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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

+ + + + +

118th MEETING

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WEDNESDAY

AUGUST 23, 2017

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The meeting convened at 8:00 a.m., 

Mountain Time, in the Courtyard Marriott, 3347 

Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico, James M. 

Melius, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chair

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

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member*

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member*

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

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

ARMIJO, ROBERTO

BACA, LOUIS

BARRIE, TERRIE

BARTON, BOB, SC&A*

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A*

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A*

BLAZE, D'LANIE

BROWN, MIKE

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH

BUSTOS, ANGIE

BUSTOS, ERIC

CASADOS, DONNA

CORDOVA, GLORIA

CORDOVA, HERMINIO

CORIZ, EPPIA

CRULL, FELICIA

DOMINA, KIRK

DURAN, PETE

EVASKOVICH, ANDY

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FROWISS, AL, SR.

FROWISS, AL, JR.

FUENTES, JERRY

GARCIA, MOLLY

GARCIA, ROBERT

GRIFFON, MARK

HARDESTY, WILLIAM

HERNANDEZ, CHARLES

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

HUGHES, LARA, DCAS

JACQUEZ-ORTIZ, MICHELE

JERISON, DEB 

KISPERT, ROBERT

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL*

LEA, CARL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LEYAN, JANEEN

LOPA, ADELMO

LOPEZ, LUIS

LUBRUM, ALANA

LUCERO, CHARLES

MACK, DANIEL

MARTINEZ, GINA
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MCFEE, MATT, ORAU Team

MEDINA, IGNACIO

NETON, JIM, DCAS

ORTIZ, DIANE

ORTIZ, EDWIN

ORTIZ, LEROY

QUINTARA, DIANE

RAEL, ELVE, DOE

RODRIGUEZ, SYLVIA

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

SADLER, JOHN

SALAZAR, DANNY

SALAZAR, MELANIE

SANDOVAL, TONY

SENA, BERNICE 

SENA, JOSE

STANTON, RALPH*

STEPHENS, HUGH

STIVER, JOHN, SC&A

TABOR, ROBERT*

TAULBEE, TIM, DCAS

TRUJILLO, JEANETTE

ULIBARRI, CHARLENE

ULIBARRI, GILBERT

VALERIO, P.F.

VIRGIL, MIGUEL, JR.

WILBARN, GILBERT

WHITTEN, DIANNE

WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE
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Contents

Welcome and Introduction.......................... 5

Roll Call......................................... 7

NIOSH Program Update.............................. 8

DOL Program Update............................... 15

DOE Program Update............................... 23

Pantex Plant Site Profile Review................. 32

Pacific Proving Grounds Site Profile Review...... 49

Feed Materials Production Center SEC............. 80

Petition (1979/1984-1989; Fernald, OH)........... 80

and Site Profile................................. 80

Lunch........................................... 118

Idaho National Laboratory SEC Petition.......... 120

(Petition #238, 1975-1980, Scoville, ID)........ 120

SEC Petitions Status Update..................... 160

Board Work Session.............................. 168

Los Alamos National Laboratory SEC Petition..... 190

(1996-2005; Los Alamos, NM)..................... 190

Public Comments................................. 251

Adjourn......................................... 324
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 8:01 a.m.

3 Welcome and Introduction 

4 MR. KATZ: Okay, so this is the 

5 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

6 Welcome, everyone in the room and on the line. 

7 Some preliminaries. The agenda for 

8 today and the materials for today, for folks on 

9 the line, if you go to the NIOSH website, this 

10 program's webpage, schedule of meetings, today's 

11 date, you'll be able to find there on today's 

12 date the agenda and all the materials that we're 

13 discussing and copies of the presentations. So, 

14 you can follow along that way. 

15 There's also a Skype link which you'll 

16 find on the agenda. You can connect by Skype if 

17 you want to see the slides that are being 

18 presented in real-time, as opposed to you looking 

19 through them on your own. You can join that Skype 

20 session. The Skype session, again, is specified 

21 on the top of the agenda, so that's how you can 

22 connect, if you want to, by web. 

23 Other notes about the agenda. We have 
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1 a very full agenda for two days. We have a public 

2 comment session today, only today, from 5:30 p.m. 

3 to 6:30 p.m. 

4 Folks in the room need to register for 

5 that public comment session in the book outside 

6 the room. But folks on the line, you don't need 

7 to register. Just be in attendance on the line 

8 when that public comment session begins at 5:30. 

9 And once we get through with the people who are 

10 here in the room, we'll go to people on the line 

11 and you'll have your opportunity for public 

12 comment.

13 Okay. And then the other note for 

14 everyone on the line, please, is it's going to 

15 help you with the audio quality if you mute your 

16 phone except when you are addressing the group. 

17 For most of the public, that just means during 

18 the public comment session. Of course, the Board 

19 Members will address the group at all different 

20 points during the meeting. 

21 So please mute your phones when you're 

22 listening to this session, this meeting. And to 

23 mute your phone, if you don't have a mute button 
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1 on your phone, press * and then six, that'll mute 

2 your phone. Press * and six again and it'll 

3 unmute your phone. But please do mute your phone. 

4 That'll help everyone, including yourself, in 

5 hearing the meeting. 

6 And, please, no one put the call on 

7 hold at any point, because many people's hold 

8 function will cause an audio problem for everyone 

9 else on the line. So, hang up and dial back in 

10 if you need to leave for a piece, but please don't 

11 ever put the call on hold.

12 Okay, so I think that takes care of 

13 those preliminaries. I'm going to do roll call 

14 now.

15 Roll Call 

16 (Roll call.)

17 MR. KATZ: And that takes care of roll 

18 call. And we have a quorum, so, Dr. Melius, it's 

19 your meeting.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you, Ted. And 

21 we'll start right off with the NIOSH Program 

22 Update. Stu Hinnefeld. Stu?
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1 NIOSH Program Update 

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

3 Morning, everyone. I'm here to give my periodic 

4 update on program status. 

5 You're very familiar with the format 

6 by now. In terms of news items, I always try to 

7 put the budget on here and relate what I know 

8 about the budget. There is really no news about 

9 the budget until the budget is final. There's 

10 talk about the budget, you can kind of read the 

11 tea leaves a little bit, but this is all just 

12 sort of preliminary based on what's happened so 

13 far. 

14 Clearly, the President's budget 

15 proposed a pretty severe reduction to the main 

16 NIOSH budget for 2018. But it proposed a steady 

17 funding for this program, which is a separate 

18 line item on the budget, on the federal budget. 

19 It appears that the Congress doesn't 

20 have the stomach for the severe reduction in the 

21 President's budget. There are House and Senate 

22 committees that mark up their view of the budgets 

23 for next year. The House has marked up the budget 
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1 for HHS, which has a modest reduction, but 

2 nothing like the President's. And the Senate 

3 markup's not occurred, but the view is it'll be 

4 in the same range as the House markup. It might 

5 be a little more severe than the House markup. 

6 So, the rest of the Institute will 

7 have some budgetary restriction next year, but 

8 not as severe as originally proposed by the 

9 President's budget. At the least, that's the way 

10 it looks now. 

11 And both of them -- or the markup from 

12 the House also left our funding unchanged for 

13 next year. And the expectation is the Senate 

14 markup will be the same. So it appears that we'll 

15 be able to continue at the level we've been going 

16 at for the last several years. 

17 We expect to still feel the effects of 

18 the sequester, which is about a 10 percent 

19 reduction from what the budget line says. I don't 

20 know why they do that, but they'll say the budget 

21 is $55 million and then they'll sequester away 

22 about $5 million. So, that's about what we'll 

23 have, we think, for the coming year. 
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1 I put a word on here about new hires. 

2 We were actually able to hire a couple health 

3 physicists. My fingers are crossed because the 

4 start date is the day after Labor Day, from our 

5 recruitment, which has been going on for the 

6 better part of a year. 

7 We've hired a young woman, Megan 

8 Lobaugh, who has worked most recently at IAEA in 

9 Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

10 And she also has some experience at Lawrence 

11 Livermore. And our second hire is Christine 

12 Corwin, who has been a contract dose 

13 reconstructor for us for quite a number of years. 

14 And so she's intimately familiar with the 

15 program.

16 We have a small staff of contractors 

17 that actually sit with us and reside in our 

18 building, and they do most of the Atomic Weapons 

19 Employer dose reconstructions. 

20 We continue to participate with the 

21 other federal agencies in outreach activities. 

22 Since our last meeting, we attended and outreach 

23 meeting that was sponsored by the DOL Ombudsman 
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1 in Albany, Oregon. That was for the Wah Chang 

2 facility. 

3 And in April, we attended a joint 

4 outreach meeting in Richland with all the other 

5 federal agencies that was held in conjunction 

6 with the Advisory Board on Toxic Substances and 

7 Worker Health. 

8 In July, we attended a DOL Ombudsman 

9 meeting in Toledo, Ohio. There are actually 

10 quite a number of facilities in the general area. 

11 We didn't get a lot of attendees that were 

12 interested in Part B. There are a lot of 

13 beryllium vendors in that area, so that part of 

14 Part B. There were a lot of beryllium vendors in 

15 that area. And that was most of the meeting, was 

16 about beryllium. 

17 And the date on this last one is 

18 wrong. This should be in August. We attended 

19 this last week. We did our one-day Dose 

20 Reconstruction Workshop, Dose Reconstruction and 

21 SEC Workshop, at Pantex. 

22 Our outreach contractor, ATL, 

23 organizes usually one two-day conference in 
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1 Cincinnati each year, and one one-day conference 

2 at a site-specific each year. This year we did 

3 Pantex on the site-specific. There was thought 

4 of Lawrence Livermore but it didn't work out from 

5 both of our schedules, so we went to Pantex. 

6 We actually addressed -- we had quite 

7 a number of attendees in the Class who started 

8 work at Pantex after the Class. The Class there 

9 runs, I think, through the '80s, and they had 

10 some newer hires who -- probably their 

11 introduction to the program. 

12 In September, we will do the two-day 

13 workshop with ATL in Cincinnati. That invites 

14 representatives from several sites around the 

15 country. 

16 And then a quick run-through of the 

17 statistics. These numbers just generally go up 

18 each time, so I won't spend a lot of time. I did 

19 try to check the arithmetic. I think the 

20 arithmetic all adds up. These are the ones that 

21 were submitted. Most of the ones we've submitted 

22 were dose reconstruction. A few were pulled, 

23 quite a number were pulled for a couple of 
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1 different reasons. 

2 Our active cases, as usual, we have 

3 some that are over 200 in the hands of claimants, 

4 they have their draft dose reconstruction, but 

5 we're waiting for the OCAS-1. That number's kind 

6 of standard. 

7 Probability of Causation stays pretty 

8 much the same, around 28 or 29 percent successful 

9 when we do a dose reconstruction. And the DOE 

10 records requests are being kept up quite well. 

11 Periodically a site may have a little budget 

12 difficulty, but Pat and Greg do a good job of 

13 getting that resolved and so they stay up-to-date 

14 on their responses. 

15 And we're doing a summary of the first 

16 20,000 claims, not 5,000 or 10,000 anymore. Most 

17 of these, of course, are DOL. Some of them are 

18 still with us. The vast majority of the claims 

19 are still with us. 355 out of 410 are 

20 administratively closed, you know, people have 

21 opted out of the process. 

22 There's one case on here that's called 

23 an initial. The reason for that was this was a 
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1 claim that was paid through an SEC years ago, and 

2 then several years later, the claimant came down 

3 with another cancer, claimed the second cancer 

4 for medical benefits. They don't get another 

5 cash compensation, but to get medical benefits 

6 for the second cancer, the non-SEC cancer, they 

7 had to have a dose reconstruction. 

8 So, that came back over. Since we had 

9 never sent a dose reconstruction back to DOL, 

10 because we returned it as an SEC return, it shows 

11 up as an initial on our system. So that's the 

12 story behind the initial in the first 20,000. 

13 Are there any questions?

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Board Members, any 

15 questions?

16 MEMBER BEACH: I liked your updated

17 slides.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, well, if you 

19 like the format on the slide, that goes to Josh 

20 Kinman. He formatted the slides.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Easy to follow.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Anybody else? Okay, 

23 Stu. So, next is the Department of Labor.
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1 DOL Program Update 

2 MR. KOTSCH: Good morning, this is 

3 Jeff Kotsch. Can you hear me?

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Jeff's on the phone. 

5 Welcome, Jeff. 

6 MR. KOTSCH: Okay, you're a little 

7 soft, but otherwise okay. Could I have somebody 

8 there advance the slides? Stu or --

9 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm trying. I'm 

10 trying, Jeff. I'm having a little bit of user 

11 error. Okay, I'm set, Jeff.

12 MR. KOTSCH: Alright, thank you. This 

13 is Jeff Kotsch with the Department of Labor. It's 

14 been a while since I think I've addressed the 

15 group. Chris Crawford is taking a few weeks off. 

16 He was looking at the eclipse out in Idaho and is 

17 now wandering around the West. So he's probably 

18 having a better time than most of us. 

19 Alright, after the cover slide, the 

20 second slide shows the compensation paid. The 

21 Part B compensation, that's $6.3 billion. For 

22 Part E, it's $4.1 billion. And the medical bills, 

23 or the medical bill payments that we pay for these 
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1 claims, is $3.6 billion. 

2 That totals, obviously, now it's a 

3 little over $14 billion in total compensation, as 

4 well as bills paid. And that's for 195,339 cases 

5 that have been filed. This data is as of August 

6 6th. 

7 The third slide, next slide, is the 

8 compensation for the Part B cancers with final 

9 decisions to accept. And as you see in the first 

10 bullet, there have been 10,262 accepted dose 

11 reconstruction cases. That's for a little over 

12 $1.5 billion. The accepted SEC cases are a 

13 little over 25,400. That equates to $3.8 

14 billion. And cases accepted for both SEC status 

15 and a PoC of greater than 50, that's 970. That's 

16 $145, a little bit more, million. So that totals 

17 out to be $5.46 billion for 36,648 claims. 

18 Next slide. This never quite agrees 

19 with the Stu's numbers. It's the status and 

20 location of NIOSH referrals. We're showing a 

21 little over 48,390 cases referred to NIOSH for 

22 does reconstructions. We've received back 

23 46,460. You see the breakdown there for the --
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1 most of them, obviously, have dose 

2 reconstructions, but there were 6274 that were 

3 withdrawn because we had issues with claimant 

4 data, employment, things like that. And we're 

5 showing 1,931 cases currently at NIOSH. 

6 Next slide. So, this is just the 

7 standard pie chart of the Part B cases with dose 

8 reconstructions and final decisions that shows 

9 that we have about 65 percent final denials, and 

10 35 percent final approvals. We have about 28,846 

11 final denials, 11,266 approvals. 

12 Next slide. And then this is another 

13 one of the other pie charts which basically shows 

14 the breakdown of the Part B cases that have been 

15 filed. And you can see 34 percent went to NIOSH, 

16 12 percent were SEC cases referred to NIOSH, 15 

17 percent were SEC cases that never were sent to 

18 NIOSH, 9 percent are RECA, which is the totally 

19 within DOL. And then the other 30 is the other 

20 part of the Part B program. That's the non21 cancer part, beryllium sensitivity, chronic 

22 beryllium disease, and chronic silicosis. 

23 Next slide is just a pie chart of the 
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1 Part B final decisions, 52 percent approvals and 

2 48 percent denials. Or in numbers, that's 50,675 

3 Part B approvals, 45,900-plus Part B denials. 

4 Next slide. This is the listing, and 

5 I think it's pretty much follows from the other 

6 previous meetings for the four top work sites 

7 generating new Part B cases. This is between 

8 April 1 and the end of July. And you see Hanford, 

9 Savannah River, Y-12, and the Nevada Test Site. 

10 And the next slide is the monthly 

11 percentages from August 6 of 2016, through July 

12 17, for the distribution of new cases, whether 

13 they're DOE cases or AWE cases. And DOE's always 

14 running in the high 80s and low 90s. 

15 Next slide, which would be 10, is the 

16 SEC Petition Sites that are being discussed at 

17 the meeting. And I'm not going to bother going 

18 through this data per se, but the table shows 

19 Fernald, Idaho, Los Alamos, Metals Control.

20 Next slide is Grand Junction, Area IV 

21 of Santa Susana, Savannah River. The next slide, 

22 which is 12, is Pantex, Pacific Proving Grounds, 

23 and Fernald. 
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1 The next slide is 13. This is a slide 

2 of the DEEOIC outreach events. And, obviously, 

3 in the first bullet, in response to new SEC 

4 Classes we conduct town hall meetings and 

5 traveling resource center meetings, and in cases 

6 of smaller SECs, our BOTA group releases press 

7 announcements.

8 The second bullet is hosting 

9 informational meetings regarding medical 

10 benefits provided under the Act. And sometimes 

11 these informational meetings are conducted in 

12 conjunction with an SEC town hall meeting. 

13 The next slide, which I think Stu 

14 mentioned too, and Greg will probably, or DOE, 

15 mention too, the makeup of the Joint Outreach 

16 Task Group. You can see there it's Labor,

17 Energy, NIOSH Former Workers Program -- well, 

18 that's Energy -- National NIOSH. 

19 For both our program and NIOSH and 

20 their meetings, they have monthly conference 

21 calls with all members and they conduct the town 

22 hall meetings. 

23 And on the next slide, which is 15, we 
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1 have a listing of the outreach events for 2017. 

2 Again, you see there, we were in Metropolis on 

3 June 14th, and you see the number of attendants 

4 and the number of claims taken. 

5 There was a conference call on May 

6 24th, which was a quarterly medical conference 

7 call. There was another conference call on May 

8 23rd for the same topic, just a different group 

9 of participants. There was a meeting on April 

10 20th in Pasco, Washington. That was our JOTG 

11 outreach. 

12 Next slide, San Bernardino, 

13 California, on March 16th. That was JOTG meeting 

14 and our medical benefits meeting. There was a 

15 meeting on March 15th in Simi Valley, California, 

16 another JOTG meeting and DOL medical benefits 

17 meeting. 

18 February 8th, conference call. 

19 February 7th, conference call. Both were 

20 quarterly medical conference calls for DOE -- I'm 

21 sorry, DOL physicians, or physicians that deal 

22 with the program.

23 The next slide is 17. This is the 
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1 future outreach, but actually this slide, for 

2 Shiprock, is actually now in the past. Hopefully 

3 yesterday there was a meeting in Shiprock, New 

4 Mexico, a town hall meeting. And today there 

5 will be one in Monticello, Utah, another town 

6 hall. And on September 13th and 14th, there's 

7 an authorized representatives workshop in 

8 Jacksonville scheduled. 

9 And that's it, really, for the 

10 presentation portion. The material behind this, 

11 which I think is in the handout, maybe not on the 

12 slides, which we don't really need to go through, 

13 is just standard background material on the B 

14 portion and Part E portion of the program. Are 

15 there any questions?

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Any questions for Jeff, 

17 Board Members? No, no questions for you, Jeff. 

18 Thank you very much.

19 MR. KOTSCH: Okay, I appreciate it. I 

20 appreciate Stu's help. 

21 CHAIR MELIUS: He's getting better. 

22 We're impressed this meeting. But there's lots 

23 of presentation to go.
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1 MR. KOTSCH: Well, thank you, 

2 everybody. Have a good day.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Next, we'll hear from 

4 the Department of Energy. And I see Pat 

5 Worthington is coming to the -- the agenda was 

6 wrong. 

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Jim Melius, it's Paul 

9 Ziemer here. I just wanted to let you know that 

10 I could hear Jeff really well but I can barely 

11 hear you guys in the room. 

12 DR. WORTHINGTON: Good morning. I'll 

13 get started while we're working on the slides. 

14 Again, it's always a pleasure to come before the 

15 Board to show our commitment as well as our 

16 interest in the various things that are being 

17 discussed here today. 

18 I'll follow suit from my colleague 

19 from NIOSH and speak just briefly about the 

20 budget. For us at the Department of Energy, it 

21 remains a very important program. We believe 

22 that in 2018, by 2018, that we'll be able to hold 

23 our budget without taking reductions. And as we 
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1 look forward to 2019, that will still be our goal, 

2 to make sure that we have appropriate funds that 

3 are available for that program. 

4 Greg Lewis is here with us today, and 

5 a lot of the success of this program is because 

6 of Greg's very aggressive approach in looking for 

7 new and innovative ways to fund the things that 

8 we need to do to provide the data. 

9 Also I think the collaboration that 

10 continues to strengthen between the three 

11 agencies provides an atmosphere for us to be able 

12 to look at this work in a different way in trying 

13 to make sure that we're delivering it in a timely 

14 manner, as well as in a cost-effective and 

15 efficient manner.

16 Again, Greg's actually going to give 

17 the stats today. And, again, my pleasure to be 

18 here at the Board for this very important 

19 meeting. So, we'll have Greg Lewis. I know that 

20 you are anxiously awaiting to hear from Greg, so 

21 he's coming up now. Thank you. 

22 DOE Program Update 

23 MR. LEWIS: Well, that may be an 
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1 overstatement, but I'll do my best. Alright. 

2 And these are the same slides that we usually do. 

3 I've updated them a little bit. 

4 So, our core mandate is to work on 

5 behalf of program claimants to get all available 

6 worker and facility records over to DOL and 

7 NIOSH. 

8 We do primarily three things. We do 

9 the individual claims, we do the large-scale site 

10 research requests, as with the Special Exposure 

11 Cohort research projects, and then we look into 

12 facility coverage. And we always have a few of 

13 those facility coverage questions going on at any 

14 given time. 

15 We do about 18,000 records requests 

16 per year. And I'll skip past that because we 

17 have the details later in terms of our numbers, 

18 our stats. And, you know, our numbers never quite 

19 match, as Jeff said, with DOL and NIOSH's because 

20 they may go, for one claim, it may go to multiple 

21 different sites. And in terms of at each site, 

22 the complexity can vary greatly for a 

23 subcontractor. We might only be able to find a 
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1 few different records, although we may have to 

2 search in many different places to find those. 

3 Whereas, for a 30-year career employee, we can 

4 provide -- I've seen single responses over 3,000 

5 pages for one individual. So it can vary greatly 

6 in terms of the level of effort and what we're 

7 able to find for each claimant. 

8 So, these are some stats that I'm 

9 going to go through. And these are FY16 stats, 

10 so they're a little bit old. Our budget year 

11 closes at the end of September, so once we're 

12 able to get all of those stats and pull them 

13 together for your next meeting, I'll have the 

14 updated 2017 stats. 

15 So we did 18,621 individual records 

16 requests for over 25 different major DOE sites. 

17 The average number of pages for an employment 

18 verification was 14. For a NIOSH request, it was 

19 50. And for a DAR -- and what we call a DAR is 

20 what we send to the Department of Labor. And 

21 that's everything. 

22 So the employment verification is just 

23 typically the HR records, maybe a little bit 
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1 more. The NIOSH request is the dosimetry, the 

2 radiation monitoring is sometimes part of a 

3 medical file if the dosimetry records are in 

4 there. And the DAR is going to be everything. 

5 So that's going to be IH, medical, incident and 

6 accidents, human resources. So that's pretty 

7 much everything. 

8 And there is some overlap there. So 

9 in a DAR we would typically probably have some of 

10 what was included in the employment verification, 

11 and much of what was included in the NIOSH request 

12 as well. So there is some overlap. So that's 

13 why the average number of pages per claimant is 

14 about 214. But, again, that's the middle number. 

15 Realistically, a lot of times, for subcontractors 

16 we'll have less and for career employees we'll 

17 have more. And we'll update those numbers again 

18 as we get our final FY17 statistics at the end of 

19 September. 

20 And so for last year we had a 95 

21 percent on-time response rate, or responding in 

22 less than 60 days. And I think that's pretty 

23 close to what Stu showed as our current stats. 
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1 We'll update that for FY17 but we expect it to be 

2 pretty similar. We've been over 90 percent for 

3 some years now, so it fluctuates here and there. 

4 And there were a fair number of our 

5 sites that had almost perfect record for the 

6 year. So, last year, K-25, Richland, and 

7 Savannah River had well over a 99 percent 

8 response rate. So they had very, very few late. 

9 Typically, the sites that have lates, it's due to 

10 some issue that arises. In fact, this year, at 

11 Y-12 we ran into some challenges. 

12 So you'll see that on next year's 

13 stats, Y-12 was probably our most difficult site 

14 this year. And that was because they moved their 

15 records storage facility. So they closed it 

16 down, boxed up everything, and shipped it to a 

17 different location. 

18 So, as that was happening -- it didn't 

19 all happen at once, it happened in waves. So, 

20 they had probably four or five different waves 

21 where they were pulling the boxes, putting them 

22 on pallets, wrapping them up, putting them in a 

23 truck, and moving them. 
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1 So, obviously, as that was happening, 

2 the packing and unpacking movement, we were 

3 unable to get to certain records. And it wasn't 

4 as if one person's record would be in one 

5 shipment. It might be that a person's medical 

6 record happened to be in transit at that 

7 particular time. So we might have everything all 

8 ready to go, but the medical record was in 

9 shipment so we had to wait until that was unpacked 

10 to be able to send it over to DOL. 

11 In some cases, we sent partial 

12 responses. But in many cases we didn't because 

13 they weren't going to be able to work on it until 

14 they had the full file anyway. So we held them 

15 and we shipped it as soon as we could. 

16 So, again, typically, when we run into 

17 problems with timeliness, it's because of 

18 something like that. There's some action or 

19 there's something that's going on at a site that 

20 presents a problem. And we try to deal with that 

21 or overcome it as best as we can. But as you 

22 see, most of your sites have very, very few claims 

23 that go over 60 days. 
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1 So, for the large-scale records 

2 research projects, again, they're driven by DOL 

3 and NIOSH. We try to work to your schedule and 

4 your request as best as we can, particularly 

5 given budget challenges. 

6 These are some of the projects that 

7 we've been working on recently, particularly Los 

8 Alamos. 

9 Obviously, in preparation for this 

10 meeting, we've been working with NIOSH and SC&A 

11 on quite a number of requests. They were smaller 

12 and more targeted in nature but those can be 

13 challenging, too, trying to find something more 

14 specific. We believe we're able to respond to 

15 everything within a reasonable timeframe, and 

16 hopefully have everything that you need for this 

17 meeting. 

18 And document reviews, due to the 

19 sensitive nature of some of the documents, that's 

20 always a challenge. In terms of the NIOSH written 

21 reports and the Board's reports, we're usually 

22 able to return those in about a week or in about 

23 eight working days. 
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1 The source documents can be a much 

2 bigger challenge because those could be hundreds 

3 of pages or hundreds of documents requested. But 

4 we try to work with you and set a timeframe that's 

5 achievable and that works for your schedule. 

6 And then facility research, again, we 

7 always have a few facility questions that come 

8 in. Some of those are generated by NIOSH 

9 research, when you find records of documents that 

10 show that maybe one of the AWE facilities was 

11 doing work outside of what's on the listed 

12 timeframe, or vice versa, that wasn't doing DOE 

13 work during what we have as a covered timeframe. 

14 So we do research and try to resolve those as 

15 best we can. 

16 And then outreach, I'll skip past 

17 this. I know both Stu and Jeff covered it. But 

18 we are very active in the JOTG. The JOTG, Joint 

19 Outreach Task Group, is going to be having an 

20 annual internal meeting this fall where we're 

21 setting our agenda for next year, trying to 

22 determine what locations and how many meetings, 

23 that sort of thing. So we're looking forward to 
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1 that and doing that in the October or early 

2 November timeframe. And we'll be participating 

3 in the upcoming meetings, including the 

4 authorized representative workshop in 

5 Jacksonville. 

6 And then I always mention our Former 

7 Worker Medical Screening Program. So, for those 

8 of you on the Board or in the audience that work 

9 with claimants, even if they've already filed for 

10 EEOICPA or if they've already been diagnosed with 

11 an illness, they're certainly still eligible to 

12 participate in our screening program. 

13 And if they've participated in the 

14 past, every three years they're eligible for a 

15 re-screen. I was actually at the end. That's 

16 fine. But, you know, I would encourage folks to 

17 pass on that information to any claimants that 

18 might be interested in the screening. It's free, 

19 we can accommodate them close to their home. We 

20 look for things in the early stages. The goal is 

21 to not wait until you feel sick to come in for a 

22 screening. You come in when you feel healthy, 

23 and hopefully, if we catch anything, we'll catch 
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1 it in the early stages where the treatment will 

2 be more successful. So I really encourage you 

3 to look into that program or get the word out to 

4 folks you interact with. 

5 And here, you know, it'll be online on 

6 my presentation but there's contact information 

7 for our Former Worker Program. And with that, 

8 I'll take any questions you have for me, or for 

9 Dr. Worthington.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: Questions, Board 

11 Members? Brad, none today?

12 (Laughter.)

13 MR. LEWIS: So enthusiastic.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you very 

15 much, Greg and Pat. I appreciate it. 

16 MR. KATZ: Paul, could you hear Greg 

17 fine? Did that work out okay?

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Greg was very clear.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay, great, thanks. 

20 CHAIR MELIUS: So, next up, Brad. 

21 Pantex Site Profile Review. 

22 Pantex Plant Site Profile Review 

23 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, my name's Brad 
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1 Clawson. I'm the Work Group Chair for Pantex. 

2 And the Members of the Work Group are myself, 

3 Josie Beach, John Poston, Sr., and Phil 

4 Schofield. 

5 A little bit of background on it. 

6 November 20th, 2007, the petition qualified. 

7 August 8th, 2008, the NIOSH Evaluation Report was 

8 issued. October 20th, 2011, the Advisory Board 

9 recommended an SEC for 1958 through 1983 for 

10 inadequate information necessary to complete the 

11 individual dose reconstruction. 

12 On August 28th, 2013, the Advisory 

13 Board recommended an SEC for 1983 to 1991, lack 

14 of sufficient information to establish internal 

15 dose for potential exposure to uranium, thorium, 

16 related to the disassembly of weapons systems 

17 during the time period of 1984 through 1990, and 

18 for the thorium into the 1991. 

19 The Board concurs with NIOSH that dose 

20 reconstruction for 1951 to 1957 could be done. 

21 NIOSH concluded, the Board agreed, that the dose 

22 reconstruction is feasible for the early years, 

23 1951 through 1957, based on the depleted uranium 
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1 contents from weapons components.

2 The petitioner appealed this decision 

3 to HHS. An Administrative Review Panel was 

4 appointed. The Panel concluded the petitioner 

5 appeal had merit based on the potential depleted 

6 contamination presence of radionuclides beyond 

7 the U onsite activities that could present 

8 exposure potential to the worker. 

9 The SEC designated by HHS Secretary, 

10 January 1st, 1951, December 31st, 1957. It was 

11 noted in the Federal Register on January 19th, 

12 2017. 

13 Site Profile issues that have been 

14 addressed and talked about is adequacy of 

15 internal dose. This was closed in the Work Group 

16 January 2013. 

17 Internal dose models for uranium was 

18 closed June 2013, at the Work Group. Dose 

19 estimate approach for plutonium was closed. Dose 

20 estimate approach for thorium was closed, on June 

21 2013 Work Group meeting. 

22 Internal dose approach for metal 

23 tritides, closed. Interpretation of external 
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1 dose was closed on August 4th, 2016 Work Group 

2 meeting. 

3 The neutron-to-photon ratio not 

4 bounding was closed, pending verification on 

5 August 4th, 2016 Work Group meeting. 

6 Completeness of exposure sources 

7 closed on August 4th, 2016 Work Group meeting. 

8 Incidents cited limited, incomplete, was closed 

9 on September 4th, 2014. 

10 Inadequate consideration given to 

11 firing sites was closed on June 2013 Work Group 

12 meeting. Validation of whether most exposed 

13 workers badged was closed. 

14 Accuracy of plant exposure data, 

15 petitioner's issue, was closed. Too few workers 

16 monitored for valid dose reconstruction, 

17 petitioner's issue, was closed on September 4th, 

18 2014 Work Group meeting. 

19 Records incomplete for 

20 subcontractors, temps, short-term employers, 

21 petitioner's issue, was closed. 

22 Exposure from tritium leaks, 

23 petitioner's issue, was closed on August 4th, 
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1 2016 in the Work Group meeting. Badge placement, 

2 petitioner's issue, closed on September 4th, 2014 

3 in the Work Group. 

4 Efficiency of health physics and 

5 industrial hygienist program, petitioner's 

6 issue, this was merged with Other Matrix Issues 

7 and was closed on June 2013. 

8 Final TBD issue resolution, ORAU9 TKBS-0013-6, Rev. 2, External Dose TBD, issued on 

10 11/24/2015. Rev. 2 included revisions for Issue 

11 8, additional information added accounting for 

12 work-for-others. And this was closed by the Work 

13 Group in the 8/4/2016 meeting. 

14 Issue 6, clarification needed for 

15 zeroes in database, closed by the Work Group at 

16 8/4/2016 meeting. And Issue 7, basis for NTA 

17 film correction factors needs more 

18 substantiation. This is still open. 

19 ORAUT-TKBS-0013-5, Rev. 4, Internal 

20 Dose TBD, issued 6/1/2015. Issue 15, tritium 

21 exposure, limits used versus actual minimum 

22 detectable activities, MDA. NIOSH agreed to 

23 revise the tables and the text in the Internal 
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1 Dose TBD to reflect actual Pantex MDA values and 

2 simplified dose assignments. This was closed by 

3 the Work Group on 8/4/2016 meeting. 

4 Last Work Group meeting, pending 

5 closures. Issue 7, Work Group closure pending 

6 SC&A's review of correction factors, including 

7 4/18/2011 White Paper (Ruhter et al.) describing 

8 technical basis for NTA film neutron dose 

9 correction factors. SC&A provided evaluation of 

10 TBD Rev. 2 and ORAUT-OTIB-0086 NTA film 

11 correction factor issues on 10/19/2016. SC&A 

12 found the NTA film correction factor of 2.9 

13 reasonable. With pending closure verified by 

14 SC&A, all TBD issues for Pantex have been 

15 resolved.

16 So that brings to an end Pantex Site 

17 Profile issues. Is there any questions?

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Board Members have any 

19 questions? 

20 MEMBER FIELD: So, Slide 5, Number 7. 

21 And I just want to clarify on that: it said 

22 neutron-to-photon ratio not bounding, closed 

23 pending verification. So I assume it was 
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1 verified?

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, it was.

3 MEMBER FIELD: That makes it sound 

4 like it's still pending. But it's been verified?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yeah, it's pending 

6 their verification of what they've done.

7 MEMBER FIELD: I see.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right, but we're 

9 waiting for SC&A's review of that, if I remember 

10 right. Is that correct, Joe?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we reviewed it 

12 and actually issued a report on October 19. 

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Here, come over here. 

14 Use this.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, SC&A reviewed 

16 this issue and issued a report October 19th, 

17 2016. And what it was is a comparison study 

18 looking at the various correction factors. 

19 And, certainly, we've verified -- or 

20 not even verified but agreed with NIOSH's 

21 conclusion that 2.9 was a reasonable correction 

22 factor in this particular case. 

23 And so that basically was it, except 
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1 there was a clarification, and as I recall, an 

2 additional publication. And that was what was 

3 cited on the next page, which was this 2011 White 

4 Paper, that in terms of the basis, there was some 

5 additional discussion in the Work Group about 

6 clarifying that a little further and taking a 

7 look at it.

8 And I say pending here because it was 

9 one of these situations where as long as we didn't 

10 have any problems with this additional White 

11 Paper and the clarification, then it would be 

12 assumed by the Work Group that this issue, in 

13 fact, was closed as of that last Work Group 

14 discussion. 

15 And we did review it and did not find 

16 any issues, and sent an email out. But it was 

17 one of these things where we could have closed it 

18 at the last Board meeting, but again, it was sort 

19 of one of these, if no one said anything, it was 

20 effectively closed. So, it wasn't really clear 

21 and that's one reason we're doing it now.

22 DR. NETON: Joe is exactly right on 

23 that point, but I'd just like to issue a point of 
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1 technical clarification. We ended up not using 

2 the neutron-photon ratio at Pantex for a variety 

3 of reasons. And at the end of the day, we ended 

4 up using the log-normal distribution of all the 

5 neutron doses and used the 95th percentile of the 

6 monitored neutron doses. And that was acceptable 

7 to the Work Group. 

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Any other questions?

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen on the 

10 phone. Am I on mute?

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, we can hear you, 

12 Gen.

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay, I just wanted 

14 to report that for those of us -- for me on the 

15 phone, I can hear the speakers, the presenters 

16 really well, but I can barely hear Melius. And 

17 I think Bill Field was talking. I couldn't hear 

18 that. So it seems the mics around the table don't 

19 work very well for us on the phone.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Gen --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm having the same 

22 experience also. This is Ziemer.

