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1 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

CARBORUNDUM WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

AUGUST 18, 2016

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened by telephone at 

9:00 a.m., Genevieve Roessler, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Chair

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor

BOB ANIGSTEIN, SC&A

KARIN JESSEN, ORAU Team

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

JIM NETON, DCAS

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team

TOM TOMES, DCAS
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Contents 

Welcome and Roll Call ............................ 5

Brief Summary of DCAS Evaluation Report .......... 7

Review of ER and Findings by SC&A, NIOSH’s Response to 

SC&A Findings; and Work Group Discussion ........ 22

Adjourn ......................................... 88
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 (10:02 a.m.)

3 Welcome and Roll Call 

4 MR. KATZ: Welcome, everyone, to the 

5 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

6 Carborundum Work Group. And this is the first 

7 meeting of the Work Group.

8 For folks who, other than Agency folks, 

9 might want to access the materials, the agenda for 

10 today's meeting and all of the materials that are 

11 being discussed, all the papers that have been 

12 traded back and forth on various issues, are all 

13 posted on the NIOSH website under the Advisory 

14 Board section, schedule of meetings, today's date. 

15 So, if you go there, today's date, you 

16 can -- all the documents are attached there. You 

17 can open them up and follow along with any document 

18 that's being discussed. And open up the agenda, 

19 by all means, and see what the order of business 

20 is.
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1 There will be an opportunity for 

2 petitioners to comment after the Agency has gone 

3 back and forth, and we welcome that. So, roll 

4 call.

5 (Roll call.)

6 MR. KATZ: I'd just remind everyone to 

7 mute your phones, except when you are speaking. 

8 Press *6 to mute your phone, *6 to come off of mute.

9 And, Gen, it's your meeting.

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: Thank you, Ted. I 

11 want to comment: I'm handicapped hearing-wise 

12 sometimes but I can hear everybody really well 

13 today. I'm actually real plussed.

14 So, everyone has the agenda. We will 

15 be starting with Tom Tomes presenting a brief 

16 summary of the DCAS Evaluation Report. Tom 

17 presented this to the Board in July 2015, a very 

18 detailed report, but I thought it would be good if 

19 you could do a short summary today. So we'll start 

20 with that.
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1 And after he finishes, then we'll do 

2 SC&A's review of the findings and NIOSH's response 

3 to their review. And I think we will do it like 

4 we usually do, one finding at a time.

5 So, Tom's slides are on Live Meeting, 

6 in case anyone wants to look at them. We also got 

7 them in the attachment to Ted's email that he sent, 

8 I think, on the 16th, maybe.

9 Okay, Tom, if you are ready, let's go.

10 Brief Summary of DCAS Evaluation Report 

11 MR. TOMES: Thank you, Dr. Roessler. 

12 I'll start out here with the Carborundum facility 

13 description from the DOE website. Right off, I 

14 should point out that, during the presentation in 

15 July 2015, we discussed the fact that the 

16 Department of Labor was in the process of 

17 redefining the first AWE period, and that's 

18 reflected here on this slide but I'll flag what it 

19 was changed to. And the ER that we prepared was 

20 prepared and assessed based on the period listed 
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1 here on the slide.

2 Carborundum is an AWE from June to 

3 September 1943 and then again from '59 to '67. And 

4 there's a residual period in between those two 

5 periods, as well as after.

6 The Carborundum facility, in June 1943, 

7 did centerless grinding for the Manhattan Engineer 

8 District. And from 1959 through 1967, they 

9 manufactured plutonium carbide pellets for AEC 

10 research programs.

11 The June 1943 work consisted of

12 experimental centerless grinding. At that time, 

13 the AEC was interested in finding a way to do the 

14 finish grinding on slugs and they sent 10 slugs to 

15 Carborundum to test different abrasives that might 

16 work.

17 And the 1959 through 1967 work 

18 consisted of methods to fabricate pellets.

19 NIOSH received the petition in November 

20 2014. The requested Class was for any workers from 
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1 the Buffalo Avenue facility in Niagara Falls from 

2 1943 through 1976. And I should point out that 

3 Carborundum had another location in Niagara Falls 

4 which is not part of this particular petition.

5 For the 1943 work, we have no records 

6 to indicate what particular building or area of 

7 Carborundum that work took place. We don't know 

8 if it was Buffalo Avenue or the Hyde Park facility. 

9 So we did an evaluation of the particular work that 

10 was going on and then the location.

11 The work was limited to the 

12 experimental grinding that I mentioned earlier. 

13 We have records that Carborundum, and I think it 

14 was June 1st of 1943, received 30 pounds of slugs. 

15 They reported the results back to the Manhattan 

16 Engineer District approximately a month later, 

17 shortly over a month later, which basically 

18 detailed the different abrasives they tried, ones 

19 that worked, ones that didn't. And their 

20 experimentation with different settings for 
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1 grinding. The slugs were shipped back to the 

2 Manhattan Engineer District in the end of 

3 September.

4 For evaluating doses, DCAS is using 

5 TBD-6000 for exposure to metal and centerless 

6 grinding for internal exposures.

7 For the residual period immediately 

8 after that, we are using the residual radioactive 

9 period OTIB for methods to assess resuspension of 

10 contamination. That's based on a method that we 

11 used in many different sites and using the airborne 

12 estimates from that TBD-6000.

13 The external dose during the residual 

14 period is based on contamination levels and dose 

15 coefficients in Federal Guidance Report No. 12.

16 In 1959, Carborundum was a contractor 

17 and a subcontractor both through the AEC and to the 

18 United Nuclear Corporation in the Reactor Fuel 

19 Development Program. They did work initially with 

20 uranium and then shortly thereafter they started 
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1 the uranium/plutonium research, which was done in 

2 a facility designed for plutonium. This work was 

3 done in Building 53, which was -- excuse me. The 

4 building they did it in was opened in 1953, so it 

5 was a modern facility at that time.

6 The work consisted of developing 

7 methods to synthesize the fuels, and also they 

8 experimented with different techniques and they 

9 did testing of the pellets for the physical 

10 properties.

11 The plutonium laboratory, the contract 

12 for the plutonium work was signed in 1959. They 

13 received their first shipments of plutonium in 1960 

14 and plutonium was introduced into the laboratory 

15 in early 1961.

16 The laboratory was a fairly small area. 

17 There's a lot of details on the construction of it 

18 and how it was designed, with the work area was 

19 approximately a 555 square foot area. It had six 

20 glove boxes and other equipment for processing the 
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1 materials.

2 The uranium laboratory, that uranium 

3 work that was done initially, was done in the same 

4 area of the same building. However, it was not in 

5 the plutonium facility. The first floor of this 

6 particular building had a uranium laboratory and 

7 then they had the plutonium laboratory adjacent to 

8 that.

9 The uranium work, since there were 

10 small batches of monocarbide, mononitride, and 

11 uranium silicide, they, similar to the pellet work 

12 for plutonium, that work consisted of experimental 

13 methods to fabricate those compounds into pellets.

14 The plutonium laboratory primarily 

15 produced uranium and plutonium monocarbide that 

16 was used in the Fermi fast breeder reactor for 

17 experimentation purposes. That work studied the 

18 physical properties and the use of X-ray 

19 diffraction.

20 The work in the second AWE period, you 
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1 have air samples from the uranium work -- excuse 

2 me. We have air samples from 1959 to 1961. We do 

3 not have any external dosimetry for that work.

4 The general area air dust were taken 

5 November 1959 and April 1961. Nine of the results 

6 are legible and positive. Plutonium air samples 

7 are available from June and April 1961, April 1961 

8 being shortly after the facility introduced 

9 plutonium in March. Those results include both

10 general area and breathing zone samples. And nine 

11 of sixteen of those samples were positive.

12 The air sample data we have on those, 

13 on both the uranium work and plutonium work, are 

14 used to estimate intakes to workers. For the 

15 uranium, the general area air samples were 

16 evaluated and we used the 95th percentile to be 

17 applicable to support workers. And for operators 

18 who have been more closely involved with the 

19 material, we are doubling that intake.

20 And for plutonium, the air samples are 
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1 identified as both general area and breathing 

2 zones. And based on the layout of the facility and 

3 where the samples were taken, we have a somewhat 

4 different approach there doing a favorable 

5 interpretation of that data. All the samples were 

6 considered to derive an intake.

7 And I should point out the plutonium 

8 work, we have gross alpha air sample results, and 

9 those results are a mixture of plutonium and 

10 uranium.

11 For the external doses, we are using the 

12 initial uranium work. We have no dosimetry data. 

