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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

+ + + + +

69th MEETING

+ + + + +

FRIDAY

MAY 21, 2010

+ + + + +

The meeting convened at 8:15 a.m., 

Eastern Daylight Savings Time, in the Crowne 

Plaza Hotel, 300 3rd Street, Niagara Falls, 

NY, Mark Griffon, Acting Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MARK GRIFFON, Acting Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member

RICHARD LEMEN, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member
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PRESENT: (continued)

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member*

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member*

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

BRADFORD, SHANNON, DCAS

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH Contractor

CRUZ, RUBEN, CDC

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

HINNEFELD, STUART, DCAS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

HUGHES, LARA, DCAS*

KLEA, BONNIE*

KOTSCH, JEFFREY, DOL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCFEE, MATT, ORAU Team

OSTROW, STEVE, SC&A

PRESLEY, LOUISE 

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

ULSH, BRANT, DCAS

*Participating via telephone
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 8:26 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, and 

4 welcome everyone in the room and on the line. 

5 This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

6 Worker Health. This is our third day of our 

7 meeting here in Niagara Falls, and we're just 

8 about to get started.

9 And let me begin by checking in 

10 and seeing that we have two Board members who 

11 are remote.

12 Dr. Ziemer?

13 MEMBER ZEIMER: Yes, I'm here.

14 MR. KATZ: Great.

15 And, Dr. Richardson.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I'm here.

17 MR. KATZ: Great. Good morning. 

18 Well, it's not morning for you, Dr. 

19 Richardson, I don't think.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Good evening.

21 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you.

22 So, otherwise, let me just note, 
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1 too, we probably don't have that many people 

2 on the line, but please mute your lines except 

3 when you're addressing the Board; *6 to mute 

4 your line if you don't have a mute button, and 

5 *6 to take it off mute. And let me see -- I 

6 think that's it. Actually, we can roll.

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This is 

8 Mark Griffon standing in for Jim Melius, the 

9 Chair of the Committee, and this morning we're 

10 starting off with two 83.14 SEC petitions. 

11 The first one is De Soto Avenue facility, and 

12 Brant Ulsh is going to start us off with a 

13 presentation on that.

14 Brant.

15 DR. ULSH: Thank you, Mark.

16 Mark is not the only stand-in this 

17 morning. As you heard yesterday, we're down 

18 to the third string for some of these, and 

19 this is one of them.

20 Dr. Lara Hughes was the NIOSH 

21 point person on this particular petition. She 

22 was unable to make it to this meeting, and you 
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1 already see a problem with the title slide, 

2 and that's that I'm not Jim Neton. So Jim was 

3 unfortunately unable to make it, too, so I 

4 will be handling this one.

5 These two petitions, the next two 

6 petitions that we're going to do, De Soto 

7 Avenue and then followed by Downey, I think 

8 are going to be relatively easier, perhaps, 

9 than some of the other matters that you've 

10 considered at this meeting.

11 Okay, the De Soto Avenue facility 

12 -- the petition that we're bringing forward 

13 today is an 83.14, and I know that all of you 

14 Board members know the significance of that, 

15 but for others who may not, this is a petition 

16 that NIOSH is bringing forward rather than 

17 being a petition that is originated with 

18 claimants.

19 And so what you see here is that 

20 on the petition overview, NIOSH, as typical 

21 with 83.14s, we were unable to obtain 

22 sufficient information to do a dose 
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1 reconstruction, so we are proposing an 83.14 

2 SEC Class. The timeline begins here on 

3 February 26. We notified a claimant, we 

4 initiated the 83.14 process, and the petition 

5 was submitted to NIOSH in March of this year.

6 So just a little bit about the De 

7 Soto Avenue facility -- it was owned and 

8 operated by North American Aviation, and we're 

9 focusing specifically on the Nuclear 

10 Operations Division, which was known as 

11 Atomics International. And De Soto was the 

12 headquarters of Atomics International and is 

13 closely affiliated with the Santa Susana Area 

14 IV site. In fact, both De Soto and Downey, 

15 which will follow, were one of the, were two 

16 of the predecessors to the Santa Susana site 

17 along with the Canoga Avenue facility, which I 

18 believe has already been added to the SEC 

19 Class.

20 The period of coverage for the De 

21 Soto facility is 1959 through 1995, and in the 

22 last bullet there, you see that operations 
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1 were transferred from De Soto to Canoga Avenue 

2 in 1959, so De Soto is a predecessor to 

3 Canoga, which has already been designated an 

4 SEC.

5 Here is a picture of the facility 

6 that we're talking about. This picture is 

7 from 1963, and you can see two red circles 

8 here. This, these are the buildings, Building 

9 I and Building IV, which housed the operations 

10 of Atomics international.

11 Okay, so there are a couple of 

12 other Classes that are related to this 

13 particular one. As I mentioned, we've got two 

14 Classes for Area IV of Santa Susana, and those 

15 collectively span 1955 through 1964. The 

16 Canoga Avenue facility, for which we have an 

17 SEC for 1955 through 1960 -- and we jumped the 

18 gun a little bit on this last bullet. We've 

19 got that the Downey facility is an SEC from 

20 '48 to '55. I think it's probably about half 

21 an hour early. We'll see how it goes after, 

22 in the next presentation.
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1 And the basis of our proposal to 

2 add a Class for De Soto is -- it's an 

3 infeasibility to reconstruct internal doses --

4 oh, sorry. The infeasibility to reconstruct 

5 internal doses is what came into play for all 

6 of these others that are listed here.

7 All right, so what did they do at 

8 De Soto? Well, first of all, they had a 

9 nuclear reactor program which operated from 

10 1960 through 1977, and they had a small 

11 research reactor, about a 10-watt reactor. 

12 They did nuclear support operations from 1959 

13 through 1983, and that involved fabrication of 

14 uranium aluminide fuel plates, and they also 

15 did some radiochemistry. Furthermore, they 

16 have a gamma radiation facility with both 

17 cesium-137 and cobalt-60 sources, and they had 

18 a mass -- mass spectrometer laboratory for the 

19 analysis of neutron-radiated samples.

20 So here, as we typically do, we 

21 summarize the information that's available to 

22 us. As usual, we have the, the Technical 
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1 Information Bulletins in these Site Profiles 

2 that was produced by the ORAU Team. We also 

3 have documents that are available at our site 

4 research database, and those documents came 

5 from records that we captured related to the 

6 Santa Susana Area IV site.

7 And we also visited Federal 

8 Records Center in San Bruno, and we consulted 

9 with -- you know, we got electronic databases 

10 from both the Department of Energy and the 

11 Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the State of 

12 California. We also have the case files that 

13 are available for the claims related to this 

14 site, and we have interviews from former De 

15 Soto employees in Area IV of Susana, Santa 

16 Susana employees as well.

17 We do -- let's talk a little bit 

18 about what's available to us for internal 

19 monitoring. We have urine bioassay data 

20 starting in 1958, a number of different types 

21 that you can see listed here -- gross alpha, 

22 gross beta, uranium, mixed fission, plutonium, 
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1 thorium, and a few other elements that are 

2 listed. However, the internal monitoring is 

3 limited to radiation workers who were working 

4 with unencapsulated material, and it's also 

5 mixed in with the data from the Area IV of 

6 Santa Susanna records.

7 So what we discovered during the 

8 research for this petition is that 

9 radionuclide -- there was a potential for 

10 radionuclide intake for unmonitored workers at 

11 the Santa Susana related sites, and that 

12 includes the De Soto facility. We determined 

13 that we needed a coworker model to assign dose 

14 for the unmonitored workers.

15 And this -- I think this is the 

16 real problem here. The bioassay database 

17 contains missing positive data up to 1965, and 

18 this is the same situation we faced at Area IV 

19 of Santa Susana. I think Dr. Hughes is on the 

20 phone, so she'll correct me if I 

21 mischaracterize this, but I think what we see 

22 in the records are simply a plus sign to 
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1 indicate that something was monitored, but we 

2 don't have a numerical result to go with it. 

3 So that puts us in a pretty tough position to 

4 construct a coworker database or a coworker 

5 model for that time period.

6 So we determined that we are 

7 unable to bound internal doses for coworkers 

8 before 1965. Now, in 1965, it's our 

9 conclusion that the internal data is complete 

10 and sufficient to go forward with the coworker 

11 model. We don't face that same issue with the 

12 pluses with no numerical values attached.

13 We do have an external monitoring 

14 data for all years of site operation, and we 

15 are assigning dose based on job and exposure 

16 potential. There is beta and gamma 

17 monitoring, and that is in the form of pocket 

18 or pencil dosimeters, film dosimeters, and 

19 TLDs. There are also -- there's NTA film 

20 results. And, again, this is included in the 

21 Santa Susana records. So we have developed a 

22 coworker model to assess unmonitored external 
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1 doses, and that, by the way, is currently 

2 undergoing revision.

3 So to conclude the feasibility 

4 conclusions related to this petition, it is 

5 our position that we lack sufficient 

6 monitoring data or source term data that would 

7 allow us to bound internal doses with 

8 sufficient accuracy for the De Soto facility 

9 for the time period of January 1, 1959 through 

10 the last day of 1964, December 31st.

11 We do believe that we have 

12 sufficient data to reconstruct external doses, 

13 and of course, as usual, we will use 

14 individual monitoring data when it's available 

15 to us. The normal two-pronged test, the 

16 health endangerment, as we normally conclude 

17 here we can't reconstruct doses, we are 

18 concluding that there was health endangerment, 

19 and so this slide gives you the exact wording 

20 of the Class definition, and it's pretty much 

21 as I summarized before. It's a bit long, so 

22 I'll give you a little time to read that.
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1 So here's our recommendation: we 

2 are recommending that a Class be added to the 

3 SEC for De Soto, as I mentioned, from January 

4 1959 through the end of 1964. We determined 

5 that it's not feasible and that health was 

6 endangered. Okay, I think that's it.

7 So I would gladly take any 

8 questions and direct them to Lara, who I hope 

9 is on the phone.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thanks, 

11 Brant.

12 Yes, we can open it up to the 

13 Board now for questions. Anyone have any 

14 questions about this facility?

15 Maybe I can start off with, how 

16 many -- I'm sorry -- how many claimants did 

17 you have for this facility?

18 DR. ULSH: I had a feeling you 

19 would ask that.

20 Lara, are you on line?

21 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I'm here. Can 

22 you hear me?
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1 DR. ULSH: Yes, we can hear you. 

2 Mark just asked, how many claimants?

3 DR. HUGHES: Yes, as of today, we 

4 have 225 claims for De Soto.

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 225?

6 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I 

8 also noticed the Class definition, you went 

9 with the all-worker model, although early in 

10 your presentation, you said Buildings I and IV

11 were the -- by, by broadening it to all 

12 workers, do you, you know, extensively expand 

13 a population that might be -- fall within the 

14 Class? Or have you examined that?

15 DR. HUGHES: Well, we know the 

16 site does not only consist of radiation 

17 workers but the two larger facilities. The 

18 larger buildings at the site were the 

19 facilities that did nuclear work, and 

20 essentially, I mean, we have the same problem. 

21 We have as many sites that we cannot tell or 

22 cannot really tell which worker worked where 
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1 for sure, which leads us to recommending a 

2 Class that encompasses all workers.

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

4 And there's not enough in their individual 

5 records to sort of place them in those areas, 

6 is what you're kind of --

7 DR. HUGHES: That is correct.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

10 Hinnefeld. I just wanted to ask maybe one 

11 question of Lara.

12 You said there were well over 200 

13 claims. Now is that the entire population of 

14 claims from De Soto?

15 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, so De Soto 

17 has, covered period goes beyond 1964.

18 DR. HUGHES: Oh, yes, that's 

19 correct.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: So we don't know 

21 all 200 some odd are in this Class.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, yes 
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1 --

2 DR. HUGHES: Oh, I think we, it's 

3 actually, I think it's in the Evaluation 

4 Report. I would have to pull that number.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, if you can 

6 look for that while we're discussing it.

7 DR. HUGHES: Okay.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I 

9 think that's an important factor for us to 

10 consider.

11 Others on the Board have any 

12 questions?

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I have a 

14 question. This is David Richardson.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

16 David, go ahead.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: The difficulty 

18 in placing workers -- Mark raised a question 

19 of placing them in Buildings I or IV. 

20 Previously when we've, we've talked about 

21 Santa Susana and the related or affiliated 

22 work areas within, within Atomics, the 
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1 question has been that people are, are moving 

2 between sites, not so much between buildings, 

3 and that, that seemed to me more of a concern 

4 here.

5 I, when I'm looking through the 

6 operations description for De Soto, the, that 

7 in itself doesn't make, to me -- I mean, I 

8 could be, I could have not spent enough time 

9 struggling with this, but the descriptions of 

10 the operations don't seem that insurmountable.

