This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Pantex Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

certified by the Chair of the Pantex Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader should be 

cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

1

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON PANTEX

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened in the 

Toronto Room, Cincinnati Airport Marriot, 2395 

Progress Drive, Hebron, Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., 

Eastern Daylight Time, Bradley P. Clawson, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Chairman

JOSIE BEACH, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member*
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Pantex Work Group, has 

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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A*

MARK FISHBURN, ORAU*

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

DEKEELY HARTSFIELD, HHS*

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

JIM NETON, DCAS

MARK ROLFES, DCAS

MATTHEW SMITH, ORAU*

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

TIM TAULBEE, DCAS*

DALE THOMAS, ORAU*

* present via telephone
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Pantex Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

certified by the Chair of the Pantex Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader should be 

cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome and roll-call/Introductions 4

Status of Site Profile Issues 5

Remaining Site Profile Issues

Issue 6 (Interpretation of

External Dosimetry Data) 7

Issue 7 (Neutron-to-Photon Ratios) 39

 

Issue 8 (Completeness and

Interpretation of Historic

Radiological Exposure Sources) 52

Issue 9 (Incidents) 57

Issue 10 (Firing Sites) 63

Issue 13 (Too Few Workers for

Valid DR) 70

Issue 15 ((Exposure From Tritium) 75

Issue 16 (Badge Placement) 89

Summary of Action Items and Path Forward 101

Adjourn 110
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (9:00 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, everyone. 

4 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, 

5 Pantex Work Group and we are ready to go.

6 Let's get started. We have about 

7 14 people on the phone or another just joined, 

8 15, so, hopefully, we have everyone we need. 

9 Let's start with roll call. We're 

10 speaking about a specific site, so please, 

11 everybody, address conflict of interest as well 

12 as you respond to roll call.

13 So, Board Members first in the room?

14 (Roll Call.)

15 MR. KATZ: The materials that are 

16 available for this meeting, the agenda, I'm not 

17 sure actually what other materials we have, are 

18 posted on the NIOSH website, the Board Meeting, 

19 today's date, so you can follow along with the 

20 agenda there. 

21 And, Brad, it's your meeting.
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1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: All right. I'd 

2 like to thank everybody for coming. As you 

3 know, our last meeting was quite a while ago. 

4 I think it was in June last year.

5 But, we've just got a few items to 

6 be able to clean up and they're mainly all Site 

7 Profile issues.

8 With that, I'll turn the time over 

9 to Joe and let him start out.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, Joe 

11 Fitzgerald.

12 Just to recap a little bit, we did 

13 have the last Work Group meeting on June 18, 

14 2013 and following some discussions on 

15 remaining SEC issues, we did have, I think, a 

16 fair amount of time to begin looking at the 

17 remaining Site Profile issues and were able in 

18 the Work Group to actually disposition a fair 

19 number of them.

20 And I think all that is in an updated 

21 matrix that we circulated. I think it was 
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1 issued October 8, 2013, which I think is also 

2 online. And that provides pretty much the most 

3 recent update on that discussion and pretty 

4 much what was left from that discussion.

5 And, generally, there were a number 

6 of clarifications and further discussions that 

7 were warranted, some by I think the Work Group 

8 and I think it was some issues that both SC&A 

9 and NIOSH were going to follow up on. 

10 So, that's kind of where it was 

11 left. I think there's a half dozen, maybe a bit 

12 more, issues that need to be clarified or 

13 dispositioned on that matrix and that will 

14 pretty much be it for now.

15 We did send out last month, just 

16 because it's been about a year, a bit of a 

17 clarification on some of those issues just to 

18 refresh everybody's memory on some of the ones 

19 that I think had a little bit more substance in 

20 terms of inquiry to and so that's where we are 

21 right now.
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1 So, we're going to be working off 

2 the October 2013 matrix and pretty much the last 

3 status update which really is the -- it says 

4 10/8/13 pretty much is our synopsis of where 

5 things are at this point and then we're going 

6 to pick up from there.

7 And the first five issues were 

8 pretty much closed out in that discussion last 

9 year, so I'm not necessarily, unless Brad wants 

10 to, we can recap each of those issues or just 

11 go right to the open ones.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Let's just go to 

13 the open ones.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Issue 6, 

15 I'm just going to go ahead and just read the 

16 status since that's pretty much the summary of 

17 where things stand.

18 But Issue 6 was a question of data 

19 adequacy and completeness for external 

20 dosimetry and it was a report that was issued 

21 in 2011 that we had developed and from which 
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been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

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1 NIOSH had responded, I think it was August of 

2 2011.

3 It dealt with a number of issues 

4 that on internal and external dosimetry at 

5 Pantex and a number of these questions revolved 

6 around the completeness of the data that backed 

7 up the dose reconstruction methods that were 

8 identified and a number of the items dealt with 

9 whether the accuracy of the estimates were 

10 sufficient and whether the adjustment factors 

11 in the assumptions made were, in our view, 

12 sound.

13 And we've actually worked through 

14 that document in some detail over the last 

15 couple two or three years and on this Item 6, 

16 what we have is a remaining issue that deals 

17 with the question of how and what interprets 

18 what would be a blank entry in the original dose 

19 record and how that would be interpreted in 

20 terms of the value used in dose reconstruction 

21 whether that blank would be interpreted as a 
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1 zero or an unmonitored dose.

2 And there was certainly a lot of 

3 discussion in the data accuracy report as well 

4 as the response from NIOSH on how that would be 

5 done using the original records from pre-1976. 

6 Certainly, there were paper records that could 

7 be referenced and one could actually see what 

8 was recorded by the individual recording the 

9 dose and whether that was a blank, whether it 

10 was the zero. So, there certainly was some way 

11 to substantiate that and make that 

12 determination.

13 Post-'76, our question, and this is 

14 where the clarification comes in, is to how that 

15 would be done, how one would interpret if you 

16 have a zero entry whether it might have been

17 likewise a blank or an actual zero. The 

18 implication being, in one case, that would be, 

19 you know, given a -- treat it as an actual zero, 

20 no dose received, but monitoring was done.

21 In the other case, if it was a blank 
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1 then possibly it was a case where the individual 

2 was unmonitored and assigning a zero would be, 

3 perhaps, giving less dose than one would get if 

4 it was part of a coworker assignment.

5 So, it was a clarification that we 

6 had remaining on that dialogue that we had many 

7 moons ago, it seems, that we felt was a bit of 

8 a loose end that we'd like to get some 

9 clarification on. And that's pretty much it, 

10 which is saying a lot because it's a fairly 

11 detailed assessment in 2011, so if we're down 

12 to that, that makes me feel a little more 

13 positive that, you know, we're getting down to 

14 the end.

15 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes. 

16 And I spoke with the dosimetry technical person 

17 probably a couple of weeks back down at Pantex 

18 and just to check on this issue.

19 He did say that if an individual had 

20 a zero entered into the DoRMS database, which 

21 is basically a compilation of all their 
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1 external dosimetry data and tritium bioassay 

2 results.

3 He said that if there's a zero 

4 entered, it indicates that the individual was 

5 monitored and that they didn't receive any dose 

6 greater than the limit of detection for the 

7 badge. So, we would treat a zero recorded in 

8 an individual's dosimetry records as being 

9 monitored and then assign a missed dose based 

10 upon LOD over two times the number of zeros for 

11 the number of dosimetry exchange cycles.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, is there any 

13 way to -- I mean in know pre-'76 you can validate 

14 by looking at the actual original record but, 

15 post-'76, my understanding is that's not 

16 feasible because those records aren't 

17 maintained.

18 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I believe it was 

19 all done electronically because of the 

20 dosimetry system switchover to TLDs.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Any way to 
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1 validate just at that point?

2 MR. ROLFES: Not that I'm aware of 

3 other than I mean we've got the electronic 

4 records and that's what we're using.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Pretty much it. 

6 And then that also, that assertion that that's 

7 how it was treated. The only reason I'm 

8 raising that is just pre-'76 looking at this and 

9 how the issue arose looking at the original 

10 handwritten records, it was clear that you had 

11 sort of both cases show up. You had blanks and 

12 you had zeros and in trying to differentiate 

13 that wasn't -- having the paper records was 

14 possible to differentiate but after '76, it 

15 wouldn't be.

16 MR. ROLFES: There could be, well, 

17 I know that they were able to calculate the 

18 doses for us using a different algorithm, using 

19 the Stanford algorithm for the more recent era.

20 Sort of a separate issue, but they 

21 do have information, the readouts from the 
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1 chips, so I mean there's another piece of 

2 information that could be plugged into a 

3 different algorithm to, you know, see that 

4 information's telling this to this, the 

5 interest.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, because why 

7 I'm cautious, I'm not sure the individual even 

8 knows back in the mid-'70s, you know, what the 

9 actual practice might have been and you have 

10 that certain comfort zone because before that, 

11 you had the actual handwritten records, but 

12 after that, you don't, so you wouldn't be able 

13 to validate that.

14 So, I'll just leave that for the 

15 Work Group. That was the source of that 

16 concern and I'm not sure what you want to do with 

17 that. It's just that certainly, you had blanks 

18 and you had dashes, you had actual zeros. You 

19 had a variety of things which is not unusual, 

20 it's just that it may be difficult to know what 

21 would be appropriate to assign.
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1 You can make an assumption, I think, 

2 in this case that if they had a zero, if 

3 everybody was a monitored worker, but because 

4 of Pantex's history, we're not as comfortable 

5 with that, particularly in the earlier days in 

6 the '70s.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, and I 

8 understand that and that's one of the things 

9 that I'm wondering how is NIOSH going to look 

10 at this because, you know, where this is a Site 

11 Profile issue -- this is Brad speaking -- how 

12 are we going to do the zeros? And I guess, 

13 Mark, I just -- are we going to look at it?

14 Because in the earlier years, you 

15 know, there was hit and miss with who was going 

16 to be monitored, who wasn't and, you know, we 

17 found paperwork over the time even down there 

18 that they had badges but the people weren't 

19 wearing them and they were all rad workers.

20 So, I'm just wondering how we're 

21 going to -- how you guys look at it and how it's 
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1 going to be handled.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: The question is how 

3 to deal with a blank.

4 DR. NETON: Yes, I was going to say, 

5 not wearing badges is a totally different 

6 issue.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, but how

8 does it show up?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I guess --

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: If you're 

11 saying a zero and that's meaning that you're a 

12 rad worker, okay. But, if you have a blank 

13 there, you can still --

14 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, the 

15 question is the blank. There are two possible 

16 interpretations, either the person wasn't 

17 monitored or the person was monitored and the 

18 result was less than MDA.

