THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


HANFORD
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 


Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically on December 1, 


2006. 

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C O N T E N T S
 

December 1, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


PURPOSE OF MEETING 13 


NEUTRON DOSIMETRY AND EXPOSURE 20 


EARLY WORKER RADIOLOGICAL MONITORING 38 


EXTERNAL BETA-GAMMA DOSE 40 


INTERNAL DOSE ASSUMPTIONS 59 


ENVIRONMENTAL DOSE 72 


TANK FARM AND WASTE MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS 77 


DECONTAMINATION AND DECOMMISSIONING 80 


INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS 83 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 105 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

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P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 

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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

ALVAREZ, BOB, SC&A 


BEACH, JOSIE, USW 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAU 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


BURN, JOHN, ORAU 


CAREY, ANNETTE, TRICITY HERALD 


CONSCHAFTER, MIKE, CONG. DOC HASTINGS 


DUNCAN, FRED, ORAU 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


FIX, JACK, ORAU 


HEMINGWAY, DIANE, USW 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


HOYT, ROSEMARY, CLAIMANT 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LAM, LIVIA, SEN. MARIA CANTWELL 


LIPSZTEIN, JOYCE, SC&A 


MACEVICK, GREG 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


NELSON, CHARLES, HANFORD TBD 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


ROLLINS, GENE, ORAU 


SCHMIDT, KELLY, USW 


SHIELDS, LASHAWN, NIOSH 


THOMAS, ELISE, ORAU 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

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P R O C E E D I N G S


 (1:30 p.m.) 

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WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO


 DR. WADE: Well, again, this is Lew Wade and 


I'll -- I'll begin the call. I have the 


privilege of serving as the Designated Federal 


Official for the Advisory Board, and this is a 


meeting of a working group of the Advisory 


Board. This working group is focused 


particularly on issues relating to the Board's 


review of the Hanford site profile. 


 This workgroup is chaired by Dr. Melius and 


members include Dr. Ziemer, Dr. Poston and Brad 


Clawson. At this point Dr. Melius is with us, 


Dr. Ziemer's with us, Brad Clawson is with us. 


I assume that Dr. Poston is not with us. 


That's fine. 


I would start by saying that, you know, as we 


go through introductions we'll be dealing with 


issues of conflict of interest for different 


participants. None of the working group 


members are conflicted at all. 


Dr. Poston --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Lew, could I -- oh, sorry. 


 DR. WADE: Did Dr. Poston just join us? 


 DR. BEHLING: No, I just joined, Lew. This is 


Hans Behling. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Could I ask that we ask people to 


identify by -- by the entity with which they're 


with? For example, get all the SCA folks first 


and --


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and so on. 


 DR. WADE: Right, we'll go through and do that 


next. I'd -- I'd start, though, with asking if 


there are any other Board members on the call. 


The only Board members I'm aware of are Melius, 


Ziemer and Clawson. Are there other Board 


members on the call? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, then I would establish that we don't have 


a quorum of the Board and then we can continue. 


What I would like to do is I'd like to start by 


asking members of the NIOSH and ORAU team to 


identify themselves. I would also ask when you 


introduce yourself to state whether you have 


any conflicts relative to the Hanford site. 

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When we're completed with that we'll ask SC&A 


to identify themselves and again specify 


conflicts. 


After that I would ask if there are any other 


federal employees on the call by virtue of 


their employment and ask them to identify 


whether they have any conflicts. 


Then we'll ask if there are worker reps, 


workers, members of Congress or staff on the 


line who wish to identify themselves. Then 


we'll give the opportunity to anyone else who 


might wish to identify. So let's begin with 


members of the NIOSH/ORAU team, and I would ask 


if, when you identify, you identify any 


conflicts you have relative to the Hanford 


site. 


 MR. NELSON: Hello, my name is Charles Nelson. 


I'm the Hanford TBD point of contact. I have 


no conflict of interest with the Hanford site. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


MR. MACEVICK: Greg Ma-- Greg Macevick, health 


physicist with OCAS and I have no conflicts 


with the Hanford site. 


 DR. ULSH: This is Brant Ulsh filling in for 


Jim Neton this afternoon. I have no conflicts 

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for Hanford. 


 DR. WADE: Other members of the NIOSH/ORAU team 


who are on the call? 


 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins. I'm the 


technical lead for dose reconstruction Task V 


for Hanford and I have no conflicts. 


 MR. BURN: This is John Burn. I'm with ORAU 


and a task manager for dose reconstruction 


research. I have no conflict at Hanford. 


MS. BRACKETT: This is Liz Brackett. I'm the 


principal internal dosimetrist for ORAU and I 


have no conflicts with Hanford. 


 MS. THOMAS: And this is Elise Thomas and I'm 


the principal medical dosimetrist for the ORAU 


team, and I have no conflicts with Hanford. 


 MR. FIX: This is Jack Fix. I'm the principal 


external dosimetrist for the ORAU team and I am 


conflicted for Hanford. 


 MR. DUNCAN: This is Fred Duncan. I'm on the 


ORAU team, a Hanford dose reconstructor, and I 


have no conflicts with Hanford. 


 DR. WADE: Anyone else on the NIOSH/ORAU team? 


 (No responses) 


Let's switch to our friends with SC&A. Please 


identify and specify your conflict. 

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DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John Mauro with SC&A. 


I have no conflict. 


 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans Behling, SC&A. 
I 


have no conflict. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez, SC&A. I 


have no conflicts. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy Roberts-- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Joyce Lips--


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: Joyce, please. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Oh, Joyce Lipsztein and I have 


no conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy Robertson-


DeMers and I am conflicted with Hanford. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan with SC&A. 


I am not conflicted with Hanford. 


 DR. WADE: Any other SC&A team members? 


 (No responses) 


Now I would ask for other federal employees who 


are on this call by virtue of their employment. 


This is Lew Wade. I work for NIOSH. I have no 


conflicts with Hanford. 


 MS. HOWELL: This is Emily Howell with HHS. No 


conflicts. 

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 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Labor -- Depart-- 


Department of Labor. 


 MR. BROEHM: Jason Broehm, CDC Washington 


office. I have no conflicts. 


 MS. SHIELDS: LaShawn Shields, NIOSH, no 


conflict. 


 DR. WADE: But a cold, it sounds like. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott, NIOSH in 


the Office of Compensation Analysis and 


Support. I have no conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: Anyone else? 


 DR. POSTON: Yeah, Lew, I just joined -- or 


Jim. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Oh, hi. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Poston. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So now we have Dr. Melius, 


Dr. Ziemer, Dr. Poston and Brad Clawson all on. 


And again, I had mentioned that -- Dr. Poston, 


that no members of the workgroup have 


conflicts. 


 DR. POSTON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Any other federal employees? 


 (No responses) 


 Any workers or worker reps or members of 

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Congress or staff who would like to identify? 


 MS. LAM: Lydia Lam from Senator Maria 


Cantwell's office. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. 


 MS. LAM: Thank you. 


 MR. CONSCHAFTER: Mike Conschafter with 


Congressman Doc Hastings' office. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you for spending the time with 


us. 


 MR. CONSCHAFTER: Thank you. 


 MR. SCHMIDT: I guess, Kelly Schmidt with the 


United Steelworkers Local 12369. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Kelly. 


MS. BEACH: And Josie Beach from USW 


steelworkers. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Josie. 


 MS. HEMINGWAY: Diane Hemingway, steelworkers. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. Any other workers or reps 


who wish to identify themselves? 


 (No responses) 


Anybody else who wants to be on record as being 


on the call? 


 MS. HOYT: Yes, my name is Rosemary Hoyt. My 


father worked out at Hanford. We filed an 


EEOICP claim and my sister and I have also 

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filed a Special Exposure Cohort petition that 


was recently qualified. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. Thank you for joining us. 


Anyone else who wishes to identify? 


MS. CAREY: Annette Carey* with the TriCity 


Herald. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. Now I assume, Ray, you're 


with us and functioning? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Dr. Melius, it's all yours. 


PURPOSE OF MEETING


 DR. MELIUS: Now we've done introductions you 


probably -- all probably need a break. The 


purpose of this call is to start to organize 


our new and sort of what we call comment 


resolution process on the site profile 


document. And these are always fairly 


complicated things because it's -- sometimes 


it's a mov-- appropriately a moving target. 


The -- NIOSH, with assistance from its 


contractors, are always continually updating 


their doc-- their site profile documents and 


their other, you know, Technical Basis 


Documents that go along with those that -- that 


are also changing so that while SC&A may -- has 

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done a review of the site profile as it existed 


at the time, there are -- are updates to it and 


so we -- we're trying to -- to the extent we're 


going to discuss technical issues and try to 


resolve some of the comments, it's a -- in some 


cases that -- it may be that we're better off 


waiting a little while and -- while, you know, 


NIOSH completes a, you know, a change to a 


section or -- that they're working on or 


something like that. So what we hope to 


accomplish in this call is sort of look -- 


going through the original set of comments, 


sort of figuring out where things stand with 


the site profile review and response to the 


site profile review and ongoing changes on the 


site profile that would be -- so that we can 


organize our time -- our future workgroup 


meetings and focus on things in an appropriate 


fashion and not spend a lot of time on a -- on 


a particular technical issue that may be 


resolved by a -- you know, an ongo-- you know, 


a change in the site profile or another 


document that may -- may address that. 


So what we hope to accomplish this afternoon is 


to go through the -- that material and then try 

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to figure out, you know, where we need to -- 


you know, what should be prioritized in terms 


of focusing on that document. 


I'll add that the -- the way that the Board has 


usually worked on these is that the same 


workgroup that's looking at the site profile 


usually -- involved in looking at the Special 


Exposure Cohort evaluation. Now it's obviously 


-- since the petition just qualified, it's very 


early in that process. NIOSH will be working 


on its evaluation and so forth, so eventually 


we may be addressing concerns related to that, 


but I think it's probably a little bit 


premature, but everyone just should be aware 


that that process is -- is also going on, but 


it -- as I said, it's just started and NIOSH'll 


just be really in the process of developing its 


plans for the -- that evaluation and -- and so 


forth. So we'll not be talking about that 


certainly today. We may in future meetings of 


this workgroup. 


I think, as everyone should know, is that these 


-- all the workgroup meetings are, you know, 


publicly announced and we will, you know, 


communicate with people that are interested 

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about participating and so forth and to -- to 


let people know about the meetings and keep 


them in public view and that -- and it -- we do 


have a person transcribing all the meetings and 


those -- the results of that transcription is 


also publicly available or -- as soon as Ray 


gets around to completing it. So -- and that's 


available usually through the -- through the 


NIOSH web site. 


The documents we have circulated for this that 


will be on and I apologize a little bit 'cause 


some of these just went out in the last day or 


two as we were getting -- getting organized. 


Some of this is, you know, delayed. Some of 


these documents are a little bit dated -- do 


that. But we have an agenda for this meeting 


which is simply a list of issues that SC&A do 


this -- in the last couple of days did a 


listing of sort of the issues in their -- 


raised in their site profile review and then 


sort of cross-index that to the matrix, which 


was this longer document that NIOSH produced 


that's listed as Table 1, summary of task, site 


profile findings issues which will also be 


something that we will be referring to here. 

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The purpose of this SC&A agenda document is 


just to make sure that we at least cover all of 


the areas and understanding where they are in 


the -- your resolution matrix. 