23 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim Lockey and Bill 
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1 were trying to figure out how to turn the mic on.

2 MR. KATZ: Yeah, but the other issue 

3 is, Paul, I assume you can hear me well. You 

4 have to literally put your mouth up right close 

5 to the mic.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: I can hear you well, 

7 Ted, yeah.

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: And I can hear you 

9 too.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Are there any other 

11 questions for Pantex?

12 CHAIR MELIUS: I have a comment. I 

13 just want to make sure that we documented all of 

14 this. The only documentation that was sent out 

15 was for some of the latter period. And some of 

16 this goes back. And I heard one thing is resolved 

17 by an email, which can disappear into never-never 

18 land at some point. Then there's changes to the 

19 methodology and so forth. 

20 I just want to make sure that we have 

21 a record of all that the Work Group has done and 

22 the resolutions that have been reached. And 

23 these resolutions stretch out back I think to at 
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1 least 2013 and maybe longer than that. And I 

2 really think it's important that we make sure 

3 there is an adequate record of all of this. And 

4 I don't necessarily see that from what's being 

5 presented. 

6 Now, I'm not going to go back through 

7 and search through every report going back six 

8 years trying to figure out where all this stuff 

9 is.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: The biggest one that 

11 came down was the neutron-photon, and that was a 

12 little -- when we first started down that path, 

13 we were, like Jim said, at the very end of it is 

14 when we changed. We were looking at one neutron15 photon ratio that would be able to be used for 

16 everything. And we came out that it had to be 

17 site-specific. 

18 So, I'll work with Joe and Jim to make 

19 sure all this is documented and go from there.

20 MEMBER BEACH: I have a comment on 

21 that.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

23 MEMBER BEACH: This should all be 
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1 documented. I'm not sure if it is yet, but it 

2 should be on the BRS system, which would 

3 encompass all of the different issues and the 

4 comments. Is that not correct? Because I don't 

5 know if this one's actually made it to the BRS 

6 system. 

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Come on over.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, BRS was 

9 updated, but I would add that we need to go back 

10 and just make sure that the very last actions are 

11 included. 

12 I was going to say, on the important 

13 issues, which Brad referred to, neutron-photon, 

14 some of the real key issues, they're documented 

15 in the reports, formal reports that were issued. 

16 But some of the discussions in the Work Group and 

17 also this final, "yes, we didn't have any 

18 problems" type of thing, I agree that we've got 

19 to make sure that the BRS is complete as we wrap 

20 up this site. So, I think that's a good admonition 

21 anyway.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Anybody else?

23 MEMBER BEACH: So, is that a tasking 
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1 or is that just something you'll do 

2 automatically, Joe?

3 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think we do 

4 that normally. But I think this is a good thing, 

5 when we're wrapping up the site in total, to go 

6 back and make sure that the BRS reflects all the 

7 different reports as well as the Work Group 

8 closures. 

9 These Work Group closures are in the 

10 transcripts. But I think the BRS needs to point 

11 to where the closure took place to make sure that 

12 you can trace it, because traceability's what 

13 you're saying, in the future. 

14 So I think that's a good thing to 

15 maybe use just as an example of making sure that 

16 all those are tied into the BRS before we close 

17 it out completely. So we'll take that action 

18 just to connect the dots to make sure 

19 everything's there.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: So, therefore, so 

21 tasked. Josie?

22 MEMBER BEACH: So, that brings to mind 

23 Kansas City. We closed out all of Kansas City's 
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1 TBDs. So that should be looked at to make sure 

2 it's updated. Just going forward, I think it was 

3 a good catch, Jim.

4 MR. KATZ: Right, but in a lot of cases 

5 we're doing that in the BRS. So it may have 

6 fallen through the cracks with Pantex in the last 

7 step, but that's what the BRS is for, and we've 

8 been doing that for at least a number of the work 

9 sites.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, but have we done 

11 it going back to 2011, 2013 for the work sites?

12 MR. KATZ: No, but what we have for 

13 the older ones is we have the matrices, which

14 were updated at the tail-end. We had final 

15 matrices that showed all the resolutions. 

16 CHAIR MELIUS: But then I would ask 

17 that our DFO please provide those to us before we 

18 do a close-out like this, so we have it.

19 MR. KATZ: Right.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: So we can reference it.

21 MR. KATZ: And I have in other cases, 

22 like Fernald, you have the matrices.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Yeah, I understand. I 
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1 think the Board needs to be able to see that, 

2 because this is something that's stretched out 

3 over a long period of time. And we're being asked 

4 to sort of approve something or review something. 

5 And, again, it's not counting the work of the 

6 Work Group and SC&A and NIOSH and so forth. But 

7 I just think we need to make sure we've documented 

8 that. 

9 Any other comments or questions? 

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'd just like to add 

11 one thing into this. Being the Work Group Chair 

12 with this, we have spent countless hours debating 

13 this. I'd just like to thank NIOSH, Stu, Mark, 

14 Jim, all the Work Group Members because there was 

15 an awful lot of work that went into this, a lot 

16 of Site Profile issues. 

17 DOE got us into Pantex, one of the 

18 most secure facilities around. We had an 

19 excellent tour on this and that's what brought a 

20 lot of this to closure. I'd just like to thank 

21 them all for it. 

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

23 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, do we need a 
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1 motion to close those or is it just --

2 CHAIR MELIUS: We should have a 

3 motion.

4 MEMBER BEACH: So, I make the motion 

5 that we accept the Work Group's recommendation to 

6 close the TBD issues for Pantex.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: And do I have a second? 

8 Second from Jim Lockey. Brad was a bit slow. 

9 And all in favor just say aye.

10 (Chorus of aye.)

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Opposed? Abstain? 

12 Okay. I'm sorry, I was skipping over a thing. 

13 Pacific Proving Grounds, back to Lockey.

14 (Pause.)

15 MR. KATZ: While we're waiting, when 

16 you update the final PPG on the BRS, let's just 

17 also put a final matrix out that we can post for 

18 today's date. That way people can go to the 

19 website and actually get that documented. It 

20 will be documented there, too. Okay, thanks.

21 (Pause.) 

22 MS. K. BEHLING: Ted, this is Kathy 

23 Behling. Are you available?
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Kathy, I think they may 

2 be looking over something on the slides. I'm not 

3 sure. 

4 MR. KATZ: Paul, Stu's still working 

5 on getting the slides up. 

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yeah, that's what I 

7 was telling Kathy. I think she was wondering if 

8 anybody was there.

9 MS. K. BEHLING: Yeah, Ted, this is 

10 Kathy Behling. I just wanted to let you know 

11 that the BRS has been updated with the 

12 resolutions to the findings for the PPG.

13 MR. KATZ: Thanks. 

14 (Pause.)

15 MR. KATZ: Kathy, just as with Pantex, 

16 I mentioned to John Stiver here, let's get the 

17 PPG matrix finally, since it's updated on the 

18 BRS, let's get it printed out and posted for 

19 today's meeting. It'd be after the fact, but 

20 that's fine, but it means people can come and 

21 find it down the road.

22 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay, I'll make sure 

23 that happens.
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1 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Kathy.

2 MS. K. BEHLING: You're welcome.

3 DR. H. BEHLING: Ted, this is Hans. 

4 We were not able to pull up data slides that 

5 should have been available to me through this 

6 presentation for the TBD. I don't know why 

7 they're not on my Skype.

8 MR. KATZ: I don't know. I asked 

9 Stiver to give you access to the Skype. I don't 

10 know what's happened. I can go and check with 

11 him. 

12 (Pause.)

13 MR. KATZ: So, Hans, there's some sort 

14 of technical bug that's a problem with Skype 

15 right now. So, I think that's what's going on.

16 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay, thank you for 

17 the information.

18 (Pause.)

19 Pacific Proving Grounds Site Profile Review 

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: So, I want to thank 

21 the Committee Members for their help with this, 

22 as well as Hans, as well as NIOSH, for all their 

23 hard work. I appreciate the spelling of my last 
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1 name. At times, I'm called that so it doesn't 

2 -- anyway, Pacific Proving Grounds is very unique 

3 and is a very interesting site to review for a 

4 lot of different reasons. 

5 The main issue here is that you can't 

6 really do adequate dose reconstruction. But in 

7 relationship to the Technical Basis Document, it 

8 needed to be reviewed and updated in regard to 

9 the fallout issues that took place at that site 

10 over a number of different years. And so that's 

11 really what was being addressed by this 

12 Subcommittee. 

13 So, as an overview, the Pacific 

14 Proving Ground activities and locations. This is 

15 for background information. Between '46 and '62, 

16 the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission conducted 105 

17 atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests at 

18 several locations, including Bikini, Enewetak 

19 Atoll, Johnston Island, Christmas Island, as well 

20 as other Pacific locations. 

21 And from a perspective on this -- Hans 

22 did a great job putting these slides together. 

23 This may be difficult to read because it's 
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1 relatively small. But in comparison to the 

2 Nevada Test Site, the thermonuclear weapons that 

3 were detonated in Pacific Proving Grounds were 

4 100 times the magnitude in comparison to the 

5 nuclear test site. 

6 And the best way you can look at that 

7 is in the lower part of the slide. In the 

8 continental U.S., there was 107 nuclear 

9 detonations of a total megaton yield of 1.38. In 

10 all the Pacific Proving Ground locations, there 

11 were 105 with a total megatons of 151. So you 

12 see there's a magnitude of difference in 

13 relationship to weapon size. 

14 In relationship to resolution of the 

15 PPG Technical Basis Documents, on August 30th of 

16 2006, NIOSH issued ORAUT-0052, the Summary Site 

17 Profile for PPG. In June of 2012, SC&A was tasked 

18 to conduct a review of the PPG Site Profile. 

19 In November of 2013, SC&A issued a 

20 review of the Summary Site Profile for PPG, which 

21 identified nine findings and one observation. 

22 And we'll go through that today in the 

23 presentation. In response to the SC&A's findings 
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1 and observations, NIOSH did issue an Issues 

2 Resolution Matrix in 2014.

3 Okay, so, in January of 2015, we had 

4 a Work Group teleconference. We discussed the 

5 findings, as well as the observations. We 

6 concluded that NIOSH's proposed resolutions 

7 really addressed the SC&A issues, and then they 

8 were put in abeyance awaiting revision of the 

9 Site Profile. 

10 In July of 2016, NIOSH issued 

11 Revision 01, and on August 9th and 10th, the Full 

12 Board directed the SC&A to do a limited review of 

13 the NIOSH Revision 01. 

14 (Pause.)

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay, so, in December 

16 of 2016, SC&A issued its review of the NIOSH 

17 Revision 01 to the Site Profile, and concurred 

18 with the revisions and recommended closure for 

19 all the findings and the one observation. 

20 The Working Group had a teleconference 

21 call in April of 2017, and we discussed the SC&A 

22 review. And we concurred with their 

23 recommendations, and we thought that all findings 
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1 and the observation should be closed at that 

2 point.

3 So, to review the summary of the 

4 findings and the resolutions, that's what the 

5 next number of slides will go to. 

6 And Hans, so you know, we're on Slide 

7 Number 7 right now.

8 DR. H. BEHLING: I'm watching and I'm 

9 right with you.

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Very good, okay. 

11 Finding No. 1 was update the ORAUT-0052 Revision 

12 00 regarding the 250-workday requirement for SEC 

13 Class inclusion, based on Bulletins 06-15 and 07-

14 05. 

15 And that was one of the issues about 

16 Pacific Proving Grounds. The people were there 

17 24/7, 7 days a week. So it's not an eight-hour 

18 workday. It's really equivalent to a 24-hour 

19 workday. 

20 So, NIOSH's resolution to Finding No. 

21 1. The Site Profile was amended. And it was 

22 amended in a way that any 24-hour period working 

23 or living on the Pacific Proving Ground was 
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1 equivalent to three eight-hour workdays for 

2 establishing the 250-day workday requirement for 

3 potential inclusion in the SEC. 

4 So if you worked there for a week, 

5 that's equivalent to three weeks of a typical 

6 eight-hour workday. 

7 So, the status of Finding 1, the Work 

8 Group agreed with SC&A's recommendation and 

9 closed Finding No. 1. 

10 Finding No. 2, in regards to Section 

11 4.0, Occupational Environmental Dose, that really 

12 ignores the environmental doses for all PPG 

13 locations from fallout. And fallout was, of 

14 course, one of the primary issues for this 

15 location. 

16 NIOSH's resolution to Finding 2: 

17 SC&A's concern regarding exposure to fallout 

18 before 1955 was acknowledged in Section 4.0, 

19 Occupational Environmental Dose, and they 

20 provided definitive guidance for assigning 

21 unmonitored external exposure to fallout before 

22 1955, as provided in revisions to Section 6.2 and 

23 Section 6.3 and Attachment A of the PPG Site 
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1 Profile. 

2 So, the status of Finding 2: Section 

3 6.0 revisions provide the necessary guidance to 

4 account for unmonitored external exposure to 

5 fallout before 1955. And the Working Group 

6 recommended closure for Finding No. 2. 

7 So, Hans, we're on Page 9 now of the 

8 slides, "PPG Findings and Their Resolution." 

9 This is continued. There are four findings that 

10 were summarized together here, in Findings 3, 4, 

11 8 and 9. 

12 Finding 3, DOE records may be 

13 incomplete or inaccurate and may also not include 

14 unmonitored exposures associated with cohort 

15 badging, exposure to fallout, et cetera. 

16 And then Finding 4, ORAUT-0052 does 

17 not provide a definition for an unmonitored dose 

18 as it applies to PPG participants, or any 

19 specific guidance in regards to that issue. 

20 Finding No. 8, use of the 50th 

21 percentile coworker dose is not justified for PPG 

22 participants for operations up to and inclusive 

23 of Operation Castle. 
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1 And Operation Castle, most of you 

2 probably already know, but that was during the 

3 timeframe that I think they tested the highest4 yield thermonuclear weapons at the Marshall 

5 Islands. And Castle Bravo, I think, was 15 

6 megatons, which was the highest-yield nuclear 

7 weapon tested by the U.S. In comparison, I think 

8 the Soviet Union tested a 50-megaton weapon at 

9 one point, which was their highest yield. 

10 And there was significant fallout 

11 contamination over a large area from Castle 

12 Bravo. I think over 5,000 square miles or 

13 something, a rather large area. 

14 Finding No. 9, operation-specific 

15 dose distributions defined by the Defense Nuclear 

16 Agency must be adjusted to account for the 

17 minimal detectable activity value of film 

18 dosimetry, regardless of what percentile value is 

19 employed.

20 So, NIOSH'S resolutions for 3, 4, 6, 

21 and 8, were as follows. Limitations of personal 

22 dosimeters, their limited use, and other 

23 procedural practices were well recognized by 
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1 NIOSH as deficiencies, and these are really 

2 intractable issues. To overcome these 

3 deficiencies, NIOSH proposed the use of the 95th 

4 percentile coworker doses defined in Attachment 

5 A of the Revised PPG Site Profile. 

6 In relationship to SC&A, they 

7 recognized the deficiencies that NIOSH faced in 

8 dose reconstruction of PPG personnel. And given 

9 the intractable nature of such limitations, SC&A 

10 believes that the use of the coworker values 

11 cited in Attachment A of Revision 01 of ORAUT12 0052 is a reasonable resolution. And the Working 

13 Group concurred with that and we closed findings 

14 on 3, 4, 8, and 9. 

15 Finding No. 5, the average photon 

16 energies for fallout are well above 250 keV. 

17 Depending on the exposure geometry, a default 

18 photon energy of 30 to 250 keV may not be 

19 claimant-favorable. 

20 NIOSH's resolution to Finding No. 5: 

21 while NIOSH acknowledged the photon energies 

22 above 250, its choice of 30 to 250 photon energy 

23 in AP geometry represents claimant-favorable dose 
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1 conversion factors for all but four organs. They 

2 were the lung, the esophagus, red bone marrow, 

3 and bone marrow. 

4 For these four organs, revisions to 

5 Section 6.3.3 suggests that an AP-to-ROT geometry 

6 ratio should be considered for claim7 favorability, with ISO geometry for cases 

8 requiring best estimates. 

9 The status of Finding 5: because the 

10 lower photon energy and AP geometry generally 

11 yields higher DCF/PoC values, SC&A agrees that 

12 NIOSH should retain its best practice to provide 

13 DCF yielding the highest PoC. And we concurred 

14 and we felt that Finding No. 5 could be closed.

15 Finding No. 6, assignment of external 

16 dose from PPG fallout for skin cancers requires 

17 that beta-to-gamma dose ratio that is defined by 

18 the distance to the skin cancer location above 

19 the source plane. A second variable affecting 

20 dose is the age of the fallout. 

21 NIOSH's resolution to Finding 6: in 

22 Section 6.1 in the revised PPG Site Profile, 

23 NIOSH eliminated the default Nevada Test Site 
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1 beta-to-gamma ratio of 1:1 and revised guidance 

2 that included beta-to-gamma ratios by Barss and 

3 Weitz, along with efficiency ratios that include 

4 the effects of weathering. 

5 The status of Finding 6: revisions 

6 incorporated into Section 6.1 fully address the 

7 critical variables that include age of fallout, 

8 distance, and weathering impacts on the beta-to9 gamma ratios that must be used to derive the beta 

10 dose contribution for select tissues. The 

11 Working Group agrees with the revisions of 

12 Section 6.1 and recommended closure of Finding 6. 

13 Finding 7, NIOSH's guidance for 

14 assignment of missed photon dose is based on 

15 assumptions that are not supported by facts and, 

16 in the face of uncertainty, are not claimant17 favorable. 

18 NIOSH's resolution to Finding 7: to 

19 account for unmonitored exposures and 

20 uncertainties of recorded film badge data prior 

21 to 1955, NIOSH revised Section 6.0 of the PPG 

22 Site Profile as follows. 

23 Number 1, 95th percentile coworker 
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1 doses should be assigned when data are incomplete 

2 or non-existence. Pre-1955, recorded doses 

3 should be compared to the 95th percentile doses 

4 and assigned the larger of the two doses. 

5 And the second point, Section 6.1, 

6 6.2, and 6.3 were revised to address exposures to 

7 Operation Greenhouse fallout in 1951. 

8 The overall status of Finding 7, 

9 therefore: SC&A has assessed all revisions to 

10 Section 6 of ORAUT-0052. In context with the 

11 stated findings, the Working Group concludes that 

12 the current guidance adequately addresses Finding 

13 7, and recommended its closure.

14 There was one observation, and that 

15 was more definitive guidance was needed for 

16 assignment of occupational medical dose in behalf 

17 of claimants with no formal affiliation with the 

18 DOE or Atomic Weapons Employer facilities.

19 NIOSH's resolution to Observation 1: 

20 to address this finding, NIOSH revised Section 

21 3.0, which substituted protocols defined in 

22 "Occupational X-Ray Dose Reconstruction for DOE 

23 Sites," which is NIOSH 2004, for guidance 
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1 provided in "Guidance on Assigning Occupational 

2 X-Ray Dose under EEOICPA for X-Rays Administered 

3 Off Site." And that was NIOSH 2011. The Work 

4 Group concurred with this text revision in 

5 Section 3.0 and recommended closure of 

6 Observation 1.

7 So, in regard to path forward, there 

8 has to be an issuance of a Progress Evaluation 

9 Report addressing changes incorporated in 

10 Revision 1 to ORAUT-0052. This has to be reviewed 

11 by SC&A, and then resolution and approval of the 

12 Progress Evaluation Report by the Working Group. 

13 And just as important, selection of a 

14 the sample of dose reconstructions for review and 

15 compliance by SC&A, particularly in relationship 

16 to the dose reconstruction for skin cancer, which 

17 is plenty applicable here.

18 And I want to thank Hans for preparing 

19 the slides, he did an excellent job. Any 

20 questions?

21 DR. H. BEHLING: Just a comment, Dr. 

22 Lockey. Your name is not misspelled. We 

23 corrected that error about a month ago, and if 
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1 you go on the website, you will find your name 

2 properly spelled. And I apologize that somehow 

3 it didn't get to you in time.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: Hans, I don't take it 

5 personally. I looked at the website and it was 

6 spelled correctly. I'm going to blame this on 

7 Stu.

8 (Laughter.)

9 MR. HINNEFELD: There, I fixed it. 

10 DR. H. BEHLING: Also, I do want to 

11 mention a correction here for Finding 5. We 

12 mentioned that they were four different tissues

13 that would benefit from an assumption of a higher 

14 photon dose; that is, the lung, esophagus, red 

15 bone marrow. And here is an error that I will 

16 take credit for, because the last one is not bone 

17 marrow. We had red bone marrow and bone marrow, 

18 but it's bone surface. 

19 So, I'll take blame for that error in 

20 the slide. I didn't catch it until just now when 

21 you went through it. And we may have to correct 

22 the record for that slide. But for the tissue 

23 question, it's not, again, bone marrow. It is 
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1 bone surface.

2 CHAIR MELIUS: Board Members, any 

3 questions? Then I'll go. 

4 So, my question is, I think I noticed 

5 it in one other presentation later on, which is 

6 it says it deals with the resolution of Findings 

7 3, 4, 8, and 9. And there's a series of issues 

8 there. And then it sort of goes into, given the 

9 intractable nature of these deficiencies, we're 

10 just going to call it, give them the 95th 

11 percentile. 

12 And my question is, so where's our 

13 judgment between that? I mean, we're saying that 

14 there are issues with individual dose 

15 reconstruction for these -- that are intractable, 

16 unless we apply a 95th percentile for the 

17 coworkers. 

18 And my question is -- again, I'm not 

19 arguing maybe with the conclusion, but based on 

20 what we're seeing, I looked at the SC&A report 

21 also, which is all I had, was the question, well, 

22 what's the difference between -- what is 

23 intractable? How does that relate to being able 
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1 to conduct dose reconstructions?

2 DR. H. BEHLING: Dr. Melius, if you 

3 give me a few minutes, I will explain.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, if you'll give me 

5 two minutes to finish my question, then you can 

6 explain, or at least try to. 

7 Okay. So, we're supposed to do dose 

8 reconstructions with sufficient accuracy and it 

9 must be plausible. 

10 So, now, go ahead, Hans, and respond. 

11 Thank you. 

12 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay. There are so 

13 many factors that, obviously, contribute to this 

14 particular issue of intractability. 

15 One has to realize the timeframe. 

16 We're talking about the '40s and '50s. This is 

17 when our scientific knowledge about the impact of 

18 radiation on human health and so forth, and the 

19 ability to even monitor it, were in their infancy 

20 stages. 

21 And then you realize, also, the 

22 remoteness of the Marshall Islands and PPG, I 

23 mean we're talking about thousands of miles 
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1 removed from the mainland. 

2 And the reason we chose it, obviously, 

3 or our government chose the Marshall Islands, was 

4 because we could test thermonuclear devices, such 

5 as Braco, at 15 megatons, which is 1,000 times 

6 greater than, obviously, the nuclear devices that 

7 we detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You 

8 couldn't do that on the continental United 

9 States. 

10 So, those are the circumstances. And 

11 of course, the pure volume, I'll just talk about 

12 the quantity of people that have to be assessed. 

13 For the first operation, Operation 

14 Crossroads, that involved Able and Baker, the 

15 smaller ones, but the ones that were detonated in 

16 1946. There were 42,000 people at the PPG 

17 facility. And of course, when you talk about the 

18 ability to monitor people, you have to be 

19 selective. 

20 And then I'll get to the real issues, 

21 the dosimeters that -- first of all, there's no 

22 internal exposure monitoring capabilities there. 

23 And for external, we had to deal with these huge 
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1 numbers of people. 

2 So, what was in fact done? We used, 

3 obviously, mission badges. And mission badges 

4 were only assigned for a select number of people 

5 who had to go, for instance, after detonation, 

6 off to an island. And they were clocked to make 

7 sure that they were only for a very brief time. 

8 And the exposure on those badges were confined to 

9 the very short time periods that they would 

10 retrieve, for instance, an instrument or certain 

11 measurement. 

12 Those are mission badges. In 

13 addition, there were always instances where 

14 people didn't have enough badges to go around, so 

15 they had cohort badging. So you may have had a 

16 single person who was badged, and that badge 

17 reading was obviously to represent the exposure 

18 people received, and it may have been hundreds of 

19 people. 

20 And so the records were not always 

21 there, and we can't be sure of records -- the 

22 dosimeters used in that time period were not very 

23 reliable for the beta component. 
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1 And so this is why we had one of the 

2 findings of the beta-gamma ratio that had to be 

3 corrected. And that was obviously corrected as 

4 well. 

5 So there are many, many deficiencies 

6 and I could go on and on. And sometimes, for 

7 instance, they wanted to measure just the 

8 exposure that a person received for a specific 

9 mission. 

10 And so when a badge was read, they 

11 used to subtract always the background, and this 

12 is the very reason why we needed to obviously 

13 institute a protocol under the SEC that says you 

14 are exposed 24/7. In other words, the exposure 

15 you received may have been mostly or largely due 

16 to fallout, which was usually always subtracted 

17 from the badges. 

18 In addition, there were other 

19 problems. But I spent six years of my life, from 

20 1998 to 2004, at the Marshall Islands. I was 

21 there on locations where all these tests took 

22 place. I was there at Enewetak, Bikini, and many, 

23 many other locations, and I understand the 
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1 problem associated with trying to actually assess 

2 exposures. And we're not talking about a DOE 

3 facility in the conventional, we have to realize 

4 we were in the middle of nothing out there. 

5 There were, obviously, no facilities. 

6 When the people came there, there was no 

7 infrastructure. Many of these people had to live 

8 in tents and so forth, and they were exposed to 

9 radiation that was not monitored. This is why 

10 the environmental exposure is not really 

11 appropriate even as a term. 

12 And this is why before 1955, Operation 

13 Greenhouse, many of the people during a period of 

14 a few weeks were exposed to background radiation 

15 up to 4 rem. And so that was never captured in 

16 any of the dosimetry. 

17 Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm fully 

18 sympathetic to the problem NIOSH faced in doing 

19 dose reconstruction. And I'm fully concurrent, 

20 you cannot restore information that doesn't 

21 exist. 

22 And so in the process, I believe NIOSH 

23 did the admirable thing in taking a higher dose, 
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1 the 95th percentile dose, of doses that were in 

2 fact captured, and assuming that 95th percentile 

3 covers all of these exposures that were never 

4 recorded or never even monitored, et cetera, et 

5 cetera. 

6 So, based on my experience, and I have 

7 lots of experience, six years' worth, of looking 

8 at the data, because I did a lot of work for the 

9 Marshallese, and I understand why it's very 

10 difficult. 

11 And if you're going to do anything, 

12 you have to at least aim high, and I believe NIOSH 

13 did that. And I believe that, hopefully, the 

14 95th percentile and the other provisions that 

15 were made do, in fact, at least take into 

16 consideration these deficiencies. 

17 And for those people do not qualify 

18 for a SEC, it is at least one good chance to 

19 perhaps get compensation. And this particularly 

20 prevalent for the one cancer that is not covered 

21 under SEC, and that is namely skin cancers. 

22 So, I hope, at least as I could talk, 

23 try to provide you some basis for the concept of 
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1 intractability and why I believe that term is 

2 correct.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: So, Jim Neton, do you 

4 want to say something?

5 DR. NETON: Well, I was just going to 

6 mention exactly what Hans finished up with, was 

7 that this decision arose in the context of the 

8 site: Pacific Proving Grounds is an SEC for an 

9 all-covered period. 

10 And so the decision was either to say 

11 we can't reconstruct external dose with 

12 sufficient accuracy, and assign people with non13 presumptive cancers zero exposure. Or we could 

14 use the 95th percentile, which we believed at the 

15 time, and I believe if you look at the record of 

16 our discussions, it would be bounding under 

17 plausible circumstances.

18 You have two choices, you can either 

19 use the 95th percentile or zero. And we felt the 

20 95th percentile was adequate.

21 CHAIR MELIUS: But I think we have to 

22 be consistent in terms of how we're making these 

23 determinations. So, if we want to use it, we say 
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1 it's intractable, and if we don't --

2 DR. NETON: Well, I don't recall the 

3 word intractable being used in the discussion. 

4 Maybe I've forgotten that. But, yeah, 

5 intractable might not be the best choice of words 

6 to characterize that. Because if it's 

7 intractable, it's intractable, right? I mean, 

8 that's true.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: Yeah.

10 DR. NETON: We believe that there were 

11 issues and nuances associated with whether you 

12 assigned environmental, the 50th percentile at 

13 the full distribution, or the 95th percentile. 

14 And we felt the 95th percentile was the best 

15 choice, given all the uncertainties associated 

16 with the exposure conditions. 

17 CHAIR MELIUS: And is that documented 

18 in the records?

19 DR. H. BEHLING: I will --

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Hans, I'm asking Jim.

21 DR. NETON: I can't be certain, I have 

22 to go back and look. But my feeling is it is. 

23 DR. H. BEHLING: If I may, I will go 
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1 back to the issue Resolution Matrix. 

2 And we have Finding Three, NIOSH 

3 states the following: NIOSH understands there are 

4 serious deficiencies related to film badge 

5 dosimetry data, and procedural practices 

6 identified by the NRC, SAIC, etc., and Perkins. 

7 In light of these deficiencies, NIOSH 

8 finds it, quote, intractable to achieve more 

9 accurate dose assessment than those provided by 

10 the DNA and reduced in Attachment A. 

11 So, the word intractable was 

12 incorporated in the Resolution Matrix that was 

13 issued by NIOSH.

14 DR. NETON: All right, I stand 

15 corrected. I didn't recall that but I would still 

16 submit that that's probably an improper choice of 

17 words for that characterization.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Any points, Dave?

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, it just seems 

20 like choosing 95th percentile, if we're forced to 

21 make a decision about an individual claim, it 

22 would seem arbitrary. Why 95? Why not 99? 

23 And also, another issue to me is it 
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1 seems sensible in an individual case to say if 

2 you have 24 hours exposure, it's equivalent of 3 

3 days of exposure. 

4 But for that, where's the scientific 

5 evidence that that makes sense, or there should 

6 be 4 days equivalent for 24 hours?

7 DR. NETON: I think that's a separate 

8 issue.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It is?

10 DR. NETON: I think if you have the 

11 95th percentile, I think it's our feeling that 

12 it's bounding, in the sense that you have 95th 

13 percentile of all the modern workers, and the 

14 exposure for the people where we have unmonitored 

15 sections of their history. 

16 It's a bounding scenario. 

17 We can go back and re-look at the 

18 record I suppose and come to a different 

19 conclusion, but I think this is --

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Does anybody recall how 

21 we handled Amchitka? Or have we in that regard?

22 DR. NETON: I don't recall.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: I don't either. I 
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1 don't know.

2 DR. NETON: Well, Amchitka, of course, 

3 was added as one of the original SECs.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, but I would look. 

5 It'd be on the Site Profile.

6 DR. NETON: I don't know that we have 

7 monitoring data for Amchitka.

8 CHAIR MELIUS: Jim knows more about 

9 it. 

10 DR. NETON: Very limited. See, we had 

11 quite a bit of monitoring data for Pacific 

12 Proving Grounds. It's not like we have zero. 

13 We have a fair amount of monitoring 

14 data, it's just are those gaps so egregious that 

15 there are huge exposures that won't be captured 

16 by the 95th percentile? 

17 That's the question you're asking.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, right. I don't 

19 know.

20 DR. NETON: I'd be happy to go back 

21 and re-look at this issue and --

22 CHAIR MELIUS: I want to underline the 

23 work -- I think it's important that we try to 
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1 make sure we have something on the record that 

2 does indicate that and we've looked at that 

3 issue.

4 DR. NETON: Well, I think Hans went 

5 through a lot of discussion that I think was 

6 captured in the Work Group discussions. 

7 We can go back and try to recapture 

8 all the points and try to more definitively 

9 demonstrate why we believe the 95th percentile is 

10 bounding. 

11 That's what you're asking?

12 CHAIR MELIUS: And why is it 

13 plausible?

14 DR. NETON: Yes, sure, that's fine.

15 Dr. H. BEHLING: Can I make a quick 

16 comment here? The reason I identified this 

17 particular finding is that the actual data that 

18 we used in the initial Rev 0 was based on people 

19 who obviously received it, in terms of who was 

20 included in that pool of monitored people. 

21 And as I said before, there was 

22 obviously a lot of uncertainty. 

23 Because it basically involved only 
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1 mission badges, where a guy got a badge and they 

2 said, you will wear this badge until you come 

3 back to us. 

4 It could be an hour or two where he 

5 retrieves some instrumentation, the nature of 

6 which was heavily radioactively-contaminated. 

7 The mission badge was taken away from him and was 

8 scored as an exposure. 

9 But what it's not going to capture are 

10 exposures that will continue 24 hours a day from 

11 fallout. And we're talking about a pretty 

12 extended timeframe. 

13 Prior to 1955, the people would shoot 

14 a badge that they were wearing 24/7, which means 

15 that you have an integrated exposure for the full 

16 duration of the 24-hour day. 

17 Beforehand, as I said, you were either 

18 by a mission badge or by a cohort badge, which 

19 may not even be in your record. 

20 And this is I came to the conclusion 

21 that if you look at the data, to the extent it 

22 works, the 50th percentile will not give you a 

23 true 50th percentile due to over-deficiencies. 
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1 And as a result, prior to 1955, NIOSH 

2 said we will use that very data, which we know is 

3 deficient. 

4 But they use the 95th percentile value 

5 and, hopefully, those deficiencies will fall by 

6 the wayside. 

7 This is my interpretation and I think 

8 it's a reasonable one.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: But it doesn't address 

10 the question. So, thank you, and I think -- any 

11 further discussion on this? Dave? 

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, I'd like to 

13 ask a question on procedure. As we approve this 

14 TBD, are we making a decision about the SEC 

15 applications?

16 CHAIR MELIUS: We've already done 

17 that.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That the SEC has 

19 already then --

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- decided and 

22 done? Okay.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, this is just the 
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1 -- yes.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Pardon? This is 

3 just?

4 CHAIR MELIUS: What can be done for 

5 people who are not in the SEC.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Aha, okay, that 

7 was not clear to me anyway. Thank you.

8 MEMBER VALERIO: Can you hear me all 

9 right? So, I guess I'm needing a clarification 

10 because reading through the material again, the 

11 implementation of around-the-clock badges wasn't 

12 in place until May of 1956. 

13 So, wouldn't the 95th percentile apply 

14 to people, to the workers, through May of 1956, 

15 rather than 1955?

16 DR. NETON: I don't recall the exact 

17 dates of the application of the 95th percentile 

18 at this point. Hans may be able to help me out? 

19 DR. H. BEHLING: Well, anytime after 

20 the period of time when mission badging, cohort 

21 badging, or just plain instruments, in fact that 

22 was another issue when in the absence of a mission 

23 badge or a cohort badge was sometimes used it was 
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1 strictly an instrument, they had a dose rate 

2 limit, meaning that you could stay there 

3 obviously for a long time without any 

4 acknowledgment or no records.

5 But people said you may come in here 

6 if you're less than so many millirems per day, 

7 and they were no record of it -- anyway, I believe 

8 the transition between obviously the 95th 

9 percentile and the cohort terminates at the time 

10 when you introduce a badge that was worn by a 

11 given individual for the full duration, 24/7. 

12 That was his badge, like you would 

13 expect today. And that occurred somewhere after 

14 1955. This was the time Operation CASTLE started 

15 when, obviously, the large megaton devices were 

16 tested.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: So, again, can we 

18 address this issue and then come back to the Board 

19 and we can close this out?

20 DR. NETON: We can do that.

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: So, Jim, just so we're 

22 clear, the issue is Y-95? Now there are 99 

23 indications? Is that what you're asking?
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, I think whether 

2 it's 95 or 99, as much as why -- is it plausible, 

3 are these dose reconstructions at the 95th 

4 percentile plausible, sufficiently accurate? 

5 And I think it probably has to do with 

6 what Jim is explaining, that there's adequate 

7 data for making this judgment. 

8 I don't think it's clear from what 

9 we've been given so far. And I haven't gone back 

10 and looked at all the transcripts or anything.

11 So, our next item on our agenda is 

12 Fernald, I believe.

13 Feed Materials Production Center SEC 

14 Petition (1979/1984-1989; Fernald, OH) 

15 and Site Profile 

16 MR. STIVER: Good morning, Dr. Melius, 

17 Members of the Board. I'm John Stiver from SC&A. 

18 Today I'm going to be giving an update 

19 on the Fernald SEC Petition 0046 and the Work 

20 Group's recommendation regarding that, and also, 

21 an update on ongoing Site Profile Activities. 