11 So you've got a reactor here, 

12 which is 10 watts, which is incredibly small. 

13 It's, I mean, it's -- you're talking about 

14 like a string of Christmas tree lights, and 

15 it's operating with, with fuel, which I think 

16 is measured in grams, not in kilograms, and 

17 probably very low enrichment. So it's a very, 

18 very small reactor. This is the first 

19 operation that you've described.

20 The gamma radiation facility is 

21 all sealed sources, and you've said that you 

22 feel like you can deal with external 
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1 exposures. You have a mass spec lab, which I 

2 would feel like seems, to me, hard to imagine 

3 that you couldn't bound the exposures there.

4 So the one kind of process maybe 

5 that would be, I guess we'd want to struggle 

6 with would be this advanced test reactor/fuel 

7 fabrication activity. But if, if it was 

8 simply kind of one of the other -- these other 

9 operations sound to me very kind of 

10 small-scale and relatively constrained and 

11 maybe not that difficult to bound exposures 

12 on.

13 Is, is the problem simply that --

14 I mean, is it possible to figure out that De 

15 Soto workers are working at least in the De 

16 Soto facility, or, or is what's motivating you 

17 to go and make this an SEC the fact that these 

18 workers go into Area IV, the field laboratory, 

19 and are doing other work that's more difficult 

20 to deal with?

21 DR. HUGHES: I --

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because, as I 
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1 read your SEC document, I wasn't really struck 

2 by kind of a case that this was 

3 insurmountable.

4 DR. HUGHES: This is Lara Hughes 

5 with NIOSH. I can try to answer that. The 

6 first, one part of the question is this 

7 evaluation is with respect to the De Soto 

8 facility, and the tie-in to Santa Susana is 

9 merely that the records are essentially in the 

10 same state. So we're looking at workers that 

11 worked at De Soto in this case.

12 And as for the operations, the 

13 largest internal exposure that we're dealing 

14 with at this site was this fuel fabrication. 

15 And it might not have been entirely clear in 

16 the presentation, but they did fuel 

17 fabrication not only for this advanced testing 

18 reactor -- I forget exactly what it was called 

19 -- but they did fuel fabrication for a large 

20 number of the reactors on the site, on the 

21 Santa Susana site, and there were actually 

22 some incidents of very large internal 
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1 exposures to uranium aluminide fuel, with the 

2 powder that was generated during this process.

3 So we know there was a significant 

4 internal exposure potential at the site which 

5 we cannot reconstruct based on the data that's 

6 available. So the fuel fabrication would be 

7 the major operation that would result in these 

8 internal doses at the site.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can you 

10 -- can you tell us where in the Evaluation 

11 Report that's, that's talked about, discussed? 

12 Some of us -- I mean, in the presentation, 

13 that certainly, in my opinion, wasn't really 

14 highlighted, and I think that's a --

15 DR. HUGHES: Right.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: --

17 critical factor because I agree with what 

18 David was talking about, as far as the reactor 

19 and the other exposures were concerned. So if 

20 you can point us to that, that might be 

21 helpful for --

22 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I'm not sure 
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1 it's entirely clear. It might not be entirely 

2 clear in the report. It would be Section 41, 

3 Operations Description. It's fairly short in 

4 the report. We tend to keep the 83.14 report 

5 shorter. It could have been more elaborate in 

6 there.

7 And to answer your earlier 

8 question regarding the effective number of 

9 claims, that would be 97 claims at the De Soto 

10 facility that have employment during these, 

11 the recommended SEC period.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And in 

13 your description it says "fuel fabrication in 

14 the '60s and '70s." Would it even fall in 

15 this Class, the definition? '64 is-- I mean, 

16 does the fuel fabrication start before '64?

17 DR. HUGHES: Yes, the --

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It is 

19 applicable for this time period we're 

20 discussing then?

21 DR. HUGHES: That is correct. The 

22 operations at De Soto started in 1959. They 
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1 moved in 1959 from the Canoga facility, and I 

2 think the major operation started up in 1960. 

3 But it's covered up to 1959.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, 

5 any other -- I was actually reading that 

6 section a little bit. There's not much there, 

7 though, as you said, to review.

8 Any other questions? David or 

9 Paul on the line?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, Paul Ziemer. 

11 I have a, just a kind of a minor question. 

12 The last slide is a little different from what 

13 we ordinarily see. Nothing was mentioned 

14 about medical exposures. Am I -- I assume 

15 that medical exposures will be added and can 

16 be reconstructed in the usual manner.

17 DR. HUGHES: Yes, that is correct.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: And then, just for 

19 future reference, normally we show what is 

20 feasible as well as what is not feasible. I 

21 think that all of the externals are feasible 

22 through this period. Is that correct or not? 
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1 It's the -- the no on feasibility has to do 

2 with the internal dose; is that not correct?

3 DR. ULSH: That is correct.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's 

5 correct, Paul, yes.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Any 

8 further questions?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: I might add one 

10 minor comment just for the record.

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: A low, a low power 

13 reactor, such as 5 watts, still requires a 

14 critical mass of uranium, and many reactors in 

15 that category, at least historically, have 

16 used highly enriched uranium. So it, it's a 

17 matter of what you control the power to.

18 So although in this case I don't 

19 think that is affecting doses, it would, it 

20 would take a criticality incident above the 

21 licensed power to, to cause a problem because 

22 that kind of reactor, you can handle the fuel 
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1 even after, after the reactor's been on for a 

2 while, so, but it, it still requires the 

3 critical mass and could indeed be highly 

4 enriched.

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

6 David, any further questions or follow-up on 

7 the additional information on the fuel 

8 fabrication? I thought you might --

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well, it's, 

10 it's -- yes, it's hard for me to follow up 

11 because, as you said, there's, there's really 

12 four sentences there.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So, so -- and 

15 I, you know, and the bulk of the text is about 

16 the other operations. So if there's, if 

17 there's other documents that I could be 

18 referred to, would be happy to look at those.

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Brant or 

20 -- are the references -- I haven't looked at 

21 it enough to know. I'm sure the references 

22 are on the O: drive.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And if there -

2 - yes, if there could be some clarification 

3 about the L-77 reactor, I mean, my comments 

4 were following. I just tried to do a little 

5 bit of reading about it, and the -- yes, so if 

6 there's further information about the, of the 

7 enrichment fuel they're working with, for 

8 example, and what I've found is -- that 

9 they're called aqueous homogenous reactors --

10 you're right. It can work with a range of 

11 levels of enrichment of uranium down to, I 

12 think, very, very low levels of enrichment. 

13 So it's -- and maybe a return that changed, 

14 and I don't know if you have further 

15 information about how that was working.

16 DR. HUGHES: The reactor operates 

17 with 93 -- up to 93% enriched uranium. I 

18 think it was uranyl sulfate solution.

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Did you 

20 say it was up to highly enriched --

21 DR. HUGHES: It was 93%, 

22 thereabouts.
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: The reason I 

3 mentioned that is --

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think 

5 --

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- we have a 

7 similar powered reactor at our university, and 

8 it used, up until recently, 93% enriched 

9 uranium.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, 

11 and that's why I was asking a little more on 

12 the fuel fabrication section because I think 

13 that is one unique aspect of this facility, 

14 that -- and it sounds like that was a key 

15 part.

16 I mean, do, can you expand a 

17 little bit long, you know, sort of the extent 

18 of that operation and how much material, you 

19 know, what kind of quantities where they 

20 dealing with, what kind of -- anything else 

21 you can give us on that? I think that's 

22 important to actually build the record here if 
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1 we're going to vote on this.

2 DR. HUGHES: I don't have it in 

3 front of me. I would have to research that 

4 again. I don't have those numbers handy. 

5 Sorry.

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No, 

7 that's okay.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Mark?

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

10 Paul, go ahead.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: One other 

12 question. I think on some of the other 

13 facilities in the Santa Susana area, there was 

14 access by workers from the other parts of the 

15 site to some of these sites. I wasn't clear 

16 on De Soto. Were workers from the other sort 

17 of Santa Susana area sites -- could they 

18 access this site as well?

19 DR. HUGHES: As far as I know, the 

20 situation is similar, that workers were 

21 transferred between the Santa Susana site and 

22 -- [telephone interference].
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Having a 

2 little trouble hearing you on the line there.

3 DR. HUGHES: Okay. I'll try this 

4 again.

5 As far as I know, the situation 

6 with De Soto was similar to the situation with 

7 the Canoga facility in that workers were 

8 transferred between Area IV and the De Soto 

9 facility as needed. This would be typically 

10 reflected in their records. You can typically 

11 tell whether or not a worker worked at De Soto 

12 or Area IV. However, we cannot always tell 

13 which building or which area they worked in.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, so they might 

15 get their 250 days by a combination of some of 

16 those sites, in think, in practice.

17 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

19 Any more questions at this point? The one 

20 question I was sort of waiting for a followup 

21 on was the number of claimants that would fall 

22 into this time period if anyone has that 
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1 information.

2 DR. ULSH: Lara already mentioned 

3 that there are 97.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, 97. 

5 I'm sorry.

6 DR. ULSH: With employment in this 

7 time period.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

9 Ninety-seven with employment, so, yes. Okay.

10 DR. ULSH: Right.

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It gives 

12 us an idea anyway.

13 DR. ULSH: It's an upper bound, 

14 probably.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

16 Yes, Brad.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know, 

18 there's, there's a lot of questions to what, 

19 what actually went on there. Wasn't SNAP part 

20 of this? Was -- or was it up to Santa Susana? 

21 I thought --

22 MEMBER PRESLEY: SNAP was a big 
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1 part of this.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: This, what I was 

3 thinking is that the SNAP process was highly 

4 enriched, and it was, there was numerous 

5 different programs that went through this. So 

6 it doesn't seem like, to me, that the Site 

7 Profile has got everything covered of actually 

8 what went on in there.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Any 

10 comments on the line?

11 DR. HUGHES: I'm sorry. I was 

12 unable to hear what the question was.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: They 

14 were mentioning the SNAP program.

15 DR. HUGHES: Okay.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And, and 

17 that that went through the De Soto facility. 

18 Was that --

19 DR. HUGHES: The SNAP program --

20 the reactors for the SNAP program were located 

21 at Area IV, Santa Susana. It is possible, 

22 although, as I said, I don't have the numbers, 
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1 that some of the fuel or all of the fuel that 

2 went into these reactors might have been 

3 manufactured at De Soto, which had the larger 

4 fuel manufacturing facility. Now some of the 

5 fuel also was manufactured at Santa Susana, so 

6 I would have to go and look up which, which 

7 was exactly produced there.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

9 Okay.

10 Any other questions on the Board?

11 (No response.)

12 My understanding is the petitioner 

13 is -- is not on the line. Right. So, as far 

14 as petitioner comments, I don't think we have 

15 any petitioner comments.

16 I guess my feeling -- we can 

17 certainly open for a motion at this point. Or 

18 we -- the other option is to hear this very 

19 related facility here and have that 

20 presentation, and then entertain the 

21 possibility for motion on both. I actually 

22 prefer the latter, but -- Wanda?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: So do I. I think it 

2 would be, because the Santa Susana sites are 

3 so closely related.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

5 Right.

6 MEMBER MUNN: It just seems 

7 logical since we have them both in front of us 

8 --

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

10 MEMBER MUNN: -- to complete the 

11 other before we --

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

13 okay. All right. Yes --

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Mark?

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes?

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Would it be 

17 possible -- is there another microphone that -

18 - I'm not quite sure how you're located, but 

19 it's almost impossible to hear Wanda.

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, 

21 okay. We'll work on that.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Wanda was not close 
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1 to the microphone. Sorry.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, thank 

3 you.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

5 So we're going to move into the Downey 

6 facility presentation and then take a -- we 

7 would obviously need separate motions for 

8 both, but since they're so related, I think we 

9 would like to hear this presentation and then 

10 do our Board work after that. So I'll turn it

11 back over to Brant for presentation on the 

12 Downey facility.

13 DR. ULSH: Thanks again, Mark. 

14 I'm only the second string on this one, not 

15 third. I'm filling in for Lara.

16 So the Downey facility is closely 

17 related. It's one of -- I call it a feeder 

18 site into Santa Susana. However, in time, it 

19 precedes the De Soto facility, so it's an 

20 earlier time period.

21 Again, similar to De Soto, this is 

22 an 83.14 that NIOSH initiated, and this is, I 
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1 think, a similar slide to what you saw in the 

2 earlier presentation, that we were unable to 

3 reconstruct dose for a case and so we 

4 recruited a petitioner, and that petition was 

5 submitted to NIOSH on March 10th of this year.

6 So here's the normal two-prong 

7 test that we always consider. Is it feasible, 

8 and is there a reasonable likelihood that the 

9 health might have been endangered for members 

10 of this Class? And we'll come back to those. 