13 We are using TBD-6000 dose rates to estimate the 

14 intake -- excuse me, a dose rate. 

15 The plutonium work was started shortly 

16 thereafter. We used MCNP to model external doses 

17 based on the material that was in process. We have 

18 information on the quantities that they had in 

19 process at any one time.

20 And we also evaluated X-ray diffraction 
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1 that was used to analyze the compounds being 

2 formed. And that was done from -- those X-ray 

3 diffraction dose rates are based on measurements 

4 from Pennsylvania in 1966.

5 The residual period started in 1959. 

6 We used a similar approach as we did for the 1943 

7 work, using the OTIB-70 air sample results and 

8 resuspension. And, likewise, on the external 

9 dose, using Federal Guidance Report No. 12 to 

10 estimate an external dose. 

11 There are a lot more details and I just 

12 tried to give a quick overview here of this. So, 

13 I'd be glad to answer any questions before we 

14 proceed.

15 CHAIR ROESSLER: Thanks, Tom. I think 

16 that this is ready to hear from SC&A. But the one 

17 thing that I think we should have, and I don't see 

18 a slide on it, it was the last slide in your original 

19 presentation. Maybe you can verbally discuss 

20 NIOSH's summary regarding the ability to do dose 
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1 reconstructions.

2 MR. TOMES: Yes, I meant to do that and 

3 I didn't have a slide on it.

4 Yes, we've concluded that, based on the 

5 information we have on the work that went on and 

6 the amount of materials that were handled that 

7 these methods are sufficient to estimate doses. 

8 So we are recommending no SEC Class for this 

9 facility.

10 DR. MAURO: Tom, this is John Mauro. 

11 Just a quick question. I'm always interested in 

12 the differences between the general air samples and 

13 the breathing zone air samples. And I see you have 

14 some data on the plutonium values. I haven't 

15 looked for it or anything, but is that data 

16 available? I sort of keep a record of that kind 

17 of information because we run into that very often 

18 where internal doses are being reconstructed, and 

19 sometimes all you have is general air samples and 

20 I'm always interested in seeing the difference 
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1 between the two. Are there data available?

2 MR. TOMES: Are you talking about the 

3 plutonium data?

4 DR. MAURO: Plutonium data, yes.

5 MR. TOMES: Yes, they're in SRDB 

6 Reference 11452.

7 DR. MAURO: Okay, thank you.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: John, this is Bob. I 

9 can get you that data.

10 DR. MAURO: I appreciate that. Thank 

11 you.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, any other 

13 questions at this time?

14 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, this is Bill. I 

15 had the same question about the air sampling data. 

16 The other question I have is, how many workers are 

17 we talking about here?

18 MR. TOMES: The 1943 work was 

19 experimental using a grinder. So, they obviously 

20 -- and ten total slugs were handled. So, 
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1 obviously, it was a very small number of workers 

2 involved with that.

3 The 1959 through '60, early '60s 

4 uranium work, that was an unknown amount, but it 

5 was a fairly small amount of material involved.

6 For the 1961 through 1967 plutonium 

7 work, all that work was done in a small plutonium 

8 laboratory and interviews indicated that they 

9 operated one shift per day, five days per week. 

10 And we have interviewed someone who said he was the 

11 one who was -- he was the only one working there 

12 fulltime. So, obviously, there would be other 

13 people involved in certain activities but we're 

14 talking about maybe a handful of people.

15 MEMBER FIELD: Okay, thanks.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I was 

17 kind of wondering the same thing. Was this 

18 plutonium facility, was it under any kind of lock 

19 and key or was there any way of not allowing any 

20 of the other workforce in there? Do we have any 
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1 information on that?

2 MR. TOMES: We have information from 

3 multiple interviews and references that it was 

4 secured and tightly controlled. And other workers 

5 who worked in the laboratory on the fourth floor 

6 outside of the plutonium facility said they were 

7 not allowed into it and had never entered it because 

8 they had it secured. And that seems to be a 

9 consistent theme through everybody we interviewed.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: And on the uranium 

11 part, in the early years when they were bringing 

12 that in, how long did this work go on, this checking 

13 for grinding and different processes? How long 

14 are we looking at?

15 (Simultaneous speaking)

16 MR. TOMES: Well, we have shipping 

17 records. This was part of a project. DuPont 

18 handled a bunch of subcontractors who did various 

19 phases of work with the uranium slug process. And 

20 part of that involved using lathes to finish grind 
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1 the materials, and they were trying to find a method 

2 to speed up that process. And centerless grinding 

3 was one of the ideas they had. 

4 So they sent ten slugs in June, I think 

5 it was actually June 1st, in 1943. And they 

6 reported back approximately one month later the 

7 results of those tests. And we have records that 

8 the slugs were shipped back, I believe it was 

9 September the 27th. So they were there from 

10 basically June through September. And we know of 

11 work going on only in June as far as the experiments 

12 themselves.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, thank you.

14 DR. MAURO: This is John. One 

15 question. It might be a silly question. But the 

16 X-ray diffraction activities, they had a special 

17 room for that. It wasn't in the same area or room 

18 where other workers were involved, or let's say 

19 working with glove boxes or anything like that?

20 MR. TOMES: That was a different floor. 
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1 I believe it was the second floor, but it wasn't 

2 on the same floor. There was a separate area in 

3 a separate room.

4 DR. MAURO: Okay.

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: I think what John is 

6 leading up to -- and I wanted to ask, too -- did 

7 any other workers have access to the X-ray 

8 diffraction units or was it just the people who were 

9 actually doing the work?

10 MR. TOMES: Our interview with -- we 

11 went back -- SC&A interviewed one of the workers 

12 who operated the equipment. And then as a 

13 follow-up a couple of months ago, we also 

14 interviewed him for additional information. And 

15 he told us that there were three pieces of equipment 

16 in the room where the X-ray diffraction unit sat. 

17 And he said other people may have entered but no 

18 one else worked there. And so basically there were 

19 three people, typically, that would be in there. 

20 That's approximate, but it was not a routine launch 
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1 pad area by the people. I'm not sure there was a 

2 positive control on that facility.

3 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, any other 

4 questions? Then I think we are ready for Bob 

5 Anigstein's review. And he has a lengthy paper 

6 that came out earlier. And then in April, he 

7 presented a very nice Issue Resolution Matrix with 

8 his findings and issues, and that's probably a good 

9 thing to following along with. Along with the 

10 summary of the issues, he has indicated the level 

11 of importance of each one of them.

12 So, if everyone can find that, I think, 

13 Bob, we are ready to go.

14 Review of ER and Findings by SC&A, NIOSH’s Response to 

15 SC&A Findings; and Work Group Discussion 

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yeah. Yeah, that is 

17 exactly what I had planned to do. Thank you.

18 So I'm going to start. I mean, we have 

19 the 50-page report, so I'm not about to read that 

20 out loud or go through it in complete detail, but 

21 I will refer to it. But I will start off with the 
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1 issues matrix.

2 Alright, Issue Number 1. I'll just 

3 read it, so if any of the Board Members have it handy 

4 on their computers or on paper, it might make it 

5 easier to follow. Issue Number 1 is -- now, we're 

6 referring to the original ER. "NIOSH failed to 

7 prescribe a methodology to assess doses to skin of 

8 hands and forearms from X-ray diffraction 

9 apparatus."

10 I would like to then simply jump to the 

11 conclusion that, in the report that Tom Tomes 

12 issued on June 8th, he did in fact prescribe a 

13 methodology. And that is that the XRD 

14 operators/technicians would be assigned the rad 

15 support dose for the glove box workers. 

16 Basically, the glove box workers' dose, assuming 

17 50 percent exposure. 

18 And we find that to be quite bounding, 

19 and, therefore, the issue is resolved. The 10.8, 

20 I believe, to the skin of the whole body, and 115 
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1 to the skin of the hands and forearms seems to be 

2 quite bounding for the XRD operators. 

3 I don't entirely agree -- there was a 

4 separate report that was attached by Elyse Thomas 

5 from ORAU which gave a much, much lower dose. We 

6 don't entirely agree with that methodology, 

7 however, that becomes a moot question because of 

8 the doses that NIOSH plans to assign to these 

9 workers or to anybody that might have been such a 

10 worker.

11 The second issue is NIOSH failed to 

12 address thorium as a possible radiation source. 