22 What I would like to do is go ahead and go 

23 through the SEC first, and then entertain any 
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1 questions the Board has regarding that, before 

2 launching into the Site Profile side of things. 

3 So, with that, we can get started 

4 here. Following on after Hans is always a tough 

5 gig, but I'll go ahead and do my best. 

6 A little bit of background about 

7 Fernald, which is also known as the Feed 

8 Materials Production Center. 

9 It's located about 20 miles from 

10 Cincinnati. It covers a fairly large area, about 

11 10 to 50 acres, with the production area 

12 centrally located, about 136 acres in that. 

13 It began operation in '51, 1951, and 

14 it was fully operational by the end of 1954, and 

15 produced product, mainly uranium, some thorium, 

16 up until 1989. 

17 As you can see here in bold on the 

18 Slide Number Two, primary function was to convert 

19 uranium ore concentrates and recycled materials 

20 to either uranium oxides or highly purified 

21 uranium ingots and billets for machining, or 

22 extrusion into tubular forms and assorted uranium 

23 enrichment. 
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1 The facility has included nine 

2 separate plants, along with waste storage areas, 

3 two earthen berms, concrete silos that contain 

4 the K-65 residues, which were also called 

5 raffinates.

6 And let me move on here. As far as 

7 the review of the Site Profile in the SEC, this 

8 is probably one of the longest-lived of all, 

9 maybe with the exception of Hanford and Savannah 

10 River.

11 A Site Profile Review was conducted 

12 back in the early days, in 2006. A total of 33 

13 findings were identified. About that same time, 

14 SEC Petition 46 was qualified. 

15 The qualified Class was all employees 

16 of DOE, DOE contractors and subcontractors, 

17 employed at Fernald from January 1951 through 

18 December 31, 1989. 

19 Our SEC Evaluation Report Review 

20 identified six principal SEC issues, first being 

21 the classic completeness and adequacy of the 

22 coworker model for uranium internal exposures. 

23 Kind of with that or related to that 
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1 is the validation of the electronic database that 

2 took the hard-copy records that went into 

3 creating that model and put it into electronic 

4 format. 

5 The third is the issue of recycled 

6 uranium, how to deal with the impurities in 

7 recycled uranium, principally, plutonium, 

8 neptunium, and technetium-99, but also, 

9 americium-241. 

10 Issue Four was the use of the radon 

11 breath data for reconstructing doses from 

12 inhalation of radium-226 and thorium-230. 

13 Issue Five was a review of radon 

14 emissions from the K-65 silos and associated 

15 exposures. 

16 Issue Six was reconstruction of 

17 internal exposures from inhalation of thorium18 232, based on time-weighted air concentration 

19 data during the first period and also, chest 

20 counts at a later period of time.

21 And this SEC 4.5.1 was kind of an 

22 orphan issue from way back in the beginning. And 

23 this had to do with the absence of performance 
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1 standards and quality assurance for external 

2 doses, based on film badge dosimetry.

3 Our latest iteration of the Fernald 

4 Issues Matrix captures in detail all of these 

5 findings, the resolution points to the various 

6 transcripts where they're resolved. 

7 I believe it was sent out to the Board 

8 a couple of weeks ago, and it should be available 

9 on the DCAS website.

10 We'll continue with the historical 

11 review for just another slide here. There are 22 

12 Work Group meetings that took place over a 10-

13 year period, a vast number of White Paper 

14 exchanges and Work Group discussions. 

15 The last meeting was July 28, just 

16 last month, and as of that date, three Classes 

17 have been added to the SEC. 

18 The first were all employees of DOE, 

19 their contractors and subcontractors, basically 

20 anybody who worked at FMPC from January 68 

21 through December 31, 1978, based on the ability 

22 to reconstruct internal doses of thorium from 

23 chest count data that were reported in units of 
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1 milligrams of thorium. 

2 And I have the lengths there to the 

3 HHS designations, so anybody who wants to can go 

4 review those.

5 Then the next year, in 2013, another 

6 group was added to the SEC. 

7 And this was basically all the 

8 subcontractors employed from January 1, 1951, 

9 through December 31, 1983, based on insufficient 

10 internal monitoring data for other than prime 

11 contractor DOE employees at that time. 

12 The third also came about in 2013, and 

13 this was all employees from January 1, 1954, 

14 through December 31, 1967, based on the inability 

15 to construct internal doses of thorium from these 

16 time-weighted airborne radioactivity 

17 concentrations, called daily weighted exposures.

18 Next slide. We go through the SEC 

19 issues, kind of a 10,000-foot view. Any one of 

20 these could have been the topic of an all-day 

21 meeting, and I'm sure nobody wants to go through 

22 that level of detail right now. 

23 This is basically, like I said, the 
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1 completeness and adequacy of the uranium bioassay 

2 data for dose reconstruction, to support OTIB3 78. This issue was actually not resolved 

4 until 2014, I believe it was, December, 2014. 

5 OTIB-78 was actually revised three times, 

6 and the coworker model was eventually 

7 incorporated into the Occupational Internal Dose 

8 Revision Three, which came out just last year. 

9 And the OTIB was cancelled.

10 The issues we raised, the 

11 applicability of the coworker model, with the 

12 basis for the addition as that second Class of 

13 workers to the SEC that we just went over. 

14 Issue Two is directly related to the 

15 coworker model as well. It's mainly validation 

16 of the accuracy with which the hard-copy records 

17 were transcribed into electronic format. 

18 That was, let's see, as of December in 

19 2010, NIOSH had delivered a complete validation 

20 study that resolved all of our concerns. And the 

21 February 8, 2011 Meeting, it was recommended that 

22 subpart A be closed out. 

23 2B was concerns about the integrity of 
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1 the hard-copy bioassay data itself, as raised by 

2 a petitioner.

3 And this is really more related to 

4 there had been some falsification, or I don't 

5 know if that's the right term. The methodology 

6 for calculating off-site emissions from the 

7 scrubbers was called into question. 

8 And so, there was still some concern 

9 about whether the bioassay data might also have 

10 issues related to that. 

11 There was also, I believe, in the 

12 Fernald annual reports, there was some 

13 boilerplate in there, and the bioassay data 

14 shouldn't be used for a dose assessment. 

15 And the reason for that we believe was 

16 that at the time, that data was really used for 

17 assessing chemical toxicity. The plant was 

18 really run as a heavy metals plant. 

19 And also, at the time, we didn't 

20 really have the detailed bio-kinetic models to 

21 assess organ doses from intakes. 

22 And so this was the topic of quite a 

23 bit of discussion back in the time, and based on 
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1 our experience with NTS, which have taken a 

2 tremendous amount of resources and time. And the 

3 results turned out to be inconclusive. 

4 We decided, the Work Group decided, 

5 that it was not worth pursuing that at this time. 

6 So, that was closed out.

7 Issue Three, recycled uranium, the 

8 concern was that the default concentrations that 

9 were on a uranium mass basis of plutonium-239, 

10 neptunium-237, and technetium-99. 

11 They're associated with recycled 

12 uranium at Fernald. It may not be bounding for 

13 certain Classes of workers and activities and 

14 time periods. 

15 Plutonium is quite significant from a 

16 dosimetric standpoint with two to five times 

17 uranium dose with certain concentration in organs 

18 is listed there.

19 We have three real periods of interest 

20 here that span the time from 1953 to 1985. 

21 Actually, from 1953 to 1960, there were some 

22 amounts, about 45 metric tons that were in 

23 storage, but there was no processing going on. 
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1 From 1961 to 1972, recycled uranium 

2 was processed, but most of the data that are 

3 available suggests that the levels were within 

4 specifications, which was an anomaly, 10 parts 

5 per billion plutonium, as I said, on a uranium 

6 mass basis.

7 From 1973 to 1985, however, RU was 

8 received. It was out of specification, mostly 

9 from the gaseous diffusion plants. 

10 This was termed plutonium out of 

11 specification, or POOS is the acronym applied. 

12 And then in 1986, Westinghouse 

13 Materials Company of Ohio took over as the M&O 

14 from National Lead of Ohio, and instituted 

15 comprehensive improvements in the HP program. 

16 And from that period forward, we felt 

17 that we probably didn't have an SEC issue 

18 regarding recycled uranium. 

19 Six Work Group Meetings took place, a 

20 lot of exchanges, a lot of discussions. 

21 And as of February, 2012, the Work 

22 Group and NIOSH reached an agreement on the RU 

23 contamination concentrations that are listed in 
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1 this table in here, which was from 1961 to 1972. 

2 100 parts per billion for plutonium, 

3 3500 parts per billion for neptunium, and 9000 

4 parts per billion for technetium. 

5 And from 1973 to present, 400 parts 

6 per billion, plutonium; 11,000 parts per billion, 

7 neptunium; and 20,000 parts per billion, uranium. 

8 And this was actually incorporated 

9 into NIOSH's Report 52, which cataloged all of 

10 their Fernald-related internal dose 

11 methodologies. 

12 Let's fast forward to 2017. TBD-5 Rev 

13 3 was issued in March, 2017, and in that document, 

14 NIOSH actually proposes lower concentration 

15 levels for the constituents than what were agreed 

16 upon by the Work Group. 

17 For 1961 to 1972, plutonium was taken 

18 from 100 parts per billion down to 10, neptunium, 

19 down to 400, and technetium-99 down to 6000 parts 

20 per billion.

21 And in the July Work Group Meeting, 

22 NIOSH stated that they don't believe that the 

23 data really support the original concentrations. 
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1 That factor of ten was kind of applied 

2 administratively to begin with to ensure 

3 claimant-favorability and dose reconstruction 

4 methodologies have changed and improved. They're 

5 now done differently than they were in 2012. 

6 However, SC&A remains concerned that 

7 some of these new defaults might not be 

8 adequately bounding to some workers who might not 

9 be covered by the SEC. Say, those exposed for 

10 less than 250 days. 

11 The main reason for that being this 

12 magnesium fluoride process loop that had an 

13 impact on the workers in Plant Five and the 

14 millwrights in Plant One. 

15 And they had a reduction bomb where 

16 they put the green salt, the magnesium, in there, 

17 and then converted it to metal. 

18 This refractory material, what used to 

19 be dolomite, but the mag fluoride, would absorb 

20 a good portion of these constituents. 

21 And as it was recycled, you'd get kind 

22 of a concentration effect such that what was 

23 actually in the feed material, that ten parts per 
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1 billion, could be concentrated quite a bit higher 

2 than that. 

3 Which was really the reason that we

4 felt 100 parts per billion was really more 

5 claimant-favorable and probably plausible upper 

6 bound to use during that period. 

7 NIOSH has agreed to provide a detailed 

8 explanation for these default levels for 1961 to 

9 1972. And the issue remains active. 

10 We're back. Okay, I recall that this 

11 issue was transferred to the Site Profile side of 

12 the house back in 2012. And so that relates to 

13 TBD Findings 9 and 11 and SEC P3. 

14 That component that was related to 

15 americium-241 was actually closed out at the July 

16 28, 2017 meeting. 

17 We felt that NIOSH's methodology as 

18 laid out in Rev. 3 of TBD-5 was more than adequate 

19 and claimant-favorable.

20 Issue Four, this is the use of radon21 breath data for reconstructing doses from 

22 inhalation of radium-226 and thorium-230. 

23 We agreed that breath analysis is a 
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1 valid method for reconstructing intakes of radium 

2 and thorium. 

3 These two isotopes and the intake 

4 ratios of the radionuclides are known and it can 

5 identify the worker populations. 

6 The remaining issue was how to 

7 reconstruct does from thorium-230 that were poor 

8 in uranium or radium. So, you didn't have the -

9 - you really detect it either using bioassay or 

10 a chest count. 

11 You're not going to detect lead-212 or 

12 any of the daughter products. So, you might end

13 up with a thorium intake, but you had no way that 

14 you could monitor it. 

15 As of August, 2017, again, lots of 

16 White Paper exchanges and discussions. NIOSH at 

17 this point believes that there really is no 

18 exposure potential. 

19 This would be on the, quote, clean 

20 side of the Refinery Plant 23, now on the site of 

21 the gulping station, which is where they actually 

22 dumped in the ore and then milled down in Plant 

23 One. 
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1 And actually, we didn't feel there's 

2 a problem there in constructing doses, but it was 

3 over on the other side where there might be some 

4 potential for some intakes that we wanted to look 

5 at this. 

6 NIOSH is going to provide their 

7 official written position on this, so again, this 

8 remains active. This relates to TBD Issues Seven 

9 and Eight.

10 Issue Five, this is radon emissions 

11 from the K-65 silos and associated exposures. 

12 Now, prior to the SEC, from 1954 through 1967 and 

13 then 1968 to 1978, this was a pretty hot topic of 

14 discussion because some of the doses that could 

15 be received here were quite high. 

16 We felt that the radon-release rates 

17 from the K-65 silos, proposed by NIOSH, based on 

18 the Radiation Assessment Corporation study, were 

19 too low. 

20 And we felt that the method used to 

21 drive the source term dispersion factors was 

22 scientifically flawed. A lot of papers were 

23 exchanged again. 
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1 As a practical matter, though, at this 

2 point, since the SEC has been granted, there's 

3 only a six-month period here where this radon 

4 dose would apply. 

5 And since lung is a presumptive 

6 cancer, the only non-presumptives would be skin, 

7 prostate, and then if there's some segment of the 

8 250-day period in there. 

9 So, based on that, we felt that if 

10 NIOSH was willing to go ahead and apply the 95th 

11 percentile of their model, that we would go ahead 

12 and accept that and, as of December, 2015, TBD-4 

13 Rev 1, which is the environmental TBD. 

14 NIOSH has indeed incorporated the 95th 

15 percentile, and as agreed upon by the Work Group, 

16 the issue was closed. This relates to TBD Issues 

17 25 to 26.

18 Now, we're getting to thorium-232. 

19 This was Issue 6A, the point being, how do you 

20 reconstruct thorium doses based on breathing-zone 

21 data and general air sampling, and associated 

22 time-weighted air concentrations? 

23 Pre-68, July, 2013, the SEC was voted 
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1 for all workers from '54 to '67 based on an 

2 inability to reconstruct these doses with 

3 sufficient accuracy and plausibility, I might 

4 add, for this Class of workers. 

5 We just didn't have the ability to 

6 place workers in particular facilities at 

7 particular times, and the highest numbers were 

8 often just implausibly high, assigned to 

9 everybody. 

10 So, the decision was made just to go 

11 ahead with an SEC for that period. 

12 Also, note that most of the DWE air 

13 sampling is based on gross -- all of it's based 

14 on gross alpha activity, and wasn't really 

15 focused on thorium work, but uranium. 

16 And so, you have the situation where 

17 a sample could contain unknown portions of 

18 uranium and thorium. 

19 And I said earlier, workers could not 

20 be reliably placed for their facilities 

21 sometimes. 

22 6B was the reconstruction of thorium 

23 intakes based on chest count data, and there are 
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1 only two period of interest here, '68 to '78. 

2 Results are reported in milligrams of thorium. 

3 As I said earlier in the presentation, 

4 an SEC was voted for all workers from '68 to '78, 

5 based on inability to place a sufficiently 

6 accurate upper bound on these intakes, recorded 

7 in milligrams of thorium. 

8 This process, or the equation they 

9 used, is an empirical equation, you get 

10 milligrams of thorium from count data. 

11 It was applicable to one particular 

12 thorium source term of a certain equilibrium 

13 value. 

14 And it really wasn't applicable to the 

15 forms and conditions of Fernald, and contained 

16 very large uncertainties. 

17 From '79 to '88, these values were 

18 reported inaccurate to thorium, based on lead19 212 measurements. 

20 And the Work Group did accept NIOSH's 

21 methodology as a sufficiently accurate and 

22 claimant-favorable, based on activity 

23 measurements of lead-212.
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1 This Finding, 4.5.1, that's kind of an 

2 orphan issue. Really, it probably should not 

3 have been in the SEC Evaluation Report, but more 

4 so in the Site Profile. 

5 And this was just, basically, we 

6 didn't feel that there were sufficient rigor in 

7 the film badge dosimetry program, that there 

8 could be more uncertainties involving human 

9 error, based on control badges, or whatever, 

10 being processed with badges worn by workers. 

11 And they didn't really have an 

12 official training program for the technicians who 

13 assessed the badges. 

14 So, we felt that there might be more 

15 uncertainties associated with these film badge 

16 readings than, say, some other site where they 

17 had a more rigorous program. 

18 Because there was really no way to 

19 rectify the deficiencies, the Work Group agreed 

20 to close this out at the September, 2014 Meeting.

21 And so this brings us to where we are 

22 on the recommendation, on SEC 46. I'll just read 

23 this into the record. 
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1 The Fernald Work Group recommends that 

2 the Board find radiation doses can be estimated 

3 with sufficient accuracy for National Lead of 

4 Ohio and the parent company, NLO Incorporated, 

5 and Westinghouse Materials Company of Ohio, 

6 employees from 1979 through 1989, and for covered 

7 employees other than NLO and NLO Inc., from 1984 

8 through 1989. 

9 This would basically be the 

10 subcontractor population. And this would then 

11 complete the Board's consideration of SEC 

12 Petition 46. 

13 So, at this point, if you like, we can 

14 go ahead and take a break, and I can take any 

15 questions you might have before proceeding on to 

16 the Site Profile side?

17 CHAIR MELIUS: So, anybody have 

18 questions on what John's presented so far?

19 PARTICIPANT: I have a question.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: All right. No public 

21 comment, I'm sorry. Are you a petitioner? No, 

22 okay. Any Board Members with questions?

23 MEMBER ZIEMER: Jim, we're still 
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1 having trouble hearing you. I heard John Stiver 

2 very clearly.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, we got a new 

4 microphone. It doesn't seem to work any better, 

5 so I don't know. Is this better, Paul?

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Anyway, I don't have 

7 a question I just wanted to compliment John on 

8 his presentation. 

9 CHAIR MELIUS: So, any questions? 

10 Okay. Now, I'll just comment. 

11 We've been going back and forth with 

12 NIOSH, at least I have with NIOSH, including 

13 their attorney, trying to work out a good Class 

14 Definition for what we're actually going to 

15 approve of that. 

16 And I think we have it worked out, and 

17 we'll have that for presentation tomorrow to go 

18 over. 

19 But it doesn't differ from -- it 

20 differs in some of the language and just moving 

21 around some of the time periods to make it a 

22 little bit more straightforward than what is on 

23 this slide. 
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1 But I don't see any reason we can't 

2 have a vote, just until we approve this in 

3 principle.

4 Now, if there's no objection?

5 MR. KATZ: Do we need to do a roll 

6 call on this?

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, that's fine. But 

8 before I do that, if there's no comments, is the 

9 petitioner for this on the line and wishing to 

10 make comment?

11 I don't believe they were going to but 

12 I just wanted to make sure. So, if not, I'll 

13 turn this over to Ted.

14 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Jim. Okay, just 

15 running down the line alphabetically. Dr. 

16 Anderson?

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

19 MEMBER BEACH: No.

20 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

23 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen is absent. I'll 

4 collect his vote after the fact, and the same 

5 with -- Dr. Lockey is recused. Dr. Melius?

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

8 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston's absent, I will 

10 collect his vote after, and same with Dr. 

11 Richardson. Dr. Roessler?

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Ms. Valerio is recused. 

16 Then I'll go on Dr. Ziemer?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: And that is the majority of 

19 the Board, so the motion passes.

20 MR. STIVER: Okay, I'm going to go 

21 ahead and move onto the Site Profile?

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Go ahead, but we're 

23 going to break right at 10:45 a.m. So, I may --
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1 MR. STIVER: Okay, how much time have 

2 we got now?

3 CHAIR MELIUS: We've got a half hour. 

4 MR. STIVER: Okay, it shouldn't be 

5 much more than that.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: We have a half hour, 

7 not just you. I may cut you off at 20 minutes, 

8 and whatever.

9 MR. STIVER: I should be able to get 

10 through it in time.

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

12 MR. STIVER: Okay, the Site Profile 

13 Status Update, as I said, the original review, 

14 there were 33 findings. 

15 We've closed out 27 of them, 4 are 

16 currently in progress and 2 were transferred to 

17 the Procedures Subcommittee. 

18 Beyond that, we also looked at two 

19 other documents in November of 2014. 

20 We reviewed the NIOSH White Paper, 

21 which was addressing Fernald dose reconstruction 

22 methodology for the post-SEC period. Basically, 

23 1979 to 2006. 
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1 And that came out June, 2014. We had 

2 seven findings and seven observations in our 

3 review. 

4 And then in May of last year, we 

5 reviewed the latest iteration of OTIB-78, the 

6 internal dosimetry coworker data, or FMPC 

7 Revision Three. And we had two findings and six 

8 observations out of that review. 

9 So, what's in progress or transferred 

10 at this point? Findings in 7 and 8 from the 

11 raffinates, uranium and radium. 

12 Once again, I think we already went 

13 over this, so I went spend any more time on it. 

14 But NIOSH is going to provide an official written 

15 position on this issue. 

16 Findings 9 and 11, again, related to 

17 recycled uranium. The same thing, NIOSH is going 

18 to provide their official written position on the 

19 revised ratios. 

20 And then 17 and 19, those two findings 

21 relate to the Correction Factors for extremity 

22 date exposures, as measured by film badges. 

23 And the Work Group really determined 
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1 that the treatment of extremity dose is a 

2 program-wide issue under review by the 

3 Subcommittee on Procedures Reviews, mostly in 

4 relation to OTIB-13. 

5 And so it was transferred to that 

6 Subcommittee as part of that review. 

7 Let's take a look now at post-SEC 

8 thorium methodologies. There are three periods 

9 involved here, with different methodologies 

10 employed. 

11 From '79 to '89, as we discussed 

12 earlier, monitored workers are going to get the 

13 results from the mobile in-vivo radiation 

14 monitoring laboratory result. 

15 Unmonitored workers are going to get 

16 a coworker intake developed from those results. 

17 From 1990 to 1994, Fernald had a fixed 

18 in-vivo examination center, the IVEC, and 

19 monitored workers are obviously going to get the 

20 results from those scans. 

21 And the unmonitored workers are going 

22 to get 10 percent of the Derived Air 

23 Concentration, which will be applied to all 
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1 radiological workers who aren't monitored. 

2 We had actually done a sub-study 

3 related to that to look at whether 10 percent of 

4 the DAC was indeed bounding and claimant5 favorable. 

6 And we determined that, yes, indeed, 

7 it was. 

8 1995 to 2006, monitored workers, 

9 again, get their individual IVEC results or 

10 breathing-zone data as appropriate. 

11 And unmonitored workers get no 

12 coworker assignment, because at that time, 

13 everybody involved in thorium work during this 

14 repackaging and the shipping off site were either 

15 monitored or had breathing-zone data. 

16 So, anybody who wasn't monitored, 

17 there was really no chance that they could have 

18 been involved in thorium work.

19 As far as our review, Findings One, 

20 Three, and Five all relate to who's going to get 

21 the coworker model from 1979 to 1994. 

22 And the Work Group agreed that it's 

23 going to be all radiological workers. And so at 
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1 the July Meeting, just last month, we recommended 

2 closure. 

3 Finding Two was intake assignment. We 

4 felt that despite the fact that we're looking at 

5 a period of stewardship, it's not production, but 

6 just occasional repackaging and so forth. 

7 We still fall into the 95th 

8 percentile. Total radiological workers is 

9 probably a claimant-favorable way to go because 

10 you really don't know who's involved in this work 

11 during that period of time. 

12 However, the Work Group felt that for 

13 the reasons stated, it's a period, and not a 

14 productive period, but a period of stewardship. 

15 And the 50th percentile with 

16 associated GSD, which really gets you close to 

17 the 84th percentile anyway, would be sufficient 

18 for all, or for most, radiological workers, with 

19 some 95th percentile exceptions, those who 

20 submitted baseline fecal sampling, and those who 

21 are employed by IT Corporation who actually 

22 performed the repackaging activities.

23 Again, at last month's meeting, the 
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1 Work Group recommended closure on that particular 

2 finding. 

3 Finding Four, we felt that NIOSH 

4 would, or at least the TBD, would benefit from 

5 investigations of using a higher Class Y DAC 

6 value for 1990 to 1994, instead of the currently 

7 proposed Class W DAC. 

8 Our application's at 10 percent DAC 

9 values, and NIOSH is going to look into that and 

10 provide an official written position on that 

11 issue. So, that one is in progress. 

12 There's a bunch of observations here, 

13 no action required on those. They're all 

14 captured in the Issues Matrix Version Five, so I 

15 won't go through these right now in the interest 

16 of time.

17 As you can see, seven observations, no 

18 action required on any one of them. 

19 Now, looking at thoron and unsupported 

20 radium. NIOSH investigated modeling of Building 

21 65 for exposures in lieu of the current site-wide 

22 model, the main reason being that was the thorium 

23 storage facility. 
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1 And provide an official position on 

2 the assumed Occupancy Factors for thoron 

3 exposures. This is was subject to our Finding 

4 Number Nine. That one is in progress. 

5 NIOSH also assigned intakes of 

6 unsupported radium, only in the rare cases where 

7 the in-vivo result for actinium-228 is a factor 

8 of 1.5 or higher than the associated lead-212 

9 result. 

10 And that was the subject of SC&A 

11 Finding Seven. Again, on that one, on Finding 

12 Seven, the Work Group recommends closure. 

13 And now, moving onto the uranium 

14 coworker model, this is OTIB-78, the third 

15 revision, which has since been incorporated into 

16 the TBD-5 Revision Three as Attachment C. 

17 These intakes are derived using over 

18 400,000 bioassay results. 

19 Unmonitored intake assignments is 

20 going to apply to all prime contract workers from 

21 1952 to 2006, and construction and trade 

22 subcontract workers from 1984 to 2006. Because 

23 the SEC established from 1951 to 1983 for that 
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1 category of workers. 

2 You see that little asterisk down 

3 below, you can barely read it. 

4 But we're really not clear, I guess 

5 this would be a question for Stu, whether NIOSH 

6 intends to develop a separate coworker model for 

7 that transitional period from 1984 to 1985. 

8 If you recall, the data started 

9 picking up in 1983 and then by 1985, it kind of 

10 stabilized at a constant level. 

11 So, there's still a little bit of 

12 question about, what about those years, 1984 and 

13 1985?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Are you talking about 

15 for a different one from coworker models compared 

16 to the --

17 MR. STIVER: Yes, just for the 

18 subcontractor. There's a separate model for 

19 those ones.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: We've actually looked 

21 at that data and there's no numerical difference. 

22 MR. STIVER: All right, that was just 

23 a loose end that we wanted to tie up. Okay, we've 
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1 got two findings. 

2 Finding One was the treatment of 

3 negative and zero bioassay results, which is not 

4 consistent with the guidance in Report 53. 

5 I believe the issue there was that 

6 they were censoring the data at the highest 

7 positive value instead of at zero. 

8 The resolution of that was in the 

9 future revisions of the coworker model. We used 

10 the Report 53 methods. 

11 Again, the effect is really more just 

12 a matter of using the appropriate methodology but 

13 the dosimetric significance is very minimal. 

14 So, the Work Group recommended putting 

15 that into abeyance until such time as the next 

16 iteration the TBD comes out.

17 Finding Two was that we've discovered 

18 in our review that paired bioassay measurements 

19 for the same worker could be different by one to 

20 three orders of magnitude for the same day. 

21 And so we kind of had a problem with 

22 that, and NIOSH looked into that and determined 

23 that the higher result is actually the correct 
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1 result, and therefore, you remove the lower 

2 results from the analysis. 

3 And the Work Group recommended closure 

4 on that particular finding. 

5 Again, observations, if we have enough 

6 time I can go through some of these. First one 

7 is we could not recreate NIOSH's calculation for 

8 some years in the late '80s and early '90s. 

9 And it turns out, the files we were 

10 using were different than those that NIOSH used. 

11 And NIOSH actually used the correct procedures, 

12 so we withdrew that observation. 

13 Observation Two, yes, as expected, the 

14 time-weighted OPOS method reduced the 

15 variability, but it did not really significantly 

16 affect the geometric mean. 

17 Closed that one out. 

18 Observations Three to Six, additional 

19 information bioassay database, comments not 

20 utilized in the coworker calculations. NIOSH 

21 acknowledges in the future revisions, those 

22 comments will be considered. 

23 So, the Work Group recommended putting 
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1 those observations into abeyance until future TBD 

2 Revisions are performed.

3 And finally, the other was the 

4 accuracy of information designated solubility 

5 type and intake amount couldn't be confirmed. 

6 And so, that will not be used, and the 

7 Work Group recommendation closure of Observation 

8 Six. 

9 So, where do we go from here? As 

10 mentioned earlier, NIOSH is going to provide 

11 their official written positions on Findings 

12 Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten. That should be 9 

13 and 11. Ten is americium-241. 

14 They're also going to provide an 

15 official written position statement on the use of 

16 Class Y DAC for 1990 to 1994, instead of Class W. 

17 Also, they'll investigate modeling 

18 Building 65 thoron exposure in lieu of the site19 wide model, and provide an official position on 

20 Assumed Occupancy Factors for thoron exposure. 

21 That would have been thoron Finding Six. 

22 And so, what's some of those response 

23 received? We can schedule a Work Group meeting
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1 to disposition the active findings, and then 

2 await future TBD revisions to disposition the 

3 issues in abeyance. 

4 And that's all I have. I'll take any 

5 questions?

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Questions for John? I 

7 have one just to get on the record. The prepared 

8 bioassay measurement, could someone give an 

9 explanation for -- it sounds.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I can 

11 conjecture, but I believe it was probably a unit 

12 issue with, at times, there were multiple 

13 locations where dosimetry data was written down. 

14 And when the database was consolidated 

15 in the HIS-20, in addition to capturing data that 

16 had already been computerized in an earlier 

17 database, that didn't encompass all of the 

18 written records. 

19 And so, an effort was made to look at 

20 the written records. I believe they were written 

21 in different locations, and I think it was a unit 

22 issue. I think.

23 MR. STIVER: Yes, it comes back to 
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1 mind. Bob Barton, if you're on the line, you're 

2 really close to this? 

3 Yes, that sounds about right to me. 

4 If you'd like to weigh in on that?

5 MR. BARTON: Yes, John, can you hear 

6 me?

7 MR. STIVER: Yes.

8 MR. BARTON: Yes, Stu pretty much had 

9 it right. Basically, the different sources that 

10 they were using to compile that HIS-20 database. 

11 And as it turns out, when you add 

12 those measurements, really the higher measurement 

13 was correct. And so those higher measurements 

14 were used, and the lower measurements were 

15 removed. 

16 And then furthermore, results that we 

17 got in that investigation, any entries that had 

18 decimal places, essentially indicating units that 

19 were below a microgram per liter.

20 Will also see an error because the 

21 sites just didn't have the capability to measure 

22 that level of detail. So, you have to actually 

23 multiply by 100, and correct the units for those 
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1 as well. 

2 So, the higher measurements came in 

3 and also there were measurements made, to any 

4 urinalysis result that showed a decimal place.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thanks. Okay, 

6 any Board Members on the phone with questions or 

7 comments? If not, then I guess we can -- this is 

8 still open. 

9 There's a number of Site Profile 

10 issues open. At the same time, I don't think we 

11 necessarily want to go through all these again. 

12 So, what we might consider is a motion 

13 that would deal with those that are closed, that 

14 have reached closure. And those are all 

15 indicated in the slides. 

16 And since I can't make motions. 

17 MR. STIVER: I'll also mention that the BRS 

18 has been updated for all issues except for the 

19 thoron paper we just got into the BRS.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Maybe our Work Group 

21 Chair would like to make a motion? 

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, I'd like to make 

23 a motion that we accept those that are closed.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Second.

2 CHAIR MELIUS: Second from Wanda. All 

3 in favor say aye.

4 (Chorus of aye.)

5 Opposed? Okay. One opposition. Good. 

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: Is there any 

7 timeline for when this is going to come out?

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't have it with 

9 me. We do have a project schedule that ORAU has 

10 been working on. 

11 And we have started to populate dates 

12 on these projects but I don't have it with me and 

13 I don't know that we've finalized it completely.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. We'll have a 

15 longer break. Okay, so we're going to take our 

16 break now.

17 We're going to have to ask everybody 

18 to leave the room because we have to have a 

19 private session from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. 

20 And we'll reconvene here at, what 

21 time? At 1:30 p.m. we'll reconvene in this room. 

22 But until then, I have to ask everybody who's not 

23 on the Board or relevant to the next session. 
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1 Lunch 

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

3 went off the record at 10:32 a.m. and 

4 resumed at 1:35 p.m.)

5 CHAIR MELIUS: If everyone would get 

6 seated, please. And be quiet, we need to get 

7 started.

8 MR. KATZ: Let me -- let me first check 

9 on the line and see that we have our Board Members 

10 who are participating by phone. Dr. Ziemer, are 

11 you back on?

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm back on the line.

13 MR. KATZ: Super. And welcome. And 

14 Gen, Dr. Roessler?

15 MEMBER ROESSLER: I'm on.

16 MR. KATZ: Super. Thank you. You 

17 guys are the only two. And there was one little 

18 piece of business to just take care of before we 

19 get started again.

20 And I'll make another notice about the 

21 pub -- well, we don't have any additional people 

22 here, so I won't do that yet.

23 But on the Fernald vote I mistakenly 
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1 said that Loretta was recused from that vote. 

2 She is not recused from that vote.

3 And so we'll capture her vote there 

4 now instead of doing it as an absentee. And her 

5 vote is yes for the record. Thank you.

6 And Loretta is and Brad are recused 

7 from the INL session. Which is what we're doing 

8 now.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, here I'll 

10 leave.

11 MR. KATZ: To the back of the room is 

12 fine.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, that's far 

14 enough.

15 MR. KATZ: You don't need to leave the 

16 room. We want you to stay.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: No. That's fine.

18 (Laughing)

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. And they just also 

20 remind folks on the phone to mute your phones 

21 while you're listening. If you don't have a mute 

22 button to press * and then six to mute your phone. 

23 Thanks.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. We'll get 

2 restarted. And Idaho National Laboratory, which 

3 is an SEC petition and Dr. Tim Taulbee will be 

4 presenting.

5 It's a succinct presentation. I've 

6 looked at the slides, so.

7 Idaho National Laboratory SEC Petition 

8 (Petition #238, 1975-1980, Scoville, ID) 

9 DR. TAULBEE: Thank you Dr. Melius. I 

10 tried to be succinct here. Before I get started, 

11 I'd like to recognize -- well, the title of the 

12 talk is Idaho National Laboratory SEC Evaluation 

13 Report.

14 And this is for SEC 238. And before 

15 I get started, let me recognize my ORAU 

16 colleagues who did the lion's share of this.

17 Mitch Finley led the team and did the 

18 bulk of this work. He was assisted by Brian 

19 Gleckler. And Bill Kline did the technical 

20 editing.

21 This particular report came through 

22 very well. And with very few comments going back. 

23 So, it was a very nice report from the start.
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1 To give a little background on this 

2 particular petition, most of the petitions that 

3 we receive are 83.13s. This one is an 83.14.

4 So at the conclusion of the SEC 219, 

5 NIOSH cut off the evaluation period for CPP at 

6 December 1974. And we did this as it was the 

7 first indication of site awareness of the 

8 contamination issues that were going on at CPP in 

9 the laboratories and the cells, and the need for 

10 bioassay monitoring for alpha contaminants.

11 So, if you recall, they issued a 

12 report. And I've got it listed here at the 

13 bottom, ACI 167. Which was a preliminary ICPP 

14 health physics upgrade program report.

15 And so what we were looking at was 

16 when were these recommendations implemented? You 

17 know, was it January 1975? Was it six months 

18 later? Was it later on in the following year?

19 We really didn't know at that time. 

20 So we needed to do some follow up evaluation. 

21 Which is why we proposed to look at this under an 

22 83.14.

23 And what we found, in brief, is that 
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1 the site did not implement those recommendations 

2 for several years after. Which was quite a 

3 surprise to us.

4 So as a result, we're recommending 

5 extending the SEC Class for CPP workers through 

6 December 31, 1980. And the rest of this 

7 presentation will be giving our justification for 

8 that and why we came to that conclusion.

9 So, to kind of start with the end 

10 here, here's the proposed Class that we are 

11 recommending. It is all employees of the 

12 Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies 

13 and their contractors and subcontractors who 

14 worked at the Idaho National Laboratory ILN in 

15 Scoville, Idaho and who were monitored for 

16 external radiation at the Idaho Chemical 

17 Processing Plant, CPP.

18 For example, at least one film badge 

19 or TLD dosimeter from CPP between January 1, 1975 

20 and December 31, 1980. For a number of work days 

21 aggregating at least 251 work days, occurring 

22 solely under this employment or in combination 

23 with work days within the parameters established 
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1 for one or more other Classes of employees in the 

2 Special Exposure Cohort.

3 So, with the 83.14 process, where we 

4 start is with an inability to reconstruct dose 

5 letters. So, what we found was this 

6 infeasibility.