11 I'll summarize at the end. You can probably 

12 already guess our answer.

13 But the Downey facility, here's a 

14 little bit of the history of it. As I 

15 mentioned, it's associated with Santa Susana, 

16 so it's located in Los Angeles County, 

17 California, again, owned by North American 

18 Aviation, similar to De Soto. It operated 

19 since the 1940s, and the main focus was 

20 airplane development. Again, just like 

21 before, a small section of the plant was 

22 Atomic Energy Research Department and that was 
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1 AEC-funded, and the purpose of that research 

2 facility was to investigate nuclear power 

3 applications.

4 The period of coverage on this 

5 site is 1948 to 1955, so you see that it 

6 precedes the De Soto facility. And then the 

7 operations were moved to and expanded to Santa 

8 Susana and also the Canoga facility, and that 

9 occurred in 1955.

10 Now this might be a good place to, 

11 again, remind you that Santa Susana has been 

12 added to the SEC. Canoga has been added to 

13 the SEC, and you're currently considering De 

14 Soto.

15 Here's a schematic of the location 

16 of these operations within the Downey 

17 facility, and you can see that, that red 

18 circle there.

19 The operations that occurred at 

20 Downey included nuclear engineering and 

21 research. They had small-scale studies, they 

22 had radiochemistry operations and they had a 
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1 neutron counting room. They also had a water 

2 boiler neutron source, which was a maximum of 

3 four watts, and that operated from 1952

4 through 1955. They had a half-a-watt teaching 

5 reactor. They had a Van de Graaff 

6 accelerator, and they also had an exponential 

7 pile.

8 Here's some more things that they 

9 did. Their research activities involved 

10 analyzing and handling radioactive material,

11 mainly canned and depleted uranium and uranyl 

12 sulfate. Now the question was brought up 

13 earlier in relation to De Soto about what 

14 enrichment they might have had. I don't know 

15 if this is applicable to De Soto, but at 

16 Downey, they had up to 93% enriched, so very 

17 high enrichment, and that was for the water 

18 boiler source.

19 There was a potential for both 

20 internal and external exposures for workers at 

21 this site. And here, again, is a summary of 

22 the information that's available to us. It 
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1 should look very familiar. It's similar to 

2 the De Soto facility.

3 We've got, of course, the 

4 Technical Information Bulletins and Site 

5 Profiles that the ORAU Team did. We've got 

6 case files. And the same records that we had 

7 available for De Soto, we have here for 

8 Downey, and we consulted the same sources, and 

9 also, of course, not to leave out the 

10 interviews that were conducted with Santa 

11 Susana staff that related to this facility.

12 So let's talk about -- a little 

13 bit about internal monitoring because that's 

14 going to be the basis for our recommendation 

15 for the addition of an SEC. Basically, there 

16 isn't any internal monitoring for workers at 

17 Downey from 1948 through 1955, and that's 

18 consistent with what we've seen at the related 

19 sites, where the internal monitoring program, 

20 the bioassay program, didn't begin until 1958.

21 We do have external monitoring 

22 data starting around 1951 and similar to 
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1 before, we're going to assign doses based on 

2 job and exposure potential. The majority of 

3 the Downey workers, this is important to point 

4 out, were not radiation workers, but we do 

5 have beta and gamma monitoring just like 

6 before, with pencil dosimeters or film badges, 

7 and we do have NTA film so we can monitor 

8 neutrons with the start of the reactor 

9 operations. We don't have much in the way of

10 workplace and source term data.

11 So again, to get rapidly to the 

12 conclusion, it is our conclusion that we don't 

13 have sufficient monitoring or other types of 

14 information that would let us estimate 

15 internal doses through the covered period, 

16 which runs, for this facility, from the 

17 beginning of January, January 1st, 1948 

18 through the end of 1955, December 31st, and, 

19 of course, we will use data when it is 

20 available to us.

21 Health endangerment -- similar to 

22 before, we concluded that indeed health could 
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1 have been endangered.

2 And this is the slide that you may 

3 be more familiar with, as Paul mentioned, I 

4 think, earlier. This is the one that we 

5 normally have. And what you see here is we've 

6 concluded that we cannot reconstruct internal 

7 doses. However, we can reconstruct external 

8 dose when we have data available for the 

9 specific cases.

10 Here is the proposed Class 

11 Definition. I won't read all of those words 

12 to you, but it's -- and here's our 

13 recommendation to add a class for the Downey 

14 facility from January 1st, 1948 through 

15 December 31st, 1955.

16 And that is it. So, again, open 

17 for questions.

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, and 

19 I'll start off with the same question as last 

20 time -- the number of claims for this facility 

21 in the time period --

22 DR. ULSH: Lara, do you have those 
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1 numbers?

2 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it's 33 claims.

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thirty4 three. Okay.

5 DR. HUGHES: Yes, and the entire 

6 covered period is, in this recommended SEC 

7 period, is the same number. All of those 

8 claims are affected by the --

9 DR. ULSH: The SEC equals the 

10 entire covered period.

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, it 

12 is the entire covered period, okay.

13 DR. ULSH: Yes.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So, it's 

15 33.

16 DR. ULSH: Right.

17 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

18 And any questions from Board members?

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: I was just -- I 

20 was just looking at your feasibility, or 

21 summary right here. You've got the asterisks, 

22 and you've got external dose reconstruction 
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1 feasible when data available for special 

2 cases.

3 So does that mean that, if they 

4 don't have the data, then external dose, you 

5 won't be able to do, or --

6 DR. ULSH: I think that's 

7 accurate.

8 Lara, we're looking at the slide, 

9 the summary slide with the table and the Xs.

10 DR. HUGHES: Right. This, the 

11 covered period goes back all the way to 1948, 

12 and I would have to look up when we actually 

13 see a majority of monitoring data stored since 

14 the early `50s, which I think is coincident 

15 with the start of this reactor that they were 

16 operating.

17 Whereas, the covered period starts 

18 in 1948, it started out doing mostly bench-top 

19 or paper studies, so I believe that even the 

20 external monitoring wasn't up to speed at that 

21 time. So in the claimant files as well as the 

22 external coworker data, we don't see any 
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1 external data, so we don't see much external 

2 data prior to 1950, I would say. That's why 

3 those asterisks are there, to indicate there 

4 might be cases where, in the very early years, 

5 what might be problematic to reconstruct 

6 external doses based solely on the individual 

7 data.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: You've got the 

9 slide -- why I was wondering this is because 

10 in the earlier slide, it said that you had 

11 film badges, pencil dosimeters, neutron film, 

12 and I was just -- how are we going to 

13 distinguish this?

14 DR. ULSH: Well, notice the first 

15 bullet there, Brad. As Lara said, the 

16 external monitoring data starts around 1951, 

17 which is coincident with when the rector 

18 operations started. So before that time, it's 

19 not that they were doing anything, but they 

20 weren't doing reactor operations. So from 

21 1948 up to around 1951, there is a paucity of 

22 external monitoring data.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And 

3 prior to

4 51, they were focused on -- what were the 

5 activities of concern prior to 51?

6 DR. ULSH: Lara, do you want to 

7 field that one?

8 DR. HUGHES: Yes, we have very 

9 limited data, actually, on the details of the 

10 operation. It was bench-top studies working 

11 on developing reactors, reactor fuel. It was 

12 paper studies on reactor development, that 

13 sort of thing, radiochemistry operations.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But you 

15 are concluding health endangerment during that 

16 period, so, I mean, you know --

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: Paper wouldn't 

18 do it.

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

20 paper wouldn't do it.

21 DR. HUGHES: No, but we can't

22 argue out --
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

2 Right.

3 DR. HUGHES: -- that there were 

4 nuclear materials on the site and they were 

5 handled.

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm just 

7 trying to understand. You know, we have to 

8 have a basis for a decision here, so --

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we have a 

10 class definition that starts in 1948. We 

11 don't have very specific -- we don't have any 

12 information that says the first radiological 

13 activity was 1951; you know, there were other 

14 things going on. We don't have information to 

15 reconstruct the doses. So if you can't -- our 

16 practice has been, if you can't bound the 

17 dose, then you conclude that health is 

18 endangered. I mean, there is nothing here 

19 that says the radiological work started in 

20 1951.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, go 
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1 ahead, Paul.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: It really is only 

3 an issue for individuals that don't meet the 

4 250-day requirement, and what happens, I 

5 think, if I understand Brad's concern is that, 

6 if there's no external monitoring data, then 

7 you have no way of doing a partial dose 

8 reconstruction. Therefore, there's no way a 

9 person under 250 days, then, could 

10 successfully pursue a claim for a non-covered 

11 cancer. Isn't that basically what it amounts 

12 to?

13 DR. ULSH: Well, they could pursue 

14 a claim, but we wouldn't be able to 

15 reconstruct external dose. We --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, yes, they 

17 could pursue a claim, but successfully?

18 DR. ULSH: Well, I mean, keep in 

19 mind, there are other sources here and we said 

20 we can't do internal -- we can't do external 

21 in this case, but there's medical, so draw 

22 your own conclusions.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, sure. Yes. 

2 Yes. But you would do what you could do, and 

3 then they would -- but you, you don't assign 

4 an external dose for those individuals where, 

5 because there's no coworker model, there's no 

6 dosimetry model. You can do the medical, but 

7 you will only do what you can do.

8 DR. ULSH: Exactly.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

10 that's right.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But --

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Go 

13 ahead, David.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Dr. Ziemer, to 

15 follow up on the other part of this --

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- I think 

18 Mark's question was -- I mean, if that would, 

19 being the case that there was an SEC approved 

20 --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, right.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- for the 
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1 entire period --

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- but one of 

4 the questions is, I mean, if, if the -- I 

5 guess the case is being made that the SEC 

6 should be approved and the Class should be 

7 defined all the way back to 1948. And if I 

8 understood, Mark's question was what were the 

9 activities that were going on prior to 1951? 

10 And you've said that you've not been able to 

11 characterize them.

12 Well, can you -- is there 

13 documentation that there were, of what kind of 

14 the sources of material that were coming in, 

15 the nature of those materials, the volume of 

16 them, in the period `48 to `51 when you said 

17 there's bench-top work and paperwork going on 

18 on reactor development?

19 DR. HUGHES: I would have to go 

20 look that up. I know that we do have 

21 information that indicates that they took wipe 

22 samples in the early years, and I don't have 
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1 the years, but that we have indications that 

2 there was loose radioactive material around 

3 during those years, so that we cannot rule out 

4 potential internal exposures.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Do you have 

6 dates when the Van de Graaff accelerator was 

7 installed, when the neutron counting room was 

8 first used or -- I mean, you've identified, I 

9 guess, three activities here, a generator, a 

10 radiochemistry lab, and a neutron counting 

11 room.

12 DR. HUGHES: I do believe the 

13 neutron counting room started in the late 

14 `40s. I don't, I would have to look up the 

15 specifics on the accelerator. I don't have 

16 these numbers ready right now. I'm sure we 

17 have that information. We know it was there, 

18 but in especially the late `40s, early `50s, 

19 operations at Downey, we have fairly limited 

20 information of the operation.

21 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let me 

22 ask -- I think LaVon might have a comment.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: I just wanted to 

2 add that, you know, we have added SECs before 

3 because we don't know the exact start dates 

4 when radioactive materials operations began. 

5 Standard Oil, Westinghouse Atomic Power 

6 Development -- I could go down a list. We do 

7 not know the exact start date. The covered 

8 period starts as indicated, and we can't 

9 refute that covered period.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: A 

11 determination was made for the covered period, 

12 so, you know, there was at least some evidence 

13 that there were radiologic operations, you 

14 know, that time period.

15 So yes, Mike, and then Henry.

16 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes, on both your 

17 recommendations for De Soto and Downey, you're 

18 recommending all workers, even though each 

19 facility had dedicated DOE areas within those 

20 facilities. Yet, at -- at the field lab, Area 

21 IV was carved out, and it seems like you can, 

22 the case is being made that you can determine 
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1 who went in and out and worked in Area IV and 

2 who didn't, and I just wanted to know where 

3 the equity is.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld 

5 here. We didn't carve anything out at Santa 

6 Susana. DOL carved out Area IV, so that is a 

7 function of verification of employment. And 

8 that's done by DOL before the case ever gets 

9 to us. We don't carve anything up at Santa 

10 Susana. We are not able to restrict people to 

11 certain areas, certain buildings. So if their 

12 employment is verified, then we consider them 

13 radiologic -- you know, as being potentially 

14 exposed.

15 But that carving-up of Area IV, 

16 Santa Susana and carving-up of Area IV is part 

17 of the employment verification. That wasn't 

18 done by us.

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Henry?

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, were there 

21 -- were there any worker interviews done here? 

22 I didn't see how many.
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1 DR. ULSH: Hold on. I'm looking 

2 for the right slide.

