more cases needed for a 

18 one-percent review. That is, more than 1500 

19 claims.

20 So we had Y-12, Paducah, Oak Ridge 

21 National Lab, Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion, Nevada 

22 Test Site and Hanford, barely. And I also noted, 

23 we noted in the report that for the small plants 
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1 which didn't make it onto the list of sites, because 

2 were so many small ones, that for the bottom line 

3 we have far more, we were far above one percent, 

4 our one-percent goal, for the small plants that had 

5 too few people to even make it onto the table.

6 And that's very good, because there had 

7 been worry. And I must say, I certainly have seen 

8 comments by different persons, whether Board 

9 members or claimants or claimant representatives, 

10 that maybe we were neglecting the small plants in 

11 our reviews.

12 And this seems to me to say, for the very 

13 small plants at least, we've been doing a good job. 

14 And we have been covering them and not having them 

15 disappear because there were only two or three 

16 claims from that site.

17 I think, pretty much, if there were less 

18 than if I believe, looking at the table, if there 

19 were less than three claims for a site, it did not 

20 make it onto Figure 2, right, or less than three, 

21 less than, therefore, 30 claims. Pardon me.

22 Okay. Let's go back. Comments on 

23 this, or on the results, or -- I felt it spoke well 
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1 for our Subcommittee.

2 PARTICIPANT: My name is Marie --

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. But I'm 

4 sorry, it's not time for public comment.

5 PARTICIPANT: Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You're welcome to 

7 listen. There will be a public comment period 

8 later in the day. It's on the agenda, the timing. 

9 Thank you.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dave, I actually --

12 my concern about this is that somehow, you know, 

13 that it's implying that we fail if we don't get one 

14 percent at a particular site. I mean, if we overdo 

15 some sites, since we're barely making one percent, 

16 do that. And I think we sort of need to, it goes 

17 back to what we talked about earlier, explain what 

18 our selection process was.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So I think the 

21 selection process must really be at one percent 

22 overall --

23 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- if I remember 

2 correctly. And, you know, provide coverage at all 

3 sites but not necessarily provide one-percent 

4 coverage at all sites.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Well --

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And you're sort of 

7 implying, the way you presented this, that --

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's true. 

9 That's true. We wouldn't want to be egregiously 

10 below one percent on sites. But I would agree 

11 that, of course statistically, if we weren't on an 

12 average of one percent then we're not going to have 

13 one percent on every site. There's a 

14 distribution. So I accept the burden of your 

15 comments, okay.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. And we'll 

18 try to, let's try to flag the language a little bit.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have another 

20 comment from the epidemiological wing of the Board 

21 here.

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Please, 

23 go ahead. Right.
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Another way, I'll go 

2 back to, what is it here, Table 3 where you have 

3 40 percent of the findings are the correct model, 

4 or there was a disagreement in the use of models. 

5 And then the next one are external or internal.

6 So that's a fairly high proportion of 

7 those. One could look at, in your one percent, are 

8 those clustered at a specific site so that if one 

9 of the larger sites there was a disagreement in the 

10 choice of the model, is that disagreement 

11 site-specific or is it, you know, by who was doing 

12 the dose reconstruction? Or why was there a 

13 disagreement on the choice, is kind of one of the 

14 questions to me.

15 It sort of implies that that's an area 

16 where we have disagreement. And that would be 

17 something one could work on as to why that's 

18 occurring. And if it's those 40 percent, you know, 

19 if a disagreement is the same for multiple cases 

20 at the same facility, that's one issue versus it's 

21 variable. See what I'm saying, that --

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm not quite sure 

23 I do, actually. If you would clarify.
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, it is a system. 

2 What I'm really saying, is it systematic to the 

3 exposure circumstances so that the reviewers have 

4 had instruction, this is the model you should use, 

5 and this is a Y-12 issue and our folks, when they 

6 review it, look at, well, we don't agree 

7 systematically with that.

8 It would seem to me the same external 

9 model would be likely to be used, yes or no, 

10 consistent with the facility.

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: If the dose 

12 reconstructors were not happy with one plan or one 

13 set of -- I'm not quite sure.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: It's really our 

15 evaluation dose reconstructors are disagreeing 

16 with, I would assume that's what it is --

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- saying, you know, 

19 the model was either inappropriately applied or was 

20 the wrong model to use.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. I'm not 

22 quite sure. How would we know it in the 

23 Subcommittee?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You know it --

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Pardon?

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You know it from the 

4 dose reconstruction. It's a fairly common 

5 finding, I think.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, it is. I mean, 

7 that's why I say it's 40 percent of the findings 

8 are related to the choice of the model. And to me 

9 that, I mean, that then makes it why is that 

10 occurring?

11 And is it just because our dose 

12 reconstructors looking at it are of a different 

13 opinion? And it's consistently used, I mean, the 

14 disagreement is consistent. Or is it differences 

15 in individual dose reconstructors?

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

17 MR. KATZ: Can I just say something?

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: What happens in the Dose 

20 Reconstruction Subcommittee though is, as we get 

21 to these findings, just as you're speaking to, 

22 there's then this dialogue in resolving it between 

23 the DCAS folks, the NIOSH folks in other words, and 
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1 the our contractors as to, is this a systematic 

2 problem? Is this a problem with our procedures and 

3 it's being applied, can be applied elsewhere? Or 

4 is this a one-off in this case?

5 There's always that discussion. And 

6 where there's concern about a systematic issue 

7 that, you know, the NIOSH folks follow that up and 

8 resolve that.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: That's a positive --

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- action based on 

12 the review. And I'm not sure that's reflected 

13 here. I mean, we're just, this is very much 

14 descriptive --

15 MR. KATZ: Yes.

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- rather than 

17 getting into. So what was done or how did it 

18 improve the system, I think it's a positive thing. 

19 But I'm just worried that this looks like, you know, 

20 we've identified arbitrary differences here when 

21 in fact they are really all resolved.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes. So we don't really 

23 have analytics to speak of or statistics on those 
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1 resolutions and how that worked out. I mean,

2 there's the record in the transcript, but that's 

3 it.

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

5 MEMBER ANDERSON: Sorry.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's okay.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no. It's a good 

8 point. And I think it's just also some of this gets 

9 lost in the fact that there's a lag in terms of the 

10 time we select the cases and what has gone on.

11 So we may have an SEC, a Site Profile, 

12 NIOSH may be changing the procedure. I mean, so 

13 it's always some other dynamic going on. So it's 

14 hard to sort it out in terms of a statistic. But 

15 again, I think it points to how all this is linked, 

16 you know, with all the other parts of our review 

17 activities.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And it's a good one 

20 to point out, I agree.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And then the 

22 remaining couple of pages are really going over the 

23 graphs, the remaining graphs in the table.
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1 I myself, in the text, rereading it on 

2 Page 8, distribution and probabilities among cases 

3 reviewed on the Figure 3, cases with PoCs between 

4 45 and 52 percent have been targeted for selection 

5 since slight errors may have potential to change 

6 the compensation decision.

7 And I would like to delete the next 

8 phrase from non-compensated to compensated or to 

9 say from non-compensated to compensated or vice 

10 versa.

11 But from our point of view, whether it's 

12 the non-compensated to compensated or compensated 

13 to non-compensated is of no importance to us. What 

14 we're trying to do is make sure that we're not 

15 making errors, that these are proper decisions.

16 And that's why we're going to be doing 

17 things like blinds, et cetera. So it just suggests 

18 that from non-compensated to -- meaning a real 

19 error is that we're not compensating somebody when 

20 they should have been compensated, as if this is 

21 pointing out that error rather than another one.

22 So I would like to just delete that 

23 phrase because it's the accuracy of our estimates 
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1 that we're really concerned about and making sure 

2 that they are -- we've done a good job, if that's 

3 okay.

4 And I think just, we can go over the 

5 graph, but you've seen the graph. I think there's 

6 not a lot to say. And I'd like to maybe go on to 

7 the blind reviews which is a most important topic 

8 for the Subcommittee and for the Board, and a very 

9 important one, an important change that we've made 

10 over the years.

11 And as you'll -- if folks would take a 

12 look at the Table 4 in the text, Page 9 and 10, and 

13 as you'll see, we have 14 cases that have gone over. 

14 And 13 were in agreement with respect -- which is 

15 very good. That is to say the NIOSH and the SC&A 

16 folks agree on the compensation decision in 13 out 

17 of the 14 cases. And there was one, that's the 

18 Allied Chemical, that's under review at this point.

19 And I noted at the bottom of the table 

20 that, in fact, our SC&A colleagues have finished 

21 the next set of six blinds from Set 22. And since 

22 we don't have that many, I would love to have our 

23 Subcommittee review them and then hopefully 
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1 include them.

2 We have a meeting at the end of April 

3 for the Subcommittee, even though that would 

4 obviously get out of Set 6 through 13, because this 

5 represents a later set.

6 But the data -- this would mean that we 

7 would have agreement. I mean, it happens that six 

8 blinds have not been reviewed. But they appear to 

9 be in quite good agreement, again, before review 

10 by the Subcommittee. And if that continues, it 

11 would mean that we would have 20 cases of which 19 

12 were in agreement. And the Allied Chemical, we are 

13 working on.

14 So those are very hopeful results. And 

15 I have to say for me it's quite satisfying that the 

16 number, the cases, the blinds that we've looked at 

17 that had 51 or 52 percent and were compensated. 

18 Both parties agreed; the PoC levels are in very 

19 close agreement.

20 And of course that is -- and for those 

21 numbers that were, as in Case 14, like in that one 

22 in Y-12 where 49.48 percent, which is so close, that 

23 when it was looked at independently by SC&A it was 
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1 49.46 percent. I mean, at least that speaks to, 

2 as I understand it, not accuracy but precision of 

3 the assessment of exposure.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Or somebody peeked 

5 ahead and --

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Pardon?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Somebody cooked the 

8 books on that one.

9 (Laughter.)

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm sure not. 

11 Anyhow, and we will of course change the absolute 

12 value of the difference between the PoCs for SC&A. 

13 And NIOSH/ORAU will recalculate that. It may not 

14 be 1.8 percent, but it is what it is.

15 Distribution of dose reconstruction 

16 reviews by years of employment, and no, I did not 

17 personally find any great wisdom in that other than 

18 we're having a few more cases now from the 50s and 

19 60s.

20 But that reflects the fact that our 

21 report is being done in 2016, and the other one was 

22 done in 2009. And there are more people who have 

23 a chance to have worked and retired and filed claims 
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1 at the end, perhaps at the end of their working 

2 careers for those folks who got cancer and are 

3 living with cancer.

4 So are there any other comments? And 

5 we're coming pretty close to the end of the time 

6 that I have. Any more comments?

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I 

8 have one comment --

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- on the blinds. I'm 

11 a little concerned about the possibility of putting 

12 those in that are outside this group of 6 to 13. 

13 Aren't you going to want those blinds in your next 

14 report? I mean, just because the results are good, 

15 why should we stick them in here?

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It's --

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's just a comment. 

18 You can ponder that. And then I have another 

19 comment after that if someone wants to discuss 

20 that.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, just in 

22 that, I mean, that's absolutely true. I mean, and 

23 I recognize that we're not in Sets 6 through 13.
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1 On the other hand, our data is skimpy 

2 enough on blinds, because we did not start doing 

3 these blind assessments at the frequency we're 

4 doing them now until recent years. So I'm trying 

5 to compensate for limited data. But yes, they 

6 won't be new in the next report.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Paul, this is 

8 Jim. I agree with you. I think we need to sort 

9 of stick with what we said we were originally going 

10 to do. And I'm a little concerned we hold up this 

11 report, you know, pending another update and 

12 whatever. We can go on updating for quite some 

13 time.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Well, 

15 that's again, that's fine.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: I have one other broad 

17 comment and --

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- just to repeat, you 

20 can ponder it. But we have a lot of dose 

21 reconstructions where we decide we can't 

22 reconstruct. It's kind of the opposite side of our 

23 charge to tell the Secretary that the dose 
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1 reconstructions are scientifically sound.

2 And we have a lot of cases which end up 

3 as SECs where the Board has decided they're unable 

4 to make a scientifically sound evaluation of the 

5 dose.

6 And I'm wondering if, and we didn't 

7 really have this much in the first reports since 

8 there weren't many SEC issues coming up. But now 

9 it's a pretty big thing. And I'm wondering if we 

10 shouldn't have a brief section at least that tells 

11 the Secretary how we decide that we cannot 

12 reconstruct dose in a scientifically appropriate 

13 manner and therefore decide to move to an SEC.

14 So that's what I was thinking about in 

15 terms of meeting our charge that, on scientific 

16 validity, that we do have many cases where we decide 

17 that we cannot reconstruct a dose in a 

18 scientifically valid manner and therefore -- and 

19 to say how we make that decision.

20 But that was kind of a general thought, 

21 wondering if we should speak to that. Maybe others 

22 will have an opinion.

23 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, yes. I 
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1 mean, for me, in drafting the first part of the 

2 report, literally I'm not, I think, qualified to 

3 comment on the SECs other than, and the process, 

4 having not been involved so much.

5 But that data certainly needs to be in 

6 the report, I think.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Paul, this is 

8 Jim again, and Board. That actually, as you'll see 

9 after the break, is one of the conclusions I'm 

10 suggesting, is that we bring some of that 

11 information into our report, again, both for 

12 context and to explain what we're doing.

13 And I've actually just got some data 

14 from NIOSH on some of that information on sort of 

15 Board activities and so forth. They sent it to me 

16 in the last couple of days. So I haven't gone over 

17 it in detail, and we haven't shared it with anybody. 

18 But I think it'll be helpful in that regard to try 

19 to capture that type of, that conclusion.

20 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Good, good. 

21 Okay. I'm finished.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any more questions 

23 for Dave? Oh, I'm sorry. Jim?
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Jim.

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: David, going back to 

3 your previous comment.

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: And the Board can 

6 correct me if I'm wrong, but Henry and I were sort 

7 of talking on the sideline. When we started to 

8 pick cases, we actually did pick cases who were 

9 approaching PoC but didn't reach it.

10 And there was, I think, an emphasis to 

11 make sure that we were not having false negatives, 

12 especially on the borderline cases.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

14 MEMBER LOCKEY: I don't think we ever 

15 approached it to see if there's an equal 

16 distribution of errors running both ways.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Sure.

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: So I think your 

19 original interpretation of the report was correct. 

20 It was going from negative to positive. That's the 

21 cases that we were looking at.

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right, except when 

23 we go -- we did make sure that we picked some. We 
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1 went from 45 to 52. So we have the 52 cases that 

2 can flip backward and should not have been 

3 compensated. In fact, there was one --

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: In the beginning, 

5 Jim, we really were worried about somebody --

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, yes.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim Lockey is 

8 correct. We had done selected, initially 

9 focusing on, I forget, it was the 45 to 49 or 

10 something.

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Something in that 

13 range. And then we then adjusted that. I'm not 

14 sure exactly when to start to include cases that 

15 were up around from 52, 53 or, you know, down to 

16 below 50, so that we got a broader distribution 

17 there. I'm not so sure on what we did on the, the 

18 Subcommittee did on the blind reviews. But those 

19 were under 50 but --

20 MR. KATZ: No. The blind also go from 

21 --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

23 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: And we've been doing this 

2 for at least a decade, I would say.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Some of us have been 

4 doing it for longer than a decade.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Okay.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Many of us have been 

7 doing it for longer than a decade.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any more questions 

10 for -- some of us have been doing it for 110 

11 meetings, right. Okay.

12 Thank you very much, Dave. That's 

13 our, yes, roast the presenter thing. Why don't we 

14 take a break. And we're scheduled to restart at 

15 11:15, so everyone can be back then. Thank you.

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

17 went off the record at 10:54 a.m. and resumed at 

18 11:17 a.m.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So what I'm going to 

20 do is briefly and in broad strokes go through sort 

21 of what conclusions and recommendations we could 

22 have for our report to the Secretary.

23 I'd like -- it's deliberately sort of 
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1 very general and very deliberately would like to 

2 get recommendations from the Board on other 

3 conclusions or recommendations that you think 

4 should be on this report. Not trying to write them 

5 out in detail at this point, because then we get 

6 into questions of wording and so forth, but more 

7 to get what you think we should be communicating 

8 to the Secretary.

9 And this is based on my review of, 

10 reading of the report. So that's where that -- so 

11 basic conclusion is, you know, I think it's 

12 generally good, for this part, that we had a very 

13 small percentage of the overall cases that had a 

14 potential for high impact on dose reconstruction 

15 outcome.

16 And it appears that the overall 

17 accuracy is improving versus the initial 100 

18 reviews that we did when the program started.

19 So I think our first conclusion would 

20 be that we think the program is doing a good job 

21 in terms of dose reconstruction and that they have 

22 improved their dose reconstruction processes and 

23 so forth over time in this program. And that most 
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1 of the high-impact findings in the report were, in 

2 this set of dose reconstruction reviews, were 

3 based on where there was limited data available for 

4 a site or resulting in the use of estimate methods 

5 that we would use to account for that missing data.

6 And therefore what there would need, 

7 you know, would need to be some models developed 

8 and whatever other methods used and where, in those 

9 cases, there's sort of more room for the Board to 

10 be concerned or have concerns about the methods 

11 being used.

12 So I think that would be sort of the 

13 first, in my mind, the first sort of general 

14 conclusion, that we, one, we have better dose 

15 reconstructions being done and that where we do 

16 have findings that may be, say, more serious, those 

17 are generally, you know, a result of the fact that, 

18 you know, for many of these sites, or many parts 

19 of these different sites, or many time periods at 

20 many of the sites, there is not complete and 

21 comprehensive data.

22 And so we need to rely on other methods. 

23 And therefore there's more room for, you know, 
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1 concern or potential problems with those methods.

2 So I guess I'd like to stop there and 

3 see if Board members have comments, agreement, 

4 disagreements, strong disagreements on that, I 

5 guess. Okay. Yes, Dave.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because I can't 

7 resist having comments. Yes, I agree broadly with 

8 it. I have a couple suggestions. One is, you 

9 know, maybe one of the conclusions I was imagining 

10 coming out was there had been something like 626 

11 findings. Identification of those had led to X 

12 number of policy changes or how many had been 

13 kicked to Procedures. Is that something that we 

14 tracked?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think we 

16 have a strong link there, a strong enough link to 

17 really track all of those.

18 There's another conclusion coming up 

19 where we try to weave in the fact that, you know, 

20 in some cases in parallel, in cases as a result of 

21 these dose reconstruction reviews that we have 

22 procedure reviews.

23 And I do have data on the PERs which 
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1 would be, I think, including the number of cases 

2 that were changed as a result of those. But again, 

3 those relate as much to the -- they don't all come 

4 out of the dose reconstruction reviews.

5 So in terms of actual linking, it's 

6 hard. But I tried to capture that in a different 

7 conclusion, because I think it's important, 

8 because it's not, because I don't think we want to 

9 imply that all of our findings or all of our impact 

10 on dose reconstruction is based on reviewing these 

11 cases. In fact, I think it's probably not. I 

12 think most of them are due to SEC or findings or 

13 Site Profile changes, et cetera.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I thought, one 

15 thing about, for the draft conclusions, I like the 

16 first two bullet points. I thought they could be 

17 written a little a bit more in parallel, so the 232 

18 cases yielding 626 findings. And there are X 

19 number of cases or claims yielding X number of 

20 high-impact findings.

21 My feeling is that it's, like, 20 to 20, 

22 you know, a 20ish number of cases that yield, like, 

23 there typically aren't multiple high-impact 
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1 findings per case. But I could be wrong about 

2 that.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But if it is, 

5 maybe the word only would be struck, at least from 

6 my perspective. If there's 20 people who had 

7 high-impact findings out of a review of 232 people, 

8 that's, you know, one out of 11.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So --

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I'll look back. 

12 That's a good point. Other comments? Yes, Gen.

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: Does this, by 

14 pushing this button, yes, I guess that works. You 

15 know, with regard to the overall on the report, I'd 

16 like to see an abstract.

17 But I think from the point of view of 

18 somebody reading it who won't read the whole 

19 report, it would be helpful to have a short 

20 abstract.

21 Also, I agree with what you said 

22 earlier. It needs an introduction. It certainly 

23 needs conclusions. And I think the Subcommittee 
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1 is going to have to work on the conclusions part, 

2 particularly.

3 But the other thing that maybe should 

4 be included is where does the Board or the 

5 Subcommittee go from here? What's the next step?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's coming up. 

7 Stay tuned. And the letter, we actually talked 

8 about it at the break. There will be a cover 

9 letter that would be essentially an executive 

10 summary of this report.

11 We're not expecting the Secretary to 

12 read in great detail our report. So we can do 

13 that. Other comments? We can come back. 

14 Because these will suggest other things.

15 Again, I guess some of this is in 

16 contrast to the initial report. Now we have the 

17 blind reviews which also show good agreement with 

18 the findings from NIOSH's dose reconstructions, 

19 again, taking into account the complexity of the 

20 process and the limited data.

21 Because I think that's one of the 

22 conclusions that was in the report based on where 

23 there were differences in the blind reviews. And 
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1 I do get concerned when we come out too close on 

2 the blind reviews. Because I think it's -- I don't 

3 think dose reconstruction is that accurate, given 

4 those methods and given that it's just sort of

5 one-time evaluations with that.

6 But I think that -- and I'm not sure 

7 this needs to be in the conclusions, but we do have 

8 the one, the Allied Chemical, the blind review that 

9 was referred for a better evaluation of the overall 

10 site data.

11 This is one these things that came up 

12 and so I sort of flagged when I was reading the 

13 blind reviews. For those of you that aren't on the 

14 Subcommittee, it was a site that was a very small 

15 site. It was so obscure that on the NIOSH website 

16 it was buried in the other Allied Chemical.

17 There's an Allied Chemical in Ohio, and 

18 there's and Allied Chemical in New Jersey. And 

19 this is the New Jersey site, and it was very small. 

20 And if you looked at the NIOSH website, they had 

21 one Allied Chemical.

22 And they had the reports or the 

23 available data on both sort of convoluted. There 
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1 was very little on the Allied Chemical in New 

2 Jersey. So when it was chosen for the blind review 

3 of the dose reconstruction -- and it turns out 

4 there's very little data on the site. So it was 

5 done with surrogate data, basically.

6 And so NIOSH came out with one result, 

7 and SC&A came out with a very different result when 

8 they did it, which again is not surprising given, 

9 you know, how little information there was on the 

10 site and, you know, one or two assumptions of that.

11 But I sort of felt, and I think the 

12 Subcommittee agreed with me, finally maybe, after 

13 some discussion, is that something like that 

14 needed to be -- it didn't make sense to try to 

15 resolve it as an individual case but rather that 

16 it, you know, the site needed to be looked at, 

17 particularly the use of surrogate data at that 

18 site.

19 It had never been really formally 

20 reviewed. And so it seemed to make sense that we, 

21 you know, like we do in other situations, we refer 

22 these out for additional review by an appropriate 

23 work group or subcommittee.
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1 (Off-mic comment.)

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes. Yes, 

3 certainly is in that case, yes. I don't know, 

4 what, a 25 percent? I can't remember the number 

5 of actual claims from that site. Yes. But that 

6 would skew your statistics, Dave, that one. So 

7 anyway, a separate point.

8 And then I think we've talked about 

9 this before, and it needs to be elaborated. But 

10 I think we need to put, as one of our conclusions, 

11 an understanding that this -- and you can argue 

12 whether it belongs in the introduction, or in the 

13 conclusions, or where the best place to place it.

14 But I really think we need to say 

15 something about the overall review process of the 

16 Board. And that's why I'd asked for some data on, 

17 some initial data on SEC, we have it on the PERs 

18 and so forth from NIOSH, just to get some 

19 perspective on that.

20 Again, the exact links are hard to do 

21 because of the fact that this program is so dynamic 

22 and constantly changing and constantly updating 

23 the procedures and so forth.
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1 But I think we need to at least refer 

2 to all the other activities the Board does that 

3 contribute to the accuracy and how well the dose 

4 reconstruction process does.

5 And that includes NIOSH's activities 

6 also of constantly updating Site Profiles as, you 

7 know, new information becomes available or they 

8 have more time and resources to sort of catch up 

9 with some of the older sites and so forth.

10 And so I think we should try to capture 

11 that in that, how we do that without writing a 

12 separate report. I think probably it's going to 

13 take some wordsmithing and some care. But I think 

14 we can come to an agreement on that. And I think, 

15 again, it's important to include in our report to 

16 the Secretary.

17 So any further comments or ideas on 

18 that?

19 (No response.)

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So 

21 recommendations? Well, first of all, let's go 

22 back. What other conclusions should we -- anybody 

23 have thoughts or ideas on other conclusions that 
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1 should be included in this report?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Dave.

3 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It's not a new, 

4 excuse me, it's not a new conclusion. But since 

5 the 2009 report, really, we need to emphasize in 

6 the SEC section that will be written how much that 

7 has become a major activity of the Board and how 

8 that has changed the larger review process.

9 I mean, I think that really represents 

10 a major change. And I don't myself know why SEC 

11 suddenly became so important, that is why there 

12 were suddenly so many more, I assume, more claims. 

13 Or is it that more claims had been processed? But 

14 that is a major change from 2009, and we should say 

15 it.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I think it 

17 became more prominent because there were more 

18 petitions.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I mean, it was 

21 outside demand. And, you know, some urgency or, 

22 you know, limited time to -- urgency is probably 

23 is the wrong word to use there -- but, you know, 
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1 a time limit on getting those resolved in some way, 

2 to the extent that that could be met.

3 We haven't always resolved them in a 

4 timely manner, but many of them we have. And it 

5 also makes sense in terms of the whole process of 

6 the dose reconstruction because it obviates the 

7 need for many dose reconstructions. But it was 

8 obviously very time consuming for both NIOSH and 

9 for the Board to deal with.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Yes, Bill, 

12 sorry.

13 MEMBER FIELD: Yes. I guess I had a 

14 question. You have results from the review and 

15 then you have sort of a setup describing how the 

16 process works. And it's not a random sample, it's 

17 a weighted sample based on certain factors.

18 Is there discussion how one percent was 

19 chosen? And the only question I have for that is, 

20 based on these findings, is it the Board's view 

21 that one percent is adequate?

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's a good point. 

23 I think, well, let's, as we go through 
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1 recommendations, because I think that would be the 

2 key. And I'm not sure that at least what we've 

3 been talking about in terms of recommendations 

4 would necessarily lend itself to a one percent. I 

5 mean, maybe it does with the sort of competing 

6 interests here, as you'll see, and do that.