7 And so we sent an inability to 

8 reconstruct dose letter back on March 2 of this 

9 year. Back in the spring. And the petitioner 

10 responded with a Form A-83.14 Petition which we 

11 received on March 16.

12 July 21 is when we approved the SEC 

13 Petition Evaluation Report and sent it to the 

14 Board -- the Work Group a couple of days later. 

15 So about a month ago.

16 And what we're talking about here is 

17 that back in October 1974, this was one of the 

18 site's internal recommendations. That a routine 

19 bioassay program is being developed. And a draft 

20 Standard Operating Procedure 1.6.5.22, ICPP 

21 bioassay program, has been prepared.

22 So in October '74 they knew they 

23 needed bioassay. They had written the standard 
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1 operating procedure. And so we are looking for, 

2 when did they implement this?

3 And what we found in our research and 

4 investigations at the site is that what this 

5 instituted initially was negotiations between the 

6 health and safety laboratory and the contractor 

7 in 1976 and '77 to implement a routine plutonium 

8 monitoring and fecal and urine samples.

9 With the routine monitoring program, 

10 the first hints of it really begin in 1978. So 

11 there's a couple of years here. We're already 

12 now four years after before we start to see any 

13 routine monitoring.

14 And when they did start the routine 

15 monitoring, they limited it to chemists, to 

16 analysts, to operations, D&D folks, and 

17 instrumentation personnel. Folks that one would 

18 assume would be the highest exposed workers is 

19 who they started with.

20 And the analysis of these limited 

21 samples indicated low-level plutonium exposures 

22 were still occurring at CPP even after their 

23 initial incident or discovery back in 1972.
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1 So if you look at the plutonium 

2 bioassay monitoring at CPP, the current SEC runs 

3 1970 through 1974. And that we've highlighted in 

4 red here.

5 And you can see that in 1972 with that 

6 Shift Lab incident, where they discovered that 

7 they had an issue, there was quite a bit of urine 

8 monitoring.

9 Hold on just a second, Stu? Okay.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: This is to give Stu 

11 something to do during these presentations.

12 DR. TAULBEE: And so after that Shift 

13 Lab incident and they made these recommendations 

14 to institute a routine monitoring program, if you 

15 look at 1975 through 1980, which is the time 

16 period we're recommending, they actually 

17 decreased in the number of urine samples that 

18 they had during that time period. So, they 

19 certainly weren't in any hurry to implement this 

20 program.

21 Then in 1978 they began with very few. 

22 But they do have eight fecal samples, and then 11 

23 the following year. And so they did begin to 
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1 implement this routine program.

2 And then you see in 1981 you've got an 

3 order of magnitude jump in the number of samples 

4 that were being instituted. You've got -- you 

5 know, it jumps from 36 urine samples to 214 in a 

6 year. And one fecal to 278 fecal samples.

7 So, at that point is where they really 

8 began doing -- implementing those recommendations 

9 from way back in October 1974.

10 Well, what causes that change in 

11 bioassay monitoring? Well, as they began to do 

12 this routine monitoring they say intakes.

13 And so they knew they had a problem 

14 and they had to start doing something, more 

15 monitoring. And that you see with the records.

16 So, at this point plutonium and 

17 uranium bioassay samples were being fully 

18 implemented.

19 So, what we've concluded from this 

20 evaluation is that based on the assessment of the 

21 available employee monitoring data that there are 

22 insufficient internal dosimetry data or air 

23 monitoring data available to bound the intakes of 
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1 transuranic radionuclides for the period from 

2 January 1, 1975, through December 31, 1980.

3 And again, that's pretty evident from 

4 that chart that I just showed you. With only a 

5 handful of bioassay, we really can't do a 

6 coworker model on that time period.

7 They were still having intakes. So 

8 the air monitoring really wasn't working to 

9 identify that people were getting intakes.

10 And so we really have to rely on the 

11 bioassay. So until that big shift in 1981, we're 

12 left with this infeasibility.

13 From health endangerment, some 

14 workers in the Class may have accumulated chronic 

15 radiation exposure through intakes of 

16 radionuclides at CPP.

17 NIOSH is therefore specifying that 

18 health may have been endangered for those workers 

19 monitored at CPP who were employed for a number 

20 of work days aggregating at least 250 work days.

21 So what about the employees not 

22 included in the SEC? We intend to use the 

23 monitoring data that is available to conduct 
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1 partial dose reconstructions for those 

2 individuals who don't qualify for the SEC.

3 So, some of those workers that have 

4 plutonium monitoring in that '78/'79/'80 time 

5 period, but their cancer doesn't qualify them for 

6 the SEC, we will use their bioassay to 

7 reconstruct their dose.

8 So again, the proposed Class is listed 

9 here. And I'll read it one more time. All 

10 employees of the Department of Energy, its 

11 predecessor agencies, their contractors and 

12 subcontractors who worked at the Idaho National 

13 Laboratory in Scoville, Idaho, and who were 

14 monitored for external radiation at the Idaho 

15 Chemical Processing Plant.

16 For example, at least one film badge 

17 or TLD dosimeter from CPP between January 1, 

18 1975, and December 31, 1980, for a number of work 

19 days aggregating at least 250 work days occurring 

20 solely under this employment, or in combination 

21 with work days within the parameters established 

22 for one or more other Classes of employees of the 

23 Special Exposure Cohort.
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1 Now you notice this Class Definition 

2 here reverts back to the initial one that we had 

3 back in March 2015. Where we were saying, 

4 monitored at CPP.

5 The Class that was approved by the 

6 Board from March -- March 1970, I'm sorry, 

7 through December 1974, is all monitored workers 

8 onsite. And the reasoning for that was the 

9 monitoring methodology.

10 And if you recall, the reason that we 

11 had to make that change in the Definition, where 

12 there is a Part A, 1963 through February 1970, 

13 and then post our March 1970 through December 

14 1974, was the site went from a one badge one area 

15 policy to a one badge multi-area policy. And 

16 that was under Idaho Nuclear Corporation.

17 Well, in January of 1975 the site 

18 returned to the one badge one area policy for 

19 external dosimetry and the main reason for that 

20 is looking back as to why they switched in the 

21 first place.

22 When Idaho Nuclear controlled all of 

23 the major operating facilities, the Materials 
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1 Test Reactor Area, the Chemical Processing Plant, 

2 the Test Area North, the Central Facilities areas 

3 as well as the exterior reactors, they didn't 

4 really care where an individual got their 

5 exposure or their dose.

6 Well, in January 1975 they contract 

7 was split between Aerojet Nuclear Company and 

8 Allied Chemical Corporation. At the same time 

9 DOE was implementing ALARA principals, as low as 

10 reasonably achievable.

11 And so one company didn't want to be 

12 responsible for another company's dose. They 

13 wanted to meet their own internal goals.

14 So, they switched back to one badge 

15 one area methodology. And so this is why our 

16 Definition has reverted back to the one -- or to 

17 people monitored at CPP.

18 Because by company, these workers that 

19 might have worked for the other company could 

20 have come into CPP. But they were not routinely 

21 working there. So all of their dose totals for 

22 ALARA goals and so forth would be different.

23 So this is why we switched, or why the 
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1 Definition has reverted back to that earlier one 

2 that we are currently using from 1963 through 

3 February 1970.

4 One of the Board questions that came 

5 out during my presentation back in March 2015 

6 with SEC 219 was how confident are we that the 

7 dosimetry is complete?

8 So we went through the same exercise 

9 that we did with that particular SEC in 

10 subsequent presentations to the Board of 

11 comparing the monthly reports as well as the 

12 dosimeter printouts where we went through and 

13 tallied up how many people were monitored.

14 To where if the monthly report says 

15 there's 320 people being monitored and we count 

16 up and we've got 320 workers, then we're fairly 

17 confident that we have a complete set of records 

18 from which the Class could be administered.

19 And this is a comparison. We do not 

20 have all of the monthly reports. But those that 

21 you see that we've got here do line up well and 

22 compare well.

23 There's a couple of things there that 
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1 I'll point out. There in the middle of 1975, 

2 this is a six-month monitoring that they were 

3 doing for what we call it CPP kind of area, or 

4 location code 55.

5 And so you'll see the dosimetry ends 

6 up matching the printouts and the monthly 

7 reports. But these people, these workers were 

8 actually on a six-month monitoring period.

9 So they're not going to show up in 

10 that initial lower part there. So, it looks kind 

11 of goofy with a step change, but it's really 

12 people monitoring for an extended period of time, 

13 is what's causing that.

14 We also looked at the construction 

15 trades workers like we did before. And again, 

16 for the months where we have the monthly reports 

17 and the dosimetry printouts, we're seeing very 

18 good agreement between this.

19 So that concludes my presentation with 

20 the SEC Class Definition. And I'll be happy to 

21 answer any questions before I move onto our 

22 current INL activities.

23 So, are there any questions?
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. Go ahead, Jim.

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: So, I have one 

3 question. Maybe, this is on -- what's that slide?

4 It's partial dose reconstructions in 

5 regard to -- prior to 1981. You're going to use 

6 monitoring data to conduct partial dose 

7 reconstructions for individuals not part of the 

8 SEC.

9 So, I was thinking, Jim, in relation 

10 to your question on Pacific Proving Grounds, 

11 isn't that the same -- is that the same type of 

12 question here? Or how is it different?

13 That's what I need.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: No. I mean, it's the 

15 -- I don't think it is. It's not been sort of 

16 fleshed out yet.

17 But, it would be only for -- they 

18 would still be using the other data that is not 

19 considered to be part of the SEC.

20 The SEC is only based on certain 

21 exposures, the internal exposures.

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: No. I meant for the 

23 non-SEC dose reconstruction.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: No. I'm saying, there 

2 will still be other data they would be able to 

3 use, to utilize.

4 How they would utilize that I don't 

5 think has been clarified yet.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: That's the question.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes?

8 DR. NETON: Well, I think what we're 

9 saying is, if say there's 350 people that have 

10 bioassay or 35 people have bioassay and they're 

11 non-SEC cancers, we will use their individual 

12 bioassay to reconstruct their dose.

13 It just makes sense. And there's 

14 nothing wrong with the bioassay data. We just 

15 don't have it for like 90 percent of the people.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: So how do you 

17 reconstruct that other 90 percent? That's what 

18 I was unclear on.

19 DR. NETON: We wouldn't.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: So to the non-SEC 

21 cancers that's --

22 DR. NETON: If you have a non-SEC 

23 cancer and you have a valid bioassay sample, we 
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1 will reconstruct your dose for pluton -- well, 

2 for -- yeah, plutonium in this case.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: And if you don't have 

4 a bioassay?

5 DR. NETON: You don't do anything.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. That's correct. 

7 For that particular exposure. Yes. Yes. So 

8 it's not.

9 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. We would only be 

10 using the INL, the bioassay --

11 CHAIR MELIUS: I understand.

12 DR. TAULBEE: --- listed up here. 

13 There's like 36 in 1980. So if one of those 

14 people --

15 CHAIR MELIUS: I had a question. What 

16 accounts for the drop off from like, I don't know, 

17 I guess it started in '73, in terms of like 

18 plutonium bioassay. Why did they like start up 

19 and then cut back?

20 And they -- it only coincides with the 

21 six month dose batches. I mean, this seems odd. 

22 That's all.

23 DR. TAULBEE: It's really not a drop 
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1 off. What you're seeing is -- well, it is a drop 

2 off.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

4 DR. TAULBEE: What I'm saying is, it's 

5 -- there wasn't -- there was not a routine 

6 monitoring period. Okay?

7 These samples that you see in '72, 

8 '73, '74, none of them were routine.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: Oh, okay. 

10 DR. TAULBEE: This was due to an 

11 exposure event. And they sampled a bunch of 

12 people.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

14 DR. TAULBEE: And so the drop off that 

15 you see, there is a drop off.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

17 DR. TAULBEE: But it is not a routine 

18 monitoring. Because there was no routine 

19 monitoring.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

21 DR. TAULBEE: That's what you're 

22 seeing.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. So then they 
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1 just decided to start in essentially '80 to '81 

2 is when they geared up and --

3 DR. TAULBEE: Exactly.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: And --

5 DR. TAULBEE: Exactly.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Okay.

7 DR. TAULBEE: Remember in 1972 they 

8 had that very large intake.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

10 DR. TAULBEE: And they discovered 

11 people didn't -- were exposed not during that 

12 intake, but a previous one that went unaccounted 

13 for.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. Okay. Yes, I'm 

15 sorry. Go ahead Josie.

16 MEMBER BEACH: So I just want to be 

17 clear. So we set aside the Work Group's -- or 

18 the Board set aside the 1963 to 1970 based on 

19 needing what? Was it one TLD or one film badge?

20 DR. TAULBEE: Film badge.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So that's set 

22 aside, we're still working on that. And then 

23 this, '75 to '80 is kind of the same parameter 
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1 needing one film badge.

2 We're still grappling with that as a 

3 Work Group, validating and making sure that we 

4 can -- we can verify and validate that we won't 

5 miss anybody.

6 How is this any different, I guess? 

7 I'm asking that question. Throwing it out. This 

8 time period?

9 I'm asking anybody in general that can 

10 might answer that. Or just give you something to 

11 think about before the vote.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Maybe Tim can update us 

13 on the progress --

14 DR. TAULBEE: Okay.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: -- on the verification 

16 issue.

17 DR. TAULBEE: Last week we had a Work 

18 Group meeting. And following that Work Group 

19 meeting Bob Barton sent me the list of, I think, 

20 31 people.

21 And I forwarded that onto our claims 

22 folks. And they are making the request from the 

23 site.
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1 And so once we get those response then 

2 you will be able to do that validation that you 

3 all were looking for.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: And I guess my 

5 question, and I don't know if SC&A can answer it 

6 here. But as I recall from the Work Group 

7 meeting, there was some question as to what years 

8 were covered among those.

9 And whether those would cover this 

10 later time period. The ones they were choosing.

11 And because we were trying to figure 

12 out which years were -- these people were 

13 employed. And would we be looking at and to what 

14 sort of level.

15 And I don't know if that ever got 

16 answered or --

17 DR. TAULBEE: If Bob Barton is on the 

18 phone. But I believe it's only prior to Feb --

19 or March 1970.

20 I don't believe that any of those 

21 folks that he sent me were in this latter time 

22 period.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.
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1 DR. TAULBEE: Again, this is an 83.14. 

2 So, what we tend to do is, we identified an 

3 infeasibility. And we've got claims that are 

4 sitting, waiting to be processed here.

5 And so we did a limited review here is 

6 what we did. And this is a Class that we defined.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: I'm not faulting you. 

8 I think the issue is how to get to this Class 

9 Definition issue, which I mean, is there any 

10 reason to think that's different than the earlier 

11 period?

12 MEMBER BEACH: That's my --

13 CHAIR MELIUS: Other than optimism or 

14 whatever we want to call it.

15 DR. TAULBEE: No.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. And it maybe, I 

17 mean, we don't know. We don't know the reason 

18 what really went on in the earlier period.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Well, and it's not --

20 I'm not trying to hold it up. I just want to 

21 make sure we're not missing anybody because of 

22 that have to have one badge. So.

23 DR. MELIUS: Well, I think it's the -
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1 -

2 DR. TAULBEE: One of the things --

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Go ahead, Tim. I don't 

4 want to --

5 DR. TAULBEE: One of the things the 

6 83.14 allows us to do is that we can -- it states 

7 there in the regulation that this is identifying 

8 a claim that we cannot process.

9 And it allows us to amend the Class at 

10 a later date. To expand it if necessary. So 

11 that's one of the points with an 83.14 that's a 

12 little different than the 83.13.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. But we can also 

14 change the 83.13, given that -- the period that's 

15 covered --

16 DR. TAULBEE: Absolutely.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: By the 83.13 petition.

18 DR. TAULBEE: You can.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: So I don't think it --

20 I'm not sure that's relevant.

21 DR. TAULBEE: It's just one of the 

22 caveats under the 83.14 rule.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, yes. No, I --
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1 DR. TAULBEE: That says we can add 

2 later.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: And it can be helpful.

4 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, and you actually 

6 have the same purview in some extent on the 83.13. 

7 Yes.

8 Anybody else with questions? Or I 

9 don't want to --

10 DR. TAULBEE: Is Bob Barton on the 

11 phone?

12 (No response)

13 DR. TAULBEE: I guess not.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Hey, I don't know if we 

15 can get -- since we know it wasn't -- we don't 

16 think it was covered -- excuse me, is that Bob?

17 MR. BARTON: Yes. I'm here. This is 

18 Bob Barton.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

20 DR. TAULBEE: The claims that you sent 

21 to me, those were just evaluating the earlier 

22 time period up through February 1970. Is that 

23 correct?
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1 MR. BARTON: They are all employed in 

2 that earlier period. I can't speak to whether 

3 they had employment in the later period as well.

4 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thank you. In 

5 other words, we targeted people in that early 

6 time period. And if they continued on, then 

7 they'll be there. And if they're not, then 

8 they're not.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: But they may be.

10 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct.

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. And I guess the 

12 -- I think the question is, numerically what is 

13 that, you know, if 20 of them are then that tells 

14 us something.

15 If two of them -- only two are, then 

16 that tells a lot less.

17 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. And I think where 

19 we left it in the Work Group, again, someone 

20 remind me. Refresh me.

21 Is that we would, you know, sort of 

22 try to keep this process going as quickly as 

23 feasible in the terms of adding additional -- I 
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1 mean, because there's additional people that 

2 could be added.

3 We don't think they'll be as 

4 informative, but they could be helpful. And now 

5 that I've confused everybody that's not involved 

6 in this.

7 MR. KATZ: Jim, do we want to go ahead 

8 and give a thumbs up if Bob looks and sees that 

9 there's not much coverage, do we want them to 

10 supplement this with some more claims?

11 Because this would be a good time to 

12 decide that. And then it wouldn't wait.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, that would be my 

14 suggestion.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: I think the Board has 

17 to decide how they want to handle this 83.14. 

18 But, okay.

19 Any further -- Dr. Ziemer or Gen, do 

20 you have any comments? Or questions?

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: Hi, this is Gen. I 

22 could not hear what you were saying Jim. You 

23 kept cutting out.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. I'm comfortable 

2 with the information method. I think we need to 

3 go ahead with it.

4 MR. KATZ: Paul said that he was 

5 comfortable with the information. And that he 

6 thought they needed to go ahead with it.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Any other comments? I 

8 don't know if the petitioners are on the line or 

9 if they were going to be. Do they wish to make 

10 comments?

11 I don't believe so, but.

12 (No response)

13 CHAIR MELIUS: So if not we can -- we 

14 can continue discussion or get a motion or some 

15 action. I think again, not to make a motion, but 

16 the choices -- excuse me, let me get this switch 

17 to work.

18 So the choices are either to move 

19 ahead with -- accept this 83.14 petition with the 

20 proviso that we don't know that it provides 

21 complete coverage.

22 We don't know if the earlier one 

23 provides complete -- for construction worker 
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1 people or other people -- workers that might be 

2 intermittently in the CPP area.

3 We have some indications there might 

4 be problems earlier. But until DOE was done doing 

5 all the data entry and getting a full database 

6 together, we really couldn't evaluate that.

7 We're in the process of evaluating 

8 that. We don't think it will take long. It 

9 depends on some of the turnaround times from the 

10 site and so forth.

11 And what was the estimate, Tim? Do 

12 you remember from the meeting?

13 DR. TAULBEE: Well, we're submitting 

14 them as if they were regular claims. So there's 

15 typically a 60-day turnaround --

16 DR. MELIUS: That sounds right.

17 DR. TAULBEE: For each group. And so 

18 the first group was, like I said, being submitted 

19 now. And so about 60 days from now we should 

20 have that.

21 And then once we get -- start getting 

22 those, we're going to submit the next group that 

23 Bob had indicated.
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1 DR. MELIUS: Yes.

2 DR. TAULBEE: So, I would think 

3 somewhere, 120 days or so you might have the 

4 answer.

5 DR. MELIUS: Mm-hmm.

6 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, I think I 

7 understand what's going on now. This is Gen. 

8 I'd recommend we move ahead.

9 Am I off of mute?

10 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, if someone makes 

11 a motion. I --

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We're going to go 

13 ahead and make a motion to go ahead and move 

14 forward at this time with the caveat that we may 

15 have to revisit this.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Second.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: Any further discussion?

18 (No response)

19 CHAIR MELIUS: If not do we have to 

20 do the roll call?

21 (Laughter)

22 CHAIR MELIUS: If you go to slide --

23 page 13, slide 13. We're not engendering a lot 
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1 of confidence here. I know. I know. I'm sorry.

2 So slide 13 is the proposed SEC Class. 

3 So the motion is to accept the Class as proposed 

4 here.

5 We've not -- just again for context, 

6 for the earlier time period, we have not accepted 

7 a similar Class. That pending verification or 

8 validation of whether everybody was actually 

9 badged and covered and can be identified that 

10 worked in the CPP area.

11 The issue is whether -- we know that 

12 people came in from other areas of the plant to 

13 work there. And that they were badged at those 

14 areas.

15 But the question is whether they were 

16 all identified and recorded. And there's some 

17 record keeping issues.

18 In order to validate that and verify 

19 what was going on, we've chosen some examples. 

20 And we're seeing what happens with the -- the 

21 data has now all been entered, so we have a, what 

22 we believe to be a complete, you know, actually 

23 for quite a lot of the site.
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1 Right? I'm not sure of what years are 

2 entirely covered. But --

3 DR. TAULBEE: If I could clarify just 

4 a little bit more.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: You're welcome to.

6 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. The issue 

7 involved temporary badges. This would be people 

8 who worked at Materials Test Reactor coming into 

9 CPP, they would be issued a temporary badge.

10 At the time that we recommended that 

11 Class, we knew of these temporary badges. What 

12 we didn't realize is that if a person didn't have 

13 a positive badge, that badge was not entered into 

14 that person's dose of record.

15 So, the site for the past year has 

16 been coding, going back to all of those temporary 

17 badges. Not just at CPP but at MTR and Test Area 

18 North, and entering them so that now we would get 

19 a complete record and we'd be able to see it. 

20 Okay.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: What -- Dave 

22 Kotelchuck. Whatever we find in the research, 

23 it's not going to change the proposed SEC Class.
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1 That proviso is something we may do in 

2 the future based on future information. So I'm 

3 perfectly comfortable approving the proposed SEC 

4 Class. Because that's not going to change based 

5 on that research.

6 So, I would just say, let's go ahead 

7 and vote on it.

8 DR. TAULBEE: Well, the Class 

9 Definition, if you approve it would not change. 

10 But we could amend to add to it from that 

11 standpoint.

12 And the rule -- the 83.14 rule allows 

13 us that ability to kind of expand the Class if we 

14 find that this -- the temporary badges didn't 

15 make it into DOE's database.

16 But the claims that are currently 

17 being held up for this Class Definition that we 

18 have pending would be able to go forward.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: Do we know how many 

20 there are?

21 DR. TAULBEE: Currently we have 15 

22 claims that are pended due to this SEC.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.
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1 DR. TAULBEE: Or due to this 83.14.

2 CHAIR MELIUS: Do I hear 19?

3 (Laughter)

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Are you clear now? I'm 

5 sorry.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. I have one more 

7 question.

8 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

9 MEMBER BEACH: So if you have -- and 

10 I'm not opposed to this moving forward. I just 

11 want that understood. I just don't want anybody 

12 left out or left behind.

13 So if you have one indication or 

14 somebody is not added to this Class because they 

15 don't have a TLD or a film badge, how will you 

16 know about that?

17 And how will that move this forward 

18 for that particular individual?

19 DR. TAULBEE: My impression is that 

20 based upon the evaluation that SC&A is doing on 

21 the temporary badges that if we find that this, 

22 you know, the Definition doesn't work and it 

23 needs to be -- the initial one needs to be 
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1 expanded, then we could do the same thing here 

2 from this standpoint.

3 But while that determination is being 

4 made, that evaluation is being made, these claims 

5 could then go ahead and go forward. And we could 

6 then amend this.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: And that will probably 

8 be three or four months from now. Yes.

9 MEMBER BEACH: As long as it's going 

10 to be taken up.

11 DR. TAULBEE: It is definitely being 

12 taken up.

13 MR. KATZ: Any more questions? Are we 

14 ready? Okay. Anderson?

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Beach?

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Clawson is recused. Field?

19 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Kotelchuck?

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Lemen, we'll obtain his 

23 vote afterwards. Lockey?
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1 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Melius?

3 CHAIR MELIUS: No.

4 MR. KATZ: Munn?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Poston, we'll obtain his 

7 vote afterwards and the same with Richardson. 

8 Roessler? Gen?

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes. Schofield?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Valerio is recused. And 

13 Ziemer? Paul? You may be on mute.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: Or maybe he can't 

15 hear. Sometimes it's difficult.

16 MR. KATZ: Paul?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Now I'm off 

18 mute.

19 MR. KATZ: There you are.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yeah. I have now. 

21 Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes. Okay. And the motion 

23 passes. Thank you.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: So, Tim move on.

2 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thank you. And 

3 just to give you a little updated, a one slide 

4 update of our current activities.

5 As I indicated in our March -- during 

6 the March meeting when we presented the addendum 

7 to SEC 2019 for Idaho, which involved the burial 

8 grounds and a couple of other areas, we pointed 

9 out that in the 1970s there were large retrieval 

10 operations of waste. Which we felt were much 

11 different than when the waste was being buried. 

12 And so we decided we'd look at this 

13 under the 83.14 process as well. So to give a 

14 brief update, Mitch and his team went out to the 

15 site in late-June of this past year and did a 

16 data collection and capture out there for the 

17 burial grounds.

18 And so we are waiting receipt of that 

19 information. So that is moving forward for us to

20 look at that and determine whether or not we need 

21 to recommend another 83.14 for those burial 

22 grounds.

23 The other major activities that we 
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1 have going on that we indicated we would report 

2 back to the Work Group on where the response to 

3 the Advisory Board, SC&A observations and 

4 findings with regards to SEC 219 and SEC 224.

5 And so I've listed here in four 

6 bullets kind of the main topical items. The first 

7 one is an SC&A review of the early years at CPP 

8 for alpha exposures.

9 And this covers the time period from 

10 start up in the 19 -- I believe 1953 up through 

11 1960 -- up through '62.

12 1963 is the current period where we're 

13 recommending a Class. And so we need to develop 

14 responses to that SC&A review.

15 The next item is the ANL-West air 

16 monitoring evaluation. This was regarding our 

17 dose reconstruction methods for estimating people 

18 who are working with the cold fuel, not 

19 irradiated fuel at the Fuel Cycle Facility.

20 And SC&A raised some issues with 

21 regards to the air monitoring at that time.

22 The next one appears to be like a 

23 duplicate of the evaluation of the burial 
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1 grounds. But it's actually not.

2 This would be an evaluation of the 

3 burial grounds up through 1970. And our current 

4 83.14 that we are working on is post-1970, during 

5 those large retrieval operations.

6 And SC&A raised a number of issues and 

7 observations and findings that we will be 

8 developing responses to.

9 The last issue that we'll be working 

10 on is the mixed fission product evaluation. And 

11 this is kind of two-fold.

12 There's one area where Ron Buchanan 

13 had raised some issues with regards to the cesium 

14 and strontium variability. And the other issue 

15 is using OTIB-54 to estimate the mixed fission 

16 product inventory for the various research 

17 reactors.

18 So these are the four items that we 

19 talked about with the Work Group. And the Work 

20 Group wanted to kind of see them listed in order 

21 to give us some priorities of which order they 

22 want us to work on from this standpoint.

23 And I know I had intended to get this 
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1 out to the Work Group last Friday. And failed to 

2 do so. But here you have it.

3 So, these are the items. And 

4 hopefully in future discussions then with the 

5 Work Group, we'll get a little more priorities.

6 Right now we're moving forward on the 

7 burial grounds and the CPP evaluation until we 

8 hear back from the Work Group. Because those 

9 seem to be the two most critical at least -- from 

10 at least my standpoint.

11 But the Work Group might reprioritize. 

12 And that's fine too.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: Speaking as a Member of 

14 the Work Group, as I recall, those -- I think 

15 that fits the priorities. Am I missing 

16 something? Phil or --

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: No.

18 DR. TAULBEE: No. I said I did not 

19 send them.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: I know. I know. But, 

21 I just -- okay.

22 MR. STIVER: And then there's just one 

23 other thing was Steve Ostrow's reactor 
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1 prioritization.

2 DR. TAULBEE: It's listed on that last 

3 bullet.

4 MR. STIVER: Okay. You kind of 

5 combined them together because --

6 DR. TAULBEE: I did in one.

7 MR. STIVER: Oh, okay. I wasn't quite 

8 sure of that.

9 DR. TAULBEE: Just in one bullet. But 

10 there are two separate issues there going on.

11 MR. STIVER: Oh, great.

12 DR. TAULBEE: The reactors have 

13 actually already been prioritized. And it's when 

14 we start working on them.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: And I think the Work 

16 Group felt that those were a lot lower priority 

17 then some of these others. Which means that 

18 they're going to be a while before we get to them.

19 I mean, this is not a short list of 

20 quick assignments, so.

21 DR. TAULBEE: No. It's not.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

23 MR. KATZ: Just to clarify though, are 
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1 we okay with SC&A supplementing the sample that 

2 they're looking at to cover the later period?

3 This 83.14 period, in terms of 

4 verifying that that Class Definition can be -- is 

5 complete enough? That it covers everybody?

6 Is that okay with the Work Group?

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: I think we should.

10 MR. KATZ: You got that John? Okay. 

11 Thanks.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Any other questions for 

13 Tim? While we've got him up there.

14 (No response)

15 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Thank you very 

16 much Tim.

17 DR. TAULBEE: Thank you.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: And I would join you in 

19 thanking your ORAU colleagues also. For their 

20 hard work.

21 Now the usual high point of our 

22 meetings.

23 MR. KATZ: Short and sweet.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: That's next. I'm 

2 sorry. Someone want to retrieve our missing --

3 oh there he is. Okay. Come back to work now.

4 SEC Petitions Status Update 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Are we ready? 

6 Alright. I'm LaVon Rutherford. I'm the Special 

7 Exposure Cohort Health Physics Team Leader for 

8 NIOSH. And I'm going to give the SEC update.

9 I provide this update to the Advisory 

10 Board in preparation for future Board meetings, 

11 Work Group meetings. We're going to identify 

12 petitions and qualifications under evaluation, 

13 currently under Board review and SEC petition, 

14 potentially 83.14s.

15 To date we have 243 petitions. The 

16 petitions -- we have five petitions in 

17 qualification. We have one evaluation in 

18 progress. And we have 12 petitions with the 

19 Advisory Board.

20 The five petitions in qualification 

21 are Wah Chang, Mound Plant, Y-12 Plant, Pinellas 

22 Plant, and Argonne National Lab-West. I forgot 

23 -- omitted that slide somehow, so.
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1 Tim just -- Dr. Taulbee just presented 

2 the INL CPP 83.14. And the Board took action on 

3 that.

4 Tomorrow we will be presenting an 

5 Evaluation Report for Santa Susana Field Lab from 

6 1991 to 1993. It's all employees. Again, that 

7 will be presented tomorrow.

8 We also have a Metals and Controls 

9 petition evaluation. This is for the residual 

10 period, January 1, 1968, through 1997. That 

11 will be presented tomorrow as well.

12 Los Alamos National Lab addendum. 

13 This is a continuation of an existing petition, 

14 SEC 109. This will address the years 1996 through 

15 2005. And I will be presenting that one shortly 

16 this afternoon.

17 Sandia National Lab, again, this is 

18 another continuation of SEC 188. This is the 

19 1995-2005. And it is covering the -- virtually 

20 this -- one of the main issues -- this is the 10 

21 CFR 835 era. And it is following Los Alamos 

22 National Lab. Currently our expected completion 

23 date is November of this year.
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1 Lawrence Livermore National Lab. 

2 Again, this is a continuation of an existing 

3 petition. It addresses the remaining years.

4 It also largely encompasses the 10 CFR 

5 835 era. And expected completion is February of 

6 next year.

7 The last few, Sandia, Lawrence 

8 Livermore, have slipped a little bit as Los 

9 Alamos has slipped. Some of the same resources 

10 are involved.

11 Currently petitions under Board 

12 review, I don't know why this says continuation. 

13 But, Feed Materials Production Center, that was 

14 addressed earlier. And I believe that petition 

15 was closed out with some Site Profile issues to 

16 resolve.

17 Hanford, this petition, current 

18 period ends in 1990. We have taken action to add 

19 a Class up through 1990. However, that was a 

20 limited Class.

21 And we are still evaluating the prime 

22 contractors during that period. So there is 

23 still some activities going on there.
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1 Savannah River Site, I believe we have 

2 an update schedule for tomorrow. And so you'll 

3 get -- the Advisory Board will get that update 

4 then.

5 Grand Junction facilities, I believe 

6 the Work Group is going to report out on that 

7 tomorrow as well.

8 Idaho National Lab, I don't think I 

9 need to say much here. I think Tim covered 

10 everything. Including the 83.14 and the current 

11 activities. As well as Argonne-West.

12 So again, these are the petitions that 

13 were with the Board for review. A number of 

14 these, Fernald, from an SEC perspective will come 

15 off.

16 There's still a few activities. And 

17 then there's some other Work Group updates 

18 scheduled for a few of these other ones later on 

19 during the Board meeting.

20 Again, the petitions in 

21 qualification, Wah Chang, this is actually a site 

22 that we'd actually taken action on. And this 

23 actually is a petition for a couple of years that 
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1 were added to the residual contamination.

2 Based on the Residual Contamination 

3 Report is put out with a set date. And then when 

4 that report is updated that date shifts in time. 

5 And so ultimately residual contamination years 

6 can be added.

7 The Mound plan is for a 1959 through 

8 1969. Y-12, 1981 through present. Pinellas 

9 Plant is 1956 through 1997. And Argonne National 

10 Lab-West is 1969 through 1982.

11 These five petitions are in 

12 qualification. I missed -- I don't know where I 

13 missed that slide. But somehow I did, so.

14 And that's all I got. Questions --

15 on, wait a minute. 83.14s. I thought I was done.

16 The INL, Tim just presented. That 

17 one's done. Ames Laboratory, this is one that 

18 we've had on our plate.

19 We have identified an infeasibility 

20 that -- well, their challenge is, is putting our 

21 arms around what the end dates are for this 

22 infeasibility.

23 And we did receive some additional 
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1 documentation. And we're working that issue.

2 Sandia National Lab Albuquerque, 1945 

3 through '48. That's the Z Division from LANL. 

4 Again, if we ever receive a petition that -- or 

5 a claim, we'll move forward with that.

6 Now the Dayton project, now actually 

7 this one should be updated. The Mound and the 

8 Dayton project itself now overlap from a facility 

9 designation standpoint.

10 So we won't be getting a litmus claim 

11 for that one. We won't be moving forward. There 

12 is a potential for another area with that one on 

13 Monsanto, but not at this time.

14 And that's it. Questions?

15 CHAIR MELIUS: Questions for LaVon? 

16 John and Joe.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Wow. I'm used to 

18 getting questions from the Advisory Board. But 

19 not from SC&A.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: It looks like we've 

21 planted some from SC&A. They're getting back at 

22 you.

23 MR. STIVER: I was just noticing that 
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1 Oak Ridge wasn't on the list. Isn't there a 

2 petition that's been qualified for Oak Ridge?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: For Oak Ridge 

4 National Lab?

5 MR. STIVER: Yes.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: There is a potential 

7 83.14 that we -- and it's not on here right now 

8 for -- but that actual activity was conducted at 

9 Y-12.

10 And so that there is the -- a lot of 

11 people may remember back in the early years at Y12 12 with the calutrons and the cyclotrons, the 

13 work was conducted by -- or in support of Oak 

14 Ridge National Lab.

15 However, it was conducted at Y-12. 

16 So, we're putting our arms around that one right 

17 now.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. I was going to 

19 say, I think this was a broader petition -- oh, 

20 this was a broader petition for Oak Ridge 

21 National Lab as a whole. And it was being held 

22 up -- the ER was being held up because there was 

23 a lot of work being done on the internal 
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1 radionuclides.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, that's -- I 

3 mean, that is a petition. Yeah, that petition -

4 - the petition itself was closed.

5 We continued on with a number of 

6 activities on that one. And we are continuing 

7 activities on that.