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: Maybe -- it went 

4 by pretty quick.

5 DR. ULSH: Yes. One of the 

6 bullets here in one of the slides says that we 

7 did do worker interviews. I think they were 

8 related to Santa Susana workers who had 

9 knowledge of or experience at this site. I 

10 can't tell you --

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: You -- yes. 

12 That doesn't provide any insight into what 

13 went on during the earlier period?

14 MS. KLEA: Hi, this is Bonnie Klea 

15 from the Santa Susana petitioner. Can I give 

16 a comment?

17 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We're 

18 not really open for public comment yet.

19 MS. KLEA: Okay, because you don't 

20 have a petitioner on the phone from De Soto.

21 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

22 Let us get through our discussion here, and 
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1 then you may be able to speak for the petition 

2 after that.

3 MS. KLEA: Thank you.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

5 Thanks.

6 DR. ULSH: So, Lara, do you recall 

7 how many interviews would be related to this?

8 DR. HUGHES: We're actually not 

9 able to do interviews with workers who 

10 actually worked at Downey due to them having 

11 passed away, and we only have 33 claims. 

12 However, we did interview people at the, the 

13 De Soto, Canoga sites.

14 However, yes, as I said, we were 

15 not able to actually interview people who 

16 worked at Downey, but we did interview people 

17 who currently work at Santa Susana or are 

18 dealing with the records, have knowledge about 

19 the records, where they come from, how they're 

20 stored, that have some knowledge of the 

21 historical monitoring practices and so forth.

22 But, unfortunately, we were not 
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1 able to talk to anybody directly, who directly 

2 worked at the Downey facility in the nuclear 

3 research area.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I know 

5 we had added on Canoga Avenue as an SEC. But, 

6 you know, I'm looking to maybe refresh my 

7 memory on this, but my sense is that it looked 

8 like there were -- I mean, there was a, I 

9 think, a hot cave. They did a fair amount of 

10 uranium and thorium sort of operations. My 

11 sense was that was a potentially dirtier 

12 operation, dirtier facility. Am I 

13 mischaracterizing that, or --

14 DR. HUGHES: For Canoga?

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

16 DR. HUGHES: The operations at 

17 Canoga were -- I do believe were larger or 

18 more extensive. The Downey facility was 

19 essentially the start-up of this nuclear arm 

20 of North American Aviation that, you know, 

21 spread to the Canoga facility, that spread 

22 through Area IV, and later on expanded to the 
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1 De Soto facility. So this is where it started 

2 with a smaller-scale operation and smaller 

3 reactor operation.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

5 Go ahead.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: I wanted to 

7 remind, too, that -- remember that the 

8 radiological monitoring program that we -- was 

9 insufficient at Santa Susana from 1958 through 

10 1964 is actually the same -- this is the same 

11 company. I mean, you look at all the 

12 predecessors back. At one time this was one 

13 entire covered facility part of ETEC. It 

14 broke it up into Canoga, De Soto, Downey, Area 

15 IV. So the same radiological monitoring 

16 program that we had deficiencies with, with 

17 Canoga, with Santa Susana, is the same one 

18 we're having deficiencies with De Soto and 

19 Downey, so --

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, 

21 but the operations were very different.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, they were, 
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1 but we, we have identified, we have identified 

2 radiological operations -- yes, the reactor 

3 didn't start until 1951, but we have 

4 indications that there were other activities 

5 involving radioactive material prior to 1951 

6 that we can't bound exposures to workers for.

7 DR. ULSH: And the bottom line is 

8 there is no bioassay data.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: There is no 

10 bioassay data.

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, 

12 right.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: So we can't put a 

14 start point -- the Department of Labor has put 

15 a covered period start point of 1948. We have 

16 nothing -- our process is always if -- during 

17 our evaluations, if we had information that 

18 would support that, that the covered period 

19 should be changed, we provide that information 

20 to the Department of Labor. During our 

21 evaluation and our review of all the 

22 documentation associated with this facility, 
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1 we found nothing that would cause us to 

2 recommend to the Department of Labor to change 

3 the covered period, and we've also found 

4 nothing to tell us when the start date of 

5 radioactive operations began. So we have to 

6 conclude January 1, 1948.

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank 

8 you, LaVon.

9 Yes, and I think we're just, we're 

10 just probing to round out our discussion of 

11 these, you know, of the basis for the 83.14. 

12 So don't think this is necessarily 

13 contentious.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: It's kind of a 

15 due diligence.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Exactly. 

17 Exactly, yes. Yes.

18 Any other comments on the Board or 

19 on the phone? Paul or David?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: No further 

21 questions.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think, 
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1 at this point, I think we're ready for a 

2 motion on either one of these facilities. I 

3 think we have to deal with them separately, 

4 but if anyone wants to make a motion, I think 

5 we're ready.

6 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie Klea, 

7 Santa Susana petitioner. If I could add a 

8 comment.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, yes, 

10 I'm sorry, Bonnie. I said I would get back to 

11 you, and --

12 MS. KLEA: Oh, okay. I just was 

13 hoping I could comment before you vote.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sure. 

15 Go ahead, Bonnie. Thank you.

16 MS. KLEA: Well, I just want to 

17 say that Downey, Downey to Canoga to De Soto, 

18 it was just a progress, you know, when they 

19 worked at Downey, they closed it. Then they 

20 moved the same work to Canoga. Then they 

21 closed it in `60. Then they moved the same 

22 work to De Soto because they had just built 
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1 the new facility at De Soto. And I have many 

2 of the operators from Santa Susana who 

3 actually, their work records said they were at 

4 De Soto when they were actually running SNAP-8 

5 up on the hill. And I have firemen that won't 

6 be covered unless they could get the De Soto 

7 combined with Santa Susana.

8 So I'm just asking, please, to all 

9 vote for De Soto and Downey. It was very, 

10 very dangerous over there with uranium fires, 

11 explosions, on the glove boxes -- so please 

12 vote for it so the firemen could get covered 

13 and the reactor operators.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank 

15 you, Bonnie, for weighing in.

16 Okay, ready for a motion from the 

17 Board.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: I make -- do you 

19 want to do De Soto or Downey?

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Brad.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: I will make a 

22 motion that we accept NIOSH's -- the motion 
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1 that NIOSH put forth for the Downey facility.

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

3 Any seconds?

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Second.

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Second 

6 from Phil.

7 All right, so the motion is for 

8 the Downey facility, and the Class Definition 

9 as proposed by NIOSH, that we add the Class 

10 for that time period.

11 Any discussion of the motion?

12 (No response.)

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Paul or 

14 David, any further follow-up on --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Are you going to 

16 put the exact wording in the --

17 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm 

18 sorry, Paul. We're not hearing you well.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Am I on?

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Go 

21 ahead.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. I was just 
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1 asking if you were going to provide the exact 

2 wording --

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- or are you 

5 going to vote first, or what?

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

7 I'll do -- Ted's reminding me -- I'll do the 

8 friendly amendment.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If 

11 that's okay, Brad, I'll make a --

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Sure.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- Okay. 

14 So here's for the Downey facility.

15 The Advisory Board on Radiation 

16 and Worker Health -- the Board has evaluated 

17 SEC Petition 00167 concerning workers of the 

18 Downey facility in Los Angeles County, 

19 California, under the statutory requirements 

20 established by EEOICPA and incorporated into 

21 42 CFR Section 83.14.

22 The Board respectfully recommends 
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1 Special Exposure Cohort, SEC, status be 

2 accorded to all employees of Department of 

3 Energy, DOE, its predecessor agencies, and 

4 their contractors or subcontractors who worked 

5 at the Downey facility in Los Angeles County, 

6 California from January 1st, 1948, through 

7 December 31st, 1955, for a number of work days 

8 aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring 

9 either solely under this employment or in 

10 combination with work days within the 

11 parameters established for one or more other 

12 Classes of employees included in the Special 

13 Exposure Cohort.

14 This recommendation is based on 

15 the following factors. The Downey facility in 

16 Los Angeles County, California, was involved 

17 in research on nuclear power applications. 

18 NIOSH found that there was insufficient 

19 monitoring data or information on radiological 

20 operations at this facility in order to be 

21 able to complete accurate individual dose 

22 reconstructions involving internal radiation 
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1 exposures for Downey facility workers during 

2 the time period in question. The Board 

3 concurs with this conclusion.

4 NIOSH determined that health may 

5 have been in danger for the workers exposed to 

6 radiation in the Downey facility in Los 

7 Angeles County, California, during the time 

8 period in question. The Board concurs with 

9 this determination.

10 Based on these considerations and 

11 the discussions held at our May 19th-21st, 

12 2010 Advisory Board meeting held in Niagara 

13 Falls -- Niagara Falls -- California, that's a 

14 mistake -- Niagara Falls, New York. The Board 

15 recommends that this Special Exposure Cohort 

16 petition be granted.

17 Enclosed is the documentation from

18 the Board meetings where the Special Exposure 

19 Cohort Class was discussed. The documentation 

20 includes transcripts of the deliberations, 

21 copies of the petition, the NIOSH review 

22 thereof, and related materials. If any of 
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1 these items are unavailable at this time, they 

2 will follow shortly.

3 MR. KATZ: You have to ask Brad if 

4 he accepts that --

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Brad, do 

6 you accept that as a friendly amendment. Yes?

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: As a small 

8 amendment. Yes.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. 

10 Okay. And Emily has some edits, I imagine.

11 MS. HOWELL: Just a couple of 

12 small changes.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 

14 California was one I caught.

15 MS. HOWELL: Yes, that one would 

16 be important.

17 The Class Definition paragraph, 

18 contractors or subcontractors, or should be 

19 changed to an and.

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Did you 

21 get that? Tell me that again.

22 MS. HOWELL: In the Class 
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1 Definition sentence in the first paragraph--

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

3 MS. HOWELL: -- and their 

4 contractors or subcontractors, or should be 

5 changed to and.

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

7 MS. HOWELL: And then you have a 

8 couple of grammar errors in the bullets. I 

9 mean, just, like there's -- not grammar -- but 

10 there's an extra period in the first bullet, 

11 and the second bullet has extra spacing.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I 

13 did notice that, but we can correct that 

14 before the letter goes out. Yes, okay.

15 So the full motion now is on the 

16 table. Any discussion of the motion?

17 (No response.)

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If not, 

19 I think we're ready for our roll-call vote.

20 Ted.

21 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

22 Dr. Anderson.
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

7 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

11 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey is absent. 

13 I'll collect his vote after, and the same is 

14 true for Dr. Melius.

15 Ms. Munn.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

18 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

2 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: So all are in favor who 

8 were present --

9 MEMBER GIBSON: I'll vote yes, 

10 too, Ted.

11 MR. KATZ: Oh, I missed you again. 

12 I'm sorry, Mr. Gibson.

13 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Good grief. Fourteen 

15 in favor and the motion passes.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank 

17 you. And now we can, if anyone wants to make 

18 a motion on the De Soto Avenue facility, we 

19 can --

20 MEMBER GIBSON: I move that we 

21 accept NIOSH's recommendation

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Mike 
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1 made a motion to accept the recommendation for 

2 the De Soto Avenue facility.

3 MEMBER BEACH: I'll second it.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Josie 

5 seconds.

6 And I'll offer a friendly 

7 amendment, Mike. This is the hardest work of 

8 the Chair today -- anyway, okay.

9 The Advisory Board on Radiation 

10 and Worker Health, the Board, has evaluated 

11 SEC Petition 00168 concerning workers at the 

12 De Soto Avenue facility in Los Angeles County, 

13 California, under the statutory requirements 

14 established by the EEOICPA and incorporated 

15 into 42 CFR Section 83.14.

16 The Board respectfully recommends 

17 Special Exposure Cohort status to be accorded 

18 to all employees of the Department of Energy, 

19 its predecessor agencies, and their 

20 contractors and subcontractors who worked at 

21 the De Soto Avenue facility in Los Angeles 

22 County, California, from January 1st, 1959, 
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1 through December 31st, 1964, for a number of 

2 work days aggregating at least 250 work days, 

3 occurring either solely under this employment 

4 or in combination with work days within the 

5 parameters established for one or more other 

6 Classes of employees included in the Special 

7 Exposure Cohort.

8 This recommendation is based on 

9 the following factors. The De Soto Avenue 

10 facility in Los Angeles County, California was 

11 involved in research, development, and 

12 technical work related to nuclear power 

13 applications. NIOSH found that there was 

14 insufficient monitoring data for information 

15 on radiological operations at this facility in 

16 order to be able to complete accurate 

17 individual dose reconstructions involving 

18 internal radiation exposures for De Soto 

19 Avenue facility workers during this time 

20 period in question. The Board concurs with 

21 this conclusion.