13 So, one worker that was interviewed by NIOSH, and 

14 also I interviewed him on behalf of SC&A, did say 

15 that somewhere around 1955, in that era, he was 

16 doing experimental work with making pellets. The 

17 AEC-related work in '59 through '67 was making 

18 pellets for experimental use in reactors. They 

19 were very small, a couple of centimeters long, 

20 about a centimeter in diameter in rough numbers. 
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1 And they were both doing uranium and then later they 

2 were doing a uranium-plutonium carbide, and that 

3 was the nature of the pellet work.

4 Well, this man apparently did something 

5 very similar in '55 using thorium. We first said, 

6 well, perhaps that thorium was related to weapons 

7 work, because at one time there was some 

8 experimental work done with mixed thorium-uranium. 

9 I believe it was at Fernald. It was the basis of 

10 some other work that was with SC&A some years ago. 

11 And we felt that perhaps this could be 

12 weapons-related.

13 The response that NIOSH had to furnish 

14 to that was that it seems -- we can't rule it out 

15 totally, but it seems unlikely. There were 

16 copious records on uranium and plutonium being 

17 shipped to the Carborundum. There were no records 

18 of thorium and no evidence of thorium, except this 

19 one man's account.

20 However, he seemed to be very clear 
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1 about this. And I looked at the interview notes 

2 from the ORAU interview and he was very -- and 

3 several months later, I interviewed him and it was 

4 entirely consistent. That is one way you can --

5 that I judge the veracity of the workers that we 

6 are interviewing. In other words, I'm not always 

7 perfect after 50 years, and neither is a lot of us, 

8 but when they give a very consistent story several 

9 times, I tend to say, gee, this person really does 

10 seem to have a good recollection.

11 However, he could not say. I asked him 

12 if he knew who the client was, and he could not 

13 remember who it was being shipped to. So we are 

14 willing to accept that it's most likely not 

15 weapons-related.

16 However, these facilities at question, 

17 that this worker did say the thorium was received 

18 as a powder and he said that spills were likely. 

19 So if there were spills of thorium and there is no 

20 record of thorough decontamination of the 
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1 facility, and since thorium and uranium were 

2 handled in the same facility, as a matter of fact, 

3 NIOSH pointed out in its response that there is a 

4 biographical sketch of one of the managers, one of 

5 the key people, [identifying information 

6 redacted], that's whose name appeared on many of 

7 the Carborundum progress reports. And he set up 

8 two facilities. He set up a plutonium facility and 

9 he set up a facility for uranium and thorium. So 

10 it was the same facility that was being used. 

11 And consequently, there is definitely 

12 a likelihood that there would have been thorium 

13 contamination, and that should be accounted for as 

14 a source term during the second operational period. 

15 Since it was not weapons-related, or 

16 rather we are assuming it is not weapons-related, 

17 there would not be doses during the second residual 

18 period which -- I mean the first residual period, 

19 because that would only be the weapons-related 

20 work.
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1 However, during the operational 

2 period, those thorium residues would come into 

3 play. Now, the response, Tom Tomes' response was 

4 that this would have been picked up when they did 

5 the uranium gross alpha samples. And we agree with 

6 that. However, the problem is that the dose 

7 conversion, just looking at the effective dose, 

8 just using that as a surrogate for the individual 

9 organ doses, the effective dose from inhaling 

10 thorium Class N, five microns, is about over three 

11 times as great as that from U-234, which is used 

12 to characterize uranium.

13 So, consequently, even for the alpha, 

14 the intake in terms of gross alpha might be based 

15 on the air samples. It does not account for the 

16 thorium, for the possibility. Yet, some of those 

17 alphas are actually from thorium. It should be 

18 assigned a higher DCF. 

19 So, we don't have an answer to that, but 

20 we believe that NIOSH should address that in their 
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1 final amended report or whatever document comes out 

2 of this review. So, that's Issue Number 2.

3 CHAIR ROESSLER: Bob?

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes.

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: This is Gen. I'm 

6 wondering if it might be better, rather than to go 

7 through all of them, just to take each issue one 

8 at a time. And I'd actually like to go back to 

9 Issue 1, which is X-ray diffraction.

10 I think you said that you gave both your 

11 evaluation and then you mentioned NIOSH's 

12 response.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay.

14 CHAIR ROESSLER: And I think you said 

15 that you and SC&A were okay with NIOSH's response. 

16 So, for Issue 1 or Finding 1, is that one, do you 

17 considered that closed, then?

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Say again?

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: Would you consider 

20 Issue 1 closed on the X-ray diffraction?
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1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, Issue 1 is closed. 

2 We don't -- I mean, they can make a response but 

3 we accept their solution to Issue 1.

4 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay, this is Ted. I'm 

6 sorry. I just want to say, SC&A doesn't close 

7 issues. Only the Work Group can close issues. 

8 So, their recommendation is to close that issue, 

9 but then the Work Group can discuss that.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I stand corrected.

11 CHAIR ROESSLER: But I think in order 

12 to do that, we need to follow that through and ask 

13 if there is any response then from NIOSH on Issue 

14 1 or Finding 1.

15 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. As Dr. 

16 Anigstein indicated, we evaluated X-ray 

17 diffraction based on comments he made on how we 

18 assessed that, and he did come up with the dose 

19 values and that is explained in the paper that Elyse 

20 Thomas wrote. As indicated, that indicates the 
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1 support personnel external doses that we were 

2 proposing to use is significantly higher. So that 

3 would be our response, to use the higher doses to 

4 bound those workers.

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: Are there any 

6 questions from the Work Group on that one?

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Gen, this is Brad. 

8 I've got a couple but I'm going to hold off until 

9 I get a better taste on what we're doing right here.

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, so as far as 

11 you're concerned, we are still open on that one. 

12 Do you need more discussion on Finding 1 right now, 

13 Brad? Would this be the time to bring it up?

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, I'm just -- you 

15 know, I understand what they are doing there but 

16 I don't want to also be just throwing a bunch of 

17 dose at it. You know, if this is the best that we 

18 can do -- I need to think about this a little bit.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: We'll go ahead and 
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1 keep going.

2 DR. NETON: Brad, this is Jim. Maybe 

3 I can give you a little more clarity on this, 

4 because I get a little confused when we talk about 

5 this as well.

6 What happened here was we came up with 

7 a dose that was pretty small for the X-ray 

8 diffraction operators, something less than 200 

9 millirem per year. And SC&A said, well, there are 

10 some issues and parameters and stuff that we could 

11 use. And that happens when you do these type of 

12 modeling doses. But when we looked at the doses 

13 that we're assigning to the people that actually 

14 worked with uranium during this period, the skin 

15 doses are very large. They are approximating, I 

16 think, 11 roentgen per year.

17 And it's been our policy that we would 

18 assign -- we can't differentiate who did what, 

19 when, when and where. So we would just assume that 

20 everybody that had a claim worked with uranium 
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1 during that period. And you can't be two places 

2 at once. So the uranium dose is going to bound 

3 anybody's exposure, even if they worked with X-ray 

4 diffraction units.

5 That's the gist of what happened here.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Excuse me, Jim.

7 DR. NETON: Yes.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I think, if my 

9 recollection is correct, that the limiting dose, 

10 external doses for the glove box workers, are from 

11 plutonium, not uranium.

12 DR. NETON: I'm sorry. Whatever it 

13 was, it was a larger bounding dose that we would 

14 assign.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes.

16 DR. NETON: And it far exceeded any 

17 reasonable estimate that you could come up with for 

18 an X-ray diffraction operator, at least in our 

19 opinion. Thanks for the correction, Bob.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: So, Jim, what you are 
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1 telling me is that so you are figuring that by doing 

2 this it was going to bound the X-ray diffraction.

3 DR. NETON: Yes. Yes.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, that's all I 

5 needed, Jim. Thank you. And thanks, Jim. I 

6 appreciate that.

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, so then it 

8 sounds to me like --

9 MEMBER FIELD: I had a question. Is 

10 NIOSH's response written somewhere or are we just 

11 capturing it through discussions?

12 DR. NETON: No, that's reported in our 

13 --

14 MEMBER FIELD: In your documents.

15 DR. NETON: Yes.

16 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. So, I guess it is 

17 closed based on the response that's in the 

18 documents.

19 DR. NETON: No, we responded and SC&A 

20 just formally or orally came back and agreed with 
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1 our response.

2 MEMBER FIELD: Right.

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We did not formally 

4 respond to the June 8th report. I'm responding to 

5 it now.

6 MEMBER FIELD: Okay.

7 MR. KATZ: Right, that's fine.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: So we don't -- do we 

9 have John Poston on the line yet?

10 MR. KATZ: You don't have John, but you 

11 have a quorum. You don't have to wait and get John 

12 for this.