8 And actually where the infeasibility 

9 I just talked about came out of that additional 

10 work that was going on there with Oak Ridge 

11 National Lab.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Yeah. I think we have 

13 a Work Group that's monitoring it. I think they 

14 have been waiting for a period of time.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah. And I believe 

16 Dr. Hughes provided an update to the Work Group 

17 Chair as well.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. No, I -- Ted 

19 want -- I'm asking for Ted now. I don't know 

20 what to --

21 (Laughter)

22 CHAIR MELIUS: So is Ames going to be 

23 ready for the next Board meeting?
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I believe 

2 it may. Actually Stu had just asked me of any. 

3 And I think Ames will probably be ready for the 

4 next Board meeting. I had forgotten about that 

5 one.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Any Board 

7 Members now like to --

8 (No response)

9 CHAIR MELIUS: SC&A, you're done also?

10 (No response)

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. LaVon, thank you 

12 for confusing us. As always. Okay.

13 Board Work Session 

14 So, anyway, we're at a point where 

15 we'll take a break and reconvene at 3:00 p.m. for 

16 the Board work session.

17 At 4:00 will be the Los Alamos 

18 Laboratory petition presentation. And that's 

19 scheduled from 4:00 to 5:30.

20 However if we do finish the discussion 

21 of that earlier then 5:30, we will start the 

22 public comment period for people here that, you 

23 know. So we can move that along.
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1 So, but we'll continue it past 5:30 

2 obviously. So, also. So reconvene at 3:00 p.m.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

4 went off the record at 2:25 p.m. and 

5 resumed at 3:02 p.m.)

6 CHAIR MELIUS: So let's first start 

7 with some of the scheduling issues. So we have 

8 a meeting scheduled for December 13th and 14th 

9 without a location?

10 MR. KATZ: Correct. So in terms of 

11 what little talking around I have done so far --

12 in terms of what possibly -- depending on other 

13 matters -- what possibly could be ready -- the 

14 only site where something might be ready is if -

15 - and it's very conditional at this point, would 

16 be possibly a Sandia presentation for the latter 

17 period of Sandia. So that would mean, perhaps, 

18 for example an Albuquerque location. We have --

19 I mean, Savannah River Site is a busy business 

20 for the Work Group right now and the Board. So 

21 Augusta is another location -- we don't have to 

22 worry about the weather.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Famous last words.
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1 MR. KATS: Less worry about the 

2 weather.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Hurricane -- you know 

4 --

5 MR. KATZ: And other than those two -

6 -

7 CHAIR MELIUS: It would be the drive 

8 from Atlanta, you have to worry.

9 MR. KATZ: And other than those two 

10 locations, I think we are just thinking about a 

11 fair weather port for the next meeting. Sort of 

12 irrespective of -- unless other Board Members 

13 have recognized something that I do not in terms 

14 of what might be ready or ripe for public 

15 participation or what have you.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Anybody?

17 MEMBER BEACH: I was just asking Brad 

18 about Argonne-East. I know we have an SC&A report 

19 and we haven't had a Work Group yet. And we 

20 haven't met in that area.

21 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, we have. Last 

22 year.

23 MEMBER BEACH: Did we?
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: We had our first 

2 meeting.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, that's right. It 

4 was.

5 MR. KATZ: And that -

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Chicago. Do you 

7 remember?

8 MEMBER BEACH: It was so last year, 

9 sorry.

10 MR. KATZ: And Chicago, although it 

11 has had -- it had a mild winter this past winter, 

12 I am not sure how many winters we can promise for 

13 that.

14 MEMBER BEACH: I am concerned that we 

15 won't be ready for Santa Susana. I know we have 

16 two ER reports, the Work Group hasn't met. And 

17 between now and December, the time is short. I 

18 am going to be gone most of it. I just -- anyway, 

19 that might be problematic.

20 MR. KATZ: Right, that is what I am 

21 saying. If there isn't work to do at a location 

22 with a public interaction, then we are just --

23 really just talking about a fair weather port 
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1 irrespective of the rest.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Idaho.

4 MEMBER BEACH: No, that's not fair 

5 weather.

6 MR. KATZ: Nice try, Bread.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: When was it snowing? 

8 When I called you in what, the end of May?

9 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: Of last year.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Telling me all the snow 

13 that was on the ground.

14 (Laughter.)

15 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, so we are getting 

16 silly here, right? So we will -- anyway, think 

17 it over. Some of this depends on those --

18 Savannah River presentation as well as the LANL 

19 presentation and discussion. And so we will come 

20 back to it. But I just want you to think -- and 

21 if you have good ideas, let us know.

22 So scheduling?

23 MR. KATZ: So, beyond that, then -- we 
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1 have a -- the next meeting that's scheduled is 

2 for the June time frame of 2018. And I have --

3 the week of June 25th is right in the ballpark. 

4 But it doesn't have to be that week. So why don't 

5 you check your calendars and see how that week 

6 looks. The 25th should be a Monday. So then we 

7 would be talking about --

8 Does anybody -- and Paul and Gen? Are 

9 you back on the line?

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: Can you hear me?

11 MR. KATZ: Yes.

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, I am on.

13 MR. KATZ: How does -- so does that -

14 - and that week? How does that look for you? 

15 That's just a teleconference. So that's just a 

16 midday.

17 MEMBER ROESSLER: Looks clear to me.

18 MR. KATZ: Everybody's good here?

19 (No audible response.)

20 MR. KATZ: Okay.

21 (Pause.)

22 MR. KATZ: Okay, so do you want to do 

23 it the midweek? June 27th?
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1 (No audible response.)

2 MR. KATZ: Okay, June 27th, 2018.

3 (Pause.)

4 MR. KATZ: Yes. So how about let's 

5 make it the 26th, then. That's a Tuesday. 

6 Thanks, Wanda. And then for a full meeting the 

7 ballpark is about August -- the week of August 

8 13th. But -- anywhere around there.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's kind of not 

10 great, August 13th, in terms of vacation season.

11 MR. KATZ: That week in particular, 

12 you are saying? Because --

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, family -- I 

14 mean, family vacations. That's the week before 

15 school starts for many kids. So, family at least. 

16 And then that week is probably not good -- for us 

17 -- for me. Earlier?

18 MR. KATZ: So how about the previous 

19 week? That would be the week of the 6th? How is 

20 the week of the 6th? Oh, that's better. Well, 

21 what about the week that the kids start school? 

22 The following week? The week of the 20th? How's 

23 that? Similar to this week.
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's better.

2 (Pause.)

3 MR. KATZ: Any problems with the week 

4 of the 20th? For Paul and Gen?

5 MEMBER ROESSLER: None here.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay, so the 20th is 

7 Monday. The 22nd and 23rd?

8 CHAIR MELIUS: August 22rd and 23rd. 

9 Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Okay, very good. 

11 That was quick.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Just to recap, in April 

13 I have down the 11th and 12th and 18th and 19th. 

14 Did you settle on a week that week in April?

15 MR. KATZ: I'm sure -- yes, I am sure 

16 I settled. I have the April 11th.

17 (Pause.)

18 MR. KATZ: We are talking about 

19 already scheduled meetings.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: So, April 11th I have 

21 down.

22 (Pause.)

23 MR. KATZ: So, it's April 11th and 
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1 12th, right? That's face-to-face, yes. Any --

2 any other questions?

3 (No audible response.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. No other questions, 

5 then? I just -- let me just note, someone on the 

6 line has their line open. Can you mute your line, 

7 please? Thanks.

8 (Pause.)

9 MR. KATZ: There's still someone with 

10 a -- there is still someone else with the line 

11 open and conversation going on. Press *6 to mute 

12 your line if you don't have a mute button, please? 

13 Thanks.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. I will remind 

15 you, if you could look -- take a chance to look 

16 over your -- the public comments from the last 

17 meeting. We will go over those in the work 

18 session tomorrow. Do that for us. Usually is 

19 fairly quick. Okay, and we will do Work Group 

20 and Subcommittee reports. And I will proceed 

21 alphabetically by Ted's list. Dave, you are up 

22 first for Ames Laboratory.

23 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, we were just 
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1 hearing about Ames. That they're working on 

2 trying to find out whether their 

3 incompatibilities -- or, inabilities to assess 

4 exposure and working on dates on that.

5 So the group hasn't met. And they're 

6 also -- they're also looking up data for some 

7 exposures that they can assess. And as soon as 

8 we get word we will meet. But the group has not 

9 met. And the folks will remember who they are, 

10 or I will remind them when we are ready to have 

11 a meeting. And we should, I hope, have something 

12 fairly soon. Maybe before the next Board 

13 meeting.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Who is responsible for 

15 the report that you are waiting on?

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Oh, Tom Tomes.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. And do we have 

18 a date on Tom?

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No, but LaVon said 

20 that -- earlier this afternoon that he hopes and 

21 they hope that they will have some report before 

22 the next Board meeting. So we will arrange a 

23 meeting -- we will arrange a Working Group 
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1 meeting soon after.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: We will keep the Work 

3 Group Chair and the rest of the Work Group updated 

4 over the next few weeks as we define -- get that 

5 schedule finalized. So -

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. So, 

7 Argonne-East, Brad.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, that's where we 

9 were at the last Board meeting. I believe what 

10 -

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Do you have your mic 

12 on?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: I don't have too much 

14 to report right now. I believe that it is in 

15 SC&A's hands at this time, isn't it?

16 MR. STIVER: We already submitted our 

17 review and test findings.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. And so it's -

19 - it's to NIOSH, then?

20 MEMBER MELIUS: And I think we have 

21 some help coming to the mic, before you dig too 

22 deep a hole here.

23 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.
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1 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it's progressing. 

2 But it's relatively slowly based on work 

3 priorities. Currently we completed the interview 

4 stage. We were able to interview four 

5 individuals. Unfortunately it is very hard to 

6 find four more workers from the very early 

7 period.

8 We are also working on ongoing 

9 evaluation of the documents in the database and 

10 addressing the remaining issues -- or, really all 

11 the issues that are there. The timeline is, I 

12 want to say in the order of months. It's still 

13 some time away before we will issue a report.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you, Lara. And 

15 I think I owe you a older worker -- I was going 

16 to refer you some -- I will follow up on that. 

17 Blockson Chemical?

18 MEMBER MUNN: Nothing happened.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: Nothing expected, I 

20 believe, right? I should know him I am the --

21 (laughter.) 

22 Brookhaven?

23 MEMBER BEACH: Brookhaven, we are 
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1 waiting for TBD revisions and they are expected 

2 out early next year, according to the DCAS work 

3 schedule that was just posted.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Gen, if -- excuse me -

5 - Gen, if you're on the line. Carborundum?

6 MEMBER ROESSLER: I just un-muted. 

7 What did you just say?

8 CHAIR MELIUS: It's Carborundum 

9 update.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: I think we finished 

11 that.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: And is there any other 

13 activity?

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: No, I don't think we 

15 have anything else scheduled right now.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Jim Neton?

17 DR. NETON: I think there is a couple 

18 -- NIOSH showed some responses, I think, on some 

19 Site Profile-type issues on the example dose 

20 reconstructions. So that's in our court. It 

21 should be soon. It's a fairly limited number of 

22 issues.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. So, stay tuned, 
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1 Gen.

2 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. And I would 

3 like to recommend everybody use the mic like 

4 Josie does. I could hear Josie really well, but 

5 most of the rest of you I cannot.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: I second that, too.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, we can't all sit 

8 with Josie is the problem. 

9 This is mine. Dose Reconstruction 

10 Review Methods, we are waiting from a report from 

11 NIOSH. I think it's fairly far along. Like, in 

12 second draft. And so we should be scheduling a 

13 meeting for that between now and the -- before 

14 the next Board meeting. So probably either 

15 September or October time period.

16 Fernald we have heard about Grand 

17 Junction. We will be hearing about Hanford. We 

18 have -- I don't know if Joe, you were on that 

19 call that I didn't hear about until today. So -

20 -

21 (Laughter.)

22 CHAIR MELIUS: So, we are moving 

23 along. I don't know if you want to just update 
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1 on the technical call where we have -- didn't you 

2 -- yes, okay.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Working? Yes.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, fantastic.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we had a --

6 essentially a coordination call, it wasn't a 

7 technical call, on Thursday last week. No, I'm 

8 sorry, Friday last week, on Hanford. And the 

9 notion was to take the issue's matrix that has 

10 lied fallow for quite a while and to get the 

11 principles together -- had Arjun on that call and 

12 Chuck and, I think, LaVon, I think you were on 

13 that call.

14 So really, to compare notes -- make 

15 sure that the status was up-to-date and that we 

16 coordinated. And I think it worked pretty well. 

17 There was a couple actions on the part of NIOSH 

18 to go back and run to ground. You know, some of 

19 this is going back to transcripts of a few years 

20 ago to make sure we get this pinned down properly.

21 And same thing for us. There was a 

22 couple of issues that we had to clarify. But 

23 what is happening at this point is Chuck is 
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1 basically crafting a first cut at a updated 

2 matrix for the Work Group which he will then 

3 deliver to us for comment and for any potential 

4 changes, edits, whatever. So we will get to the 

5 point where everybody is on the same page. And 

6 that will be forwarded to the Work Group for 

7 review and go from there.

8 I think at that point, really, the 

9 issue is going to be what would the -- you know, 

10 in terms of the status being what it is, is there 

11 any sense of priorities, any issues that the Work 

12 Group would like particular focus given? And we 

13 should have all that ready, I would suspect, some 

14 time in September.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: So for fellow Members 

16 of the Work Group, plan for a Work Group call 

17 sometime September, October time period. Again, 

18 reminder to the -- since Sam Glover left, there's 

19 a little time sort of getting caught up. There's 

20 been interviews. There's been activity.

21 But we now just need to get it 

22 coordinated. And I think we -- the main priority 

23 was, I think, what LaVon presented earlier -- was 
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1 getting the issue with whether the SEC, latest 

2 SEC applied to workers other than subcontractors 

3 and so forth. To that. Idaho we have heard 

4 about. Dr. Ziemer, Lawrence Berkeley?

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, nothing to report on 

6 Lawrence Berkeley. Same as last time.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you, Paul. 

8 Josie, Kansas City?

9 MEMBER BEACH: Kansas City's work is 

10 complete. We completed all the TBD issues, SEC 

11 issues. So unless something new comes up, that 

12 Work Group is done.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: So, why don't we put it 

14 to bed and just retire it? Yes. But we can 

15 always call you back from retirement. Los Alamos 

16 we will hear about. Mound? Anything to be --

17 MEMBER BEACH: So Mound -- the 

18 internal TBDs, we took care of those. We are 

19 waiting for the external TBD. And I understand 

20 that should be out in late 2017, unless there is 

21 an update on that which I did not see.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. Nevada Test Site, 

23 Brad?
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: I believe that that 

2 one -- I just got a letter from John Stiver. SC&A 

3 has got that one. NIOSH had a White Paper that 

4 they sent out and that should be bringing it 

5 pretty close to an end. Do you have anything to 

6 add to that, John? Or ---

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, we actually 

8 delivered everything that we were tasked to do at 

9 the January meeting. We are waiting for 

10 responses on those -- the items. That was issue 

11 11 about the beta-gamma ratios in the comment 26. 

12 Then I think in June we have the call with Lynn 

13 Anspaugh and the NIOSH people. And we kind of 

14 resolved some of the issues that he had. So we 

15 are kind of waiting on responses from NIOSH at 

16 this point.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. NIOSH had some 

18 responses to that Work Group meeting that we are 

19 still waiting for.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: So, NIOSH, an update? 

21 We are playing ping pong here, so I am trying to 

22 --

23 DR. NETON: John Stiver is right, we 
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1 do owe a response to their review. And it is --

2 I think we are down to like one issue. Maybe one 

3 and a -- two issues. And it is a beta-gamma ratio 

4 that we are applying. And we are working on it, 

5 ORAU is preparing our response. It should be 

6 done soon.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

8 DR. NETON: It is almost done.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: I don't think it is a 

10 high priority issue, but keep track of it. Oak 

11 Ridge National Laboratory, Gen?

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, the Work Group 

13 has been waiting to hear from NIOSH. And we got 

14 a little hint from LaVon's report today that 

15 there may be some information coming up. I called 

16 Lara Hughes, who is the lead health physicist for 

17 that work. I think I heard Lara on the phone 

18 before. Lara, if you are on, maybe you want to 

19 update us?

20 DR. HUGHES: Yes. With ORNL, we are 

21 working on remaining issues that were left over 

22 after the Evaluation Report was completed. I 

23 think that went up to 1956. The issues mainly 
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1 concerning the internal monitoring. So we have 

2 identified an issue that is internal monitoring 

3 for plutonium 241 that was produced at the Y-12 

4 site. So we will most likely move forward on that

5 at some point. But we have some additional issues 

6 that we are evaluating first to make sure we have 

7 -- if we identify an infeasibility that we can do 

8 an all in one go, we have prepared a draft report 

9 that deals with the monitoring gap for iodine.

10 And we are -- have a rather lengthy 

11 draft report to assess all exotic nuclides and 

12 monitoring methods for those. We are currently 

13 at about 110 pages and counting. This is a draft. 

14 And it will be issued soon, but it has to go 

15 through all the formal review process within 

16 DCAS, so I want to say we are still looking at a 

17 month or two before that is out. And I am not 

18 making any promises at this point because Dr. 

19 Neton hasn't read it -- or, he has read a draft 

20 maybe, but we are hoping to have something 

21 relatively soon.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

23 MEMBER ROESSLER: Thank you, Lara. 
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1 And I think -- so the Work Group may hear 

2 something soon. I want to remind Field, Lemen, 

3 and Valerio are on the Work Group. So we will 

4 keep our ears open.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

6 MEMBER ROESSLER: That's it, Jim.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. I 

8 like the way the hint got fleshed out there. The 

9 110 pages.

10 (Laughter.)

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Next, I think, we 

12 haven't covered Pinellas.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We closed that out 

14 last meeting.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: So is there anything 

16 left over? Can we retire that Work Group for 

17 now?

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think we can 

19 retire that Work Group.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Nothing 

21 personal. Okay. And while you've got your mic 

22 there, Portsmouth/Paducah, K-25.

23 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We are just waiting 
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1 on a couple other factors and then we will have 

2 that one retired out, too.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Who is responsible for 

4 the factors? NIOSH, I know.

5 MEMBER BEACH: That will be after our 

6 Work Group call, though, right?

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Rocky Flats, 

8 Dave?

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Well, we 

10 made a decision earlier -- the Board -- that 

11 individual dose reconstruction could be made at 

12 Rocky Flats. But since then there was real 

13 concern on the Board, by a number of people, about 

14 the magnesium thorium at LANL. 

15 So the folks at NIOSH -- and LaVon 

16 told us about this -- the folks at NIOSH will 

17 continue to be taking a look and perhaps sampling 

18 some of the boxes. And if there is any new --

19 people from the Subcommittee know about this, but 

20 it's worth mentioning to the rest of the Board.

21 So we should say that the Work Group 

22 will continue to exist as long as they're taking 

23 a look at that. And if there is anything that 
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1 comes up that would make us reconsider our 

2 earlier decision, then obviously we will meet and 

3 talk about that.

4 Los Alamos National Laboratory SEC Petition 

5 (1996-2005; Los Alamos, NM) 

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, that's correct. 

7 We've -- actually, the site, Los Alamos National 

8 Lab, put together indices for us. We reviewed 

9 the indices of the -- basically a description of 

10 the documents that they had. It was general at 

11 first. They actually came back with a better, 

12 more detailed. We provided that to the Work 

13 Group. We provided it at SC&A.

14 We all reviewed those, both secure 

15 indices and non-classified indices. And we've 

16 identified roughly about 40 boxes of documents at 

17 Los Alamos National Lab we want to look at. We 

18 had hoped to be able to look at those in the first 

19 -- or, actually around September 11th. However, 

20 DOE funding is limited right now. It's probably 

21 going to be pushed out until the October -- to 

22 the start of the next fiscal year.

23 But we have identified them. We are 
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1 going to review them. SC&A is on board. They 

2 are going to be present when we review them, as 

3 well. So, there you go.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. Good. 

5 Thank you, Greg, for keeping this moving, I hope. 

6 Can't change the fiscal year issue, right? No. 

7 Sandia. Dr. Lemen isn't here. I 

8 think LaVon sort of brought us up to date earlier. 

9 Santa Susana we'll hear about. 

10 Savannah River we will hear about. 

11 Science Issues, David Richardson is 

12 not on the phone. And they did not gather --

13 okay. We did distribute the one report. So we'll 

14 follow up with David on that.

15 SEC Issues, the only activity has been 

16 in conjunction with the Savannah River coworker 

17 models for now. So we will have some -- we're 

18 planning a joint meeting of the SRS and the 

19 Special Exposure Cohort Issues Work Groups 

20 probably coming up hopefully in September or 

21 October. Try to work the calendar and so forth 

22 to make that work, to go over some of the coworker 

23 issues regarding Savannah River. And there are 
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1 several coworker and big reports and lots to do 

2 there, so we will do that.

3 Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction?

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. The 

5 Committee last met on the June 27th. We basically 

6 closed out Sets 14 through 18, with the exception 

7 of three or four cases that are in progress. So 

8 we're waiting for reports from others on that. 

9 And we started full bore with Sets 19 through 21.

10 We continued to find that the 

11 categorization of cases where SC&A and I and DCAS 

12 agree into Category 1 and Category 2, that this 

13 really helps speed up our reviews. So we're 

14 moving ahead on sets 19 through 21. We are 

15 getting ready soon -- and perhaps at the next 

16 meeting, at our next meeting -- to start looking 

17 at the blinds in Set 23, which the groups are 

18 working on. And we will meet on September 28th 

19 for our next meeting.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you, Dave. 

21 Questions? Comments?

22 (No response.)

23 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. So how many sets 
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1 to go? Dave? I forget with this numbering 

2 scheme.

3 MR. KATZ: Well, there are a total of 

4 24 sets. It's a mixture of blinds and ordinary 

5 DR reviews.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: So we are close to 

7 being caught up? Or what's the ---

8 MR. KATZ: Well, we are getting there. 

9 I think early next year we will be about caught 

10 up.

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. 

12 MR. KATZ: The first DR meeting next 

13 year should probably bring us pretty close to 

14 wrapping it up. I mean, there may be some odds 

15 and ends.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: So at what point do we 

17 need to start the --

18 MR. KATZ: I think later this fall we 

19 need to start turning the crank and have a -- so, 

20 I think it would be helpful to wait for your DR 

21 Methods Work Group meeting.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

23 MR. KATZ: And then develop a sample 
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1 based on what you guys decide to do.

2 CHAIR MELIUS: I guess my question. is 

3 December meeting too late? Is December Board 

4 meeting too late? Or we could do it on a call, 

5 I suppose, but -- tricky.

6 MR. KATZ: We could do it with a --

7 yes, we could do it at the December Board meeting, 

8 or we could do it -- yeah.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, that works.

10 MR. KATZ: That would work.

11 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. We just like to 

12 keep your Subcommittee busy, Dave. That's what 

13 the plan is.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: You are doing a 

15 fine job.

16 (Laughter.)

17 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Or we are doing a 

19 fine job.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Yeah, we. Subcommittee 

21 on Procedure Review? Wanda?

22 (Pause.)

23 MEMBER MUNN: Okay, I'm close. We 
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1 continue to focus pretty much on the work that we 

2 are doing with the PERs. We have several that 

3 are ready for us to take a look at now that have 

4 been -- that is, we have reports back ready to do 

5 our final evaluations, I think, on three from the 

6 Y-12 badge issues that we had. That was a 

7 different -- there was a different PER for three 

8 different types of badging issues.

9 And have waiting to go Alcoa, Norton, 

10 we have a finance report from SC&A on Grand 

11 Junction. We have insoluble plutonium. And I 

12 believe that we have just been gifted two 

13 findings from Fernald that we have not yet 

14 addressed.

15 So, at the current moment we are 

16 looking at potential dates. Our kind DFO has 

17 suggested toward the end of November, the early 

18 part of December. I anticipate we will have a 

19 date firm in the next week or so.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Questions? Comments? 

21 Ted, do you?

22 MR. KATZ: I was just going to say, 

23 Paul, if you are on the line, I just -- I need 
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1 good dates for you to wrap that up and schedule 

2 that.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: And speaking of Paul, 

4 TBD-6000?

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, we have two PERs 

6 that are ripe are are ready for the Subcommittees 

7 to review. Don't actually remember which ones 

8 they are off the top of my head, but we have 

9 already scheduled the meeting in September, late 

10 September, to do those two. So that is the status 

11 of what we are doing right now.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

13 Questions for Paul? If not, Henry, 6001, which 

14 has been renamed, but -

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: We have a couple of 

16 sites that we are waiting for reports and some 

17 updated things. But we have not met.

18 COURT REPORTER: Can you speak into 

19 the mic? MEMBER ANDERSON: I'm sorry. 

20 We are waiting -- there are several sites that we 

21 are waiting to look at. I think NIOSH is working 

22 on those. Is that correct? I don't think that 

23 has changed from the last time. No one? Then we 
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1 just have -- we have a few issues that advance on 

2 sites that -- we are waiting for updates and 

3 that's it.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: I know General 

5 Atomics, one is a coworker model that has been 

6 pushed off based on the coworker implementation. 

7 And the fact that the site is in SEC for the 

8 entire operational period. Other than that, I 

9 know we're working -- I think we completed our 

10 issues with NUMEC. Am I correct, Lori? Yes. So 

11 I think that is the main one. Well, actually, 

12 W.R. Grace. There is a -- yeah, and we expect to 

13 have that completed by late this year.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: I knew if we kept 

15 pressing we would get more from you.

16 (Laughter.)

17 MR. STIVER: I just wanted to say that 

18 we still have 20 outstanding findings from our 

19 review of the General Atomics Site Profile that 

20 had been on the docket for several years now. So 

21 it might be good to, at some point, maybe when 

22 W.R. Grace is done, then we could kind of knock 

23 all that stuff down.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Do we have any activity 

2 at Weldon Springs? No. I think that pretty much 

3 finishes us up for that report.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Work Groups done?

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Yeah.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Worker Outreach, can we 

7 agree to put that one --

8 CHAIR MELIUS: We will retire it.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Retire it? Yes.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: Yeah. Okay.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Because it is 

12 still being reported out. Thanks.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: That's why I skipped 

14 it. It was on the list. I was unilaterally 

15 retiring you.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes. Okay, so, we have 

17 15 minutes. I don't think I've got any other 

18 Board business that can't wait for tomorrow. 

19 Okay, so we will take another 15-

20 minute break. I don't want to go into LANL until 

21 the timing. So we will start again -- start 

22 directly at 4:00, we'll start up with the LANL 

23 presentation.
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1 MR. KATZ: Yeah, and for folks that 

2 are here from LANL, if you want to make public 

3 comments would you please sign up in the --

4 there's a book outside on the desk. Please sign 

5 your name there. That will be helpful, thanks.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

7 went off the record at 3:41 p.m. and resumed at 

8 4:02 p.m.)

9 CHAIR MELIUS: We'll first start with 

10 a presentation, an update on the SEC petition for 

11 LANL. Then that will be LaVon Rutherford from 

12 NIOSH will present. There'll be some discussion 

13 of that among the Board Members and questions 

14 about that. Then we'll also have time for the 

15 petitioner, if he wishes to make comments, to 

16 make comments at that time, further deliberation 

17 on what to do.

18 When we're done with that session, 

19 which may last until 5:30, may finish before 

20 then, we will open it up for public comment. We 

21 have some rules on how that takes about, so we'll 

22 explain those, but we'll start that as soon as 

23 that -- as soon as we're ready, so we may start 
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1 it a little bit early.

2 We always start the public comment 

3 period with people commenting relative to this 

4 site, so it'll be to the LANL people, and then 

5 we'll do other people that might wish to comment 

6 about other sites will have to follow them and so 

7 forth. We'll explain the public comment period 

8 just before we start. There are some rules about 

9 that. Ted, anything else?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, just a note, for the 

11 record. There are four Board Members who are 

12 recusing from this session. That includes Phil 

13 Schofield and Loretta Valerio and Paul Ziemer and 

14 John Poston, who's absent today anyway, but just 

15 for the record, thanks.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Joe, too? Okay. 

17 LaVon, go ahead.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Thank you, Dr. 

19 Ziemer -- boy, I keep reverting back to Dr. 

20 Ziemer. Dr. Melius. I think I've done that three 

21 or four times now. I was so practiced before at 

22 Dr. Ziemer.

23 CHAIR MELIUS: (Simultaneous 
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1 speaking) three or four times (Simultaneous 

2 speaking). Dr. Ziemer, by the way, for you 

3 (Simultaneous speaking).

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Was the former chair.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: He's still on the 

6 Board. He's not here today. He will be on the 

7 phone. I'm not insulted by (Simultaneous 

8 speaking).

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: I had a flashback 

10 there. I had a minor flashback. I'm LaVon 

11 Rutherford. I'm a Special Exposure Cohort health 

12 physics team leader for NIOSH, and I will present 

13 the Los Alamos National Lab Addendum. A little 

14 background. The petition was received in April 

15 of 2008. It was qualified in May of 2008. The 

16 Class evaluated was all service support workers 

17 from January 1, 1976 through December 31, 2005. 

18 The Evaluation Report was approved initially in 

19 January of 2009.

20 It was revised in August of 2012, 

21 recommending addition of a Class. This addendum, 

22 which addresses the remaining years, was issued 

23 in April of this year. The Class recommendation 
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1 on Rev 1 was for all employees, from January 1, 

2 1976 through December 31, 1995. The Board took 

3 action on that and agreed with NIOSH, and the 

4 recommendation moved forward to the secretary, 

5 and a Class was added.

6 Additional background. The 

7 identified infeasibility included the inability 

8 to bound unmonitored intakes of exotic alpha 

9 emitters, fission products, activation products, 

10 special tritium compounds, strontium-90 and 

11 thorium-230 and thorium-232. As part of the 

12 revision, we committed to continue to evaluate 

13 these issues for the post-1995 period. The end 

14 date of December 31, 1995 of the Class is based 

15 on the presumption that LANL would be in full 

16 compliance with 10 CFR 835 by then. 10 CFR 835 

17 requires internal dosimetry programs, including 

18 routine bioassay programs, for radiological 

19 workers who, under typical conditions, are likely 

20 to receive a committed effective dose equivalent 

21 of .1 rem or 100 millirem or more from all 

22 occupational radionuclide intakes in a year.

23 Given this requirement, in the absence 
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1 of individual internal dosimetry data, intakes 

2 would be unlikely to have resulted in greater 

3 than .1 rem CEDE, and the infeasibility to 

4 reconstruct dose would not exist. Basically, 

5 what we're saying is if the site's in full 

6 compliance, then individuals that were not 

7 monitored would not exceed 100 millirems CEDE.

8 Since the issuance of Rev. 1 of 

9 SEC-109, NIOSH has sought and received additional 

10 information, documents, and procedures relating 

11 to the post-1995 use of exotic radionuclides. 

12 Work with these radionuclides, especially after 

13 1995, has been sporadic, and there are 

14 corresponding few bioassay data. In November 

15 2015, we took a trip to LANL. That trip included 

16 SC&A, the ORAU Team, and myself. Meetings were 

17 held with the LANL health physics staff, 

18 including managers, dosimetrists, and field 

19 personnel, to better understand how compliance 

20 with 10 CFR 835 was achieved.

21 During this data capture, as well as 

22 interviews, we looked at new documents that were 

23 captured, including RWPs, respirator use, air 
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1 sampling, radiation surveys, HP checklists, 

2 routine monitoring instructions, and external 

3 exposure data.

4 LANL also provided us radiological 

5 policy and procedure documents, background 

6 information on 835 implementation, 

7 organizational charts, non-routine radionuclides 

8 handled by waste management, and a summary of 

9 their dosimetry monitoring program. LANL also 

10 provided us information documents specific to 

11 special tritium compounds.

12 So if a site assesses an operation and 

13 determines that workers are unlikely to receive 

14 100 millirem per year CEDE, dosimetry would not 

15 be required. If you take that into 

16 consideration, each job activity and different 

17 things, if the dosimetry department, the 

18 radiological department does their job and 

19 assesses it appropriately, then personal 

20 monitoring and bioassay would not be required. 

21 Our position is during the 835 era, if a site has 

22 a radiation protection program approved by DOE, 

23 NIOSH will assume compliance, unless 
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1 documentation supports otherwise.

2 NIOSH will focus their evaluations 

3 during this period on internal and external 

4 assessments and incidence reports associated with 

5 10 CFR 835. How do we do that? We look at this 

6 in two perspectives. An SEC perspective is do 

7 the findings identify unmonitored exposures that 

8 may prevent reconstructing exposures to a defined 

9 Class of workers.

10 From a DR perspective, do the findings 

11 identify a programmatic flaw that would suggest 

12 the unmonitored workers could have received 

13 exposures in excess of 100 millirem CEDE. 

14 Therefore, our evaluation in this addendum, we 

15 looked at assessments. We focused on findings, 

16 responses, and corrective actions. We looked at 

17 the non-conformance tracking system for 10 CFR 

18 835 violations. We looked at the site response 

19 and corrective actions. We did the same for the 

20 occurrence reporting system. Did I jump a slide, 

21 or is that correct? I don't know if I did or 

22 not. I don't believe I did. Assessments. In 

23 May 1995, LANL internal assessment of the 
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1 Radiation Protection Program was conducted. They 

2 had one finding associated with administrative 

3 controls for sealed sources and five 

4 observations.

5 Of those, one was relevant to internal 

6 dosimetry, and that was in Observation 4. It 

7 stated that the Radiation Protection Program 

8 Office has not coordinated with support 

9 organizations to implement site-specific 

10 document control and records management programs. 

11 Problems were identified with document control 

12 and distribution of updated procedures.

13 The one finding in the five 

14 observations do not prevent us from doing dose 

15 reconstruction, nor do we consider them as likely 

16 to raise the issue of unmonitored individuals 

17 exceeding 100 millirems per year CEDE. DOE and 

18 NSA conducted an independent review of the 

19 internal dosimetry program at LANL in July of 

20 2004. The stated performance requirements for 

21 the assessment included evaluation of compliance 

22 with 835.702(a), which is actually records 

23 management of personnel monitoring. No findings 
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1 or observations associated with 835.702(a), but 

2 there were three non-compliances noted in the 

3 assessment. However, none of these 

4 non-compliances would like affect our ability to 

5 perform individual dose reconstructions, nor 

6 would they have likelihood of individuals 

7 exceeding the 100 millirem and not being 

8 monitored.

9 We looked at the non-conformance 

10 tracking system. We reviewed the NTS system for 

11 LANL 835 violations, site response, and 

12 corrective actions. Three hundred and 

13 eighty-four reports were captured; ninety-one 

14 were considered potentially relevant. Of those 

15 91, two were considered pertinent to compliance 

16 with 10 CFR 835.702(a). Again, that is records 

17 management of personnel monitoring.

18 NC ID: 652, records non-laboratory 

19 exposure data, was not included in all employee 

20 records for current year lifetime dose. In some 

21 cases, when an employee's previous employer 

22 provided dose information, it was not included in 

23 the employee's current year or lifetime dose. NC 
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1 ID: 1377, the cumulative total effective dose 

2 equivalent received by each individual, as 

3 recorded and reported by LANL, does not include 

4 doses at other locations, as required by 10 CFR 

5 835. Basically, if you have an individual that 

6 worked at another DOE site or another location, 

7 they weren't including it at that time. The 

8 findings for the two NTS reports will not likely 

9 affect NIOSH's ability to perform individual dose 

10 reconstructions.

11 NIOSH considers all relevant data from 

12 all sites for a claimant when performing dose 

13 reconstruction. If a person has covered 

14 employment at two separate sites, we request the 

15 data from both sites. SC&A identified an NTS 

16 report that NIOSH overlooked in reviewing the 

17 reports.

18 I have no idea why we missed this one. 

19 We actually had retrieved it, and it was in there, 

20 but we overlooked it. The report was NC ID: 484. 

21 After we got SC&A's review and we looked at that, 

22 we went back again and we actually identified an 

23 additional one that we wanted to look at, which 
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1 was NC ID: 1219. We looked at both 484 and 1219 

2 under the criteria I previously mentioned. NC 

3 ID: 484 identified a number of deficiencies which 

4 would affect LANL's ability to ensure personnel 

5 with the potential of receiving doses greater 

6 than 100 millirem per year CEDE were monitored 

7 appropriately. The site implemented a number of 

8 programs to ensure this would not happen in the 

9 future.