22 NIOSH determined that health may 
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1 have been in danger for the workers exposed to 

2 radiation at the Downey facility in Los 

3 Angeles County, California during the time 

4 period in question. The Board concurs with 

5 this determination.

6 Based on these considerations and 

7 the discussions held at our May 19th-21st, 

8 2010 Advisory Board meeting held in Niagara 

9 Falls, New York, the Board recommends that the 

10 Special Exposure Cohort Petition be granted.

11 Enclosed is the documentation from 

12 the Board meetings where the Special Exposure 

13 Cohort Class was discussed. The documentation 

14 includes transcripts of the deliberations, 

15 copies of the petition, the NIOSH review 

16 thereof, and related materials. If any of 

17 these items are unavailable at this time, they 

18 will follow shortly.

19 And, Mike, is that acceptable?

20 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

21 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

22 So we have the motion, the full motion now on 
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1 the table. Any -- and we have some edits from 

2 legal. I thought I captured most of them.

3 MS. HOWELL: You may have. I may 

4 not have heard you. I know you changed the or 

5 to an and, and then the third bullet, I know 

6 you switched it to De Soto, but you also need 

7 to put an at in. And you got the California 

8 --

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, I 

10 actually said, I left Downey in there, but I -

11 - I put the at, but I left Downey in there.

12 MS. HOWELL: Of -- yes, yes, 

13 switch that.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So 

15 you're right. It should be De Soto. I got 

16 the at but not the right facility.

17 Okay, any discussion on this full 

18 motion now? On the line, Paul or David, any 

19 further discussion?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: No comment right 

21 now.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 
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1 Then we're ready for our roll-call vote. Ted?

2 MR. KATZ: I'll give this another 

3 try.

4 Dr. Anderson.

5 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

11 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson.

13 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

17 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Drs. Lockey and Melius

19 are absent. I'll collect their votes 

20 afterwards.

21 Ms. Munn.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

2 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

4 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: So all present voted in 

14 favor, fourteen ayes, and the motion passes.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank 

16 you. I think -- I do want to take a short 

17 little coffee break, but I think we might want 

18 to have LaVon's presentation first. I'm not 

19 sure how the agenda's written, but --

20 MR. KATZ: That, that's the next 

21 one --

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, 
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1 we'll do the SEC Petition review, which --

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: It's short. It's 

3 short.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: LaVon 

5 usually runs through this at lightning speed, 

6 so --

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, and we 

8 shortened, actually, the presentation, so 

9 it'll be really quick.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

11 Okay, and then we'll have a short break, and 

12 we'll do our work time. We have just a few 

13 items to finish up. I know people have 

14 flights early, so we'll make sure we take a 

15 short break.

16 Go ahead, LaVon.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. I'm 

18 going to do the status of upcoming SEC 

19 petitions. We have shortened this. Since 

20 most of the Work Groups have already talked 

21 and given updates, we've kind of left out the 

22 -- a portion of it. We provide this update to 
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1 the Advisory Board so the Advisory Board can 

2 prepare for upcoming meetings, Work Group 

3 meetings and upcoming Board meetings.

4 This is as of May 5th. We had 171 

5 petitions. We now have 173 petitions. The 

6 petitions in the qualification process says 

7 zero at that time, however, we have two. We 

8 recently received a petition for the INL, 

9 Idaho facility and also for Norton. So we 

10 have two petitions that are in the 

11 qualification process now.

12 We've qualified 103 petitions. We 

13 have six petition evaluations that are in 

14 progress at this time, and we completed 97 

15 evaluations. And then there were 21 

16 evaluations that are with the Board for 

17 recommendation, and 68 petitions that did not 

18 qualify.

19 All right, these petitions are 

20 currently in the evaluation process. Linde 

21 Ceramics Plant -- this is for the operational 

22 period 1947 through 1953. We had, actually 
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1 had intended to complete this evaluation in 

2 May. We were not going to present it at this 

3 meeting, but we thought we would complete it 

4 in May. However, there's further discussion 

5 ongoing with the tunnel exposures that we have 

6 pushed this out.

7 In addition, there are 

8 documentation at the NARA College Park 

9 facility. Some of it with -- has been 

10 identified for Linde that we do want to review 

11 that documentation before we issue our 

12 evaluation report. However, we do plan to 

13 issue that report sometime in late June.

14 Hanford petition -- we are in the 

15 evaluation process. This petition qualified, 

16 and we anticipate that, presenting this, or 

17 actually, it would not be presented until 

18 after the August meeting because completion is 

19 not anticipated until September. This is for 

20 some later years at Hanford.

21 Simonds Saw and Steel -- we are on 

22 schedule to complete this evaluation in July 
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1 of 2010. We did have an opportunity, and I 

2 think some, SC&A participated as well to go up 

3 to Simonds Saw and Steel and see the facility 

4 and get some pictures. But we anticipate 

5 completing this evaluation in July, and we'll 

6 present that at the August Board meeting.

7 Sandia National Lab -- this 

8 evaluation has been pushed out, and it's 

9 because of -- we are -- the Department of 

10 Energy has committed to providing us updated 

11 personnel monitoring data information. 

12 However, completion of that updated personnel 

13 monitoring data information is not anticipated 

14 until later this year. We are continuing with 

15 our evaluation process. However, we cannot 

16 complete it until December 2010.

17 Revere Copper and Brass -- we 

18 anticipate completing this one in July of 

19 2010. We are on schedule with that, and we 

20 will present that evaluation at the August 

21 Board meeting.

22 Ames Laboratory -- we are on 
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1 schedule for completing this one in August. 

2 It is kind of up in the air whether we'll be 

3 able to present this at the August meeting. I 

4 am trying to pull that in a little bit so we 

5 can go ahead and get it done and get it 

6 presented, but right now, our completion date 

7 is scheduled for August 2010.

8 That's pretty much it for the --

9 what we've got ongoing. We are doing, 

10 starting in June, we are going to do it more -

11 - as I had mentioned at a previous Board 

12 conference call and Board meeting, we are 

13 doing a review of our Class Definitions. We 

14 are looking at how the Class Definitions were 

15 defined from the earliest phases of the SEC 

16 program and reviewing those to ensure that our 

17 Class Definitions are catching the people that 

18 we had intended to, and also that they are 

19 defined as, as if we would define them today. 

20 You know, I anticipate providing an update to 

21 the Advisory Board on where we are with that 

22 at the August Board meeting in 2010.
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1 That's about it.

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That was 

3 -- actually the one question I have for you 

4 was were you reconsidering the Rocky Flats 

5 Class Definition.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, we're --

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But I 

8 guess that will --

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, we are --

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- be 

11 part of your review --

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- for 

14 the August -- okay.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's 

17 fine.

18 Any other questions for LaVon on 

19 the update?

20 (No response.)

21 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Dr. 

22 Ziemer or Dr. Richardson?
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No.

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

3 If we can, let's just do -- and try to keep it 

4 to 10 minutes. We have a lot of people with 

5 some early flights that have to get out, so I 

6 do want to -- to be back in like 10 minutes. 

7 All right.

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

9 matter went off the record at 9:34 a.m. and 

10 resumed at 9:52 a.m.)

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I 

12 think we're ready to convene, everyone.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer and Dr. 

14 Richardson.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I'm here.

16 MR. KATZ: Thanks, David.

17 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

18 We have some work time here for the Board and 

19 several issues to go through.

20 I want to go through -- there's 

21 two outstanding -- we have the full motions 

22 for two of the sites that we dealt with 
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1 yesterday that I think we need to get the 

2 letter into the record and finalize that. So 

3 I think we should do that first. One of them 

4 is for the -- find my glasses -- one of them 

5 is for Los Alamos, and I'll just read that 

6 full motion into the record. Okay.

7 The Advisory Board on Radiation 

8 and Worker Health, the Board, has evaluated 

9 SEC Petition 00170 concerning workers at the 

10 Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, 

11 New Mexico under the statutory requirements 

12 established by EEOICPA and incorporated into 

13 42 CFR Section 83.14.

14 The Board respectfully recommends 

15 Special Exposure Cohort status be accorded to 

16 all employees of the Department of Energy, its 

17 predecessor agencies, and their contractors 

18 and subcontractors who worked at the Los 

19 Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New 

20 Mexico, from March 15th, 1943, through 

21 December 31st, 1975, for a number of work days 

22 aggregating at least 250 work days occurring 
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1 either solely under this employment or in 

2 combination with work days within the 

3 parameters established for one or more Classes 

4 of employees included in the Special Exposure 

5 Cohort.

6 This recommendation is based on 

7 the following factors. People working at LANL 

8 during the time period in question worked on 

9 research and production activities related to 

10 nuclear weapons production. The NIOSH review 

11 of available monitoring data as well as 

12 available process and source term information 

13 for various nuclear research and production 

14 activities at LANL found that NIOSH lacked 

15 adequate information necessary to complete 

16 accurate individual dose reconstructions for a 

17 number of radionuclides during a significant 

18 percentage of the time period in question. 

19 The Board concurs with this determination.

20 NIOSH determined that the health 

21 may have been endangered for these LANL 

22 facility workers during the time period in 
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1 question. The Board concurs with this 

2 determination.

3 Based on these considerations and 

4 the discussions held at our May 19th-21st, 

5 2010 Advisory Board meeting held in Niagara 

6 Falls, New York, the Board recommends that 

7 this Special Exposure Cohort petition be 

8 granted.

9 Enclosed is the documentation from 

10 the Board meetings where the Special Exposure 

11 Cohort Class was discussed. The documentation 

12 includes transcripts of the deliberations, 

13 copies of the petition, the NIOSH review 

14 thereof, and related materials. If any of 

15 these items are unavailable at this time, they 

16 will follow shortly.

17 And I believe we voted on the 

18 motion already, so it's just a matter of 

19 making sure the letter is correct. Emily has 

20 --

21 MS. HOWELL: I just had a couple 

22 of suggestions. I think you may have caught 
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1 switching the or to an and in the Class 

2 Cefinition again.

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

4 MS. HOWELL: The other issues were 

5 we were trying to make sure that this was 

6 aligned with the language in the Evaluation 

7 Report. And so in the bullets, it refers to 

8 research and production, but the Evaluation 

9 Report only refers to research and development 

10 in the first and second bullets, so --

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Research 

12 and development activities, then, is that --

13 MS. HOWELL: Yes. That's my 

14 suggestion.

15 And the second bullet, I was just 

16 going to suggest that in the second to last 

17 sentence, the phrase a significant percentage 

18 of be removed because that's not necessarily 

19 --

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This 

21 during the time period, you're saying. Yes, I 

22 would agree with that. I was wondering what 
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1 was in there.

2 Everybody agree, okay with those 

3 changes?

4 (A chorus of yeses.)

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All 

6 right. And that's all the edits for that? 

7 Okay. And, again, we don't need to vote on 

8 that, right?

9 MR. KATZ: That's correct.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So we're 

11 just going to -- we have one more of these. 

12 It's the Bethlehem Steel motion.

13 Okay, this is for Bethlehem Steel 

14 -- I'm sorry -- the Advisory Board on 

15 Radiation and Worker Health, the Board, has 

16 evaluated SEC Petition 00056 concerning 

17 workers at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation 

18 facility in Lackawanna, New York, under the 

19 statutory requirements established by EEOICPA 

20 and incorporated into 42 CFR Section 83.13.

21 The Board respectfully recommends 

22 Special Exposure Cohort status be accorded to 
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1 all atomic weapons employer employees who 

2 worked in uranium rolling at the Bethlehem 

3 Steel Corporation facility in Lackawanna, New 

4 York, from January 1, 1949, to December 31, 

5 1952, for a number of work days aggregating at 

6 least 250 work days, occurring either solely 

7 under this employment or in combination with 

8 work days within the parameters established 

9 for one or more other Classes of employees 

10 included in the Special Exposure Cohort.

11 This recommendation is based on 

12 the following factors. People working at this 

13 facility during the time period in question 

14 worked on the production of uranium metal 

15 products related to nuclear weapons 

16 production. The Board's review of available 

17 data found that it lacked adequate source term 

18 process or monitoring data in order to be able 

19 to complete accurate individual dose 

20 reconstructions for internal radiation doses 

21 for employees at this facility during the time 

22 period in question. The Board determined that 
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1 the health may have been in danger for these 

2 Bethlehem facility workers.

3 Based on these considerations and 

4 the discussions held at our May 19-21, 2010 

5 Advisory Board Meeting held at Niagara Falls, 

6 New York, the Board recommends that this 

7 Special Exposure Cohort Petition be granted. 

8 Enclosed is the documentation from the Board 

9 meetings where this special exposure cohort 

10 class was discussed. The documentation 

11 includes transcripts of the deliberations, 

12 copies of the petition, NIOSH review thereof, 

13 and related materials. If any of these items 

14 are unavailable at this time, they will follow 

15 shortly.