7 So the recommendations, one, we 

8 continue basic reviews. And I think the question 

9 there is what Bill just brought up, is that, you 

10 know, what percentage. And I don't know if we need 

11 to specify that in this report, but we certainly 

12 need to give it some thought as a Board.

13 And then at the same time we've talked 

14 about modifying the review process to provide more 

15 efficiency in doing those basic reviews and really 

16 more in terms of resolving those basic reviews.

17 And the DR, Dose Review Subcommittee, 

18 Dose Reconstruction Review Subcommittee, has 

19 looked at that. And there are some suggestions 

20 they've worked out with our contractor and so forth 

21 on doing that. We can talk about those a little 

22 bit more later. We just got a recommendation from 

23 them very recently to do that.
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1 So one is continuing basic reviews at 

2 some level and then, you know, with some discussion 

3 probably within the Subcommittee on what the 

4 sample should be and how to go about doing that.

5 Secondly would be, which would be a 

6 change, is to initiate what I'm calling special 

7 reviews or focused reviews looking on the 

8 consistency of the DR process where individual 

9 judgments are critical, or where we're trying to 

10 look at where methods may not be as well documented 

11 or relied more on the judgment of the individual 

12 dose reconstructor.

13 And we literally, I think this week, 

14 got a, or last week, got a list of possible targets 

15 for that from SC&A. And I think we've discussed 

16 others. And I think the methods, Dose 

17 Reconstruction Review Methods Work Group needs to 

18 meet and talk about those and so forth.

19 But the idea is, can we focus our 

20 reviews in a way where we would be able to look at, 

21 focus very much on the consistency? Are all 

22 people being treated the same? And I think that's 

23 important, something that we really have missed up 
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1 until now.

2 And so some of that's knowing, 

3 understanding all of the methods that are being 

4 used, those that have been documented and reviewed 

5 for the Board and for NIOSH. And then there may 

6 be other, you know, written methods that ORAU uses 

7 and so forth, and then some that may be based on, 

8 you know, training and general instructions given 

9 to the dose reconstructors to do that.

10 And again, it's not saying that there's 

11 faults there, but it is certainly potentially a 

12 place where dose reconstruction may not be as good 

13 as it could be, or at least there's more room for 

14 error in doing that. And we need to take a look 

15 at that and specify what needs to be done in those 

16 cases.

17 And then the other is to continue the 

18 blind reviews which I think have been useful and 

19 valuable. And I think the DR Subcommittee agrees 

20 with that. And so we would do that at some level. 

21 And so I guess we're open to comments on do those 

22 make sense, and are there other recommendations 

23 that we want to make at this time relative to this 
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1 process? Henry.

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: I would say I'm 

3 generally in favor of, you know, a more selected 

4 set of reviews than the comprehensive ones. But 

5 I think it would be helpful if we could ask our 

6 contractor what would be the difference in the time

7 requirement to do the reviews as we're doing them 

8 now, which they go through the whole gamut of 

9 processes versus a more selected, targeted type of 

10 review.

11 Would that, you know, how more 

12 efficient time-wise on their behalf would that be? 

13 Do we have any sense of that?

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No. Well, there's 

15 sort of two things sort of mixed in there. One, 

16 for the basic reviews, what we've been talking 

17 about is are ways of making the resolution process 

18 more efficient. Because that's where we seem to 

19 get behind. Our contractor does an efficient job 

20 of doing the reviews. We're not --

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: So it's bringing 

22 each set of reviewers together to review them?

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, no. No, 
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1 remember, they do the reviews, get the sets of 

2 reviewers together. That takes some time, but it 

3 gets done.

4 Then it goes to NIOSH for, you know, 

5 comment. And then it goes to the Subcommittee to 

6 resolve, you know, the difference in comments or 

7 difference in perspective between NIOSH and SC&A 

8 basically, and, you know, the Subcommittee.

9 And then the Subcommittee tries to 

10 resolve those comments. And that's what takes 

11 time. And I have another slide coming up that'll 

12 sort of describe what the recommendations are. So 

13 that's one issue.

14 The second issue is focusing on 

15 consistency in reviews where there's, in terms of 

16 the method or --

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: That's what I was --

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- something like 

19 that. And that I think is going to -- the amount 

20 of time and the sample required I think is going 

21 to depend on the specific focus of that.

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think we're 
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1 going to have to work out what's a reasonable 

2 sample on that. Because I think it may depend on 

3 how complicated the methodology is, how 

4 complicated the sites may -- how many sites are 

5 involved using that methodology and so forth.

6 And we've got some good 

7 recommendations from SC&A on that. I don't think 

8 that's been cleared to send out to the Board yet, 

9 or maybe it has. I can't keep up. But we'll get 

10 it out to everybody. And then we need to have a 

11 meeting of the Methods Work Group to go over that.

12 And that's why I think we would pull all 

13 this together in terms of what's a reasonable 

14 sample and reasonable mix of these different types

15 of reviews.

16 Any other thoughts in terms of 

17 recommendations and --

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I have one just 

19 going back and kind of a reflection on what we're 

20 doing. It might be worth us revisiting again, I 

21 mean, kind of the issues of objectives, and metrics

22 and, like, laying that out, you know, kind of 

23 specifically for us, to guide us along.
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1 I mean, we have findings and 

2 observations. And we have some letter 

3 characterization of types of findings but maybe to 

4 step back again and say, you know, what dimensions 

5 of the program are, you know, are different tasks 

6 of reviewing.

7 The blind reviews, I think, are not 

8 really focused or are focused on some aspects, but 

9 not others. And we could, in that way, sort of 

10 say, you know, they're going to fill out. So we're 

11 going to have certain metrics that come off of 

12 those.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And not try and do 

15 everything with everything but just kind of get 

16 ourselves a little bit more structured. And I 

17 think that will help in the next report as well.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. No, I would 

19 agree. And I think, and I don't think we need to 

20 do it necessarily in this report but after that.

21 And I think there is a question of 

22 whether we -- we've tended to focus on the 

23 resolution process, but there's also a point that 
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1 can be made, there's different ways of doing the 

2 basic reviews. And some of which would only focus 

3 on key parts of the dose reconstruction, not the 

4 minor parts I guess is the, you know, do that. 

5 And then like you say, how we record and 

6 measure that, I think, is also important. Because 

7 that tends to guide the focus.

8 And unfortunately, it's all our 

9 faults, I guess, in some sense, but you set a metric 

10 to begin with which we did how many years ago. And 

11 Mark was first chairing that subcommittee.

12 And we've stuck with that and so forth. 

13 And I think we do need to re-look at that now and 

14 think, as the program has matured.

15 When we started out, there was 

16 essentially no quality assurance process from 

17 NIOSH and ORAU. I mean, they were just, they were 

18 developing it as they went along which, again, 

19 given the pressure to get dose reconstructions 

20 done, that made sense.

21 But, I mean, actually as part of the 

22 process -- I think I've mentioned this before --

23 we actually went back, and there was a Quality 
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1 Assurance Work Group that met. And it met so long 

2 ago that it was before we were actually having 

3 transcriptions of our work group meetings.

4 And we've never been able to -- we 

5 couldn't locate the report from that Work Group and 

6 do that. Wanda was the -- you were on it with me. 

7 And we got transcripts that refer to it and refer 

8 to, you know, submitting a report and so forth. 

9 But we've never been able to track down the report 

10 from that. 

11 I am sure it's on a -- I have it on a 

12 diskette or something, God knows. Probably, you 

13 know, an old floppy disk or something, right. So 

14 we'll deal with that.

15 Yes. I'm sorry.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm sorry.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dave, yes, go ahead.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: You know, it might 

19 be helpful to have a little historical section in 

20 the beginning talking about that. No, I mean, 

21 and, I mean, I've learned that there is so much to 

22 change, but I also understand.

23 If you start a process back when the 
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1 bill was passed, that essentially you're making up 

2 your rules as you go along trying to be consistent 

3 with your scientific and technical understanding. 

4 That's an important achievement.

5 And in no way -- the 2009 report could 

6 hardly deal with that or didn't, anyway. I mean 

7 I've read it over. And it would be nice to talk 

8 a little about that.

9 And if there was some way of 

10 summarizing, I think, I certainly think we were 

11 very unsure. Folks on the Board were very careful 

12 to try to have made the correct decision for those 

13 early cases or early claims that came for us where 

14 we had to decide compensation or non-compensation.

15 But we resolved a lot of those problems 

16 or the uncertainties in those. And it would just 

17 be nice to have a brief discussion, maybe an 

18 appendix even. I don't know who would write that. 

19 But I certainly could not. But it would be nice 

20 to have that and would give -- because that's not 

21 reflected in either report, the progress we've 

22 made in the consistency. And in that regard, I 

23 even, your remark earlier that, in the case of the 
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1 blind reviews, when the numbers are too close, 

2 quote, it makes me nervous. And maybe that's not 

3 a direct quote.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, it's close.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: But it not only 

6 doesn't make me nervous, it makes me assured that, 

7 given a certain set of input data, that two 

8 different competent scientific groups are getting 

9 the same basic results.

10 And those results, when it comes around 

11 50 percent, make the difference between a claimant 

12 getting compensated or not getting compensated.

13 So I feel like I would like to somehow 

14 have reflected that situation of the improvement 

15 of our overall process. Maybe I should leave it 

16 at that and just say if we could do that it would 

17 be an excellent thing.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And I think 

19 that was part of the first conclusion.

20 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Ah, okay.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I mean, it's 

22 that third bullet there, that we're, it's gotten 

23 better: dose reconstruction. And I think it 
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1 reflects, you know, really working on the part of 

2 NIOSH and ORAU to make those improvements.

3 I mean, that quality assurance report, 

4 which I can say anything about because nobody has 

5 a copy, so I can make it up here. But it is, you 

6 know, made a series of recommendations.

7 Tony Andrade is one of our original 

8 Board members. It was one the areas he was 

9 involved in at LANL. And he sort of led the Work 

10 Group and made a number of recommendations which 

11 were adopted by NIOSH/ORAU to do that. And I think 

12 they have a good program in place.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: To me it's, can we 

14 document that?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: To some extent?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Yes.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And if we can, I 

19 think it would strengthen the report.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Maybe we can 

21 find that old report finding. The archivist, Ted, 

22 will search it out.

23 Okay. Just briefly, because I'm going 
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1 into LaVon's time, and he usually goes on for such 

2 a long time here. But in terms of the resolution 

3 process, you know, the recommendation or thoughts 

4 have been to focus on sort of major findings.

5 SC&A sort of recommended that we have 

6 a bifurcated process, Type 1 and Type 2, where Type 

7 1 would be major findings and Type 2 would be minor 

8 findings and that, you know, that we split those 

9 out ahead of the Dose Review Subcommittee 

10 resolution process and so forth and do that.

11 And then, as I talked about earlier, 

12 you know, do we expand that to initial review 

13 process. I think we have to give that some more 

14 thought. Because I'm a little concerned that the 

15 Board not totally give up on its need to, you know, 

16 monitor the process and stay involved.

17 And I think we've had some discussion. 

18 And so does this mean that when, you know, the two 

19 Board members are reviewing individual cases are 

20 they going to need to pay more attention to some 

21 of the minor findings, so to speak, which could 

22 have -- the problem, I think, as we talked about 

23 earlier when David Richardson brought it up, is 
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1 minor findings on one case can have major 

2 implications or moderate findings can.

3 And so I think we need to sort of think 

4 through what we focus on there. But I think it's 

5 worth, certainly worth looking into. And we 

6 should do that some more. But I think that's more 

7 -- I don't think it needs to go into this report 

8 as much. But we need to focus on it at another 

9 point in time.

10 So if you have thoughts afterwards, as 

11 you go home or later on in the meeting about -- and 

12 I'll get to you, Henry, in a second -- on 

13 recommendations or conclusions, let me know.

14 I will write out a draft, work with Dave 

15 and so forth on that. And then we will get 

16 something out and circulate it. But I'd like to 

17 get -- I'd rather not be sort of circulating 

18 something where we keep adding recommendations, 

19 major recommendations, but rather that we try to 

20 focus within those. So better if you get to a 

21 certain -- get your thoughts in early. Famous 

22 last words, right.

23 Henry, you had a --
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. It sounded as 

2 though the bottleneck is your initial reviews and 

3 discussions are with smaller groups that are 

4 dispersed, and that goes pretty quickly. Then it 

5 all concentrates on the Committee.

6 And my question is, could we just have 

7 the whole, have NIOSH come back to the review 

8 group, the individual, the two or three to go over 

9 it and discussion be there?

10 How often does the Committee make a 

11 different review process or decision than the 

12 original group did? I mean, we kind of go through 

13 and say, you know, we agree with SC&A. And then, 

14 apparently, if there's a difference and NIOSH 

15 disagrees with it, we don't necessarily hear that 

16 yet. We've read and reviewed and are kind of 

17 briefed already on it. And what's the role for the 

18 larger Committee to be on top of it, the review 

19 process?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's a good 

21 question. I don't know the answer to it.

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: And what's the --

23 it's kind of --
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: Bottom line is 

3 what's the value added by having a whole other set 

4 which is a standing committee do a review and 

5 getting back versus the --

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wait. The standing 

7 committee does the resolution only. So they don't 

8 re-review.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, yes.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But there is 

11 duplication there.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The other part of it 

14 though is that, and maybe it's me, but I'm 

15 constantly being reprimanded or commonly being 

16 reprimanded by SC&A for my, what I consider to be 

17 an observation versus a finding or the severity of 

18 a finding.

19 Because they say, well, the 

20 Subcommittee doesn't want to hear those, you know, 

21 doesn't want to deal with those. They consider 

22 those to be, you know, a minor finding.

23 And I'll have questions on a finding, 
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1 whether I think, you know, maybe it's just, you 

2 know, because I'm exaggerating my role in this or 

3 whatever, though my other reviewer usually agrees 

4 with me.

5 I mean, the Committee adds something to 

6 it in terms of consistency and perspective on 

7 findings over many cases, and over, you know, the 

8 same site also.

9 I mean, I think it's helped that the 

10 Subcommittee now tries to group by site when 

11 they're doing the reviews. And I think that's 

12 helped with the consistency of those and the 

13 efficiency of those reviews.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: Then it's, I mean, 

15 I'm just looking for --

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes. No --

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- that we've 

18 established this process, and we crank away 

19 through it. And it's more in a -- it sounds to me 

20 like it is a value added, and it adds something 

21 more. It's a richer approach then as it comes back 

22 for the final report here. And so I would say 

23 that's good.
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1 But I just wanted to be convinced that, 

2 we got all these layers that were set up, that 

3 they're in fact adding to the process. It sounds 

4 like it is.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think it is. 

6 I think we have to ask -- I think it's certainly, 

7 well, one, it keeps everybody, all the Board 

8 involved in the process and understanding it. And 

9 I, you know, personally again, found it valuable 

10 to participate. And I'm obviously not on the 

11 Subcommittee and doing that.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But there may be 

14 other ways of thinking about that, which we should. 

15 Yes, Dave?

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I don't think the 

17 Subcommittee reviews or disagrees with a 

18 recommendation from a work group. I mean, when a 

19 work group said we think this is the case, or AWE 

20 recommends this, I think generally the 

21 Subcommittee accepts the particular issue that has 

22 been raised, and then we really look for overall 

23 consistency --
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- with other 

3 cases that we've looked at. So I don't think we 

4 spend a lot of time debating. I think we accept 

5 the value of the Work Group's recommendation, more 

6 or less --

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- obviously. We 

9 reserve the right to disagree, but we very rarely 

10 do.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Ted, you had a --

12 MR. KATZ: Well, I'll just say, I mean, 

13 I think Dave, Dr. Kotelchuck, is speaking to work 

14 groups of the Board but not the two-person Board 

15 Work Group, the two-person Board team that sort of 

16 pre-reviews the dose reconstruction with SC&A. 

17 So you're talking about, really, two different 

18 things.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's true. 

20 Okay, got you.

21 MR. KATZ: The Subcommittee never sees 

22 the input of the two-member team that pre-reviews 

23 the dose reconstruction, right. I mean, so they 
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1 do their pre-review with SC&A, and SC&A then makes 

2 revisions if they feel revisions are appropriate 

3 based on that early input. And then that dose 

4 reconstruction draft is finalized and sent to the 

5 Subcommittee.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You mean we've been 

7 ignored all this time?

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, totally ignored. No, 

9 no, I mean, you have a different --

10 (Laughter.)

11 MR. KATZ: Not the case. But SC&A, 

12 it's sort of SC&A's pre-check before they go before 

13 the Subcommittee. Are we on target? Are there 

14 things we've missed?

15 And that was always the, I think, 

16 intent of the original two-member team looking 

17 early before they complete their draft of the --

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: So that's why we 

19 don't disagree.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes. So that's what 

21 happens.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Maybe on that note 

23 we can move along. Well, on that note, while we are 
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1 all laughing, we will have LaVon Rutherford give 

2 us the SEC Update. Come on, LaVon. 

3 SEC PETITIONS UPDATE

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm going to give the 

5 SEC Update. I'm LaVon Rutherford, the Special 

6 Exposure Cohort health physics team leader. And 

7 we give this updated every Board meeting, it gives 

8 the Board a chance to prepare for Work Group 

9 meetings and future Board meetings.

10 We will talk about the summary, 

11 petitions and qualification, petitions under 

12 evaluation, petitions currently under Board 

13 review, and potential 83.14s.

14 Currently, we've had 231 petitions. 

15 We have three in the qualification phase process. 

16 We actually have no petitions that are under 

17 initial evaluations. And we have 12 reports that 

18 are with the Board in various phases.

19 We have a Y-12 petition that's in the 

20 qualification. This petition has been here for 

21 quite some time because the petitioner requested 

22 a classified interview. We actually conducted 

23 that interview in January. Those notes have been 
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1 released and we are going to continue on with the 

2 qualification with this petition.

3 We recently received a petition for 

4 Bliss and Laughlin. The Board will remember, we 

5 actually acted on a petition some time ago with 

6 Bliss and Laughlin for the entire operation and 

7 residual period. However, we extended that 

8 residual period about three months, so we are going 

9 to have to move forward and qualify this petition, 

10 because this petition includes that three months, 

11 and perform an evaluation.

12 The third petition is a petition we 

13 recently received for the Pinellas Plant, and that 

14 is in the early phases of the qualification 

15 process. Our petitioner is in the house today. 

16 So those are the three petitions we have in 

17 qualification at this time. 

18 The petitions that are under Board 

19 review that are waiting for initial Board action. 

20 Idaho National Lab, that petition is going to be 

21 discussed, I believe, tomorrow. At least a 

22 portion, a small portion of that petition.

23 SEC-221, Lawrence Livermore National 
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1 Lab. That will be presented to the Advisory 

2 Board, I believe, tomorrow as well.

3 And Carborundum is a petition that we 

4 presented, I believe, a few Board meetings ago. 

5 SC&A did get a review of that. It was sent to SC&A 

6 for review by the Board. SC&A provided us a 

7 report. We are working on addressing the findings 

8 from that report. And I'm sure we will have a 

9 further update during the Work Groups.

10 Argonne National Lab West is a petition 

11 evaluation that will be presented after lunch 

12 today. I think Dr. Taulbee will be presenting 

13 that.

14 Blockson Chemical is a petition 

15 evaluation for the residual period where we 

16 presented a meeting or two ago. And we are waiting 

17 for a report from SC&A on that one.

18 We have a number of petitions that have 

19 actually had Board action taken, but they have some 

20 time during the evaluation period that the Board 

21 had not made a final conclusion on: Fernald, Los 

22 Alamos National Lab, Rocky Flats, Grand Junction, 

23 Sandia, Santa Susana, and Savannah River Site.
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1 I know there will be some Savannah 

2 River Site update tomorrow. The other sites, 

3 information is included in the Work Group 

4 coordination document, so we will be prepared to

5 discuss them during the Work Group Updates. But 

6 if anyone, after I'm done and ready for questions, 

7 has a question, they can ask me.

8 Potential 83.14s, this hasn't changed 

9 in a number of Board meetings. We had a Sandia 

10 National Lab Albuquerque, early years. The 

11 Department of Labor has taken action that they have 

12 already included any cases that were received. 

13 This was the old LANL Z Division and they were 

14 actually compensated under the SEC for LANL. But 

15 with that change in designation, if we do get a 

16 claim in the future, we will be ready to move 

17 forward with an 83.14.

18 Dayton Project Monsanto. This is a 

19 site that changed to a Department of Energy 

20 facility. They added a nine-month period when 

21 operations shifted from the Dayton Project to 

22 Mound. We still have not received a claim that 

23 would fall into that or would be affected by that 
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1 change. When we do, we'll move forward with the 

2 83.14 on that.

3 And that's about it. Questions?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Questions 

5 for LaVon? Okay. You wowed them again. No 

6 questions. Okay. No questions, no 

7 announcements. We will break for lunch and we 

8 will be back here at 1:30 sharp. We have an SEC 

9 evaluation presentation and petitioners may be on 

10 the line. I don't know. But anyway, we should 

11 try to start right at 1:30. So we'll see you back 

12 then. Thanks.

13 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

14 went off the record at 12:02 p.m. and resumed at 

15 1:33 p.m.)

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Welcome back 

17 to the afternoon session of the first day of the 

18 110th. I hope you all have recovered from LaVon's 

19 fine presentation. There will be a quiz later on, 

20 starting with LaVon. Okay. 

21 So, anyway, we are having our first 

22 presentation, Tim Taulbee, and it will be on 

23 Argonne National Laboratory-West.
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1 MR. KATZ: And as you're getting up to 

2 pitch, let me just make sure we have on the line 

3 our two Board Members who can attend, I think, by 

4 phone. Dr. Ziemer, are you on the line? And Mr. 

5 Schofield? We have Phil on the line?

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: That was Phil, I think, 

8 right?

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Correct.

10 MR. KATZ: Thanks. Dr. Ziemer, are 

11 you on the line?

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I'm here.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. Great. Thanks.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Go ahead. 

15 It's all yours.

16 ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY-WEST SEC PETITION 

17 EVALUATION REPORT 

18 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thank you, Dr. 

19 Melius. This next presentation is about the 

20 Argonne National Laboratory-West, SEC Petition 

21 Evaluation Report, or SEC, 224.

22 Before I get started, I want to 

23 recognize the ORAU Evaluation Team. They did a 
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1 fantastic job on this report, for those of you who 

2 have read it. This team was led by Mitch Findley. 

3 And Brian Gleckler, Jason Davis, and Mike Mahathy 

4 were the health physicists who worked on this. I 

5 have listed here in parentheses beside each of 

6 their names the different areas or facilities 

7 within the report that they were responsible for. 

8 The whole team was supported by a great 

9 data capture support team. Bill Connell, 

10 Jennifer Warner, Art Gutzman, and Guy Babin. 

11 Together they captured around 100,000 pages of 

12 information during this evaluation, so this was a 

13 tremendous effort by this very fine team.

14 A little bit of an overview of the 

15 petition. The petition was received on December 

16 4th, 2014. The petition qualified March 13th, 

17 2015, or a little over a year ago. 

18 Notification went to the petitioner 

19 and the Advisory Board, in June of 2015, that NIOSH 

20 would exceed the 180-day deadline due to the 

21 complexities of the site and the need for us to 

22 conduct multiple data captures.

23 There was a further delay in September 
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1 of 2015 due to some dosimetry records issues, which 

2 I'll get into during this presentation, between 

3 Argonne National Laboratory-East and Idaho 

4 National Laboratory. 

5 The Evaluation Report was sent to the 

6 Advisory Board on February 24th, almost one month 

7 ago. We missed it by one day. But the Evaluation 

8 Report was then sent to the petitioner on March 8th 

9 after it cleared ADC review.

10 Anyway, we are proposing a Class today 

11 for the Argonne National Laboratory-West workers. 

12 And the proposed Class is all employees of the 

13 Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, 

14 and their contractors and subcontractors who 

15 worked at Argonne National Laboratory-West 

16 between April 10th, 1951 and December 31st, 1957, 

17 for a number of workdays aggregating at least 250 

18 work days, occurring either solely under this 

19 employment, or in combination with the workdays 

20 within the parameters established for one or more 

21 other Classes of employees in the Special Exposure 

22 Cohort.

23 So, how did we come to this decision to 
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1 recommend a Class? I want to remind you a little 

2 bit about the Argonne National Laboratory-West 

3 within the Idaho National Laboratory. The 

4 picture here on the right, you will see the blue 

5 boxes, these were the areas that I covered under 

6 SEC-219 about one year ago, in March of 2015.

7 Today what I'm going to be talking 

8 about is the green boxes. These are the areas that 

9 were Argonne National Laboratory-West. It was a 

10 separate contractor under the Department of Energy 

11 and actually fell under the Chicago Operations 

12 Office. So these were kind of separate entities 

13 within the boundaries of the site.

14 And just to remind everyone that the 

15 red dot there in the center is the Naval Reactor 

16 Facility. That is not covered under this program.

17 So, what we are going to talk about is 

18 the west area down in the lower portion of this map, 

19 and then the east area to the right-hand side, 

20 those two different green areas. They are 

21 separated by about 18 miles.

22 The west area was the first area, 

23 operating from 1951 to 1967. And the east area 
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1 started operating with TREAT Reactor around 1958, 

2 and that is what is today considered Argonne 

3 National Laboratory-West.

4 So, the major operating facilities 

5 really can be divided by this West and East site 

6 within the facility. I've listed here the full 

7 names of each of the acronyms that I'll use 

8 throughout this presentation. But the West site 

9 consisted of the Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 

10 1, the Zero Power Reactor No. 3, Boiling water 

11 Reactor experiments, or BORAX experiments, and 

12 then the Argonne Fast Source Reactor.

13 Then the East site had the Transient 

14 Reactor Test, Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 2, 

15 the Fuel Cycle Facility, Hot Fuel Examination 

16 Facility, the Laboratory and Office Building, and 

17 Zero Power Plutonium Reactor.

18 This is kind of an outline of the 

19 facilities I'm going to go through in this 

20 presentation.

21 So this is the West area that consisted 

22 of EBR-I, the ZPR-III, and AFSR. And you can see 

23 it's a very simple facility during this time 
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1 period. There is not a whole lot of buildings. 

2 There is not a lot of infrastructure going on.

3 Down in the lower corner, just outside 

4 the fence, you will see the BORAX control room in 

5 this particular picture. So this is all that 

6 there was really from 1951 up through 1967 here at 

7 this facility. And you can see the parking lot is 

8 relatively small. This is a relatively small work 

9 force that was doing this work.

10 But this work was really cutting edge 

11 at the time. This is kind of the birthplace of 

12 nuclear power in the United States, and for that 

13 matter, the world.

14 Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 was 

15 the first reactor to generate electric power in 

16 December of 1951. You'll see the four light bulbs 

17 in that particular picture, that's the first time 

18 that power was ever produced out of a reactor.