10 Their corrective actions were 

11 complete in October of 2000, and the PAAA 

12 coordinator for DOE signed off in January of 

13 2001. However, the question came up what about 

14 the individuals during the time period 

15 before -- while the issue was identified, prior 

16 to and up to the point of the corrective actions, 

17 how did LANL address those individuals? We've 

18 requested additional information from LANL as to 

19 what the site concluded concerning the potential 

20 exposures to personnel who were not monitored.

21 We have actually identified -- LANL 

22 has come back and identified they do have that 

23 data. Actually, they know where that data is. 
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1 It's at the Denver Federal Records Center, and 

2 we're working to retrieve that information. That 

3 is one of our commitments to the Work Group, to 

4 provide that update. NC ID: 1219 identified a 

5 deficiency where some workers at TA-55 were not 

6 on the appropriate bioassay program. Some 

7 personnel were on less conservative bioassay 

8 program than required. You can see 23 of the 93. 

9 Believe it or not, this was caused by a computer 

10 software glitch. The corrective actions for NC 

11 ID: 1219 included computer problems were 

12 corrected and tested.

13 Workers were placed on the appropriate 

14 bioassay program, and line managers were reminded 

15 of the requirements to review dosimetry

16 requirements for their employees. NIOSH 

17 concludes that although the non-compliance 

18 occurred, corrective actions ensuring personnel 

19 were on the appropriate bioassay and bioassay 

20 occurring, no personnel with the potential to 

21 receive -- no unmonitored personnel with the 

22 potential to receive 100 millirem CEDE.

23 We looked at the Occurrence Reporting 
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1 System. We reviewed DOE ORPS or LANL 835 

2 violations. We identified a total of 159 reports 

3 in our initial search. Of the 159 reports, 64 

4 were deemed potentially relevant. NIOSH reviewed 

5 the 64 in detail and found no findings pertinent 

6 to 10 CFR 835. After we did that initial 

7 search -- you would think when you're 

8 looking -- doing a search, if you do the search 

9 by site, you would get all the reports. However, 

10 that's not true for the current reporting system. 

11 We actually -- if you search by area, such as 

12 TA-55, or by contractor name, you can get 

13 additional reports, or the number of reports can 

14 be greater. After issuing the addendum, we 

15 continued to search ORPS for more occurrence 

16 reports.

17 However, after further investigation, 

18 we concluded that if there is an 835 violation, 

19 there would be an NTS report. Based on NIOSH's 

20 review for dose reconstruction of unmonitored 

21 workers, based on NIOSH's review of the LANL 

22 approved Radiation Protection Program, internal 

23 and external assessments, the NTS reporting 
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1 findings and occurrence reporting, NIOSH 

2 concludes that intakes for unmonitored workers 

3 with access to controlled areas were unlikely to 

4 have resulted in a CEDE of 100 millirem per year.

5 Bounding intakes -- our dose 

6 reconstruction methodology. Bounding intake 

7 quantities corresponding to 100 millirems CEDE 

8 may define as 2 percent of Stochastic ALI or 

9 annual limit on intake. An unmonitored worker 

10 can be assumed exposed to 2 percent of the 

11 Stochastic ALI per year, with potential -- year 

12 from potential radionuclides. For the purpose of 

13 dose reconstruction, the radionuclide and lung 

14 clearance Class selected for each year's intake 

15 would be the one resulting in the highest dose to 

16 the organ of interest.

17 Again, the specific 2 percent SALI 

18 nuclide mixture resulting in the highest dose to 

19 the organ of interest at the time of cancer 

20 diagnosis would be the selected intake. So we 

21 take the 100 millirem CEDE; we figure out the 

22 intake that would give that CEDE; we use that to 

23 define, to determine what the dose to the organ 
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1 of concern would be.

2 Our example DR, White, non-Hispanic 

3 male, born in 1965, starts employment at LANL in 

4 January 1, '96, ends in 12/31 of 2016, and he's 

5 diagnosed with cancer on 12/31, his final day of 

6 employment. We must have adjusted the 

7 sensitivity on that.

8 You can look at this table. It's 

9 really hard to read. I put this together, and I 

10 showed it to the Work Group, as well. Everybody 

11 looks at 100 millirems CEDE and they think wow, 

12 that's not much dose, but again, that's a 

13 distribution -- whole body. We're looking at a 

14 specific organ of concern. If you look at using 

15 that 100 millirems CEDE and take the bone 

16 surface -- you'll also notice that the year is 

17 1996 to 2009. 2010, we have a separation. That's 

18 because the DACs changed for 10 CFR 835, which 

19 changed some of the results that we had.

20 But again, bone surface, you can see 

21 20.012 rem, with a 22 percent PoC. Lung, as well, 

22 you can get as high as 31 percent PoC for an 

23 individual that never smoked. We also looked at 
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1 special tritium compounds. This was another area 

2 of concern. Potential dosimetric issues 

3 associated with STCs, including stable metal 

4 tritides and organically bound tritium, were not 

5 formally recognized or addressed by LANL or DOE 

6 until the late 1990s.

7 In 1998, LANL issued a dose assessment 

8 for tritium internal dosimetry and bioassay 

9 programs, which specifically addressed bioassay 

10 for special tritium compounds. The potential for 

11 significant exposures to special tritium 

12 compounds were small, and dose assessments were 

13 rarely deemed necessary. Bioassay data specific 

14 to special tritium compounds are rare for the 

15 entire period of the evaluation. NIOSH can bound 

16 unmonitored intakes of STCs in the same manner as 

17 the intakes of other rare nuclides for which 

18 internal dosimetry data is lacking. By assuming 

19 intakes to unmonitored workers do not exceed 2 

20 percent of the Stochastic ALI, which is 

21 equivalent to 2 percent of the Stochastic ALI for 

22 tritiated water vapor, then when you use the 

23 methods outlined in OTIB-66.
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1 We also looked at petitioner concerns, 

2 one of those associated with 10 CFR 835. A 

3 preliminary notice of violation was issued on 

4 February 16, 2007, by DOE. The PNOV included 

5 radiological protection violations for 

6 monitoring. The PNOV noted that the Office of 

7 Independent Oversight, in 2005 inspection, found 

8 that LANL failed to adequately establish 

9 personnel and area monitoring for TA-55 for 

10 hazards of neptunium and radium nuclides, other 

11 than uranium, plutonium, americium and tritium.

12 NIOSH reviewed LANL's response and 

13 corrective actions. We also looked at the NTS 

14 reports related to this. NIOSH also asked LANL 

15 for information on potential neptunium 

16 exposure -- on this potential neptunium exposure. 

17 LANL indicated the 100 gram quantities fell below 

18 their monitoring threshold, as documented in 

19 their internal dosimetry Technical Basis 

20 Document. Therefore, they have come up with a 

21 specific quantity where they deem it necessary 

22 that individuals could exceed the 100 millirem 

23 CEDE, so activities above that specific quantity, 
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1 individuals would be put on the bioassay program, 

2 below that specific quantity, they would not.

3 After reviewing all available 

4 information, NIOSH finds that unmonitored workers 

5 involved in these operations were unlikely to 

6 have received intakes that would have resulted in 

7 100 millirem CEDE. Therefore, our methodology 

8 described earlier would bound intakes for 

9 unmonitored workers associated with this 

10 activity.

11 For the period of January 1, 1996 

12 through December 31, 2005, NIOSH finds that it 

13 has access to sufficient information to estimate 

14 the maximum radiation dose for every type of 

15 cancer for which radiation doses are 

16 reconstructed and could have been incurred in 

17 plausible circumstances by any member of the 

18 Class, or we can estimate radiation doses for 

19 members of the Class more precisely than an 

20 estimate of maximum dose. Oops. Sorry. Summary 

21 slide. Again, what I just stated, dose 

22 reconstruction is feasible for the entire period 

23 of January 1, 1996 through December 31, 2005. 
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1 Questions?

2 CHAIR MELIUS: Board Members with 

3 questions for LaVon? Brad.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, LaVon, you were 

5 saying that it's feasible for you to be able to 

6 do this. This is using --

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Brad, can you talk 

8 directly into the mic? I know that's awkward, 

9 but -- face us. Face me.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Here's the 

11 thing. You're saying that you guys can do that 

12 because the implementation of 835, and you're 

13 taking for it that nobody went over that 100 

14 millirem, that you -- that has been put out there. 

15 Even if they don't, you're saying that if there's 

16 no data for them, they couldn't have gone over 

17 the 100 millirem, is that correct?

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: What we're saying is 

19 if the site was in compliance with 10 CFR 835, 

20 not counting NC ID: 484, which we have not 

21 reviewed yet, that we've already mentioned needs 

22 further review, but if the site's in compliance, 

23 which we've seen so far, then individuals that 
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1 were not monitored would not exceed the 100 

2 millirem per year CEDE.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, and along with 

4 that --

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: I want to point out, 

6 though -- because I know where you're going with 

7 that, but I want to point out if information is 

8 presented to us, we will look at that information 

9 to see if that did not occur, or if that occurred.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Granted, but you're 

11 also looking at internal audits from the people 

12 that are monitoring that, that is saying yes, 

13 we're all good. The only way that you're going 

14 to find this out is an external comes in and 

15 audits them, as we have seen at LANL, Mound, and 

16 Savannah River. I don't see how you can use this. 

17 I really don't. Because there's no way for us to 

18 be able to take and positively verify that they 

19 were in compliance. You can't do it.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay, one of those 

21 was an external assessment by DOE and NNSA that 

22 we've identified. The other one, which SC&A 

23 identified, was an internal assessment, but it 
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1 was done by external individuals. That's the one 

2 we have to review, as I had mentioned.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Other Board Member 

4 questions? I have one question. Is this the 

5 first time this issue has come before the Board?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, it is.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: You believe it has.

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: I want to point out 

9 this is not only the -- Sandia National Lab, as 

10 I mentioned earlier in my presentation, Lawrence 

11 Livermore National Lab -- there are a number of 

12 sites coming down the road that the 10 CFR 835 

13 period is under evaluation. The fact of the 

14 matter is that in a lot of circumstances, you are 

15 not going to have the personal monitoring data if 

16 the site determined that they would not exceed 

17 the 100 millirem CEDE. You have to take that 

18 into consideration.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: But it's a site by site 

20 evaluation?

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Any other Board Member 

23 questions at this point? We'll open it up again. 
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1 We have the Work Group and the SC&A presentations 

2 to hear first, so don't go too far away, LaVon.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Actually, can Joe go 

4 ahead and go, and then I'll go after Joe? I think 

5 that's -- does that work?

6 MR. FITZGERALD: That's fine.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: So just for the record, 

8 Josie Beach is the head of the Work Group that's 

9 been reviewing this. Joe is from the Board's 

10 external technical contractor.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Good afternoon, Joe 

12 Fitzgerald. As Dr. Melius indicated, I am with 

13 SC&A. I support the Work Group on Los Alamos. 

14 We reviewed the ER addendum, provided a 

15 memorandum that the full Board has a copy of, 

16 which I believe is also available on the back 

17 tables for anyone that wants to review that.

18 I'm not going to go through -- there's 

19 some preliminaries about the addendum, which 

20 LaVon has already covered, so I'm not going to go 

21 through that, really, and just get to what we 

22 did. This is certainly a different review. This 

23 is not so much of a technical review or technical 
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1 issues, per se. It's really looking at sort of 

2 the adoption of a fundamental policy. So to some 

3 extent, we were wary about getting into what 

4 would be a Board deliberation on the merits of 

5 the policy, but wanted to provide -- and did so 

6 in the memorandum -- some considerations that go 

7 into, maybe, the background and the history of 

8 how these policies were developed and some of the 

9 implementation questions that arose.

10 I don't think we have a real problem 

11 with the concept of using full compliance with 

12 835 and all the elements of that as being a basis 

13 for applying the 100 millirem as, I think, NIOSH 

14 has proposed. But the issue that we come into is 

15 this question of the site certifying, essentially 

16 certifying full compliance, as of January 1, 

17 1986.

18 They had some QA provided by the field 

19 office and some program office representatives, 

20 but essentially, it was the site certifying 

21 against the elements of 835 that they met those 

22 elements and were in full compliance as of that 

23 date. The issue I think we raised in our memo to 
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1 the Board is that it's clear from that 

2 history -- and we can look back at it. Actually, 

3 I kind of lived it. I had a firsthand, front-row 

4 seat. The implementation against these policies, 

5 whether it was 548011, 1989, RadCon manual later, 

6 or 835, when it was promulgated, I think the 

7 history is that the implementation, the actual 

8 putting these actual requirements into place, not 

9 simply a paper certification, but actually 

10 changing the way you do business at some of the 

11 sites took time.

12 These practices were embedded deeply 

13 into how, in this case, Rad Programs were 

14 implemented. They didn't change on a dime, even 

15 with the onus of Price-Anderson enforcement. It 

16 took time. Not all sites, but some sites, the 

17 implementation did take some years, several years 

18 to actually put in place.

19 Certainly, the enforcement actions, 

20 the compliance self-assessments, the field 

21 representatives of the Defense Board, there was 

22 a lot of leverage being applied for the sites to 

23 actually change practices to meet expectations, 
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1 not simply the interpretation of a site of what 

2 those expectations are, but actually what the 

3 Department, as a whole, felt 835 needed to be 

4 implemented. The reason I raise this is because 

5 there was a number of milestones in DOE's history 

6 where it wasn't the standards, it wasn't the 

7 policies. Heck, DOE had some very good policies 

8 early on. It was the actual execution against 

9 those policies and the accountability of the 

10 managers and the workers to implementing the 

11 expectations fully that turned out to be the 

12 issue.

13 I know Paul Ziemer's on the phone. We 

14 both went through the Tiger Team era. I led two 

15 Tiger Teams. The Tiger Teams were -- this is 

16 1989 and '90, so it actually does fall in that 

17 time frame. They were designed as a bit of a 

18 shock treatment throughout the complex to look at 

19 the accountability of sites to meeting the 

20 compliance requirements across the board, 

21 environment safety and health.

22 The concern was -- and this was born 

23 out of the Rocky Flats raids and the West Valley 
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1 raids -- was that we had the requirements, but 

2 the sites were not implementing them fully. They 

3 weren't actually carrying them out, and there 

4 were gaps in performance. There was gaps in 

5 compliance. These weren't being recognized and 

6 acted upon. Our concern relative to this issue 

7 is yes, there was a certification of full 

8 compliance as of that date, but foregoing an 

9 active review of whether or not, in this case, 

10 dosimetry programs important for dose 

11 reconstruction were being fully implemented, or 

12 implemented effectively, that one could base dose 

13 reconstruction on them, and presuming that this 

14 is all resolved by that compliance certification 

15 on January 1, 1996 is one that we think is quite 

16 a leap.

17 Actually, looking at the -- we only 

18 have several data points. We didn't look further 

19 than the Savannah River and Los Alamos, but we're 

20 finding instances of fairly significant 

21 gaps -- what appear to be gaps in how bioassay 

22 participation was being run, how enrollments were 

23 being done, how RWPs were being satisfied.
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1 There certainly appears to be missing 

2 bioassays in those instances. The question to 

3 ask is if implementation against 835 is falling 

4 short significantly in those cases, then how does 

5 one have confidence that implementation against 

6 the other tenets of 835, including the 100 

7 millirem, were also being satisfied, as well? I 

8 think the question of is there enough confidence 

9 in that milestone that you have, in fact, full 

10 compliance and implementation on that date, or 

11 did that happen further down the pike, as 

12 experience was gained with 835, and as actions to 

13 hold sites accountable, which happened, 

14 certainly, throughout the '90s, is that milestone 

15 of confidence of full compliance, did that come 

16 later, actually, than the very first date, which 

17 is that -- when they put the paper out, when the 

18 835 Rule became effective.

19 It was that context we actually went 

20 through and provided some of the considerations. 

21 Reviewing the oversight findings, I think we had 

22 discussion of looking at non-compliances. I 

23 think that turns out to be a fairly blunt 
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1 instrument, particularly when you're talking 

2 about bringing outsiders in to look at your 

3 bioassay program.

4 A lot of what you're doing in those 

5 dosimetry programs may not be something that

6 could be -- where you have non-conformances 

7 identified within a couple, two, three days of an 

8 on-site review. I think a lot of cases, when 

9 you're talking about oversight reviews, even 

10 Price-Anderson reviews, relying on the site 

11 self-assessments to frankly divulge where they 

12 have issues and to bring those issues to DOE's 

13 attention, that's not necessarily going to be 

14 even. You're not going to have all the sites 

15 responding uniformly. I think you had some very 

16 good examples in Savannah River, based on their

17 concerns on their internal dose assessment 

18 program.

19 That was basically borrowed from the 

20 Mound experience. They did, in fact, identify 

21 issues and brought that to DOE's attention, but 

22 you're not going to necessarily have that across 

23 all the DOE sites, where you're going to have a 
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1 self-awareness of what's wrong with your program 

2 and the ability to actually identify those 

3 issues.

4 Using non-compliance reviews, using 

5 non-compliance findings as the instrument to know 

6 whether or not there's issues at sites after 

7 1995, I think, is an issue that needs to be 

8 discussed by the Board. I think that's a pretty 

9 significant move. What we did, basically, is we 

10 did a review of the certification process. I 

11 think the process was pretty thorough. I think, 

12 as NIOSH pointed out, they did bring a team in. 

13 They did look at the site, in terms of where 

14 things stood, and they did make some findings 

15 that were corrected before that date. On the 

16 various and sundry tracking systems, we pretty 

17 much followed the same scope as NIOSH did and 

18 looked at -- we looked at the NTS. We looked at 

19 ORPS. We looked at the Defense Board reviews.

20 There's an extensive scope of Defense 

21 Board reviews of Los Alamos. They have a site 

22 representative at Los Alamos. Generally, we 

23 didn't find anything other than this one NC ID: 
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1 484, which really focused on a non-conformist 

2 that had implications that were substantive 

3 to -- that would be substantive to dose 

4 reconstruction. It's unclear, and I think it's 

5 really good that NIOSH is looking at that -- it's 

6 unclear what the full significance of that is.

7 But the one thing I would point out to 

8 the Board, and I think LaVon was mentioning that 

9 they're looking for whatever sampling results 

10 that Los Alamos might have that would shed some 

11 light on whether these people were resampled, or 

12 whether there's any additional information. I 

13 think the implications are much broader than 

14 that. I think this was a snapshot of a 

15 non-compliance that took place at this particular 

16 point in time. They looked at one RWP, for 

17 example, and found a number of these support 

18 workers did not need bioassays. But the real 

19 question is how long did that persist? To what 

20 extent do you have a history of incomplete 

21 bioassays that date going back in time before 

22 that point? This was 1999.

23 The broader question is if the program 
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1 was dysfunctional, as identified in 1999, on this 

2 non-compliance, the fact that there might be some 

3 sampling data that they did for that particular 

4 RWP that was identified in the non-compliance, to 

5 me, is just the tip of the iceberg.

6 The real question is going back in 

7 time, what does that say about the completeness 

8 of that bioassay program, and can you rely on 

9 that bioassay program if you had to, in terms of 

10 dose reconstruction, or not, and does that 

11 undercut the premise of assuming that you had 

12 full compliance and you wouldn't have to look at 

13 any particular issues of completeness beyond the 

14 fact that they should have monitored at 100 

15 millirem? I think it's a broader question than 

16 just whether or not there's samples for that 

17 particular time period. I think LaVon went 

18 through the scope of that review. It's a pretty 

19 extensive scope. They made ten findings, 

20 covering everything from improper enrollment of 

21 the key subcontractor site, the non-adherence to 

22 participation in job-specific bioassays, and the 

23 improper filling out the checklist.
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1 This was a three-day review, as I 

2 recall, so this was a very specific, not too 

3 extensive sampling, but the sampling found these 

4 issues during that one-week review. The other 

5 thing we looked at were -- I think Josie can get 

6 into this to some extent. The Work Group and the 

7 series -- this is several years' review of 

8 various issues that were pertinent to the 

9 preceding SEC period.

10 This is the one from 1970 -- is it 

11 '75? I think it's '75 to '95 or '72 to '95, there 

12 was a number of issues revolving around mixed 

13 activation products, mixed fission products, 

14 exotics, and certainly a number of questions 

15 about whether there was sufficient monitoring 

16 data, sufficient record keeping to support dose 

17 reconstruction. The conclusion was no, there was 

18 not. The issue that I think the Work Group 

19 certainly has, at this point, is this presumption 

20 basically preempts any further review of those 

21 issues into -- except the Site Profile issues, 

22 perhaps -- into the post-'95 period, even though 

23 they certainly were significant before '96. I 
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1 highlight one set of issues involving MAPs, mixed 

2 activation products.

3 These were ones that certainly were of 

4 significance for the previous SEC discussion. So 

5 what do we do with those issues? How are they 

6 addressed, and are they still pertinent? They 

7 were sort of hanging there since 2013-14. For 

8 continuity's sake, I think that's another 

9 implication that the Board needs to look at, as 

10 well. Finally, on neptunium, there, I think, is 

11 a question of clarification, in terms of the 

12 operation that involved neptunium.

13 It's not clear that the operations 

14 that figured in the conclusion that NIOSH had 

15 were all the operations. I think it would be 

16 useful for the secure inventory that DOE 

17 maintains to be consulted just to provide that 

18 assurance that you have all the operations that 

19 were important for neptunium covered, and that 

20 the conclusion reached about the less than 100 

21 millirem and whatnot are all applicable there. I 

22 think that's pretty much it. In terms of 

23 considerations and conclusions, again, I think we 
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1 point out, and I think NIOSH fully agrees, it's 

2 an important precedent for all of these sites 

3 that are reviewed under EEOICPA. I think, again, 

4 the considerations that we discussed in the 

5 review are ones that this Board will have to 

6 address.

7 I think the significance 

8 non-compliances -- and these are only for ones 

9 that we're familiar with on LANL, Mound, and 

10 Savannah River in the late '90s -- illustrate 

11 that implementation took time. This did 

12 not -- this wasn't full compliance from Day 1. 

13 There are issues. I know NIOSH has pointed out 

14 that these are considerations that they're going 

15 to tackle, in terms of determining whether 1996 

16 applies or not.

17 By the same token, if you have enough 

18 of those exceptions, doesn't that argue that 

19 maybe 1996 is not the milestone that it is 

20 purported to be? Maybe that milestone's further 

21 up in time. I'm just saying that if there's 

22 enough exceptions, a presumption, by itself, 

23 doesn't carry a whole lot of weight anymore. The 
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1 whole concept of a presumption is that there's 

2 confidence that you have full compliance, and 

3 that's supported. But if there's enough 

4 exceptions, one would argue maybe it's not a 

5 valid presumption to make at that particular 

6 time.

7 I think that's something that, on 

8 balance, needs to be reviewed. We didn't look 

9 across DOE, but just the three examples we looked 

10 at, I think, were pretty bracing, in terms of 

11 those considerations. That's pretty much it. I 

12 think this last one I already talked about. Any 

13 questions on that before I leave?

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Board Members, 

15 questions? Wanda.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Joe, you've implied that 

17 there's no evidence of implementation when we 

18 talk about compliance, or at least you've 

19 inferred -- at least, I have inferred, from what 

20 you've said, that you have no knowledge, and 

21 there is no indication of when full 

22 implementation was achieved here. You've talked 

23 about the DOE program, as a whole, and I can 
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1 understand that there are variations in site 

2 accomplishment of implementation. But what I 

3 hear is you cannot provide any evidence that 

4 there was not implementation in a timely manner. 

5 You can point to one or two issues which have 

6 been raised by the agency, but I also hear the 

7 implication that you can't rely on internal 

8 audits for anything, and you can't rely on 

9 external audits for anything because they're not 

10 here long enough to know what they're doing, and 

11 they're outside and don't know.

12 That leaves me with a question that is 

13 the converse of those, which is what would a 

14 reasonable person assume to be a valid audit? 

15 When did such a thing occur? How does one 

16 identify when an implementation that was adequate 

17 for our purposes here took place?

18 MR. FITZGERALD: I think I would 

19 answer that to say that the site rad program 

20 is -- that's where the knowledge resides, as far

21 as how business is being done. When you bring 

22 outside experts in, I think that provides an 

23 outside perspective to balance against what may 
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1 be some inbred or safety culture issues that you 

2 think you're doing everything right, but you need 

3 an outside perspective to help you understand. I 

4 think that's what Los Alamos did when they 

5 brought in Savannah River and MJW from Mound, 

6 because those two sites had gone through a 

7 Price-Anderson review just previously, '98 and 

8 '97, where gaps were found in their job-specific 

9 bioassay program. I think LANL did the right 

10 thing bringing that outside perspective in.

11 My only point was writ large, across 

12 all the DOE sites, to expect that there would be 

13 a self-awareness that each site would be tracking 

14 the experience at other sites and to be 

15 self-aware enough to know if their program may 

16 actually -- even though they believe in their 

17 program as being, in their own view, implemented 

18 effectively and in compliance with 835, to invite 

19 in an outside perspective, that might actually 

20 show otherwise.

21 I think the concern there would be 

22 perhaps at Los Alamos, and maybe another site, 

23 would have that self-awareness and that 
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1 motivation to do so. Some of this motivation is 

2 you don't want to be in the shoes of a site that 

3 just got a Level 1 violation for bioassay 

4 deficiency. You certainly want to get ahead of 

5 that curve and bring in that perspective and 

6 self-report as soon as possible. But 

7 nonetheless, looking across all the DOE sites 

8 that we're looking at under this program, I don't 

9 know if that expectation that all the sites would 

10 do that, and by adopting a presumption, you may 

11 be missing instances or programs where the gaps 

12 were perhaps very similar, but weren't picked up 

13 because the programs involved would not have done 

14 that kind of review.

15 The issue I'm getting to is that 

16 relying on strictly non-compliances, 

17 Price-Anderson or that kind over oversight 

18 scheme, to identify gaps that might be pertinent 

19 to dose reconstruction, under this program, I 

20 think you may fall short. You may not, in fact, 

21 catch the kind of issues that would be important 

22 to catch.

23 Los Alamos, if it did not invite in 
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1 Savannah River and MJW, may not have understood 

2 the scope of the gaps that they had in their 

3 job-specific bioassay program. I don't want to 

4 get ahead of this. All I have seen is the NTS 

5 summary. What I think LaVon is doing, 

6 appropriately, is getting all the details from 

7 the lab that would fill in a lot of the history 

8 on this thing. That's one element. My other 

9 concern is if you get into a regulatory context, 

10 you're going to say if I can find -- if I find 

11 out that the lab did some sampling right after 

12 this NOV and was able to establish that these 

13 CTWs, construction trade workers, who did not 

14 leave a bioassay, but they are, in fact, 

15 resampled and found to have no intakes -- my 

16 concern is that success could be declared not 

17 just by Los Alamos, in that instance, but by this 

18 program.

19 When, in fact, the implication is that 

20 program wasn't working. Even if that one RWP was 

21 resolved by resampling of those workers, it 

22 doesn't answer the question about all the workers 

23 and the RWPs that preceded it, from 19 whatever 
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1 up to 1999. What about all those bioassays? How 

2 would one establish the completeness of those?

3 Those are the kinds of things that 

4 would concern me. If you think about it, you're 

5 relying on an NOV that was based on Los Alamos 

6 taking the initiative, in order to establish 

7 whether or not full compliance was in place at 

8 Los Alamos. If that one initiative wasn't taken, 

9 the presumption would have pretty much been there 

10 everything was fine. That's kind of where I'm 

11 coming from on the regulatory front. If you go 

12 that way, you're making a lot of assumptions 

13 about how things work. I think in reality, a lot 

14 of this is driven by the sites, and not all the 

15 sites would do it the same way. That was my only 

16 perspective. This hard question is what you all 

17 have to wrestle with.

18 I want to point out again, this is 

19 kind of a policy call. I think what we're all 

20 trying to provide is grist for the mill. These 

21 are considerations. Firstly, if it's full 

22 compliance, and the site, in fact, is adhering to 

23 requirements of 835 in totality, I don't have any 
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1 problem with that particular premise. I don't 

2 have a particular problem with that particular 

3 premise, that you can rely on the 100 millirem.

4 But I think the experience at the 

5 sites, particularly in the '90s and '80s, is that 

6 just isn't the way things went in a very practical 

7 way. This is sort of looking at the concept 

8 versus the empirical. Is there a way to look at 

9 the actual reality of performance and what 

10 happened versus the concept of applying this 

11 process? Again, I think there's some disparity 

12 there. That's all I would point out.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Joe, you're well spoken, 

14 and you make your points well, but I did not hear 

15 any more facts in that than I heard beforehand. 

16 What I heard were more if, might have, may have.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me point out, 

18 too, that we're a creature of the Board. Quite 

19 frankly, we weren't tasked to do a DOE-wide 

20 canvassing of implementation against 835 and 

21 whether there's a history of non-compliances or 

22 self-assessment findings across the sites.

23 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly my point. 
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1 There's no --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: We were asked to 

3 review what NIOSH had proposed. Based on what we 

4 could look at -- again, we had Savannah River. 

5 By way of Savannah River, we had Mound. We 

6 certainly had the Los Alamos, in terms of the 

7 ORPS and everything else.

8 In all the cases that we've looked 

9 at -- and I agree; it's a sample size of three, 

10 at this point, but in those three cases we found 

11 instances of what I would consider pretty 

12 prominent non-conformances against 835, or in the 

13 case of Savannah River, 820, but again, 835 was 

14 deferred on that one, that involved the bioassay 

15 program. I think that's pretty relevant. Even 

16 though the sample size is three, that's pretty 

17 much three out of three. I think that raises 

18 some concerns. You could broaden that scope, but

19 that's up to the Board. I think the real question 

20 you're raising is the concept of doing this 

21 versus the empirical evidence.

22 Am I right? The empirical 

23 evidence -- I'm just saying the empirical 
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1 evidence is, frankly, what we could look at in 

2 these particular sites, where you have experience 

3 past 1995. The other sites that we've done under 

4 the program, we have not really gone that far in 

5 time, as it turns out.

6 MEMBER MUNN: What I'm saying -- and 

7 this is the last time I'll probe you on this. As 

8 a matter of fact, I don't expect any further 

9 answer. The point that I'm trying to make is the 

10 information that we've seen from the presentation 

11 here was based on the facts of the information 

12 that we have, and we have considerable 

13 information. What I am hearing is many questions 

14 about what ifs and, as I said before, might have, 

15 may have, but I have not heard any empirical 

16 evidence -- your words -- to tell me when this 

17 implementation could have been assumed. Because 

18 we don't assume here unless we absolutely have 

19 no --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: We're talking about 

21 a --

22 MEMBER MUNN: -- empirical evidence.

23 MR. FITZGERALD: We're talking about 
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1 a presumption of compliance. That is an 

2 assumption, by itself.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Based on the evidence at 

4 hand. I don't see -- we're going around in 

5 circles here.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Wanda, you've made your 

7 point.

8 MEMBER MUNN: That's enough. I've 

9 made my point. Thank you, Joe.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: You both have made your 

11 points. I think we all understand them on that. 

12 Anybody else have questions from the Board?

13 MEMBER BEACH: No, I didn't put 

14 together a slide presentation because I knew we 

15 had two. This will just stand as my Work Group 

16 report. If you recall -- first, I'll point out 

17 the Work Group Members are myself, Brad Clawson, 

18 Dr. Lockey, and Wanda Munn. Our last Work Group 

19 meeting was in 2012. We met on August 15th to 

20 review the Evaluation Report. It is SEC-00109, 

21 that was issued on April 24, 2017. The Work 

22 Group's discussion centered around the Evaluation 

23 Report and the SEC cutoff date of December 31, 
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1 1995.

2 I'm not going to give you any new 

3 information that you didn't hear from Joe and 

4 from LaVon. I'm just going to key on some points 

5 that the Work Group keyed in on. First of all, 

6 we questioned bioassay data and the data gaps. 

7 The Non-Compliance Report 484, based on the LANL 

8 internal dose assessment that was conducted by 

9 representatives from Savannah River, MJW 

10 Corporation, LANL Rad Protection Service Group, 

11 and the Quality Assurance Group, that report 

12 was -- it was a three-day look, on March 22nd 

13 through the 25th.

14 That was in 1999. I will go back to 

15 this evaluation is from '96 to 2005, with that 

16 cutoff date of 1995. I just want that in your 

17 mind. This report was done in 1999. It was a 

18 very small scale survey conducted over those 

19 three days. They found serious issues, ten 

20 non-compliance issues, three of which -- and I 

21 know you heard this earlier -- three impaired 

22 LANL's ability to monitor individuals. We've 

23 been told that in '95, the cutoff date, or 
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1 starting in '96, that monitoring for those 

2 individuals could be done. So in '99, we had 

3 serious issues.

4 Corrective actions for those issues 

5 were closed in 2000. Some of the examples 

6 included issuing new or revising eight of the rad 

7 practice procedures. Those are the procedures 

8 that, it was quoted earlier, is what, in 1996, 

9 were up to snuff, so that everybody was covered. 

10 They re-issued those and rewrote them.

11 Some of those included development of 

12 LANL-wide dosimetry enrollment criteria, 

13 web-based dosimetry participation notification 

14 program to ensure better management of worker 

15 bioassay participation, facility-specific 

16 dosimetry matrices. This brings into question 

17 the compliance and implementation of 835 in 1995 

18 and LANL's ability to ensure personnel were 

19 monitored appropriately. It's unlikely, and 

20 can't be verified, the 100 millirem criterion 

21 under 835 for individual monitoring. I realize 

22 NIOSH is going to do some more work. They're 

23 going to come back to the Work Group. We're not 
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1 finished with that. Those are the issues that 

2 need to be addressed. Neptunium is also a 

3 monitoring question that remains unanswered. Of 

4 course, we had a Site Profile White Paper that 

5 came out prior to our Work Group meeting.

6 That is on hold until after the SEC 

7 completion. Then Joe brought up the mixed 

8 fission, which was the last SEC that ended in 

9 '95. There are some questions remaining. I know 

10 we do have some petitioner concerns that we're 

11 going to look at and address. That's my report. 

12 Thank you.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you, Josie. I'd 

14 like to now hear from the petitioner, if they 

15 wish to speak.

16 MR. EVASKOVICH: Good afternoon. My 

17 name is Andrew Evaskovich. I'm the petitioner 

18 for SEC-00109. I just want to hit on some issues 

19 that came up during the Work Group meeting and 

20 some other issues to argue against the 

21 presumption. One of the issues was phoswich 

22 detectors and germanium detectors. The Tiger 

23 Team reports indicate that there were two 
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1 phoswich detectors for measuring plutonium and 

2 americium in the lungs. They weren't state of 

3 the art. This is on Page 4-785. Further, the 

4 Division is hindered in conducting its programs 

5 and supplying technical support as a result of 

6 lack of facilities and equipment and other 

7 resources.

8 An example of the difficulty 

9 experienced by the Health Physics Measurement 

10 Group is obtaining a germanium detector array for 

11 lung measurement on personnel working with 

12 plutonium. That was on 4-773. The key concern 

13 that I have is the symptoms here. Given the 

14 presumption of compliance, the absence of 

15 internal dosimetry records indicates that 

16 unmonitored workers were deemed unlikely to have 

17 received intakes resulting in CEDE 0.1 rem or 

18 more from occupational radionuclide intakes in a 

19 year.

20 Standing by itself, it sounds like 

21 that's begging the question, that statement, but 

22 prior to that, there is an indication of why 

23 they're just going with the unmonitored personnel 
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1 and how they're going to do the dose 

2 reconstruction for other personnel. I talked to 

3 LaVon about that earlier, so that issue is, I 

4 think, taken care of. NIOSH has not located 

5 specifics regarding quantities of neptunium used, 

6 only that use was rare. The controls employed 

7 appear to be those in place for plutonium-related 

8 work. In a 2005 DOE inspection report, 11 workers 

9 are discussed using 100 gram quantities.

10 That's one of the issues that NIOSH is 

11 using as far as determining how much neptunium is 

12 used, but the inspection team in that report said 

13 that 10 to 20 gram quantities will require 

14 bioassay, and I don't believe that issue was 

15 resolved.

16 Additionally, there was a project that 

17 worked with neptunium -- it lasted a number of 

18 years -- in which a neptunium sphere was made, 

19 and the sphere weighed six kilograms, which 

20 exceeds the 1700 gram amount that LANL believed 

21 would be the precursor or what would start 

22 bioassay. In the case of neptunium, the need for 

23 monitoring was formally evaluated in 2006, which 
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1 is outside the petition years. Further, NIOSH 

2 refers to the robust field monitoring program 

3 described in a section in the report that it's 

4 highly unlikely that such released material could 

5 have occurred without eventual detection. But in 

6 the report, it says in addition to bioassay 

7 concerns, there are potential inadequacies in the 

8 assessment of neptunium airborne contamination 

9 from instruments designed and calibrated for 

10 plutonium.