13 CHAIR ROESSLER: Thank you. So it 

14 sounds like on Issue 1, then, the Work Group 

15 concludes that that one is closed. And hearing no 

16 objections to that, then I think we can go on to 

17 -- I just thought it would be better to take these 

18 one at a time, Bob. 

19 And then I think we can go on to your 

20 discussion on thorium. And I think you had 
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1 finished talking. So I think the Work Group then 

2 needs to talk about your conclusions on that.

3 MR. KATZ: Well, I think you want to 

4 hear back from Tom Tomes first, right?

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: Right. Yeah, Bob has 

6 already said what NIOSH concluded in their 

7 follow-up report, but, yes, let's hear from Tom.

8 MR. TOMES: Okay, as indicated, Bob did 

9 explain the gist of our response, is that we have 

10 gone through every available information we have 

11 and interviews with workers. And there was 

12 indication in multiple accounts that they did some 

13 thorium work in 1955. Didn't see anything 

14 specifically, other than 1955, and it was in 

15 reference to the uranium-thorium laboratory area.

16 And there is no specific information on quantities 

17 or whatever. And I speculated in my response that 

18 it could have been for the GE -- they had a 

19 subcontract with GE. And I do not know if thorium 

20 was involved but I could speculate that perhaps it 
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1 was from that. 

2 They listed a -- Carborundum had issued 

3 a report listing all the research work, and that 

4 was the one that of the ones that I thought were 

5 listed that it could possibly be. And that 

6 particular report at that time had the scope of work 

7 classified. But we do know that it was possible 

8 they could have had some thorium work there for that 

9 particular program.

10 So, our assumption is that this was not 

11 weapons-related work that should be covered. And 

12 I would have to agree with Dr. Anigstein that 

13 perhaps we need to look at the interpretation of 

14 the uranium air samples of 1959 to see what is the 

15 best way to interpret those and whether or not we 

16 need to consider thorium.

17 But other than that, I agree with his 

18 response that we did not specifically assess those 

19 air samples as being thorium.

20 CHAIR ROESSLER: So, your statement 
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1 that you would use an effective dose three times 

2 as great as the one you proposed, is that something 

3 you still need to look at?

4 DR. NETON: Gen, this is Jim. I think 

5 I'd like to take maybe a look at the broader picture 

6 here, though. I'm kind of reluctant to say that 

7 we are going to make up or assume that contamination 

8 happened with commercial activities four years 

9 later that we are assessing dose for. I think 

10 that's kind of a place where we typically don't go.

11 We have no indication of any 

12 contamination. So we would just be sort of making 

13 up, speculating that there was some. And I'm not 

14 sure that's what we really want to do here. We sort 

15 of, we acknowledge that it was likely commercial 

16 activity, if it did occur. But to come up and 

17 assume that all the uranium that's measured in the 

18 air sample, the smear, the 1959, are thorium, I 

19 think, is not a good place to go.

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But there needs to be 
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1 some.

2 DR. NETON: Well, no, Bob, because 

3 there's no indication there was any. If the people 

4 who worked --

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We have the worker. 

6 The worker who said --

7 DR. NETON: If he said he worked with 

8 it and it was residual contamination there, then, 

9 I'd say sure. But there is no indication how much 

10 they did, how much they spread.

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I agree. But unless 

12 you ignore that worker's testimony, he says he 

13 worked with thorium powder and he told me that 

14 spills were likely.

15 DR. NETON: Okay, but he didn't say 

16 that they left residual contamination all over the 

17 place.

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, of course he 

19 didn't, and you wouldn't expect him to.

20 DR. NETON: Right. But I mean, just 
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1 because there were spills doesn't mean there was 

2 contamination there four years later.

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I agree, but we don't 

4 know that there wasn't.

5 DR. NETON: Well, we can't prove a 

6 negative here, but I don't think -- we don't make 

7 up source terms like this, usually. I mean, if 

8 somebody worked with something ten years before and 

9 it was commercial, we have no indication that there 

10 was any activity there at all.

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But nobody looks for 

12 it.

13 DR. NETON: We don't know that. You 

14 don't know that.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, no, no. There is 

16 no report of cleanup. There's no report of 

17 somebody saying let's check the thorium.

18 So, generally, the general procedure is 

19 you make the -- when in doubt, you make it a 

20 claimant-favorable assumption. If you don't know 
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1 what the source term is, you assign a source term 

2 that's plausible and favorable to the claimant.

3 DR. NETON: I think it's unreasonable, 

4 though, to assume that all activity measured --

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I wouldn't say -- I 

6 agree with you. I agree with you.

7 DR. NETON: And you don't know the 

8 original source term. So, what fraction would you 

9 take? See, that's the problem.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But to dismiss it 

11 entirely doesn't seem reasonable either.

12 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. I would like 

13 to point out that we do know that, during the same 

14 period, they handled quantities of uranium. And 

15 we have information on that. And we even know that 

16 when the GE contract was closed out, they 

17 transferred some uranium to the AEC contract for 

18 the uranium carbide work. There was no mention of 

19 thorium at all in those transactions I read about.

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It could also -- I 
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1 would like to speculate it could also be that the 

2 same worker that was interviewed by both parties 

3 didn't even realize. He said, at the time he 

4 didn't even know thorium was radioactive. So they 

5 were not even treating it as radioactive material.

6 He knew uranium was radioactive, but he 

7 was -- now he knows thorium was radioactive, but 

8 he said at the time he didn't know that. So there 

9 may have been differences in the handling. And 

10 certainly, if he was the one who was personally 

11 manufacturing those pellets, he was the first one 

12 who would have been told this is radioactive 

13 material, that you have to take the following 

14 precautions.

15 So, it's possible that they were just 

16 negligent on that score, and, therefore, it would 

17 not have been entered into the records. I'm just 

18 speculating.

19 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill. So, as 

20 far as you know, this is the individual who has the 
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1 most knowledge about these potential activities?

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm sorry, say again?

3 MEMBER FIELD: Since you only 

4 interviewed one person, it sounds like there 

5 weren't a whole lot of people that worked in these 

6 areas to begin with. Is there someone else that 

7 could be interviewed to get more clarity or to see 

8 if there's agreement or disagreement on this 

9 thorium?

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, there were only 

11 three, from what I could -- my review of the 

12 interviews conducted by NIOSH -- there were seven 

13 interviews conducted, actually. One was a 

14 survivor, so he wouldn't have that much 

15 information. And of the remaining six, only three 

16 have any knowledge of work with radioactive 

17 materials. So, this person was one of three. You 

18 might say it's a 33 percent sample.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: But if he didn't even 

20 know thorium was radioactive, to me, it doesn't 
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1 seem like he had --

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm sorry?

3 CHAIR ROESSLER: The worker said 

4 didn't realize back then that thorium was 

5 radioactive. To me, that means he doesn't know 

6 much about thorium and maybe his information was 

7 not that reliable.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, he was clear that 

9 it was thorium. He repeated thorium to both the 

10 ORAU interviewer and to myself. So, he was very 

11 firm about that. He was very clear about the date. 

12 In both cases, he said 1955 or mid-1950s. He was 

13 very consistent on that score.

14 And besides, we do have the 

15 documentation that this -- I don't know if I'm 

16 supposed to mention these names, so I won't -- the 

17 [identifying information redacted] engineer whose 

18 resume was identified by Tom Tomes in his response, 

19 specifically said he set up a facility for handling 

20 plutonium and he set up a facility for handling 
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1 uranium and thorium. So, clearly, thorium was 

2 handled. 

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. This 

4 isn't unusual. We have run into this at so many 

5 facilities and they looked at thorium as really 

6 kind of an no-nevermind. So, this isn't anything 

7 new, I'm sure we can get our hands around that if 

8 we're going to do this. But I don't think we can 

9 also dismiss it either.

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: Do we have any 

11 precedent in other situations where we have one 

12 interviewee with information that perhaps is not 

13 supported in any other way? Or does NIOSH have a 

14 follow-up that we could do to verify this?

15 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. We have asked 

16 several people. We've searched through CATIs for 

17 claimants and we've summarized the information we 

18 have. And we do not know where else we can find 

19 more information. At least, I do not know of any.

20 I would like to point out that whatever 
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1 thorium that could've been present would have been 

2 relatively low. I'm looking at the air sample 

3 results. The 1959 gross alpha air sample results, 

4 I'm looking at five of the -- excuse me, six of the 

5 seven reported results. One is a control. Five 

6 of the six reported results were negative. And 

7 then the results in the next series of air sample 

8 results for uranium did detect some activity, which 

9 was later.