16 And I did make a couple edits 

17 while I was, while I was reading. Obviously, 

18 the one last line in the third bullet had to 

19 be stricken.

20 Emily, any, any edits on this?

21 MS. HOWELL: No edits. I was just 

22 going to make the suggestion that since the 
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1 Board's recommendation differs from that of 

2 the Agency that it might be helpful for the 

3 Secretary to have a bit more information to go 

4 on. This letter is a little bit thin on 

5 details, so, but that's just a suggestion to 

6 the Board.

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I, I 

8 did -- we were discussing this on the 

9 sidelines earlier, and I had emailed Jim about 

10 this since he drafted this. And he suggested 

11 that the, you know, that he would rather stay 

12 broad in this letter and rely on the 

13 supporting transcripts from yesterday as well 

14 as the SC&A report, you know, as our basis. 

15 But certainly, that's something, I guess it's 

16 something for discussion here.

17 The only other question I -- one 

18 question I have, separate from the issue Emily 

19 is raising, is that in the Class Definition, 

20 we say -- and this may be consistent with 

21 other wording we've used -- but we say, 

22 "employees who worked in uranium rolling at 
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1 the Bethlehem Steel Corporation," and I was a 

2 little concerned about the, you know, question 

3 and implementation of Class. We didn't say 

4 "all workers" in this case. I just caught 

5 that as I was reading aloud.

6 Any -- I guess I'm looking for 

7 some guidance here. I don't know that we 

8 could, we could distinguish whether someone 

9 was, a claimant was at the Bethlehem facility 

10 and actually worked in the rolling, you know, 

11 operation.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I mean, 

13 typically, we would not use the class 

14 definition, "who worked in." And if you look 

15 at our model, our model does not, that we 

16 used, even though the Board's decided it's not 

17 feasible, that we could not distinguish 

18 workers. So --

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

20 So, I mean, I think we would be better off 

21 saying "all workers" at the Bethlehem facility 

22 during this time period if others agree with 
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1 me on that because I think we've seen through

2 our review of the Site Profile and through 

3 NIOSH's research that we just don't have the 

4 information to be able to place the people 

5 specifically at the rolling operation during 

6 that time period. So I would suggest changing 

7 that to "all workers" if people agree with 

8 that.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: So, and specifically, 

11 you mean all an atomic weapon employer 

12 employees?

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: And then just scratch 

15 who --

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 MR. KATZ: -- through rolling?

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay, just to be clear.

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Paul or 

21 David, any comments on either of those items 

22 that we just mentioned?
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1 (No response.)

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I guess 

3 there's no comments.

4 Paul or David?

5 MR. ZEIMER: What did the original 

6 petition say?

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Go ahead, 

8 Paul. I'm sorry.

9 MR. ZEIMER: What did the original 

10 petition describe? What was the Class that 

11 was evaluated by NIOSH? What, what was it 

12 defined as?

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Good 

14 question. We're -- go ahead, LaVon.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: I, I can look at 

16 the -- I'm sure we have the Evaluation Report 

17 out on the table probably.

18 MR. KATZ: We have it here, too. 

19 One moment.

20 MR. ZEIMER: Well, the 

21 presentation showed it, I think. I'm just 

22 going to pull it up.
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The 

2 petitioner Class Definition was actually --

3 yes, it was millwrights, welders, 

4 electricians, bricklayers, carpenters. It 

5 laid out specific jobs. The proposed Class 

6 Definition was "all atomic weapons employer 

7 personnel at the Bethlehem Steel" --

8 MR. ZEIMER: Yes. That's, that's 

9 what --

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

11 MR. ZEIMER: -- that's the 

12 petition that was evaluated by NIOSH.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But it --

14 yes, but it does have "who were monitored or 

15 should have been monitored." It uses that 

16 language, yes. So that's language I think 

17 we're trying --

18 MR. ZEIMER: Well, that's all19 inclusive.

20 MR. KATZ: Right.

21 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. 

22 Yes. So I think -- you know, I still prefer 
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1 to strike that be "worked at the rolling 

2 operation" if that's agreeable with everyone.

3 (No response.)

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And on 

5 the other item --

6 MR. KATZ: Just for the record, 

7 there were some nods "yes."

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: No affirmative 

10 statements, but --

11 (Chorus of yeses.)

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: On the, 

13 on the other item --

14 MEMBER FIELD: I have a specific 

15 quick question.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes?

17 MEMBER FIELD: What did we vote on 

18 yesterday? Do we need a re-vote?

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No. We, 

20 we voted on the --

21 MEMBER FIELD: Put it on hold?

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Well, the motion 

2 wasn't, didn't have this specific language, 

3 but the motion was to add the Class.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: To add 

5 the Class; right.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: Which is why we 

7 needed this language.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

9 Right. Yes.

10 Are there any comments on Emily's 

11 question regarding the additional -- you know, 

12 I gave you Dr. Melius's feedback on that.

13 Henry.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I, I would 

15 think as long as -- I mean, I think it does 

16 reference the documentation, and as long as we 

17 have the SC&A white -- or their review is part 

18 of that package, I think that would, that 

19 would cover it. I don't --

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. 

21 Anyone else --

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: I think to try 
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1 to craft what ought to additionally go in or 

2 not go in at this point would be -- this is 

3 very consistent with what we've done.

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

5 Go ahead, Brad.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: I think -- this 

7 is Brad. I think that there should be enough 

8 in the transcripts and so forth. But you know 

9 what? If they do, if he does require more 

10 information, we could draft something, you 

11 know, I guess. But I think it's all there.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I'm 

13 not --

14 MR. KATZ: Actually, procedurally, 

15 we can't. We cannot.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: This is, this is what 

18 we --

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: What's 

20 there is there, yes.

21 MR. KATZ: What we've got here is 

22 what will go forward.
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So, yes.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: So he can't ask 

3 us any questions if he had a question on it?

4 MR. KATZ: You mean, she, the 

5 Secretary of Health and Human Services?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: That -- no. That 

8 wouldn't be part of the process for, for the 

9 Secretary to come back to the Board, at least 

10 -- but I'm not, I will not say that the 

11 Secretary could not interrogate the Board 

12 somehow, but it's not part of the process, as 

13 it's laid out at least.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

15 MR. KATZ: Right.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Any, any 

17 other thoughts on that? I mean, my, my 

18 leaning is to leave it broad. Jim, I actually 

19 emailed, actually late last night, asking this 

20 question because I was going to, originally 

21 thinking of, you know, laying out bullets on, 

22 you know, more specific bullet items. But I 
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1 am leaning this way and relying on our 

2 transcript from yesterday along with the 

3 reports to support the case rather than lay 

4 out specifics in this letter.

5 Do others agree? Disagree?

6 (Chorus of agrees.)

7 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All 

8 right. Then we've voted on this already, so I 

9 think with those edits we discussed, this will 

10 go forward this way.

11 All right, thank you.

12 Now, to move on, I guess we just 

13 have a few items for the -- where's my little 

14 cheat sheet -- one item we needed to follow up 

15 on from yesterday was the tasking of SC&A for 

16 Site Profile Review. And if you recall, we 

17 had a list of six sites that we were 

18 considering, and we were all asked to do our 

19 homework. I'm not sure how many of us did; I 

20 must admit, mine was minimal. But thankfully, 

21 NIOSH did help me with a little homework here.

22 Stu provided some information that 
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1 we had asked yesterday, and I'll just offer 

2 this to start the discussion. For Simonds 

3 Saw, there were, submitted claims was 181, and 

4 active claims were three. And I think the way 

5 he's telling me is that that means most of the 

6 claims have been, have gone through dose 

7 reconstruction out of the full 181 that have 

8 been submitted.

9 The Stanford Linear Accelerator, 

10 there's 31 claims; the Pacific Proving Ground, 

11 68 claims; Superior Steel, 34; TVA, seven 

12 claims; and Allied Chemical has 101 claims. 

13 So a piece of the puzzle, anyway, at least for 

14 consideration -- I mean, Simonds had 181, 

15 Allied Chemical was 101, and Pacific Proving 

16 Ground, 68. Those were the three highest in 

17 terms of number of claims submitted. It 

18 shouldn't be our only factor of consideration, 

19 but it might weigh into our decision here.

20 Any thoughts on -- I think we were 

21 targeting assigning, tasking three sites.

22 Wanda.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: For a variety of 

2 reasons after I looked at them, my three 

3 choices would be Simonds Saw, and I personally 

4 think TVA is very interesting. There are a 

5 whole number of reasons why TVA is 

6 interesting. It's another phosphate plant, 

7 and that, I think, is why we still are 

8 thinking about those things. It might be a 

9 good time to look at it, and Allied Chemical.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And for 

11 a variety of reasons, I was thinking of 

12 Simonds Saw and Allied Chemical also. I was 

13 looking at Pacific Proving Grounds as a third.

14 But, Phil.

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'm going to 

16 shock Wanda and agree with her about TVA there 

17 because some of that information there was new 

18 for some of the other facilities, we still 

19 have to look at them.

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

21 Any other thoughts on this? I 

22 think Simonds Saw is -- and I thank Josie for 
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1 bringing this up -- that it is SEC, and it 

2 looks like, based on LaVon's report, it's 

3 coming out soon, so it would be probably good 

4 to get that in the works and let SC&A begin 

5 work on that. That would be timely. So I 

6 definitely think that Simonds Saw makes sense.

7 Any other opinions on -- and 

8 Allied Chemical for a number of reasons. I 

9 think it was a pretty dirty operation, if I 

10 recall, and it also has a fair number of 

11 claims at that facility. But then, maybe the 

12 third one is open for debate. TVA, I can --

13 you know, TVA and Pacific Proving Ground are 

14 on the table. Any thoughts either way?

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Mark, I'll just 

16 offer, you know, based on our discussion with 

17 Bill, Pacific Proving Ground has been, there's 

18 a Class for Pacific Proving Ground for the 

19 entire covered, from '46 to '62.

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, 

21 okay.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: So, it is -- a 
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1 Class has been added for that. That's for the 

2 entire period.

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

4 So it's definitely not as big a priority; 

5 right? So that may help us with our decision 

6 here.

7 Paul or David, any thoughts on 

8 either way?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: I had -- this is 

10 Ziemer. I was sort of interested in SLAC 

11 partially because it's very different from 

12 others. It's basically an accelerator 

13 facility. I thought it might be of interest.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So SLAC 

15 or TVA maybe is, is there -- can we all sort 

16 of agree on Simonds Saw and Allied Chemical?

17 (Chorus of yeses.)

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I 

19 hear --

20 MR. KATZ: And the process is to 

21 do these by voice votes, but there --

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, so 
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1 we do need to do them by voice vote?

2 MR. KATZ: -- but they're --

3 because they're site --

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No --

5 MR. KATZ: -- but there are no 

6 conflicts of any Board members for these 

7 facilities.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So we 

9 can take it by you doing this consent --

10 MR. KATZ: So we can do it by 

11 unanimous consent.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 

13 Unanimous consent, okay. So, by unanimous 

14 consent, we'll assign SC&A to do Simonds Saw 

15 and Allied Chemical Site Profile Reviews.

16 And the third, you know, any 

17 further thoughts on like -- I think it's down 

18 to TVA or the Stanford Accelerator -- Linear 

19 Accelerator. Any other thoughts either way? 

20 We end up, we may end up getting both, you 

21 know.

22 MEMBER MUNN: We'd be happy with 
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1 either one, frankly.

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All 

3 right, why don't we -- Stanford Linear 

4 Accelerator, is that okay?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Sure.

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All 

7 right. So there's the -- we'll task SC&A to 

8 do the three Site Profile reviews for Simonds 

9 Saw, Stanford Linear Accelerator, and Allied 

10 Chemical. And I guess we're taking that by 

11 unanimous consent.

12 All right?

13 (Chorus of yeses.)

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

15 The next item I have is the Dose 

16 Reconstruction Subcommittee Report, which, the 

17 chairman of that Subcommittee was deficient 

18 yesterday. He didn't have his act together, 

19 so I'll turn it over to me.

20 I passed out a -- and Paul and 

21 David, you should have gotten this via email 

22 -- the Dose Reconstruction Summary Report. 
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1 And just as, for recollection for folks, this 

2 -- we did the first hundred cases review. We 

3 submitted a letter to the Secretary 

4 summarizing our findings, and then it was a 

5 request from the Board to the Subcommittee to 

6 look further into those findings with regard 

7 to what impact on the NIOSH program did these 

8 findings have, and are we actually recommended 

9 that NIOSH do, make any changes or, and also, 

10 note whether they have made any changes as a 

11 result of the first 100 case reviews.

12 So this is really a status report 

13 back to the full Board. It's not intended to 

14 go to the Secretary. It's just a status 

15 report to the Board on what we've found so far 

16 at the subcommittee level with regard to sort 

17 of looking at those findings in aggregate.