And finally the -- there's another document 


that NIOSH just circulated also this week which 


is a three-page document which is called 


"Update of Previously-provided Responses 


Addressing Issues from the SC&A Review" and 


it's dated 11/22/2006 and it -- it really 


simply just updates where they are with 


particular revisions, documents and that -- and 


so forth so that -- it is helpful and it is 


something we may want to refer to later. 


My plan was to sort of go through the agenda 


item by item and just sort of deal with it that 


way. I don't know if anybody has any comments 


or questions about the agenda or the proposed 


procedure, like now is the time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I just want to 


confirm that we all have the same version of 


the matrix. I think the version that I'm 


looking at today has a -- a date on it of -- 


well, let me see. It actually --


 DR. MELIUS: I think it's July. It's -- I... 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, but the one that -- 


the version that has the NIOSH comments on it. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right, that's the one that's 


entitled -- I'm -- the version I have does not 


have a date on the thing. I believe it is from 


July and it is -- the top of it says "Table 1, 


Summary of Task I, Hanford Site Profile Matrix, 


Primary Issues". 


 MR. NELSON: This is Charles Nelson. There 


should be a -- July 18, 2006, I believe. 


There's no date on the document, though. 


 DR. MELIUS: But that is the one that's -- 


actually I think that's the only version that's 


been circulated. 


 MR. NELSON: That is correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Paul, is that the document 

you have? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, uh-huh. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So -- we had -- you know, we had 

the original version with -- with just the SC&A 


comments. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, then we had the version 


with the NIOSH -- I want to make sure that's 

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the -- there's only that one version with that. 


 DR. MELIUS: There's only that one version with 


the NIOSH response, and there's really the 


addendum to that which is called the update on 


previously-provided responses, the one that's 


dated 11--


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. That's just a regular -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- list, though. 


 DR. MELIUS: And Chuck just provided that to us 


in the last --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- days, which again will be 


helpful --


 DR. ZIEMER: And also there's a memorandum from 


Mr. Alvarez I think that I just got in the last 


day or so. 


 DR. MELIUS: That was just -- it was -- it's 


dated yesterday, so --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that's a document -- I think 


it'll come up as we discuss -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- dated November 30th, 2006. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

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 DR. MELIUS: That was also something I -- I 


circulated, as well as was circula-- should 


have been circulated within NIOSH. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Melius, this is Brad. Are we 


going to be following the agenda for -- that 


you sent out? 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 


NEUTRON DOSIMETRY AND EXPOSURE


 DR. MELIUS: And why don't we start with that 


and, again, just in case people don't have this 


in front of them, I'll read some of this. It's 


-- item number one is a neutron dosimetry and 


exposure and it is referenced -- matrix 


comments one and two cross-reference. I wonder 


if someone from SC&A wants to sort of briefly 


summarize what comments were and -- in that 


area. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Unfortunately 


Joe Fitzgerald is in the air right now so I'll 


sort of sit in for him in sort of orchestrating 


SC&A's participation. The first item is -- the 


lead on that is Hans Behling, so I'd like to 


turn that over to Hans and ask him if he could 


get -- you know, tell his story regarding this 

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particular combination of issues. 


 DR. BEHLING: I'm going to have to make a 


couple of comments here is that the matrix 


really does not track the actual information 


that we provided in our review. The essential 


issue that surrounds the neutron/photon ratio 


methods are really discussed in section 5.1.4, 


which goes for a period of -- of -- for nine 


consecutive pages and -- and the statements 


that are currently addressed in item one, which 


corresponds to 5.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3 are really 


introductory comments and really at this point 


I would have very little to say about those. 


believe Bob Alvarez will comment about some of 


the things that are identified in 5.1.2 and 


5.1.3, but my presentation that I hoped to give 


really centers around 5.1.4 and it's -- as I 


said, is a fairly detailed and lengthy 


discussion about the neutron/photon ratio 


methodology that has been prescribed for dose 


reconstruction for the Hanford facility and I 


have multiple, multiple findings associated 


with that and I'm not sure we're in a position 


to go into those today. 


 DR. MELIUS: We're not planning on going into 


I 
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detail on any issues today. I think the idea 


is to try to organize and identify issues that 


-- for -- it's timely and appropriate that we 


do spend more time (unintelligible) workgroup 


meetings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. Could I ask, 


though, Hans, when you're referring to what you 


just described as multiple findings, are these 


additional findings that were not on the 


original matrix, or --


 DR. BEHLING: Well --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I wasn't quite sure what you 


were --


 DR. BEHLING: Well, the matrix at this point 


really responds to findings identified in our 


review as 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3 and -- and 


there's a couple of pages of columns that 


address those issues. But when it comes to the 


issues that surround 5.1.4, which is a nine-


page section, the response principally is "see 


our response to the -- to the item number one," 


and so as far as I'm concerned, I can't really 


comment if I cannot go into any of the 


technical detail, which is really the crux of 


the entire neutron/photon dose reconstruction 

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process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, but I think what you're 


saying then is that the original SC&A comment ­

- this is -- in the matrix -- I think it's item 


two in the matrix. Correct? 


 DR. BEHLING: Right, item two is briefly what 


I'd hoped to talk about, which -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- is quite lengthy --


 DR. ZIEMER: That's a kind of a broad finding, 


neutron-to-photon ratios derived from limited 


source, and what you're saying is you have much 


more detail on that finding. Is that what I'm 


understanding? 


 DR. BEHLING: There are many, many issues that 


I'd hoped to be able to discuss, but -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, were there sort of specific 


items under that broad issue? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, but again, they're quite 


numerous and -- and they're quite detailed, and 


I'm not sure we're in a position to discuss 


those today. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- but I --

 DR. ZIEMER: But maybe they can be identified 
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to us in some way at an appropriate time. 


 DR. BEHLING: Oh, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but I think what -- and I'd 


be interested in hearing from NIOSH, but I 


think that that would be an issue that we would 


identify that we ought to be talking about at 


a, you know, an in-person meeting of -- of, you 


know, the workgroup with, you know, NIOSH and 


SC&A. I think it's going to take time and it's 


something that it -- it appears that we need 


further discussion to make sure that everybody 


understands it and -- and then focus on what 


the re-- you know, NI-- NIOSH's response to 


that issue. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, and I agree. I think it's 


too complex and I'm looking at the matrix and 


the response, and there is very little if 


anything that addresses the issue raised in 


those pages in our review that starts with page 


37 and go for approximately nine pages -- 37 


through 46 -- so those are key issues. They're 


very complex and -- and I don't think this 


conference call is really the appropriate 


meeting to discuss this with NIOSH. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer again, could I ask 


one more question, Hans? Is the -- the matrix 


was developed, I think, out of the SC&A report 


which -- which you folks provided last fall, I 


think it was in the September time frame, to 


the Board. Is that correct? 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, I'm not sure who drafted 


the matrix, quite honestly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, no -- well, I mean the matrix 


is based on the SC&A report. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I -- I assume whoever wrote 


the matrix through those comments, but as I 


said, the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, what I was just getting at, 


there are a number of findings in the SC&A 


report, and I guess what I'm asking you is are 


you -- do you have additional detail now or are 


the items that you're describing already ones 


that were in that initial report? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I probably have just a small 


number of supplemental pieces of information 


that I would like to draw on, but for the most 


part the nine pages in question from the 


report, pages 37 through 46, are pretty much 


the summation of issues that we have 

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identified. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So -- so basically it's not 


a whole lot of new things, but items that you 


had talked about in the re-- in the September 


report. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, if there's one -- one 


additional item is -- an additional statement 


regarding the 28 percent efficiency factor that 


correlates NTA film to proportional counter and 


I was actually hoping to bring out a couple of 


more items that are of serious concern here 


which were not identified in the original 


report. 

 DR. MELIUS: NIOSH, do you have any comments on 

this? 

 MR. NELSON: What we might suggest maybe is 

that SC&A put a bulleted list together and we 


put them in the matrix and address those. That 


seems like a logical approach at this point. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, who was that 


speaking, please? 


 MR. NELSON: Chuck Nelson. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay, thank you. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro, just to 


hopefully help out a little, we -- we -- the 

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SC&A team had a meeting yesterday where we 


spent several hours going through the matrix 


and discussing these -- these eight categories 


of -- that are in the agenda. And one of the 


things that became apparent as we went through 


the discussion of it is we're finding, 


especially with regard to the -- Hans's issue ­

- that it is a -- it's more I guess functional 


to discuss the issue as a holistic story 


related to neutron dosimetry, photon dosimetry 


and the overall approach that's being used in 


areas that we find that need to be looked at by 


the working group. And from that perspective 


we found that the matrix in its current form 


does not really facilitate the -- the -- the 


issues in a way that I think needs to be 


communicated. So I guess where -- where I'm 


coming from is that when we engage, perhaps in 


a working group meeting face to face, we -- I 


think it's important to keep in mind that -- 


that sometimes the matrix and -- in an attempt 


to make discrete items that we address one by 


one separately, doesn't serve the process as 


well as it can. Sometimes it's better to 


really discuss an issue that really is a 

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combination of multiple items that are in the 


matrix, and I think that's one of the reasons 


that we worked with Dr. Melius and prepared 


this agenda in the form it's in. So I just 


wanted to point that out, that when we do get 


to the point in time in this process, we prob-- 


we probably want to talk about the subject of 


neutron dosimetry exposures and draw upon a 


broad range of issues that sort of converge 


into one whole story -- that I think is very 


important, by the way. One of the things that 


came out of yesterday's conference call in my 


mind is that of these eight categories of 


issues, the first one seems to emerge as the 


one that I would say -- I don't know if 


everyone will agree with it -- is the -- the 


issue of greatest concern. 


 DR. MELIUS: This is Jim. Is that sort of -- 


is that adequately say summarized -- bulleted 


in -- like you -- on the proposed agenda item 


number one which refers to matrix comments one 


and two, or does it get into some of the other 


comments in the matrix. That's what I -- I'm a 


little confused on. But when you say it's 


broad, is it --

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DR. MAURO: No, I -- I -- I think you're right. 


I think -- I think -- and Hans, you could help 


me. I think that being one and two in the -- 


in the July 18th matrix does map back probably 


to what we're calling agenda item number one. 


But Hans, is -- do you feel that one and two in 


effect is the full scope that you want to draw 


upon --


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah --


DR. MAURO: -- discuss this item number one on 


the agenda. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I think we all agreed that 


the issue of neutron-to-photon ratio 


methodology for dose reconstruction is probably 


the single most important element of concern 


here -- as it stands with -- with regard to the 


matrix, it's items one and two. 


 MR. FIX: This is Jack Fix on the ORAU team, 


and I prepared much of the material that was 


being discussed and -- both for Hanford and for 


a lot of other facilities, and I agree, this is 


too complicated a topic to resolve in a 


teleconference. There is a lot of history and 


there's probably a better forum to work this 


issue. It is important to note that the -- our 

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approach in the dose reconstruction was to come 


up with favorable-to-the-claimant bounding 


evaluations. It wasn't to come up with a 


precise reconstruction of dose, it was to make 


sure that we had a method that did not 


underestimate the dose. 


 DR. BEHLING: I would say -- this is Hans 


Behling again. I would say, based on my 


comments and what I interpret these information 


that was presented in the TBD, I would say that 


the -- the approach taken is anything but 


claimant favorable. 