10 So, I mean, there's no indication in the 

11 records that, in 1959, that they had a significant 

12 airborne hazard.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Would it then be 

14 reasonable, despite -- I understand Jim's position 

15 about setting a precedent, but if this is a 

16 relatively small dose, would it be, for the sake 

17 of settling it, would it be reasonable to say 

18 perhaps half of it was thorium? And it's not going 

19 to give anyone a dose that's off the charts. It's 

20 probably going to make a minor contribution, and 
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1 yet it will be a plausible, claimant-favorable 

2 solution. I'm just suggesting.

3 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I guess we 

4 have no basis of why to say half is the right number.

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Since thorium and 

6 uranium were handled in the same facility, it's 

7 just a middle ground. It could 100 percent, it 

8 could be zero percent, but 50 percent sounds like 

9 a reasonable, an average of the probabilities. 

10 This is done in probabilistic work all the time. 

11 DR. NETON: Yeah, I understand that 

12 we've done this before. I think that this is 

13 something that we probably need to think about a 

14 little more. This is sort of precedent-setting in 

15 my mind. I think we can agree that the answer is 

16 somewhere between zero and what the air samples 

17 measured. So, in essence, I think that does, in 

18 my opinion, kind of qualify for a Site Profile issue 

19 and not an SEC issue.

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Definitely.
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1 DR. NETON: And for purposes of this 

2 discussion, I think we could just agree with a path 

3 forward on this and move forward. I'm not 

4 comfortable agreeing right now to start adding 

5 thorium. I'm not saying we won't but I think we 

6 need to think about a little more.

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: Well, are we saying 

8 then, that it does not affect the SEC decision but 

9 it is a Site Profile issue?

10 DR. NETON: That is what it seems to me 

11 to be. That is my belief.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: And what about SC&A's 

13 response on that?

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, we agree that it 

15 is a Site Profile issue.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John. I agree 

17 also.

18 CHAIR ROESSLER: So, the question to 

19 the Work Group would be, is this issue closed with 

20 regard to the SEC decision.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad, Gen. I 

2 would say that it is, the one that we just captured. 

3 You know, make sure that we capture it in the Site 

4 Profile and go from there.

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. Bill?

6 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, the only thing I am 

7 looking at is one of the other arguments was the 

8 use of thorium needs to be further investigated. 

9 It sounds to me, from what I am hearing, is that 

10 there is little information to investigate it. Is 

11 that NIOSH's view?

12 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I think that 

13 is what Tom was indicating. But for the use of 

14 thorium, I think we have agreed that it is not 

15 AEC-derived, at least we can't determine it is 

16 AEC-derived. If it does come up later that it was 

17 AEC-derived, then the Department of Labor would 

18 have to amend the time period anyway.

19 MEMBER FIELD: Right.

20 DR. NETON: So, the whole point is it 
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1 is commercial -- if it did occur, it was commercial 

2 activity in the mid-1950s and the whole question 

3 right now is whether or not we need to reconstruct 

4 that commercial activity during the covered period 

5 in '59. And I'm still not 100 percent convinced 

6 that that is the way to go but I am open to -- we 

7 are open to thinking about that.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Not to be redundant but 

9 even regardless of where this came from, if there 

10 was a radiation source during the covered period, 

11 all radiation sources, regardless of their origin, 

12 need to be addressed.

13 DR. NETON: Oh, I agree, Bob. The 

14 question in my mind is is it a radiation source that 

15 needs to be addressed.

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I wasn't sure you were 

17 saying that.

18 DR. NETON: Yes, that is what I was 

19 saying.

20 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, so we are going 
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1 to stand on this, then. It appears to me that we 

2 can move on because this is not an SEC issue. Am 

3 I correct on that?

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Gen, this is Brad. 

5 In my mind, yes, this is not an SEC issue. So, we 

6 can resolve it. To me, it is kind of resolved and 

7 we will bring it up as a Site Profile issue.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. Bill?

9 MEMBER FIELD: I think that is fine. 

10 It is kind of weird, though. You are talking about 

11 air sampling. If there were spills that took 

12 place, you know, we don't know if there was air 

13 sampling that took place during the alleged spills 

14 or not.

15 So, yes, I am fine with Site Profile.

16 CHAIR ROESSLER: I'm thinking, unless 

17 somebody objects, we can move on to Item 3.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Gen, this is Brad one 

19 more time. Jim made a very good point. If we find 

20 out any more information on this, you know we will 
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1 work through it and stuff like that.

2 You know, I guess I am just sitting here 

3 looking at the sites that I have dealt with and it 

4 seems like every one of them we have thorium popping 

5 up, especially in the '50s and the '60s era and at 

6 Fernald it's popping up a lot more.

7 I just want to make sure that we don't 

8 overlook this. I feel good that if we can address 

9 this by the Site Profile issue, then I think we can 

10 do it. But we will leave this to NIOSH and it can 

11 maybe come back to it with us.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, I think we can 

13 allow a little more thinking time on this. And I 

14 think we will just move on to the next issue and 

15 we can come back to this later in the discussion 

16 today if somebody wants to.

17 MR. KATZ: Are you closing it? I think 

18 I heard closing and then you are saying come back 

19 to it. But Gen, there is no more information for 

20 today.
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1 CHAIR ROESSLER: Yes, I think as far as 

2 we are concerned today, as far as an SEC issue, it 

3 is closed.

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. Okay, so over to you, 

5 Bob.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, Issue number 3, 

7 is background radiation, Issue number 3, the 

8 strontium-90, I went into the New York Times 

9 archives for Carborundum and I found that in 1952 

10 they simply said "the Carborundum company in 

11 Niagara Falls, New York, had acquired --" this was 

12 a press release they had given, "they had acquired 

13 five thickness gauges containing strontium-90 to 

14 use in their Coated Products Division," basically, 

15 better known as sandpaper, at least in this 

16 example. And the focus on the gauge was you have 

17 the strontium source sitting on one side of the 

18 paper and it is processed as it is being coated, 

19 and then the detector on the other side. And if 

20 the coating got too thick, the signal would go down. 
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1 If the coating got too thin, the signal went up. 

2 It was an automated feedback loop to control this 

3 coating and they were very proud of it. It was a 

4 big innovation.

5 So, the finding was this was not 

6 mentioned by NIOSH and, therefore, it needs to be 

7 addressed. Even though this is not AEC-related 

8 but, again, if continued -- it was acquired in '52 

9 and if it continued to be in use during the next 

10 covered period starting in '59, it would have to 

11 be addressed.

12 And NIOSH, in their response, did 

13 further research and they found that the Coated 

14 Products Division had been moved to a nearby town, 

15 Wheatfield, New York, which I think is somewhere 

16 near Niagara Falls but it is a different facility. 

17 And I confirmed that actually by 

18 finding a Niagara Falls Gazette article, which 

19 confirmed that the Carborundum Company had several 

20 divisions and the Coated Products Division was in 
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1 Wheatfield. 

2 So, therefore, this seemed like a 

3 reasonable issue at the time we brought it up but 

4 we agree that NIOSH's response to it, that it was 

5 not at a covered facility. And therefore, we would 

6 recommend that this issue be closed.

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, NIOSH? Am I 

8 off mute?

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, you are, Gen.

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, I couldn't 

11 remember.

12 Tom or Jim, do you have any comments on 

13 that?

14 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. Dr. 

15 Anigstein summarized our response fairly well. My 

16 conclusion was that it was at the -- I believe it 

17 is Wheatfield, New York, plant and that appears to 

18 be there was no indication that it was in the 

19 Buffalo Avenue location at all.

20 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay and this is in 
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1 the NIOSH report and I guess the Work Group has 

2 looked at that. Are we willing to accept this as 

3 an item that is closed?

4 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill. I think 

5 it is closed.

6 CHAIR ROESSLER: Brad?

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: It takes me a while to 

8 get off mute. Yes, that is closed to me, too.

9 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, any other 

10 questions, then on Finding 3?

11 Alright, well then, Bob, let's move on 

12 to your Issue 4 on medical.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Issue 4 is that NIOSH 

14 had -- the ER had not assigned medical X-rays during 

15 the first operational period. Based on a 

16 statement made by DuPont or the prime contractor 

17 that there were no medical issues involved with the 

18 uranium grinding. However, according to the NIOSH 

19 policy, it didn't have to be medical X-rays as a 

20 result of the work. It was simply normal 
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1 pre-employment physical, post-employment physical 

2 sometimes, and certainly the annual physical.