19 So, those were the two possible 

20 interpretations. And it would seem that 

21 there's probably a pattern in a person's record 
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1 of when a blank appears. If it appears by 

2 itself and there are readings on both exchanges 

3 on either side, I think there's a reasonable 

4 conclusion you can reach that that person was 

5 probably monitored that month and there's no --

6 and it didn't get in there.

7 But if the person is monitored and 

8 it stops and then there are blanks for the 

9 remainder of the year, for instance, on a 

10 monthly exchange, I think there's a reasonable 

11 conclusion that he was removed from the 

12 monitoring program.

13 I mean --

14 MEMBER BEACH: I guess I wonder if 

15 you're going to read the zeros, the blanks and 

16 the dashes all the same?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the zeros are 

18 definitely a red --

19 MEMBER BEACH: Someone put in --

20 MR. HINNEFELD: -- badge left to 

21 tackle. That's how we intend to intend to 
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1 interpret it.

2 MEMBER BEACH: That seems fair.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. The blanks 

4 and the dashes are what I just described. I 

5 think there's probably -- Mark, am I off base?

6 MR. ROLFES: I was going to say, the 

7 dashes I only recall seeing in the earlier time 

8 period during the handwritten records. If you 

9 look, there's like an annual summary sheet with 

10 four quarters and I recall seeing dashes.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it would be 

12 odd to have a database with a dash.

13 MR. ROLFES: Right.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: So, it's probably 

15 either a zero or empty if you're getting the 

16 result off the database.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and where 

18 this came from is we did -- this is really going 

19 back, so bear with me -- we did a sampling of 

20 24 workers and picked three of them to look at 

21 the question of they were, you know, just for 
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1 validating the handwritten records versus the 

2 electronic. And that's where we found that we 

3 were picking up these dashes that were being 

4 interpreted as zeros, for example, and this was 

5 pre-'76.

6 And there wasn't any rhyme or reason 

7 but all three that we picked out had the dashes 

8 in it and in some cases, they were carried over 

9 as zeros.

10 It wasn't a systemic thing where all 

11 the dashes became zeros, some of them became 

12 zeros. So, it was pretty clear there wasn't a 

13 real system in place where they interpreted the 

14 dashes one way or the other, it just seemed 

15 like, you know, whoever was doing the reporting 

16 would make some judgment call.

17 There was definitely at least one 

18 worker who was a rad worker who had a dash and 

19 it was interpreted as a zero and that's what 

20 kind of raised this concern that, well, that's 

21 kind of hard to believe and we were wondering, 
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1 you know, whether or not the monitoring was done 

2 or not.

3 And, you're right, I mean you had 

4 two options, either monitoring wasn't done or 

5 it was truly a zero and it was just checked off 

6 that way.

7 DR. NETON: Absent any definitive 

8 way to determine that, I don't know if -- we 

9 would either assign missed dose or a coworker 

10 would. I don't know why, maybe we wouldn't 

11 just do it both ways. We couldn't actually 

12 determine to any degree of certainty which it 

13 was and pick the higher dose and assign it.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't know of any 

15 particular reason why not to do that.

16 DR. NETON: I mean it would have to 

17 be pretty certain and we would have no idea 

18 which it was and, you know, stick with the one 

19 that produces the higher dose for that time 

20 period.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: The only other 
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1 thing that might shed some light on the issue, 

2 I recall in the late '80s, the Delphi Group came 

3 down to Pantex because of problems with the 

4 dosimetry records from the earlier years and 

5 not getting all the dosimetry records in one 

6 consolidated location.

7 This might be something that they 

8 looked into, I don't know, we could ask about 

9 it. But, I know that they went through all the 

10 individuals' historic radiation exposure 

11 records and tried to consolidate them and take 

12 care of any discrepancies in the records and 

13 such.

14 So, it could be that they might have 

15 looked into the issue of, you know, a zero 

16 versus a dash or, you know, gaps in the 

17 monitoring data. But we'd have to check on 

18 that.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't sense 

20 there's any disagreement on sort of the issue, 

21 but, you know, how one can best approach that, 
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been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

certified by the Chair of the Pantex Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader should be 

cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

21

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1 there might be several different ways that 

2 would be easy. I, you know, I think it's just 

3 that --

4 DR. NETON: I don't know how many 

5 cases we're talking about that have this issue.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: It may be tagged 

7 to what would be considered the work categories 

8 that are rad workers that if you, you know, you 

9 couldn't tell and it was a zero, maybe you would 

10 do the coworker dose as the conservative 

11 approach. I don't know, it just seems like --

12 DR. NETON: That would seem to be 

13 the way. I mean I can't imagine there's that 

14 many. I mean these are all non-presumptive, 

15 remember. And if there's not that many and to 

16 spend a huge amount of effort to ferret out this 

17 --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: A lot of these 

19 issues today are efficiency issues.

20 DR. NETON: It's going to be 

21 efficiency issues.
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22

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: So, bringing that 

2 up in that context, I think.

3 DR. NETON: I guess we can go back 

4 and look and see how many this might affect.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, what if we 

6 just commit to doing what Jim suggested that any 

7 instance where you have a blank, because that's 

8 what the question is. When there's a blank in 

9 a person's record, we'll either interpret that 

10 as a missed dose, you know, a red zero or a 

11 coworker based in, I guess, their job title and 

determine whether it's 50 or 95th 12 percent, 

13 coworker, right?

14 DR. NETON: The coworkers always 

15 get full distribution.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: They get full 

17 distribution? Okay.

18 DR. NETON: For external.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: But, maybe I'm 

20 misunderstanding, I think after '76, you 

21 wouldn't have a blank in the electronic, you'd 
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23

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1 just have a zero, wouldn't you?

2 MR. ROLFES: If a person was 

3 monitored after 1976, they would have a zero 

4 entered, if they received no reported dose 

5 above the minimum detectable level.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: But, it could 

7 potentially be a blank which is what we're kind 

8 of concerned about.

9 MR. ROLFES: If there's a blank, 

10 that would indicate that the person wasn't 

11 monitored.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But we don't --

13 see, that's the part --

14 MR. HINNEFELD: And that's the 

15 question --

16 MR. FITZGERALD: We saw some 

17 discrepancy before in '76 on that issue. 

18 DR. NETON: Some of them resulted 

19 from zeros even though they were blanks and some 

20 of them -- that's the issue that --

21 MR. FITZGERALD: That some were 
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24

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1 zeros even though they were blanks?

2 MR. ROLFES: Yes. Well, we did a 

3 sampling of the actual original records and 

4 looked at the assigned dose pre-'76 and we had 

5 the benefit of having the original records so 

6 you could see what was reported versus what was 

7 actually --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: This was prior to 

9 '76 and we did determine that because we have 

10 the original records? 

11 MEMBER BEACH: Well, that's in your 

12 data adequacy.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: That's 

14 determinable?

15 MR. ROLFES: Yes, that's 

16 determinable before '76, it's not after '76.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: After '76, though 

18 we have --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Just electronic 

20 printouts.

21 DR. NETON: Electronic records and 
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25

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1 the rad -- who ever you spoke to said that --

2 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

3 DR. NETON: -- it was their 

4 practice that zeros indicated a monitored 

5 worker?

6 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

7 DR. NETON: And that's what we've 

8 got to go on there.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we have --

10 again, that's a contemporary assessment going 

11 back, so it's kind of hard to -- that's why I'm 

12 saying if we could get a Delphi Group or 

13 somebody that's maybe more in tune with maybe 

14 practices that was brought in 20 years ago, look 

15 at practices going backwards, that might be a 

16 little bit more definitive than somebody today.

17 MR. ROLFES: The person I spoke 

18 with was there I know in --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Does he go back --

20 MR. ROLFES: -- 1983 at least, so.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, that's not 
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26

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1 too bad.

2 MR. ROLFES: But not all the way 

3 back to '76. Well, on the same job.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: But thinking about 

5 what we would get, we get a person's exposure 

6 history and we're just talking about post-'76, 

7 we're talking only the most recent period.

8 And we will -- maybe we get nothing 

9 on the external question and, you know, when we 

10 make a -- I mean in that case, we'd probably say 

11 the person probably wasn't monitored, he had 

12 nothing, we can probably conclude they were not 

13 monitored, none of their employment years were 

14 searchable in the record. We would probably 

15 conclude they were not monitored.

16 If we had a person who was 

17 intermittently, you know, had some readings and 

18 then had some periods when we don't get 

19 anything, employment when maybe we don't get 

20 anything, couldn't we just judge on like job? 

21 Like if the person's in a job that would be a 
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27

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1 radiation worker, we'd say, well, even though 

2 we don't have a reading, we could -- let's, you 

3 know, let's assume they were monitored and the 

4 zeros just didn't get recorded.

5 I mean, to me, I would like to finish 

6 it. You know, I would like to answer the 

7 question today instead of going back to Delphi 

8 Group and going back to Pantex and trying to get 

9 anything out of Pantex, I'd rather finish it. 

10 I mean can't we just make a decision like that 

11 today?

12 DR. NETON: The only thing is on 

13 whether or not we believe this latest 

14 information from the site that says zero meant 

15 you were monitored.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: I understand that 

17 but we don't have to believe that. We could say 

18 that we could make judgments based on job title 

19 about whether a person should have been 

20 monitored or not. And if we feel like they're 

21 in a job that should have been monitored, you 
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28

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1 could -- because it's not going to be that 

2 different, probably.

3 DR. NETON: Probably won't be.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: You know? The 

5 coworker in this are probably not going to be 

6 that different. You could just make a judgment 

7 and today, you can make a decision today and say 

8 that after '76, well, before '76 I guess we were 

9 just going -- or this may apply to all times, 

10 because before '76 we were not sure what the 

11 zero or the blank mean.

12 We could just say that if a person's 

13 in a job category that was monitored, then we're

14 going to figure they were monitored and give 

15 them a missed dose for that year. And if 

16 they're not in a job category that was monitored 

17 or if you get their entire history, they had a 

18 long employment and you get their entire 

19 employment history and there's nothing there, 

20 we're going to assume they're not monitored.