 MR. FIX: Well, that's why we need to work this 


issue, because we have quite a bit of 


information and we also used the approach used 


by a number of other organizations 


historically, as well as the AEC headquarter 


investigation in 1972 of neutron exposures -- 


lifetime neutron exposures for Hanford workers. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, let's just, you know, tag 


this as -- as item number one to be discussed 


at our next workgroup meeting and something, 


you know, may take considerable time to -- to 


discuss and we -- we need to leave time for -- 


for a full discussion of it. 

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 MR. FIX: Is there a possibility of coming up 


with another alternative of evaluating these 


complicated topics, such as trying to form a 


small working group, because you know, there's 


a lot of issues here and it brings in a lot of 


peripheral information, and there's a lot of 


judgment involved as to whether or not we're 


truly being favorable to the claimant, if we 


have the adequate information, et cetera. 


 DR. ULSH: Jack, this is Brant Ulsh. If I 


could just speak from my experience with the 


Rocky Flats process, a process that has seemed 


to work well for us in that venue is to 


organize issue-specific conference calls 


between NIOSH and SC&A. I of course defer to 


Dr. Melius and the rest of the working group 


about their comfort level with that, and the 


way that we've done it with Rocky Flats is we 


make the issue-specific conference calls known 


to every working group member so that they can 


attend if they so choose. But that's worked 


well for us at Rocky Flats. I just put that 


out there, maybe you would want to consider 


something like that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Thanks, Brant. I don’t 

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necessarily object to that, but I actually 


think it would be helpful and my understanding 


and recollection is with Rocky Flats that that 


-- that was something that was done following 


at least some sort of more technical -- 


discussion of some of the technical issues to 


help give some focus on, you know, what's the 


most worthwhile approach to take and where -- 


you know, what needs to be discussed. We are 


also committed to, you know, this is a public 


process, so I guess I -- I'd prefer to reserve 


that until after our next meeting. You know, 


let's spend a meeting talking about this and 


laying the issues out so that everyone 


understands, you know, the -- the approach that 


was -- was taken and dev-- you know, developing 


this, you know, technical ap-- approach dose 


reconstruction and then -- then, you know, and 


what some of the concerns are and let's see if 


there -- you know, may very well be that a 


smaller group having a conference call to 


discuss some of these technical aspects may 


very well be appropriate. I don't think -- how 


anybody else on the workgroup feels, but I 


think -- I -- I think it's helpful if we at 

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least have some perspective on what you will be 


doing in a little bit more detail before we go 


ahead with something like that. 


 MR. FIX: This is Jack Fix again. I think this 


issue of neutron-to-photon is a generic issue. 


It was also an issue for the Rocky Flats plant 


technical guidance and it's a general -- 


generally applicable to a number of sites, and 


so we do -- and you know, neutron-to-photon 


ratios were used in the -- at the Rocky Flats 


plant and also in the neutron dose 


reconstruction project that was funded there -- 


the multi-year neutron dose reconstruction 


project. 


 DR. BEHLING: Let me just weigh in on this. 


realize that the neutron/photon ratio is 


somewhat generic in nature because of the use 


of NTA film at different facilities prior to 


the development of multi-- the -- the Hanford 


multi-purpose dosimeter. However, the issues 


that affect the Hanford site is somewhat unique 


because we have the eight production reactors, 


the single-pass reduction reactors, we have the 


N reactor and we have the 200 and 300 area 


where plutonium was separated and finished, and 


I 
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so the -- while the generic issue of 


neutron/photon ratio may be one that's complex-


wide, the uniqueness of the N gamma ratios that 


were developed are basically those that are 


limited to Hanford and -- and are unique to 


Hanford. 


 MR. FIX: Well, I agree with you on some 


facilities, but as you know, the Rocky Flats 


facilities were first -- operations were first 


located at Hanford, and I agree with you, 


that's why we have more than one ratio in the ­

- in the document. 


 DR. MELIUS: Let's -- let's sort of move on and 


save that for our next workgroup meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, this is Ziemer. I might --


in terms of your original question or the 


question about how to proceed on this kind of 


an issue, it seems to me once Hans shares all 


the details with NIOSH and with the Board, if 


there are some additional details beyond what's 


in the original SC&A report, then we may be -- 


we need either a face to face -- I mean it 


still is going to be a small group. For the 


Board it's just four of us, there are probably 


several from the NIOSH/ORAU team and two or 

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three from SC&A, but either face to face or by 


phone to have a focused look at that particular 


issue. 


 DR. MELIUS: I mean I -- I agree, and I guess 


what I was thinking is we -- we ought to have a 


face to face workgroup meeting and, you know, 


this is a major agenda item and I mean it seems 


to be a critical issue in the dose 


reconstruction, and so we ought to -- for 


Hanford and so we ought to sit down and spend 


some time on it and determine what needs to be 


done from there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And if I might just follow up and 


ask, and maybe, Hans, you can make a suggestion 


here, just looking at the -- I'm sort of 


looking side by side at the matrix with the 


SC&A report. I think there was an attempt to 


take the list of findings by SC&A and -- and 


each one is identified, but it may be that -- 


under 5.1.4 it may be that SC&A would want to 


have some -- a further breakdown of that. I 


mean 5.1.4 is pretty mu-- the finding is pretty 


much a quote from the report, as far as I can 


see. And do we need additional sort of sub-


findings there so that we can get a handle 

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around the issue a little better? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, what I think -- you know, 


what happened was that I was asked to look at 


this whole issue of neutron/photon ratios as an 


independent evaluation. And when I handed in 


my report it was kind of tucked into the 


section of -- that you see on your 5.1, and 


somehow other it lost its insignificance (sic) 


and importance in trying to blend it in. Like 


all reports, our report is a committee report 


and sometimes at the last minute we scramble 


trying to dovetail these things in. 5.1.4 


should have been the center focus of that whole 


discussion --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah --


 DR. BEHLING: -- and under (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and as it stands now, it 


appears to me that what you're saying is that 


it has lost some of its specificity and maybe 


the -- the particular concerns got lost -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in the bigger picture here. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, you're -- you're exactly 


right, Dr. Ziemer. We have to repackage it in 


the sense we're not basically fair to -- to the 

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issues that were being assessed here and -- and 


not highlighting them and saying here are the 


concerns that we really have and -- and 


identify them separately. And I may have to go 


through the write-up as I initially put it in 


there, which is somewhat different from what 


you ended up seeing in the actual report that 


we issued, and I think it's considerably more 


clear as to what the concerns are and -- and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: For practical purposes, the matrix 


is simply a chart taking the SC&A findings -- 


putting them in chart form and then asking 


NIOSH to respond. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. I mean the findings are so 


briefly stated it's not even an abstract that ­

- in a technical paper that you tried to 


capture a few buzzwords, but clearly you cannot 


identify the issues without reading the text. 


And so this is where we are with the matrix. 


The -- the finding as it's stated there is 


basically an over-simplification of issues. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: You could do that, Hans, I think 


before the -- have that circulated before the 


next meeting, I think it would be helpful. 

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 DR. BEHLING: I will do that. 


 DR. MELIUS: That may -- that may -- obviously 


would help us when we go to the discussion. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I will -- I will work on 


this and you will have it perhaps in time for 


the upcoming meeting in Chicago. 


EARLY WORKER RADIOLOGICAL MONITORING


 DR. MELIUS: Thanks, Hans. Okay, we'll move on 


to number two, which is early worker 


radiological monitoring, which is covered under 


comment three in the matrix. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: On this comment -- strikingly 


painstaking on SC&A -- I think NIOSH is redoing 


it based on our comments, I don't know, but 


there is a new Hanford internal TBD which is 


under revision and in comment resolution at 


this time, so they say that reliance on the air 


samples was removed from this section and -- 


and also the -- the new revision would contain 


more information on (unintelligible) and 


iodine-131. I haven't seen the new version 


because it's under revision so I couldn't even 


find it on the O drive, so I think we have to 


wait to see how it's dealt now. 


 DR. MELIUS: Chuck or some -- anybody from 

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NIOSH? 


 MR. NELSON: Yeah, this is Chuck Nelson. She's 


correct, the document is currently under 


review. It's undergoing resolutions between 


ORAU and NIOSH, so that is correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: Always hate to ask this and -- but 


I will. 


 MR. NELSON: I knew you were going to. 


 DR. MELIUS: Any idea when it's going to be... 


 MR. NELSON: Liz, do you have any elaboration 


on that -- Liz Brackett? 


MS. BRACKETT: To be honest, I don't know where 


it is in the review cycle right now. Fred 


Duncan may know that. 


 MR. NELSON: I can -- I can provide some light 


on it. Tom Tomes over here at NIOSH has it and 


he owes a -- a response in the latest round, so 


it's going through a couple of iterations and 


we're getting closer, but I don't know that I 


can give an exact date, to be honest. 


 DR. MELIUS: That's ok-- well, prefer honesty. 


Do that. Is everyone agreed then that we 


should sort of postpone trying to address this 


issue in terms of a meeting until that document 


is --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, obviously we need to 


have the document first. 


MS. BRACKETT: And there's actually two 


documents. It's tied in with -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MS. BRACKETT: -- the coworker document now -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MS. BRACKETT: -- which is also in the review 


process. 


 MR. NELSON: This is Chuck Nelson. That's 


correct. It's TIB-39 -- OTIB-39 and the 


internal Hanford -- that's the two documents. 


EXTERNAL BETA-GAMMA DOSE


 DR. MELIUS: Next is -- from the agenda is 


external beta-gamma dose adjustments and 


uncertainty factors, which reference comments 


four and five. John or someone from SC&A want 


to --


DR. MAURO: I -- I guess I thought this was 


Ron's -- Ron, are you on the line? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah -- yeah, I'm on. I didn't 


know if you wanted to say anything first. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, no, please help me out. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron Buchanan with 


SC&A. A problem with number -- item number 

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three there, the external beta-gamma dose 


adjustment and uncertainty factors which is 


comment four and five -- by the way, comment 


four and five, four was on the adjustment and 


uncertainty factors; five was on the shallow 


dose. Since our revision -- our review of 


these TBD, OTIB-17 has come out for the shallow 


dose, and at this point we are fairly satisfied 


with that and so comment five we won't discuss 


today I think as far as -- today, if that's 


okay. 


 The items under number four, which we'd like to 


address, are the ones of the -- of uncertainty 


factors mainly. In the old TBD they addressed 


some of these. The new one just came out about 


nine days, ten days ago, the 11/21/06 edition. 


I went through it, compared it to the old 


edition and if you look at both editions, the 


second edition is very similar to the first 


edition, other than that they've added pages 56 


through 63, made a few other changes. However, 


the overarching problem is that -- they do a 


very good job of talking about uncertainties 


and biases in TBD 6, the old and the new 


version, but in the end there's nothing really 

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done about it to bring it together. And I find 


that true in the new as well as the older 


version. And the bottom line is that you 


adjust plutonium workers by 20 percent for 


doses before '57 -- plutonium only workers -- 


and that neutron doses from '78 to '83 is 


adjusted by a factor of 1.35, and the rest of 


it is not really congealed to any final 


instruction to the dose reconstructor. And so 


my problem with this is that it may contain the 


information it needs, but it doesn't put it 


together in the end and especially an appendix 


or an attachment -- they changed the word to 


attachment A here -- on what the dose 


reconstructors could use other than those two 


things I just quoted. And so there seems to be 


a disconnect in a lot of good information 


presented, such as tables and such in the main 


body, to the end results of what the dose 


reconstructor was go-- is instructed to use. 