18 And the only -- I guess one 

19 significant part of it is that you'll note 

20 that you got two documents. The second part 

21 of it is that we've, on the Subcommittee, 

22 decided that since there were a number of 
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1 quality control/quality assurance findings, we 

2 thought -- and NIOSH pretty much agreed with 

3 this -- is that let's -- it's a worthwhile 

4 task for SC&A to further pursue sort of the 

5 root cause of some of these things; why did 

6 some of these errors occur? Was it simply an 

7 individual error by a dose reconstructor? Or, 

8 yes, or systematic or -- you know, there's 

9 definitely questions on, in some cases, errors 

10 occurred where, and then there were two peer 

11 reviews done, and it went through the entire 

12 way without being detected, which seems a 

13 little strange. But without, you know, 

14 digging further for the facts, we're not 

15 completely sure there's anything there.

16 So we from the Subcommittee 

17 decided that it was worthwhile to select at 

18 least some cases or some findings of this type 

19 and task SC&A with looking into those findings 

20 further. And we've done that. We're starting 

21 on that process, but in the meantime, I 

22 thought it was worthwhile bringing a status 
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1 report back to the Board.

2 We can have some discussion of it 

3 now. I know most people are just looking at 

4 this. I meant to get it out a week ago or so, 

5 but it didn't happen. The other option is, is 

6 any, anything that you, any edits or any 

7 thoughts that you have on this report that you 

8 want to give back to the Subcommittee, you can 

9 email it to me, and then the next Subcommittee 

10 meeting I will bring them onto our, onto the 

11 table for the Subcommittee to consider in that 

12 way. It might be easier to deal with detailed 

13 comments that way.

14 Paul and David, you have these 

15 reports; correct?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. 

17 It has not popped up on either my NIOSH email 

18 or my home email so far.

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, mine 

21 neither.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, 
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1 really? Okay.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It -- it was 

3 dated today?

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It was 

5 sent out yesterday around 7:00 p.m. our time.

6 Yes, and David, I may have sent it 

7 to -- I think for both you and Paul, I sent to 

8 the government, the CDC email.

9 MR. KATZ: David doesn't have a 

10 CDC --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I've got my CDC 

12 email open, but --

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All 

14 right. David doesn't have a CDC, so I'm not 

15 sure where yours went.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, you know, 

17 sometimes it sits there for a while. I don't 

18 -- nothing's popped in since yesterday on CDC, 

19 and it's open right now.

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, I 

21 --

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: There's no 
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1 Thursday emails or --

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: There's 

3 certainly no action we're taking here, but, 

4 you know, we'll make sure you get those 

5 documents. And then, you know, I'd love to 

6 have -- input back to the Subcommittee would 

7 be the best result of this process, I think.

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: You sent it at 

9 6:02.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 6:02 --

11 see that? I sent it out early.

12 Yes, Brad. Brad.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: I don't, I don't 

14 see Ziemer's, and --

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, he's 

16 not on -- okay, I was -- all right. All 

17 right.

18 Paul, we'll get it to you. I 

19 apologize.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

21 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So, 

22 again --
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: If you could 

2 resend it to me as well, that would be great.

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I 

4 will, David. I apologize. And I was hoping 

5 to have this out, like I said, a week or so 

6 ago, and have a more full discussion at this 

7 meeting. But you know, my feeling is that 

8 individual Board members can certainly send 

9 comments, and we will take them up on the 

10 Subcommittee, and then also at future full 

11 Board meetings.

12 You know, now that you've got 

13 this, you know, you can look at it more 

14 thoroughly, and we can come back to this 

15 discussion at our future meetings. Either the 

16 phone call or the next face-to-face meeting, I 

17 think, would be the most useful. All right, 

18 so there's no action to take; just really a 

19 status report on that.

20 The only other item for the DR 

21 Subcommittee was we did go -- I kind of 

22 updated this two days ago -- we started a 13th 
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1 set of case selections. We had a Subcommittee 

2 phone call. We did our first -- we sort of go 

3 in a triage phase on this. We preselected 

4 cases, and then NIOSH is in the process of 

5 looking at those preselected cases and giving 

6 us more details on those cases. They actually 

7 go back and open each case file to determine 

8 if it was a full external, full internal, 

9 neutron dose reconstructions involved, you 

10 know, all those items that we want to see 

11 before we actually select the cases.

12 They are going to come back with 

13 that information to the, either the 

14 Subcommittee or the phone meeting, the next 

15 full Board meeting, via conference call, and 

16 then we can make our final selection at that 

17 point, so you know, we're moving that along. 

18 We were hoping to finalize it today, but it 

19 will move along soon.

20 John, I know you're -- yes.

21 Josie.

22 MEMBER BEACH: Mark, I noticed on 
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1 this sheet that we got the PoCs aren't listed. 

2 Don't we normally have that information when 

3 you give it to the Board members?

4 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The PoCs 

5 for which? For --

6 MEMBER BEACH: For all of it. For 

7 the individual --

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This 

9 spreadsheet is actually findings. They're 

10 finding numbers from the --

11 MEMBER BEACH: Gotcha. Gotcha.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: They're 

13 finding numbers from cases we've already 

14 reviewed, so it's a different thing. Yes. 

15 Yes, yes, yes. These aren't case selection 

16 things, right. Okay, right.

17 Okay, so that's, that's sort of 

18 the status from the DR Subcommittee. Any 

19 other comments from Subcommittee members or 

20 from, questions from the Board?

21 MEMBER MUNN: I'd just appreciate 

22 an opportunity to work on the words.
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 

2 Language, yes, yes. Yep. It's gone through 

3 probably three or four drafts already, but 

4 we'll get there. Yes.

5 MEMBER MUNN: It's moving.

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Wanda 

7 and I go back and forth on the language a lot, 

8 yes.

9 Okay, and one more item we have, 

10 and there may be others, but the one item I 

11 have on my list is the item -- Mike's going to 

12 tell us a little bit more about the Worker 

13 Outreach. I didn't have the spreadsheet in 

14 front of me yesterday; I don't know the others 

15 did. But maybe you can just give us a little

16 update on that, and --

17 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes, the 

18 spreadsheet that was sent out to you all is 

19 basically, we just wanted you to look at it. 

20 It's something that we've come up with that we 

21 intend to use internally in the Work Group to 

22 track worker comments, follow them through to 
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1 make sure that they're handled appropriately.

2 And from time to time, we're going 

3 to be reporting back to the Board, and we were 

4 just going to forward the information to you 

5 in this spreadsheet form, if that's acceptable 

6 to you, if it's readable, if it shows you 

7 enough detail. We just want to make sure that 

8 we just don't need to make any changes to it.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, 

10 and I, and you mentioned that -- is this 

11 information rolled into a database overall? 

12 Or maybe --

13 MR. KATZ: So can I -- I'll be 

14 glad to elaborate on this --

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: -- just while you -- I 

17 don't know if you've all had a chance to look 

18 at the spreadsheet, but it's pretty simple. 

19 The spreadsheet gives the comments that were 

20 made at the Board meeting, and the date of 

21 those comments, and actually the reference in 

22 the transcript so you can actually see 
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1 verbatim because the summaries of the comments 

2 are going to be very brief certainly going 

3 forward, but you can go see the details in the 

4 transcript.

5 They also, it also provides that -

6 - if there was a response given at the Board 

7 meeting, it would indicate that. If there, if 

8 there was a response given, these will be 

9 provided. Part of the process will be to go 

10 through the transcripts, find these comments, 

11 and then DCAS -- some of these items are items 

12 that are really appropriate for DCAS to 

13 respond to, which doesn't preclude the Board 

14 from also responding to any, but they're 

15 something that they're going to want to 

16 respond to in any event.

17 And so those will be indicated for 

18 the next Board meeting, too, which -- which of 

19 these comments that were received DCAS has 

20 responded to or is planning to respond to and 

21 just some indication of, you know, how that'll 

22 work.
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1 The other -- the only other 

2 element in this transcript -- I mean in this 

3 spreadsheet is there's a categorization of the 

4 types of comments. And right now, I think 

5 there's something like 35 different, in that 

6 ballpark, categorizations, or 35 different 

7 natures, or 36 -- thank you, Mark -- comments. 

8 And it's just sort of for starters. It can 

9 get more complex.

10 And I've said to the Worker 

11 Outreach Work Group during our meeting that I 

12 don't recommend continuing this categorization 

13 because it actually would be labor-intensive 

14 and provide very little fruit on the tail end. 

15 And we're going to have to, between DCAS and 

16 my staff, we're going to have to do this work. 

17 So I would prefer not to have a 

18 categorization. It, it's quite a bit of work, 

19 actually, just capturing the comment and 

20 placing in the transcript where this occurred, 

21 and to follow up with DCAS about which ones 

22 they responded to, and so on.
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1 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let me 

2 get -- Josie.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Just, just a couple 

4 of comments. On my first, I was going to 

5 mention the category, but since you spoke on 

6 the category -- there is a sheet that was sent 

7 out that described what each category meant. 

8 Has that been sent to the Board members?

9 MR. KATZ: Yes. That is -- if you 

10 look at the spreadsheet, there's two, two sort 

11 of sheets for the spreadsheet, and a second 

12 sheet is that, is the description of each 

13 category.

14 MEMBER BEACH: Then the other 

15 comment I have is if we decided to keep the 

16 categories, maybe make them more -- not so 

17 many categories, but a technical side or 

18 something that you could at least have some 

19 type of category.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: A broad --

21 MEMBER BEACH: Broad, yes.

22 MR. KATZ: I'd be glad to think 
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1 about a relatively few bins that we might, if 

2 that makes sense, but -- so I'll take a look 

3 at that question. And, certainly, everyone on 

4 the Board is most welcome to send me comments 

5 about it. If they have an idea of bidding, 

6 that's simple and can be done quickly, then I 

7 wouldn't mind that at all. We could take care 

8 of that.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I 

10 guess my thoughts is one of the most useful 

11 aspects of this might be the categorization, 

12 but we need to narrow the number of 

13 categories, I think, yes, if it's possible, 

14 you know. So, yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Well, just to remind 

16 the Board, though, the whole purpose of this 

17 tracking is just to ensure that the Board, 

18 when it receives comments that really should 

19 be responded to, that it does so. So it's not 

20 really -- I mean, I think in our discussion in 

21 the Worker Outreach Group, this got sort of 

22 conflated a little bit with what the Worker 
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1 Outreach Group will be doing in terms of 

2 evaluation of, for example, of NIOSH 

3 follow-up, how they integrate public comments 

4 into their SEC evaluations, and so on.

5 But this is really -- this is not 

6 the purpose of -- of this tracking. This 

7 tracking is really intended --

8 MEMBER GIBSON: But the -- the 

9 categorization in it, it kind of -- kind of 

10 ran away from us, but it originally started 

11 out, one reason was to try to track the, like, 

12 reoccurring problems, you know. We wanted to 

13 follow through with the worker and make sure 

14 that the -- his comment was taken care of. 

15 But then as we evaluated, we wanted to see if 

16 there is reoccurring problems.

17 MR. KATZ: And that's correct, but 

18 -- but the evaluation that you're doing is 

19 also addressing reoccurring -- I mean, that's 

20 the criterion for the Worker Outreach's 

21 evaluation of outreach in general. I mean, 

22 that's already captured in your evaluation 
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1 plan entirely independent of this.

2 MEMBER GIBSON: This is a way to

3 track it, though.

4 MR. KATZ: But, okay.

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, 

6 how can we, if we have any -- I mean, this is 

7 just coming as a status report, kind of, to 

8 the Board, or, I mean, if we have any thoughts 

9 on categorization of other things, can we get 

10 those to the Work Group? Is that --

11 MR. KATZ: Well, and to me, I 

12 think, because we're going to have to do this 

13 work, so it's, it would be -- I'll be glad to 

14 have your recommendations --

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All 

16 right.

17 MR. KATZ: -- so that I can 

18 consider them.

19 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So if --

20 MR. KATZ: And then a timing thing 

21 we could ask, we could talk about, too, 

22 because what we have right now is this 
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1 spreadsheet before you with the comments that 

2 were submitted in February. And you'll notice 

3 that a good number of them have been in one 

4 way or the other responded to, but not all. 

5 So you may want to take up, for example, at 

6 the teleconference, this spreadsheet with the 

7 details in there and consider whether there 

8 are comments there that you would like to 

9 pursue in one way or the other as a Board 

10 responding to -- so I would suggest that it 

11 come up for the teleconference -- I don't know 

12 what Mike thinks -- but as an agenda item.

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We can 

14 have this as a regular agenda item, I guess.

15 MR. KATZ: Right.

16 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: An 

17 ongoing agenda item.