3 And so the response of Tom Tomes was 

4 they will include the medical. They agreed --

5 NIOSH agreed that medical X-rays should be 

6 included. And that being the case, there is no 

7 more issue.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, any comments 

9 from NIOSH on that one?

10 MR. TOMES: No, we agree that we should 

11 include the X-rays for the first residual period.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, Work Group?

13 MEMBER FIELD: Sounds closed.

14 CHAIR ROESSLER: Who was that, Bill?

15 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, it's Bill.

16 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, Brad? 

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, I'm in. Yes, 

18 that's good.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: Alright. Then a 

20 similar finding for the second operational period. 
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1 Bob, would you like to discuss that?

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm sorry, could you 

3 say it again?

4 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, so we all agree 

5 to close Issue 4, which was the issue about medical 

6 X-rays during the first operational period. So, 

7 then, let's go on to Issue 5.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, okay. Issue 5 is 

9 similar, that the -- well, it is a little more 

10 convoluted in that the ER, as I said, they would 

11 assume that the medical X-rays would be, we will 

12 assume, pre-employment, annual and termination 

13 chest screenings. However, in the example DR, the 

14 medical X-rays were not included. And again, Tom 

15 Tomes' response is that they should be.

16 So, that is satisfactory as far as we 

17 are concerned.

18 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, Tom, do you want 

19 to comment on that?

20 MR. TOMES: Yes, in the example DR 
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1 there is not a full best estimate dose and that is 

2 all that amounts to that. It was not real clear 

3 in the write-up that that is what the case was. 

4 That is the case that we intend to include X-rays.

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, Work Group, any 

6 questions or comments, Bill or Brad?

7 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill. I'm okay 

8 with closing.

9 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I'm 

11 okay with closing.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, we will move on, 

13 then, to Issue 6, Bob, which deals with FGR 12. 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Right. Okay, in 

15 several places, the ER refers to -- they describe 

16 scenarios that are based on the job descriptions 

17 and source terms in the TBD-6000. However, the 

18 prescription for the actual dose conversion 

19 factors for external doses are based on the Federal 

20 Guidance Report number 12, which is a 1993 
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1 documented prepared by ORNL for EPA. And this has 

2 been consistent with NIOSH policy to use TBD-6000 

3 when applicable. And also, in some cases, it is 

4 claimant-unfavorable.

5 Just as background, the FGR 12 

6 calculates -- the doses they calculate are in terms 

7 of a quantity called effective dose equivalent, 

8 which is based on ICRP 30 that is no longer being 

9 used and besides, even aside from that, it can't 

10 be used. It is already an average, a weighted 

11 average of individual organs. So, therefore, it 

12 cannot be applied to calculating individual organ 

13 doses which the dose reconstructors are required 

14 to do.

15 So, consequently, we believe that it 

16 should be using the tables in TBD-6000 which 

17 specifically address these scenarios. So, we 

18 believe that that is what should be used. And 

19 again, jumping to the conclusion, Tom Tomes' 

20 response is to agree that NIOSH will use TBD-6000, 
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1 in which case the issue becomes moot.

2 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, Tom, any 

3 comments?

4 MR. TOMES: Yes, that is correct. We 

5 are saying we need to revise our methods to 

6 incorporate the comment.

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, so basically, 

8 you are going to be using TBD-6000 tables that he 

9 mentions here instead of FGR 12?

10 MR. TOMES: Yes, ma'am.

11 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, Work Group, any 

12 comments on that?

13 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill. No 

14 comments.

15 CHAIR ROESSLER: Brad? Brad, you are 

16 on mute.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Sorry, it takes me a 

18 little while to get off mute. I have no issue with 

19 this.

20 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, any other 
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1 comments from anyone else on that? Otherwise, 

2 that one is also closed.

3 So, let's move then to the last of the 

4 findings, Issue 7.

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, Issue number 7 is 

6 that normally when we are doing a review, we look 

7 at individual cases and we check how NIOSH has 

8 reconstructed the dose. Really, we do the case 

9 audits. Here, there were no cases to audit because 

10 we did audit one case two years ago and it turns 

11 out that case is the basis of the SEC. It is the 

12 survivors of that deceased worker who filed the SEC 

13 petition and, at that time, there were a number of 

14 issues, which were largely addressed in the ER. 

15 So, that is not really relevant.

16 And therefore, the only other thing was 

17 this example DR, which was furnished as a 

18 supplement to the ER. And I took four -- there were 

19 five organs that were addressed. I looked at four 

20 of them. And in each case, we actually found that 
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1 the doses we calculated were significantly lower 

2 than the doses calculated by NIOSH by maybe 

3 differences on the order of 50 percent -- I mean 

4 maximum differences, external dose/internal dose. 

5 And the response was that, for internal 

6 dose, which came from uranium, they had mistakenly 

7 used Class F, as in fast, which is not one of the 

8 compounds that would be found in this facility and 

9 consequently, there were errors in the doses, and 

10 the other response was that they used efficiency 

11 methods. So, therefore, the dose calculations 

12 were approximate, not exact.

13 And our response, my response to that 

14 is that may very well be alright in an individual 

15 case to use, let's say, if the case clearly not 

16 compensable, they can overestimate. They can do 

17 a quick DR that deliberately overestimates the dose 

18 to show that even with this overestimate, the case 

19 is not compensable and, therefore, they don't need 

20 to the time doing a very detailed dose 
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1 reconstruction.

2 However, this is an example that is to 

3 be used for all future dose reconstructions. We 

4 believe that it should be done in the more exact, 

5 precise manner. And therefore, we cannot verify 

6 that this is correct.

7 In each and every case it is 

8 claimant-favorable but clearly, for instance, one 

9 example of dose to the kidney, for instance, our 

10 calculation comes out to a dose of 35 rem and --

11 I'm sorry, 36 rem for the kidney; whereas, the NIOSH 

12 dose is 74.7 rem. So, we are talking about over 

13 a factor of two discrepancy.

14 So, we would like to see a more detailed 

15 exact calculation that we can verify before we sign 

16 off on that.

17 MR. KATZ: Bob, could I just make one 

18 comment with respect to the purpose of DR examples 

19 with Evaluation Reports, the purpose of those is 

20 proof of principle, just to be clear. It is really 
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1 to show that in fact the doses can be feasibly 

2 reconstructed.

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Very good. I 

4 understand that.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I mean I accept that.

7 See here, we, speaking for SC&A, John 

8 Mauro can correct me if I am misspeaking, this is 

9 our one opportunity to review both the feasibility 

10 of dose reconstruction and also the methodology of 

11 dose reconstruction.

12 So, unless we were to have scheduled two 

13 separate reviews, one for SEC issues and one for 

14 Site Profile issues, I thought it would be 

15 appropriate to address it.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, no harm done, Bob. I 

17 am just saying SC&A separately does get tasked to 

18 review Site Profiles and TBD matters. So, that 

19 does happen independently. But I am just 

20 explaining the purpose of these example DRs is 
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1 really pretty narrow.

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I understand.

3 MR. KATZ: That's all.

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, I hear you.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And by the same token, 

7 I guess I was saying this is our one opportunity. 

8 But by the same token, there was a number of issues 

9 -- of items -- well, I guess perhaps I should stop 

10 talking because I will allow the Work Group to 

11 discuss Finding 7.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Well, I think we 

13 should also hear from Tom but I mean really the same 

14 point, this is not -- although you say until you 

15 can verify the results in the sample DR, you cannot 

16 conclude that NIOSH can reconstruct doses. To me, 

17 that seems like that statement is not pertinent. 

18 And I think we should hear from some others on that.

19 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. I would like 

20 to add a little bit to the comment on the numbers 
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1 difference we had.

2 The external doses, Table 2 of the SC&A 

3 report has the numbers by the NIOSH examples and 

4 the numbers by SC&A. The external doses are 

5 relatively consistent. There are just small 

6 differences and I believe some of that can be 

7 explained by the appropriate DCF that is being used 

8 and some adjustments that need to be made on our 

9 part, possibly. And the difference really is the 

10 internal doses. The large difference in the 

11 kidney is accountable for assuming Type F for the 

12 1943 work. And so we overestimated that and that 

13 accounts for the large difference.

14 The methods used were not exactly 

15 precise, as indicated. And I also want to point 

16 out that SC&A, I believe, used DCAL to estimate the 

17 internal doses and we used factors from IMBA. So, 

18 there are some differences in what we used there. 

19 And I assume that these differences in the methods 

20 used to estimate the doses account for these minor 
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1 fluctuations in the totals. I acknowledge that 

2 these numbers are not precise.