And another conflicting problem is that this 


table 6-12 is still in the new edition on page 


32, and it's my understanding that PER-05, 


6/9/06, was issued concerning dose 


reconstructors' problems with using the factors 

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in these tables, that some of them were 


dividing by the factors and some of them were 


multiplying by it, which caused -- had to go 


back and redo about 50 cases. Fortunately 


there was no real change in dose overall and 


none of the group -- claimants had to be redone 


because of it. Anyway, there wasn't any change 


in the final results. However, I find it 


confusing that that is still left in there. 


And so my comment is I feel that -- that the 


uncertainty and bias factors are laid out, but 


they're not summarized in the end and it's very 


difficult for the dose reconstructor to really 


see what is -- how the -- the -- all this 


material that's laid out is to be used at the 


end results. 


 DR. MELIUS: Chuck, any comments from -- 


 MR. NELSON: Yeah, I'm here. What I'd like to 


do is get Jack Fix, he's the internal 


dosimetrist, to -- to reply to that if he will. 


 MR. FIX: Yes, this is Jack. I guess I want to 


-- I guess this shows the difficulty in writing 


a TBD that tries to provide the scientific 


evidence that's available and at the same time 


try to provide clear guidance to the dose 

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reconstructor. And of course we know the dose 


reconstructors really are -- are knowledgeable 


people, they understand health physics concepts 


and terms and they actually have training and 


there's weekly discussions. There's a lot of 


things that are provided to support their 


activities. In this particular case, those two 


tables that are referenced, those are lifted 


from the original documents. In one case, one 


author divided the table values to get an 


estimate HP-10 dose and in another case the -- 


the author -- original author multiplied a 


correction factor to get the HP-10 dose. I 


agree it's confusing, but we generally try not 


to modify information that's lifted from a 


published document. So the listed biases and 


uncertainty factors in these tables are not 


used directly in the dose reconstruction. We 


actually have a process. As everyone knows, 


the actual information used in each claim is 


clearly described in the dose reconstruction 


report and so it's a -- I -- I really find it ­

- I think one thing that helps add clarity to 


some of these very difficult issues with lots 


of complexity and lots of technical -- 

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technical information is to try to focus on the 


individual claims because the individual claims 


is what we -- we use in dose reconstruction. 


mean we're looking at the actual detail des-- 


radiological monitoring record for each 


employee, and that is what drives some of the ­

- the judgments that are used in the dose 


reconstruction. And certainly we use the 


information from the TBD, but -- but I -- but 


you know, it adds a lot of clarity when you 


look at this -- how this information is applied 


to a specific claim. And this is an example 


here. This is a compendium of scientific 


evidence that's been generated and -- but it's 


used in -- in what we -- we maintain is a 


claimant-favorable analysis of -- in 


reconstructing doses that are bounding, not 


that we're trying to do exact dose 


reconstruction. We're trying to make sure that 


we're not underestimating the dose that's 


assigned to the claimant. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan again. How 


is -- in Appendix A, does it tell the dose 


reconstructor to ever use Table 6-12? 


 MR. FIX: I don't have it right in front of me, 

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but I assume 6-12 is some of the -- is the bias 


and uncertainty factor? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, uh-huh, and it gives a 


range -- overall bias that -- a range of -- 


 MR. FIX: No, no, actually it depends on 


whether we're doing a best -- best estimate, a 


maximizing or a minimizing dose reconstruction. 


As you know -- for the benefit of some of the 


other people on the teleconference here, we're 


trying to evaluate these claims fairly quickly 


and we have sort of a triage approach. So in 


some cases we assign every -- all -- we assign 


-- maximizing a dose from several different 


components to see if there's any possibility 


that even providing unrealistic estimates of 


dose, could this person even -- could the 


person become nearly compensated. And then we 


have another approach which is minimizing in 


which we put minimum estimates of dose from 


several components, and if a person is -- still 


exceeds the -- what's called the probability of 


causation at 50 percent, then we know that 


person is compensable. So we can get -- handle 


those two groups of claims very quickly. Then 


we're left with the challenging ones of the 

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best estimate, the people that may be 


compensable or may not, depending on the 


various assumptions used for the dose analysis. 


And so that's -- you know, that's generally the 


analysis, so we have different assumptions that 


are used, depending on which -- which pathway ­

- which of these three gen-- three high-level 


analyses that are underway. And I know the 


SC&A team is very -- they are -- I mean the 


SC&A team is very familiar with that in the 


dose -- the claims that you people are 


reviewing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. Ron, could I ask 


you to clarify your -- your concern on this 


last item? Was it that although the document 


is -- the document has been revised and so on, 


that there was simply lack of instruction to 


the dose reconstructor on what to do with the 


information, or was it -- was it the fact that 


there could be confusion on the two tables, one 


of which used a divisor and the other a 


multiplier, or -- clarify again what -- what 


the concern was at this point. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. The overarching concern 


is that -- that a lot of the information is 

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provided in the text, but I don't see -- it's ­

- you know, give geometry factors, for example. 


It talks about geometry factors and the 


response of different detectors to different -- 


AP or rotational isotopic A radiation, that 


sort of thing. However, the end result is 


well, just use 100 percent AP in all cases, 


other than it gives a little bit of verbiage 


right at the end on page 921 it says -- it says 


if not available, the adjusted organ dose can 


be used for each year and the organ dose in 


comparison of a dose conversion factor for the 


respective exposure geometry for the organ of 


interest can be made to determine a realistic 


option to form a favorable to the claimant 


analysis. And so my concern is that -- that 


the -- the main text contains a lot of 


information, but at the end it doesn't really 


say okay, the dose reconstructor, this is what 


we recommend that you do. And I realize 


there's -- like Jack was saying, you have 


maximizing, minimizing cases, your best 


estimate, and I don't see it really boiled down 


into a useable template at the end. And in the 


-- in the revisions that were made, it doesn't 

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seem to facilitate this additionally. And to 


me, it's hard to look at the system and see 


what the dose reconstructor's going to use. 


 MR. FIX: Well, I think -- this is Jack Fix 


again. I think my explanation is that that's 


because the details of the claim drive what's 


used in the dose reconstruction. It's -- and 


these particular tables, one table summarizes 


actual laboratory measurements made by the 


International Agency for Research on Cancer 


studies of ten widely -- widely-used dosimeters 


in the world in support of their IARC 15­

country study, and it's just a tabulation of 


what they observed in their laboratory 


measurements for AP, rotational and isotropic 


irradiations to three beams only that was done 


at the International Agency for Atomic Energy 


facility near Vienna. And there's another 


table that summarizes measurements that were 


made at Hanford in which for similar -- both 


these studies were done to support 


epidemiologic studies in which they were 


examining -- considering reconstruction of the 


dose of record, and the other table is for 


measurements that were made on an 

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anthropomorphic phantom at Hanford in which the 


phantom was placed at selected orientations 


throughout a 360-degree circle to -- again 


exposed to selected beams and in this 


particular case using all of the Hanford 


historical record -- dosimeters of record. 


Now of course if you're doing a dose 


reconstruction and you know if a worker is 


exposed to a particular type of nuclide, say 


americium-241 or if they're working exclusively 


in a plutonium facility and -- first of all, 


none of these measurements at IAEA or at 


Hanford are suitable for -- for the lower 


energy of -- of a plutonium facility, for 


example. I think you would key these judgments 


used in a dose reconstruction to what the 


worker's actually being exposed to. 


DR. MAURO: Jack, this is John Mauro. I think 


I'm hearing an important overarching -- it's 


not an issue, it's a perspective. What it 


sounds like is that we should not be looking to 


-- at least in this case -- the site profile on 


external dosimetry to be a cookbook. It sounds 


like it provides a compendium of information 


and that -- that information, together with I 

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guess other tools and training, et cetera, is 


what in fact the dose reconstructor draws upon 


to make use of the information -- appropriate 


use of the information contained in the site 


profile and perhaps other O-- OTIBs. So maybe 


-- maybe the -- the -- what I'm hearing is, 


maybe we're -- we, when we're looking at the -- 


this document, we're asking too much of it; 


that it be a cookbook when in fact it never 


really -- really wasn't intended to be that. 


Did I misrepre-- I mean that's what I'm hearing 


is --


 MR. FIX: No, you're exactly right, John. 


That's a good summary. We do have our -- our 


cookbooks, if you want to call them that, and 


we have our tools that provide us to -- to the 


dose reconstructors to have consistency in the 


dose evaluations, but that's not what's in a 


site profile. The site profile is really a 


compendium of what type of radiation fields are 


we dealing with. It's scientific information, 


what was used to develop the dose of record. 


You know, it has to do with the radiation field 


-- what the people are working with. But 


you're right. Your summary's a very succinct 

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one. 


 DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius. I think this is one 


area we have difficulty in -- in addressing 


because we have -- we have the site profile 


reviews going on, we have the individual dose 


reconstruction reviews. I think the issue 


comes up is whether the overall -- combination 


of all these documents and instructions and so 


forth, do they work and do they provide, you 


know, consistency in -- in terms of addressing 


individual dose reconstructions that -- that 


are being done. You know, are -- are the 20 


that are being done based on this document or 


whatever, you know, would -- are the dose 


reconstructors providing, you know, consistent 


and fair so that -- that -- that people are 


treated in an appropriate fashion, and that's a 


complicated answer because these are individual 


dose reconstructions and it's a complicated 


area and I -- I don't know if there's an -- an 


easy answer to how -- some ways -- sort of how 


the overall system works and not how the site 


profile and the other documents fit -- fit in 


other instructions and training for the dose 


reconstructors' work and maybe what we should 

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do is move on but, you know, come back to this 


in our workgroup meeting just as something to 


discuss as to what type of finding the 


workgroup would want to make from this and do 


we need to try to clarify -- clarify it some 


more. But -- but I think it's something -- it 


may be worth at least a short discussion at a ­

- a full workgroup meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and this is Ziemer. I agree 


with that, Jim, and I think you -- you kind of 


hit the nail on the head and maybe John Mauro 


did, too, in the sense that -- as for the site 


profile, we want to make sure that the 


information in there is the correct 


information. There are a lot of other 


procedures and SC&A's been reviewing some of 


them -- or all of them for us, ultimately, and 


we want to make sure that the procedures used 


in the dose reconstruction process properly 


make use of the information that's in the site 


profiles. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I'd li-- and this is John. 


I'd like to add one last thing, and that is -- 


which is good news, is that in -- this is one 


of the older -- one of the first site profiles 

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we reviewed. In the work we're doing now, the 


-- the current mandate, when we review a site 


profile, embedded in that process is now not 


only the site profile but also all the old TIBs 


that go with it and all the workbooks. So what 


I think we have here is we're looking -- what 


we're doing now is that more integrated 


perspective of -- unfortunately though, on 


Hanford we were -- we're still really operating 


on the matrix that only reflects a one-


dimensional perspective. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And not the workbooks. 


DR. MAURO: And I think -- I think we have a 


manageable situation, once we understand that. 