21 MR. ROLFES: I mean, we essentially 
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29

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1 do this already in dose reconstruction. I mean 

2 --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: I think -- I've 

4 read that, what we've written in the Site 

5 Profile it's sort of -- and our response kind 

6 of comes -- our Site Profile's kind of 

7 nonspecific in this instance.

8 So, we could put something -- you 

9 know, we could write something in there or 

10 somewhere that says this is how to interpret a 

11 blank in the record and just be done. You know, 

12 I don't -- I really don't want to string this 

13 out over doses that aren't going to matter. 

14 It's not going to be that different.

15 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, and neither 

16 do I. I just want to be able to understand how 

17 it's going to be handled.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: What about what I 

19 just said? If it's blank and the person was 

20 never -- they had no exposure record, we're just 

21 going to assume they're not monitored.
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1 If they have intermittent 

2 monitoring, then we're going to, you know, 

3 probably they're going to be in a job title if, 

4 you know, I don't know if we're going to have 

5 their entire history of job titles, but they're 

6 probably going to have a job title that's going 

7 to have them monitored -- being monitored, so 

8 we're going to assume those blanks are zeros.

9 You know? And if we've got an 

10 intermittent and we see that their job changed 

11 from a production supervisor to --

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I think what I 

13 look at is like quality assurance. You may 

14 have some that so much of the year they were 

15 monitored but then the rest might have been 

16 clean work, you know, and --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes --

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: -- they're off 

19 their --

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Then we'll assume 

21 it wasn't. If they're in a job title that they 
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1 were probably monitored part of it and they 

2 stayed in that job title and they stayed in that 

3 job title and the monitoring disappears and we 

4 just say, well, but he's still in that job 

5 title, we don't character it being work, we're 

6 going to consider him as monitored and give 

7 missed dose because the coworker wouldn't be 

8 much different.

9 I mean, I think we can handle this.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right, and so do 

11 I, it's just coming down to how we're going to 

12 do it and what you just said sounds --

13 MR. HINNEFELD: We owe you a 

14 written description of what I said, but I think 

15 we can just distribute that to the Work Group 

16 and then we don't have to actually to get 

17 together on this unless there's some objections 

18 or a need to discuss it. Right?

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Everybody?

20 MEMBER BEACH: I agree.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Now, I've 
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1 probably over-simplified this and there are 

2 going to be a lot people telling me why we can't 

3 do this, but I think we should be able to do 

4 something like this.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I think we can,

6 it's just making sure that it's going to work 

7 for everybody. We have a lot of people outside 

8 of us that have influences into --

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the people 

10 that really know how things are done, you know, 

11 I'm not the person for this.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, and nor are 

13 we, but as the Work Group, we've got to make the 

14 decision.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think this 

16 is a conservative, bounding approach. I mean 

17 we're giving the benefit of the doubt to people 

18 who are not -- who we don't have a record on who 

19 were monitored at some point during their 

20 career and have the same job title and they go, 

21 well, you know, we'll just say they were 
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33

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1 monitored. I mean that's a pretty good benefit 

2 of the doubt to those people.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this is not 

4 too different than the sampling we did pre-'76 

5 that's in the original response in 2011 which 

6 was -- and we looked at a record of somebody who 

7 presumably was a rad worker who should have had 

8 something but he got a blank and then got a zero 

9 in his dose.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I actually have 

11 it pulled up here.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: And that was 

13 something that gave us pause although, you 

14 know, it was hard to verify exactly, you know, 

15 what his peers were doing, but, you know, that 

16 concerned us less because you could actually do 

17 a dose reconstruction and look at that and make 

18 adjustment.

19 You're talking about in post-'76, 

20 you wouldn't be in that position because you 

21 wouldn't have any original records to show 
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34

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1 whether it a blank in the first place.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Now, the original 

3 records derived with the person who's exposure 

4 is in the claimant file?

5 MR. ROLFES: Yes, they're 

6 handwritten files that we received from --

7 MR. HINNEFELD: So, for pre-'76 

8 then, we'll start there for now.

9 MR. ROLFES: Pre-'76, we're 

10 current.

11 DR. NETON: I agree with what you 

12 were saying earlier, if we don't know what it 

13 was we can almost just assume that we didn't get 

14 any exposure record for that particular time 

15 period and then we treat it as we would normally 

16 do like look at the guy's job and say, did this 

17 person need to be monitored, if he did, it's 

18 unmonitored exposure, in my opinion.

19 If he didn't need to be monitored, 

20 then we give him whatever we normally do like 

21 those, you know, a person who had almost no 
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1 potential for external exposure.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, as I think 

3 about this, we'll need to write up how we would 

4 address various categories of claims and submit 

5 it to the Work Group. But I think we don't need 

6 to do any more research. I think we can finish 

7 this.

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So do I. The 

9 only fly in the ointment that I see is, as we've 

10 seen throughout all of these sites, the last job 

11 the person did is usually what you see and you 

12 don't see what he was before that.

13 You know, we've seen this so many 

14 times --

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I understand 

16 that --

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That's my only 

18 concern on this of being able to do that because 

19 his job title could have changed seven, eight 

20 times through his process.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I understand 
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1 that, but I think a dose reconstructor would 

2 figure it out given the information in front of 

3 him and if he can't, he'd make a 

4 claimant-favorable judgment along those lines.

5 I mean I think this can be done. I 

6 don't think we -- I don't think that additional 

7 research is going to provide us a more 

8 definitive answer than we have right now. I 

9 think we just need this almost like a policy 

10 decision.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Well, the agenda 

12 says, NIOSH to provide clarification of 

13 zero-entries question. So that stands.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: That's what we're 

15 going to --

16 MEMBER BEACH: That's you're --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, and we 

18 actually wrote some internal responses but all 

19 it does is refer you to the Site Profile and the 

20 Site Profile just says if somebody's not 

21 monitored, you give them coworker and this is 
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1 how you do a missed dose calculation.

2 So, it's not specific about how to 

3 interpret a blank in the record.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, that 

5 sounds --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So, 

7 somebody take a note that we need to reopen some 

8 of these.

9 MEMBER BEACH: A timely response 

10 maybe?

11 MR. HINNEFELD: That's asking a 

12 lot. Now you're asking a lot.

13 MEMBER BEACH: I am asking a lot.

14 DR. NETON: We're going to have a 

15 few responses.

16 MR. ROLFES: Just to point out, 

17 there is a practice that they did at Pantex 

18 where people, you know, working for the first 

19 part of the year, say the first few months, were 

20 working on a particularly high radiation 

21 exposure job, those people were frequently 
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1 moved out to other programs to other jobs at the 

2 end of the year when they were approaching 

3 administrative limits or, you know, a site's 

4 limit.

5 So, if they were working on a hot 

6 program, we know they'd be moved to a lower 

7 radiation exposure job.

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Burn and burn, 

9 it's everywhere and that's why their job 

10 classification may change and, you know, you 

11 may see it for two or three months and then 

12 nothing the rest of the year and this is where 

13 the issue comes up is they are still rad 

14 workers, but they hit limits or whatever else.

15 MR. ROLFES: And then also on the 

16 opposite aspect of that, I guess, people that 

17 were routinely working lower exposure jobs 

18 might have had low amounts of radiation 

19 exposure and the year was coming to an end they 

20 would take the people that had approvals to work 

21 on other programs that had higher neutron dose 
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39

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1 exposure potential, so those people might have 

2 gone into an area like the volatile 

3 inventories, for example.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So --

5 PHONE PARTICIPANT: No, no, no.

6 MR. KATZ: Someone was whispering 

7 on the phone. Hello?

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That wasn't us. 

9 Okay. 

10 So, anyway, yes, and this is our 

11 concern as a Work Group, you know, how are we 

12 going to be able to handle this and go from 

13 there. So, we'll expect a response back on 

14 that. We'll be able to take care of that. 

15 Okay?

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Moving on 

17 to Issue 7, this is the many-storied 

18 neutron-to-photon ratio saga and actually, the 

19 context discussion mirrored similar 

20 discussions for other sites, particularly 

21 Mound, as Josie may recall.
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1 And I think the thinking evolved as 

2 we went through the discussions at both sites 

3 actually and we started the neutron-photon 

4 ratios and talked about NCI adjustment factors 

5 and I think finally ended up with a different 

6 approach in applying the MCNP model for the 

7 coworker model.

8 Ron tends to be our go-to person for 

9 neutrons. Ron, do you want to just give a bit 

10 of a synopsis since this has a pretty long 

11 history and just sort of bring us up to date and 

12 kind of where we left it?

13 I know we did provide a short 

14 briefing paper on what issues remained. I 

15 think that was about a year ago, just to sort 

16 of as a placeholder on this since there was a 

17 number of different nooks and crannies in it.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, yes, this goes 

19 back quite a ways. We originally were going to 

20 use the N/P values but did not feel that they 

21 were binding, did not bound the neutron dose in 
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1 some operations at Pantex.

2 And so, then as I recall the last 

3 time we left it, NIOSH was going to look in using 

4 the MCNP similar to, this is around the time we 

5 were working on this as Mound, was just said.

6 And so, we had left it where our last 

7 goal post was that NIOSH was going to provide 

8 the new information to SC&A on this and we had 

9 not heard further. And so this was kind of 

10 opened at the last meeting and so I guess we are 

11 waiting to see what NIOSH plans are on neutron 

12 dose reconstruction at Pantex or what direction 

13 they wish to go.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: And as I recall, 

15 too, and this was part of the paper that we 

16 provided, a lot of it came down to, you know, 

17 not so much an issue with MCNP as an overall 

18 approach. But given the fact that, you know, 

19 Pantex went through a number of weapons systems 

20 with different neutron signatures over time 

21 whether or not MCNP and the assumptions and 
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1 parameters that were in that model could be 

2 applied and be appropriate across the board for 

3 all those different systems.

4 You know, it's sort of like a 

5 question of does the one-size-fits-all, given 

6 the range of these signatures at Pantex. That 

7 was one key issue as I recall. Is that right?

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Mound had an MCNP. 

9 If you had a little more controlled conditions 

10 on what the source term was at Pantex that it 

11 could vary and the geometry could vary whether 

12 it was AP or PA or what.

13 And so, we kind of questioned the 

14 use of MCNP more at Mound but I don't think we 

15 really got a final answer of what NIOSH proposed 

16 there.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: And on the 

18 positive side at Pantex, they have something 

19 called intrinsic radiation measurements. So, 

20 in a sense, you also had the advantage of having 

21 some pretty good measurements for each system 
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43

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1 so that, in a sense, we knew that, you know, you 

2 had a divergency or you had a variety of 

3 energies and whatnot.