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I would like to respond 

4 to that. I happened to be very much involved in 

5 this during the other projects.

6 DCAL is the basis of deriving the ICRP 

7 dose conversion factors. And IMBA who uses the 

8 identical model used by DCAL, it is just in a more 

9 convenient package. And so we go back to the 

10 source. Rather than to be duplicating the IMBA 

11 run, obviously if you run IMBA with the same 

12 parameters, you are going to get the same answers, 

13 unless your computer is broken. Whereas, I have 

14 compared the DCAL and IMBA results in other cases 

15 and I come in within a fraction of a percent.

16 So, I think usually it's explained on 

17 the basis on -- DCAL assumes, for instance, the 

18 uptake is throughout the year, even if it really 

19 isn't and the DCAL model, we haven't adopted DCAL 

20 but it actually is more exactly in terms of the 
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1 intake. That accounts for like fractions of a 

2 percent. So, I don't agree that that is due to 

3 that.

4 And the external, specifically the 

5 lung, there was a major discrepancy which I cannot 

6 explain. We used the -- first we did the lung using 

7 the HP10 dose conversion factor, which should have 

8 been used, you know OCAS-1, IG-001. And then just 

9 to see if we could match the higher number, repeated 

10 it using the dose conversion factor that NIOSH 

11 indicated they were using and we still didn't get 

12 the same number, differences between 17.3 and 19.3.

13 So, there is some discrepancy there. 

14 And that is for, I forget what the source was. I 

15 don't have the calculation in front of me.

16 And similarly, certainly using Type F, 

17 which we didn't know, it then occurred to me that 

18 they would have been using Type F, I simply used 

19 the Type M, Type S, whichever gave the higher 

20 results. Invariably, Type S gives you the higher 
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1 result for the lung and Type M will give you the 

2 higher dose for other organs because that depends 

3 on absorption and circulation.

4 And you get differences. Some of them 

5 are small; some of them are -- I call anything over 

6 two or three percent to be meaningful different, 

7 pointing out there is a problem with the 

8 methodology. It doesn't mean that it is going to 

9 make a difference in any one individual case, but 

10 sometimes it does. Sometimes you get 49.9 percent 

11 probability or 50.1 percent probability, then a 

12 small difference can make a difference.

13 But as I've pointed out, until we can 

14 verify the results, we can't be convinced that the 

15 method works. I'm sure NIOSH can find the error 

16 and make that correction but at the moment, we have 

17 this position that we need to be able to confirm 

18 what NIOSH did.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: And like I said, I 

20 don't think I completely understand this. Is this 
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1 an SEC issue?

2 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. I didn't 

3 fully prepare to go into this, to all the 

4 calculations of these doses. I know the source of 

5 some of these differences but not every one of them.

6 I think the main topic here on these 

7 organ doses is the factors we used, how accurate 

8 we calculate them and I do not believe that the 

9 particular issues there are SEC issues, which is 

10 one of the reasons I did not go into those in great 

11 detail to prepare for this meeting. 

12 The only thing I would like to say about 

13 DCAL, what Dr. Anigstein said about DCAL, I am not 

14 sure DCAL estimates factors for a chronic intake. 

15 I thought these were modeled in --

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Exactly. That's 

17 exactly what DCAL does. It has an option of 

18 averaging the doses, integrating over time. So,

19 deliberately trying to find an alternate 

20 methodology which, in other cases, has worked 
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1 exactly.

2 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim. I think 

3 we are talking about a non-SEC issue here. I mean 

4 the whole point that Ted talked about earlier, the 

5 example dose reconstructions, using the 

6 methodology we described, can you come up with 

7 plausibly bounding dose reconstructions. 

8 It seems to me that what we used here, 

9 we talked about all this, IG-001, TIB-70, TBD-6000, 

10 intakes based on air sample data. There is nothing 

11 really unusual about these dose reconstructions. 

12 They are not based on surrogate data or something 

13 like that where we pulled a number out of the air 

14 and then tried to apply it.

15 So, I think the discrepancies here can 

16 be worked out but I don't think there is any 

17 indication that the methodologies we proposed here 

18 are not appropriate for the circumstance.

19 There was something else I had in mind 

20 here but it slipped my mind. But I think -- oh, 
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1 the other issue, SC&A also had a number of 

2 observations that can sort of weigh in on the 

3 refinement of the dose reconstructions, on how you 

4 interpret the air sample data and stuff like that. 

5 So, they will be tweaked over time, based on our 

6 discussions. So, I don't think that the ultimate 

7 dose reconstructions here are the bottom line as 

8 they will be tweaked based on some of the other 

9 issues that were raised by SC&A. Or possibly 

10 tweaked.

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: So, Jim, do I 

12 understand that you are making a commitment that 

13 the observations will be addressed?

14 DR. NETON: Oh, absolutely. We can't 

15 just let them go. I mean we have to look at the 

16 observations and such.

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay.

18 DR. NETON: So, like I say, that could 

19 ultimately end up with slightly different values 

20 as well. But I think the bottom line is that the 
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1 methodology that we proposed here that we discussed 

2 this afternoon are pretty standard techniques. I 

3 don't think that they are unusual techniques that 

4 need to be questioned, based on are they plausibly 

5 bounding.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, I would agree 

7 with that.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: Do we have any 

9 comments from John Mauro. Are you still on?

10 DR. MAURO: Oh, yes, I have been 

11 listening very carefully and I completely agree 

12 with Jim. Sometimes it is so easy to lose sight 

13 of whether it is clear that we are dealing with Site 

14 Profile issues that can be worked out and there is 

15 nothing about the problem that prevents you from 

16 performing the dose with sufficient accuracy. I 

17 mean to get right to the bottom line, this 

18 conversation we are having, there is no doubt that 

19 these doses could be performed with sufficient 

20 accuracy. However, we find ourselves really 
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1 talking about let's make sure we have a document 

2 that is tractable, that we understand, that all the 

3 assumptions are there. And we are finding 

4 differences, as we just discussed, but none of that 

5 really affects the SEC aspect of this conversation. 

6 But at the same time, we don't want to lose sight 

7 of the fact that we do need to mop this up. But 

8 that should not interfere with the ability of the 

9 Work Group to close out issues as they pertain to 

10 an SEC.

11 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, I think that 

12 would be my conclusion, too. With regard to the 

13 SECs and close the issue, I think it has been a 

14 productive discussion though. And I think Ted is 

15 supporting that conclusion also.

16 Are there any other questions or 

17 comments, especially from the Work Group?

18 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, this is Bill. I 

19 agree with you, Gen.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I 
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1 agree.

2 CHAIR ROESSLER: And I think this 

3 discussion also includes the observations that 

4 SC&A had. Am I correct on that, Bob?

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, I did not quite 

6 follow that. So, we don't need to go into the 

7 observations, because some of the observations 

8 have not been mentioned yet.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John. Bob, are any 

10 of the observations, and your judgment of course 

11 is the final judgment to be made by the Work Group, 

12 but do any of them seem to have SEC implications 

13 or are they all more Site Profile?

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, they are basic --

15 that is why I didn't make them findings because they 

16 are all soluble things like, again, use the dose 

17 conversion factor for exposure versus the dose 

18 conversion factor for HP10. Those are 

19 calculational differences, which can 

20 certainly -- are easily tractable. In other 
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1 words, NIOSH has dose conversion factors in IG-001 

2 for exposure in HP10. The prescription in the ER 

3 sometimes is mistaken in prescribing the wrong dose 

4 conversion factor but that can be converted. That 

5 can be fixed with a few key strokes.

6 MR. KATZ: So, Gen, what I would just 

7 suggest with the observations is, if the Work 

8 Group -- obviously, if the Work Group wants Bob to 

9 go do them, that is fine. Otherwise -- or if the 

10 NIOSH folks need clarification on any of the 

11 observations, that would be another reason to 

12 discuss them now. 

13 Otherwise, it seems like NIOSH is going 

14 to ultimately have to sort of revise and put out 

15 their TBD, their, in effect, TBD procedure methods 

16 for dose reconstruction, taking into account these 

17 things. I mean we would be addressing these 

18 observations then. And so we could have another 

19 meeting of the Work Group to make sure that all that 

20 got buttoned up correctly. But you can do it 
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1 however you want here.

2 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, well I think if 

3 everybody on the Work Group and SC&A and NIOSH has 

4 all the written material on the observations, I 

5 would think for the purposes of coming to the Board 

6 with a recommendation on this SEC, we have 

7 completed our work to do. Am I correct on that? 