 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans Behling. I just 


want to make a comment that I guess is pretty 


much in concern with what you said, John, and 


that is the TBDs are oftentimes written with an 


awful lot of background information that is 


there to educate the people but are not to be 


used for dose reconstruction. And 


unfortunately, many of the people now -- we've 


had a number of people working with Kathy and I 


to do an audit, and they repeatedly make the 


same mistake in assuming much of the 

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information that's presented in the TBD is 


there for guidance purposes when in fact it's 


there for background information only. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: And oftentimes the problem comes 


in that the actual directives and guidance for 


dose reconstructions are really not part of the 


major part of the document itself but is tucked 


into an attachment or an appendix that comes at 


the end of the TBD, and oftentimes the peo-- 


the people read the TBD, they get to the 


reference list and says well, I've read it, and 


they actually miss the guidance that they're 


supposed to be looking at for dose 


reconstruction because it follows the reference 


list. They never even see the actual guidance 


document. And I think it's really a question 


of packaging the TBD and saying this is for 


your information, as opposed to these are the 


actual guidance that you should follow in doing 


dose reconstruction. And I've observed this 


over and over and I'm guilty of it myself when 


I read the TBD and I looked at some of the 


comparative information for -- for TLDs and 


film dosimeters and -- and historic studies, I 

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said is this supposed -- something that I'm 


supposed to use, only to realize no, it's not. 


It's just information that's handed to you that 


has very little relevance to the actual dose 


reconstruction process. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron again. I'd like to 


make one comment on page 85 of the revised TBD, 


Section A-4.2.2, it says adjustments to 


recorded penetrating dose, it says no 


adjustment in the recorded dose is recommended 


for multi-(unintelligible) thermoluminescent 


dosimeters (unintelligible) recorded 


penetrating or gamma doses -- and it goes on to 


explain except for the 20 percent for plutonium 


before '57. So -- so you know, that is where 


it's a little confusing if it's saying it's 


recommending no adjustment and it provides all 


these adjustment factors. So you know, indeed 


what you're saying is TBD is just there to 


present some information on the site, then I 


feel that this -- where it says recommend no 


adjustments be made except for that 20 percent 


is kind of confusing. 


 MR. FIX: Well, it is, I -- I agree with you 


and it -- this is Jack Fix again. I agree with 

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you, it is very confusing. And the reason the 


20 percent is in there is that, based on the -- 


what we understand at Hanford, that they 


actually did make the corrections for the 


workers to assign a pene-- deep dose to 


plutonium workers, and the same procedure was 


used at both Hanford and -- and Savannah River 


Site. However, when we look at the Hanford 


record we can't validate that in fact they 


actually did that for all years. And this has 


to do with the fact that it's evident that the 


deep dose, if you use only the shielded portion 


of the film, is not ade-- is not adequate in a 


plutonium facility to estimate the deep dose 


from photons only. But the shallow dose with 


energy photons is likely very much -- with -- 


has to be properly calibrated and it -- or it 


tremendously overestimates the shallow dose and 


so we know that they undoubtedly had to make 


that correction, but we don't know that they 


took the -- the one-fifth and assigned it -- 


one-fifth of that response (unintelligible) 


deep zone, so it does get complicated and so if 


there's evidence in a claim that in fact that 


was done -- we haven't seen this so far -- so 

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we take the favorable to the claimant 


assumption -- the favorable to the claimant 


approach and assume that it was not done and so 


we assign it. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, I understand that, Jack. 


I guess my comment was the wording at the 


beginning of the sentence -- 


 MR. FIX: Yeah. 


MR. BUCHANAN: -- no adjustment is recommended 


except, and I understand where you're coming 


from on the 20 percent. And so to me that 


means that the dose reconstructor is not 


supposed to use any of these things back here 


of geometry and -- and uncertainty and all 


that, the bias factors says no adjustment in 


the recorded photon dose is recommended -- 


 MR. FIX: Uh-huh. 


MR. BUCHANAN: -- except for the 20 percent, so 


that's where I'm coming from on the end result 


 MR. FIX: Yeah. 


MR. BUCHANAN: -- the overall. 


 MR. FIX: Well, I agree with you that it's -- 


it's not always prop-- clearly worded and -- 


and I agree that -- with John's earlier comment 

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that this is a multi-dimensional process. And 


as you know, since we do do the dose 


reconstructions, we do have to make decisions 


for each step, and those decisions are made and 


they're made in another environment than the 


one we're discussing. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


 MR. FIX: And there's very clear approaches 


used in the dose reconstruction. 


INTERNAL DOSE ASSUMPTIONS


 DR. MELIUS: I hope everyone agrees with me 


it's time to move on --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- next issue, which is number 


four, internal dose assumptions. 


 MR. NELSON: Let me back up -- this is Chuck 


Nelson again. I wasn't sure why we skipped 


comment five. I didn't really catch the reason 


of why we skipped it. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Oh, comment five -- this is Ron 


Buchanan again -- comment five was on the 


shallow dose, and SC&A is satisfied with the 


answer on it. 


 MR. NELSON: Oh, very well, I like that. Thank 


you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think he mentioned that at 


the front end. 


 MR. NELSON: I didn't understand what he said 


there, that's why I wanted to back up. I knew 


he wanted to move on, but I didn't really 


understand why. Thank you for that 


clarification. 


 DR. MELIUS: That's fine. Thanks. Comment 


four, internal dose assumptions, John, do you 


want to -- or whoever you're having -- 


DR. MAURO: We have a combination, I think. 


This is something for Joyce, but also the new 


item on sodium-24, something for Bob Alvarez. 


So I'd like to pass the baton over to those two 


individuals to take care of this. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay, let me just start this 


'cause it's very simple because most of this is 


referred to OTIB-039, which was formally 


reviewed by SC&A. We are in the process of 


reviewing OTIB-039 and since most of it 


referred to it, I think we have to wait till 


the review of OTIB-039. 


 DR. MELIUS: If I could ask you, what's the 


timing on -- on that? 


 MR. NELSON: OTIB-39 -- this is Chuck Nelson -- 

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is on the same time line as the internal TBD. 


In my understanding, ORAU is -- they should be 


completed about the same time. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, Chuck. Bob? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I was asked to prepare a memo 


which I sent -- which was I guess sent out 


yesterday, and in our review of the site 


profile -- we became concerned after reviewing 


documents that there is a possibility that 


reactor workers may have been exposed to -- or 


have been chronically exposed to unmeasured 


neutrons. And -- and so the memo that I 


provide sort of lays some of this out, and 


pages 31 through 33-7 of my review lays out in 


greater detail, but the gist of what we are -- 


as I understand what the current situation is 


is that a -- that there -- at least I'm -- I'm 


-- my understanding is that workers who do file 


for compensation who worked as reactor workers 


who were -- did have positive measurements for 


sodium-24, that these assumptions -- the dose 


assumptions are basically derived from -- from 


the assumption that they adjusted this, and 


there -- I think that there is enough evidence 


right now in the historical record to raise 

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questions about that assumption, especially 


with respect to the early whole-body counting 


reports which effectively ruled out 


environmental factors for exposures for sodium24 measured in the bodies of workers. And that 


-- I'm -- I'm unaware -- I have not seen the 


1972 report which Jack has been referring to, 


but I'm curious whether that 1972 report 


addressed the potential exposure to neutrons 


for reactor workers, particular for the first 


five reactors. Did that 1972 report, Jack, 


address that issue? 


 MR. FIX: The 1972 investigation was for all -- 


any Hanford -- what -- very quickly, since not 


everybody on the phone probably understands the 


history, is basically in 1972 Hanford brought 


in a new type of dosimeter called a 


thermoluminescent dosimeter, and the 


thermoluminescent dosimeter had the advantage 


in that it responds to all energ-- all -- 


essentially all neutron energies, whereas the 


previous dosimeter that was available was the 


nuclear track emulsion dosimeter called the NTA 


dosimeter, all -- they really responded to 


higher energy neutrons. And when they brought 

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this dosimeter in to Hanford, all of a sudden 


there was a significant -- a noticeable 


increase in the recorded do-- neutron dose for 


the workers, and this resulted in an 


investigation out of AEC -- Atomic Energy 


Commission headquarters. And they came out and 


invited experts from other -- throughout the 


AEC complex at that time to evaluate what went 


on at Hanford. Their goal at that time was to 


see if there was any Hanford worker who could 


have exceeded the -- the AEC radiation safety 


guidelines, either in 1972 when the -- for that 


year, or historically in the context of their 


lifetime dose at Hanford. And the -- and it -- 


and the judgment at that time was that really 


the only serious -- the most ser-- I should say 


-- not the only serious, but the most serious 


situation for the workers who could have 


exceeded these limits was in the plutonium 


facility because that's where the majority of 


the neutron exposure at Hanford occurred. 


Now -- so the reactor workers were never 


identified as a significant -- at significant 


potential for unmonitored neutron exposure. 


do want to say that -- very quickly that the 


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TBD does include guidance to assign a neutron 


dose to all reactor workers, so that is in the 


TBD and I know it's routinely applied in the 


dose reconstruction. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Now Jack, if -- I'm sorry, if a 


worker or a claimant on behalf of a worker who 


had a positive reading for sodium-24 files a 


claim, is the a priori assumption that this is 


an ingestion exposure and not a neutron 


exposure? 


 MR. FIX: No, I don't think it's I don't think 


there is a judgment. We've used sodium-24 


activation in the body for years in the context 


of assessing criticality exposures. Under no ­

- the dose -- you know -- by sodium -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: My specific question, Jack, is 


workers who are filing -- who have filed, who 


have -- have -- have measured sodium-24 body 


burdens, how does -- how is that dose 


estimated? Is it based on an ingestion 


assumption or a neutron exposure assumption? 


 MR. FIX: Well -- Liz, do you want to say -- 


MS. BRACKETT: Well, I know -- I can speak from 


the internal standpoint, and they -- the dose 


reconstructors do assign an ingestion dose from 

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the sodium-24, and that's not based on -- maybe 


-- maybe I misunderstood what was meant by an 


earlier comment, but the assumption is that 


that comes from drinking water inside the 


reactor building, with the assumption that the 


water contains sodium-24 as a result of the 


reactor. It's not --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Okay. Well, this -- this is the 


point I'm getting to is that the -- we found -- 


at least the -- the early whole body reports 


became -- at least those people who were taking 


these measurements actually pulled the string a 


little bit and ruled out in several instances 


the possibility of ingesting contaminated water 


as a source. And I was curious whether -- what 


data and analysis have you been using to back 


that assumption. Were there samples taken of 


reactor-area drinking water? 


MS. BRACKETT: I do not know that. I was 


actually looking for that information before 


this call and I -- I will -- I would have to 


look into that further. I don't if -- Jack, if 


you know anything about that. 


 MR. FIX: Well, I -- I'm sure there was 


monitoring data. That is, we know that sodium­
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24 is very easy to detect, being an energetic 


gamma emitter. I guess what I was jumping to 


the fact is that there was always the 


assumption that neutron or radiation metal 


worker could in fact activate sodium-2-- sodium 


in the body, but it's a fairly insensitive 


method of estimating the dose and -- but also 


related to that is the fact that the activation 


of the sodium is dependent upon the spectra and 


the neutron, so I was just trying to say that 


we do -- we do take an approach to assign a 


dose we think -- from the neutrons which we 


think is probably the most significant source 


of exposure to the worker. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I guess our concern stems 


from -- at least the limited information that's 


provided in the TBD bases a lot of neutron 


exposure assumptions, if not all, on the 


Hanford N reactor. And the reliance on the 


shielding assumptions derived from the N 


reactor are not germane because -- relative to 


the -- at least -- at least the first five 


production reactors, which had bioshields made 


of a composite of cast iron and masonite -- 


laminated pressed wood. And there is well­
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documented evidence that as they increased the 


power levels from these reactors, several 


things happened that -- that resulted in -- in 


at least engineering reports that documented an 


increase leakage rates that were measurable for 


neutrons and photons coming from the bioshield 


and from the penetrations in the bioshields, 


and this became a matter of great concern. 