19 In 1953, the analysis of the EBR-I fuel 

20 and the blanket around the core demonstrated the 

21 breeding concept. It actually produced more fuel 

22 than what it consumed. That was the first time 

23 that had ever been done.
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1 The picture in the lower right is 

2 actually the blanket that goes around the core. 

3 You see the hole there in the center. This raised 

4 up around the actual reactor itself. Neutrons 

5 were absorbed in this blanket and produced 

6 plutonium. That blanket is depleted uranium 

7 encapsulated in stainless steel. These were 

8 bricks around it.

9 And November of 1962 was the first 

10 reactor to generate electricity using a plutonium 

11 core. So, this reactor was a first of its kind in 

12 many ways. 

13 The radiological exposures around 

14 EBR-I were primarily mixed fission products. 

15 There was very limited actinide exposure due to the 

16 cladding of both the fuel and the blanket. So, as 

17 long as it didn't rupture, there really wasn't any 

18 potential for exposure. You'd get some mixed 

19 fission products with -- or in activation 

20 products, but other than that, there really wasn't 

21 that much exposure from that standpoint.

22 There was a blanket brick rupture in 

23 April of 1955. Following that, plutonium 
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1 bioassay was collected from 16 workers after that 

2 incident. We did not find any other plutonium 

3 bioassay, although there were monthly reports that 

4 indicated a couple other instances where some of 

5 these blanket bricks ruptured and they had to 

6 extract them from that pile and then send them back 

7 to Argonne-East for analysis.

8 In November of 1955, the EBR-I core 

9 actually melted. Obviously, at this point, you 

10 would release quite a bit of fission products into 

11 the area. And the building was evacuated and shut 

12 down for several days. This was following a 

13 reactivity test that they were doing.

14 The recovery from this was quite 

15 significant. They had to build a special coffin 

16 to remove the core. This is a picture of the 

17 melted core that was sent back to Argonne-East. 

18 There was some uranium and mixed fission product 

19 bioassay for some workers, not all of them, during 

20 that time period of November of 1955.

21 So, jumping over to the Boiling water 

22 Reactor experiments, or BORAX-I. This reactor 

23 was built in 1953 and its purpose was to determine 
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1 the self-limiting characteristics of water cooler 

2 reactors. This was a small reactor in a tank of 

3 water, is the best way to describe this. It could 

4 only be operated in the summer months because it 

5 wasn't housed in a building. And Idaho, as you 

6 know, can be very cold in the winter. And so they 

7 had to drain the tank and they really couldn't do 

8 anything except for during the summer months.

9 In the picture to the right, you will 

10 see where the BORAX control room is, just outside 

11 where it says the remainder of EBR-I area. The 

12 BORAX control room was roughly there. Up in the 

13 far left-hand corner you'll see BORAX-I, and then 

14 on an arc off to the right is where BORAX 

15 experiments II through V took place.

16 As I mentioned, BORAX-I was a reactor 

17 tank filled with water brought to criticality 

18 boiling conditions. They would test the 

19 reactivity by removing the control rods. And when 

20 they would do this, water would blow out of the 

21 reactor like a small geyser. And you see off to 

22 the right water spewing out of this open tank there 

23 in the middle of the facility.
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1 This was a small reactor. Off to the 

2 right you'll see a worker kind of standing on a 

3 gangway of an open tank and the reactor is down in 

4 it. And so this is the basic design. It was just 

5 an earthen berm, a hole dug with a tank and a 

6 reactor inside. Again, this is the 1953 time 

7 period.

8 The final test for BORAX-I was 

9 conducted in 1954 and they deliberately pulled the 

10 control rods very quickly, introduced a large 

11 amount of reactivity, and the reactor exploded due 

12 to rapid steam build-up. So you had basically all 

13 the water in the tank flashed to steam and blew out 

14 the top, and blew the fuel, the control rods, other 

15 activated equipment, and scattered it across the 

16 area.

17 This was a test to see how the reactor 

18 would respond, back in 1954, from a boiling water 

19 experiment. We interviewed -- we were fortunate 

20 enough to interview a worker who participated in 

21 this test and he gave a detailed account of the 

22 event.

23 One of the things he brought up was a 
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1 photographer had to go in and get the film. That 

2 picture that you saw before, the camera was closer 

3 to the reactor than any of the people were at the 

4 time that it exploded, but they had to go back and 

5 get it. In the process, he was contaminated and 

6 he had to be decontaminated from these fresh mixed 

7 fission products.

8 The following days were spent rotating 

9 workers into and out of that hole, that pit, to 

10 recover gold foil so that they could determine the 

11 power the reactor had attained before it exploded. 

12 So, they had positioned gold foils around the core 

13 and then these got blown apart and scattered 

14 throughout the area. And so the workers were 

15 trying to recover these gold foils to figure out 

16 what that power was.

17 So, basically, workers are standing in 

18 the remains of a reactor digging and sorting 

19 through the mixed fission products and activation 

20 products. So, this was a pretty significant 

21 exposure to these workers.

22 So, BORAX-II was much more controlled, 

23 in a sense. At this point, they moved the location 
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1 off to the right and began to do not the large 

2 reactivity experiments, but more experiments, 

3 nonetheless, about boiling water reactors. It 

4 didn't have a turbine initially, so there was no 

5 electrical power generation. The previous one, 

6 BORAX-I, didn't have one either. 

7 But in 1955, they did add a turbine to 

8 demonstrate that, under normal conditions, the 

9 turbine would not become contaminated and that 

10 contamination shouldn't be a problem.

11 BORAX-III was really BORAX-II with the 

12 turbine, is all the difference was between those 

13 two reactors. In July 1955, this was the first 

14 reactor to supply atomic-generated power to the 

15 city of Arco. Off to the right, you see the 

16 building with the turbine and then the 

17 transformers or the transmittal truck down in the 

18 lower right-hand corner that was brought in to send 

19 the power to Arco, and then the newspaper headline.

20 So this is kind of historic. This is 

21 the birth of nuclear power in the United States 

22 that was conducted out there by Argonne National 

23 Laboratory-West.
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1 So, within these first two areas that 

2 I have talked about, I want to talk about the 

3 external and internal dosimetry a bit here. 

4 Because when we first started this evaluation, the 

5 Argonne National Laboratory-East had reported 

6 that they believe they didn't have any dosimetry 

7 records for Argonne National Laboratory-West 

8 personnel, that they had turned them all over to 

9 the Idaho Site.

10 Idaho National Lab, on the converse, 

11 reported that they believe they had all of the 

12 Argonne National Laboratory-West dosimetry. 

13 When we requested dosimetry for certain workers 

14 that we knew were involved in some of these tests, 

15 we found that INL didn't seem to have some of the 

16 dosimetry we expected them to have.

17 So we set up a blind test, and this was 

18 what caused that delay back in September, of 50 

19 cases with some people we knew to have worked at 

20 Argonne National Laboratory-East before going to 

21 Argonne National Laboratory-West and some that we 

22 knew only worked at Argonne Laboratory-West.

23 So we then compiled that dosimetry to 
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1 see what we had. Interestingly, both INL and 

2 ANL-East have parts of the early dosimetry, but 

3 neither appears to be complete, from this 

4 experiment or this testing that we did.

5 What we found is Argonne National 

6 Laboratory-East in Illinois does have the 

7 individual dosimetry readings for most workers, 

8 not all, of the test case, from 1952 through March 

9 of 1955.

10 INL, on the other hand, only has the 

11 annual summaries from 1952 to 1957 for Argonne 

12 National Laboratory-West workers who were still 

13 employed in 1958. 1958 is when the site 

14 transitioned from a paper copy or a paper system 

15 into using an IBM system or an electronic 

16 records-keeping of the external dosimetry.

17 We did find that Idaho National 

18 Laboratory deidentified individual dosimetry 

19 readings from 1954 to 1957. And what that means 

20 is that the site took over around 1954/1955 

21 timeframe. The Atomic Energy Commission's Health 

22 and Safety Laboratory out there started reading 

23 the dosimetry that they would provide back to the 
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1 site, or to EBR-I, "here is the list of readings 

2 for these badges." The names of who got those 

3 dosimetries got added after the fact. It wasn't 

4 submitted with the badge initially. So we have 

5 this deidentified data, but no way to pull it back 

6 to who it was.

7 Starting in 1958, we do have individual 

8 dosimetry readings for all workers up through the 

9 2005 when the site combined back with INL. So 

10 there is a potential for an external dosimetry gap 

11 here, from 1955 through 1958, if a worker 

12 terminated before 1958. We don't really have any 

13 confidence that we would be able to get that data. 

14 And we're also not sure whether Argonne National 

15 Laboratory-East in Illinois has all of that early, 

16 pre-1955 data. We found it for most workers, but 

17 not all.

18 Interestingly, we found some for 

19 secretaries, that they were monitored, but then 

20 other people we knew were there, we did not get a 

21 response back from Argonne National 

22 Laboratory-East. So it's most people, but not 

23 all.
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1 So, looking at the internal 

2 monitoring, the bioassay monitoring, there was a 

3 campaign in June of 1952, shortly after they 

4 started up in 1951, for bioassay. And it looks 

5 like a large number -- or not a large number, but 

6 a significant number of workers were monitored for 

7 gross alpha and uranium. But we have very 

8 limited, very few samples for mixed fission 

9 products prior to 1958. And no mixed fission 

10 product bioassay for the people known to have 

11 worked during that BORAX-I recovery in 1954 when 

12 they were sifting through the remnants of the 

13 reactor looking for those gold foils. We know 

14 some of the workers that did that work and we 

15 specifically looked at their bioassay and there's 

16 nothing there.

17 Neither ANL-East nor INL provided the 

18 bioassay of the 1955 ruptured brick or core melt 

19 that I talked about earlier. Those records we 

20 obtained from other boxes of radiological records 

21 out at the site. These had not been tied to these 

22 individual workers.

23 So there's the potential of the other 
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1 ruptured bricks that occurred, that there could be 

2 more plutonium bioassay out there that we don't 

3 know about.

4 In the absence of bioassay monitoring 

5 data, we can sometimes use air monitoring data to 

6 estimate internal dose. Unfortunately for this 

7 area, we did not locate any air monitoring data 

8 between 1951 and 1954, and in 1957. 

9 We do have limited air monitoring data 

10 for '55 and '56, but these files appear to be in 

11 an individual health physicist's records, because 

12 they bounced around different months depending 

13 upon kind of which area he was working in. And 

14 they were limited to the reactor top, the main 

15 floor, and the basement.

16 After 1958, we do have extensive 

17 bioassay data available, as well as we found air 

18 monitoring data and smear data, indicating that in 

19 general the areas around EBR-I and ZPR-III were 

20 clean and very low level of contamination. There 

21 were the occasional hot spots identified, but 

22 there was cleanup afterwards and the next survey 

23 would be negligible. 
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1 We looked extensively for records for 

2 the EBR-I ANL-West complex there in this early time 

3 period. We looked both out at INL, at Argonne 

4 National Laboratory-East, at the Seattle Federal 

5 Records Center. Because the site is now a 

6 national historic monument, we looked at the 

7 Department of Interior to see if they had any 

8 records.

9 And then President Johnson is who 

10 designated the site as a national historic 

11 monument. We contacted the Johnson Library to see 

12 if they had any of these records for EBR-I. So we 

13 did look for these records. We believe they were 

14 taken, but nobody can seem to find them anywhere. 

15 And we really did look hard for this.

16 So, a summary of EBR-I and BORAX. 

17 Without mixed fission product exposure 

18 information, bioassay, or air monitoring, we 

19 really can't estimate the mixed fission product 

20 dose associated and the associated actinide 

21 exposures for EBR-I and BORAX in those early years 

22 with the brick ruptures as well as the BORAX 

23 experiments and recovery.
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1 We also have a potentially incomplete 

2 external monitoring data issue for workers at this 

3 West site who were terminated before 1958. So 

4 this is why we are recommending adding a Class to 

5 the Special Exposure Cohort, due to this 

6 inadequate mixed fission product monitoring and 

7 potentially incomplete external monitoring data 

8 prior to '58.

9 So, before I leave the West site, I want 

10 to talk a little bit about ZPR-III. This was a 

11 reactor design that was two halves of the reactor. 

12 There was fuel drawers that were inserted and the 

13 two halves were brought together to attain 

14 criticality. One half moved toward the other.

15 And you can see this is a fairly small 

16 reactor. In this picture, it really illustrates 

17 somebody standing there on the face of the reactor 

18 and he's holding a drawer and the drawer is there 

19 off to the right. These drawers are filled with 

20 uranium, depleted uranium, enriched uranium, and 

21 sodium. They would do the mock-up of the actual 

22 reactor with these drawers and then evacuate the 

23 room, bring the halves together to achieve 
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1 criticality.

2 The radiological exposures were 

3 minimal fission product exposures. The reactors 

4 were operated at very low power. Zero power, 

5 basically. There is some potential for uranium 

6 exposure in handling the fuel plates and the pins, 

7 as they were only painted and not clad.

8 Some workers during interviews did 

9 discuss that their gloves would be blackened. 

10 They would be picking up some oxide from this 

11 uranium.

12 They did use some plutonium in this 

13 reactor, but the plutonium was very 

14 well-controlled and caution was used. When the 

15 plutonium elements came in, they were 

16 encapsulated. They were checked. They were 

17 surveyed when they went into storage. When they 

18 came out of storage to be loaded into the drawers, 

19 they were surveyed again, put into the reactor. 

20 After the reactor experiment, the drawers were 

21 removed. They were checked again for 

22 contamination. You see all of this in the 

23 records. So it was very tight control on these 
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1 plutonium fuel plates for contamination.

2 And so that covers the West site of the 

3 Argonne National Laboratory. The East area, this 

4 is a modern view of the site, and this is kind of 

5 what people think of with Argonne National 

6 Laboratory-West, is this particular picture, 

7 where you have got EBR-II there in the center of 

8 the fuel cycle facility. And then ZPPR in the 

9 foreground here and TREAT way back in the corner.

10 Well, TREAT was the Transient Reactor 

11 Test Facility. It started operation in February 

12 of 1959. Its purpose was to study fuel meltdowns, 

13 metal-water reactions and interactions. The 

14 transient behavior of fuels and 

15 high-temperatures. It also did some neutron 

16 radiography in the earlier years.

17 But whenever they were doing these fuel 

18 meltdown experiments, it was a remote operation. 

19 People evacuated the building down to a controlled 

20 area, and then before entry, health physics 

21 monitored and cleared the building before any 

22 workers could go back in.

23 The Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 
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1 2, this is the follow-on to EBR-I, was originally 

2 designed and operated with emphasis on 

3 demonstrating a complete breeder reactor power 

4 plant with onsite refuel processing of metallic 

5 fuel.

6 It achieved dry criticality in 

7 September of 1961. And by dry criticality, I mean 

8 it was just that. The control rods were pulled 

9 out. There was no coolant in there, no sodium. 

10 But it was low power, so there wasn't a lot of heat 

11 generation.

12 It went wet critical in November of 

13 1963, almost a little over two years later, that 

14 was when sodium was added to the reactor. 

15 The external dose. There was some 

16 with EBR-II, but it wasn't tremendous. The design 

17 of the reactor with sodium tended to keep the 

18 fission products, including volatiles like 

19 iodine, bound in the system, in the pool away from 

20 the reactors while they decayed. Some areas did 

21 have moderate levels of exposure.

22 Through interviews with workers, the 

23 major concern we heard expressed was exposure 
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1 while cleaning and removing the dross, or an 

2 oxidized tin-bismuth material around the rotating 

3 plugs used to move the fuel. This area was right 

4 above the reactor and above the argon blanket gas. 

5 There is about 18 inches of argon gas separating 

6 the sodium from air. And argon is heavier than 

7 air, so it just sat there. And the exposure is 

8 really primarily due to activation products, but 

9 some mixed fission products at that point.

10 The internal dose is primarily beta11 gamma. For EBR-II, there is no actinide exposure 

12 without beta-gamma exposure. Thus, the 

13 beta-gamma bioassay and monitoring can be used to 

14 bound these actinide exposures.

15 There is urinalysis and extensive 

16 whole-body counting of the workforce. Monthly 

17 reports indicate approximately 30 to 35 workers 

18 per month were counted in the whole-body counter.

19 There was also other workplace 

20 monitoring. There was continuous air monitors 

21 throughout the building and on the exhaust. 

22 Routine surveys of the building, including checks 

23 for alpha contamination throughout the building, 
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1 were conducted.

2 The Fuel Cycle Facility began 

3 operations in 1964 and operated through 1969. It 

4 demonstrated a fully functional reprocessing 

5 facility. So, basically, elements coming out of 

6 the reactor were sent through the fuel -- or were 

7 sent into the air cell and then transferred into 

8 the argon cell where the actual reprocessing took 

9 place, where the fuel would then be chopped and cut 

10 down and melted separated from the fission 

11 products and the poisons that you have in there 

12 within the fuel elements, and new fuel elements 

13 made and sent back into EBR-II and irradiated.

14 The outer rooms around this annular 

15 argon cell there in the center were initially to 

16 support those operations. And I'll talk a little 

17 bit about the mold prep room there, Room 25, in a 

18 moment.

19 Later on, this became part of the cold 

20 line where instead of reprocessing irradiated 

21 fuel, they would take cold fuel, or fuel that had 

22 not been irradiated, fresh uranium, and make fuel 

23 elements in those outer rooms. This is before the 
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1 fuel and storage building was built.

2 The argon cell itself, where all this 

3 reprocessing was done, where the fuels were 

4 dissolved, was not entered until 1978. There is 

5 extensive monitoring when they did this 

6 refurbishment. There is an article in Health 

7 Physics by Jack Courtney who kind of outlines the 

8 entire process, including the actinide components 

9 that they observed when they went back into this 

10 argon cell.

11 Air cell entries, according to 

12 interviews, were infrequent. There was an effort 

13 to decontaminate before they sent people into the 

14 Air cell. Health physics monitored before, 

15 during and after each of the entries. There is 

16 usually air samples that were taken during the work 

17 in the cell. And, again, beta-gamma 

18 contamination levels were much higher than the 

19 alpha and dominated the exposure in this area. 

20 There was some sub-cell work in the 

21 basement, but, again, according to workers, health 

22 physics was always present, always accompanied 

23 operations and surveyed before and after their 
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1 work.

2 At FCF, the radiological monitoring, 

3 there was urine bioassay and whole-body counts for 

4 the workers that worked there. Again, there was 

5 routine air monitoring in the passageways, the 

6 main floor, basement, and the roof. Routine 

7 radiation contamination surveys, including alpha, 

8 throughout the building.

9 For most of the work, beta-gamma always 

10 was present. Thus, actinide exposures can again 

11 be bounded by the ratios indicated in the current 

12 Technical Basis Document.

13 You will notice here I said for most of 

14 the work. Well, there is a couple of exceptions 

15 here, and the exceptions are work in the Mold 

16 Preparation Room 25 involved thoria prior to 1967. 

17 After 1967, they switched to a zirconium coating 

18 and so thoria was no longer used.

19 However, for Room 25, we do have air 

20 monitoring and routine alpha contamination 

21 surveys available, and we'll develop an exposure 

22 model using the air samples, or 10 percent of the 

23 maximum permissible concentration, which is what 
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1 the site controlled the air to.

2 The cold line is the other one. This 

3 is where they would be handling non-irradiated 

4 uranium and making fuel elements. There was some 

5 continuous low level alpha contamination from this 

6 work in several of the outer loop rooms. Most of 

7 the smears are less than 100 dpm per 100 square 

8 centimeters. So, very low level compared to many 

9 uranium facilities, but some smear results could 

10 be as high as a few thousand.

11 The air sample data is available from 

12 this particular time period and we intend to use 

13 this air data for an exposure model.

14 The Hot Fuel Examination Facility, or 

15 HFEF-North. This facility began operation in 

16 December of 1972 with a decon cell, and then the 

17 main cell went hot in March of 1975. And its 

18 purpose was a follow-on to FCF of examining hot and 

19 irradiated fuels. It was a larger, more versatile 

20 facility that was built than FCF.

21 In 1978, they added a neutron 

22 radiography facility, whereas I mentioned before 

23 neutron radiography was being conducted down at 
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1 TREAT.

2 Radiological monitoring at 

3 HFEF-North. Workers were again on routine 

4 whole-body count schedule. A ratio method can be 

5 used to determine the actinide exposures. They 

6 also had an extensive fixed air head sampling 

7 system. It was installed in 1976. And, again, 

8 there is an article in Health Physics describing 

9 the system by Jack Courtney.

10 However, we found routine air 

11 monitoring as early as 1972. So, even though the 

12 system was noted as being fully operational in 

13 1976, we do have air sampling data back four years 

14 prior. Routine radiation and contamination 

15 surveys were conducted again at this facility.

16 The laboratory and office building. 

17 This one was really the first one that started 

18 operation. If you recall, the start-up of the 

19 reactors, 1961 for EBR-I, it was dry critical and 

20 it didn't go wet critical until 1963.

21 Well, the lab and office building was 

22 really the first facility that started hot 

23 operations there in the -- well, within the West 
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1 or the -- yeah, the East site.

2 The analytical laboratories contained 

3 some glove boxes to support EBR-II and the FCF 

4 operations. There were some hot cells, some 

5 junior caves, that would process small samples 

6 from the fuel cycle. And there were vaults that 

7 would store fresh enriched fuel before it went to 

8 the cold line.

9 Most of the exposure was beta-gamma. 

10 However, due to the nature of the activities, 

11 chemical separations, sample analysis, there was 

12 some potential for alpha exposure without, or a 

13 limited beta-gamma exposure. 

14 The high risk areas were the 

15 laboratories and the junior caves. However, 

16 there is extensive radiological monitoring 

17 throughout the timeline, routine air monitoring 

18 and contamination surveys in these areas.

19 The Zero Power Plutonium Reactor is the 

20 last facility here I'll talk about. This started 

21 in 1969 and its purpose was to construct assemblies 

22 that closely resembled various fast reactor 

23 designs. It was designed much like ZPR-III, 
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1 except much larger and versatile.

2 And here you can see, in the photo, the 

3 floor for ZPR-I. And individual, the top of his 

4 head was about the top of the reactor. Here the 

5 top of the reactor is about three times higher. So 

6 this is a much large pile that was assembled for 

7 ZPPR.

8 As with ZPR-III, minimal fission 

9 product exposures. The reactor was operated at 

10 low power. Some potential for uranium exposure, 

11 again, handling the fuel plates and pins. 

12 Exposure to plutonium was again very 

13 well-controlled and caution was used, cladding and 

14 verification thereof, both when it was received 

15 onsite, when it was stored in the vault, when it 

16 came out it was checked again.

17 When a fuel plate was monitored and 

18 found to have contamination, or if there was some 

19 type of mechanical defect, it was warped in some 

20 way -- they had different tests that they would 

21 conduct on each of these encapsulated plutonium 

22 elements -- it was bagged and logged as a suspect 

23 fuel element. And so they kept very good control 
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1 over those particular elements back during this 

2 time period.

3 There were five continuous air 

4 monitors, one on each half of the reactor, one near 

5 the reactor cell entrance where workers would come 

6 in, the loading workroom, and the storage vault. 

7 Alpha contamination really doesn't seem to be 

8 tolerated. In looking at the surveys that were 

9 conducted, most of the surveys are showing less 

10 than 5 dpm per 100 square centimeters within the 

11 area, which is about 1/4 of what today's limits 

12 are.

13 Routine smears, as I said, indicate low 

14 levels of alpha contamination. The air samples 

15 were counted down to a point where they would be 

16 reading less than 10 percent of the MPC, or maximum 

17 permissible concentration.

18 Argonne is unique in the sense of how 

19 they counted their air samples. I hadn't run into 

20 this before, in that if they took an air sample, 

21 they might immediately count it. They might wait 

22 10 minutes. They might wait a half an hour before 

23 they counted it. But then they would follow 
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1 through and calculate what the MPC was based upon 

2 the limiting isotope. In many cases, it was 

3 plutonium for this facility.

4 And if it was below 10 percent of the 

5 MPC, they didn't count it again. It could have 

6 been at 8 percent of the MPC, but it was never 

7 counted again. 

8 If it was above 10 MPC, they might wait 

9 a half an hour, or might wait four or five hours, 

10 and count it again. And there would be a string 

11 of these counts until it got below, the radon had 

12 decayed off, indicating the gross alpha activity 

13 was less than 10 percent of the MPC.

14 So the actinide doses here can be bound 

15 based upon 10 percent of the MPC, based on what we 

16 saw within these records. And there are literally 

17 thousands of these air samples.

18 So, the feasibility of dose 

19 reconstruction across both the East and the West 

20 sites here. Up until 1958, the West site, or the 

21 EBR-I complex, we determined it to be infeasible 

22 due to the limited mixed fission product bioassay 

23 and potentially incomplete external dosimetry 
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1 records.

2 We determined the dose reconstruction 

3 was feasible for the East site as there was routine 

4 mixed fission product bioassay and air sample data 

5 indicating alpha exposures were controlled to less 

6 than 10 percent of the maximum permissible 

7 concentration.

8 So, from a health endangerment 

9 standpoint, some workers in the Class may have 

10 accumulated chronic radiation exposures through 

11 intakes of radionuclides at the EBR-I complex of 

12 ANL-West. NIOSH is therefore specifying that the 

13 health may have been endangered for the workers 

14 monitored at ANL-West who were employed for a 

15 number of workdays aggregating at least 250 

16 workdays.

17 So, what about employees not included 

18 in the SEC that we are recommending? We intend to 

19 use the monitoring data to conduct partial dose 

20 reconstructions for individuals not part of the 

21 SEC. We recognize, even in that earlier time 

22 period, for external dose we may not be able to do 

23 a complete external dose reconstruction. If we 
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1 have records for the individual, we will include 

2 them, obviously. But if we don't, there is really 

3 no other avenue for us to try and estimate those 

4 external doses.

5 So, again, our proposed Classes: All 

6 employees of the Department of Energy, its 

7 predecessor agencies, and their contractors and 

8 subcontractors, who worked at Argonne National 

9 Laboratory-West between April 10th, 1951 and 

10 December 31st, 1957, for a number of workdays 

11 aggregating at least 250 workdays, occurring 

12 either solely under this employment or in 

13 combination with workdays within the parameters 

14 established for one or more other Classes of 

15 employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

16 And with that, I'll be happy to answer 

17 any questions you have. Thank you.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Thank 

19 you, Tim. And thank you and the ORAU staff for a 

20 very good, thorough report.