11 Another finding, at the institutional 

12 level, methods used to enroll workers in the 

13 bioassay program have not been adequate to ensure 

14 that workers are monitored for the correct 

15 isotopes and the required frequencies. I believe 

16 that argues against presumption.

17 Further, NIOSH refers to a manual, 

18 ESH-1 TA-55 Radiation Monitoring Instructions, as 

19 an example that field monitoring and 

20 contamination control programs were well 

21 established and formalized by January 1, 1996, 

22 but the document is dated January 4, 2000.

23 How can that be an example that these 
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1 requirements are in place? LANL has a history of 

2 being not in compliance. They had a number of 

3 Clean Air Act violations prior to this. In 1989, 

4 LANL had to start complying with the Clean Air 

5 Act. In the years 1991 to '93, the EPA found 

6 that LANL was in violation. Further, LANL lost 

7 a lawsuit concerning Clean Air Act violations in 

8 1994. The court ordered that LANL had to submit 

9 to three audits, in order to get into compliance. 

10 The last audit was completed in 1999, and it still 

11 had findings that LANL needed to address.

12 Given the record of other programs, 

13 which are similar, because this dealt with the 

14 release of radioactive materials into the air, 

15 and given the fact that they were in violation 

16 post-1995, I think it's indicative that they 

17 didn't follow the rules. I think there's another 

18 presumption to be made that they did not comply 

19 with 10 CFR 835. Thank you.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. If I 

21 understand this correctly, NIOSH is still

22 evaluating this. Is that --

23 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, NIOSH is 
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1 reviewing the NC ID: 484, which we're pulling 

2 that specific information. We're also in the 

3 process of drafting a White Paper in response to 

4 SC&A's review. This was one of the actions as 

5 part of the Work Group meeting. In addition, we 

6 are also -- the Work Group has asked us to pull 

7 together a specific list of all the petitioner 

8 concerns and the responses to those concerns, so 

9 we are working on all of those. As soon as we

10 get the information from NC ID 484 from the site 

11 and we've had a chance, we will make that 

12 available to the Work Group and SC&A.

13 CHAIR MELIUS: So the plan would then 

14 be to --

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: I would suspect that 

16 depending on the outcome of that review, we would 

17 either provide an update to the Work Group -- to 

18 our position, based on that review, and then we 

19 will -- with our response to SC&A's review -- both 

20 of those items will support another Work Group 

21 meeting, I'm sure.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Assume it's okay with 

23 the Board that we take no action. There's 
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1 continued follow up going on of this SEC 

2 recommendation from NIOSH, so we'll be coming 

3 back to it. That concludes our -- you don't have 

4 to listen to us too much anymore. It's our turn 

5 to listen to you. Ted, do you want to go through 

6 the instructions?

7 Public Comments

8 MR. KATZ: Hi, everybody. This is 

9 pretty simple. As Jim said earlier in the day, 

10 public comments will start with folks in the room 

11 and with folks who are addressing LANL. Anyone 

12 else in the room who signed up, but doesn't intend 

13 to address LANL, should wait until we're done 

14 with the LANL folks. Also, if there are folks on 

15 the line that want to address LANL -- so LANL 

16 comes first. Just for you to know, with your 

17 public comments, a lot of people comment about 

18 personal stories, family member stories, and so 

19 on.

20 Everything the Board does is 

21 transcribed and published on the NIOSH website 

22 for all the public to read. You're welcome to be 

23 as open as you want about yourself or other 
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1 parties, but just understand that when you're 

2 discussing other parties than yourself, that 

3 information, we will redact it, meaning we will 

4 cut out parts of it to protect the privacy of 

5 those individuals because they're not here 

6 speaking for themselves.

7 Hence, we have to protect their 

8 privacy. That's something we have to do under 

9 law. That's the only point. I just want you to 

10 understand that context for giving your comments.

11 CHAIR MELIUS: I would just add to 

12 that if there's something private, that you don't 

13 want to say in the public comment period, sort of 

14 let us know at the end or text one of the NIOSH 

15 people or so forth to talk to them directly. 

16 We're not trying to force people to tell all their 

17 medical information or anything like that if they 

18 don't wish to be identified as making public 

19 comments.

20 PARTICIPANT: If we haven't signed up 

21 already, can we still --

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, I will --- no, I 

23 will go through -- I'm assuming you're here to 
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1 comment on LANL. What I'll do is we go through 

2 who I believe to be the LANL people that have 

3 signed up. Then I will open it up to -- I'll ask 

4 whether there are other people from LANL here 

5 that wish to make comments today. The list is 

6 not controlling. I will try to sort of go through 

7 and identify those, and then we'll do the best we 

8 can. I'll tell you now, I'll probably 

9 mispronounce people's names and the usual stuff. 

10 Mispronounce mine, also, probably. First, we 

11 have a representative from Senator Udall's office 

12 here. We usually look to congressional people. 

13 Michele. Yes, I think that's the one working. 

14 You'll be the test on the new microphone. I will 

15 just add that --

16 MS. JACQUEZ-ORTIZ: Thank you, Dr. 

17 Melius. Good afternoon, Chairman Melius and 

18 Members of the Advisory Board. On behalf of 

19 Senator Udall, thank you for allowing me to speak 

20 today, and also for coming to Santa Fe to hear 

21 directly from New Mexico claimants.

22 Much, much appreciated that you all 

23 came out here for this. As you know, Senator 
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1 Udall has closely followed LANL's SEC petitions, 

2 and the senator commends LANL petitioners 

3 [identifying information redacted] and 

4 [identifying information redacted] for their 

5 tireless efforts in support of the two major LANL 

6 petitions that have been approved.

7 The senator is especially grateful to 

8 the Advisory Boards, its SEC Work Groups, its 

9 Chair, Josie Beach, and the Board's contractor, 

10 SC&A. You all have been thoughtful and 

11 conscientious in your review of these petitions 

12 and have navigated through the complicated issues 

13 unique to LANL with just the right mix of 

14 scientific scrutiny and adherence to the law, 

15 while also exercising fairness and good common 

16 sense. The senator is grateful to the Advisory 

17 Board for its approval of these previous 

18 petitions and understands the challenges involved 

19 in the continued evaluation of the years 1996 

20 through 2005.

21 It appears that there remains 

22 important questions that deserve further 

23 investigation. The senator hopes for approval of 
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1 additional years to bring closure for many of his 

2 constituents who are sick and dying while 

3 awaiting the determination on their claim. He 

4 urges the Board to recognize the need to 

5 compensate these Cold War heroes for their 

6 efforts on behalf of our nation.

7 Thank you for allowing me to speak on 

8 Senator Udall's behalf and for your work to 

9 ensure fairness and compassion in your decisions 

10 that affect so many of these courageous Cold War 

11 veterans. Thank you.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. Thank you 

13 for coming down. As Michele said, we've heard 

14 many times from the senator and other 

15 representatives about these issues. The next 

16 person I have identified as related to LANL is 

17 Danny [identifying information redacted]

18 Salazar. Are you still here? Okay. I don't 

19 know if you're both commenting or just you.

20 MR. SALAZAR: Just me.

21 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, fine.

22 MR. SALAZAR: My name is Danny 

23 Salazar.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Get real close to the 

2 mic.

3 MR. SALAZAR: Danny Salazar. I'm a 

4 former worker at LANL. I don't think they were 

5 compliant when I was there, between 1999 and 

6 2010. I don't believe they were compliant 

7 between 1999 and 2010 because I got sick up there 

8 from working with this business. I have stuff 

9 going on with my lungs and everything. I have a 

10 claim open. They keep on denying my claim, and 

11 I don't know why because I was doing all the PPE. 

12 Whatever they told me to do, I was doing right. 

13 I had trainings and all that stuff. We weren't 

14 monitored at all times.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: Is your claim with 

16 NIOSH or with the Department of Labor?

17 MR. SALAZAR: Department of Labor.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: You might want to talk 

19 to somebody from NIOSH to see if they're covering 

20 it or not. I'm not sure if they would be, but if 

21 not, they can refer you to where -- Department of 

22 Labor to check with on that. Go over there right 

23 now. Stu's in the front row, standing up, so 
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1 he'll be able to help you.

2 MR. SALAZAR: Thank you.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. Tony 

4 Sandoval. You look familiar.

5 MR. SANDOVAL: I hope so. Maybe the 

6 name.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: No, I don't remember 

8 names; I remember faces.

9 MR. SANDOVAL: Good afternoon, Dr. 

10 Melius and Board Members. Thank you for coming 

11 to New Mexico and listening to our concerns. I 

12 am a former Los Alamos National Laboratory 

13 employee, and I have been denied, based on dose 

14 reconstruction. My main concern is that I worked 

15 from 1973 to 1997 for the County of Los Alamos. 

16 I was employed with the county as a pipefitter, 

17 and eventually became a supervisor. During my 

18 employment with the county, I was issued a Z 

19 number. That's an ID number specific to Los 

20 Alamos National Laboratory. This is the first 

21 indication that I was actually on site more than 

22 as a visitor. During my career at the county, I 

23 was involved in the repair, maintenance, and 
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1 installation of overall operations with the 

2 water, gas, and wastewater systems.

3 It is important to know that even 

4 today, the water distribution lines cross 

5 boundaries between the County of Los Alamos and 

6 LANL property. I was constantly on lab property, 

7 working with LANL contractors and subcontractors 

8 or water line issues. I was even issued a LANL 

9 badge, uncleared, but nonetheless, I had a badge. 

10 I know at least two other county workers, one who 

11 provided electrical, and the other pipefitting 

12 services.

13 The pipefitter was directly under my 

14 supervision. Both filed under the program, and 

15 both were awarded benefits. I supervised and was 

16 denied. In addition, I obtained some affidavits 

17 from LANL employees and county co-workers 

18 attesting to the fact that I was on site 

19 continuously while employed in the county. Their 

20 affidavits were dismissed by DOL. After retiring 

21 from Los Alamos County, I went to work for the 

22 maintenance contractor to LANL, which was KSL. 

23 However, this was after the 1995 cutoff date to 
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1 the current cohort. While employed with the 

2 county, myself and the employees at numerous 

3 other county utility employees worked on site and 

4 were exposed to the same radiation hazards as 

5 LANL employees.

6 We were not monitored the same as LANL 

7 workers, and we are now suffering from the same 

8 cancers as LANL workers. There is substantial 

9 information to verify that the county employees, 

10 specifically water and electrical utility 

11 workers, were under contract or under an 

12 agreement to provide support and service to LANL. 

13 This, too, was dismissed.

14 In addition, I have an Evaluation 

15 Report from the county that states that I worked 

16 closely with the fire department to maintain fire 

17 hydrants, testing and repairing of the hydrants. 

18 Fire fighters are covered, but utility workers 

19 are not. I respectfully ask the Board seriously 

20 to consider adding additional years to the cohort 

21 to cover those workers who started after the 1995 

22 cutoff date. Secondly, I respectfully request 

23 that the DOE and DOL include county utility 
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1 workers, in addition to the firefighters covered 

2 for this department. Thank you so much.

3 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. Jim or 

4 LaVon, do you know anything about the county 

5 coverage? I don't think we encountered that 

6 before and what the different arrangement was 

7 with the fire department. Follow up. Mike Brown. 

8 Mr. Brown.

9 MR. BROWN: Good evening. My name is 

10 Curtis Michael Brown, but I'm known as Mike 

11 Brown. Medically, I've been diagnosed or have 

12 experienced squamous cell carcinoma. I've also 

13 experienced a pleomorphic adenoma of the parotid 

14 gland. Those are my two medical conditions. I've 

15 been a rad worker, qualified rad worker, for over 

16 25 years. I have a real brief point to make to 

17 the Board, by the way.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: That's fine.

19 MR. BROWN: About ten of those at Los 

20 Alamos National Laboratory. I'm primarily 

21 addressing the principle behind dose 

22 reconstruction. My primary comment is that dose 

23 reconstruction for a cohort, something a larger 
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1 population is a cohort, as LANL is a large cohort, 

2 which is performed using complex algorithms, is 

3 not time sensitive, cannot be time sensitive to 

4 the mission at hand for those particular people 

5 within the cohort, for those individual 

6 populations within the cohort. For example, high 

7 intensity periods, such as Cold War production 

8 and that, represent periods of high exposure, 

9 obviously.

10 Those can't be compensated for 

11 adequately with the current algorithms that we 

12 use. I would suggest to the Board that even the 

13 most conservative algorithms cannot reasonable 

14 reconstruct our doses. I would also suggest that 

15 prior to DOELAP certification and the 

16 implementation of thermoluminescent dosimeters, 

17 our dosimetry was fundamentally an action of 

18 dosimetry and, by its very nature, grossly 

19 inaccurate as the kind of exposures that we're 

20 talking about within regulations today. That's 

21 my comment. Thank you for your time.

22 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. I have a 

23 name that I cannot read the last name, so Lana 
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1 Carver. Okay, I'll come back to you. We'll have 

2 time. We're going to be here until we're done. 

3 Miguel Virgil.

4 MR. VIRGIL: Miguel Virgil.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, Virgil, okay.

6 MR. VIRGIL: Good afternoon. I, 

7 myself, as well, worked for Los Alamos County 

8 from 1978 until my retirement in 2003, and then 

9 after that, I also worked for Camp Dresser & McKee 

10 on the burnt area reconstruction. I was involved 

11 with utilities, electric distribution systems 

12 throughout the county.

13 We did a lot of what they called 

14 conversion from overhead to underground. We dug 

15 in a lot of areas where we came across different 

16 materials and stuff like that. Then after the 

17 digging, also, we noticed that LANL went back in 

18 there with their equipment and removed a lot of 

19 the materials and stuff, and they were putting 

20 them in tarped trucks and stuff and covering them 

21 up, basically, to try and keep contamination from 

22 spreading.

23 I also, when I worked as a utility 
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1 worker with electric distribution, was sent out 

2 on back charges to do work within S site. We 

3 would take equipment out in there and do as we 

4 were told, and the job got done. As my co-worker, 

5 Tony Sandoval, says, a lot of us aren't like the 

6 firefighters that are being covered under these 

7 situations, but we ask that the Board does 

8 consider because during the Cerro Grande fire, we 

9 spent 11 days straight out there trying to keep 

10 the power lines operable and fired up, so that we 

11 could run the wells to protect property, home, 

12 and lives.

13 We were exposed to all that smoke and 

14 everything else. We didn't have SCBAs on or 

15 anything like that. We just went out and did our 

16 jobs. As a result of that, one of my co-workers 

17 has already suffered from cancers and stuff like 

18 that and has to put a claim in. Thank God he was 

19 accepted into the Patriot Program, but maybe a 

20 lot of us will be passed up just for that reason.

21 I don't think it's fair because, like 

22 I say, a lot of the areas that we dug within, I 

23 noticed after the fact, while I was still 
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1 employed by other companies up there, that LANL 

2 went in and removed more material. So the 

3 material was being removed for a reason, which we 

4 had already been in that area digging around. 

5 The contamination is there. Thank you so much.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

7 Still, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the 

8 Department of Labor and the Department of Energy 

9 decide which groups are covered, in terms of 

10 employers, but we can follow up and find -- which 

11 we do on -- all comments here we do follow up on 

12 and so forth. I actually have -- Tony, I have 

13 your email address, so we'll have somebody get 

14 back to you and find out why there's this 

15 discrepancy on coverage, and then follow up. 

16 Meanwhile, we're going to be working on the 

17 post-'95 period. Okay, thank you.

18 MEMBER BEACH: You mentioned that you 

19 were badged. Can you tell me who badged you? 

20 Was it LANL, or was that through the county?

21 MR. SANDOVAL: I was a county

22 employee, employed by the County of Los Alamos. 

23 They issued an uncleared LANL badge, which I 
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1 still have. It has been sent with the records 

2 and files that you have all the paperwork in 

3 there, and I was still denied, for whatever 

4 reason, but I do have a Z number and a badge that 

5 was issued to me back then.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: It is a -- you had to 

7 have some connection there, obviously to --

8 MR. SANDOVAL: But I was still denied, 

9 for whatever reason. It's been denied a couple 

10 of times already. I have several witnesses and 

11 paperwork showing and stating that I was there 

12 and indicating that I was in the LANL property 

13 several times.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Let us find out and get 

15 back to you on that. Jerry Fuentes.

16 MR. FUENTES: Yes, my name is Jerry 

17 Fuentes. I worked at Los Alamos National 

18 Laboratories from '74 to 1985. While I worked 

19 there, I was contaminated with 197,000 picocuries 

20 of plutonium-239, weapons grade. As we all know, 

21 special nuclear materials can migrate. They can 

22 travel.

23 While I was working in a non-plutonium 
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1 analysis section, analyzing uranium fuel rods, I 

2 somehow ingested 197,000 picocuries of weapons 

3 grade plutonium-239. Again, six months before 

4 that, while working on fuel rods, the person that 

5 was next to me was working on some impact spheres 

6 for the plutonium batteries that work in outer 

7 spaces. These impact spheres had been 

8 contaminated. The supervisor brought them in. 

9 He didn't test them for contamination. I was 50 

10 feet away. I got 50,000 counts alpha particles, 

11 millirems, on my face. I took that to the bar 

12 and the health physics professionals had to go 

13 and find me up there. They had to test the bar 

14 to see if the bar didn't have any contamination.

15 It was all in my face. Then the person 

16 who was in charge, who was the supervisor, who 

17 gave us the sample to analyze, took it home, 

18 contaminated his wife, his girlfriend, the dog, 

19 the cat, the refrigerator and everything else. 

20 Plutonium and uranium can travel. It can travel 

21 humanly. In fact, just the other day, I was on 

22 airline.

23 The safety director was on an airline, 
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1 on a commercial airline. He had weapons grade 

2 239 on an airline. The other thing about Los 

3 Alamos is there's a lot of chemicals there. You 

4 have PCBs, and you have TCBs that I worked on, in 

5 the laboratory, on analyzing it. Those things 

6 can get out just as easily as the ionizing 

7 radiation and everything else. I've had three 

8 cancers. I'm glad I'm one of the lucky ones. I 

9 was accepted. But I had two primaries and a 

10 secondary cancer. You need to cover all the 

11 cancers. You need to cover the chemically 

12 induced cancers, and you need to cover all the 

13 people here who are hurting for this stuff that 

14 you've been giving us. You released into the 

15 air. I saw you. I've been working there for a 

16 long time. Thank you.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. Just to 

18 clarify, this program does not cover the chemical 

19 exposures, but the Department of Labor program 

20 does, in parallel to this program. Felicia 

21 Crull.

22 MS. CRULL: My voice should carry 

23 anyways, right?
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Well, speak in the mic, 

2 please.

3 MS. CRULL: Is that good?

4 CHAIR MELIUS: That's good.

5 MS. CRULL: Dr. Melius and Board, my 

6 name is Felicia, and I'm accompanied by my 

7 brother, [identifying information redacted], and 

8 my sister, [identifying information redacted]. 

9 Our father's name was [identifying information 

10 redacted], and he passed away January 30th this 

11 year from mantle cell lymphoma. We have filed a 

12 claim that is proving difficult to satisfy the 

13 criteria of hours. He worked as a phone installer 

14 for Mountain Bell, and then AT&T. In this 

15 capacity, he was contracted to work at LANL. DOE 

16 records show that he was working as a 

17 subcontractor in June 1993. Also, those records 

18 indicate that he was only issued dosimetry badges 

19 on four occasions.

20 Those badges shouldn't be used to 

21 establish on-site presence, as they're only 

22 issued when the person would be in areas 

23 identified at that time as potentially exposing 
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1 people to external radiation. There are records 

2 documenting that our father submitted a technical 

3 area badge request through LANL in May 1993. This 

4 would allow him access to perform work on site in 

5 the video teleconferencing center.

6 But there's also documentation that

7 our father worked in many technical areas that 

8 were exposed to radiation. In addition to all of 

9 those records, most compelling is that our dad 

10 was granted a Q clearance as early as 1987. Then 

11 there were subsequent re-investigations in 

12 February '91 and May '96 to update and maintain 

13 his clearance status. Should our dad have 

14 separated as a person no longer requiring access 

15 to the labs, the clearance badge would have been 

16 surrendered, and his Q clearance would have been 

17 inactivated, but the clearance was active for 

18 nine years. In all that time, he was issued 

19 dosimetry badges only on four occasions.

20 This tells us that perhaps the labs 

21 and the DOE were not fully aware of the concerns 

22 in all of the areas where people did actually 

23 experience impactful exposure to radiation. This 
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1 lack of awareness on them resulted in not 

2 monitoring exposure in areas that may have 

3 ultimately exposed people to radiation, which may 

4 have contributed to impacting their health.

5 Because the dosimetry badges may not 

6 have been used in all of these areas that may 

7 have ultimately resulted in impacting their 

8 health, we respectfully request that you review 

9 the criteria considered for establishing the 

10 causative nature of impacts to the health of 

11 people who work at the labs, who may not have 

12 been appropriately monitored. Thank you for your 

13 time.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. You might 

15 want to talk to the people from NIOSH, Stu 

16 Hinnefeld, in the first row, just to get some 

17 follow up on the individual application. There 

18 may be some other information that isn't clear or 

19 something that might help in terms of that claim. 

20 Stu or somebody from the program would be able to 

21 help you get in contact and get more. It's not 

22 just us changing things or criteria changing. 

23 There might be other things that could be done, 
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1 also. I have a Carl Lea. Okay. Pat Valerio, 

2 J.F. Pat Valerio.

3 MR. VALERIO: My hearing is really 

4 bad.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Go ahead and 

6 speak.

7 MR. VALERIO: I was refused because I 

8 only had 50 percent of my prostate cancer. Johns 

9 Hopkins recommended that I put in for workmen's 

10 compensation because of my hearing loss because 

11 of my exposure to chemicals. So what can I hear 

12 from you?

13 CHAIR MELIUS: If it's an individual 

14 claim, I would go over and talk to somebody from 

15 NIOSH over here. It helps to turn the microphone 

16 on. Okay. William Hardesty. You've been on the 

17 edge of your seat there. I'm glad we got to you 

18 here.

19 MR. HARDESTY: Thank you.

20 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

21 MR. HARDESTY: I'm a retired chemist 

22 from Los Alamos. I have experience in the 

23 environmental restoration program, and also on 
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1 TA-54, Area G, and the domes. I was a little 

2 surprised to hear that the domes were not 

3 mentioned very much tonight. TA-55 was mentioned 

4 as a possible exception to violations or 

5 misconduct after 1995, but I think I have some 

6 firsthand anecdotal evidence that things were not 

7 great after 1995.

8 In the interest of full disclosure, I 

9 do have lymphoma and leukemia. I've been 

10 accepted into the Part E section for my solvent 

11 exposures, but I missed the special exemption by 

12 two months in 1995. The poured gas at Area G, 

13 there's a free chemical waste dump. I know that 

14 this is a rad discussion, so I'm only bringing up 

15 the chemicals as it relates to tritium. But the 

16 free liquid waste dump at Area G, where they 

17 poured hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid 

18 into the volcanic tuff, is loaded with tritium. 

19 I sampled that poured gas plume for many years, 

20 between '95 and into the 2000s. The Area G is

21 loaded with tritium.

22 I never had a respirator, and they're 

23 still doing the work out there without a 
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1 respirator, so that's one thing I want to 

2 mention. The other things I want to mention is 

3 the drums at Area G were -- they started to put 

4 the septum drums in, in the early 2000s, but when 

5 I was running the headspace gas 

6 laboratory -- here, I think I need to digress a 

7 little bit because with the drum that exploded at 

8 WIPP, to say that LANL is compliant with health 

9 and safety issues after 1995 is bordering 

10 ridiculous.

11 I have firsthand experience with 

12 procedures where the chemists and the physicists, 

13 their names are reviewed from the signature page 

14 on procedures because they wouldn't agree to the 

15 procedures. I have firsthand knowledge of this. 

16 When I started the headspace gas laboratory 

17 because they couldn't ship any drums in the early 

18 2000s, we were using an instrument where we 

19 brought the drums to the instrument. The 

20 personnel had to sit with the drums for 12- and 

21 13-hour shifts. I came up with a method, using 

22 off-the-shelf technology, so that we could use 

23 small glass-lined containers, mini summa 
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1 canisters, if you will, and these canisters would 

2 allow us to go in and sample the drums very 

3 quickly, and then take our samples back to the

4 mass spectrometer.

5 When I brought up the ALARA concerns 

6 in my quest to purchase the new equipment, so 

7 that my personnel didn't have to sit with the 

8 drums for 12-and 13-hour shifts, I was told by 

9 the DOE -- and I have witnesses to this because 

10 there were many people at this meeting -- F ALARA. 

11 I just think it is ridiculous for anyone to say 

12 that LANL was compliant from a radiological 

13 safety point of view, starting in 1996. I just 

14 have a few other points.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: Go ahead.

16 MR. HARDESTY: Wicker (phonetic), Vant 

17 (phonetic), the headspace gas lab in the middle 

18 of the domes, Dome 33, these all had tritium, 

19 strontium, cesium, europium, and many calibrated 

20 sources. The dosimeter is not going to pick up 

21 the alpha emitters. Also, there were areas that 

22 I worked in, the passive activation neutron 

23 counter, which was near Wicker, no one ever wore 
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1 PPE or rad protection in the general vicinity of 

2 that machine. That was a neutron emitter.

3 The CTN counter in Area TA-54, where 

4 my headspace gas summa canister gauges were 

5 calibrated, also had sources that were emitting 

6 alpha waves. I want to stress again that the 

7 transuranic waste drums in the domes were -- up 

8 until the early 2000s used metal clips to prevent 

9 the hermetic closure of the drums and allow 

10 radiological generated hydrogen to escape, and 

11 also to allow plutonium oxide to escape.

12 It wasn't until well into the 2000s 

13 when this was remedied. I probably have some 

14 other points, but I'm nervous. I'm a little 

15 bitter, and I think I've made some of my 

16 most -- most of my concerns made clear.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you very much. 

18 If you're willing, you might want to talk 

19 to -- either from NIOSH or Joe Fitzgerald, who's 

20 sitting next to you -- give your contact 

21 information, and they can interview you and get 

22 more information, again, if you're willing. 

23 Okay. Joe's right there, with the blue tie on. 
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1 Got to put him to work, also. Thank you very 

2 much. Anybody in the audience who wishes to 

3 comment on LANL that we haven't already talked 

4 to? Then you, in the back, too, go ahead, come 

5 on up.

6 MS. ULIBARRI: Hi.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Just identify 

8 yourselves.

9 MS. ULIBARRI: Yes, I will. Thank you 

10 for the opportunity. I'm not going to pretend to 

11 tell you that I understand everything you're 

12 talking about because it is not of the world in 

13 which I live. But this man standing next to me 

14 has been my husband for 21 years.

15 The reason we walked into the meeting 

16 late is because we've been at UNM Cancer. He's 

17 got pancreatic cancer. He worked at Los Alamos 

18 as a plumber, pipefitter. He wrote pages of 

19 things that he saw and violations he was aware 

20 of, doing terrible radiological rad drains and 

21 that sort of thing, cleaning things out. This is 

22 a man who is 110 pounds lighter than he was. He's 

23 a rancher. He's from New Mexico born and raised, 
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1 virile and strong. He's standing before you now. 

2 He's a sick man. All I ask is possibly that all 

3 of you will please consider expanding the date 

4 range that you have put in place before.

5 He falls short by a year. We've been 

6 denied. I have bigger battles to deal with than 

7 this, and I was asked to come. Because I'm proud 

8 to stand next to this man, I ask you please for 

9 your consideration.

10 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you, and we 

11 appreciate you coming. You have every reason to 

12 be proud.

13 MS. ULIBARRI: Say that again.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: I said you have every 

15 reason to be proud.

16 MS. ULIBARRI: Thank you.

17 MR. ULIBARRI: My name is Gilbert 

18 Ulibarri, and I worked in Los Alamos for a number 

19 of years. Lo and behold, I am a 

20 plumber/pipefitter. I don't know if I stepped on 

21 anybody's toes up there or what. I did stop a 

22 couple of jobs because they were pretty 

23 dangerous. I was brought into some conferences 
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1 as to why I'd done that. I have lost a lot of 

2 weight. I do recommend that people out there 

3 take care, and they turned me out -- and I worked 

4 on a drain line for eight months that had any and 

5 every chemical you can think of up in Los Alamos. 

6 Until I seen the vapors coming out of there like 

7 mad one day did I ask a person what was that. He 

8 said don't worry about that.

9 That's just mercury vapors coming out 

10 of there, when I'm cleaning the drain for eight 

11 months right there -- unbelievable. Then I said 

12 I'll just go to the right people. Lo and behold, 

13 it took a long time, and they're still not 

14 accepting my case, although I'm having to pay for 

15 all my doctor visits and treatment and 

16 everything.

17 I just thought I'd mention it to you, 

18 that people on all those jobs that are going to 

19 be done pertaining, especially, to those drain 

20 lines, that they have them checked out before 

21 they send the people in there to clean them out 

22 because that is dangerous. That's all I've got 

23 to say. Thank you.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you very much for 

2 coming. You'll be next.

3 MR. MEDINA: My name is Ignacio 

4 Medina. I worked at Los Alamos for 38 years as 

5 a machinist. I worked on the Mesa, basically, 

6 when I got out of the machinist program. I worked 

7 on the beam line, making plugs. I would go into 

8 the beam line constantly. They used to make big 

9 steel plugs to put in there.

10 From there, I worked in different 

11 areas of the lab. I worked at SM-40, where one 

12 time, they asked me if I can make some calibration 

13 instruments for their radiation instruments, 

14 dosimeter badges, wherever they went and dealt 

15 with radiation. In doing so, I had to lean over 

16 the radiation storage to calibrate the distance.

17 I worked on this for about three to 

18 four months. This is probably in 1999 or around 

19 that 1998 to 1999 time period. In 2000, I came 

20 up with testicular cancer on my left side, and I 

21 had to have it removed. Now I have a cyst in my 

22 left kidney. But they say testicular cancer 

23 isn't covered in your brochure, but ovarian 
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1 cancer is. Ovarian cancer is within a woman. 

2 Testicular cancer is external. How do you 

3 explain that to me? I've had both my knees 

4 replaced standing on concrete for 38 years 

5 working in the machine shop. If you ever seen or 

6 anybody working in a machine shop, especially in 

7 the early years, since 1974, when I started 

8 working, their pads were very thin. Now, when I 

9 was ready to retire, they started getting thicker 

10 pads to help protect your legs and your knees.

11 I would work from eight to ten hours 

12 a day, sometimes six days a week, on concrete. 

13 Recently, I had to go through double knee 

14 replacement. Of course, the lab's not going to 

15 cover that. Thank God Medicare did. I've had to 

16 go through -- and I lost my hearing. Sure, I'll 

17 get free hearing aids for the rest of my life, 

18 but I get no compensation for it.

19 I've lost a lot of my hearing, my 

20 knees, a testicle, and I still have a cyst in my 

21 left kidney. I can't get anywhere. The lab 

22 doesn't want to cover anything. I was a loyal 

23 employee for 38 years.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. This 

2 program only deals with the cancer.

3 MR. MEDINA: Well, I had cancer.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: I know, and I would 

5 suggest you go over to talk to the people from 

6 NIOSH and they can explain the process and so 

7 forth for applying for that --

8 MR. MEDINA: Thank you.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: -- in terms of coverage 

10 and so forth.

11 MS. MARTINEZ: Good evening. My name 

12 is Gina Martinez. I'd like to thank you all for 

13 being here. I'm a local advocate for EEOICPA. 

14 I've been doing it now for about eight years. 

15 I'm also a medical radiology professional. I 

16 worked at Los Alamos from 1990, as an 

17 undergraduate student, and '94 to '99 at TA-55 

18 and in various areas. I worked for the rad worker 

19 ESH-1 program.

20 I'd like to start my comment today 

21 about most recent news, going back to 

22 assumptions. This came out CBS news on Friday. 

23 U.S. regulators to investigate after Los Alamos 
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1 lab improperly shipped nuclear material. 

2 Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. regulators said 

3 Friday they are launching an investigation into 

4 the improper shipment of nuclear material from 

5 the laboratory that created the atomic bomb to 

6 other federal facilities this week, marking the 

7 latest safety lapse for Los Alamos National 

8 Laboratory, as it faces growing criticism over 

9 its track record. The National Nuclear Security 

10 Administration said it was informed by the lab in 

11 New Mexico that procedures were not followed. 

12 This is 2017. These were shipping small amounts 

13 of special nuclear material to the facilities in 

14 California and South Carolina.

15 The material had been packaged for 

16 ground transport, but instead, it was shipped via 

17 commercial air cargo service, which isn't allowed 

18 under U.S. regulations. Los Alamos -- this is 

19 written in red, CBS news -- Los Alamos ignores 

20 warning signs again. Tests done on the shipments 

21 once they arrived at their destinations confirmed 

22 no contamination or loss of radioactive material, 

23 officials said, thank goodness.
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1 But it comes as criticism has been 

2 intensifying over the history of safety lapses at 

3 Los Alamos, as work ramps up to produce key 

4 components for the nation's nuclear weapons 

5 cache. This failure to follow established 

6 procedures is absolutely unacceptable, 

7 [identifying information redacted], head of the 

8 National Nuclear Security Administration said in 

9 the statement. The agency oversees the lab and 

10 other facilities that make up the U.S. nuclear 

11 complex. Contractors who manage the labs, 

12 production plants, and waste repositories are 

13 required to rigorously adhere to what 

14 [identifying information redacted] called the 

15 highest safety and security standards as part of 

16 their national security work.

17 As a local advocate, I thank you all 

18 because I have a lot of clients who have been 

19 through the program. They've been accepted. I 

20 thank you, and they thank you. However, there is 

21 the people after '95-'96 that come to me, and I 

22 try. I ask for the Department of Labor to 

23 reconsider, and they get the 46.7 points from 
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1 NIOSH, and they don't meet the criteria. I need 

2 to know how to help these people because I worked 

3 in '96.

4 I worked at TA-2, the Omega site 

5 reactor, when they were decommissioning the 

6 reactor. I was sent from TA-55, where that was 

7 the most compliant place, while I was there, in 

8 my six years. I went to TA-2. There were no 

9 monitors. CAM alarms weren't even on most of the 

10 time. They weren't even working. So the 

11 continuous air monitors, right where the fuel 

12 rods were kept, weren't working. Step off pads, 

13 when we'd leave TA-2, hadn't been changed in 

14 months. So my supervisor -- I was, at the time, 

15 one of the lead techs at 55. I got detailed to 

16 several areas. These are the areas I can recall 

17 because it's been several years.

18 TA-50 was one, TA-54, Area G -- I was 

19 at Area G, too. In fact, I remember you 

20 there -- TA-18, in the kivas, TA-48, where a lot 

21 of exotic radionuclides were being used in the 

22 hot cells in the areas, TA-48, again, they were 

23 not compliant.
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1 I was sent out there to help establish 

2 the program, and it was in 1997 to '99 because I 

3 left LANL in 1999. I remember working at TA-21 

4 when they were tearing down the buildings, and 

5 these were subcontractors. I don't remember, 

6 ever, as an RCT, checking them, making sure they 

7 were okay.

8 I don't remember going to Area G and 

9 getting, again, subcontractors and making sure 

10 the people that were working there were all being 

11 monitored. I specifically remember going to 

12 those areas and the laboratory not being in 

13 compliance. Going back to this assumption, we 

14 cannot -- not that we cannot assume, it was not 

15 being done in 1996, up until the latter part of 

16 '99, when I was there. Because I was detailed to 

17 these several areas as a radiation control 

18 technician, working with ESH-1, the rad program. 

19 I'd like for you all to reconsider -- I'm not 

20 sure what years you want to increase, but it was 

21 not done in '96. I thank you again for your hard 

22 work and for being in New Mexico. Appreciate 

23 you.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

2 Anybody else that wishes to comment on Los 

3 Alamos? Yes.

4 PARTICIPANT: I definitely did not 

5 intend to come up here because I tend to be a 

6 little shy, but after listening to the other 

7 people, I've got to tell you, I was a property 

8 auditor, which means I went everywhere. When I 

9 first started my claim, before Johns Hopkins 

10 checked me, I had a brain tumor, but foolish me, 

11 I always thought they're watching after me.

12 But who's going to watch after an 

13 auditor? I'm going to write them up. That's 

14 just -- I have to be funny about it because it's 

15 very depressing. One of the questions that they 

16 kept asking me, did you ever have ear plugs? Did 

17 they ever give you a gown? Did they ever give 

18 you booties? Did they ever put a mask on you? I 

19 went into some attics that were so full of dirt 

20 and crap, and heaven knows what was in there. 