However, we found no actual measurements of 


workers for neutrons, and I think that this is 


an issue that can't be ruled out out of hand, 


and I would just urge that NIOSH take a harder 


look at this problem. 


 MR. FIX: Well, it's not --


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. One -- one of 


the reasons this was triggered is when we -- 


this goes back a ways at one of the meetings 


where when we raised some of our current 


concerns regarding neutron dosimetry, one of 


the arguments that we made was that well, we 


noticed that some of the workers have elevated 


sodium-24 in their whole body counts, and the ­

- NIOSH's perspective on this was that well, 


that was due from drinking water that contained 


sodium-24 that was -- been discharged to the 

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Columbia River. The -- this analysis that we ­

- that -- that Bob just submitted basically 


says well, that -- that certainly might be 


true, but there's also a lot of evidence that ­

- there's a very good possibility that some of 


those sodium-24 readings are a result of 


neutron activation, completely different 


pathway, and as a result we could be missing 


some important neutron doses. And -- and I 


guess that's the issue. That is, is the 


sodium-24 whole body counts that we're seeing 


indicative that we might be missing some 


neutron exposures to some of the workers in the 


reactor area. 


 MR. FIX: Uh-huh. Well, John, this is Jack 


again. As you know, we just got this this 


morning --


DR. MAURO: Sure. 


 MR. FIX: -- and there's been a lot of work 


done at Hanford over the years on using 


activation of sodium in the body as part of the 


accident evaluation procedures at Hanford. And 


we have a lot of ev-- a lot of information on 


this topic, but we've not been able to gather 


it -- gather it -- you know, most of the people 

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who did this work have long retired from 


Hanford, and we -- I'm sure we can get informa­

- on this particular topic fortunately there is 


a lot of information, and we can gather it and 


there should be information on whether or not 


it existed in drinking -- potentially existed 


in drinking water. And we just have to be 


given a little bit of time to -- to pull this 


information together. 


 DR. MELIUS: We -- we will -- certainly willing 


to give you time -- this is Jim Melius. I 


guess I would suggest we, you know, put this on 


the agenda for --


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- you know, a workgroup meeting ­

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- in the future and you'll have 

some time to get your -- sounds like you're 


actively gathering information on it and let's 


discuss it at that point in time. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Melius, this is Brad. I just 


had one question. You know, I keep hearing 


them referred to as just the reactor operators, 


but what does that class incorporate? Does 

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that incorporate instrument techs, mechanics 


that may have been working on processes? Does 


it incorporate all of them or are they just 


looking at the reactor operators themselves? 


 MR. FIX: No, we classify all the -- all the 


workers at -- working say like at 100-B -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. FIX: -- be all those, it'd be everybody 


that worked at 100-B. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, I just -- I just wanted to 


clarify that 'cause I didn't -- 


 MR. FIX: Yeah, as you know, the idea -- the 


idea here is to -- typically we don't know 


exactly what a person did or where they worked, 


so we're trying to -- you know, we'd apply it 


for the whole faci-- a whole area. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, I just --


 MR. FIX: All the 100 -- all the 100 areas, but 


not 100-N since we have a lot more information 


for 100-N. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: If I may just -- here -- here 


just a couple of quotes from the memo from the 


whole body reports. This is from Swanberg* in 


1960. (Unintelligible) because of the 

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relatively short half-life of sodium-24 of 15 


hours, it is generally observed in great -- 


greater quantities in subjects examined during 


the afternoon who have come to the whole-body 


counter directly from working in the reactor 


areas. Sodium-24 has been (unintelligible) 


only in reactor area employees. Fourteen of 


the 59 were assigned to reactor areas farthest 


upstream and therefore were not regularly 


exposed to drinking water which has been used 


as a reactor coolant. 


Then in a whole body report from 1961 to '63 it 


states sodium-24 has been detected primarily in 


reactor area workers. Correlation of results 


to environmental parameters such as places of 


residence and work area was precluded by the 


relatively short half-life of the radionuclide 


and by the fact that many of the employees 


examined have been away from their location 


long enough for a significant fraction of 


sodium-24 to have decayed. Results from 1961­

'63 indicate that 47 percent of reactor area 


employees examined had measurable body burdens 


of sodium-24 ranging up to 3.8 nanocuries. 


 MR. FIX: Well, Bob, I agree that was very 

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interesting what you presented to us, and just 


give us a chance to follow up to it because the 


people that made those measurements, such as 


Earl Palmer, are still here and I'm sure that 


they can provide some clarification as to what 


those use -- I've been involved myself on -- in 


-- in, you know, all weekend irradiations of -- 


of samples to detect the sodium content 'cause 


we were trying to evaluate the sensitivity for 


a criti-- to evaluate criticality accidents, so 


it's nice that you pose this particular 


question 'cause this is -- at least fortunately 


this is one issue we do have a lot of 


information for. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, good. Good. 


ENVIRONMENTAL DOSE


 DR. MELIUS: Thanks -- move on to -- it's item 


number five, environmental dose. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I'll take the first part. 


-- I -- in effect -- and I think we can cover 


this pretty quickly. In effect, the response 


that NIOSH provided in the matrix -- what we're 


dealing with is a concern that when the doses ­

- the environmental doses are being calculated 


for workers outdoors, the approach that's taken 


I 
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uses -- takes the releases from the -- airborne 


releases from the plant, treats them as chronic 


atmospheric discharges, and then calculates the 


average annual atmospheric dispersion factor to 


the receptor locations. And this is 


conventional environmental transport modeling, 


and it's perfectly fine and the appropriate way 


to go when you do have circumstances where the 


releases are chronic -- or even if they're 


episodic but very frequent. And that approach, 


what I call the average annual chi over Q 


approach, works. And the an-- the response 


that NIOSH provided in -- in comment seven on 


the matrix is -- I have -- is -- I'm in 


complete agreement with. 


But I think that the point I was trying to make 


is that I believe that there's a lot of 


evidence that there were some significant 


episodic releases that did not occur very 


often, with substantial amounts of radioactive 


material released into the atmosphere and -- 


one-time shots, or perhaps only a few times a 


year. 


Under those circumstances, you really can't 


average -- use average annual atmospheric 

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dispersion factors. You can't assume that 


release occurred continuously over the course 


of a year. You've got to take into 


consideration that it occurred over a 


relatively short period of time and account for 


the meteorology that was actually in place at 


the time of the release. And I guess that -- 


and there -- and that's a pretty conceptually 


simple problem, and I -- I think that there 


might be some scenarios where workers could 


have been exposed to those kind of occasional 


episodic releases, especially ground level 


releases, that the current method in the TBD 


does not take into consideration. So that was 


the point that I was trying to make. 


 MR. NELSON: This is Chuck Nelson. Liz, are 


you prepared to elaborate on that at all? 


MS. BRACKETT: No, I'm not. 


 MR. NELSON: Okay. Unfortunately, we don't 


have our environmental guy with us today. I 


don't know if there's anybody else from ORAU 


that's prepared to elaborate on that particular 


issue, but the individual responsible for the 


environmental group wasn't able to be with us. 


 DR. MELIUS: I think we can -- I -- we 

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understand -- scheduling. I think we -- again, 


you know, put that issue on the agenda for a 


workgroup meeting and -- I mean -- well, let's 


address it there. It may not take as much 


time, but let's say -- at least do it that way. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What about the large particle part 


of that? 


 DR. MELIUS: I was going to ask. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, Bob, I guess -- you know, 


you've been closer to that than I am -- Bob 


Alvarez, would you mind picking that up? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Sure. In the reply by NIOSH 


about this, the -- the NIOSH or NIOSH/ORAU 


indicates that 99 -- there's a particle size 


distribution at 99.9 percent of the, quote, 


larger particles at physical and aerodynamic 


diameters greater than ten microns. 


I'm not sure where that came from, but the 


particle size distribution really varied by 


episodic release, and then these particles are 


not respirable. That may be true, but they 


could be ingested. And at least looking at the 


2002 Till report and going through that is that 


they -- you know, they came up with their own 


dose reconstruction model called the Hanford 

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calculator, which does estimate doses or 


provides a basis for estimating doses for both 


inhalation, ingestion and for skin exposures to 


these particles. So I'm not sure -- and I 


notice that in the response that the NIOSH/ORAU 


also notes that -- that the -- the method has 


been -- that Till's method has been added to 


appropriately account for T and B plant 


exposures. 


It's not clear to me, I guess, in this approach 


how ratchet, for example, is being connected to 


a receptor on-site and whether ratchet is 


applicable to particles that are greater than 


0.5 microns that were released episodically, as 


John describes. Now these are issues which 


Till, et al address in their 2002 report. 


However, the TBD basically discounts the -- the 


Till approach as being I guess overly 


conservative and biased towards large doses, 


and then proceeds to inform the reader that to 


use the ratchet code instead of a dispersion 


model, but it's not clear to me, as I said 


before, how the ratchet -- the ratchet is just 


a dispersion model. How does it connect to a 


receptor and, at least in my conversation I had 

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with Bruce Napier* about this, the ratchet code 


is not really applicable to these larger 


particles above 0.5 microns. So these are open 


questions. 

 DR. MELIUS: Chuck or -- something we want to 

leave... 

 MR. NELSON: Yeah, I believe that's one of 

those we need to save for that next working 


group. 


TANK FARM AND WASTE MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, that's fine. Thanks. Tank 


farm and waste management operations. 


DR. MAURO: I have to admit that I'm not quite 


sure who took the lead on this one. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I'll discuss it a little bit. 


The -- our -- our reply to -- to the review of 


the site profile took issue with the limited 


number of radionuclides that Carball*, et al 


had sort of suggested should be used for dose 


reconstruction purposes at tank farms. And 


that's because these wastes were being 


generated in large volumes, that their 


radionuclide mix was highly dynamic in the 


beginning stages and there is a rather well-


documented history of environmental releases on 

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site, particularly in the 200 areas, involving 


these tank farms, both in terms of transfer 


lines that failed or leaked and bumps and 


turnovers and steam explosions and things like 


that that resulted in environmental 


contamination. We felt that there needs to be 


a more comprehensive look at this particular 


source of potential exposure. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, who was 


speaking? Was that Mr. Nelson? 


 DR. MELIUS: That was Bob Alvarez. 


THE COURT REPORTER: That was Alvarez, okay. 


Thank you. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: And in our -- in our review we do 


provide the current sort of inventory data that 


is in the tank farms and, you know, because 


wastes have been moving around, largely to 


stabilize tanks and prepare for the waste 


treatment plant, there are exposures going on 


to workers. 


 DR. MELIUS: Chuck? 


 MR. NELSON: Okay, Liz Brackett, can you 


comment on that, please? 


MS. BRACKETT: Well, there is a document -- I 


don't know if this would address it completely, 

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but as the response notes, we do have a 


document in development to address mixtures of 


radionuclides where either a growth type of 


measurement is done or there's some indicator 


nuclide that the rest of them aren't measured, 


and so this OTIB will give a matrix of 


additional radionuclides based on a -- 


basically a tracer nuclide that would be added 


in to account for the things that were not 


necessarily monitored. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What's the status of that, Liz? 