21 DR. TAULBEE: Thank you.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm surprised they 

23 let me on the plane with it, right? One small 
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1 suggestion. If it would be helpful if you could 

2 number the slides. I can't, you know --

3 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- kid you about how 

5 many slides there were, but more importantly if we 

6 have to refer back to them during the discussion, 

7 it helps. 

8 DR. TAULBEE: Sure.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, anyway, small 

10 point. Small point for that.

11 DR. TAULBEE: Will do.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions or 

13 comments for Tim? Yes, Gen. 

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: That was a lot of 

15 slides, but I think it's important to have all that 

16 background information, because there are a lot of 

17 different facilities there. And with the photos 

18 and stuff, it was interesting. 

19 The thing I want to compliment you on 

20 is giving the bottom line first. NIOSH didn't use 

21 to do that and you used to have to either look ahead 

22 or wait and see. Because if you give it first, 

23 then as you are going through it, you will 
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1 understand it better.

2 So, my question is, apparently 

3 something changed in 1958 because the external 

4 dosimetry got better and the internal got better. 

5 Was there some sort of administrative change at 

6 that time? 

7 DR. TAULBEE: The external dosimetry 

8 change that occurred was they went from a paper 

9 system to an electronic system. So, at that time, 

10 instead of just submitting the badges to the Health 

11 and Safety Laboratory, the Atomic Energy 

12 Commission operated the external dosimetry as well 

13 as did the analysis for internal dosimetry.

14 At that time, instead of just 

15 submitting the samples, they started submitting 

16 the names with it. And so now there is a record 

17 that came back that we have and can identify these 

18 people as having this dose coming out of the Health 

19 and Safety Laboratory.

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: So it was more of a 

21 technology change that --

22 DR. TAULBEE: Only a technology from a 

23 record-keeping standpoint that changed, from that 
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1 standpoint. With regards to the internal, that 

2 one is actually really interesting, because the 

3 Health and Safety Laboratory had been conducting, 

4 since 1955, these bioassay analysis. But the 

5 records appeared to have gone back to the site and 

6 were not retained by the Health and Safety 

7 Laboratory.

8 Starting in 1958, we start seeing those 

9 records as part of their complete set and 

10 incorporated into the same volumes that we saw for 

11 all the other INL workers. We would be going 

12 through and seeing CPP or TRA, and then see Argonne 

13 National Laboratory-West or EBR-I.

14 Whereas, in the earlier years, those 

15 pages were actually pulled out and they were sent 

16 back to EBR-I and we didn't have them. So that was 

17 the change.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Along those lines, 

19 was there a rationale for why they had deidentified 

20 individual monitoring? That seems unusual to me.

21 DR. TAULBEE: I believe what they did 

22 was they took the collection of badges, sent them 

23 over. They got the results back and then they knew 
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1 that worker, you know, John Smith had Badge 3001 

2 and --

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So it was a coding 

4 system?

5 DR. TAULBEE: So it was a coding 

6 system. And EBR-I kept those records of who had

7 which badge to themselves.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay. Okay. I 

9 see.

10 DR. TAULBEE: When they switched to 

11 electronic, they had to provide both.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And then 

13 they didn't maintain the identifiable coding or 

14 records, however you want to --

15 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct. Well, 

16 if EBR-I and Argonne-West kept them, we don't know 

17 where they are.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, that's the 

19 other possibility. Okay. 

20 MEMBER FIELD: I was just really 

21 curious: what kind of electronic system did they 

22 have in '58?

23 DR. TAULBEE: They instituted an IBM 
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1 mainframe computer system for dosimetry.

2 MEMBER FIELD: Punch cards?

3 DR. TAULBEE: Punch cards, yes. But 

4 then they would get monthly printouts of what the 

5 dosimetry was. Actually biweekly for some 

6 workers.

7 MEMBER BEACH: So, I have a question 

8 back on, I think, Slide 20, the EBR-I. It's sort 

9 of close to what Gen was talking about. The 

10 cut-off dates are always interesting, but your 

11 third bullet says "after 1958 bioassay data is 

12 available."

13 DR. TAULBEE: That should say after 

14 '57, sorry.

15 MEMBER BEACH: That's what I thought.

16 So I wanted to clarify that. And have you done 

17 some verification on the number of bioassay data 

18 that's available after '57 -- you may have said it 

19 -- and the percentage of what you have?

20 DR. TAULBEE: Within the report 

21 itself, with the Evaluation Report, you will see 

22 tallies of the number of bioassay that we have 

23 collected over this entire time period. So 
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1 there's a chart in there that shows how many 

2 bioassays there are.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

4 questions? Dave, go ahead.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm just curious. 

6 I've never seen the two-half reactors that were 

7 brought together. Could you tell us a little bit 

8 about what was the function of those? What was to 

9 be learned? And the folks standing around didn't 

10 seem to be wearing much in the way of protective 

11 clothing. I assume they had badges and things.

12 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct. They 

13 did not wear much protective clothing because 

14 there really wasn't much of an exposure with these 

15 encapsulated uranium and plutonium. The 

16 plutonium was always encapsulated in stainless 

17 steel. And so there wasn't much of an exposure.

18 The drawers were actually loaded in the 

19 workroom, that's where they were taken out and put 

20 into the sequence and then loaded into the reactor.

21 The purpose of them was to study fast 

22 reactors. How do they fission? How do they 

23 respond? And so they can mock up different 
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1 designs, instead of building a large reactor and 

2 then trying to, you know, do the core 

3 configurations. This was kind of generic. They 

4 could come up with whatever reactor design that 

5 they wanted, and then they could put it into the 

6 drawers, bring the two halves together.

7 And a major part of this was verifying 

8 early reactor codes of whether or not they could 

9 follow the neutronics of achieving criticality and 

10 whether their calculations matched what they found 

11 whenever they were doing this.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I have one question. 

13 Where did you get those nice pictures of Brad 

14 though? I mean, you know, in his earlier, younger 

15 days.

16 (Laughter.)

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: I noticed on Slide 

18 41 you talk about the East site and that it was--

19 you determined that it was feasible. I'm just 

20 curious about your justification there, that 

21 because the test results available were low, it's 

22 feasible? I mean, or were there enough individual 

23 data or --
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1 DR. TAULBEE: Once you get to 1958 and 

2 forward, the record-keeping became a lot better, 

3 for one thing. So we have a lot more of the 

4 bioassay associated with the workers. And I guess 

5 I shouldn't say the record-keeping got better. We 

6 could find the records, let me put it that way.

7 As well as in addition to the bioassay, 

8 we also have the air monitoring data. And you have 

9 contamination surveys that were being conducted 

10 and we could locate that information to look at 

11 what the exposure levels were.

12 And so that's really the big 

13 difference. Once the East site became 

14 operational, it seems like all of the records were 

15 maintained there until 2005 when they combined 

16 with INL. And so we were easily able to find all 

17 of those records and look at these exposures.

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: My point was more if 

19 there's data available that you could do dose 

20 reconstruction, that's fine, but the point you 

21 make in your bullet here that it's justified 

22 because it's controlled to less than 10 percent of 

23 the MPC, I mean, that really doesn't help other 
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1 than, I mean, if you are doing just, you know, a 

2 generic, oh, you know, we have some measurements 

3 there and nothing was above 10 percent, so there 

4 are no significant exposures. That's really not 

5 dose reconstruction.

6 DR. TAULBEE: No, that's not what I'm 

7 saying. What we are saying here is that in most 

8 cases, for most workers, we can use the mixed 

9 fission product bioassay to estimate what the 

10 actinide exposures are.

11 There is a few areas where we have the 

12 thoria, where we have the cold line, where that 

13 mixed fission product tag won't estimate what the 

14 actinide exposures are. And that's where we have 

15 the air sample data that we can use.

16 But keep in mind how they counted their 

17 data, the actual exposure could be down around 1 

18 MPC or a half of an MPC. But when they got that 

19 initial count and it would say at 8 percent of the 

20 MPC, they didn't count it again. So our data is 

21 all biased based upon it being below 10 percent of 

22 the MPC, is how they did their air sample 

23 monitoring, which is different than other sites.
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1 Other sites would let it sit for 24 

2 hours, or 72 hours, let all the radon decay, and 

3 then you could estimate what the actual long-lived 

4 uranium or thoria exposures were.

5 In this case, they didn't do that. 

6 This is unique that we have seen across the -- from 

7 all the other sites that we have looked at.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Tim, you were saying 

9 that the only neutron radiography was done over at 

10 TREAT?

11 DR. TAULBEE: No.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. 

13 DR. TAULBEE: No. There is the NRAD 

14 facility at HFEF-North, as well. Now, the EBR-I, 

15 in the early years, did have neutron beam ports, 

16 and so they would do some neutron exposures. Now, 

17 they did not do radiography, to my knowledge, at 

18 EBR-I back in those early years. It was just there 

19 at TREAT and then the NRAD facility at HFEF-North.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. And when you 

21 were talking about ZPPR-III, you said that the 

22 plutonium is a sealed plutonium?

23 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. It is 
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1 encapsulated in stainless steel. And there is 

2 numerous surveys when it was received of them 

3 verifying that it was free of contamination. And 

4 in some cases it wasn't and they sent it back to, 

5 I want to say it was, Apollo that they got some of 

6 those from.

7 But so we do see those contamination 

8 surveys for each time when it was received, and 

9 then when it was put in the vault, came out of the 

10 vault, going into the reactor, tested again when 

11 it came out of the reactor and stored back in the 

12 vault.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Thank you.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You had raised the 

15 issue of thoria exposure and having to rely on air 

16 monitoring data, I think.

17 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And how are you 

19 going to place people into areas where you're going 

20 to have to use that air monitoring data?

21 DR. TAULBEE: Well, we can do this 

22 multiple ways. From one standpoint, the biggest 

23 dose that you get from that is certainly for the 
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1 bone. So, for bone cancer is when this becomes 

2 really important. We will be using that air 

3 monitoring data for sure for those particular 

4 workers if they are in that time window.

5 For other workers, we can, you know, 

6 basically do the same thing but setting a bounding 

7 dose. It's really not a large dose to other organs 

8 other than the bone and lung from that standpoint. 

9 So, assigning the dose to all workers really isn't 

10 a major issue, at least from my standpoint of 

11 assigning, you know, 50 to 60 millirem.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But it goes back 

13 to Henry's point, I think, that -- let's take lung 

14 as kind of the more common claim than bone. Is the 

15 proposal that you'll just take 10 percent --

16 DR. TAULBEE: We would assign it to all 

17 workers. Whatever that intake is, we would assign 

18 it to all workers. Does that answer your 

19 question?

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

21 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

22 MEMBER VALERIO: Can you hear me okay?

23 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.
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1 MEMBER VALERIO: On Slide 14, on page 

2 14, the second bullet where you indicated that, 

3 "The following days were spent rotating workers 

4 into the pit where the reactor was to recover the 

5 gold foils." Do you -- were these done in shifts, 

6 8-hour shifts? 

7 DR. TAULBEE: No. These workers were 

8 wearing a pencil dosimetry, as well, at least 

9 that's our understanding. And once they got to a 

10 certain exposure level, they were pulled out for 

11 the week.

12 We do see -- interestingly, within the 

13 records we can't find the actual person's 

14 dosimetry for that particular time, but we do see 

15 the exposure variance reports where they would 

16 indicate this person, "we want them to exceed the 

17 300 millirem in the week, because they are working 

18 on this BORAX recovery."

19 MEMBER VALERIO: Okay. 

20 DR. TAULBEE: And so that's when they 

21 were. So it wasn't like a single shift. It was 

22 up until exposure.

23 MEMBER VALERIO: Okay. Thank you.
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1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Hey, Tim, this is 

2 Phil Schofield. I've got a question on that.

3 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir.

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Do you know exactly 

5 what kind of protective equipment they had on? I 

6 mean, is it possible -- it talks about there being 

7 sludge and stuff. Are there any records of any of

8 these people getting high levels of skin 

9 contamination?

10 DR. TAULBEE: There is certainly 

11 records of them getting high level external 

12 contamination, so I would assume skin 

13 contamination, as well. But we don't have any 

14 records indicating what those contamination 

15 levels were, for this time period, for these 

16 workers that were doing this recovery. So we just 

17 don't have any records. I'm sure they were.

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. Thanks.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer, do you 

20 have any questions?

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: I have a question, Dr. 

22 Melius. Hello? 

23 PARTICIPANT: Yeah. I was just 
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1 trying to figure out what this is all about.

2 MR. KATZ: This is an Advisory Board on 

3 Radiation and Worker Health meeting you have 

4 called into. So, there is no open comment for 

5 members of the public right now.

6 PARTICIPANT: Oh, okay. Okeydokey.

7 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

8 PARTICIPANT: Because I was -- they 

9 were talking about dosimeters and stuff like that, 

10 rings, and badges and so on.

11 MR. KATZ: Nope, nope. You have the 

12 wrong number, but thanks.

13 PARTICIPANT: Okay. Thank you.

14 MR. KATZ: Take care.

15 PARTICIPANT: Bye.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yeah. Maybe I'm 

18 premature on this, but I wondered if the Work Group 

19 has a specific recommendation on this. Has the 

20 Work Group acted on the NIOSH recommendation?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The Work Group has 

22 not met to review this report. It came out a few 

23 days before our last meeting.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. 

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And so it was not. 

3 So we will have to do that and follow-up with that.

4 Are the petitioners for the site on the 

5 line and do they wish to make comments? Not 

6 required to. We are not expecting you, but I 

7 wanted to make sure.

8 MR. ZINK: This is Brian Zink and I'm

9 the authorized representative for --

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, hi, Brian.

11 MR. ZINK: I do not have comment. I 

12 appreciate Tim's work and everybody's work. I 

13 know -- I believe Mr. Wolz is on the line also. I'm 

14 not sure if he wants to speak of it or not, but I 

15 have no comment at this time.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

17 Brian. Mr. Wolz, do you wish to make any comments, 

18 if you are on the line? 

19 Okay. I guess not. Thank you.

20 So, next question. Bill, yeah?

21 MEMBER FIELD: Yeah, I had a question. 

22 Can you go over how thoria exposure is calculated 

23 again?
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1 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. Let me go back up 

2 to that slide. Sorry, blew right by it. 

3 In the mold prep room -- and this room 

4 was used from 1964 through 1967 -- we're going to 

5 use the air monitoring in that room. There was an 

6 air monitor dedicated to Room 25 for this 

7 particular work.

8 And we are going to use the air sample 

9 data that's in there, or we will bound it at the 

10 10 percent of the MPC. We have captured the data. 

11 We haven't coded it and gone through and developed 

12 the exposure model, but we do have the air sample 

13 data for that particular room where thoria was 

14 used.

15 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. I guess my 

16 question is, is that dermally absorbed?

17 DR. TAULBEE: I'm sorry?

18 MEMBER FIELD: It's dermally 

19 absorbed, isn't it?

20 DR. TAULBEE: Dermally, no.

21 MEMBER FIELD: Yeah, thoria?

22 DR. TAULBEE: I don't believe so.

23 MEMBER FIELD: Well, I'd check on 
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1 that. I would check on it. 

2 DR. TAULBEE: We will look into that, 

3 sure.

4 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. 

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other comments 

6 or questions from the Board? Any thoughts on what 

7 we should do? Hint, hint. 

8 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: This is Phil. I 

9 think we should go ahead and vote on getting them 

10 an SEC for this time period.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, I'll take that 

12 as a motion.

13 MEMBER BEACH: I'll second that.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'll third it.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You're too slow, 

16 Brad. Any further comments or questions? So it 

17 would be the proposed Class, all employees to the 

18 Department of Energy, et cetera, et cetera, at 

19 Argonne National Laboratory-West between April 

20 10th, 1951 and December 31st, 1957. Okay. Any 

21 further comments or questions?

22 If not, I'll ask Ted to do the roll.

23 MR. KATZ: So I'll do this 
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1 alphabetically.

2 Dr. Anderson?

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

5 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Excuse me, everybody, 

9 please use your mikes when you respond. So, so 

10 far, Anderson, Beach and Clawson have said yes, 

11 just for the record.

12 Dr. Field?

13 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen is absent. I'll 

17 collect his vote as an absentee.

18 Dr. Lockey?

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

23 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Poston also is 

2 absent. Dr. Richardson?

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

5 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

7 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Ms. Valerio?

9 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay. And it's --

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I have to repeat 

14 my yes into the microphone.

15 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Dr. Melius says

16 yes again. And we have more votes than we have 

17 Members, but it's unanimous.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do we have an 

19 agreement or suggestion that we refer this to the 

20 Idaho Work Group?

21 MEMBER BEACH: Can we task SC&A at this 

22 time?

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excellent idea. 
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

2 READING OF LETTER INTO RECORD 

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, tasking SC&A to 

4 review the SEC report. Okay. And refer to the 

5 Idaho Work Group.

6 And we also need to do the letter. It 

7 could give Ted and our counsel -- make them 

8 apoplectic if I just said "the Advisory Board, et 

9 cetera." I don't think we'll do that.

10 "The Advisory Board on Radiation 

11 Worker Health (the Board) has evaluated Special 

12 Exposure Cohort Petition 00224 concerning workers 

13 of the Argonne National Laboratory-West in 

14 Scoville, Idaho, under the statutory requirements 

15 established by the Energy Employees Occupational 

16 Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, 

17 incorporated into 42 CFR Section 83.13.

18 "The Board respectfully recommends 

19 that SEC status be accorded to 'all employees of 

20 the Department of Energy, its predecessor 

21 agencies, and their contractors and 

22 subcontractors who worked at the Argonne National 

23 Laboratory-West during the time period from April 
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1 10th, 1951 through December 31st, 1957, for a 

2 number of workdays aggregating at least 250 

3 workdays, occurring either solely under this 

4 employment, or in combination with the workdays 

5 within the parameters established for one or more 

6 other Classes of employees in the Special Exposure 

7 Cohort.'

8 "This recommendation is based on the 

9 following factors: 

10 "Workers at this facility during the 

11 time period in question were involved in 

12 operations related to nuclear weapons production;

13 "NIOSH's review of available 

14 monitoring data as well as available process and 

15 source term information for this facility found 

16 that NIOSH lacked the sufficient information to 

17 allow it to estimate with sufficient accuracy the 

18 potential internal and external doses which 

19 employees working at this facility may have been 

20 subjected. The Board concurs with this 

21 determination.

22 "NIOSH also determined that health may 

23 have been endangered for these Argonne National 
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1 Laboratory-West employees during the time period 

2 in question. The Board also concurs with this 

3 determination.

4 "Based on these considerations, and 

5 the discussions of the March 23rd and 24th, 2016 

6 Board meeting in Tampa, Florida, the Board 

7 recommends that this Class be added to the SEC.

8 "Enclosed is the documentation from 

9 the Board meeting where this SEC Class was 

10 discussed. Documentation includes copies of the 

11 petition, the NIOSH review thereof and related 

12 materials. If any of these items are unavailable, 

13 at this time, they will follow shortly."

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: One friendly 

15 concern related to the first bullet point. Other 

16 than blowing up a reactor, I'm not quite sure these 

17 would be called nuclear weapons.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Related to nuclear 

19 weapons production. It's broader in there.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Boilerplate. If we 

22 come up with a better description, we will.

23 Before we break, I actually have one 
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1 request for NIOSH and SC&A. I just want to get on 

2 the record here and talk to SC&A. It seems to me 

3 that for Argonne-East, the Illinois facility, we 

4 have a Site Profile from 2006, it was according to 

5 the website, an update on part of that relatively 

6 recently, in the last few years, 2014.

7 We have an SC&A review of the Site 

8 Profile going back to 2011 -- or excuse me, 2009. 

9 And no Work Group and no resolution on that. I 

10 think we have always sort of, you know, 

11 procrastinated on this one. 

12 And I think my question is, before we 

13 decide do we set up a Work Group, we sort of need 

14 an update from NIOSH -- and you can give this later 

15 today or tomorrow -- on what the status is of any 

16 other updates and sort of where we need to go with 

17 this site. I mean, it doesn't make sense to start 

18 reviewing an old Site Profile if it's all in the 

19 process of being updated. 

20 So, LaVon or Jim or whoever is -- Bob, 

21 if you can check on that and let us know, because 

22 it seems to me we're starting to look at that site, 

23 at least if indirectly, in terms of record-keeping 
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1 and so forth for Argonne-West, that it may be time 

2 to, you know, address that site. And we've sort 

3 of put it off long enough, but you may be in the 

4 middle of doing something that I'm not aware of.

5 So, with that, why don't we take a 

6 break? Take a break and reconvene at 3:15.

7 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

8 went off the record at 2:35 p.m. and resumed at 3:20 

9 p.m.)

10 BOARD WORK SESSION 

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We have time 

12 for Board meetings and Board Work Group updates and 

13 Subcommittee updates. I remind the Board that, 

14 for those of you that are concerned about timing 

15 tomorrow when we finish, if we are efficient with 

16 our Board reports, it helps. 

17 But let's start out with scheduling for 

18 meetings and for -- first is the location for the 

19 August meeting. I believe we had talked about 

20 going back to Idaho, since we have another site SEC 

21 issue there, related site, whatever we want to call 

22 it. And we, you know, have this nice August -- you 

23 know, the two-week window when the snow is melted.
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1 So we will -- but I'm not sure, Denver 

2 was another one we talked about, but it doesn't 

3 look like the report's going to be ready until just 

4 before that.

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, just before the 

6 August meeting.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, so I think 

8 that is cutting it close for that. And now that 

9 we have the Argonne-West report out, I think 

10 hopefully we can get some help and people on that 

11 from there. 

12 So any objections, comments, other 

13 suggestions? And then we need to schedule our 

14 conference on the -- telephone conference. Ted is 

15 suggesting the week of the 23rd to the 30th of 2017, 

16 January. January, the week of January 23rd?

17 MR. KATZ: So if we stick to pattern, 

18 how's the 25th for folks? January 25th, that 

19 would be the Wednesday.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: That's the call.

21 MR. KATZ: That's the teleconference, 

22 right. 

23 MEMBER ANDERSON: It looks good.
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1 MR. KATZ: Does that work for 

2 everyone? Okay. January 25th.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Going once. Going 

4 twice.

5 MR. KATZ: Paul and Phil on the phone, 

6 does that work for you two, January 25th?

7 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: It works for me.

8 MR. KATZ: 11:00 a.m.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, that's great.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. So that's it then, 

11 January 25th.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Then we have a 

13 suggestion for our next in-person meeting: the 

14 week of March 20th or March 27th, location to be 

15 determined. Anybody have conflicts with those 

16 two weeks, or have a week that is better for them? 

17 (Off-microphone comments.)

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The 20th is better 

19 for you? Okay. 

20 MR. KATZ: So do we want to say that the 

21 22nd and 23rd? Is that --

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody have 

23 conflicts on the 22nd or 23rd?
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1 MR. KATZ: Of March.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: March 2017. Paul 

3 or Phil, on the phone?

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'm good.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm good.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. Hawaii it is.

9 (Laughter.)

10 WORK GROUPS/SUBCOMMITTEES 

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Now we have 

12 Work Groups and Subcommittees. And I'm going with 

13 the Ted list, alphabetical, which is not the same 

14 as the site list, the website list, though, in 

15 alphabetical order.

16 AMES LABORATORY 

17 So I'll start with Ames Laboratory. 

18 Dave?

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Ames Lab. 

20 I got a note from Tom Tomes this week. I'll get 

21 that straight next time. And he has responded to 

22 some suggestions from SC&A about external 

23 exposure, and also uranium exposure, internal 
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1 exposure. And he's gathering materials for the 

2 internal exposures for materials other than 

3 uranium.

4 I think we've come far enough along 

5 that it may be appropriate, finally, for our Ames 

6 Lab Group to actually meet. And I'm not sure 

7 whether -- I assume, we will do a teleconference 

8 first. But it seems appropriate, now that we have 

9 enough material to go over, to have one meeting. 

10 And then I hope when -- he said he will have the 

11 others finished, he hoped, by July, and so maybe 

12 in the fall we can meet again.

13 So maybe later this spring or early 

14 summer, I'll inquire of folks. And I will also 

15 send out Tom's letter to the rest of the Members 

16 of the Committee. I just got it the other day.

17 So, Ames is happening. And Tom said to 

18 me, of course, we're tasked to do many other 

19 things, and I'm well aware. And so, you know, that 

20 hasn't moved along as rapidly as anyone had hoped, 

21 but it's happening now.

22 So, that's Ames.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks, Dave. Any 
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1 questions, comments for Dave? Okay. Next, our 

2 favorite site, Blockson. Wanda? I think we are 

3 waiting for SC&A report. So I didn't realize that 

4 John Mauro was the SC&A assignee there.

5 (Off-microphone comment.)

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Can I 

7 suggest, John, that you move up to the front row, 

8 so we -- not that we want to put you on the spot, 

9 but it will help our transcriber here collect the 

10 information. So, thank you.

11 Next up is Brookhaven.

12 BROOKHAVEN 

13 MEMBER BEACH: So, our work is 

14 completed except for the TBDs. And it looked like 

15 we had a delivery date for those of February 2016, 

16 and that has been postponed until, I think it is 

17 September -- or August 9th is the new date for those 

18 to be issued. So, stay tuned.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Josie. 

20 Questions, comments for Josie? Okay. 

21 Carborundum, Gen?

22 CARBORUNDUM

23 MEMBER ROESSLER: We recently got 
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1 SC&A's review of NIOSH's evaluation, and I think 

2 we could have a Work Group meeting soon, but I think 

3 we need SC&A to respond, and we need NIOSH to 

4 respond to SC&A. So I don't know when that might 

5 be.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right now, we 

7 anticipate our response to SC&A's review in April.

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: In April? So, once 

9 we have that, then we'll schedule a Work Group 

10 meeting.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: When in April?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: If I say mid, it's 

13 going to be either side of that, so I'll be fine.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, yeah, yeah, 

15 that's coming close, yeah. Tax day.

16 MEMBER ROESSLER: The report says the 

17 end of --

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: The federal 

19 government wants us to pay on April 15th. We 

20 expect your report on April 15th.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, the report 

22 says the end of April.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, does it? Okay.
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1 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yeah, I thought so.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Does Reconstruction 

3 Review Methods I think we just talked about, and 

4 we will be scheduling a meeting of that Work Group 

5 hopefully in the next month to go over some of the 

6 new reports and information. And we'll get those 

7 out to everybody if they haven't gone out already.

8 So, Fernald.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: There hasn't been 

10 much movement on that, as we did receive a paper 

11 out from NIOSH and, I believe, John. We've got 

12 some information back and forth on Fernald.