4 But they were measured pretty 

5 precisely so you did have that input. But 

6 again, whether the model could accommodate that 

7 and how it would accommodate that, I think, was 

8 where we left it.

9 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I think I 

10 can start this one off.

11 This has had a pretty long history, 

12 but there are three distinct periods of neutron 

13 monitoring that we need to deal with at Pantex, 

14 before '75 with the NTA film, which is where we 

15 had proposed the MCNP model at one point and we 

16 received your response and your criticisms of 

17 that model.

18 Then there's the '75 to '94 time 

19 period where it was TLD that was used but there 

20 were some issues with it. The site actually 

21 went back and revised those TLD readings based 
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44

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1 on what they call the Stanford algorithm. They 

2 went back and corrected them.

3 In fact, we're using those values 

4 for dose reconstruction now for anybody that 

5 was monitored in that period.

6 After '94, they switched to a TLD

7 that was adequate to measure both neutrons and 

8 photons and so we're using those at face value.

9 There's three distinct periods 

10 here. We had proposed neutron-photon ratios 

11 for some of these periods and Tim Taulbee's on 

12 the line, he'll flesh out the details here. 

13 But we've come to the conclusion that it's just 

14 not a viable method to use at Pantex for a number 

15 of reasons and Tim will talk to that.

16 And we feel the most appropriate way 

17 to go now is to just use the full distribution 

18 neutrons as measured and assign that to the 

19 worker during the -- for the non-presumptive 

20 cancers during the SEC period which is the 

21 entire site's history where neutrons were 
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45

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1 measured.

2 So, Tim, are you on the phone still?

3 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, I am.

4 DR. NETON: Yes, I just sort of set 

5 the stage. Do you want to elaborate a little 

6 more on what we're doing?

7 DR. TAULBEE: Sure. The main 

8 reason that I guess we're deviating here from 

9 the N/P ratio that we had proposed in the past 

10 was when we started to get into the details of 

11 the dosimetry that we started seeing some 

12 anomalies that just don't make physical sense 

13 that were some extremely high ratios, you know, 

14 on the order of 30 to 1 and 40 to 1. And that's 

15 really just not physically possible.

16 And the reason for this, at least 

17 what we suspect, is that people were wearing 

18 lead aprons. And so what was ending up 

19 happening was the photon dose was being 

20 stripped out, the neutron dose was coming 

21 through and so you end up with these bizarre 
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46

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1 ratios.

2 And then on top of that -- let me 

3 further clarify here. You end up with a 

4 bizarre ratio but the neutron dose is still 

5 fairly low. And to give an example, you've got 

6 a neutron dose of 300 millirem for a month or 

7 a quarter and you have a ten millirem photon 

8 dose. So, that's what's resulting in this 

9 really high ratio.

10 The neutron doses are all still, you 

11 know, well below regulatory type limits as well 

12 as -- and more of what you would expect in the 

13 workplace of these workers that were 

14 intermittently or continuously kind of 

15 handling these fissile materials.

16 So, this is why we've kind of 

17 changed and gone to the kind of an annual dose 

18 distribution of a coworker type of model to 

19 estimate what these neutron doses are. This is 

20 more realistic from what people could be 

21 receiving. And then we don't have the 
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47

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1 messiness of trying to figure out who was 

2 wearing an apron, when they were wearing an 

3 apron, when they weren't wearing an apron, 

4 which weapon they were working on when they were 

5 wearing an apron, et cetera.

6 So, because Pantex being pretty 

7 unique from all of the shielding, neutron 

8 shielding they were trying to do in addition, 

9 I think the overall approach of using the 

10 measured neutron doses is the most 

11 scientifically defensible and the most 

12 reasonable from a dose reconstruction 

13 standpoint.

14 Does that help?

15 DR. NETON: Yes, Tim, thanks.

16 I would add also, though, that early 

17 period, we're no longer relying on the MCNP 

18 model, we're going to correct the NTA film for 

19 its shortcomings in measuring the energy 

20 spectra neutrons that we believe were present 

21 at Pantex.
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48

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1 So, we will owe you essentially a 

2 White Paper on this that describes how we've 

3 gone about this neutron bounding.

4 And I guess the thing to discuss 

5 really is we're going to assign the full 

6 distribution. This is a non-presumptive 

7 cancers during the SEC period. The person who 

8 should have been -- who has no neutron 

9 monitoring will receive the 50-percentile 

10 value of the monitored workers along with the 

11 uncertainty distribution about that as far as 

12 the dose goes.

13 We feel that's the most reasonable 

14 way to go during this period. It's different 

15 that will be done in other places, but we think 

16 it's the best we're going to be able to do.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm just trying to 

18 recall the, maybe Ron, you can too, going back 

19 that far in terms of the adequacy, you know, 

20 having enough neutron data itself, monitoring 

21 data, do you remember, Ron? I haven't looked 
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1 at that.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, I think the 

3 the question was not necessarily the amount of 

4 data, it was the accuracy of the data. So, 

5 what, you know, of course, the old common 

6 problem with the NTA film is stating the lower 

7 energy detection.

8 And so, what I understand you saying 

9 is that you're going to use NTA film, the 

10 questionable TLD and the good TLD information 

11 to create a coworker model and then assign that 

12 to everyone that should have been badged for 

13 neutrons for all periods.

14 And now, you feel apparently that 

15 you can use the NTA and the first batch of TLD 

16 data and make correction factors for it, is 

17 you're going to do an annual type tally?

18 DR. NETON: Yes, these will be 

19 annual doses. What you call the questionable 

20 TLD period has already been handled by the site. 

21 They went and re-analyzed all the data and 
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1 provided it to us and we're using those --

2 Stanford, which I think is a consulting 

3 company, went back and revised the doses based 

4 on the shortcomings of the measurement 

5 properties of that badge.

6 So, those have already been redone 

7 and we will redo the NTA measurements based on 

8 just what you talk about, the fading and the 

9 energy response, dependence, those sort of 

10 things.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: And that was 

12 pre-'74 or?

13 DR. NETON: Pre-'75.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Pre-'75.

15 MR. ROLFES: '77.

16 DR. NETON: '77, I'm sorry, I 

17 always get my dates mixed up. You get the idea: 

18 the early period -- I thought the early period, 

19 the middle period, then late period.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: And actually, we 

21 did spend a fair amount of time identifying some
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1 of the NTA issues. I mean, of course, they've 

2 been identified other sites as well, so I think 

3 all that's a matter of record, our comments on 

4 that, so I'm not sure we need to -- is there any 

5 more we need to say on that, Ron? I think there 

6 was quite a bit on NTA.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: No, at this point, I 

8 would have to, you know, have a White Paper and 

9 review it and to see our position on it.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Now, the other 

12 thing to recall, if we're really unable to 

13 interpret the NTA neutron data, you know, if you 

14 feel like the methods, you know, it's not 

15 interpretable, then there is really nothing 

16 left to the neutrons in the early period.

17 So, it kind of relies, you know, 

18 providing neutron doses in early periods relies 

19 on, in some fashion, on being able to 

20 reinterpret the NTA readings based, you know, 

21 given its known deficiencies.
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1 So, you know, that's kind of where 

2 we're at. Now here's something we can do. 

3 There might, you know, so that kind of work 

4 around.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: In other words, that 

6 would fall under the SEC period. So if you 

7 can't redo -- it's kind of for non-SEC cancers, 

8 trying to assign some neutron dose here in this 

9 NTA period.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: So, I guess, see 

12 when the White Paper comes back?

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That's all we 

14 can do is when we get that. It sounds good, we 

15 just need to be able to take a look at that and 

16 see what we've got.

17 DR. NETON: This realization to use 

18 the full distribution just came about not too 

19 long ago. I mean there are those in the 

20 background who've been working pretty hard 

21 trying to figure out how to do these N/P ratios 
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1 and when these apron issues came up with these 

2 implausibly strange ratios and stuff, we 

3 figured this is the way to go, at least salvage 

4 some sort of neutron assignments during the SEC 

5 period.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. All 

7 right. So, we'll be waiting for that paper and 

8 then Ron will be the one to evaluate that?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Ron's been doing, 

10 I guess, both the Mound and the Pantex.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, I will take 

12 care of that when it's available.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, thanks, 

14 Ron.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, Issue 8, I 

16 guess this would be in the sort of category of 

17 loose end. It's something we raised way back 

18 when on the Site Profile Review that, you know, 

19 we were aware that, historically, Pantex 

20 supported not only the Nevada Test Site, but as 

21 we learned when we went to Clarksville, Medina, 
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1 they did a lot of work supporting those sites 

2 when they were opened and so there's a lot of, 

3 I wouldn't call it work for others, but they did 

4 a lot of the support at other installations.

5 And the Site Profile was relatively 

6 silent on that activity and even though we have 

7 no problems with the response, the original 

8 response was that -- and this probably is across 

9 the board -- that if an individual does do work 

10 at other sites and gets dosimetry, then those 

11 records do exist, they will be included and 

12 that's sort of the policy.

13 However, practically speaking, it 

14 would be helpful, we believe, to the Site 

15 Profile to, since this is essentially a roadmap 

16 for dose reconstructors, to just make it make 

17 it very clear to the dose reconstructor that, 

18 you know, this was a routine occurrence where 

19 a number of workers would go off to these other 

20 sites and that just to cue them in to the fact 

21 that they should be sensitive to looking at the 
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1 interview and looking at other things to 

2 identify potential exposures elsewhere.

3 Because even though at Pantex it was 

4 relatively low, I think at some of these other 

5 sites I think not be the case not to miss that 

6 dose even if the dose is recorded at the other 

7 sites or might have been dosimetry, to point the 

8 dose reconstructor in that direction.

9 This is more of a qualitative thing 

10 that we felt the Site Profile could be helpful 

11 if it did emphasize that there was these 

12 activities going on and I could the name of the 

13 sites. I think it was pretty clear what those 

14 sites were.

15 MR. ROLFES: Easy enough to add a 

16 statement in the TBDs --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I'd say it's 

18 one of these things that we had raised in 2007 

19 and sort of one of these lingering loose ends 

20 that we felt would improve the Site Profile.