This is Ziemer. 


MS. BRACKETT: It's in internal review. We're 


-- we're kind of in the final stages of it. 


We're working on it this morning, passing 


comments back and forth, but it -- it's pretty 


close to being ready to go to OCAS for review. 


 DR. MELIUS: So -- so I think that's something 


we could put on our --


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- This -- maybe not the next 


workgroup meeting, but at some point we can -- 


when that's ready we can better address this 


comment. 


 DR. POSTON: Dr. Melius? 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


 DR. POSTON: This is John Poston. I'm sorry 


I'm going to have to withdraw from the 


conversation. I have another commitment. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I understand. 

 DR. POSTON: It's the last week of the 

semester. 

 DR. MELIUS: I understand. 

 DR. POSTON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. MELIUS: We'll see you in Chicago. 

 DR. POSTON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, it sounds like that document 

will be available fairly soon, though. Right, 


Liz? 


 DR. MELIUS: I think -- again, I think with all 


these documents, Chuck or somebody can take 


responsibility for just letting us know when 


they are approved and can be ready for 


discussion. 


 MR. NELSON: I will do that. 


DECONTAMINATION AND DECOMMISSIONING


 DR. MELIUS: Appreciate that. I think we're --


decontamination and decommissioning? 


DR. MAURO: I think Joe Fitzgerald was point 


man on that, but I -- I can certainly -- this 

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is John Mauro. I could certainly kick it off 


and anyone else at SC&A would like to, you 


know, embellish on it a bit. This goes to a 


comment that's very much like the D&D issue 


that we're talking about on Rocky, namely that 


subject area is typically not fully engaged in 


many of the site profiles that we review, and 


it's also the case for -- for Hanford. And --


and by the response to comment number ten in 


the matrix, it -- you know, it basically 


appears that NIOSH's position is that, you 


know, there is a comprehensive monitoring 


program and that -- that there will be I guess 


a revision to the TBD that will go into some 


detail on how dose reconstructions for D&D 


workers will be performed. And I guess that, 


as in the case of Rocky Flats, that protocol, 


the data upon which those dose reconstructions 


were performed, is something that is going to 


be assembled and be available for review at 


some time in the future. 


 MR. NELSON: This is Chuck Nelson. That is 


correct. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: John, I have a couple of 

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questions for the NIOSH team. You said that 


you talked to individuals and determined that 


they were doing DAC hour tracking in your 


response, and that this could be used to 


supplement bioassay data. And my question is, 


who was it that you interviewed? 


 MR. NELSON: This is Chuck Nelson. Don Biehl* 


I think was the individual involved with that. 


He's also not on this conference call. Now Liz 


may be able to elaborate on that, I'm not sure 


of that, though --


MS. BRACKETT: No, I don't know --


 MR. NELSON: -- (unintelligible) specific 


person. 


MS. BRACKETT: -- I don't know who he would 


have talked to. I can check into that, but I 


don't have that information right now. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Have you looked 


at how lapel monitoring was implemented for the 


different contractors across the Hanford site? 


MS. BRACKETT: Again, I'd have to go back and 


check with Don Biehl on that to get the 


details. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. We can send you a 


couple of questions. 

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MS. BRACKETT: Okay, that would be great. 


 DR. MELIUS: Any other comments or questions on 

that? 

 (No responses) 

Again, I think it's something we -- we need 


more information, maybe we discuss it -- next 


workgroup meeting as a way of sort of figuring 


out what our status is and -- just to get an 


up-- update on it. 


INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS
 

Item number eight is incidents and accidents. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, this is John Mauro. I guess, 


again, I'll kick it off. I may want to impose 


upon Hans to help out a bit here. In general, 


site profiles -- including Hanford -- does not 


provide any guidance or information related to 


incidents. And the strategy that -- very often 


the records, information regarding incidents 


are in different databases. And in general, as 


I understand it, when a dose reconstruction is 


performed part of the work-- worker's -- 


worker's record includes any incident reports 


that apply to him. And as a result, the --


there really -- I guess the position, as I 


understand it, that NIOSH takes on this is that 

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really there's no real need to include 


information related to incidents in the site 


profile because there's another vehicle used in 


order to reconstruct doses to workers who may 


have been involved in incidents, and that 


information is revealed as part of the data 


capture from DOE on a case-by-case basis. And 


of course there's a CATI report where the 


worker may reveal it, so I guess on that basis 


-- and please, Hans, you help me out if I'm 


leaping to a conclusion too quickly -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah --


DR. MAURO: Go ahead. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- okay. 


DR. MAURO: Go ahead. 


 DR. BEHLING: I -- I think I -- I'll talk from 


my experience with the dose reconstruction 


reports. It's clear that NIOSH does make a 


request to DOE at the time of records request 


that includes not only external exposures, 


bioassay data, but also radiological incidence 


data. And so every claim has that request 


associated with it, and so oftentimes you will 


in fact see DOE records that talk about the 


radiological incidents such as a skin 

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contamination where the records clearly reveal 


the amount of activity that was deposited or 


contaminated a particular individual's hands or 


wherever. And then there are other incidents 


where the response from DOE says no records 


found, and yet the CATI report does in fact 


make specific reference to specific 


radiological incidents. And oftentimes -- and 


again, it's dependent on whether or not a claim 


is a best estimate versus a maximized dose -- 


the failure to resolve the issue between a 


claim made in a CATI report versus the absence 


of information in -- from -- received from the 


DOE is dismissed as well, if there was such an 


incidence, which we don't have any records of, 


we took care of it by virtue of maximizing the 


dose, by giving generous dose assignments 


involving internal exposure using hypothetical 


12 or 28 radionuclide or any of those other 


issues, and therefore they dismiss it. On the 


other hand, if the issue is one of a dose 


reconstruction that involves a best estimate, 


I'm not sure if there's always an effort made 


to identify whether or not a radiological 


incidence as claimed by the claimant himself in 

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the CATI report, for which there is no record, 


is properly resolved. I think that's really 


the issue that needs to be looked at. 


DR. MAURO: I'd like to add also that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that -- that's a generic issue, 


is it not, for all sites? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, yes, it is. 


 DR. MELIUS: I mean actually I think it's a one 


-- 'nother one of these sort of systemic 


issues. I mean I -- it's -- it's -- it's sort 


of -- and we've talked about it in Advisory 


Board meetings and I know I've -- you know, 


I've asked many questions for Jim and -- Neton 


and -- and Larry about it, it -- I think sort 


of the -- the question is there are lists of 


incidents and that -- there's different 


information available on different sites and 


different time periods and so forth, so it's 


very site-specific. But sort -- sort of the 


question how do we make sure that -- that 


there's some sort of cross-referencing of -- of 


this information that -- in a way that, again, 


where you have a -- a widow of a -- of a, you 


know, a former worker and -- and they may not 


be obviously very familiar with their spouse's, 

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you know, work history, you know, how does that 


information become available. I -- I guess -- 


I think -- I think we became convinced that 


site profile wasn't necessarily the right place 


for it, but it's still an issue of -- of how do 


we make sure it gets addressed in individual 


site -- in individual dose reconstruction. And 


then -- then it does become an issue of well, 


we have some sort of general correction factors 


probably should take that into account and it ­

- no easy answer to it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And there are some approaches that 


are used, or can be used, for certain kinds of 


affidavit approaches, for example. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If -- if groups of workers can 


establish that something occurred. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I need to --


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I'd like 


to speak to -- to Jim's point a moment ago -- 


Dr. Melius's point. I think -- you know, 


certainly we've heard this and we've thought 


long and hard among ourselves here at NIOSH on 


-- on what we can do better in this regard. 


think one of the things that we might take up 


I 
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here is that we could modify the site profile 


to say that if a best estimate dose 


reconstruction is being done that incident data 


needs to be fully considered; that even in fact 


maybe we need to put in a section that talks 


about the type of incidents that we are aware 


of that should be factored into a best 


estimate. Something of that nature I think is 


certainly something we all should think through 


and perhaps utilize. But I'm interested in 


hearing thoughts and recommendations on what we 


can do in addition to that. 


 DR. BEHLING: Let me just make a comment to 


what you just said, Larry -- this is Hans. I 


think one of the ones that we have seen on 


occasion involves, for instance, a claimant 


who's not the worker himself. And that may 


involve, for instance, a statement by a -- by a 


wife or -- or a member of the family saying 


that the worker would come home and he would be 


asked -- or he would ask his wife to wash his 


clothing because it was contaminated, and -- 


and there are no incidence reports to that 


effect that would support the notion that skin 


contamination, clothing contamination were in 

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fact an issue that is on record. And yet the 


dose reconstructor is sort of at odds how -- as 


to how to deal with that. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I -- thank you, Hans. I 


certainly hear that. I -- I understand the 


predicament that -- that presents there. You 


know, I would -- I would offer that we -- you 


know, we ought to be doing a good job in 


identifying those situations and maybe we're 


not doing such a good job in providing 


direction on how we handle those and -- and so 


that's the kind of interest I have in hearing 


your comments and your thoughts and -- and 


giving full consideration to the 


recommendations that's coming forward out of 


this discussion.. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy DeMers. 


There is a little bit of a twist to this, also. 


And that's the question of whether the sites 


have done the research to know all of the 


incident databases, all the incidents that are 


out there, and whether they're providing it. 


The case in point where they are not is Los 


Alamos National Lab. And we are not aware of 


any efforts by NIOSH to go back and do sort of 

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a quality assurance check of what they're 


getting from the sites, and we have some 


concerns over the quality assurance area. 


 DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. Let me lay 


out what I think are sort of two options I -- 


'cause -- 'cause we haven't discussed this in a 


while on the Ad-- Advisory Board and I know 


Larry and staff have made some efforts in this 


way. But I think one is we could sort of -- 


and discuss it again as a generic issue, but it 


may be also something to consider -- or work 


for everybody is -- is look at it on a -- on a 


Han-- on a Hanford, you know, site-specific 


issue. You know, maybe it's not in the site 


profile, but -- but, you know, look at where 


else this is addressed and -- and how 


comprehensive that -- and appropriate, you 


know, that information is for use at this site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I think it 


certainly has to be addressed on a -- on a 


system-wide basis, certainly not -- I mean we 


certainly don't want to overlook Hanford, but 


it's a bigger question than Hanford. And also 


recognize that if you go back quite a ways in ­

- in the history of the Labs, there -- there 

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was a period of time where contamination 


incidents were fairly routine, but they -- they 


would not have been labeled as an incident in 


the way that they are in more recent years 


where you're -- you're tending to indicate any 


situation -- I mean when I worked at Oak Ridge 


I can tell you it was fairly common for workers 


to have contaminated shoes and so on that they 


would have to leave at the Lab, or to have 


contaminated skin and they'd do scrub-downs, 


and -- and nobody labeled that -- I mean you 


might have logged it in on your health physics 


logbook, but it wasn't something that would be 


labeled as an incident that would appear on any 


laboratory database. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, Dr. Melius, this is Brad. 