18 MR. KATZ: And the idea was to 

19 have a regular agenda item where the Board 

20 would just consider any comments. I mean, as 

21 you noted at this Board meeting and the prior 

22 one, I think more and more, we're trying to 
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1 address as many comments as possible in real 

2 time at the Board meeting, but -- but there 

3 will always be items that -- that don't get 

4 addressed. I think it would be good.

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Any 

6 other comments on this? I think we can -- you 

7 know, we have an opportunity to weigh in on 

8 this through the Work Group or through Ted --

9 MR. KATZ: Sure.

10 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- on 

11 the categorization.

12 Any thoughts now? Any comments?

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I -- this is 

14 David Richardson.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Go 

16 ahead, David.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I like it. I 

18 think the idea is terrific that -- that 

19 there's some sort of tracking of being 

20 responsive to comments.

21 I thought the Significant Issues

22 column, Column D, could be, in some cases, it 
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1 could be edited much more. There are some 

2 examples -- Row 23, for example -- where this 

3 is really running on fairly long, and maybe 

4 you could bullet it down, and just -- just 

5 include a reference to -- to page and line 

6 number in the transcript.

7 The other thought I had was I 

8 sometimes had the sense that during the Board 

9 meetings, questions are posed by Board 

10 members, and their response is, well, we'll 

11 need to get back to you, and I don't know if 

12 there's tracking of that. Could there be a --

13 or has there been a thought about having a 

14 similar spreadsheet of -- of unresolved 

15 questions that are posed by Board members and 

16 their interest in --

17 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm 

18 looking at Ted when you say -- yes.

19 MR. KATZ: We -- we certainly 

20 haven't discussed that. It's not that -- not 

21 that that's not a good idea.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, I have 
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1 a question -- how many workers were actually 

2 employed at GE Evendale -- I have in my 

3 notebook here. I've got a page where I've got 

4 questions which I haven't had responses to, 

5 and am waiting for a response. But I -- you 

6 know, I can do that tracking myself. But it 

7 might be a stimulus to investigate and pursue 

8 answers to those if they were, if there was 

9 some way that they were systematically being 

10 registered and logged.

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And 

12 that's a good point. I think, in the past, 

13 we've always operated by, if it was important 

14 enough, we would bring it up again, you know.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes, I think -- I think 

16 there is some effort at DCAS to review 

17 transcripts and see what they have to follow 

18 up on in general, and that certainly would 

19 fall in -- fall in that category. I don't --

20 I don't mind actually capturing, I don't mind 

21 capturing this. I mean, I like the idea of 

22 that. The only problem is, then, you're 
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1 having to really comb through the entire 

2 transcript. It's quite easy to actually 

3 capture the public comments because there's 

4 limited opportunities for public comment.

5 But when we get to having to track 

6 whenever a Board member might have raised a 

7 question for follow up, it does get to be more 

8 -- a lot more combing would have to be done of 

9 the transcript to capture those.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I 

11 propose as a, like as a procedural suggestion, 

12 that we, if we have a question that we want to 

13 be answered, that you maintain a list of 

14 those. And if we pose a question and say, I 

15 would like that to be logged for answer and 

16 have a response the next meeting, and some way 

17 there would be a record-keeper who'd keep a

18 list of those questions?

19 MR. KATZ: Yes.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And at least 

21 making a good-faith effort to come back with 

22 an answer at the next --
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1 MR. KATZ: I'd be happy to. For 

2 example, at the end of each Board meeting or 

3 however you want to do that, if you want to 

4 submit the comments that you had raised that 

5 weren't answered, each of your Board members, 

6 just do that bit of due diligence to me, that 

7 I would be happy to make certain that those 

8 comments get addressed, those questions.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I 

10 think that's probably a workable -- a workable 

11 way to do it. Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: That would be a 

13 practical way to go. I think that's a good 

14 suggestion.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Henry --

16 or Wanda first, and then Henry.

17 MEMBER MUNN: During the words 

18 that were being spoken five or so minutes ago, 

19 there was a parenthetical expression about, 

20 and of course, any issues that, that what was 

21 being said was, we're tracking these so that 

22 NIOSH can respond to them appropriately. And 
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1 I think, Ted, you said, "And of course, the 

2 Board may respond as well." And I blinked 

3 because I don't recall the Board having taken 

4 the responsibility in the past for responding 

5 to public comment, and I'm not sure how we 

6 could or should go about doing that. Did you 

7 mean --

8 MR. KATZ: Let me clarify my 

9 thought. I did mean what I said. I mean, the 

10 Board does actually respond in real time to 

11 people.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, yes.

13 MR. KATZ: And there are some 

14 issues that are more difficult to respond in 

15 real-time. And I -- I think it was the intent 

16 when we started this that we would think about 

17 how the Board might respond, for example, on 

18 the record at a future meeting about a more 

19 complex issue that might have been raised in a 

20 number of public comment sessions but had 

21 never been directly handled because, you know, 

22 at least not in full depth because it takes 
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1 more to do that.

2 So the Board can have a session 

3 where it says, you know, here's a comment. 

4 And to Mike's point, it may be a comment that 

5 we've heard in different ways in several Board 

6 meetings, but here's a comment we received, 

7 and here's what the Board's view is on this.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Just to be very 

9 clear, this would be at a full Board meeting.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 MEMBER MUNN: My concern is always 

12 that we not inappropriately contact claimants 

13 who have issues outside this public forum.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

15 No.

16 MR. KATZ: Absolutely.

17 MEMBER MUNN: I just want to make 

18 sure that any response we make must be made in 

19 this venue here.

20 MR. KATZ: I think that was the 

21 idea entirely.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Just checking. 
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1 Thank you.

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

3 Henry, and then Brad.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I was only 

5 going to say, sometimes we'll ask questions, 

6 and it'll be, get back to you, but then --

7 that becomes moot if we vote on something and 

8 pass it. So I think having a list of 

9 questions at the end, if we still want to find 

10 out that information, even though like some of 

11 the questions on how many there, I mean, 

12 that's just useful kind of background 

13 information, even if we move forward on, on 

14 approving an SEC, for instance.

15 But I think you could do some 

16 searching pretty easily in, you know, in that 

17 period to look to see, is there any, for those 

18 that we've tabled, you know, or are still in 

19 the development stage, that would be where I 

20 would think there may be questions that we 

21 need to have the answers.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, so 
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1 --

2 MR. KATZ: I'm just, I'm not sure 

3 I understood you entirely, but all I would say 

4 is, again, if at the end of a Board meeting, 

5 whatever outstanding questions you have that 

6 you would like to see answered, if you provide 

7 them to me, then I will -- I will do the 

8 follow up with NIOSH and get answers.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I 

10 think I support Ted's notion because I know 

11 that my experience is that I've raised 

12 questions during our discussions, and then 

13 during a break, I might see NIOSH, and they 

14 might address it, and then, you know, it kind 

15 of goes away for me as an issue. So I don't 

16 need to, you know, officially follow up. So I 

17 think each member can do due diligence and 

18 submit their questions in writing. I think 

19 that makes sense, yes.

20 Brad.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I agree with 

22 that, but also, as some of the Board members 
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1 bring up some of these issues, it sparks an 

2 interest in us, and I'd kind of like to see 

3 the follow up of what's solved, what the 

4 answer was on that --

5 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, I 

6 know.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- because like 

8 Dr. Richardson had mentioned, you know, many 

9 times a Board member will bring something up, 

10 and you know, if we process it to you and 

11 stuff like that, I'd just like to see it come 

12 back to the whole Board because --

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But I 

14 think that might be reasonable. I mean, that 

15 Ted could get all the written questions and 

16 then compile them in the same format and give 

17 the response or action in writing.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Oh, absolutely.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, I just 

21 wanted to make sure we saw because a lot of 

22 times if I have a particular question, I know 
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1 that it's focused to me --

2 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- and they take 

4 care that -- but as many issues have been 

5 brought forth by other Board members. I've 

6 been interested in seeing how -- how it was 

7 taken care of.

8 MR. KATZ: I meant -- what I meant 

9 was that I would report back to the whole 

10 Board. We don't have to do this right -- I 

11 mean, I can send an email to everyone with the 

12 responses to the questions that were raised 

13 because you'll all be interested in many of 

14 these.

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

16 that's fine.

17 Anything else on the spreadsheet 

18 itself or our follow-up discussion here?

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Mark?

20 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

21 Paul.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I 
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1 just wanted to weigh in on a couple items. 

2 Number one, I kind of like Josie's suggestion. 

3 I think the categorizations are somewhat 

4 important, and the problem is there's too many 

5 of them right now, and our Designated Federal 

6 Official may spend all his time making 

7 decisions on which pot to throw something 

8 into.

9 Initially, my thought on that was 

10 we have a lot of issues that are very case11 specific. Individual claimants have 

12 individual issues. And that's one whole 

13 category, and those have to be handled pretty 

14 much by NIOSH staff. The only thing to be 

15 done there is to make sure that happens.

16 We have another sort of large 

17 step, which are more sort of technical issues 

18 or semi-technical issues. An example would be 

19 public comment where the individuals have 

20 said, well, I'm concerned about the validation 

21 of the IREP model or something like that. And 

22 in fact, we've had comments like that, and 
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1 those are the kinds of comments which are more 

2 dealing with the system.

3 So in my mind, I see at least two 

4 sort of big silos, one of which is -- are the 

5 public comments that deal with individual 

6 cases. The other are comments which deal with 

7 the system. Some of those system comments 

8 might be the CATI interview process and that 

9 sort of thing. So there's a couple of big 

10 categories. There might be a couple subs 

11 under those. But I think it's important to at 

12 least make those kind of categorical 

13 differences.

14 Then the other thing is that on 

15 responding to Board questions, I think it's 

16 one thing to ask for a clarification or, you 

17 know, how many claims there are at a Site. We 

18 have, in the past, had cases where Board 

19 members have, in essence, seemed to task NIOSH 

20 to do something fairly big for that individual 

21 member. And in those kind of cases, at least, 

22 it was -- I think it's important that if we
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1 ask NIOSH, for example -- if a particular 

2 Board member said, you know, I'd like you to 

3 go back and take this model and do the 

4 following things to satisfy me, I think it's 

5 important that there is a kind of consensus 

6 from the Board that we would like that task 

7 done by NIOSH.

8 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Paul?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- in the larger 

10 scheme. So that's a different kind of follow11 up bill.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 

13 Paul, I agree with that, and I think that we 

14 can -- we can count on Ted as being the filter 

15 for that kind of thing.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

17 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So if 

18 someone submits a question that Ted feels is 

19 more broad and requires the full Board 

20 decision, then he'll come back with that to 

21 us, I guess.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, and the only 
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1 other thing on that, Mark, is if a member 

2 raises an issue such as the information on a 

3 number, and gets that in, you know, as you 

4 described, between sessions, it nonetheless 

5 may have been, once it's raised, it may be of 

6 interest to all Board members. So simply 

7 responding to the member who asked it is not 

8 always the, I think, the response.

9 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Because sometimes 

11 a question is asked and other people say, oh, 

12 yes, I need that information, too --

13 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's a 

14 good point.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- even though 

16 they may not have thought of the question. So 

17 somehow we need to distinguish between 

18 questions raised by individuals that have 

19 interest to the full Board versus those 

20 questions which a single member -- you know, I 

21 need this information for my comfort level, 

22 everybody else is okay with it, or something.
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1 MR. KATZ: Paul? Paul, this is 

2 Ted. I'm not even going to distinguish, 

3 actually. I'm going to inform the Board of 

4 the answers to questions that are raised 

5 during Board meetings.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: All right.

7 MR. KATZ: So if some of them are 

8 not interesting to some Board members, that's 

9 fine. Everybody will get all the answers to 

10 all the questions.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Great.

12 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I hope 

13 others are interested in my questions -- no.

14 (Laughter.)

15 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Anyway, 

16 is there any further comments on this? And 

17 those were good comments, Paul, that I really 

18 appreciated. I'm sure Ted and the Worker 

19 Outreach Group can take that into 

20 consideration. I was planning on looking at 

21 that list as well, and if others -- I think, 

22 I'm sure we can still get comments in to Ted 
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1 or Mike.

2 MR. KATZ: Absolutely.

3 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. So 

4 any other comments at this point though?

5 (No response.)

6 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Are 

7 there any other items that we didn't -- that 

8 we missed that people want to bring up now 

9 before we adjourn?

10 (No response.)

11 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And we 

12 did all the logistical stuff earlier, right?

13 MR. KATZ: We're all set.

14 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, so 

15 --

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: Airport 

17 transportation.

18 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Airport 

19 transportation -- I think we're --

20 MR. KATZ: As soon as we get off 

21 the record I think.

22 ACTING CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, so 
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1 our meeting here is adjourned. Thank you all, 

2 and thank you on the phone.

3 MR. KATZ: Thanks, everybody, for 

4 all the hard work.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

6 matter was adjourned at 10:44 a.m.)

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