21 And I think the same thing would go 
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1 for some of these broken arrows. There was a 

2 number of things that Pantex did that sure was 

3 supportive --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: I was going to 

5 say, the only issue with the broken arrows, if 

6 they're responding to an incident like Thule, 

7 for example, that's not a covered site that 

8 they're responding to, so, or to a military 

9 installation that's not part of the site.

10 Now, saying that, we do have 

11 bioassay results from some individuals who 

12 responded to Thule. So, yes, it's a potpourri. 

13 I guess I wasn't quite as sensitive to this 

14 until I was doing, was it Clarksville, 

15 Clarksburg? I guess it's Clarksville.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Clarksville.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Looking at that 

18 and seeing, you know, the Pantex people showing 

19 up, which makes sense, they were standing up the 

20 installation in the same area in Medina. But, 

21 it just struck me that there was a fair amount 
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1 of activity. Of course, they had a number of 

2 folks that would go out to the test sites.

3 MR. ROLFES: Things that occurred 

4 at Clarksville, also once again, that's a 

5 little bit separate kind of issue. It's a 

6 military installation with a DOE facility 

7 inside of it, so, there were things that were 

8 done on the military portion of the base that 

9 weren't that --

10 MR. FITZGERALD: They could keep 

11 that clean, right.

12 MR. ROLFES: -- that weren't included in 

13 --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Anyway, without 

15 belaboring it, I think that was just something 

16 that we felt would be useful to emphasize that's 

17 easy enough to --

18 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

19 MEMBER BEACH: So, just a 

20 paragraph?

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, just to 
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been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

certified by the Chair of the Pantex Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader should be 

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58

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1 identify the fact that there was ongoing 

2 activity and maybe identify the sites and just 

3 sort of indicate that one should be 

4 particularly conscious of this in terms of the 

5 interviews and what have you in terms of picking 

6 up the fact that these worked for other sites.

7 Is that easy enough?

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Let's see. Okay, 

10 Number 9 actually dealt with an issue that we've 

11 raised at a number of sites as to whether or not, 

12 particularly going back in time, whether 

13 incidents were addressed adequately in the Site 

14 Profile and whether or not there was a good 

15 rendering of incidents in terms of whether 

16 bioassays were taken, what have you.

17 This went back and forth over a 

18 couple of years and essentially, I think, the 

19 discussion got around to the point whether 

20 there's no way to prove a negative. It looked 

21 like there was something on the order of a 
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59

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1 hundred events that were reported. There was 

2 no evidence that they were neglecting to 

3 identify, it was an awareness that, in the early 

4 days, their criteria for what constituted an 

5 event was a lot different than what it ended up 

6 being in the '80s, no question about that.

7 So, some of the examples I think 

8 that we culled back in 2006 and '07 on the Site 

9 Profile where these may not have been 

10 identified and captured as an event.

11 I guess we've come around to 

12 thinking that's not surprising since the 

13 criteria had changed from the '60s up through 

14 the '80s. And in any case, this has all been 

15 subsumed by the SEC.

16 And so I think, generally, we left 

17 this to the Work Group that we don't think it 

18 is a real sticking problem as far as the Site 

19 Profile. I think it's one of these judgment 

20 issues and I don't think Pantex differed 

21 dramatically from the other sites in terms of 
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60

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1 its historic policy on incident reviews and so 

2 we wouldn't necessarily stand that as a 

3 continuing problem.

4 It was highlighted, I think, in the 

5 data adequacy piece. So we want to make sure 

6 that, you know, we do treat it since it was 

7 raised. 

8 But at this point, we think it's 

9 been sufficiently discussed, addressed and, in 

10 any case, it falls within the SEC period. So, 

11 and in a lot of respects we think this is an 

12 issue that the Work Group can talk about but we 

13 wouldn't contend that it's a problem that 

14 should be addressed in the Site Profile.

15 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark.

16 And since that finding, Joe, I mean 

17 that's from quite a while back, we've made 

18 multiple data captures and we've got quite a 

19 number of records. I think we've got 

20 everything that we can get on incidents.

21 And everything that we received 
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61

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1 when we received a claimant's file and with all 

2 the incident records and all the dosimetry 

3 records that we have, any time an individual's 

4 name appears in a record, it's been 

5 SPEDELite-linked into NOCTS and into that 

6 claimant's file so if there was an incident that 

7 shows up where the dose reconstructors would 

8 see it along with their dosimetry records.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and we -- on 

10 the site visit, I think that was actually one 

11 that Stu was along, we wanted to make one last 

12 stab at this thing, see if in fact further 

13 searches might identify any incidents that were 

14 missed and we did not find any. So, I think 

15 that was another driver behind recommending 

16 closure on this thing.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Sounds like it's 

18 been fairly well covered.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we took one 

20 last stab at it. But again, I think we've done 

21 -- it sounds like NIOSH has too -- we've done 
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62

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1 enough due diligence to believe that there's 

2 nothing that stands out as a problem at this 

3 point. So I'll leave it to you.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, I guess I 

5 just -- what do you think, Joe?

6 MEMBER BEACH: I'm comfortable 

7 with that it's been covered and I'm comfortable 

8 with closing it.

9 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Phil?

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Oh shoot.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: You're on, 

12 Phil.

13 MR. KATZ: Phil, are you okay?

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Hey, Phil.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay, I think he's 

16 indisposed or something right now.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. I don't 

18 see any problem with it. Other Work Group 

19 Members?

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Brad, I don't 

21 have a problem with that.
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1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, thank 

2 you, Phil, appreciate it. We'll go ahead and 

3 --

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Sorry.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No problem.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, so we'll go 

7 ahead and close that one.

8 Okay, moving right along.

9 MR. KATZ: We should have a bell to 

10 ring when we close an issue. Ding, that would 

11 be nice.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Something 

13 dramatic.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Should have a sound 

15 effect of a beer tab.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Little early for 

17 that.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Anyway, we're up 

20 to Issue 10 which deals with a question that was 

21 raised originally way back on the Site Profile 
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1 Review which is the air sampling data for the 

2 firing sites and how conservative -- I guess 

3 this is the issue that we're raising -- how 

4 conservative does one need to be in 

5 interpreting those air sample results, 

6 assigning a dose estimate for the workers.

7 And these are dryers and operators 

8 at the hydroshots, the firing sites at Pantex 

9 where they would essentially pressure test the 

10 basic mock warhead units to see -- there's a 

11 number of different applications would and I'll 

12 get into this and to determine how they would 

13 stand up to pressure.

14 And the depleted uranium was 

15 involved so we're not talking about anything 

16 like HEU or Pu but that it's essentially DU. 

17 And the question we had was not so much -- I had 

18 to go back and actually refresh my memory 

19 because this is pretty old, but the issue wasn't 

20 so much what the estimates were for the 

21 individuals that were sitting in the bunker. 
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65

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1 We had several inside assessment and outside 

2 assessment.

3 The inside assessment, we matched 

4 up the monitoring records with the -- actually 

5 the tables in the TBD with the records of doses 

6 for the individuals in the bunkers and they 

7 lined up pretty good.

8 The issue we had was more with the 

9 outside measurements. These were the 

10 individuals that went back to the firing site 

11 afterwards and went to, I don't want to use the 

12 word ground zero, but, you know, the point of 

13 detonation and collected up the pieces and who 

14 were essentially exposed outside the --

15 MEMBER BEACH: So it's the dust, 

16 the residual dust that's left over?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And so, 

18 you know, there was -- and I'll go ahead and read 

19 this because, again, this goes back -- this is 

20 actually the original Site Profile Review, 

21 that's how far back it goes, back to 2008.
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1 The interpretation and 

2 verification of outside the bunker air sampling 

3 data was considerably more difficult than the 

4 inside. For a large number of outside air 

5 samples, it was uncertain which number 

6 represented the total air volume drawn to the 

7 meters where the activity in the sampled air, 

8 which was dpm per cubic meter.

9 And overall, the many questions 

10 that remain unanswered about the conditions to 

11 which the filters used for the operators and the 

12 drivers that were moving the workers around 

13 makes it difficult to form a dose 

14 reconstruction with the information provided.

15 For example, one, it is not known 

16 whether the operators or drivers were wearing 

17 respiratory protection, we knew the ones in the 

18 bunkers were.

19 Two, whether the operators wore any 

20 other protective clothing while going to ground 

21 zero to collect what remained.
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67

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1 And the location of the outside the 

2 bunker air monitors isn't known. So, we're not 

3 really clear where the air samplers were 

4 located from which the measurements were taken.

5 MR. KATZ: Phil, I don't know -- I 

6 think your phone's not muted.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Sounds like it is 

8 now.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, thank 

10 you. I was getting a lot of bells and whistles.

11 In any case, this is on Page 78 for 

12 reference of the SC&A Site Profile Review dated 

13 July 2008.

14 And so, there's a number of these 

15 questions that we had and the fact that we 

16 didn't really have any clear answers at that 

17 stage nor hereafter, we really weren't 

18 comfortable that the 24 picocuries per cubic 

19 meter, which was the value -- the bounding value 

20 that was going to be used as far as the DU 

21 exposure, the 95th percentile of that was 
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1 necessarily conservative enough.

2 And, you know, granted, that's kind 

3 of a judgment call. I mean 95th, 99th, who 

4 could count? How do you know that? But we're 

5 thinking that there's enough uncertainties 

6 that we don't believe that has been really 

7 answered.

8 I went back to see, you know, 

9 because of the timing of this, I was wondering 

10 if there had been some assessment of that but 

11 I couldn't find any NIOSH assessment of that 

12 particular issue. The one response that we had 

13 on the 2011 paper sort of says, well, that's 

14 answered in a previous issue and named the 

15 issue. I went back and it didn't answer it.

16 So, it's one of these where I don't 

17 think it actually got answered. So that's why 

18 it's here just sort of a question of not to say 

19 there isn't a value, there is a value, 24 

20 picocuries, but whether that's conservative 

21 enough, that's based on 95th percentile of the 
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69

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1 DU air sample distributions.

2 We still think there's some 

3 uncertainties and those are the ones we just 

4 named and I'd like to get some kind of response 

5 or clarification. Granted, this goes back a 

6 ways, but I don't think that's ever been 

7 answered specifically.

8 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark.

9 And since the SEC was designated for 

10 Pantex for depleted uranium exposures from 1958 

11 through 1983, excuse me, and then once again 

12 from '84 through '90 for DU and then I think 

13 thorium in '91, that encompasses the entire 

14 time of the hydroshot testing period, I 

15 believe. I don't believe there were any done 

16 after the SEC time period.