13 FERNALD 

14 MR. STIVER: Yes. We've got the TBD 

15 for review just to make sure the updates are 

16 completed as agreed on. That is completed and is 

17 in internal review. We are also working on the 

18 uranium coworker model using the time-weighted 

19 OPOS. That is in review.

20 And I believe Stu had mentioned the 

21 TBD-5 update would be sometime in May, I believe. 

22 So, once that's available, then we will start 

23 reviewing it as well.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions, 

2 comments? Grand Junction. Bill?

3 GRAND JUNCTION 

4 MEMBER FIELD: It's my understanding 

5 we're waiting on a report from SC&A. Do you want 

6 to clarify that? Jim, I think you had a -- there 

7 was, I guess, a teleconference last week it was 

8 discussed?

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah. We had a 

10 teleconference last week with Doug Farver with 

11 SC&A and there was some misunderstandings back and 

12 forth, but he is going to provide a written report 

13 and it should be relatively quickly since he has 

14 already done most everything with it.

15 MR. STIVER: Yeah, that will be ready 

16 in time for the teleconference in May. The 25th 

17 I believe.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

19 Hanford, do we have anything to report? We will 

20 report to Ted that you are listing is wrong. Sam's 

21 gone.

22 MR. KATZ: Oh. Okay. 

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Nothing like 
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1 keeping the Board up to date. But I think we do 

2 need to do -- and I'll talk to Arjun -- I think we 

3 do need to do at least a coordination call and see 

4 where everything is on that to get that back on 

5 track with Sam leaving.

6 Idaho, we'll hear about tomorrow. 

7 Lawrence Berkeley, Paul?

8 LAWRENCE BERKELEY 

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Let me get off mute 

10 here. Okay. There's a pretty extensive 

11 description of where we are in Lawrence Berkeley 

12 in the DCAS work coordination document that was 

13 distributed on this. Fairly extensive. I'm not 

14 going to review all that, but I'll just read a quick 

15 paragraph which they sent me yesterday. And this 

16 was also sent to the Work Group.

17 And it simply says, "A large amount of 

18 Lawrence Berkeley-related air sample data has been 

19 collected in 2015 and this data is currently in the 

20 process of being entered into a database format 

21 developed into a DR approach. And overall, we are 

22 still in the adequacy and completeness evaluation 

23 for Lawrence Berkeley. The data entry part is 
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1 currently scheduled to be completed April 11th," 

2 so that's coming soon, "followed by Health Physics 

3 review and statistical analysis. These steps are 

4 projected to be completed in September 2016, 

5 depending on level of effort required and 

6 priorities."

7 So, basically, we are awaiting 

8 completion of that work to have the Work Group meet 

9 and do evaluations on that.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. 

11 Thanks, Paul. Josie, you have a string here. 

12 You've got Kansas City, LANL, and Mound.

13 KANSAS CITY 

14 MEMBER BEACH: So, first, Kansas City. 

15 Thank you. We are on TBD, so we are waiting for 

16 -- I think Pete is going to start on those and then 

17 get those out to us. And the time line I had 

18 written down was June, 16th -- 2016, I mean. So 

19 unless Pete has got a better time line of -- thanks, 

20 Pete.

21 MR. DARNELL: I actually don't know --

22 this is Pete Darnell -- I do not know the schedule 

23 yet. Word just went out today for ORAU to start 
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1 working on the TBD update. I'll have to get back 

2 to you on a schedule.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Yeah, I just got the 

4 schedule through the DCAS website and it said 

5 mid-June. So, okay. So, TBD, and we're working 

6 on that. Waiting for NIOSH. Thank you.

7 MOUND 

8 Mound. So, the TBDs are all complete 

9 for Mound except for the external. I believe I 

10 read the external was going to be done on June 20th, 

11 the occupational external. The other five were 

12 finished. SC&A put out a report for those and 

13 those are in NIOSH's hands, as well. And we don't 

14 have a date from NIOSH when they're going to be 

15 ready, because they threw Pete in on that, so he's 

16 got a little catch-up to do.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: June 2020?

18 MEMBER BEACH: Did I say -- sorry. June 

19 20, 2016.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Yeah, I was wondering 

22 why you looked so perplexed there.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's why I was.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Yeah, I had it written 

2 down right. Okay. So, yeah, we're getting close 

3 on being able to meet, maybe within the next couple 

4 months, I would say. But, again, we are waiting 

5 for NIOSH.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And Mound?

7 MEMBER BEACH: That was Mound. What 

8 did I miss? LANL.

9 LANL 

10 Okay. So, LANL, we are waiting for 

11 NIOSH on LANL. As I reported at the last Work 

12 Group meeting, SC&A and NIOSH went out and now 

13 we're just waiting on NIOSH's report for what they 

14 found. So unless -- yes, if you have something?

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah. We've pretty 

16 much got all the data that we need from LANL from 

17 our last visit, and from also discussions with some 

18 of the staff at LANL.

19 One thing we are working on is we're 

20 having internal discussions for all the sites for 

21 this 10 CFR 835 period. So, once we come to 

22 resolution, which we have a meeting next week to 

23 discuss, we will kind of be able to give you a 
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1 better date of when we will be able to complete it.

2 Our hope is that we can complete a 

3 report sometime in late summer. And if we can, 

4 earlier before the Board meeting. But that's the 

5 plan. And that will be the same for this site as 

6 well as Sandia.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, 

8 Josie. Anybody have any questions for Josie? 

9 Okay. Brad, Nevada Test Site?

10 NEVADA 

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: We just -- SC&A and 

12 NIOSH have been discussing. We've got an 

13 up-to-date matrix on it. It's mainly all TBD 

14 issues. And I believe that's in SC&A's hands now 

15 for when we'll be able to set up a meeting.

16 MR. STIVER: Yeah, there're still a 

17 few things that need to be finalized about the 

18 resuspension factor issues that we respond to, 

19 some of Mark's concerns, and provide some 

20 clarification on that. But I don't expect that to 

21 take much longer, maybe within three or four weeks.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. 

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, 
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1 Brad. Gen, on Oak Ridge, X-10?

2 OAK RIDGE 

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: Dr. Taulbee, can you 

4 help us on this one?

5 DR. TAULBEE: That should be Lara 

6 Hughes now. I have been reassigned off of that and 

7 Lara Hughes -- I think she sent you an email. I'm 

8 not sure. I was cc'd on that. Did you get a copy? 

9 Okay. He's got an email on the update for it. Dr. 

10 Lara Hughes is the new lead for that one, for that 

11 site.

12 DR. NETON: While you are waiting for 

13 that, I think I can give a brief update on that. 

14 There are some issues with validation of these 

15 bioassay cards that we found that weren't 

16 necessarily -- the database that we had from the 

17 site didn't match up with the bioassay cards, so 

18 we're doing a validation sample of the bioassay 

19 cards. And that may be done sometime around 

20 mid-June, I think.

21 Then there's a separate issue related

22 to iodine dose reconstruction, completion of 

23 iodine. And we're looking into that and maybe 
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1 sometime in the end of April that might be 

2 completed. Those are the two outstanding issues 

3 right now. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, Ted will update 

5 his March listing to include Lara. Pacific 

6 Proving Grounds, Jim?

7 PACIFIC PROVING GROUNDS 

8 MEMBER LOCKEY: I think everything was 

9 in -- everything was finalized. There was 

10 something in abeyance about the calendar, but I 

11 think that was resolved, too, if I'm not correct, 

12 Ted. So, I think, as far as I know, we are finished 

13 with that.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: We've got a minor 

15 update. We have tasked our contractor to revise 

16 the Site Profile. And as soon as we have a good 

17 completion date with that, we'll get to Dr. Lockey 

18 and the Work Group.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Pantex, Brad?

20 PANTEX

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. We're dealing 

22 with mainly TBD issues on Pantex. And NIOSH had 

23 delivered, around February 2015, I believe it's in 
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1 SC&A's hands, isn't it, John? I remember seeing 

2 something from Jim.

3 MR. STIVER: Actually, we delivered 

4 our updates, or our responses, in February.

5 DR. NETON: I can add a little bit to 

6 that. This is Jim Neton. SC&A did respond and 

7 it's -- principally the last remaining issue had 

8 to do with the coworker model for neutrons that we 

9 developed at Pantex. SC&A's review of that model 

10 had a question about sort of a rapid decline in the 

11 neutron exposure during a year period.

12 And we went back to the site to get 

13 information on that and we're having a little 

14 difficulty getting feedback from them. I think 

15 the person or contact either retired, or something 

16 happened. He's no longer available. We're 

17 working that. We have been told that we should get 

18 something soon.

19 Once we get that question answered, we 

20 can get back and respond to SC&A's comments on the 

21 coworker model, which we think we're in 

22 substantial agreement on. If you remember, 

23 Pantex is an SEC for that entire time period, 
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1 except the early period. And the coworker model 

2 for neutrons, we decided not to use the N/P ratio, 

3 but just take the data we had and develop a standard 

4 coworker. I think we're in pretty good agreement 

5 on that.

6 PORTSMOUTH-PADUCAH and K-25 

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks. Thank you, 

8 Jim and Brad. Pinellas we'll hear about in a 

9 little bit. I don't know if there is anything new 

10 on, Phil, Portsmouth-Paducah and K-25? No?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Nothing new there 

12 on -- there still is some neutron question on K-25 

13 and Portsmouth. And we still haven't reviewed the 

14 updated TBD for the occupational metal dose --

15 medical dose, excuse me, for K-25.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'll add that we are 

17 working on a neutron TIB that we expect to be 

18 completed in June and that affects the gaseous 

19 diffusion plants.

20 ROCKY FLATS

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I think 

22 Rocky Flats was sort of covered already. Dave, do 

23 you have any more to --
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No. Really, 

2 we're just work -- I mean, the last item which was 

3 not closed is the Critical Mass Lab, and there's 

4 been just delays. LaVon has been working on it and 

5 getting information, but it's still now not going 

6 to be out until perhaps July. And then I hope we 

7 move very quickly to close and to make a decision 

8 in the fall.

9 SANDIA 

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And Sandia? 

11 We don't have -- Dr. Lemen isn't here. I don't 

12 know, LaVon, you sort of mentioned it.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, I mentioned it. 

14 We have been collecting a lot of the post-1994, 

15 which I call the post-835 era. 10 CFR 835 kicked 

16 in, and so we have been pulling in data for that

17 and we have been working on our approach.

18 As I had mentioned earlier, we have a 

19 meeting -- it's not next week; it's two weeks from 

20 now -- to kind of define our criteria, how we are 

21 going about addressing unmonitored workers and so 

22 on during that period. And as soon as that 

23 approach is finalized, we'll be able to move 
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1 forward with Sandia just the same way that we are 

2 moving forward with LANL.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

4 LaVon. Santa Susana, Phil?

5 SANTA SUSANA 

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: So far, we haven't 

7 met in a while. One of the big issues still is 

8 trying to figure out a coworker model, because 

9 people went back and forth between all the 

10 different sites that are there, and so trying to 

11 put people where they were and when they were is 

12 still giving them a headache, unless Jim has come 

13 up with something new on developing a coworker 

14 model. They also have some bioassay data, but 

15 they don't know where it came from.

16 DR. NETON: Yeah, there are a couple of 

17 issues here. The bioassay data has to do with the 

18 fact that Santa Susana, for a lengthy period of 

19 time, commingled bioassay data from multiple 

20 sites, and it's not possible for us to identify 

21 which site, for certain years, for a number of 

22 years where the data came from.

23 And so that definitely complicates the 
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1 coworker model. This is thrown in the middle of 

2 the stratification issue that we're trying to deal 

3 with on coworker modeling. So, we're wrestling 

4 with that.

5 On top of that, there is a number of 

6 these sites that pieces and parts have already been 

7 added to the SEC. 

8 So, we are looking at that single 

9 issue. And then there is also the coworker model 

10 issue, in general, which is how we are going to deal 

11 with it. So, we're struggling right now with it. 

12 You know, we've had a massive effort to code all 

13 of the data. If you remember, a year or so ago we 

14 got this disk drive of all the monitoring data that 

15 was ever collected there. We thought that would 

16 be the solution. It turns out it might not be. So 

17 we're still looking at our options. That's the 

18 status of that.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It seems to me an 

20 option is an 83.14.

21 DR. NETON: Well, that's certainly one 

22 of them. I'm not saying that is the option, but 

23 --
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I'm not asking 

2 you to say it is, but it's hard for me to think how 

3 you can do it otherwise, but that's without looking 

4 at it.

5 DR. NETON: Well, I have some ideas, 

6 but we'll see. We're working on it.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I won't comment on 

8 your ideas on the record.

9 DR. NETON: Oh, thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, I 

11 understand.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Is there a timeline on 

13 that, by any chance? Any --

14 DR. NETON: I can't give you an exact 

15 timeline, at this point. Sorry.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Science Issues, 

17 David?

18 SCIENCE ISSUES

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Not a lot to 

20 report. There is, on the issue of energy 

21 dependence of the kind of biological effectiveness 

22 of energy dependence, there's supposed to be a 

23 report, but I have been waiting and waiting for 
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1 this from NCRP and that should be coming out very 

2 shortly, which will hopefully give us something to 

3 proceed with.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So it's really in 

5 their hands. Okay. SEC Issues? I don't think 

6 there is anything pending for that Work Group now.

7 Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction, I 

8 think -- I don't know if you have anything to add 

9 beyond what we talked about this morning.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No, I don't think 

11 so. Just to say our next meeting is April 28th, 

12 Thursday, April 28th. And we will get back to Sets 

13 14 through 19.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Back to work.

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, sir.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

17 Subcommittee on Procedures, Wanda?

18 PROCEDURES SUBCOMMITTEE

19 MEMBER MUNN: Nothing new to report. 

20 As you may recall, we had to cancel our meeting 

21 scheduled in August and the rather extensive 

22 meeting that we had scheduled for February failed 

23 for lack of a quorum. And we have had a difficult 
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1 time trying to identify the proper time that both 

2 crucial staff and our current Members could meet.

3 Ted looks as though he is right on the 

4 verge of resolving that for us.

5 MR. KATZ: Yes, I'll just say -- well, 

6 I have actually everyone's replies, but one. So 

7 I'm just waiting on one person to reply and then 

8 I can schedule that.

9 MEMBER MUNN: We anticipate about a 

10 month. Thanks.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will -- I'll ask 

12 you on the record, Wanda, but I think one of the 

13 problems, I think, we are having with the quorum 

14 is we only have three people on the Subcommittee 

15 and we may need to add a person to that. So we will 

16 just circulate and look for -- let everybody know 

17 and see if we get volunteers for that. And I think 

18 we should, so that might help. It shouldn't 

19 interfere with the next meeting if we can. Yeah, 

20 okay.

21 MEMBER MUNN: It sure can't hurt.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. TBD-6000, 

23 Paul?
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1 TBD-6000 

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. I will report 

3 very briefly. First of all, TBD-6000, Appendix 

4 BB, which is General Steel Industries, the 

5 Revision 2 to the Appendix BB has been, I believe,

6 completed by NIOSH and is in internal review. 

7 Dave Allen reported that they estimate completion 

8 in June of this month. Completion in -- or June 

9 of this year for completion of the internal review 

10 for Revision 2. I assume that following that 

11 there would be a PER for General Steel Industries. 

12 And the other item under TBD-6000 is 

13 Joslyn and currently DCAS needs to get some MCNP 

14 Library material and work with that to understand 

15 something about the issues raised by SC&A on that. 

16 They estimate completion date of the Joslyn issue 

17 in, I think, December of this year. So that's down 

18 the road a bit. 

19 And so the Work Group will be awaiting 

20 that material and that will be off a way. Those 

21 are the only two items under TBD-6000.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

23 Paul. Questions, comments? Okay. Uranium 

24 Refining, Henry?
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1 URANIUM REFINING 

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. We have two 

3 sites under review. The W.R. Grace Site, we just 

4 got an update on and we are still waiting for some 

5 more data. We are looking at finishing that up 

6 probably later this spring or early summer, 

7 depending on there was supposed to be some more 

8 data delivered last week or this week.

9 And then United Nuclear site is also 

10 one that they -- that you indicated is now ready 

11 to finish up. So we are looking at a committee 

12 meeting probably late spring or early summer.

13 SURROGATE DATA

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Surrogate Data. We 

15 may have a referral from the Dose Reconstruction 

16 Subcommittee. I think I need to talk to NIOSH and 

17 SC&A to see. It's just this Allied Chemical, the 

18 New Jersey site, whether -- I'm not asking for a 

19 commitment now, but I don't think there is any 

20 formal Site Profile on that one, if I understand.

21 And I think the question -- it's based 

22 on a TBD if I remember right. Jim, do you want to 

23 --
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1 DR. NETON: I believe you are talking 

2 Allied Chemical and Dye, which is in New Jersey. 

3 And that site there is no Site Profile. I believe 

4 it is one of the templates that are used, but the 

5 issue of surrogate data has to do with radon dose 

6 reconstruction.

7 I think we used the Florida Institute 

8 of Phosphate Research paper on -- to estimate the 

9 radon, because it was very low levels. And you are 

10 right, that's a surrogate data and it may fall, 

11 rightfully so, under the Surrogate Data Work Group 

12 to review.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I guess my question 

14 is do you think that it makes sense just to have 

15 SC&A do a -- go directly to SC&A. Does NIOSH want 

16 to formally apply the criteria --

17 DR. NETON: Oh, I see.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- to the site? I 

19 mean, who gets first shot, I guess, is the -- and 

20 you can think about that.

21 DR. NETON: Yes, I'll think about 

22 that.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's --
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1 DR. NETON: I think we can do that.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

3 DR. NETON: It wouldn't be that 

4 difficult to look through.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Yes, and I 

6 don't think it's a long thing to do.

7 DR. NETON: No.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And it's just --

9 DR. NETON: We will take that on.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay. 

11 Good. And as I pointed out earlier, it's Allied 

12 Chemical and Dye, which was also the name used in 

13 the report on the Ohio site, too. They never 

14 thought that this program would exist and that you 

15 would need to have different names to be able to 

16 refer to these sites.

17 Weldon Spring, Dr. Lemen is not here. 

18 I don't know if we have any update on that. So and 

19 Worker Outreach, I don't believe?

20 MEMBER BEACH: No.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No?

22 MEMBER BEACH: We still don't have a 

23 path forward from when I reported last year.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Or it has actually been 

3 2014, so not at this time.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We've got a cheering 

5 section there or something. Okay. Did I miss any 

6 Work Groups or something that -- okay.

7 I don't think we have any 

8 correspondence. Ted? None that -- other than 

9 public comments to be read tonight.

10 PUBLIC COMMENTS

11 We do have a set of public comments 

12 which I will briefly go through based on the 

13 spreadsheet setup that is in the -- that the Board 

14 Members all received and you also have transcript 

15 backups to those if you are looking for more 

16 details.

17 So the first set of comments, one 

18 through three: one has to do with some questions 

19 on Lawrence Livermore. And that was basically 

20 referred back to the Work Group on that.

21 And then there is some general 

22 questions about how cancer of the Appendix is 

23 handled, which is really a DOL issue, not a NIOSH 
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1 issue directly.

2 And then there was how will NIOSH 

3 consider the new core mortality study by David 

4 Richardson? We responded we never heard of him. 

5 So no, seriously, it's that -- again, that is 

6 referred back to Lawrence Livermore.

7 Yes, but that was a first, so, you know, 

8 public comment period is referred to, you know, 

9 Board Member studies, so you should -- some things 

10 are notable there. Okay.

11 Then we have a set of comments from Dr. 

12 McKeel, the STC issue on Madison, the PER issue 

13 which I thought we had taken care of, the -- some 

14 further comments on General Steel, all that were 

15 -- really have been dealt with. I think there are 

16 still some -- he still has some issues about some 

17 of the dose reconstruction reviews.

18 Go to Number 9, again, a further 

19 comment about General Steel Industries. Again, 

20 referred back to the Work Group and what has been 

21 done.

22 Then Numbers 10 and 11 there are 

23 referring to claims related -- a claim related to 
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1 Pinellas and then regarding the petition. And I 

2 think the response there was that the petition was 

3 under review at the present time and I think LaVon 

4 updated us on that today.

5 There is a question about a specific, 

6 Number 12, a specific document related to 

7 Blockson, which I think has been followed up by the 

8 NIOSH staff that were involved there and referred 

9 back to DOL, also involvement.

10 Rocky Flats, comments about the 

11 progress on the petition review there. And there 

12 is a number of comments, 15 through 20, was really 

13 based on a written submission from the Blockson 

14 petitioners. That was the Blockson 

15 residual-period petition we had just talked about 

16 earlier today in terms of the Work Group activity. 

17 And really all those of -- most of these were 

18 factual comments or notes that have essentially 

19 been referred to the Work Group and to SC&A for --

20 and NIOSH in terms of follow-up at that site.

21 Again, another set of comments on 21, 

22 22 on Blockson. And again, essentially referred 

23 in the same way to that.
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1 Comments Number 23 to 28, Terrie Barrie 

2 regarding the Rocky Flats site and again, these 

3 mostly refer to LaVon, that group is following up 

4 on.

5 And then some comments for Ted that 

6 have been followed up on.

7 Again, another comment 29, 30, again, 

8 related to Rocky Flats. 

9 And then I believe finally, almost 

10 finally here. Yes, it looks like I have another 

11 page here.

12 So, you know, they all -- so comments 

13 Numbers 31 through 40 were comments from Wayne Knox 

14 regarding the Kansas City Plant and, again, these 

15 were essentially all referred to NIOSH and I think 

16 were addressed in our actions at that last meeting. 

17 So I don't know if anybody has any 

18 questions, comments or have concerns about any of 

19 the referrals? If you want to -- if you do, if you 

20 need to follow up, we can talk briefly about it 

21 tomorrow. All right. 

22 So I think that takes care of our Board 

23 Work Session issues, unless I missed anything. I 
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1 don't think we have any correspondence. So it's 

2 a little after 4:00. We scheduled the Pinellas 

3 Site update at 4:30, so we will take a break until 

4 4:30 when we will start promptly at 4:30.

5 And then for those of you that are in 

6 the audience and wish to make public comments, if 

7 for some reason we finish our update prior to 5:00, 

8 we will go right into the public comment period, 

9 so maybe we'll get started a little early, maybe 

10 not. We will see, but at least without delay.

11 So if you haven't signed up already, 

12 please, sign-up, because that gives us an 

13 opportunity to go in order.

14 PARTICIPANT: Can we sign-up over the 

15 phone?

16 MR. KATZ: People on the phone don't 

17 need to sign-up. Just join us probably 4:45 or so, 

18 so that you can be on the line whenever we get ready 

19 for folks on the phone.

20 But folks in the room, anyone who has 

21 joined, the sign-up book is outside on the desk. 

22 The young lady sitting outside this -- these doors 

23 here for you to sign-up.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And actually if you 

2 come back on the phone at 4:30, you will be able 

3 to hear the Pinellas update, which may be helpful 

4 in terms of your comments.

5 So back online at 4:30.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

7 went off the record at 4:03 p.m. and resumed at 4:30

8 p.m.)

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If everyone will get 

10 seated, we will get started here.

11 And we will start with an update on the 

12 Pinellas review and John Stiver is going to be 

13 giving that.

14 PINELLAS PLANT SITE PROFILE REVIEW 

15 MR. STIVER: Good afternoon, 

16 everybody. I'm John Stiver with SC&A and I'm 

17 going to give the review of our Pinellas Site 

18 Profile Review and all the activities that have 

19 taken place, kind of a historical background and 

20 the development of the resolution of the different 

21 findings and so forth over this relatively long 

22 period of time.

23 Now, the first thing that jumps out at 
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1 me is that meeting was not held on March 1st, it 

2 was March 10th. Now, I went through this several 

3 times and I never caught that. At least I got the 

4 March 23rd date right.

5 But let's go ahead and start out with 

6 some background. The original version of 

7 Pinellas TBDs we reviewed were prepared in the 

8 2005-2006 time frame. So we are looking at, you 

9 know, 10 to 11 years ago.

10 And we did our review in September of 

11 2006, so you've got to look in the rearview mirror 

12 10 years and, you know, realize that the program 

13 has matured considerably in that period of time as 

14 far as development of coworker models and so forth 

15 and so on.

16 Having said that, we identified 11 

17 primary issues and 8 secondary issues that were 

18 kind of subsidiary to the primary issues. 

19 Subsequent to our review, there were six Work Group 

20 meetings held and one set of worker interviews.

21 The first being June 11, 2008 and this 

22 is where, basically, the issues were kind of 

23 discussed in kind of broad brush strokes, trying 
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1 to get some ideas of, you know, how are we going 

2 to proceed? What's the best way to move ahead with 

3 that?

4 The following year, SC&A prepared this 

5 gigantic issues matrix. I think it must have been 

6 60 pages long and just laid out everything, but it 

7 was kind of cumbersome to deal with. Nonetheless, 

8 that was discussed, some progress was made. NIOSH 

9 basically used that, the discussions in that 

10 matrix, to develop a set of TBD updates that took 

11 place in the 2011 time frame for the most part. I 

12 believe one of them carried through to 2012.

13 But by the time we had another Work 

14 Group meeting in October of 2011, all but the 

15 TBD-3, the occupational medical dose basis 

16 documents, had been revised.

17 Based on that discussion and NIOSH's 

18 presentation of the updates, we had some remaining 

19 concerns and felt that the best way to address 

20 these was to carry on a set of worker interviews 

21 to kind of focus in on some of the areas that we 

22 felt still needed to be run to ground. Those took 

23 place in January of 2012 here in Tampa.
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1 We had another Work Group meeting, a 

2 teleconference on November 19th of 2012 where we 

3 went through and discussed those issues.

4 And then there was kind of a cessation 

5 of Work Group activity for about three and a half 

6 years. And a lot of this centered around the 

7 development of this stable metal tritides model 

8 that NIOSH was developing. And there were some 

9 issues with that. I guess it took some time to 

10 resolve. So during that time, there was really no 

11 Work Group activity.

12 And in December of 2015, NIOSH released 

13 their updated stable metal tritides model, which 

14 we promptly reviewed.

15 And then we had a meeting again in 

16 February of 2016 where we discussed that model.

17 On March 10th we had another meeting 

18 where we tried to tie up some of the loose ends on 

19 a couple of the remaining issues.

20 So with that background, we can kind of 

21 -- what I would like to do here is just go through 

22 each of these primary issues one at a time. There 

23 is only like a total of 17 slides, so it would 
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1 probably be better for me just to go through and 

2 talk about them and then take questions at the end, 

3 if that's okay with the Board?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

5 MR. STIVER: The first issue is this 

6 idea of reconstructing doses when you have an 

7 incomplete set of data in early years. This was 

8 this whole idea of back-extrapolating. If you 

9 have a good set of data, which we see in a lot of 

10 the sites, in later years, you know, can you take 

11 that and then make some assumptions that the 

12 working conditions were basically unchanged to the 

13 early years from the late years and then, you know, 

14 back-extrapolate the data that you have got to 

15 cover the early years.