21 Anyway, I did get sick. Eventually, the tumor 

22 left, but I was told by the neurologist it could 

23 come back. Again, I'm having trouble, so I filed 
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1 again.

2 I've just put the claim in with the 

3 Department of Labor. My concern is just because 

4 I look fine doesn't mean I'm okay. Doctors have 

5 said that tumor could just bust, and that's it, 

6 and then I'm gone. I had the choice of removing 

7 it and given a 50/50 chance of being blind or 

8 totally disabled. I know this is not what you 

9 want to hear, here, but I have to say it.

10 In 1996, they had a big layoff. One 

11 of the criterias, you were not supposed to be 

12 considered if you had ever filed a grievance or 

13 was sick. The thing that was told to me, that I 

14 didn't have the number of days that most people 

15 with my years -- I worked from '76 to 1996, and 

16 I had all that. I had filed a grievance, and I 

17 was ill. I just want to -- I didn't even think 

18 of what I wanted to say, but the more I hear the 

19 other people speak, I realize I'm not alone. I'm 

20 not positive what they're doing, but all 

21 these -- I was foolish to work there without all 

22 that coverage and thought they were taking care 

23 of me. LANL does not take care of their 
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1 employees, never has and never will.

2 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you. Thank you 

3 for your comments. Go ahead.

4 MR. SANCHEZ: My name is Ivan Sanchez. 

5 I was employed for Los Alamos County from 1986 to 

6 2006. I work in the utility department. I was 

7 a lineman. Thank God, I was accepted to the 

8 program, and I was awarded, but I had 

9 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer. I had Stage 3. 

10 The thing about it is I'm able to speak for the 

11 other people because they need that help. I went 

12 through a living hell.

13 My family -- my girlfriend quit her 

14 job to take care of me. I was weighing 105 

15 pounds. I was doing five chemo treatments every 

16 two weeks. I'd go in at 8:00, come out at 5:00. 

17 I would sleep sitting down, throwing up for a 

18 full year. It just --- don't ask what it does to 

19 your family, what they have to endure when you're 

20 sick like this. Like I say, I'm very grateful to 

21 my Lord that I'm in -- I can't even speak because 

22 I get tied up. Thank God that I had a good 

23 family, supporting friends. My boss prayed for 
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1 me. My advocate, Loretta Valerio, [identifying 

2 information redacted]. I am so grateful to them. 

3 They have done a wonderful job for me. But like 

4 I said, I'm here to speak for Los Alamos County 

5 workers because we were part of that.

6 I fought in the Cerro Grande fire, me 

7 and my boss, side by side, up in the buckets, up 

8 on hooks, rerouting lines to keep the wells going 

9 to fight the fires. We didn't have the protection 

10 like the LANL workers did, the linemen. We were 

11 working side by side in all that. We weren't 

12 properly trained. We didn't have the monitors to 

13 monitor us.

14 But, like I say, I -- and the 

15 long-lasting effects that it has on you, I'm 

16 still very sick. Now I have neuropathy. It 

17 affected my senses, my eyesight. It took a lot 

18 of my eyesight, my taste, everything, the chemo 

19 part of it. What people don't understand, the 

20 chemo keeps you alive, but it kills everything 

21 good in you. It's a long lasting thing. It just 

22 doesn't go away. This is something that you live 

23 for. I'm only 51. I'm not half the man I used 
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1 to be. I was very active. I was very strong, 

2 athletic. I can't do all that anymore. Thank 

3 you for your time. Thank you so much.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you very much. 

5 Yes, sir, come on.

6 MR. WALSH: My name's Elton Walsh. I 

7 worked up at Los Alamos from about 1973 until 

8 2003. I got sick. I am in the program with lung 

9 disease, but recently, I wanted to apply for 

10 hearing aids because my hearing's getting real 

11 bad. My craft is not listed on your list of 

12 crafts that are covered for hearing loss. I 

13 wanted to know why our craft is not listed.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: That's not our list.

15 MR. WALSH: It's not your list?

16 CHAIR MELIUS: That's not our list. 

17 We just deal with cancer.

18 MR. WALSH: Oh, okay.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: I don't know if this is 

20 a workers' compensation that you've applied to or 

21 Department of Labor.

22 MR. WALSH: Department of Labor, but 

23 our craft is not listed, and it should be listed 
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1 because we worked up there since the '40s.

2 CHAIR MELIUS: I think you need to 

3 follow up with them.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, there are some 

5 chemically caused hearing loss problems, and 

6 Labor makes some determination like that. I 

7 don't know what they are, exactly, but that is a 

8 Department of Labor issue.

9 MR. WALSH: They talk about the 

10 pipefitters, painters, and a lot of the crafts, 

11 but ours wasn't listed. I don't know if we had 

12 any representation when all this came down or 

13 what happened there. I would like, at least, 

14 them to look at our craft.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: I know they're 

16 re-looking at those lists. There's another 

17 separate advisory for that.

18 MR. WALSH: Who is that?

19 CHAIR MELIUS: For the Department of 

20 Labor's program in that.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, this gentleman is 

22 here to help him.

23 MR. WALSH: Thank you.
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: There's a Member of the 

2 Advisory Board in the back there.

3 MR. BUSTOS: Hello. My name is Eric 

4 Bustos. I just lost my father to cancer. We're 

5 having a hard time with getting compensated for 

6 it. He also was a plumber through the lab at Los 

7 Alamos. Also, I work with these gentlemen as a 

8 county employee. While we were working there, I 

9 did snow removal.

10 We were on top of Omega Canyon. 

11 Throughout this whole time that we'd get called 

12 out, we'd see the vapors coming out through the 

13 ground. Nothing was ever told to us not to be in 

14 those areas because it was fine. We were called 

15 out at 2:00-3:00 in the morning, and we'd work 

16 12-hour shifts, 14-hour shifts, sometimes 20-hour 

17 shifts.

18 These guys would sleep on the job, 

19 right there at the place. They were on call 24/7. 

20 They'd spend the night there for a week at a time 

21 or whatever. They were there, so they were 

22 getting all those fumes into the areas where 

23 their sleeping quarters were, so I know where 
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1 they're at. We're having a hard time getting 

2 compensated for my father because he got 

3 beryllium in his system, and he had -- he's been 

4 dead almost a year now.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Did he work for the 

6 county or for the --

7 MR. BUSTOS: For the lab.

8 CHAIR MELIUS: -- for the lab? Why 

9 don't you talk to Stu or one of the people -- Stu 

10 Hinnefeld, one of the people from NIOSH, just can 

11 follow up on the claim. I think that would be -

12 - yes, sure, come on.

13 MR. GARCIA: I'm Robert Garcia. I 

14 work security for Los Alamos from 1980 to '86. I 

15 have skin cancer. Why is skin cancer not in the 

16 list for the --

17 CHAIR MELIUS: That was what was in 

18 the original legislation. So when Congress 

19 passed that list, the SEC cancers, skin cancer 

20 was not included. We can't change that.

21 MR. GARCIA: I also had a liver 

22 transplant. Does that have to do anything with 

23 the chemicals (Simultaneous speaking).
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1 CHAIR MELIUS: Not unless it was 

2 related to -- it could be related to chemicals, 

3 and that would be -- the Department of Labor's 

4 program covers the chemical ones. Skin cancer's 

5 covered under other parts of the NIOSH program. 

6 Again, if you want to talk to Stu or Jim Neton or 

7 one of the people from NIOSH, they can probably 

8 explain to you. It would depend on your amount 

9 of exposure.

10 MR. GARCIA: I figure cancer is 

11 cancer. There's no good cancer.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: We're not saying there 

13 is, but again, when they passed the law, they 

14 limited it to only what they thought were the 

15 most likely types of cancer from radiation.

16 MR. GARCIA: Right, thank you.

17 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you.

18 MR. GARCIA: Who do I talk to?

19 CHAIR MELIUS: Stu's right there. 

20 Anybody else wishing to comment relative to LANL? 

21 If not, I'll go back to the other list. People 

22 from LANL are welcome to still stay around, but 

23 don't have to. We're not insulted if you have 
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1 other things to do. Albert Frowiss, Sr. I knew 

2 he was senior.

3 MR. FROWISS: That's junior there.

4 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, I know.

5 MR. FROWISS: I'll just make a very 

6 brief set of comments. First part, my name is 

7 Albert Frowiss, Senior, in Rancho Santa Fe, 

8 California. I've done 3,000 Department of Labor 

9 EEOICPA cases, 800 of them in New Mexico, so it's 

10 mostly LANL and Sandia workers, mostly cancer 

11 claims, but other claims, as well, asthma, 

12 respiratory issues, kidney, etc.

13 The real reason I wanted to ask you 

14 some questions, or at least provide some input, 

15 I got started in this program ten years ago. My 

16 dad had been at Enewetak when I was in high 

17 school. He was in Operation Redwing, which was 

18 in 1955-56.

19 He got sent back with open cancer 

20 lesions all over his face and head and died 40 

21 years later of lung cancer. I discovered this 

22 law about ten years ago and did a claim for my 

23 mother, and then decided to help other people, so 
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1 I've done 3,000 cases since then. You 

2 mentioned -- the gentleman mentioned, on the 

3 Pacific Proving Grounds presentation, the four 

4 major PPG sites, but he also said other Pacific 

5 sites. I'm not aware that any other Pacific site 

6 is included in the Pacific Proving Ground SEC, so 

7 I'm baffled about that comment about other 

8 Pacific sites.

9 I know there were tests in other parts 

10 of the Pacific Ocean, but they were not part of 

11 Pacific Proving Grounds. That's one of the 

12 issues I wanted to question. I've done 450 

13 Pacific Proving Ground cases, most of them, in 

14 fact. It covers Johnson Island, Christmas Island 

15 Enewetak Atoll, and Bikini Atoll.

16 One of the things that I wanted to 

17 point out is because I've done 450 cases for 

18 Pacific Proving Grounds, I've talked to 450 

19 people that worked there, and probably more than 

20 you've talked to that worked at Pacific Proving 

21 Grounds.

22 I know that from conversations with 

23 scores and scores and scores of these people, 
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1 they hid their dosimetry badges. They put them 

2 between lead bricks because they didn't want to 

3 go home. Because if they got too much radiation, 

4 they'd be sent home. That was a common practice. 

5 Everybody went along with it. Those were the key 

6 things I wanted to talk about. I do want to add 

7 some comment after another person speaks, but 

8 that'll be later in the day.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: Why don't you finish 

10 your comments? It's easier for us.

11 MR. FROWISS: All right. Well, I 

12 wanted to -- one of the other advocates is going 

13 to speak about another issue, and I just want to 

14 be able to add a comment to that later. If not, 

15 it's no problem.

16 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Next is John 

17 Sadler. Is John still here? I can't --

18 MR. SADLER: Yes.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, there you are.

20 MR. SADLER: My name's John Sadler. I 

21 worked at Fernald. There's a chemical engineer 

22 that was there. His name is [identifying 

23 information redacted]. Stu knows him very well. 
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1 He's a subject matter expert of everything that 

2 went on and came in those doors and went out those 

3 doors. He wanted me to pass this out to the Board 

4 because he's going to call in on a phone comment 

5 later, so you know what he's talking about. Is 

6 it okay to give you this? This is a study of 

7 former Fernald workers. This is a study that was 

8 done by NIOSH in 2013 about Fernald workers. I 

9 know when they do dose reconstruction, they don't 

10 use the cancer rate in the general population to 

11 do that. In this study, they did, and there was 

12 some astounding figures in that.

13 Is it okay to pass that out? I don't 

14 really know how to start this because I was 

15 planning on whatever was voted on this morning 

16 didn't happen, but it did. Am I correct on that, 

17 that you all voted down the SEC petition to go to 

18 '89? Is that correct? Okay. That's correct, 

19 right? There's things in here where I would ask 

20 the Board to consider that petition, so I'll 

21 leave that out. I want to thank you for the 

22 opportunity to come here today. [identifying 

23 information redacted] will be calling you later 
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1 and talking about the handout you received. He 

2 was a chemical engineer at Fernald. My name is 

3 Jack Sadler, and I worked at Fernald from 1982 to 

4 2003. Half of that time was a millwright, the 

5 other half as a maintenance supervisor. My being 

6 here is to be a voice for the many Fernald 

7 workers, both past and present. There are many 

8 workers and their families that have experienced 

9 devastating illnesses that have taken a toll both 

10 emotionally and financially. Then, I've got 

11 another section about SEC years for contractors 

12 at Fernald.

13 I'll leave that out, since you voted 

14 that down this morning. Anyway, this is a 

15 comparison of the SEC years to non-SEC years. A 

16 lady lived next to me that worked at the plant 

17 for many years, and she worked there before 1978. 

18 She had glioblastoma, cancer of the brain, and 

19 she got her claim awarded. A security guard there 

20 got the same condition and wound up dying.

21 He was denied because he wasn't in the 

22 SEC years. Anyway, I'm speaking for a lot of the 

23 Fernald workers. They made a lot of sacrifices. 
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1 These people are patriots of the highest degree, 

2 which everybody in here is, and some of them 

3 already left. They should be considered as that. 

4 All of us in this country owe our freedom to this 

5 group of people. If it wasn't for these people, 

6 we'd be speaking German or Russian. I'm 

7 currently on the Fernald Medical Monitoring 

8 Committee that oversees the program that was 

9 started by a lawsuit that was won by [identifying 

10 information redacted]. It was resolved in 1991. 

11 [identifying information redacted] is also on 

12 this committee. This lawsuit, there was some 

13 monetary payout, but most importantly, everybody 

14 that worked there before 1985 got a yearly 

15 physical for life.

16 Employees that worked after that, they 

17 get a physical every year. This lawsuit was won, 

18 in part, because of [identifying information 

19 redacted] having flawed records, lost records, 

20 insufficient records, and missing records. This 

21 begs the question of how there are accurate 

22 records to do dose reconstruction in figuring 

23 claims. In a 2001 study by NIOSH of remediation 
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1 workers, found in their summary of findings that 

2 workers can't be identified.

3 Accurate and complete exposure work 

4 history and medical record data are not available 

5 for this population of workers. Individual 

6 workers cannot consistently be linked to their 

7 exposures and medical data. At the present time, 

8 the necessary information to conduct 

9 epidemiologic exposure assessment or hazardous 

10 surveillance studies of remediation workers is 

11 not available. NIOSH had another -- this is part 

12 of that finding that I just read. This is on 

13 Page 24 of this. It says some personnel record 

14 systems exclude subcontractors, while others 

15 cannot differentiate remediation workers from 

16 visitors or from production workers. Second, 

17 work history exposure monitoring and medical data 

18 records appear to have similar deficiencies and 

19 are not reliably available for mediation workers.

20 A lack of codified monitoring and 

21 reporting requirements in the area of individual 

22 hygiene is particularly problematic. I know you 

23 mentioned stories, but I worked there for 21 
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1 years. There was a lot of them, but I'm just 

2 going to use one here. There was a time in the 

3 late 1980s where a lathe in Plant 9 had never 

4 been monitored for the workers.

5 In the late '80s, it was monitored for 

6 the very first time, and it got a stay time of 15 

7 minutes. I was involved in this incident. The

8 people that worked on that lathe for years, 

9 sometimes seven days a week, went ballistic, as 

10 did the area superintendent, for different 

11 reasons, the workers for being over-exposed for 

12 years, and the superintendent because production 

13 would be affected. I asked the workers did they 

14 ever come up high on their dosimeter badge, and 

15 they said no. That's where I questioned the 

16 dosimetry program. I already talked about the 

17 concern about not using cancer rates in the 

18 general population for figuring claims. That's 

19 a ready number that you could choose using cancer 

20 rates in the general population.

21 I listened to your teleconference over 

22 two weeks ago, and there was times when something 

23 was brought up about we had to pick a figure, but 
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1 every time they said that, they said they picked 

2 it in favor of the claimant, which is good. But 

3 already we have that cancer rate in the general 

4 population. The study I gave you about Fernald 

5 workers, you'll see a big impact on that.

6 Some of the people in that study that 

7 you have right there were salaried workers. 

8 There was some hourly workers included in it, but 

9 if you could put an hourly worker in place of the 

10 salary worker for the cancer rates that are shown 

11 on that handout, you can imagine it would be 

12 higher for hourly workers because they're in it 

13 all the time. In the 1980s --

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Can you, sir, wrap up? 

15 We've got a lot of other people waiting.

16 MR. SADLER: Okay, let me see where I 

17 can do this quick. I'll just talk about -- we 

18 had a manager at the plant, when all this stuff 

19 was imploding with this dust collector, and he 

20 went on television. He was trying to cover his 

21 rear end and the government and everybody else, 

22 I guess, but he made a statement on television 

23 that nothing would hurt you at Fernald unless it 
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1 fell on your head.

2 That was the safety culture there. 

3 The workers and the residents, we all knew there 

4 were a whole lot of somethings at Fernald that 

5 would hurt us. My concern is when the dose 

6 reconstruction and the monthly badges were read, 

7 that production was paramount to everything else. 

8 That's why dust collectors dumped stuff all over 

9 the place for years and years, thousands of tons. 

10 Anyway, I made my point, and you'll hear from 

11 [identifying information redacted], and he'll 

12 follow up on the handout I gave you. Thanks for 

13 letting me be here.

14 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

15 Terrie Barrie? I saw her leaving. Oh, there you 

16 are. I saw you heading towards the door. Okay. 

17 I would have come back to you; don't worry.

18 MS. BARRIE: Okay. Thank you, Dr. 

19 Melius, and Members of the Board. I'm Terry 

20 Barrie, with the Alliance of Nuclear Worker 

21 Advocacy Groups. I have just a couple of issues 

22 to address tonight. I want to start off with 

23 LANL. In 2006, I received an email from a 
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1 now-deceased subcontractor.

2 I quote, in April of 2002, I worked a 

3 two-week job for Eaton Corporation at Tech Area 

4 55 at Los Alamos. I was doing electrical 

5 maintenance in Building PF-4 at night. There was 

6 an air monitor in the room, and when it alarmed, 

7 we all evacuated. I was called back to work for 

8 a nose swab and could not leave until the results 

9 came back negative.

10 At first, I thought the problem was 

11 external radiation because of the sheer volume of 

12 waste, end of quote there. He went on to add 

13 that he was, quote, not wearing a dosimeter, only 

14 a criticality badge, end quote. This worker said 

15 that the evacuation happened every other day 

16 during the two-week job, and I have his original 

17 email if you'd like to have a copy of that. So 

18 here we have a worker who LANL thought would not 

19 be exposed to enough radiation to require a 

20 dosimetry badge, but apparently he was. This 

21 email mentions that nasal -- he mentions nasal 

22 smears, but no bioassay.

23 This worker died in 2010, eight years 
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1 after his two-week stint at LANL. NIOSH presumes 

2 that January 1, 1996 is the date that all DOE 

3 contractors not only complied, but implemented 

4 the requirements of Statute 10 CFR 835, and that 

5 they can bound dose for all those years for all 

6 workers and at all sites. This, to us, is a 

7 non-starter.

8 Workers, some of whom were supposedly 

9 not in a labor category where they would have 

10 received more than 100 millirems CEDE actually 

11 did receive measurable dose. Additionally, the 

12 Advisory Board on Toxic Substances and Worker 

13 Health already weighed in on this issue. 

14 Department of Labor had a similar policy 

15 regarding the exposures after December 31, 1995. 

16 That Board recommended that DOL rescind that 

17 policy, and DOL accepted that recommendation. 

18 EEOICPA must be administered consistently. 

19 Consistency is vital to the program. I urge the 

20 Work Group and the Board not to waste any more 

21 time on whether this issue -- and reject NIOSH's 

22 premise that those can be bounded after 1995. 

23 Lastly, a brief thought on Rocky Flats, and 
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1 you're going to love me for this one.

2 You remember that the Board voted to 

3 not expand the Rocky Flats vote in March. We're 

4 talking about consistency. We have two sites 

5 that have been going on, one for over ten years, 

6 one for close to eight years or whatever, knowing 

7 that there's more information out there. The 

8 Board also knows that NIOSH has not reviewed, 

9 from what I hear now, thousands of boxes of Rocky 

10 Flats documentation.

11 Also, the secretary has not made a 

12 decision on the Board's recommendation on Rocky 

13 Flats. So in order to be consistent on this, I 

14 do respectfully ask this, that you consider 

15 rescinding your letter or your recommendation to 

16 the secretary until NIOSH does review the 

17 documents that they plan on reviewing. I thank 

18 you.

19 CHAIR MELIUS: Thank you, Terry. It's 

20 sort of out of our hands right now. [identifying 

21 information redacted]. You sure can. Okay.

22 ([identifying information redacted] 

23 says that she will email her presentation to Mr. 
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1 Katz.)

2 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you. Hugh 

3 Stephens.

4 MR. STEPHENS: Thank you, Dr. Melius 

5 and Members of the Board. I'm here for the third 

6 in-person meeting to talk about the fact that 

7 radiation dose for certain workers with non-SEC 

8 cancers are not having their complete doses 

9 estimated. We talked about it last time. I've 

10 looked into it a little further, and I have some 

11 comments about it. First of all, I'd like to say 

12 I'm an attorney from Buffalo, New York. I 

13 represent lots of workers, many of whom, their 

14 claims have been denied. So I spend a lot of 

15 time defending the program. I think it's a great 

16 program. So while I'm here to complain that we 

17 should change the program, my goal here is to 

18 make a good program better, and not to complain 

19 about the way the program is run.

20 The decision not to perform the 

21 certain aspect of the dose reconstruction 

22 happened many, many years ago, I believe, and I 

23 think back at that time, it probably took NIOSH 
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1 as many as two or more years to do a dose 

2 reconstruction. The program has matured. It is 

3 in a position now where things are kind of closing 

4 up. We're finishing the work that needs to be 

5 done, and this is another piece of that work that 

6 needs to be done.

7 What I'm talking about here are claims 

8 where you have skin cancer or prostate cancer or 

9 some other non-SEC cancer, where an SEC has been 

10 passed, there's been a decision that if you can't 

11 estimate dose with sufficient accuracy, then you 

12 can't estimate dose. I think that is not at all 

13 true. We talk about surrogate data, and we are 

14 able to estimate dose. The question for the SEC 

15 purposes is can you estimate dose with sufficient 

16 accuracy to deny a claim in a claimant-favorable 

17 program? When you're estimating dose for someone 

18 who has a non-SEC cancer, that is not the standard 

19 that should be applied. There are two sections 

20 in the statute, itself, one that addresses dose 

21 reconstructions. That's 7384(n).

22 It says the president shall estimate 

23 dose, or he shall promulgate regulations with 
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1 respect to how dose will be estimated for workers 

2 whose monitoring -- workers who were not 

3 monitored, workers whose monitoring was 

4 inadequate, and workers whose monitoring records 

5 are missing. In effect, 7384(n) says estimate 

6 dose, and no excuse will do. You will estimate 

7 dose. That's what 7384(n) says.

8 7384(n) is about dose reconstruction. 

9 7384(q) is about Special Exposure Cohorts. It 

10 says where you cannot estimate dose with 

11 sufficient accuracy, you must establish a Special 

12 Exposure Cohort. A decision was made that if you 

13 can't estimate dose with sufficient accuracy, 

14 then those people who have non-SEC cancers will 

15 not receive a dose estimate for that dose. The 

16 problem here is this language related to not 

17 feasible to estimate with sufficient accuracy the 

18 radiation dose, that's Special Exposure Cohort 

19 language. That Special Exposure Cohort language 

20 is being used in these non-SEC cancers to deprive 

21 these workers of a full and complete dose 

22 reconstruction. Now, the dose reconstruction 

23 statute directs the president to estimate dose, 
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1 and then it says -- then it defines what is a 

2 sufficient dose.

3 It doesn't talk about accuracy. It 

4 says a sufficient dose is reasonable. That's all 

5 it requires, reasonable, scientific. What needs 

6 to be done in a dose reconstruction for a non-SEC 

7 cancer is a reasonable and scientific dose. It 

8 doesn't need to be terribly accurate, and just 

9 because it's not terribly accurate is not a good 

10 enough reason to substitute zero for the dose.

11 Zero is not the dose. The dose is 

12 something we aren't sure what it is. I've got a 

13 client, his family -- my client's father has dose 

14 reconstruction. It's got a 49.18 percent 

15 Probability of Causation. He worked at 

16 Electromet between 1942 and 1945. During that 

17 time period, you don't get internal dose because 

18 that's the dose that caused the SEC at 

19 Electromet. But I think we can all agree that 

20 between 1942 and 1945, he got a big dose, or at 

21 least, if we were going to estimate it, we would 

22 estimate it relatively high. That would cause 

23 this family to receive the compensation they 
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1 deserve. Now, my client's father had a dose 

2 reconstruction done in 2016, after the SEC was 

3 passed.

4 He also had a dose reconstruction 

5 performed in 2012. In 2012, they estimated that 

6 between 1942 and 1945, he received 8,159 

7 disintegrations per minute, per day, for those 

8 three years. NIOSH did the dose reconstruction. 

9 We don't have to go searching around for a new 

10 number. We could just use the number that they 

11 used in 2012.

12 In this specific instance, I don't 

13 think anybody can seriously disagree that these 

14 people deserve to get an estimate. What is the 

15 rationale? The rationale is that the dose isn't 

16 sufficiently accurate for purposes of the Special 

17 Exposure Cohort, and this claim does not fit 

18 within the Special Exposure Cohort. I've 

19 submitted my letter. Hopefully, the Members of 

20 the Board will read it. I'm here to find 

21 out -- if I'm mistaken about this, I'd be happy 

22 to hear about it, but otherwise, I'm going to 

23 have to take this to some federal judge and have 
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1 him or her decide what the answer is. I think 

2 this is a pretty clear one. I think it shows 

3 that there was a mistake made a long time ago, 

4 and it can be fixed without very much effort. 

5 Well, maybe with a lot of effort, but that effort 

6 is worthwhile. Thank you.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Is anybody else here?

8 MR. FROWISS: That was what I wanted 

9 to comment about, Dr. Melius. I fully support 

10 Hugh Stephens' letter. I read it, and the 

11 rationale looks logical to me. Thank you.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Can we go to the 

13 phone? Is anybody on the phone? I have a Ralph 

14 Stanton that, I think, called in, said he was 

15 going to comment from the phone.

16 MR. STANTON: Yes, this is Ralph 

17 Stanton.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay.

19 MR. STANTON: Am I on? Okay. Thank 

20 you, Dr. Melius and Members of the Board. My 

21 name is Ralph Stanton. I worked at the Idaho 

22 National Laboratory, and I was involved in a 

23 radioactive release in November of 2011. My 
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1 experience with the aftermath of this accident 

2 has direct bearing on the LANL and other SEC 

3 petitions. I've been very frustrated in 

4 gathering dose-related information through the 

5 FOIA process.

6 I put in a request for copies of the 

7 log books that were used to document the facility 

8 surveys, as well as my own radiological surveys, 

9 and the DOE FOIA officer tells me that they're 

10 now missing. This is only six years ago, so 

11 sounds like it's not only happening at LANL, but 

12 other places, as well.

13 The long-time rad employee who, for a 

14 short time, had possession of one of these log 

15 books, came forward in January of 2014 and said 

16 that there was a very big difference between the 

17 survey levels that Battelle reported and the 

18 levels he saw in those log books. Battelle had 

19 a legal duty to preserve this evidence, due to 

20 the litigation over the accident, but now this 

21 very crucial dose evidence is gone, and this 

22 accident just barely happened, compared to 

23 others. I've still been able to gather a lot of 
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1 evidence pertaining to my dose, and every bit of 

2 it points to falsification and manipulation of 

3 the data. Now, your dose calculations in 

4 records, they're very crucial to receiving 

5 benefits from an exposure, and it would seem to 

6 me that NIOSH would be just as concerned with the 

7 dose falsifications, especially if you can prove 

8 it, than anything because if the doses are not 

9 ethically calculated and the logs are 

10 disappearing, then sick workers have no chance of 

11 proving their sicknesses are at least 50 percent 

12 caused by working at one of these DOE facilities.

13 I shared some of my dose data with 

14 NIOSH experts in November of 2014. They agreed, 

15 at that time, that my dose calculations had 

16 issues, but very strangely, they didn't document 

17 their conclusions in the report they sent me.

18 Since then, I've acquired much more 

19 evidence that overwhelmingly points towards 

20 falsification, and I would be glad to share all 

21 of this incriminating evidence with anybody who 

22 has any doubts. NIOSH is trying to tell you that 

23 everything was okay after January 1, 1996. In 
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1 light of the overwhelming evidence to the 

2 contrary, I'm telling you that this is done 

3 completely wrong, and you cannot assume that the 

4 contractors obeyed the law in every instance. I 

5 ask that you reject NIOSH's presumption. That's 

6 all I have.

7 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, thank you.

8 MR. STANTON: Thank you.

9 CHAIR MELIUS: Anybody else on the 

10 phone that wishes to make public comments?

11 MR. KISPERT: Yes.

12 CHAIR MELIUS: Identify yourself, 

13 please.

14 MR. KISPERT: Robert Kispert, Fernald.

15 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, go ahead.

16 MR. TABOR: My name is Robert Tabor. 

17 I'm just going to be extremely brief. If Bob 

18 Kispert is still tuned in, I want him to have an 

19 opportunity to speak, also, concerning Fernald.

20 MR. KISPERT: I'm here, and my 

21 concern, like many others, is with how well the 

22 sit profile adequately covers all the operational 

23 periods and the range of materials that were 
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1 processed at the site through 1989, when 

2 production stopped abruptly. Of particular 

3 concern is the recycled uranium from Hanford, 

4 reprocessing the spent rods from the N reactor. 

5 This was an enriched uranium stream that they 

6 processed to separate out uranium and plutonium 

7 together, and other transuranics came along, like 

8 plutonium, and also tech-99. What's not clear is 

9 that this material was adequately profiled, 

10 adequately known, and the recycle -- what's not 

11 really clear is how much the repeated use of 

12 recycle material over the decades built the 

13 profiles up of these materials, without them ever 

14 being monitored routinely.

15 One indicator was when the recycle for 

16 the enriched stream began operating in 1968, the 

17 parts per million level of U-236 that was formed 

18 in the Hanford reactor was less than 100 parts 

19 per million. By the time the 1980s rolled around, 

20 with repeated use, this profile increased to more 

21 than 500 ppm U-236 and posed a problem to the 

22 efficient operation of the reactor.

23 How many other things, such as 
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1 plutonium, itself, neptunium, tech-99 built up in 

2 this profile? These are undefined. Along with 

3 it, we had to use sweetener material, higher 

4 enriched U-235, to blend with the tails from 

5 Hanford, in order to restore the U-235 level to 

6 product assays. The source of sweetener was 

7 widespread, both within DOE and external. We 

8 routinely received enriched UNH solutions from 

9 Savannah River and Nuclear Fuel Services, a 

10 commercial subsidiary of WR Grace, that 

11 eventually became the DOE responsibility. They 

12 were located in West Valley, New York.

13 We routinely received them and used 

14 them, eventually, for blending the isotopics. 

15 There were other scraps that we got in enriched, 

16 from unused fuel enriched from the Piqua reactor 

17 in Ohio, the Hallam reactor in Nebraska that were 

18 processed to recover the U-235. The point is 

19 that these have never been characterized, and 

20 it's doubtful that the Site Profile could 

21 adequately construct a model that would permit 

22 the assessment of how likely or not a person was 

23 exposed to radiation.
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1 I could go on. Over the years, a total 

2 of almost 60,000 metric tons of enriched uranium 

3 came in the form of recycled material from 

4 Hanford. That quantity contained 208 grams of 

5 plutonium and 19,000 grams of neptunium and 

6 328,000 of tech-99. This is all documented in a 

7 thorough study of U recycled material completed 

8 in 2000 for the Ohio field office. I was on that 

9 team that studied it. I will defer to Bob Tabor, 

10 at this point. Bob, are you there?

11 MR. TABOR: I am.

12 MR. KISPERT: I forgot to mention the 

13 POOS materials, another indicator, what we called 

14 at Fernald POOS, plutonium out of spec material. 

15 Our spec for getting Hanford recycle was two 

16 parts per billion. By the 1980s, there was an 

17 excursion of plutonium levels that increased the 

18 plutonium level on many lots to well above that 

19 spec, including the range of 1,530 ppm plutonium.

20 This had to require special processing 

21 techniques that weren't really known until it was 

22 identified that the plutonium was that far above 

23 spec. It couldn't be waivered. All in all, in 
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1 the bottom line that you really come to, all in 

2 all, these kind of materials were processed in 

3 equipment that was never envisioned for 

4 processing enriched, and even containing these 

5 transuranics in trace quantities.

6 All of the equipment was sized, 

7 designed for high tonnage natural uranium 

8 processing. By the time the '80s came around, 

9 most of the equipment was held together by 

10 maintenance, borrowed parts, cannibalizing other 

11 parts. The equipment was old and aged. That was 

12 a big factor in selling the modernization program 

13 that never came about. I'm in full support 

14 of -- I know it's too late. 

15 You already decided the vote, but I'm 

16 in full support of extending this SEC to 1989, 

17 and really beyond because the materials remained 

18 at the site until it was eventually closed in 

19 2006. With that, I'll finish, and thanks for the 

20 opportunity to have my say. I will now turn it 

21 over to Bob Tabor from Fernald.

22 MR. TABOR: Good evening, folks. It's 

23 evening here in the greater Cincinnati area. I 
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1 appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly. 

2 What I would like to say is that the accuracy and 

3 reliability of the data to develop the Site 

4 Profile, in my opinion, is flawed because to do 

5 the most accurate dose reconstruction, you need 

6 to factor in and consider a more complete picture 

7 and understanding of the material composition and 

8 the production processes, some of which Bob 

9 Kispert has already elaborated on. With that in 

10 mind, it is my opinion that not a thorough profile 

11 has been done, in order to obtain a more complete 

12 and good Site Profile, and these things that have 

13 been mentioned by Bob Kispert concerning the type 

14 of materials that we processed, the composition 

15 of those materials, the assay of those materials, 

16 the survey of those materials, and the modeling 

17 that was done is basically -- has a lot to be 

18 desired and basically should be considered in 

19 order to do an accurate and reliable profile.

20 Something we do understand -- and I 

21 listened in today and you've made a decision not 

22 to extend, is my understanding, the SEC petition 

23 for Fernald, but it appears to me that we put the 
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1 cart before the horse here, in as much as there's 

2 a lot lacking relative to Site Profile.

3 When you consider that still, from 

4 1978 to 1989, we were still processing those 

5 particular constituents, as far as that material 

6 goes, then it just seems to me it would make 

7 common sense to have extended that SEC. With 

8 that said, I would really respectfully request 

9 that the Board consider rescinding their decision 

10 today until we can really investigate the things 

11 that need to be considered, and there's 

12 documentation for this, of all the things that 

13 would impact that Site Profile, which certainly, 

14 in my opinion, would impact some of the baseline 

15 decisions or the decision making, as far as dose 

16 reconstruction is concerned. That's all I have 

17 to say.

18 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay, is there anybody 

19 else on Fernald, or are you the last speaker? I 

20 just want to comment that if you believe there's 

21 additional information that's not been 

22 considered, there is a process for resubmitting 

23 an SEC petition, which will be reviewed by NIOSH, 
323

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 and then if that has adequate information to 

2 re-open, then it will be fully evaluated.

3 MR. TABOR: (Simultaneous speaking) 

4 knowing that.

5 CHAIR MELIUS: Pardon?

6 MR. TABOR: I said this is Mr. Tabor. 

7 I'm glad to hear that there's other avenues here.

8 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes, and that's been 

9 used many times, so it's not something that -- and 

10 NIOSH will work with you, in terms if there are 

11 questions or something about -- or clarification 

12 needed and so forth, in order to be able to do 

13 that. That's another option.

14 Then let me also mention, as the Work 

15 Group and others on the Board looks at the Site 

16 Profile, if they discover that there are 

17 inadequacies or questions where dose 

18 reconstruction can't be done, then NIOSH, 

19 themselves, can generate an SEC for it. You may 

20 want to talk to NIOSH about the process of putting 

21 in a new petition.

22 MR. TABOR: Well, I'm quite familiar 

23 with Stu Hinnefeld and a number of his associates 
324 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

1 that used to work at the Fernald site. I've 

2 worked with those people for many years from a 

3 safety perspective, so maybe we'll just address 

4 this issue.

5 Adjourn 

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Okay. Is there anybody 

7 else on the telephone who wishes to make public 

8 comments? Okay, thank you all. Anybody's that 

9 left on the line and anybody's that left here 

10 with us, thank you for your attention and time. 

11 We reconvene in the morning, a little bit later.

12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

13 went off the record at 6:54 p.m.)