17 And since we said we can't 

18 reconstruct uranium intakes using the coworker 

19 model, we --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: So to just --

21 MR. ROLFES: -- no longer be 
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1 calculating uranium intakes for the firing site 

2 workers due to the SEC.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: I have October 

4 '59 starting, so I guess that does capture it.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: It does, right.

6 MR. ROLFES: So, if we have a 

7 bioassay result that we deem is usable for an 

8 individual working at the firing sites, we 

9 would use that bioassay to reconstruct their 

10 uranium intake. However, if we do not have one 

11 for an individual, we would not assign uranium 

12 intake.

13 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim.

14 Just to be sure, I went back and 

15 looked at the Secretary's designation on the 

16 Class and it says, the Board and the NIOSH 

17 Director have determined that reconstruction 

18 of uranium intakes is not feasible for all 

19 Pantex workers.

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MR. FITZGERALD: That would make 
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1 this moot.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, exactly.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: That's the 

5 easiest solution.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, that's the 

7 easiest solution to it. So that'll take of 10. 

8 Is it 11?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: That was 10.

10 MEMBER BEACH: That was 10; 11 is 

11 closed already.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Everybody okay? 

13 We'll just plow ahead?

14 MEMBER BEACH: Now on to 13.

15 MR. KATZ: Twelve is closed 

16 already?

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. Okay, 

19 we're on Issue 13 and as I recall, this was a 

20 petitioner issue that we wanted to get 

21 clarification on.
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1 This was the one where in the 

2 petition, there was an issue of concern of that 

3 too few workers were monitored for valid dose 

4 reconstruction and the actual petition concern 

5 that was included was one, and I'm just quoting 

6 from the petition, one argument we make is that 

7 too few workers were monitored for statistical 

8 purposes for generalizations to the rest of the 

9 workforce to be valid. Until '79, a majority 

10 of Pantex workforce went completely 

11 unmonitored. The assumptions that the 

12 most-exposed workers were monitored was not 

13 found to be valid in IAAP and is not likely as 

14 valid at Pantex.

15 And there wasn't a clear response in 

16 the ER for some of the earlier discussions that 

17 I think the Work Group had so we maintained this 

18 as an open item. But, again, as you'll note in 

19 our assessment here, and I'm going to read this, 

20 this is the status update.

21 NIOSH -- and this is from October of 
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1 last year -- NIOSH revised the response to 

2 SC&A's data completeness and adequacy paper and 

3 it's assessment, which we got on August 5th of 

4 2011, SC&A's review of NIOSH's response finds 

5 agreement that limited monitoring existed 

6 prior to the arrival of the sealed plutonium 

7 pits in '58 and that relatively small 

8 variations in historic badging can, in fact, be 

9 linked to weapons production dismantlement 

10 rates and changing DOE policies.

11 So, I think there was agreement 

12 that, although I think some of the concerns the 

13 petitioner raises were quite valid, that NIOSH 

14 had gone back and we had gone back and looked 

15 at the statistical treatments that were 

16 provided, not just in the ER but in some of the 

17 reference documents, in particular ORAU 13-6, 

18 which is the TBD and the Carr which is a 1992 

19 assessment looks at the statistical treatment 

20 of external monitoring data.

21 Last year the Work Group asked us to 
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1 revisit this material and take a look at it 

2 again, and we went back and looked at the 

3 references as well as the exchanges of White 

4 Papers in 2011, and we think it's been 

5 adequately addressed and we'd recommend 

6 closure for it.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Thank you. 

8 Josie?

9 MEMBER BEACH: I don't have any 

10 problem with that.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Phil, we're 

12 recommending closing; do you have a problem 

13 with it?

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, I'm here, 

15 Brad. I don't have a problem with that.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, thank 

17 you.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, let's see, 

19 where is the agenda?

20 MR. ROLFES: Can we take a quick 

21 break before we discuss this one? It might go 
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1 a little bit longer than --

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Did you want to 

3 take a break?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: This would be the 

5 best time.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: This would be the 

7 best time for a break.

8 DR. NETON: This one could take a 

9 little while. This is more involved.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Perfect time for 

11 more coffee.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Could we take a 

13 15 minute break?

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, sure.

15 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: So, it's 10:06 to 10:20, 

17 we'll resume and I'm not cutting off the phone, 

18 I'm just putting it on mute and we'll rejoin you 

19 at 10:20. Thanks.

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

21 matter went off the record at 10:06 a.m. and 
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1 resumed at 10:21 a.m.)

2 MR. KATZ: Let me check and see --

3 Phil, do we have you back on the line?

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, you do, 

5 Ted.

6 MR. KATZ: Great, and Ron Buchanan, 

7 are you back on?

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, I am.

9 MR. KATZ: Okay, super.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, yes, Joe 

11 Fitzgerald, we're back on the issue matrix. 

12 We're up to Issue 15 which deals with tritium 

13 exposure.

14 And this was another early Site 

15 Profile question that we raised in the review. 

16 The approach in the Site Profile that was framed 

17 was using essentially job categories, three in 

18 this case, to assign a bounding tritium dose to 

19 Pantex workers.

20 And we had originally raised some 

21 reservations about the manner in which tritium 
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1 air samples were taken and how workers were, in 

2 fact, monitored. 

3 It was certainly somewhat, or

4 should I say, relatively primitive in the 

5 earlier days and, you know, it was unclear to 

6 us whether -- how representative the sampling 

7 was and these are questions that were discussed 

8 early on.

9 We didn't really reach a resolution 

10 even though I think we laid out some of the 

11 concerns over that approach, primarily because 

12 we got into the DU issue, the uranium issue and 

13 thorium issues. And so this sort of got left 

14 behind.

15 Now, clearly, this falls within the 

16 time period of the SEC, so we're talking about 

17 partial dose reconstructions. But, you know, 

18 nonetheless, we think there's some remaining 

19 issues.

20 And I wanted to go back because this 

21 does have some history and we wanted to, in 
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1 response to Brad's note of a couple months ago 

2 laid that out and clarify, you know, where 

3 things stood and go back and sort of draw from 

4 those original comments.

5 And so we laid this out in a 

6 clarification piece on Issue 15 that we 

7 circulated last month and Ron authored that 

8 particular piece and I'm going to defer to him. 

9 If you want to, for the sake of this discussion, 

10 just lay out, I guess it was like two, two and 

11 a half pages of just clarifying our concerns on 

12 the categories and how that was done, Ron.

13 MR. KATZ: Ron, are you on mute?

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Ron? 

15 MR. KATZ: Maybe he lost his 

16 connection.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, well let's 

18 -- I'll wait for Ron Buchanan to get back but 

19 the -- I'm just going to, again, just go over 

20 our clarifying comments because essentially it 

21 lays it out.
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1 On Page 17 and 18 of our 2011 report, 

2 we note that Category 2 workers are assigned an 

3 environmental dose for the period of '56 to the 

4 present. So, essentially, Category 1 workers 

5 were assigned the bounding doses that were 

6 listed in a separate table, Table 5-2.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: I'm here now, wrong 

8 button.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Wrong button, 

10 okay.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Go ahead.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. But, 

13 again, our concerns were that the six millirem 

14 per year value which was essentially in the 

15 table wasn't sufficiently backed up and that it 

16 was a lot of reliance on what was an assumed 

17 one]-year value.

18 You know, we had a monitoring 

19 bioassay value that was once a year and the 

20 concern was that, even though that if you used 

21 that value and extrapolated for the entire 
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1 year, it'd give you a fairly large value, you 

2 know, undeniably it would be bounding.

3 But our concerns were whether, in 

4 fact, it would be reasonable and technically 

5 accurate and the only exchange we had on this 

6 issue, I think there was agreement that that was 

7 a large number even though it was bounding, that 

8 it would not have necessarily reflected actual 

9 exposure conditions.

10 And I think that's kind of where we 

11 left it that even though this does get to an 

12 efficiency issue and maybe a bit of a 

13 philosophical question of when you don't have 

14 a lot of good data, but you do have some data 

15 and it allows you to set the bounds for tritium 

16 exposure and certainly tritium, we're talking 

17 millirems, we're not talking a lot of exposure. 

18 It's like how many angels can dance on a pin? 

19 I mean, it's the data we have.

20 However, you know, we think the 

21 annual bioassay results are not reasonably 
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1 usable for dose reconstruction purposes and 

2 would not normally be used that way. But in the 

3 context of a partial dose reconstruction in an 

4 SEC period, I guess we would pose it to a Work 

5 Group and this is why we wanted to sort of tee 

6 this up as a Work Group discussion issue.

7 It's the only horse you can ride. 

8 This is something that would be reasonable to 

9 do even though there was certainly, from our 

10 standpoint, and I'll let Ron have the ball back 

11 on this, some technical reservations about how 

12 you would apply so little data for what would 

13 normally not be a valid dose reconstruction 

14 purpose.

15 But for, in this context, you know, 

16 it may be something that the Work Group might 

17 consider as it's better than not having any 

18 value even though there are some, you know, 

19 reservations and some shortcomings with it.

20 And, Ron, do you want to go over some 

21 of the specifics? But that's kind of the 
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1 overarching thought that we had, I think.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, Ron Buchanan 

3 here with SC&A.

4 Our main concern was that there was 

5 I think three major issues here in that there 

6 was some data available but the MDA values --

7 well, I think the main issue was that the data 

8 in the TBD was presented as being taken from 

9 bioassay data whereas it was kind of 

10 misleading. These were actually -- most of 

11 these were derived from MDA values, the minimum 

12 detectable activity, quoted at that time as 

13 opposed to actual measured values.

14 And so we felt that the table in the 

15 TBD somewhat was misleading in that in a 

16 majority of the years. This is from MDA 

17 values as opposed to actual measurement.

18 One question was that the table was 

19 also not labeled as whether it for annual. We 

20 assumed that these were annual intakes but that 

21 needs to be clarified.
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1 Also, the issue of should it be 

2 reworded or re-emphasized that a lot of this 

3 data was from MDA as opposed to actual measured

4 values.

5 And then we actually had some 

6 question on the MDA value. The MDA value 

7 actually was not taken from what I could find 

8 records of, bioassays performed at intakes, 

9 rather it was taken from this document, 

10 Referenced ID 12549, a document which was done 

11 in 1991 which actually was an appraisal of the 

12 Pantex HP program and the MDA value is actually 

13 taken from a figure given in that appraisal 

14 saying that it should be able to measure this 

15 amount. A good health physics program should

16 be able to measure this amount.