16 And this was discussed kind of in 

17 general terms in June of 2008. There were ideas, 

18 you know, should we do a complete analysis of, you 

19 know, kind of a classic completion, yes, the 

20 completion and adequacy analysis for the data set. 

21 And NIOSH indicated at the time that well, you 

22 know, they are still in the process of collecting 

23 references or still doing data capture, and so that 
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1 would be kind of putting the cart before the horse 

2 if we did that.

3 And so it was determined that, okay, we 

4 will go ahead and let NIOSH complete their data 

5 captures and use that as kind of the basis for 

6 updating TBD. And then we will take a look at it 

7 beyond that. And once the references have all 

8 been collected and decide whether we really need 

9 to do kind of a vertical in-depth analysis like we 

10 do on some of the big SECs.

11 And then on the October 2011 Work 

12 Group, we -- after NIOSH had presented their 

13 findings, I believe they had another 600-and-some 

14 additional references, we decided that it would be 

15 good, at least the Work Group decided, for us to 

16 go ahead and take a look at those to make sure they 

17 are really relevant to the issue of reconstructing 

18 doses in the pre-1980 time frame.

19 And so we went ahead and did that. And 

20 then in November 2012, you know, we had basically 

21 committed to have, in the memo format, kind of a 

22 memo update, you know, some of these initial 

23 taskings. And this was one of them. And we 
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1 decided, you know, let's put this before the Board 

2 really or before the Work Group. Is it really 

3 worth the resources that would be required to do 

4 a complete in-depth analysis?

5 Now, this was something that I know the 

6 petitioners raised at the March 10th Work Group 

7 meetings, you know, hey, you know, you guys, you 

8 know, we are going to do this, this analysis and 

9 a completeness analysis and we never saw any 

10 report, at the end of the day.

11 And the reason being is that, you know, 

12 we did the preliminary kind of a macro overview of 

13 the updates, you know, in this November -- and 

14 reported this out at the November meeting. And, 

15 you know, based on the TBD update, the TBD-6, 

16 specifically Attachment B, which looked at the 

17 external doses, external modeling that would be 

18 applied basically from '57 up to '95. And also our 

19 initial review, kind of the 10,000 foot view of the 

20 additional references, we determined, the Work 

21 Group determined that an in-depth analysis 

22 probably, you know, wouldn't justify the expense 

23 and the resources for the small amount of value 
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1 that they added.

2 So we decided that there are extensive 

3 -- references are extensive and, basically, I 

4 think it is Table B-1 in the TBD-6 update that kind 

5 of lays out all the data that were used to 

6 reconstruct this whole-body coworker dose, 

7 coworker model during that time period.

8 Having said that, we believe that the 

9 coworker model is claimant-favorable. They 

10 assigned the 95th percentile of all the data on a 

11 yearly basis to unmonitored workers. And based on 

12 those discussions, this issue was closed out at the 

13 November 2012 Work Group meeting.

14 Primary Issue 2. This was really the 

15 long pole in the tent. This was the potential 

16 doses from insoluble metal tritides. We call 

17 stable metal tritides, SMTs, that has not been 

18 sufficient addressed in our opinion. This was 

19 also discussed extensively at the June 2009 Work 

20 Group meeting. And it was determined to be in 

21 progress, based on concerns over dose 

22 reconstructability. And the updates to the TBDs 

23 were forthcoming.
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1 In April 2011, those -- the updated 

2 internal TBD model was released that proposed a new 

3 approach of the tritide dose assessment, yes, dose 

4 assessment.

5 And at the November 2012 meeting again, 

6 there were some issues related to the model and its 

7 applicability and comparison to a similar model 

8 which the Board had approved for Mound, which was 

9 based on swipe samples and, well, we will be 

10 getting into that here in a minute.

11 And so, you know, NIOSH wanted to go 

12 back and validate, basically, some of the sample 

13 preparation methodology and protocols, and also 

14 the source data to see whether this was going to 

15 be a tractable problem. So this was about a three 

16 and a half year process.

17 And then in December 2015, as I said, 

18 they released a new model and we reviewed it. 

19 There were five key aspects. It is kind of hard 

20 to read this. There is -- I apologize for the 

21 small print here.

22 Basically, five aspects:

23 One was the re-suspension factor from 
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1 contaminated or assumed contaminated surfaces. 

2 NIOSH adjusted that by a factor of 50 from one times 

3 ten to the minus sixth per meter to five times ten 

4 to the minus fifth per meter to bring into 

5 alignment with the Mound model.

6 The second aspect relates to the 

7 available data. In the Pinellas model, NIOSH uses 

8 the highest tritium contamination measurement 

9 from 1957 to 1973 time period, based on the highest 

10 observed value in these monthly health physics 

11 monitoring reports. And this was a bit different 

12 than the Mound approach. The Mound approach, they 

13 had literally thousands of swipe samples taken 

14 over numbers of years which were then used to 

15 develop a coworker model. Not really coworker 

16 model, but a tritide model applied to the tritium 

17 workers.

18 Three was kind of the long pole in the 

19 tent here. This was the technical adequacy of the 

20 method to detect tritium. It is bound to a 

21 particulate metal. And this gets to the approach 

22 of the sampling, the protocol and -- which was 

23 significantly different from the Mound model.
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1 At Mound, they basically took the 

2 swipes, counted them in a PC-5 proportional 

3 counter. And so, you know, even though you are 

4 pretty sure that most of the contamination was 

5 tritiated water, I mean, if there were some 

6 tritides there, they would be counted in some 

7 proportion, some unknown proportion of that total 

8 count for that sample.

9 Whereas here, we have kind of added a 

10 new layer of uncertainty or one, I guess, degree 

11 of freedom removed from the Mound model and that 

12 is that the -- at Mound or at Pinellas, the approach 

13 was to take a cotton ball and they would go ahead 

14 and swipe the surface and then they would rinse it 

15 into a cup with deionized, DI deionized water, 

16 filter it through a Whatman Number 1 filter and 

17 then count that rinsate in the liquid 

18 scintillation counting.

19 And so our concern was, well, what 

20 happens if all the particulates are trapped in the 

21 cotton ball and never make it into the accounting 

22 cocktail? You might have contamination there 

23 that you are not going to detect.
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1 And so that was kind of an issue. And 

2 luckily there was a health physics paper from the 

3 1970s where they looked at, you know, the amount 

4 of particulate material versus tritium gas that 

5 was kind of evolved from these -- from the matrix 

6 on the tubes.

7 And they found that basically on the 

8 new tubes that hadn't been actually used out in the 

9 field and discharged, that the tritiated gas 

10 component was about a factor of three higher than 

11 the particulate component. So that, you know, 

12 even if you had all your tritium particulates or 

13 the tritide particulates trapped in the cotton 

14 ball, there is still the kind of indirect 

15 measurement based on the HTO that would then be 

16 counted in the cocktail, which would give you a 

17 bounding value.

18 And so we felt that, you know, in 

19 combination with the health physics protocols that 

20 were in place at the time, that that would probably 

21 be okay as a modeling technique.

22 I'm kind of getting ahead to the next 

23 slide, but let me go back to Number 4 here. The 
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1 other was the magnitude and extent of potential for 

2 tritide contamination at Pinellas. And really 

3 this is kind of similar to Mound. The SMTs were 

4 only handled in areas where tritium was handled. 

5 And all the tritium workers were monitored via 

6 urinalysis.

7 So this isn't really a coworker model 

8 that applied to unmonitored workers. Really it is 

9 a model that could only be applied to the tritium 

10 workers. And so they are going to get a component 

11 based on bioassay and they are going to also get 

12 a second component based on the metal tritides 

13 model.

14 Number five was the choice of 

15 solubility type for the tritides present. The 

16 model assumes all intakes are either Type M or Type 

17 S, depending on which organ is going to be most 

18 claimant-favorable to the individual claimant.

19 Typically, it would be Type S for lung 

20 doses, but for other organs, Type M might actually 

21 result in a higher working dose. 

22 SC&A's White Paper response. This is 

23 available on the DCAS website. Most of you, I 
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1 hope, have read it. We released that February 4, 

2 2016. We basically had seven observations and one 

3 finding related to the hours worked per year.

4 It turns out that that was a typo in the 

5 NIOSH report. They were using 2600 hours per year 

6 and that's what we recommended in that finding, so 

7 that finding was withdrawn.

8 During our Work Group meeting in 

9 February 2016, let's see, the discussions focused 

10 mainly on the applicability of the sampling 

11 methodology, this is Item Number 3.

12 And then also the documentation that 

13 supported prompt cleanup of spills and 

14 contamination, which is, in our opinion, evidence 

15 to a strong health physics program. That was 

16 related to Observations 4 through 6 in the report.

17 SC&A and the Work Group concurred the 

18 NIOSH model is sufficiently accurate and 

19 claimant-favorable. The Work Group accepted the 

20 model and motioned to put Issue 2 into abeyance 

21 until TBD-5 was revised.

22 There was one remaining loose end here 

23 that we raised, a concern, actually this was 
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1 brought up, I believe, back in 2008. And this 

2 related to how this model would be applied or how 

3 were -- is NIOSH going to address organically bound 

4 tritium?

5 And NIOSH's response is that OBT 

6 basically behaves more like an insoluble particle 

7 than tritiated water and so it could be subsumed 

8 into the SMT dose.

9 However, they did indicate that the 

10 next TBD revision is going to include a discussion 

11 of how intakes of tritides, OBT and HTO are 

12 addressed individually.

13 Issue 3, Primary Issue 3. This was, 

14 this concerns regarding kind of a sparse data set 

15 of plutonium bioassay, I believe, collected in the 

16 late 80s, and it's about the uncertainties in the 

17 measurements that we felt were inadequately 

18 addressed.

19 At the time that this finding was made, 

20 potential exposure to plutonium could not be ruled 

21 out. This was discussed in June 2009 and October 

22 of 2011 Work Group meetings.

23 And it became clear from those 
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1 discussions and NIOSH's follow-up that the, 

2 really, only source of potential intake was from 

3 handling these newly received triple-encapsulated 

4 radio-thermal generator sources. And these were 

5 the actual heat sources that went into the RTGs 

6 itself, which also included an insulation 

7 component and stainless steel containment.

8 So the problem is the surface 

9 contamination was shown to have never exceeded 200 

10 dpm, which is the rejection level. If that amount 

11 of contamination was discovered, and also these 

12 were decontaminated in a fume hood, and so that 

13 limit was never reached in the entire time from 

14 1975 to 1990.

15 And NIOSH actually did some 

16 calculations and I believe it was Brian Gleckler 

17 that showed that even to get a 1 millirem dose, 

18 annual dose, you would have to handle literally 

19 thousands of these things per day. And so it was 

20 just -- was a situation where there is no apparent 

21 exposure potential, yet in the TBD revision, there 

22 was a big discussion about the tritium or, excuse 

23 me, the plutonium data, the MDCs, the quality of 
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1 the data and so forth that kind of lead you to 

2 believe that, you know, we're going to use this in 

3 dose reconstruction.

4 And the point being is NIOSH made a big 

5 case, a pretty strong case there is no exposure 

6 potential and yet, when you say, well, if we get 

7 somebody who has a bioassay, you know, we will 

8 handle that -- a positive bioassay, we will go 

9 ahead and handle that on an individual basis.

10 And our position is well, you can't 

11 really have it both ways. I mean, you have made 

12 the case, a pretty strong case there is no exposure 

13 potential, so, you know, there is really no point 

14 in having all this discussion of plutonium in the 

15 TBD.

16 And if you do ever find evidence of a 

17 positive exposure, then you are going to have to 

18 develop a dose reconstruction methodology. And 

19 so that's really what happened: the TBD was then 

20 updated. The plutonium information was taken 

21 out. And so this is the situation.

22 If there is ever a discovery of 

23 plutonium intake, then NIOSH is going to have to 
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1 develop a methodology to address it.

2 Issue Number 4. This is kind of 

3 related to Number 1 and also 6 and 7. And this is 

4 this idea of, you know, again, data completeness. 

5 And, you know, during our early review, our concern 

6 was that, you know, look, you've only got about 20 

7 to 30 percent of the work force being badged here.

8 So we were kind of concerned that, you 

9 know, maybe you have a situation where you are 

10 doing cohort badging, where you are taking one 

11 person in one worker group, giving them the badge 

12 and then assuming that everybody else is getting 

13 the same basic dose. And that was a concern of 

14 ours.

15 The more we looked into this, it was 

16 clear that the health physics program monitored 

17 those people with exposure potential and there 

18 just was not -- that all the workers really were 

19 working with radiation or these devices. And 

20 also, you know, it's not like some of the other 

21 sites where you have kind of residual elevated 

22 background from contamination that is accumulated 

23 over time.
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1 At Pinellas, basically, you either 

2 have an exposure or you don't. It's a yes or no 

3 situation depending on when the neutron tubes are 

4 being tested. And so we felt that, and basically, 

5 this is the June 2009, that one had pretty well been 

6 resolved and could be closed out.

7 Primary Issue Number 5, problems with 

8 personnel dosimetry. Back in June, we voiced 

9 concerns that we felt that the limited detection 

10 for the film badges, the external dosimetry to film 

11 badges, and TLDs later on, needed to be -- have a 

12 scientifically based limit of detection that was 

13 claimant-favorable.

14 The TBD revised in 2011 included Table 

15 6.9 that had the additional T -- LOD information 

16 in it. So we actually came up with a sub-issue 

17 related to this. In the original version, 

18 Landauer Films in the 1975 to '79 time frame were 

19 given an LOD of 20 mR, but this has been revised 

20 down to 10 mR. And so we were kind of concerned 

21 that we've got a situation where, you know, a film 

22 badge, in particular, is going to be more sensitive 

23 to low-energy photons than higher-energy photons.
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1 And for people who are working with 

2 these RTG sources, which were triple-encapsulated 

3 in nickel and tantalum, there would be a certain 

4 amount of spectral hardening of the emissions from 

5 the plutonium-238 and daughter products that built 

6 up over time.

7 And so you have more of a high-energy 

8 gamma field that these people would be exposed in 

9 and maybe 10 millirem might not be 

10 claimant-favorable or maybe the film badge itself 

11 might not be able to detect such low doses 

12 reliably.

13 In the February meeting, we had a 

14 lengthy discussion on this and we held a technical 

15 call based on discussions with a recognized expert 

16 in film badge dosimetry that actually helped 

17 develop the DOELAP Accreditation Standards. And 

18 that took place on February 26th. 

19 And based on that, we learned that the 

20 -- for high-energy gammas, optical density was 

21 converted according to a step function. 

22 Basically, one click on a densitometer, so about 

23 .01, corresponded to about 6 millirem of 
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1 high-energy gamma. So basically, you have steps 

2 of 6, 12, 18 and so forth.

3 And Landauer had kind of a policy in 

4 place that they had a minimal reportable dose. 

5 And that was set at 10 millirem. It wasn't defined 

6 by statistics, rather it was a convention that any 

7 dose less than 10 millirem was not significant. 

8 So 9 millirem or less was treated as zero, 10 to 

9 14 as 10, 15 to 24 as 20. So we have these steps, 

10 increments.

11 And the guidelines, the DOELAP 

12 Accreditation Guidelines for LOD were controlled 

13 such that Type 1 and Type 2 error rates were both 

14 set at 5 percent. So a film for high-energy 

15 exposure would have an LOD of say 12 to 14 mR, so 

16 95 percent of the time you're going to get a 10 or 

17 20 when exposed to 12. And this is really what we 

18 were looking for, a good technical scientific 

19 basis for that 10 millirem, what they call the 

20 minimum reportable dose.

21 Based on the foregoing, we recommended 

22 that this Issue 5 be closed. And at the March 10th 

23 meeting, the -- the Work Group motioned to be close 
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1 Issue 5.

2 Primary Issue 6, this was about again 

3 data completeness during the D&D period, 

4 decontamination and decommissioning. We felt 

5 that at the time we did the review that that was 

6 not sufficiently addressed. Again, this was 

7 first discussed in earnest at the June 2009 

8 meeting.

9 November 2012, we had done interviews 

10 with -- this is one of the things we wanted to look 

11 into when we decided to do the worker interviews 

12 in January of 2012. And in those interviews, we 

13 got a lot of good information about D&D.

14 One of the subject matter experts 

15 indicated that all the employees, including the 

16 contracts and subcontractors, were monitored by 

17 Pinellas Rad Safe before, during and after the D&D 

18 operations. However, the issue remained open 

19 pending NIOSH closing a loop on any D&D monitoring 

20 records from Albuquerque.

21 Fast forward to February 2016, NIOSH 

22 had captured over 5,000 additional references, 

23 including those requested from Albuquerque.
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1 And there is just one last thing there 

2 which was finding aid from Sandia National 

3 Laboratories that was to be delivered. That was 

4 delivered in March. Unfortunately, the finding 

5 aid was not found to be useful. There was nothing 

6 in there about monitoring during that period that 

7 would have been of any use.

8 However, you know, based on NIOSH 

9 having run this to ground, having captured all 

10 these records and the subject matter experts' 

11 recollections, we felt there was a strong weight 

12 of evidence, argument that DR is feasible during 

13 D&D and we motioned to go ahead and close Issue 6 

14 at the March meeting.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, John, you've 

16 got four minutes left.

17 MR. STIVER: Okay. Let me try to go 

18 through. The next ones aren't going to take much 

19 longer.

20 Missed internal dose estimation 

21 methods for unmonitored workers, this was another 

22 concern early on. I remember this was back before 

23 coworker modeling had evolved to the level that 
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1 it's at now. 

2 The internal TBD updates addressed our 

3 concerns. NIOSH has this whole-body dose, 

4 coworker dose. It includes the tritium 

5 components in addition to neutron and external 

6 gamma, assigned to the 95th percentile.

7 Given the fact that there is no 

8 documented plutonium exposure and also the 

9 Secondary Issue Number 2, regarding nickel and 

10 carbon-14, felt that that adequately addressed the 

11 other aspects of Issue 7 and it was closed.

12 Issue 8. This was a concern that the 

13 tritium storage beds, the stainless steel beds 

14 that contained DU were cut open. We have found 

15 some information about contamination levels. 

16 However, it turns out that the cutting of the beds 

17 took place at the GE x-ray facility in Milwaukee 

18 and not at Pinellas. Therefore, there was no 

19 evidence of DU exposure potential at Pinellas and 

20 the Work Group closed that issue.

21 Nine through 11 and Secondary Issue 1 

22 all related to TBD-3, occupational medical dose. 

23 These are all documented in detail in the issues 
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1 matrix. I'm not going to go through all of this.

2 Suffice it to say that we reviewed the 

3 revisions to the matrix or to the TBD-3 after the 

4 October 2011 meeting. We felt that the updates 

5 addressed all of our concerns and so in 2012 all 

6 of those issues were closed.

7 Secondary Issues were all based -- were 

8 all subsidiary to the Primary Issues. Number 2, 

9 inadequate descriptions for certain plant 

10 operations. That was addressed in the updates. 

11 Three and four are the same. They were put in

12 abeyance in June 2008, but the TBD updates 

13 addressed those concerns. Five and six related to 

14 plutonium issues. Those were resolved with Issue 

15 3. Assumptions regarding unmonitored workers, 

16 this related to Primary Issues 4, 6 and 7. 

17 And then Secondary Issue 8 was also 

18 addressed, the treatment of LOD in the external 

19 gamma, occupational external TBD.

20 So Summary Conclusions. We -- SC&A 

21 and the Pinellas Work Group agree that all of the 

22 Primary and Secondary Issues raised in our Site 

23 Profile have been adequately addressed. 
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1 Primary Issue 2 is in abeyance until 

2 NIOSH delivers the revision of the internal dose 

3 TBD. And so the Work Group recommends closure on 

4 the remaining issues.

5 And that's all I have to say. So I'll 

6 entertain any questions you might have.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Board Members have 

8 questions? We've got a couple minutes here. 

9 David?

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You said that part 

11 of the work force was monitored, starting with 

12 external exposures, was monitored for external 

13 exposure and part wasn't. Could you characterize 

14 kind of the size of those proportions or what 

15 percentage of the work force?

16 MR. STIVER: Anywhere from about 20 to 

17 30 percent of the work force was actually 

18 monitored. And these were the people that 

19 actually were working in radiation environments at 

20 the time, the tritium workers were working with the 

21 x-ray tubes in a way that they would have a higher 

22 potential.

23 So it wasn't a situation where, like I 
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1 said, we didn't have cohort monitoring, which is 

2 what we were concerned with. We might have people 

3 who were being missed that had undocumented 

4 exposure potential that might be higher than the 

5 monitored workers.

6 So we pretty well put that to rest 

7 through the research that went on during that 

8 extensive review cycle.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And you can put it 

10 to rest because you believe that the health physics 

11 judgments about who to be issued a badge and who 

12 not to be issued a badge were correct?

13 MR. STIVER: Correct.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And then for 

15 internal monitoring, is the proportion of the work 

16 force that was internally monitored similar, 20 to 

17 30 percent? Is it lower?

18 MR. STIVER: The tritium workers were 

19 a smaller fraction of the total, so I don't have 

20 that number off hand. Maybe Pete can provide some 

21 more details on that. Fifteen to 25 percent. 

22 There you go.

23 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And is this -- 
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1 MR. STIVER: So it's not significantly 

2 less.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Are they on --

4 what would the frequency of monitoring be for that 

5 15 to 25 percent?

6 MR. STIVER: I believe it was monthly.

7 MR. DARNELL: This is Pete Darnell. 

8 The frequency for a long-term worker with tritium 

9 was monthly. Otherwise, it was as needed. You 

10 had a lot of projects that went on at Pinellas where 

11 the workers would be assigned for a short time, 

12 they would get their monitoring, then it could be 

13 months or years later before they were monitored 

14 again.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. So what's 

16 your thought on the ability of a monitoring program 

17 for something like tritium, which has a relatively 

18 short biological half-life, to detect an episode 

19 of intake if you are only collecting urine on a 

20 monthly basis?

21 MR. DARNELL: I didn't question their 

22 ability to be able to find the tritium in the 

23 workers that were working month-to-month with 
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1 tritium, specifically because Pinellas had 

2 basically a demonstrable radiological program. 

3 Any time they had an incident or an amount of 

4 contamination in a work area, I think it was 2E to 

5 the fifth dpm for tritium if they were in cleaning. 

6 They kept track of the program. They kept track 

7 of where the radioactive material was located and 

8 kept track of the workers that were in the 

9 monitoring program.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, I only ask 

11 because I -- some people I have talked to have said 

12 that tritium is notoriously difficult to --

13 MR. DARNELL: I'm sorry?

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

15 MR. DARNELL: I missed what you said. 

16 I apologize.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well, that it's 

18 often difficult to work with and to control and 

19 that there may be situations where --

20 MR. DARNELL: We had no indications of 

21 that in the Pinellas records.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: That's 

23 remarkable. Thank you, though.
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1 PUBLIC COMMENT 

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other quick 

3 questions? We may have time to come back and have 

4 further discussion tomorrow on this, but I want to 

5 get going with the public comment period, since we 

6 have people waiting.

7 Ted, do you want to do your --

8 MR. KATZ: Yes. Just a note for 

9 everyone making public comment. These meetings 

10 are all transcribed, so verbatim, so everything 

11 that you say is captured in the transcript and put 

12 on the NIOSH website for all of the public to read.

13 So anything you say about yourself 

14 personally, however personal that might be, that 

15 would be you are publicizing that.

16 On the other hand, if you talk about 

17 other people, friends, family, any other people, 

18 when you give information about other people who 

19 are not actually speaking for themselves, that 

20 information will be redacted, in other words 

21 edited, to the extent necessary so that those 

22 people's privacy will be protected, since they are 

23 not speaking here. So we do do that. 

24 And we just want you to be aware that 
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1 we do that.

2 That's it. That's fine.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we will start 

4 with people that signed up for public comment. If 

5 you did not sign up, it would be helpful if you did 

6 go out and sign up. It just helps us keep track 

7 of people and call them in the order that they got 

8 here. And we will focus first on the Pinellas 

9 Plant and then we will come back to people that wish 

10 to make comments about some of the other sites.

11 And the first person I have listed is 

12 Kathy Ludwig Talbot.

13 MS. TALBOT: Hi. My name is Kathy 

14 Ludwig Talbot and I am a claimant and also the 

15 petitioner of the new SEC that has been filed on 

16 the Pinellas Plant.

17 Before you, you have a booklet just of 

18 some information that we would like to draw 

19 attention to at the Pinellas Plant. I'm going to 

20 keep it short, because I was told to keep it short 

21 and I don't know how to do that so -- in my life.

22 But some of the things that we want to 

23 bring to your attention are actually some of the 
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1 things that John has mentioned in his discussion 

2 of closing these issues on the Pinellas Plant.

3 First and foremost, I would like to 

4 draw to your attention the time lapse, the time 

5 lapse in this information. This program started 

6 in 2000. The Site Profile '04, '05, '06. 

7 Technical Basis Documents changed, revised, not 

8 approved by the Board, okay, total rewrites of 

9 Technical Basis Documents.

10 We did a data-capture spreadsheet, you 

11 will see it in your book, okay. You didn't have 

12 the data then. You talk about the sparse data. 

13 We are not going to do another data search. We 

14 can't afford to do another data search. That data 

15 search that you just did was redundant.

16 Okay. What I want to say to you is you 

17 didn't have the data back then. You don't have it 

18 now. And Phil Schofield made a presentation at 

19 the Board meeting on the seventh and eighth of 

20 December in '11 and every single item that was 

21 open, it's ongoing. It needs to be extended.

22 We are waiting on NIOSH. Okay? I 

23 need for you all to answer a question. How many 
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1 people have to pass away that can't speak for 

2 themselves? You are talking about a ten-year time 

3 frame and you are trying to convince the Pinellas 

4 Plant workers, their survivors, that you have the 

5 data to do these dose reconstructions when, in 

6 fact, your own people say the data is sparse. We 

7 don't have it. We can't find it. We don't want 

8 to look for it. We are going to use the surrogate 

9 site only when it is good for that surrogate site, 

10 not when it is good or positive for the Pinellas 

11 Site.

12 I want you to review some of these 

13 things that are in these Work Group meetings. 

14 These are hundreds of pages and I've just quoted 

15 a few. And what you see in front of you is Issue 

16 Number 1. That doesn't include any of the other 

17 issues.

18 So I stand here firmly by saying how 

19 long do these people have to wait for information? 