8 I think we have closed every issue and I think all 

9 Board Members present have agreed that they are 

10 closed.

11 MR. KATZ: Yes, I think then the other 

12 thing to do, though, for buttoning up, I don't know 

13 whether the petitioners joined this Work Group 

14 meeting or not. But if they have and they want to 

15 speak to the Evaluation Report or the SC&A reports 

16 and so on, now would be an opportunity for them to 

17 do that. They would also have an opportunity to 

18 speak at the Board meeting when the Work Group 

19 presents its results.

20 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, are there any 
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1 petitioners on the line who would like to speak?

2 MR. KATZ: Okay, they weren't on the 

3 line at the beginning of this call and we never 

4 heard back from Josh, who handles these matters 

5 with petitioners, saying that they would be joining 

6 us.

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: So, what I would like 

8 to do is include John Poston. Even though you said 

9 we have a quorum, I think I would like to include 

10 him on this discussion and then I can write up 

11 something to present to the Board at the next 

12 meeting. I will clearly need some help in doing 

13 that and I will probably call on Tom and Bob to get 

14 some help and then I will pass it by the Work Group.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes, that sounds good. I 

16 mean I think Tom's summary presentation is one 

17 piece of that already that I think is very nice. 

18 And then you would need a summary of the SC&A review 

19 and the resolution of each of these.

20 I mean normally, we would have SC&A sort 
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1 of draft up that summary presentation for you and 

2 then you could review it. Gen, if that works for 

3 you I think they are happy to do that.

4 CHAIR ROESSLER: That works for me. 

5 If SC&A could do that, that would be fine.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, so you would like 

7 us to prepare a draft presentation for the Board?

8 MR. KATZ: Well, yes, Bob, taking into 

9 account Tom's presentation, which is a nice summary 

10 of the ER, of the petition and the ER. And then 

11 if you do a summary, Bob, of the review by SC&A and 

12 the resolution by the Work Group and get it to Gen, 

13 she review them but that would be a great start for

14 her.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: May I suggest a 

16 solution to this? We have the matrix and the 

17 matrix has room for expansion of each issue. So, 

18 what if I simply continue in the matrix what was 

19 discussed and what was decided?

20 MR. KATZ: That's fine, Bob, but 
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1 actually, we want a PowerPoint presentation. So, 

2 if you can convert that. I mean it is good to keep 

3 a record in the matrix, so I agree with updating 

4 that. But also -- I mean here is what you need to 

5 do Bob, or someone else at SC&A can do it for you 

6 or however, but we need a draft PowerPoint 

7 presentation.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: You want like a 

9 PowerPoint presentation?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, okay.

12 MR. KATZ: There are plenty of examples 

13 from others at SC&A who have done this. John 

14 Stiver does this all the time. So, he can sort of 

15 set you up the template for that. We do this all 

16 the time.

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, again, I'm sorry 

18 to keep asking the same question. So, you would 

19 like both an update of the matrix and a PowerPoint 

20 or do you want a summary report?
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1 MR. KATZ: Correct. No, correct. 

2 Just an update of the matrix is fine and then a 

3 PowerPoint presentation. That covers it. And 

4 again, Bob, it doesn't have to be you. You can be 

5 involved without having to do the whole 

6 presentation.

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm the lead on this. 

8 So, I would be the one doing it.

9 CHAIR ROESSLER: And then we should 

10 talk about timing on this --

11 MR. KATZ: The Board meeting is not 

12 until November. And this is really not 

13 appropriate, I think, for the teleconference 

14 because the Board hasn't dealt with this site in 

15 a long time and is not sort of mostly ready to deal 

16 with this one. So, November. 

17 Getting a presentation done, you know, 

18 we have quite a bit of time but I would just suggest, 

19 while it is fresh, it is not a bad thing to get it 

20 done in the next month and a half or so.
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1 DR. MAURO: Ted, this is John. Just a 

2 quick question. For the slide presentation now, 

3 to what degree would you like us to present those 

4 Site Profile issues that are still in play or do 

5 we just limit it to the conversations and the 

6 resolutions of the matters that we have discussed 

7 today?

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, normally, we just do 

9 the SEC issues and then we can have a slide just 

10 identifying that there are X number of matters that 

11 are being addressed in TBD revision.

12 DR. NETON: Ted, this is Jim. I do 

13 think, based on our experience at the last Board 

14 meeting, though, we need to put some flesh around 

15 the Site Profile issues, why they were decided to 

16 be Site Profile issues.

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, right. But I mean you 

18 have -- all these findings -- you know, we didn't 

19 go into the observations but all the other stuff 

20 you will have a robust discussion at the Board 
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1 meeting. So, that will be covered.

2 I am just talking about with the 

3 remaining observations.

4 DR. NETON: Oh, okay. Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: I would think you can 

6 summarize that pretty briefly, just that there are 

7 a number of observations and capture them however 

8 you want but you don't need to spend much time with

9 the Board on that.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Now, in the slide show, 

11 do you want all seven issues listed, even the ones 

12 that have been closed?

13 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes. I mean for the 

14 presentation, you want to go finding by finding. 

15 Here is the finding and here is how it was closed.

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Understood.

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, absolutely. Thanks, 

18 Bob.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: And then we can also 

20 maybe say that the Work Group will meet again to 
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1 discuss the other issues.

2 MR. KATZ: Yes, I think that if NIOSH 

3 tells us that they are ready and that they have 

4 finished the revision of the Site Profile, in 

5 effect, the DR methods, then we will have a Work 

6 Group meeting to button that up.

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: So, when we get the 

8 rough draft PowerPoint presentation, then the 

9 whole Work Group will take a look at that.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, we will circulate that 

11 to the whole Work Group, exactly.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. Well, okay, is 

13 there anything else on the table today or have we 

14 completed our task?

15 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. Dr. 

16 Roessler, on the slide presentation, would you like 

17 me to edit that to include the final slide that you 

18 mentioned? I can do a revision to that to include 

19 the table that you --

20 CHAIR ROESSLER: I think that would be 
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1 helpful for the record to have that in there.

2 MR. KATZ: Yes, and Tom, that is pretty 

3 standard for NIOSH SEC presentations. I know this 

4 was already presented to the Board but then it has 

5 been quite a while. So, that is helpful.

6 MR. TOMES: So, I will send you an 

7 updated presentation.

8 MR. KATZ: Right and, Tom, that is your 

9 presentation. So, the way we would work this at 

10 the Board meeting, is you would give your 

11 presentation. It would just be briefer than the 

12 first time around because it would be this version 

13 and then the Work Group would go into theirs.

14 MR. TOMES: Alright.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Ted? I have a 

16 question for Ted, as well as for the Work Group.

17 So to what extent would SC&A be 

18 participating in that November Board meeting?

19 MR. KATZ: So, you would be there on the 

20 phone or however to answer questions. I think Gen 
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1 would present.

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: So, we usually have our 

3 usual representation, John Stiver, of course.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, you always have John 

5 and Joe and sometimes Ron and Bob are there, too. 

6 But then people can be on the phone, too.

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Right. We would not 

8 be needed in person.

9 MR. KATZ: No, you don't have to go in 

10 person, Bob.

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Right, okay.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Well, isn't the next

13 Board meeting -- let me see.

14 MR. KATZ: It is November. It is the 

15 end of November and then the first day of December.

16 CHAIR ROESSLER: Is there a 

17 teleconference in between?

18 MR. KATZ: Yes, the teleconference but 

19 we won't deal with this at the teleconference. It 

20 is just a report. Usually, you'll just say that 
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1 the Work Group met and then at the November meeting.

2 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. So, this will 

3 be the November meeting in Santa Fe, if that is what 

4 we decide.

5 MR. KATZ: Yes.

6 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. Alright, 

7 anything else?

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Gen, this is Brad. I 

9 am just going to tell Bob that he could always start 

10 out with John Mauro's famous line "let me paint you 

11 a picture," and that would help us all.

12 (Laughter.)

13 John, that was done with love, by the 

14 way.

15 DR. MAURO: I know that. I felt it.

16 Adjourn 

17 MR. KATZ: Okay, so I think we can 

18 adjourn, Gen.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay, I think so, too. 

20 Thanks.
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1 MR. KATZ: And thanks to everybody for 

2 a very orderly and clear meeting.

3 CHAIR ROESSLER: Thank you, Bob, for 

4 your matrix. That was very helpful.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Very good.

6 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay.

7 MR. KATZ: Bye-bye, everyone.

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

9 went off the record at 11:33 a.m.)

10 

11 

12