17 It did not really tie it directly to 

18 Pantex in that context saying that this is what 

19 Pantex presently measured or was measured in 

20 the past.

21 So, it appeared that this number 
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1 came out and then was used as an MDA value and 

2 then this was applied to quite a bit of 

3 calculations in the tables. And so, we feel 

4 that this was kind of shaky ground in normal 

5 circumstances.

6 And then also the six millirem per 

7 year, it states that the minimum average value, 

8 however, we see that in the table, there most 

9 of them are not six millirem per year, they're 

10 more or less than that.

11 And so, our question was kind of, in 

12 summary, we didn't feel that the objections 

13 brought up previously were really answered. 

14 And so what I did in this paper that we recently 

15 constructed, the summary, was to point out some 

16 of the inconsistencies in this and on the one 

17 hand and on the other hand, if it's all we have 

18 to work with, if it's the best we can do and a 

19 reasonable amount of resources allotted to it 

20 since it is an SEC period.

21 And so, we're kind of at that point 
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1 now, does the Work Group want to require NIOSH 

2 to clarify some of these issues that I brought 

3 up recently or just set aside this as reasonable 

4 for a partial dose reconstruction situation?

5 DR. NETON: Well, this is Jim. 

6 I'll ask Mark on it, if he wants it.

7 MR. ROLFES: I can take the easy 

8 one.

9 There was a question about whether 

10 the intake values that were listed were for a 

11 period of a year, and yes, they are in fact 

12 annual results. It just didn't state that in 

13 the table and the TBD.

14 As far as the current dose values in 

15 the TBD, I don't know if we want to discuss that. 

16 I know there's been some work to go back and look 

17 at MDAs and to try to recalculate the tritium 

18 intake values.

19 DR. NETON: I think we would agree 

20 that the doses were based on -- inappropriately 

21 based on detection limit to cover all time 
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1 periods and we agreed to go back and use more 

2 representative MDAs for the time period in 

3 which the samples were taken for which a 

4 bioassay program was in existence.

5 That's going to increase the doses 

6 somewhat but even with that, I think the mode 

7 of the annual undetected dose is going to be 

8 around 20 millirem.

9 So, we're in a situation where we're 

10 not talking about large doses. And 

11 traditionally, it seems to me that the Board has 

12 been willing to accept more uncertainty in 

13 situations where the doses are very small. 

14 Sufficient accuracy is not as critical when you 

15 have 20 millirem doses and you're talking about 

16 two to three millirem type doses.

17 So I would support the position that 

18 it's as good as we're going to get with the 

19 tritium doses and let it go at that. I mean I 

20 don't know what else we could do.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So, this would 
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1 be about 20 millirem per year?

2 DR. NETON: Twenty millirems --

3 it's a distribution. The mode is going to be 

4 21, I think the maximum is around -- depending 

5 on the year. In the earlier years, 42 would be 

6 the high and the lower bound would be zero. Of 

7 course, there's a triangular distribution so 

8 that the best estimate would be 21 through 1990. 

9 Once you get into 1991, it drops to 6 which is 

10 presumably just based on the improvement in the 

11 detection.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Josie, do you 

13 have any problems with that?

14 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I mean I think 

15 it's -- so NIOSH would have to go back in and 

16 clean up the table.

17 DR. NETON: Table 5-3 when we 

18 revise it.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Clean up the table 

20 so it's more understandable. That takes care 

21 of the two items. I was looking for the third 
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1 one.

2 MR. ROLFES: Was the third --

3 DR. BUCHANAN: Whether there's 

4 annual recorded versus throughout the actual 

5 MDA value.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: And then while this 

8 was really kind of forward, the annual was kind 

9 of --

10 MEMBER BEACH: The annual was taken 

11 care of. It is annual.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: And the six millirem 

13 per year, a lot of the values in the table are 

14 less than six, so Page 17 states six millirems 

15 a year but the table has like 2.9. And so, you 

16 know, there seems to be an inconsistency there.

17 DR. NETON: Yes and the new table 

18 will have nothing less than six millirem per 

19 year.

20 MEMBER BEACH: So, that's part of 

21 that cleaning up the table, okay. And then on 
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1 other hand, if you don't agree to this, then 

2 where does that leave us? It leaves us with --

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: We've got --

4 we're in one of those commitments.

5 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, we are.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: We've discussed 

7 this and I just -- my personal feeling is that 

8 I agree with it. It's the only thing we can do 

9 and it's where we're at especially in this place 

10 in the process. So, I feel that we ought to 

11 accept that on those conditions and go from 

12 there. Any problem with that, Josie?

13 MEMBER BEACH: No, I don't have a 

14 problem that.

15 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Phil, do you 

16 have a problem with what we're going to do?

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We're kind of in 

18 the ranger where I don't think it's going to 

19 make much difference in a lot of these.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, just 

21 wanted to make sure.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: So, the table will 

2 be fixed and, yes, the MDA values will be 

3 switched from detection to, I guess, to fit the 

4 historic bioassay practice.

5 DR. NETON: Yes.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

7 MR. KATZ: That wasn't so long.

8 DR. NETON: No. I can never 

9 predict.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, it was a 

11 two cup day today, he was ready for it.

12 MR. ROLFES: That's just the 

13 coffee.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, I think that 

15 leaves us with just one which is 16 and that one 

16 gets down to the geometric positioning of the 

17 pit more than anything else and whether or not 

18 OTIB-10 applies which is the glovebox geometry, 

19 would apply, in fact, to the direct handling by 

20 the worker.

21 I guess I'll go back to the worst 
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1 case example which is the worker with the pit 

2 in his lap type of thing, you know, that kind 

3 of -- probably more earlier days than later days 

4 as far as geometry.

5 And I think the way that was left, 

6 this goes back a couple of years, but I think 

7 you all were going to go back and look at OTIB-10 

8 and see whether or not that could be applied.

9 MR. ROLFES: That's also recently 

10 changed as well. So, the geometric correction 

11 factor's changed from roughly, what was it, I 

12 don't even recall.

13 DR. NETON: It's now up to 3.5 I 

14 think. What happened was TIB-10 had been 

15 revised since this Site Profile was written. 

16 If you remember, TIB-10, we assigned a 

17 distribution of the possible doses and in 

18 responding to comments on TIB-10, we agreed to 

19 use the 95th percentile value because there 

20 were certain organs that would affect that and 

21 if we use the 95th percentile, the correction 
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1 factor is 3.5 and we believe that would account 

2 for the geometry of exposure to the pit.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Has OTIB-10 been 

4 reissued or --

5 DR. NETON: I think it's been 

6 revised to have the 3.5 in it if I'm not 

7 mistaken. It's going to be revised again for 

8 other reasons, but --

9 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: What else?

10 DR. NETON: Well, the ICRP 116 

11 implementation of the new dose conversion 

12 factors, but that's a long-term issue. It has 

13 nothing to do with really, it's an overarching 

14 issue not related to Pantex.

15 I'm pretty sure, let me just see if 

16 I can find --

17 MEMBER BEACH: While you're 

18 looking at that, just for a process question, 

19 15, are we closing that or are we putting it in 

20 abeyance or what are we doing there? Do we know 

21 how that process works when NIOSH is going to 
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1 do some changes to the TBD or is it just closed?

2 MR. STIVER: I think it'd be 

3 abeyance if we agree on the --

4 MEMBER BEACH: I think it's in 

5 abeyance.

6 MR. STIVER: -- correction then it 

7 just has to go in to the TBD.

8 MR. KATZ: It's in abeyance if it 

9 has to come out in a new document. I mean it's 

10 effectually the same thing.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. It just gives 

12 you --

13 MR. STIVER: We've reached 

14 agreement there.

15 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And when that 

16 comes out, SC&A will review the --

17 MR. STIVER: Just do a quick review 

18 and make sure that everything is as agreed.

19 MEMBER BEACH: I think that just 

20 cues you to do it if it's in abeyance rather than 

21 not closed.
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1 MR. KATZ: I want to go over that 

2 list just to get that right. Let's look at the 

3 scorecard here. What are we on?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: We're on the last 

5 one.

6 DR. NETON: I don't see TIB-10 as 

7 actually changed to -- we've agreed to do that 

8 in practice, but we're not -- we may have been 

9 waiting on the TIB-10 change in response to the 

10 ICRP 116 changes, now that I think about it.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, if that's the 

12 case, I think we should -- you know, we have a 

13 change to make, I think we should go ahead with 

14 it, issue it as, you know --

15 DR. NETON: As a three --

16 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and not wait 

17 for the 116 changes and then we change it again 

18 when 116 comes out because that's a long time.

19 DR. NETON: It's going to be a while 

20 and we're better off, we're better served.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: So, it would be a 
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1 95th percentile which would be enough --

2 DR. NETON: It's 3.5.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Here's another 

4 part of my thought on this is that, yes, it's 

5 true that for certain years for some portions, 

6 the guys have put pits in their laps for a piece 

7 of the work.

8 But for other parts of the work, 

9 they're not going to have it in their lap for 

10 a fair amount of the exposure geometry, they're 

11 going to be in the proximity of a weapon and 

12 really not even particularly working, you know, 

13 with their hands on in a kind of orientation 

14 that changes the irradiation.

15 So, the fact that we have a 

16 procedure for making this geometry adjustment 

17 that we would like to use because we've kind of 

18 been vetted through Procedures Subcommittee 

19 and so we'd kind of like to have that vetted one 

20 be used.

21 We don't have another better 
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1 alternative and the fact that you're looking at 

2 sort of an average exposure situation averaging 

3 in your lap to just being in proximity, we think 

4 that it's a reasonable way to bound the 

5 adjustment that you have to make from the badge 

6 reading.

7 So that's -- those are the kind of 

8 reasons that go in to it as wanting to stick with 

9 the TIB-10 approach on this.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: And just apply it 

11 to the percentile?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, instead of the 

13 95th percentile.

14 DR. NETON: That would have been 

15 agreed to a while ago, but it's sort of 

16 obviously an issue for us balancing PERs 

17 versus, you know, how often if your PERs --

18 MR. HINNEFELD: How often your PERs 

19 -- I mean the 116's going to be the next mother 

20 of all PERs. You know, we keep talking about 

21 having the mother of all PERs.
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1 DR. NETON: It would effectively 

2 change every non-compensated dose --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Every 

4 non-compensated case that we've looked at, yes. 