20 We have over 500 people passed away at the Pinellas 

21 plant alone. I understand it is like the 

22 red-headed stepchild. We are not a Livermore and 

23 we are not a Sandia, but we did the same exact --
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1 we did the prototype for the generator, for the 

2 tubes.

3 My father worked there 36 years. I 

4 know exactly what he did. Okay? We also have 

5 classified metal tritides that you guys won't talk 

6 about. If you don't know the quantities, how can 

7 you do a dose reconstruction? And you are only 

8 talking about tritium. You are not talking the 

9 heather.

10 You are not talking about the other 

11 tritides. And I'm going to close with this. 

12 Okay. You want to talk about corrupt information, 

13 okay, you are using a coworker model of 100 

14 millirems per year and that's the public dose. 

15 The public dose is 100 millirems. Thank you.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The next person I 

17 have is Donna Hand.

18 PARTICIPANT: Donna Hand. Come on, 

19 Donna. Donna? This girls, is that Donna Hand? 

20 Maybe she is not going to get on there.

21 MR. KATZ: Excuse me, folks on the 

22 phone, while people are giving comments, please, 

23 don't make any noise and it would be even better 
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1 if you would mute your phone while we are listening 

2 to people give presentations. You can press *6 on 

3 your phone to mute your phone. Press *6 again to 

4 take it off of mute, but that way you won't be 

5 interrupting the person that's trying to talk. 

6 Thank you.

7 MS. HAND: I would like to clarify some 

8 documentation data. In the 2008 first report, 

9 Work Group report, Brad brought up what about the 

10 data integrity. What about the data validity? 

11 Have we checked that out yet? They said no. The 

12 data came from the claimants that had filed. They 

13 verified they did not have electronic data set in 

14 2008. 

15 The tritium bioassays, a worker would 

16 give it on a Wednesday, it would not be read until 

17 Friday. They were told if it was high to drink 

18 beer and go home. So you have a time frame there 

19 before the tritium bioassays were ever read.

20 If you are giving the dose to wherever 

21 tritium is, if you look in the red packet, 

22 Department of Labor has a Site Exposure Matrix and 

23 in their Site Exposure Matrix, they list tritium. 
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1 Building 100, 104, 106, these are all areas in 

2 Building 100. 112, 113, 125, 126, bioassays 

3 weren't done.

4 There is five pages of the areas that 

5 the tritium was handled. This is the same 

6 information that DOE gave to the Department of 

7 Labor that you should have had. 

8 Also in the blue -- in Ms. Ludwig 

9 Talbot's booklet, you will see where there was 28 

10 radioisotopes confirmed by DOE with four of them 

11 being over the curie limit. Plutonium was one of 

12 them. Uranium was one of them. 

13 When I filed for the SEC in 2009, they 

14 listed that as hazardous substances. They did not 

15 recognize it, that it was the radionuclides. 

16 Department of Labor also confirms about 15 

17 radioisotopes. So how come, you know, the dose 

18 reconstruction is not accounting that? The 

19 radiating generating devices, people worked with 

20 the x-rays to look and see the metal strates, zero 

21 dose given to the worker.

22 And then at the very end, because you 

23 can read these, I have the very first thing is my 
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1 concerns for the issues and they are all numbered. 

2 The information that I have concerns with, I have 

3 documentation, because after the SEC did not 

4 qualify, I requested the entire records of the 

5 Pinellas Plant used by NIOSH.

6 It took two years for them to redact it 

7 and I got over 4,000 documents. So -- and they 

8 sent -- the last one was sent last year. But 

9 anyway, what it said in November 19, 2012, Stiver, 

10 we are still concerned about the mixture of the 

11 photon dose, neutron dose and tritium dose, you 

12 know, and about the coworker model.

13 In 2008, Darnell discusses that the 

14 monitored worker -- we had some cases where you got 

15 500 and some cases where you got up to a rem and 

16 a half, but most of them would be very low.

17 The report that they are using about 20 

18 percent came from the Atomic Energy Commission 

19 report and that report also said it was less than 

20 one rem. How much less? It did not say.

21 Dr. Neton then went on talking about 

22 discussing this. I mean, if we find one and we 

23 don't have it, then Peter Darnell later on, that's 
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1 a very large misunderstanding with the workers 

2 down there. Relying on the work force for a heavy 

3 amount of -- is of concern. We should always 

4 listen, but we should understand their weaknesses 

5 in knowledge.

6 You are talking about the ones that 

7 actually did the product, the processes, the Q 

8 clearances. Then you go on and there are 

9 basically capers loading a bunch of doses on a 

10 worker, but the 99th or 95th percent dose is what 

11 we assigned, Gleckler says. That is after the CAT 

12 interview. So again, you don't have the data. 

13 What you are using is what the claimants have filed 

14 that is in their records.

15 And we will then will talk about the 

16 coworker model. It is done differently at 

17 Pinellas than the other sites. Coworker models 

18 was to be the missed dosimetry dose and the 

19 dosimetry dose for every year and the highest one. 

20 Worst-case application.

21 No, no matter what year you worked, 

22 whether you worked in '57 or you worked in '96, you 

23 only got 100 millirems. And Darnell admitted in 
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1 2008, from '83 to '93 it shows the highest worker 

2 exposure ever was 550 millirem.

3 Again, my issues of concerns with the 

4 matrix response and having them closed out. My 

5 concerns with the partiality and prejudgment is 

6 not based on facts nor documentation and to make 

7 a reasonable estimate is to find in the regulations 

8 as being based on facts and logical, scientific, 

9 valid assumptions.

10 So I looked at the same 1957-95 data. 

11 There was a lot of zeros there. 1990, 

12 [identifying information redacted], the health 

13 physicist, got in trouble by the Tiger Team saying 

14 the dosimetry records were not adequate.

15 Lara Hughes, when reviewing the SEC, 

16 said this would qualify, but we didn't qualify.

17 Mr. Rutherford said the SC&A issues 

18 would qualify, but we didn't qualify.

19 Dan Stempfley said we qualified, but we 

20 didn't qualify.

21 A hundred and eighty days when the 

22 Board received -- when NIOSH receives the 

23 petition, you are supposed to have SEC. If you 
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1 don't have the data, you don't have it. Give us 

2 an SEC. Thank you.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Next is David 

4 Vaughn.

5 MR. VAUGHN: Hi. My name is David 

6 Vaughn and I worked at the Pinellas Plant 30 years 

7 and one month.

8 What I would like to talk about first 

9 of all is, when I first started to work there, the 

10 building environment rivaled this facility, a big 

11 building, turned out to be about 800,000 square 

12 feet, but most of it was all in one building, 

13 Building 100.

14 That building had a few offices around 

15 -- along the front and a couple of mezzanines, 

16 other than that, it was just a big open building. 

17 Everybody basically was in the same room, if you 

18 want to look at it that way.

19 Now, there were some gyp board 

20 partitions that were about eight foot high, but 

21 there was another eight or ten feet above that 

22 where there was nothing. So basically, we were 

23 all breathing the same air. We were all basically 
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1 in the same environment.

2 I worked in -- I wasn't one of those 

3 people who actually worked with tritium, okay? I 

4 did the analysis for -- I worked in the engineering 

5 labs for 12 years and I was in Area 8, Area 157, 

6 Area 158.

7 Now, the time I spent in Area 8 was 

8 approximately three or four years of that time 

9 where I actually did hand-on analysis of the 

10 tritium. Now, basically, the people who bring me 

11 the flask to do the analysis on would hand them to 

12 me and I would take them and put them on the machine 

13 and do the analysis bare-handed.

14 I didn't -- there wasn't any real 

15 concern about security. There was nothing about 

16 wearing gloves or anything like that, so I did 

17 those analysis. Initially, they were in quart 

18 flasks. They were painted on the bottom with red, 

19 black, mixed half-red, half-black, depending on 

20 whether it was tritium, deuterium or -- anyway, 

21 tritium or deuterium.

22 So occasionally, these things would 

23 break. Later on we changed -- there was change to 
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1 stainless steel. I think it was 316 stainless 

2 steel flask which we did the analysis. I still 

3 handled those with my bare hands.

4 At the same time I was doing analysis 

5 in Area 157 and 150B with a mass spectrometer. The 

6 analysis there was on two component parts of the 

7 -- basically, they were targets and sources and 

8 these were punched out, put into a metal jar, 

9 heated up and it would drive the gas out of them, 

10 find out how much tritium, how much deuterium was 

11 in that particular part.

12 Now, something that has been 

13 discussed, there is something called flakers. 

14 These targets when you punch them out, sometimes 

15 you would find there wasn't anything there. It 

16 was there originally, but something happened to 

17 it. It just flaked off, came off and we didn't 

18 know where. Sometimes it was on the floor. 

19 Sometimes it was on the bench. Sometimes it was 

20 in the area. Occasionally it would -- they would 

21 have to bring people in to clean the place up.

22 Now, one of the coworkers that I worked 

23 with died with leukemia. Now, I could mention his 
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1 name, but you say you don't want people's names 

2 mentioned, but everyone knows who he is. He was 

3 40 years old, a black belt in karate. He spent his 

4 weekends on vacations in the high Sierras hiking, 

5 so he was in pretty good physical shape.

6 Well, the general consensus was that he 

7 sniffed a flaker. Now, there has been some 

8 discussion, I guess, about the size of the 

9 particles, but these things, the particles, 

10 sometimes are just like a powder, dust. The air 

11 conditioning or lack of air conditioning, the 

12 fans, things that we had could have distributed 

13 this stuff in the air.

14 So I'm sure that that's what happened 

15 to him. Everyone else seemed to think that's what 

16 happened to him.

17 During that time that I was there, I 

18 also was assigned to work operating an 

19 accelerator. We had an accelerator in Building 

20 100, a linear accelerator and the purpose of this 

21 accelerator was to produce neutrons. We would 

22 evaluate different substrates for the level and 

23 efficiency for producing neutrons.
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1 During that time, I was taken off the 

2 bioassay program, but I was still doing tritium 

3 analysis half-time. So I wasn't monitored at all 

4 during that time. The -- that was for the first 

5 12 years I worked in the engineering labs. The 

6 last 18 years I worked in the security operations, 

7 that's basically I was involved in everything 

8 regarding security. It didn't include guns, 

9 guards and gates.

10 That included a lot of things. I had 

11 to write them down, because I can't remember 

12 everything I was involved in, but there was OPSEC, 

13 technical surveillance countermeasures, tempest. 

14 And I was an NMC -- NMR, nuclear material control 

15 and accountability representative for the plant 

16 for a couple of years. I was also involved in 

17 COMSEC, intrusion detection systems and I was 

18 responsible for frequency-dependent programs.

19 Now, this took me to a lot of sites 

20 within DOE. As a matter of fact, I probably went 

21 to most of the weapons facilities within the 

22 complex at one time or another during that 18 

23 years. 
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1 Something I would like to go back a 

2 little bit, because actually during that time as 

3 well, not going back, but during that time I was 

4 also responsible for setting up the monitoring 

5 system in Building 400 where the RPGs were created.

6 And I spent several weeks out there. 

7 And during that several weeks, I was never 

8 monitored. And I noticed something that -- if 

9 someone walked through our portal, once it was set 

10 up, you could actually detect their presence 

11 because it would cause an imbalance between the 

12 simulators, and we would get a spike in our 

13 recordings.

14 So that tells me that there was 

15 something being produced there that their body was 

16 interacting with or keeping one of the simulators 

17 from seeing. So at the time I supposed it was 

18 gamma from the RPGs. I'm not sure what it was, but 

19 I think that maybe that is what it was.

20 I was one of the people that was 

21 interviewed in the FBI Field Office here, so during 

22 that interview, I didn't receive the results of 

23 that interview, by way of a transcript, for four 
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1 years. I got it recently in the mail, but it was 

2 actually 2012, if I remember right, is when it was 

3 -- when it occurred. It was January 25th or 

4 something like that.

5 So I just received that and one of the 

6 things I noticed was they did a pretty good job with 

7 the transcript, but the classified portions of the 

8 discussion were basically rephrased so they 

9 wouldn't be classified.

10 So the result of that was, like I said, 

11 I didn't get it for several years. So my memory 

12 is not as good as it used to be. I did a little 

13 calculation. I left the plant in December -- July 

14 23, 1997. I started work there July 3, 1967. It 

15 was 49 years ago. It has been 19 years since I was 

16 last at the plant.

17 So most of the people that I used to 

18 work with aren't there anymore. As a matter of 

19 fact, they aren't anywhere anymore, because we 

20 keep a database somewhat, it's not very accurate, 

21 because a lot more people have died than we know 

22 about, but we have over 500 names on that database 

23 today. And I send a list out periodically to the 
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1 people that are still around. I've got about 150 

2 names on a distribution list.

3 So I don't have anything else to add, 

4 except that I believe there is a lot more to the 

5 story than what you get from some of the testimony 

6 you have heard here today.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

8 Mr. Vaughn.

9 MR. VAUGHN: Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Donna Kroll, I 

11 believe, is the next person that signed up.

12 MS. KROLL: Good afternoon. My name 

13 Donna Kroll. Mine is going to on a personal basis, 

14 so if there is emotion involved, please, forgive 

15 me.

16 I lost my mother in 1991. She worked 

17 for the Pinellas Plant for 10 years. She was 

18 subjected to different radiation and different 

19 chemicals during her employment, because she 

20 worked on the assembly line.

21 NIOSH recognized that the employee was 

22 exposed to various sources of radiation during her 

23 employment at the Pinellas Plant. However, they 
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1 said that the dose was not large enough for it to 

2 be conclusive that she was definitely exposed to 

3 -- that it definitely caused her renal cell 

4 carcinoma.

5 Now, I understand that the -- during 

6 these past few years that I have been following, 

7 because all I do is follow, I have noticed that 

8 there is definitely inaccuracies in the 

9 reconstruction and that the -- with it being, with 

10 the dose reconstruction being inaccurate, how can 

11 they give you an accurate reading as to what was 

12 she -- what she was definitely subjected to.

13 My mother carried a Top Secret security 

14 clearance and she was capable of working in various 

15 areas of the plant due to her expertise.

16 In the end, she was working in an area 

17 that exposed her, I believe, to beryllium and it 

18 was -- she had a severe reaction to it to the point 

19 where she was taken out of the office and taken out 

20 of the -- I mean, not out of -- was taken out of 

21 the assembly area and made to work in the 

22 accounting office for the last two years that she 

23 was alive.
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1 When they diagnosed her cancer in 1988, 

2 they -- it was subjective, but then after the 

3 cancer reoccurred in 1990, General Electric sent 

4 my mother to Johns Hopkins. And they sent her 

5 there for experimental chemotherapy. This did 

6 not work and she died a very terrible death, very 

7 terrible. It started out as renal cell carcinoma 

8 and it metastasized into the body itself, not into 

9 the organs. 

10 It came out as tumors all over her whole 

11 body. It took her three years to die. Tough, 

12 because I cared for her the whole time. What I 

13 need to understand is they denied the claim because 

14 my brothers and I were over 18. Three years after 

15 my mother died, my father died from the same 

16 identical cancer.

17 My father slept with my mother every 

18 day. So please tell me if it was any radiation 

19 that possibly was transferred from her to him.

20 I have an issue with her not being 

21 informed in the beginning when she worked at the 

22 General Electric Plant where the issues -- where 

23 the -- what she was going to be subjected to in the 
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1 form of radiation. Never told.

2 She was told that once a year she would 

3 have a chest x-ray along with her annual physical. 

4 The staff doctor was the one that pulled her from 

5 the assembly line and put her into accounting 

6 because of the condition that she was in. Her face 

7 swelled four times its size. She had a very hard 

8 time breathing. They had to do two or three 

9 different procedures in order to bring her back 

10 into control, that's when they took her out.

11 This is something that I would like to 

12 reopen, because when I -- when they denied it, they 

13 said that the dose reconstruction stated that it 

14 was not great enough to be like to -- it was shown 

15 that the employee's renal cell carcinoma did not 

16 meet or at least likely. But now if your dose 

17 reconstruction is not accurate, how can they say 

18 that?

19 Over the last 10 years things have 

20 changed. More things have been brought to light 

21 and there are more inaccuracies and more lack of 

22 data than there was before. I do believe that this 

23 really needs to be addressed. I didn't need to 
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1 lose her at 61. She didn't even have a chance to 

2 retire. That's sad.

3 I wish and I hope that NIOSH takes the 

4 time to take a look at this plant seriously and take 

5 a look at the people that have done the work for 

6 the country and I hope that they are compensated 

7 for it, because right now, they are not. Thank 

8 you.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. The 

10 next person I have on the list is a Larry Von Soy. 

11 Is that the right pronunciation?

12 MR. SOY: Yes, sir.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

14 MR. SOY: I worked at Pinellas Plant 

15 for nine years. I worked in the data processing 

16 department as a senior systems analyst. Now, most 

17 people would consider that to be a very safe job 

18 at that plant. My responsibility was to put in a 

19 time and attendance system and I also worked with 

20 the Health and Safety Department.

21 Now, putting in a time and attendance 

22 system, I was everywhere in that plant. And as the 

23 other gentleman said, where the RPGs were, very few 
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1 people ever got in there, but I did on a regular 

2 basis because of putting in this new computer 

3 system.

4 Now, I am a claimant. I have chronic 

5 beryllium disease and with that, I have no way of 

6 getting my records to prove anything for other 

7 parts of the claims like a Part B. I got a partial 

8 set of records and it said I was denied because 

9 [identifying information redacted] never signed 

10 the document. Well, it came from the record 

11 department that was left of the documents that were 

12 inside the plant.

13 Now, as an employee, I never had a dose 

14 pack, but I went through the whole plant and nobody 

15 ever said, well, hey, you have the possibility of 

16 getting some type of radiation exposure. But 

17 today, I do. And with chronic beryllium disease, 

18 it's never going to go away. And I'm at a loss 

19 because nobody can ever prove exactly what I got 

20 and how I got it. But it's all inside Pinellas 

21 Plant.

22 So thank you.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 
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1 sir. Robert Shepard?

2 MR. SHEPARD: My name is Robert 

3 Shepard. I worked at the plant for 27 years. I 

4 began my employment in July 29, 1968 until April 

5 20, 1995. And I was a technician that required to 

6 calibrate all of the product testers before any 

7 product could be run.

8 The government required us, since they 

9 was the contractors that every six to eight weeks, 

10 a tester had to be calibrated. And I was in every 

11 area of the plant.

12 I wasn't trained as a radiation worker 

13 and I worked in Area 126, Area 108, 200 and 400 

14 Building. In Building 200 where they did the 

15 destruction tests, the generators tubes, when the 

16 customer got ready for the shipment, we were 

17 directed to test that generator. And we would 

18 take the tube and take it into a room and the tester 

19 would fire it and me and another technician, we 

20 would take debris and pick it up and put it in a 

21 container. The only thing that we had on was a 

22 face covering and gloves.

23 And so when I worked in the 400 Building 
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1 also doing product testers, see that the plutonium 

2 tube was that the system were accurately read what 

3 was -- the radiation that was in there. So we used 

4 to take the tubes and before we, me and some of the 

5 workers that was in there, used to take the tubes 

6 and just hold them in our hand just to see what they 

7 would do.

8 If you move a plutonium tube around, 

9 it's to get warm. It's to get hot. We used to 

10 take them and just hold them and see how long we 

11 can hold them in our hand. You know, sometime we 

12 carry them in our pockets. Sometimes we take them 

13 -- we had a little cafeteria we used to take them 

14 in there and show them around to other employees, 

15 you know, what would happen to a plutonium tube 

16 when you move it around, because to us, this was 

17 fun. But we didn't know that we were being 

18 irradiated, we were being exposed.

19 And so during this particular time or 

20 the years that I was there, I had prostate cancer 

21 and in 1994 Dr. Baca sent me to Mayo Clinic, and 

22 I had an operation there.

23 And then the prostate cancer came back 
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1 and in 2001, I think it was, I was sent to Moffitt 

2 and I was irradiated every day for nine weeks. And 

3 so in order to try to not having surgery again, 

4 because it was -- he didn't -- he wanted to try a 

5 new procedure and that procedure was radiation.

6 And I had a thyroid condition. It got 

7 to the point where I was losing weight and I 

8 couldn't sleep at night. My heart was palpating 

9 fast, beating real fast and so I went to the doctor 

10 and he gave me a pill to try to slow it down. And 

11 that wouldn't work. He said we don't have a pill 

12 here in our country that will reach a certain level 

13 that will bring your thyroid down to a normalcy.

14 So if I give you another pill, it's 

15 going to destroy it. So I had to sign off on that. 

16 And said if I don't do it, the same thing, I will 

17 have a heart attack or die. The heart would beat 

18 itself to death.

19 And so every day I have to take a 

20 thyroid pill. And I have diabetes and high blood 

21 pressure. I had moles removed from my body and so 

22 the older I get, which I'm 74 years old, it seem 

23 like all these things start occurring to my body, 
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1 the older that I get.

2 And so I filed for compensation and 

3 every time I filed, I get a letter back saying no. 

4 And they only gave me 25 millirem and I got a letter 

5 saying that was too much. So I guess they wanted 

6 to take that back.

7 And so that's where I am. This where 

8 I stand. And so I was hoping that someone would 

9 look at our situation and take it more seriously, 

10 because what we do -- we're working with at the 

11 plant was making tubes to make our country safe. 

12 And I know a little something about radiation; you 

13 do, too.

14 Think about what would -- happened in 

15 Japan about 70 years ago. Those people was bombed 

16 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those people are 

17 still dying, having children being deformed and 

18 all of these is still -- they are still getting 

19 sick.

20 And I was in that plant every day for 

21 27 years just like walking in the smog. Anybody 

22 have driven down the highway in the smog there? 

23 The smog get on you if you get out of your car. It 
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1 would get on you. It will contaminate your whole 

2 body, even your clothes.

3 And so, you know, I can't see why we are 

4 -- we did our job. We did our job. It seemed like 

5 somebody don't want to do theirs. Let us -- take 

6 care of us. Let us do the right thing, you know, 

7 that's all we need to do. The funds are there for 

8 us, that's why Congress allocated that fund, those 

9 funds for us to give it to workers like me.

10 Now, I have to prove, the burden of 

11 proof is on me. That shouldn't be that way. The 

12 burden of proof should be on you, because you know 

13 what was there. I don't. I'm not a scientist. 

14 I'm not a physicist. All I was a patriotic 

15 American doing my job. 

16 I served in the military, too, you 

17 know. And so I don't see what the problem is. So 

18 I wish everyone well who have gotten sick, who have 

19 sick and if you are not being compensated, maybe 

20 time will tell that someone will come and come to 

21 our aid. Thank you.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Mr. 

23 Shepard. Is there anybody else in the audience 
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1 that wishes to speak to the Pinellas Site? Well, 

2 please, step up to the mike and identify yourself.

3 MS. STRICKLAND: Hi. I'm Margaret 

4 Strickland and my [identifying information 

5 redacted] also worked out at the plant. I think 

6 he was there for almost 37 years. I was there for 

7 12 or so. But I do know for a fact, I worked with 

8 RTGs when I first started my employment and we 

9 handled them. We chem-cleaned them in the Chem 

10 Clean Department.

11 We were never told about the dangers. 

12 We were never -- we didn't wear anything to measure 

13 any dose. We were never -- we didn't even receive 

14 really exam -- a physical every year. Sometimes 

15 we did, sometimes we didn't.

16 But I'm just here to say that there were 

17 a lot of things that were overlooked, I think, at 

18 the plant. I don't want to say intentionally, I 

19 know it wasn't intentionally, but I just don't 

20 know. I see people that have died. I mean, we 

21 lost several people back then that were in their 

22 20s and 30s and I really -- I don't think this is 

23 fair. I don't think -- I'm not just out after the 
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1 money. It's a matter of taking care of your own.

2 We did our job just like the gentleman 

3 before me said. And I think now it is time for the 

4 government to step up and do theirs. Thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Anybody 

6 else wish to make comments on the -- relative to 

7 the Pinellas Site? Okay. I also have a Mr. 

8 Warren on the phone.

9 MR. FESTER: Yes.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead. How are 

11 you?

12 MR. FESTER: My name is Josh Fester. 

13 I'm an attorney here in Hardeeville, South 

14 Carolina. I'm speaking for Mr. Warren today, 

15 basically, reading his comments, his email to the 

16 Board.

17 You know, we need to move forward with 

18 the expanded SEC for the Savannah River Site to 

19 other thorium time periods. You will no doubt 

20 remember that the original SEC petition, where I 

21 was representing [identifying information 

22 redacted], was consolidated with the petition for 

23 construction trade workers, [identifying 
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1 information redacted] petition 103. The Board 

2 voted to include all workers from 1953 through 

3 September of 1972 because of possible exposure to 

4 thorium.

5 I'm afraid the Board has been diverted 

6 from the thorium exposure because it was assuming 

7 thorium exposure after September 1972 was minimal. 

8 See Taulbee's presentation with graph by year of 

9 thorium inventory, dated 2014. We now have over 

10 1300 additional documents formerly marked Secret 

11 which are the FOIA Responses that have been 

12 redacted and declassified in February and March of 

13 2012 regarding requests for information on thorium 

14 at the Savannah River Site, which responses show 

15 thorium inventory data sheets and other 

16 information about thorium at the SRS.

17 In addition, SRS processed 240 tons of 

18 thorium before 1978. See Savannah River Plant, 

19 E.I. du Pont deNemours and Company, D.A. Orth., SRP 

20 Thorium Processing Experience, Aiken, South 

21 Carolina, June 1978, as reported in an article by 

22 R. Alvarez on page 56, Managing the uranium-233 

23 stockpile of the United States, Science and Global 
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1 Security, 21:53-69, 2013.

2 Another factor that the Board Members 

3 are undoubtedly aware is that and this is quoted 

4 in that article, thorium is more radioactive than 

5 uranium and requires additional safeguards. The 

6 surface dose rate from a 55 gallon drum is 

7 approximately 60 millirem per hour, about 13 times 

8 higher than a similar sized drum of uranium. A 

9 worker spending time inside a thorium storage 

10 facility could expect to encounter dose rates of 

11 60-100 mR/hr, reaching the US occupational 

12 exposure limit of 5 rem in just over 6 days, and 

13 that is on page 57 of that article.

14 In a memo dated November, 1982, M.H. 

15 Tenant, 773A, discusses inventory reductions of 

16 enriched uranium, depleted uranium, plutonium, 

17 neptunium, thorium and others and the lack of 

18 personnel to dispose of these uncommon items. He 

19 also says that, quote, in the last few years 

20 approximately 800 kilograms of depleted uranium 

21 material have been buried each year, and he 

22 foresees problems in the future because of a lack 

23 of documentation for excessing, shipment, and 
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1 recovery. See T. Taulbee, et al. dated, date 

2 collected was January 12, 2012, Site Box Number 

3 M270-11117-68, and the document date is April 19, 

4 1982.