I guess one of the concerns that I'm kind of 


getting into is looking at some of these TDBs 


(sic) that when we have an accident like this, 


they -- I've read several of them, they say 


there was no contamination to the outside area 


so this wasn't an issue. But I know in my case 


and in my facilities it doesn't take into 


account that for three and a half months the 


whole facility was a respirator facility; six 

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and a half months later you were in zone one 


clothing to be able to even go into these 


areas. And I -- I think that this is complex-


wide and I think that these are one of the ones 


we really need to look in depth with and I -- I 


understand with NIOSH this is -- you know, this 


is a -- this is a tough issue, but I think this 


is one that we really need to look in depth to 


because there's a lot of instances that may not 


have hit the record books but it would have 


affected a lot of people, too. 


 DR. MELIUS: I just think -- this is Jim -- is 


that my only concern is that if you -- we look 


at it sort of system-wide and it, you know, is 


sort of systemic type of issue, is that then we 


miss the -- it -- it's hard to do sometimes and 


-- 'cause really what we want is -- is how does 


it work at a specific site. We might be able 


to better touch that looking at a specific site 


or something, but maybe a compromise way to 


approach it is let's first address -- address 


it as an Advisory Board issue. You know, 


Larry, you and your staff could sort of update 


us on -- on where you are with your -- your 


efforts in a general way. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: And we could think about, you 


know, how -- how would you approach the issue. 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- and -- yeah, and then let's 


-- then let's talk about -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then you can talk about specifics. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: Exactly, that's what I was 

thinking, rather than try to do it -- start 


specifically. Let's start with a general -- 


does that make sense to you, Larry? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I appreciate that. That 


does make sense and I know the staff around the 


phone are already writing notes on this. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, 'cause --


 DR. ZIEMER: They -- they're looking for work 


to do, I know. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I think Dr. Ziemer is -- is on 


the mark there because the one database where 


they have rolled up (unintelligible) incidents, 


which I'm hoping that NIOSH (unintelligible) 


the so-called waste management fault tree data 


bank, and the iteration that we reviewed in the 


1980s clearly showed that the frequency of 

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reporting was substantially greater as the 


years went on, especially from the 1960s 


onward, and that things that were not 


considered important in the '50s and '60s were 


considered important and reportable later. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and I think even as you move 


to the later '80s there was a -- a threshold of 


what was called -- was labeled a, quote, 


incident certainly moved way down. 


 DR. ULSH: This is Brant Ulsh. Bob, could you 


say the name of that databank that you just 


mentioned that --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Certainly -- well, it used to be 


called the 200 Area Fault Tree Databank and now 


it's called the 200 Area Waste Management Fault 


Tree Databank at Savannah River. It's just a 


very unique set of data because, you know, 


DuPont, which was there until 1989, was the 


sole contractor and maintained a fairly 


consistent and uniform record-keeping system. 


And what it is is essentially a base derived 


from -- I've sent NIOSH a description of the 


data and what data -- what sets of -- what 


other reports it was derived from, but it's a 


chronological listing essentially of various 

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incidents -- you know, radiological, 


engineering, et cetera -- that happened in the 


-- the tank farms, the F and H canyons and the 


200 -- 232-H separations facility. And it's 


got tens of thousands of entries. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And information might -- like that 


might be useful also in helping people think 


about how to go about this whole issue. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that's a good point. 


 MR. FIX: This is Jack Fix speaking. I just 


wanted to make a point. I think this will 


always be a confusing issue because I've also 


looked at that database from Savannah River 


Site and I would just make the point that I 


think clarity will not be achieved until you 


start looking at the individual claims and 


looking at the circumstances of exposure to the 


workers in the individual claims, just so it's 


not -- for example, at Hanford if anybody that 


has a potential to be significantly 


radiologically exposed and has no monitoring 


records, you know, that would be a substantial 


issue unto itself. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. FIX: And that's true of many of these 

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sites, and I think that when you get to the 


level of detail of the individual claims -- and 


I know it's very difficult to do, it takes a 


lot of energy to get down to that level -- 


that's where I think -- I think we'll find 


clarity to some of these issues because at a 


site level or at a national level it's very 


confusing 'cause there's lots of possibilities. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And this is why it is so 


important to make sure that what NIOSH has 


provided from the site is complete with respect 


to incidents. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Jack, have you just reviewed 


these data recently, 'cause when we last had 


the conference call --


 MR. FIX: Yes, I did --


UNIDENTIFIED: -- on Savannah River -- 


 MR. FIX: -- yeah, 'cause you -- we -- we 


received the structure -- I received the 


structure, you know, it's about a -- I don't 


know, I don't remember, it's 150 pages or 


something. 


UNIDENTIFIED: It's a 1995 report? 


 MR. FIX: Yeah. 

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 UNIDENTIFIED: That's what I sent you guys. 


 MR. FIX: Yeah, I have that. And you know, 


there's no radiation -- there's very few 


radiation -- I didn't find any radiation 


(unintelligible) even in that structure -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, there are quite a few. I 


think you need to look at that more carefully. 


 MR. FIX: Well, I'll go back and look at it 


again. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, absolutely. They've got 


the radiological incidence reporting in there, 


and the health physics reporting in there. 


 MR. FIX: Well, maybe --


UNIDENTIFIED: I mean I'm happy to resend it to 


you if you --


 MR. FIX: No, I have it. I've got it. I got 


it twice, and I went through it and -- I went 


through it when we talked about it. But I 


guess the important point is that the -- if 


there's any radiological exposure that's 


significant to the worker, the evidence is that 


that's already included in the dose of record. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, Jack, I -- I think I hear -- 


we have an interesting -- in other words, there 


are really two different strategies to deal 

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with this problem and I guess it needs to be 


explored. One is I call the top down and the 


other is a bottom up. Jack, what you're saying 


is really to -- to try -- to come at this from 


the top down is not going to work. 


 MR. FIX: I don't think it will. 


DR. MAURO: You've got to work from the worker, 


look at his records and do your homework on 


that case to make sure you didn't miss any 


incidents. 


 MR. FIX: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: But at the same -- you know, but -- 


and what we hear from Hans, though, we find out 


that well, that's not so easy to do, to make 


sure you didn't miss anything important. 


Now coming from the top down if you start to 


access, as Larry indicated that yes, there are 


all these resources available to us such as the 


database, then it becomes a matter of how do 


you marry the two. So I'm -- I think that this 


is a -- an interesting challenge and two 


different ways of coming at it. Maybe a 


combination of both is the way you come at this 


problem. 


 MR. FIX: Yeah, I think something -- 'cause the 

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thing that I find frustrating -- I just pulled 


this document of keywords up on this Savannah 


River Site document. And you know, it's 


unfortunate to have these type of issues come 


up in front of the Advisory Board because it's 


obviously very simple to determine is there 


data of interest to us in this document or not, 


and it probably should be somehow worked before 


it ever gets to the level of the -- of an 


Advisory Board working group because all we're 


talking about is is there something of value in 


a document or not, and I -- I have it here in 


front of me right now and we've looked at it 


because, you know, we want to follow through on 


these action items and, quite frankly, I -- I 


mean maybe there's some way of working these 


issues. I see tritium here, but there's -- you 


know, like neutron or something 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Jack, did you look at the -- the 


-- the dataset -- the various reports upon 


which this databank is based as opposed to 


doing just a --an Adobe PDF word search? 


Because what's important about that description 


of that database is the source documents from 

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which it comes from. And if you were -- and I 


actually provided a listing of those in our 


comments on Savannah River which clearly 


indicated a significant number of health 


physics radiological incidence reports. 


 MR. FIX: Uh-huh, well, you know what I think 


would be attractive for the Advis-- for the 


working group and the Advisory is that we 


should find some mechanism to work these 


issues, and I know that that's what you're 


doing, so that it's not a issue -- you know, 


whether the information exists or doesn't exist 


is not a -- if we don't try to resolve it 


during these teleconferences, we can work -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. FIX: -- (unintelligible) together to 


resolve --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- yeah, let me -- now, Jack, this 


is Ziemer. Let me respond to that just a 


moment, and you don't need to feel guilty about 


that. I think one of the things that's become 


clear over the last few years is that a lot of 


-- lot of times these issues actually emerge in 


the process of our working some other issues, 


and you know, there's a vast forest of 

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information out there and I -- I don't -- I 


don't think we necessarily expect that 


everybody's thought of every possible tree in 


the forest along the way in advance. And as 


these issues emerge, I think it's great and you 


can go back and work them. But don't feel bad 


that they, you know, kind of surface during 


these kinds of conversations. That's partially 


why we want to be working on it, so we can 


surface issues that perhaps, in the synergy of 


working on this, things we might not have 


thought of even. 


 DR. MELIUS: If -- if I understand -- 'cause 


we've run through the agenda. If I understood 


where everything was correctly, I think for our 


next -- let me see what I see as sort of 


(unintelligible). You know, the Advisory Board 


is meeting in a coup-- less than a couple of 


weeks now, about ten days and -- or so in 


lovely Chicago area. We'll have a chance there 


to just talk among ourselves, but what we will 


-- we would be doing -- scheduling another 


workgroup meeting, which I think would probably 


be a -- you know, I suspect a full day meeting, 


something on that order, to these issues. That 

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would -- and I think it would be an in-person 


meeting as opposed to a conference call. And I 


think that the main issue that will need to be 


discussed is the neutron issues would be the 


one that appears to be, you know, sort of ready 


and people have -- you know, there's some 


significant comments and I think -- think we'd 


all benefit from spending a fair amount of time 


on that issue. 


I think there are some other issues that we may 


need to get sort of updated on at that meeting, 


the -- not sure I'm doing these in order, but 


certainly the environmental dose issue and some 


of the tank farm decontamination, those issues 


where, you know, people weren't able to be here 


and -- and we just -- at least leave -- need 


time to be updated on. 


And then there are a number of -- some of the 


other issues you're awaiting some -- you know, 


the approval or completion of some up -- 


technical documents and I think we'll just have 


to see how long that takes. But I suspect that 


we could spend a fair amount of time on the 


neutron issue, from the nature of the 


discussion that went on, and I think its 

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importance at Hanford. Is that a fair summary? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sounds good. 


 DR. WADE: Sounds good. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Just -- just one final thing with 


respect to this document that Jack was 


referring to, I -- Jack, I would refer you to 


Table 3, page 16, which lists the datasets and 


perhaps you may find this to be useful. 


Anyway, that's all I have to say. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would certainly like to thank 


everybody from NIOSH, ORAU, SC&A and everybody 


for spending the time and your participation 


and everyone's patience with going -- going 


through these issues and willingness to share 


information. I think it's been -- been helpful 


and hopefully it's -- will help us in doing 


this going forward. 


But I think, just back to the issue of the next 


meeting, I think we -- I was hoping maybe at 


the -- obviously at our Advisory Board meeting 


we'll work on -- on the scheduling, but I 


suspect it would be sometime in January that we 


would try to pull the workgroup together. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. We have time on the agenda to 


talk about scheduling of workgroup meetings, so 

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that would be the appropriate time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. 


 DR. MELIUS: And Lew, thank you. I -- you had 


disappeared for so long that -- 


 DR. WADE: Well, I was listening intently. 


 DR. MELIUS: I know. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you -- thank you, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: And thank everybody. And again, 


for those steelworkers and the other people, if 


I -- we will certainly let everybody know about 


the next meeting and notify people ahead of 


time -- of this and whatever documenta-- new 


documentation there is, we will get out to 


everybody ahead of time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. 


 DR. WADE: You all be safe in the weather. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 3:30 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

105 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of December 1, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


31st day of January, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102