5 DR. NETON: Or --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Probably, 

7 probably, some of the PERs actually go down, so 

8 there would be some target --

9 DR. NETON: But I mean, it's going 

10 to have to be redone to determine it, which 

11 effect. But you're right.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Some of these, yes, 

13 actually go down so those are the periods.

14 DR. NETON: Prostates.

15 MR HINNEFELD: But skeptically, 

16 are you just looking at these skeptically or are

17 you just tired?

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, I'm --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Not you.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I'm just 

21 looking at this. And so, you're going to go 
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1 ahead and make this change to 10?

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, TIB-10, yes. 

3 We'll issue 10 with the 3.5, we'll use that 

4 adjustment factor then as the geometry 

5 adjustment factor.

6 MR. STIVER: You're saying that as 

7 a result of this, most of the partials are going 

8 to have to be redone on at least for most of 

9 these, except for a few organs?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess.

11 MR. STIVER: So, I mean the PER 

12 would be --

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean to the 

14 extent, yes, we're going to have changes to the 

15 Site Profile as a result of these discussions 

16 and so, we'll have to do some sort of evaluation 

17 and previously completed comments.

18 DR. NETON: That's going to be true 

19 whether or not we need to --

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Whether we --

21 DR. NETON: -- I mean a number of 
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1 these changes like the new coworker model, 

2 neutrons, it's all going to --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: The neutron thing, 

4 yes.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And the second 

6 part of this OTIB-10, the 16 or whatever that 

7 you're talking about, that too will affect this 

8 but that's going to be down the road.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, that'll affect it.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Everywhere.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: That'll affect 

12 everything.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Everywhere. 

14 Okay, that's why I was looking at you in this 

15 phased look of --

16 MR. KATZ: Well, everybody was a 

17 glovebox worker.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

19 DR. NETON: Right.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, so a lot of places.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Well ICRP 116 would 
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1 affect everywhere.

2 DR. NETON: ICRP's doing that to 

3 the glovebox, so it'll affect all dose 

4 conversion factors for like 32 different organs 

5 and now you have a male and female model.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, if we issue 

7 TIB-10 now like we say we're going to do, that's 

8 going to throw in a PER for this TIB-10 change 

9 that we were thinking we could avoid if we 

10 waited on the OTIB revision until we got 116, 

11 but 116 is too far downstream.

12 DR. NETON: With ICRP 116, you can 

13 actually model all of the dose conversion 

14 factors for the organs individually and come up 

15 with individual organ dose conversion factors 

16 then you don't have to rely on these sort of 

17 bounding calculations.

18 It's going to be very nice, but 

19 it'll change our world upside down.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I just want to 

21 make sure I know that we've got a lot of cases 
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1 that are sitting on the shelf until we get this 

2 done and I just want to make sure that we've got 

3 this put in place.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And so, that's 

6 why I wanted to make sure that we got this table 

7 changed, the TBD changed. 

8 But I'll just try and understand the 

9 116 and but that's, I understand, that's the 

10 bigger picture. I want to get these cases 

11 taken care of when we can.

12 MR. KATZ: Does this one really 

13 need to be in abeyance or can it be closed 

14 because it's a simple -- I mean it's not complex 

15 what they're doing.

16 DR. NETON: No.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, but we still 

18 have to just --

19 MEMBER BEACH: Just go back and 

20 check it.

21 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, yes. I 
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1 mean in abeyance, we really mostly use the 

2 abeyance for matters where you really have to 

3 see how it plays out to say, okay, that's good.

4 At least with procedures, for 

5 things that are just very simple changes and 

6 you've agreed upon them and you know they're 

7 going to be done, we don't have another SC&A 

8 review of the simple change.

9 Because they're going to review the 

10 PER when the PER comes out anyway.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, I don't 

12 know, I have no problem with that.

13 MR. KATZ: So I think you can just 

14 close this one because everybody knows what the 

15 solution is and it's --

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Any problem 

17 with that, Joe or John?

18 MR. FITZGERALD: No.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: They're going 

20 to be --

21 MR. STIVER: That's fine with me, 
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1 the record will be transcribed.

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, that's 

3 fine.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, that's all 

5 the issues. We'll go ahead and recap since 

6 we're talking abeyance versus closed on that.

7 Going through the list using the 

8 agenda, Item A which is Issue 6, that's the one 

9 with the zero entries, I think there will be a 

10 note to the Work Group.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: We're going to 

12 write up how we intend to --

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, a note to 

14 the Work Group and then perhaps revisions to the 

15 TBD.

16 Issue 7, neutron-to-photon ratios, 

17 that's a new approach that's going to be, I 

18 think it sounded like it would be a small White 

19 Paper or something. A brief paper and then a 

20 revision to the TBD once accepted by the Work 

21 Group.
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1 Issue 8, that was a small paragraph 

2 or some admonition to the dose reconstructor 

3 that will be added to the TBD, that's in 

4 abeyance. These first three would be 

5 abeyances.

6 Issue 9 which is incidents is closed 

7 without any action.

8 Issue 10 on the firing sites is 

9 rendered moot by the SEC; that's closed.

10 Issue 13 which is the petitioner 

11 issue is closed.

12 Issue 15 would be held in abeyance, 

13 that's the tritium issue with the two actions 

14 that were discussed and that would be actions 

15 to revise the TBD, think.

16 And then the final one we just 

17 talked about would be -- it would be closed with 

18 the issuance of the OTIB revision and SC&A would 

19 be able to look at that through the PER process.

20 MR. KATZ: That's right.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: So, that's it.
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1 MR. KATZ: That's right. Good, 

2 10:45.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, we time 

4 frame --

5 MR. HINNEFELD: I'll have to ask 

6 the --

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: You know, and I 

8 guess the only thing I want to say out there is 

9 that my understanding is that we do have several 

10 cases sitting up on the shelf that we need to 

11 get this. It's been a long time, so any idea?

12 MR. ROLFES: My opinion is it 

13 shouldn't be too long. It sounds to me like the 

14 majority of the work, I think this issue I think 

15 on our part was the neutron dose reconstruction 

16 coworker model and I think if we provide a 

17 write-up here in the next, you know, four to six 

18 weeks, I think --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I would say 

20 something like that.

21 DR. NETON: I'm sorry, when are we 
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1 going to do this?

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: He said it's 

3 definitely next week.

4 (Laughter.)

5 DR. NETON: That was a four to six 

6 weeks for the coworker model, is that what?

7 MR. ROLFES: I think four to six 

8 weeks for a write-up on our new approach on 

9 neutron and coworker model.

10 DR. NETON: For the approach or the 

11 completed model?

12 MR. ROLFES: Well, I mean --

13 DR. NETON: If it's not four to six, 

14 we'll let you know. I can't speak for --

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Let's go with six 

16 and if it's not going to be that -- because 

17 again, you know --

18 DR. NETON: It's hard to get in 

19 private office.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: We've got to fit it 

21 into the project schedule. So, and we're 
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1 trying to -- we want to be ready for SFFL in 

2 December or November when we go out to Los 

3 Angeles.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: But, for the 

5 tritium for this one, it's just the approach of 

6 how we're going to do it?

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean we 

8 have to, you know, developing a coworker model 

9 is a fair amount of data manipulation and we do 

10 have the data, but we have to kind of build it 

11 out, describe it and so there's a fair amount 

12 of data manipulation and there is a lot of tasks 

13 that require data manipulation and only a 

14 certain few number of people who are capable of 

15 doing that. So we have to fit it into the 

16 project schedule is what we're saying.

17 DR. NETON: And I think Tim -- Tim, 

18 are you still on the phone?

19 DR. TAULBEE: I just joined back.

20 DR. NETON: Did you hear the 

21 discussion about time frame for the coworker 
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1 model?

2 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

3 DR. NETON: Do you think six weeks 

4 is reasonable?

5 DR. TAULBEE: Four to six weeks is 

6 reasonable as long as they don't have anything 

7 else going on. So, you're absolutely right on 

8 the project plan and seeing what other tasks 

9 that they've got that we've committed to in 

10 other Work Group meetings, et cetera needs to 

11 be evaluated.

12 DR. NETON: So, we'll shoot for six 

13 weeks and then if it's not going to be that for 

14 good reason, we'll let you know.

15 MR. KATZ: And everything else 

16 seems pretty trivial.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I was going 

18 to say if there's partials that are pending, 

19 it's probably this issue, the neutron more than 

20 anything else.

21 DR. NETON: Yes, I think so.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: The rest of it 

2 seems to be easy.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I think that's 

4 true.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. And then 

6 -- now we've -- during this whole process, we 

7 made a lot of changes to the TBD and a lot of 

8 them have been held back until we do the final 

9 TBD review. So, once all these are put in 

10 there, then is SC&A group --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, that's kind 

12 of the standard thing. I mean we'll --

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Standard 

14 process?

15 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, when 

16 that gets into the schedule for revision we 

17 would certainly --

18 MR. KATZ: Well, SC&A will look at 

19 the items in abeyance. The things that are 

20 closed they don't have to look at again.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: You're talking 

2 about other findings there are going to be 

3 closed immediately that are through --

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Through the 

5 Work Group process, I mean this long period has 

6 been, yes, when we do a TBD update, we're going 

7 to, you know, we'll change -- I just wanted to 

8 do a follow-up of --

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think we've 

10 issued some revisions.

11 MR. ROLFES: Yes, the only thing 

12 that hasn't been revised at this point is the 

13 external dose TBD. The internal dose TBD was 

14 issued I think in February of this year. We're 

15 going to need to revise that just to update the 

16 tritium missed dose values that we discussed 

17 today.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: So, if there are 

19 any findings on any of the other sections 

20 besides internal and external that we feel like 

21 need to be checked to see that they get 
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1 incorporated --

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, that I --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: We've reviewed 

4 the existing revisions and didn't see any 

5 issues that stood out, so we would have brought 

6 those to the table today.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: These are just 

9 to follow up to the close then because I'd 

10 really like to put this in the bed, that we're 

11 done and go from there.

12 DR. NETON: I think we're really 

13 close.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, so do I, so 

15 we'll just leave it at that.

16 Phil, do you have any questions 

17 before we close?

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Not really.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. I just 

20 wanted to make sure. Josie --

21 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So, with that, 

2 we're done.

3 MR. KATZ: Very good, we're 

4 adjourned.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

6 matter went off the record at 10:53 a.m.)

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