5 The data sheets are not in 

6 chronological order, but are screenshots of 

7 usually beginning inventory plus receipts or

8 removals into minus removals equal ending 

9 inventory, and that is cited at, I think it's Mike 

10 Mahathy target data thorium inventory, folder 

11 title Thorium/U-233 Inventory screen prints.

12 First, that shows in January 1976, the 

13 inventory report shows an ending inventory for 

14 thorium as 6,939.8 kilograms despite information 

15 from NIOSH that after September 1972 that there 

16 were negligible amounts of Thorium at the Savannah 

17 River Site.

18 In December 1977, the ending inventory 

19 for thorium is 7,872.7 kilograms. That's 

20 screenshot at page 474. The beginning inventory, 

21 BI, for January 1978, is the same after receipts 

22 and removals, as expected, and that's at page 488, 

23 but February 1978, the beginning inventory is 
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1 blank and removals into and from 244-H storage 

2 leave 400 kilograms of thorium as the EI, or ending 

3 inventory at page 488 with no accounting for the 

4 beginning inventory of 7,872.7 kilograms which 

5 should have been listed but wasn't.

6 Number Three, because the selected 

7 screenshots are not a complete set of data sheets, 

8 one wonders why the normal chronological numbering 

9 is not used consistently on the data sheets. In 

10 fact, some pages have the same number but list 

11 different data: 1979 on page 532 and 634 of that 

12 document and in 1990, page 463 and 167; in 1995, 

13 page 117; and in 1998, unfortunately there is a 

14 page missing in that document.

15 The pages of the responses are not in 

16 order, but 1300-plus pages definitely show thorium 

17 shipments to, and in some cases from, Savannah 

18 River Site after 1972. This FOIA information was 

19 uncovered by Dr. Taulbee's team in the spring of 

20 2012 so you should be able to see this information 

21 in a non-redacted form. I have no idea that SC&A 

22 ever saw this material, but it seems to me to be 

23 important for the Board to have it regarding the 
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1 ending year for the SEC at the Savannah River Site.

2 Also, we have received handwritten SRS 

3 thorium inventory accountability data from 1976 to 

4 1998 showing over eight tons, 8,730 kilograms, of 

5 thorium in storage at the Savannah River Site in 

6 April 1998 before the word, in quotes, missing is 

7 entered in the blocks 5 and 6 indicating the months 

8 May and June 1998. See Mike Mahathy, target data 

9 thorium, microfiche, folder title: Matrix of 

10 Thorium Accountability Data. These data 

11 apparently are separate from the inventory data 

12 screenshots as there seems to be no correlation 

13 between the two databases.

14 Lastly, a deposition was taken in a 

15 South Carolina workers' comp case where the head 

16 of the radiation safety program at the Savannah 

17 River Site testified that, at one time, there was 

18 a thorium oxide process room that was contaminated 

19 at least once with thorium on the walls and floor. 

20 Also, he talked about no bioassay data to detect 

21 thorium, in contrast to Dr. Taulbee's presentation 

22 in 2014 which advocated using thorium bioassay 

23 data to reconstruct thorium exposure which appears 
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1 impossible in light of Mr. Hadlock's testimony, 

2 and you can see the deposition of Dennis Hadlock, 

3 Lee v. DuPont, et al., WCC file No.: 5200002.

4 And some of his comments include, 

5 Dennis Hadlock says that ‘‘radiation, if you're not 

6 looking for it, is, you can't find it.’’ And that 

7 is on page 139, lines 16 and 17 of that deposition. 

8 He states that prior to 2000, the Savannah River 

9 Site did not have a bioassay program to detect 

10 thorium for Savannah River Site employees as, ‘‘one 

11 did not exist,’’ and that's on page 135 and line 

12 18 of that deposition.

13 He also said in answer to a question 

14 concerning exposure to thorium and SRS' having no 

15 way of detecting that exposure through bioassay 

16 that, ‘‘through bioassay that is correct for 

17 thorium,’’ and that is page 136, line 4. He also 

18 testified that there was a thorium process area or 

19 room in the 300 area of the site. That's pages 

20 126-127, line 25-1, page 131, lines 12 and 13. And 

21 there were several places -- there was thorium in 

22 several places, rather, in the 300 Area and it was 

23 shipped to 773 and 777, and that's on pages 
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1 116-117, lines 19-25, and line 1 on 117.

2 He also testified that he had records 

3 of four pallets of thorium slugs that were going 

4 from 313 to 100k in February 1968, page 107, lines 

5 13 and 14. He testified further that he did not 

6 know of any formal testing for intake for thorium 

7 prior to the early or mid-2000's, page 95, lines 

8 13 through 17.

9 The Board has not been given the 

10 correct data for thorium exposure at the Savannah 

11 River Site and should expand the SEC at the SRS to 

12 2007. With no detection program for workers both 

13 CTW and nCTW exposed to radiation from thorium, 

14 there is no reason not to expand the cohort, making 

15 many more workers and their survivors eligible for 

16 benefits from the DOL program before they die.

17 Thank you. That's all I have.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

19 MS. COATES: Can I speak for the 

20 Pinellas Plant, please?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just a second. We 

22 need to finish up here, please.

23 MS. COATES: Okay. 
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So if you could send 

2 in those comments. I believe you sent in an 

3 earlier version of those comments?

4 MR. FESTER: I believe so.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, if you could 

6 send in the final version, I think it would be 

7 helpful to make sure our transcriber gets the 

8 references correct.

9 MR. FESTER: Yes, sir. Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, thank you.

11 MR. KATZ: Yeah, and if you would 

12 address them to Ted Katz, just so that I make sure 

13 -- so that we can be sure the Board gets them, as 

14 well. The program will get them as well.

15 MR. FESTER: Address them to who now?

16 MR. KATZ: Ted Katz. T-E-D, K-A-T-Z.

17 MR. FESTER: Okay. Thank you.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very much.

19 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: All right. Now, 

21 does anybody else on the phone wish to make public 

22 comments?

23 MS. COATES: I would, please.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, go ahead.

2 MS. COATES: My name is Donna Coates. 

3 My husband, Al Coates, worked at the Pinellas Plant 

4 from '58 to '94.

5 MR. KATZ: Ma'am, I'm sorry, ma'am, 

6 I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we can't hear you. 

7 Can you speak more directly into the phone and 

8 start from the beginning?

9 MS. COATES: You can't hear me?

10 MR. KATZ: Now we can hear you. Yes, 

11 thank you.

12 MS. COATES: I'm sorry. Okay.

13 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

14 MS. COATES: My name is Donna Coates 

15 and my husband Al Coates worked at the Pinellas 

16 Plant from '58 to '94. He passed away in 2013 with 

17 lung cancer.

18 I'm wondering, after hearing all these 

19 people, why is this plant so dangerous for some, 

20 but not all? They all worked all over that plant 

21 most of them. I don't understand it.

22 We had -- we went from -- in 2001, a man 

23 called from Dirwell asking my husband a bunch of 
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1 questions and wondering if he could give them some 

2 names that he knew worked there, and he did.

3 My son was told in 2013 to get three 

4 people to write a letter that worked with my 

5 husband and we would stand a better chance to get 

6 compensated for him and it helped. It worked.

7 I grieve for these people that have --

8 are not getting any help from anybody. I don't 

9 understand it and I really feel bad for them. I 

10 think that SEC would be the best thing in the world 

11 you guys could do. Thank you.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, ma'am. 

13 Anybody else on the phone wish to make public 

14 comments?

15 MR. FROWISS: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead.

17 MR. FROWISS: This is Albert Frowiss 

18 in California. 

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

20 MR. FROWISS: [Identifying 

21 information redacted]. I'm an advocate and the 

22 Lawrence Livermore petitioner and -- but I wanted 

23 to speak today about the SLAC Site, Stanford Linear 
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1 Accelerator Center.

2 I have never -- I have been watching 

3 these meetings for years and I have never seen a 

4 SLAC Working Group and I'm wondering if there is 

5 a SLAC Working Group and if they have ever had a 

6 meeting? That's one of my questions.

7 The second is, there was a Tiger Team 

8 report on SLAC in 1991, which identified a whole 

9 range of deficiencies in health and safety 

10 practices that occurred during the -- from 1960 

11 through the '70s, at least.

12 And all that info on deficiencies and 

13 health and safety practices is presumably 

14 available to your Board and NIOSH. And I would 

15 seem to recall about two or three years ago, Dr. 

16 Ziemer mentioned that he heard a rumor that there 

17 was an SEC petition of some sort for SLAC that was 

18 in the mill.

19 There is nothing in -- nothing on your 

20 website about any 83.13s and I just wonder whether 

21 there has ever been an 83.14 considered by the 

22 Board or by NIOSH? That's my comments.

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. 
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1 Anybody else on the phone wish to make public 

2 comments?

3 MS. COLLEY: Yes, me.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. If you could 

5 identify yourself and make comments.

6 MS. COLLEY: Okay. Yes, my name is 

7 Vina Colley and I am a sick worker and co-founder 

8 of National Nuclear Workers for Justice. And I am 

9 the president of PRESS, Portsmouth --

10 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm 

11 sorry to interrupt, but you said your name so 

12 quickly, we couldn't understand it. Can you try 

13 again?

14 MS. COLLEY: Vina, V-I-N-A, Colley.

15 MR. KATZ: Holly?

16 MS. COLLEY: C-O-L-L-E-Y.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you.

18 MS. COLLEY: Okay. And I was a sick 

19 worker and co-founder of National Nuclear Workers 

20 for Justice and President of Portsmouth-Piketon 

21 Residents for Environmental Safety and Security.

22 I am from the Portsmouth Gaseous 

23 Diffusion Plant in Ohio. And this is not just our 
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1 problem, it's a national problem that is left going 

2 on with these workers.

3 We were the group that broke the story 

4 about the plutonium being in the piping plant at 

5 the same time it broke in Kentucky. I would like 

6 to put -- we are saying that our government 

7 continues to put us in harm's way 16 years after 

8 this bill came in effect.

9 I had a couple of questions. Why is 

10 trichloroethylene, asbestos, plutonium, 

11 beryllium and other toxic substance found in the 

12 soil on the site, but most workers are not given 

13 credit for the same exposure? Most employers give 

14 credit to asbestos solely. Most employers are 

15 giving credit to asbestos solely to building 

16 materials, meaning the buildings they worked in 

17 have asbestos, but not enough exposure credited to 

18 the linked illness.

19 Skeletal cirrhosis, according to your 

20 FIM database, it's not linked to any toxins on the 

21 site. It can cause -- it can be caused by fluoride 

22 exposure, NHF. It is like arthritis, so I'm sure 

23 no one wants to admit it, because possibly most of 
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1 us -- most have medical records that can support 

2 the diagnoses.

3 Comments on job titles. An escort is 

4 excluded, but would be just as exposed as a guard. 

5 Very few job titles are given credit for exposures 

6 like COPD when in fact airborne toxins doesn't 

7 discriminate. FIM is used to exclude not a set of 

8 claimants.

9 Neuropathy is an example that I'm 

10 looking at right now in the FIM database for the 

11 electricians we have. The electricians that we 

12 have -- hold on just a minute. Somebody just 

13 knocked.

14 Okay. Neuropathy is another example 

15 that I am looking at right now in the FIM database. 

16 So as an electrician, we have been exposed to 

17 certain chemicals and radiation. My doctor 

18 agreed your FIM base -- well, I was turned down--

19 hold on.

20 I was turned down for neuropathy and my 

21 doctor was asked to prove the legacy period. The 

22 Cleveland office is asking for the doctor to show 

23 the legacy period of neuropathy or research to show 
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1 --

2 MR. KATZ: Excuse me, ma'am? I'm 

3 sorry to interrupt you again, but with the dog 

4 barking and --

5 MS. COLLEY: Well, I know the dog --

6 MR. KATZ: -- the phone quality, it's 

7 very hard to hear what you are actually saying.

8 MS. COLLEY: Okay. Hold on just a 

9 second.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I believe all of 

11 your questions so far have -- are referred to the 

12 Department of Labor program and issues there. 

13 This is the -- this Advisory Board deals with 

14 cancer issues related to Subtitle E of the Act.

15 MS. COLLEY: Well, we were one of the 

16 first SEC sites along with Paducah and Oak Ridge.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That may be, but all 

18 your questions so far are related to chemical and 

19 other -- or other diseases. Chemical exposure.

20 MS. COLLEY: Well, it has to do with 

21 the FIM database.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, that is 

23 Department of Labor.
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1 MS. COLLEY: Okay. One second.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You have the wrong--

3 MS. COLLEY: The FIM database is not 

4 working, we have had multiple chemical exposures 

5 that they are not giving us credit for, multiple 

6 chemical exposures nor do they even call the 

7 workers to see what they actually did work in and 

8 what they might have been exposed to that has not 

9 been calculated in their exposures.

10 I cannot get them to give me any neutron 

11 exposure for any exposure that I have.

12 And I have another question about a 

13 petition that was filed by Gay Oglebee and myself 

14 and it was given to one of your persons. I'll have 

15 to go in and get the name, but the petition was 0011 

16 -- 00011 for Hanford workers that Gay Oglebee 

17 turned in and she has passed away. We started the 

18 petition in 2000 and we got a number sometime like 

19 in 2007 and I haven't heard any more about that 

20 petition.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you 

22 for your public comments. Does anybody else on 

23 the phone wish to make comments?
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1 MS. COLLEY: Is there a way I can get 

2 an answer to the question about the petition and 

3 the fact that --

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will follow up on 

5 that last question. The others we can't answer. 

6 You should talk to the Department of Labor.

7 MS. COLLEY: I thought you were 

8 talking about the FIM database all day today 

9 earlier.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think so.

11 MS. COLLEY: This is affecting all the 

12 workers all around the United States right now, the 

13 FIM database. This is how they are getting turned 

14 down for their exposures and for their illnesses.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, but I believe 

16 the Department of Labor has another advisory board 

17 that is addressing issues related to that program. 

18 And this is -- we don't. This Advisory Board does 

19 not address those issues.

20 MS. COLLEY: Okay. Could someone 

21 send them to me or my name in?

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, if we have the 

23 contact information, we will, if we could 
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1 understand it with the dog barking.

2 MS. COLLEY: Okay. If you --

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

4 MS. COLLEY: -- I'm sorry.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, that's fine.

6 MS. COLLEY: I'm sorry that I just got 

7 company. I have been sitting here all day and no 

8 company until I got on the phone.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Is it --

10 MS. COLLEY: My phone number if they 

11 want to text it to me is [identifying information 

12 redacted]. And I want to ditto that your workers 

13 in Florida have said that this is a national 

14 problem and it's happening everywhere.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, ma'am, that's 

17 [identifying information redacted], correct?

18 MS. COLLEY: [Identifying information 

19 redacted], correct.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Now does anybody 

22 else on the phone wish -- I'll get to you in a 

23 second, sir. Anybody else on the phone wish to 
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1 make public comments?

2 Okay. If not, go ahead, sir, please, 

3 identify yourself.

4 MR. JEWETT: My name is Billy E. 

5 Jewett, J-E-W-E-T-T. I have two claims. One for 

6 my brother, who has since died from radiation 

7 exposure, and also for myself. My tracking number 

8 is [identifying information redacted]. I don't 

9 know my brother's tracking number.

10 The plant that you -- we were just 

11 talking about, it was built in the early 1950s. 

12 And me and my brother helped build that plant. And 

13 what the young lady was talking about was that this 

14 is a worldwide problem. This is just not local 

15 here in the United States. It's worldwide.

16 It destroys our water system. It's 

17 not a clean energy. It destroys our water system 

18 and human life has to have clean water. As we 

19 speak, China is getting tankers full of water from 

20 our Great Lakes because they have no water, potable 

21 water. So this is a worldwide problem. This is 

22 not local. 

23 But getting back to the plant, the 
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1 Piketon Diffusion Plant, I live -- my brother and 

2 I both lived about 10 miles downwind from that 

3 plant. They have had many leakage problems and 

4 many people in that area have died from radiation 

5 exposure from that plant.

6 As we speak, they have saw fit to close, 

7 stop the cleanup of that plant and I would like an 

8 answer on why this governor of the state or anyone 

9 would sit still for stopping the cleanup at that 

10 plant site. It's the same thing at Paducah. It's 

11 the same thing at most of your plants around the 

12 nation.

13 They are not taking care of the 

14 radioactive waste. Radioactive waste doesn't 

15 have a yearly shelf-life. It is eons. We let the 

16 genie out of the bottle and there is no putting it 

17 back. But this is a problem worldwide and it's 

18 untold millions that have died from exposure to 

19 radiation. It's not a clean energy like they try 

20 to tell you. It's not a clean energy.

21 But anyway, does anybody know or can 

22 you give me an answer where are they putting the 

23 radioactive waste today? The last I heard from 
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1 Paducah many years ago, they were putting it in 

2 refrigerator-sized cubes, putting it in ceramic 

3 and wanting to put it in salt mines in Michigan and 

4 Michigan would have had no part of it.

5 Now they said off the coast of -- out 

6 in the Pacific there is a soft bottom where they 

7 are dumping it and it's supposed to stay okay 

8 there. But where is a safe -- is -- there is no 

9 place safe in the world here for radioactive waste. 

10 Thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Ted, we 

12 have one other additional comment. Ted, do you 

13 want to read?

14 MR. KATZ: Yes. All right. So I have 

15 comments that were submitted in advance by Dr. 

16 McKeel, because he couldn't attend to present them 

17 himself, which I'll read.

18 To the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

19 Worker Health from Daniel W. McKeel, Jr., MD, SEC 

20 co-petitioner for the General Steel Industries, 

21 GSI -- excuse me, sir -- Dow Madison in Illinois 

22 and Texas City Chemicals AWE, EEOICPA sites. 

23 Co-founder in 2005 of SINEW, the Southern Illinois 
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1 Nuclear Energy Workers Advocacy Organization.

2 I have requested that Board DFO Ted 

3 Katz read this document into the official meeting 

4 transcript record of the Public Comment session 

5 during the 110th ABRWH face meeting, which is to 

6 be held on March 23, 2016 in Tampa, Florida at 5:00 

7 p.m.

8 The following comment is an extension 

9 of my Public Comment at the 108th ABRWH meeting in 

10 Oakland, California on November 18, 2015. New 

11 information has emerged that is especially 

12 disturbing. The implications deserve immediate 

13 scrutiny and actions by this Radiation Advisory 

14 Board, by NIOSH-DCAS and DEEOIC/DOL.

15 My remarks should be considered a 

16 formal complaint concerning the manner in which 

17 the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, 

18 and the Department of Labor, DOL, DEEOIC are 

19 handling three matters pertaining to the GSI 

20 Illinois site. These EEOICPA part B programmatic 

21 matters include the following issues:

22 One, flawed dose reconstruction 

23 reworks for 42 of 100 cases under GSI PER-057 with 
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1 PER Probability of Causations, PoCs, over 50 

2 percent. DCAS employees and health physicists 

3 David Allen and Dr. James Neton issued PER-057 for 

4 the GSI Illinois site on March 11, 2015. PER-057, 

5 quoting from the abstract of the document on the 

6 DCAS website, quote, Determines the effect of 

7 Revision 1 to the GSI Appendix on previously 

8 completed claims, end quote, and further states, 

9 quote, NIOSH will request the return of the 100 

10 claims that would now result in a Probability of 

11 Causation greater than 50 percent, end quote.

12 John Vance, acting for DEEOIC Director 

13 Rachel Leiton, in an e-mail to Dan McKeel dated 

14 January 29, 2016, quoted the following statistics 

15 he obtained from the DOL Cleveland District Office 

16 that pertained to the list of 100 PER-057 claims 

17 with new PoCs greater than 50 percent based on 

18 Appendix BB Rev 1 issued June 6, 2014.

19 Mr. Vance replied by e-mail to Dan on 

20 January 29, 16 as follows, quote, I asked to the 

21 Cleveland District Office to report out manually 

22 on the status of the claims. Here is the 

23 information provided - 
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1 - There were 100 total cases

2 - 52 mod orders to reopen previously denied 

3 cases with new recommended decisions issued

4 - 12 cases where survivors were not located, 

5 parenthetically he says, working with 

6 [identifying information redacted] to get contact 

7 information. He is working one-on-one with the 

8 assistant director in CLE on the matter, close 

9 parentheses.

10 Four cases are presently with NIOSH and 

11 we're waiting for the NRs.

12 One has a newly deceased employee 

13 working to get survivor claim. One case under 

14 development for referral to NIOSH checking the 

15 status as to delay. One case was -- were denied 

16 by RD dose reconstruction was 49.02 percent. I 

17 did have our HPs validate the results and he was 

18 unable to identify any change to outcome.

19 15 cases had no covered employment and 

20 were incorrectly identified for consideration as 

21 part of the PER.

22 15 cases had RD without mod orders as 

23 they were new claimants, end quote.
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1 I replied to Mr. Vance asking for 

2 several clarifications of these puzzling data on 

3 the 52 -- on only 52 reworks instead of 100. The 

4 dates, the 12 deceased claimants died before March 

5 11, 2015, question mark.

6 How 15 cases could possibly be new when 

7 based on the CDC FOIA 15.490, McKeel obtained with 

8 PRE and PER total dose and PoC information on all 

9 100 cases that showed all 100 total doses and PoCs 

10 below 50 percent prior to/before PER-057 was 

11 issued on March 11, 2015.

12 I also sought clarification for the 

13 jargon terms mod and NR. I was told I must file 

14 a FOIA in order to obtain answers to these 

15 questions.

16 NIOSH use of erroneous employment at 

17 GSI for 15 PER-057 claims is the most worrisome 

18 aspect of these data since DOL is supposed to 

19 verify employment status before cases are referred 

20 to NIOSH for initial dose reconstructions. None 

21 of the 100 PER-057 cases with PER -- PoCs greater 

22 than 50 percent could be new, since all 100 had 

23 recorded pre-PER PoCs less than 50 percent. I 
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1 verified this fact unequivocally via my CDC FOIA 

2 15.490.

3 Two, the extreme delay in HHS and the 

4 three-Member AR review panel making a final 

5 determination on the GSI SEC 105 administrative 

6 review submitted to HHS by petitioners on April 17, 

7 2013, the full ABRWH voted to sustain NIOSH's 

8 recommendation to deny GSI SEC 105 on a nine yes 

9 to eight no vote on December 11, 2012. The Board 

10 forwarded their recommendation letter to NIOSH 

11 Director John Howard and to HHS Secretary on 

12 January 31, 2013.

13 HHS Secretary Sebelius denied GSI SEC 

14 105 in a letter to Congress and the GSI petitioners 

15 dated March 3, 2013. HHS Assistant Secretary of 

16 Health Howard Koh then approved the GSI SEC 15 AR 

17 on May 17, 2013.

18 Subsequent events have been cloaked in 

19 utter secrecy as outlined in my public comment at 

20 the November 18, 2015 ABRWH Oakland meeting.

21 Section 18.18 of the Act that governs 

22 SEC ARs needs urgent reform.

23 The new related development was the 
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1 Hooker SEC HHS Panel recommending reversing the 

2 SEC denial based on NIOSH's faulty employment of 

3 surrogate data. This was a specific error among 

4 44 of the GSI SEC 105 petitioners cited in their 

5 AR submitted to HHS on April 17, 2013.

6 The fact raises the distinct 

7 possibility that GSI AR Review Panel may also 

8 recommend reversal of GSI SEC 105 denial to the new 

9 HHS Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell. Ms. 

10 Burwell replaced Ms. Sebelius on June 9, 2014, and 

11 made the determination to concur with the HHS AR 

12 Review Panel and approve the Hooker SEC.

13 Secretary Burwell will decide the 

14 ultimate SEC 105 fate.

15 My point today is to reinforce the 

16 urgent need for more openness in processing SEC 

17 administrative requests. The outcome may and has 

18 recently influenced ABRWH decisions as in the 

19 recent Hooker Electrochemical SEC case.

20 Three, the excessive delay in NIOSH 

21 issuing GSI Appendix BB Rev 2 and its related PER 

22 by the NIOSH Division of Compensation Analysis and 

23 Support (DCAS), Stuart Hinnefeld Director. At 
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1 the ABRWH 108th face meeting on November 18, 2015, 

2 Dr. Paul Ziemer, former Board Chair and current 

3 Chair of the TBD-6000 Work Group, made a 

4 presentation stating that all outstanding GSI 

5 Appendix BB Rev 1 issues had now been fully 

6 resolved. The full Board concurred.

7 I am unaware that DCAS or the TBD-6000 

8 Work Group have announced any progress on issuing 

9 a second revision of Appendix BB, Rev 2 or issuing 

10 a new Program Evaluation Report for Rev 2, or for 

11 holding the next TBD-6000 Work Group meeting. All 

12 of these activities are necessary follow-up 

13 activities to the 100 percent resolution of the 

14 SC&A matrix issues concerning Appendix BB Rev 1 

15 that were still open in June 2014 when the revised 

16 GSI profile was issued after a seven-year delay.

17 I ask again for NIOSH and the Board to 

18 take immediate action on all of these GSI matters 

19 that merit urgent attention. A new PER issued 

20 under pending Appendix BB Rev 2 might result in 

21 additional GSI denied claimants being paid. For 

22 example, GSI betatron operations would now receive 

23 credit for additional external gamma photon dose 
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1 from radium-226 sealed sources during the GSI 

2 radium era 1952-1962.

3 I urge the Board and DCAS/NIOSH to take 

4 a more proactive position when exorbitant delays 

5 threaten and subvert the EEOICPA mandate for the 

6 Board and the implementing agencies to perform 

7 their duties in a timely manner. The 42 of 100 GSI 

8 cases at issue from PER-057 that are in jeopardy, 

9 see issue 1, for not being paid represent $6.3 

10 million in benefits not counting medical benefits.

11 For the record, it has been impossible 

12 for me to gain the full GSI administrative record 

13 by making FOIA requests. My CDC FOIA 14-00573 

14 made April 10, 14 for the GSI SEC-105 information 

15 NIOSH and the Board provided to John Howard and HHS 

16 Secretary Sebelius and ASH Koh is still not 

17 complete. One part of this subdivided FOIA 

18 remains with the DOE Legacy Management 23-plus 

19 months after submission. Thank you. 

20 Respectfully submitted, Dan McKeel, March 19, 

21 2016.

22 ADJOURN 

23 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Ted.
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1 That actually concludes our meeting 

2 and we will reconvene tomorrow morning at 8:15.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

4 went off the record at 6:20 p.m.)

5