1

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 

 + + + + +

 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

 SAFETY AND HEALTH

 + + + + +

 ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

 WORKER HEALTH

 + + + + +

 67th MEETING

 + + + + +

 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2010

 The meeting convened at 9:00 a.m.,

Pacific Standard Time, in the Marriott

Manhattan Beach, 1400 Parkview Avenue,

Manhattan Beach, California, James Malcolm

Melius, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member*

MARK GRIFFON, Member

RICHARD LEMEN, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member*

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member
2

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

PRESENT:(Cont'd)

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS:

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

ARMIJO, ROBERTO, Hangar 481 Petitioner*

BADGER, SABRINA, Senator Reid's Office*

BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG*

BRADFORD, SHANNON, OCAS

BROCK, DENISE, OCAS*

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH Contractor

CANO, REGINA, DOE

CELESTINE, FRANK, Texas City Petitioner*

CLAYTON, DOROTHY, NTS Petitioner*

CHRISTIANSEN, KATHY, NTS Petitioner*

DARNELL, PETE, OCAS

DOLL, LOU, Public

EATON, CLARISSA, United Nuclear Petitioner* 

FUNK, JOHN, Nevada Test Site Petitioner*

GLENN, RAILI, NTS Petitioner*

GLOVER, SAM, OCAS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

HINNEFELD, STU, OCAS

HUGHES, LARA, OCAS

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

NETON, JIM, OCAS

PRESLEY, LOUISE

ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHYRN, SC&A 

ROZNER, KATHY, Senator Reid's Office*

RUTHERFORD, LaVon, OCAS

SALAZAR, BENITO, Hangar 481 Petitioner*

STEDNICK, PAUL, NTS Petitioner*

TURNER, LEROY, OCAS

ZEITOUN, ABE, SC&A

*Participating via telephone
3

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

 C O N T E N T S

Welcome and Introductions................ .4

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory SEC

Petition (83.14)......................... .5

 Dr. Lara Hughes, NIOSH

Board Vote............................... 33

General Electric Evendale SEC Petition 

(83.14).................................. 35

 Mr. Pete Darnell, NIOSH

Blockson Chemical SEC Petition........... 89

 Ms. Wanda Munn, WG Chair

Chapman Valve SEC Petitio.............. .150

 Dr. John Poston, WG Chair

United Nuclear Corporation

 SEC Petition..................... .194

Hangar 481 at Kirtland Air Force Base

 SEC Petition..................... .246

Nevada Test Site SEC Petition.......... .297

Public Comment......................... .384

Adjourn
4

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

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

2 (9:07 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning and 

4 welcome, everybody. Let me just check on the 

5 phone lines first. If someone on the phone 

6 lines could just let me know that you can hear 

7 us clearly?

8 PARTICIPANT: We can hear you.

9 MR. KATZ: Great, thank you. So 

10 just a couple other notes for the phone line. 

11 Please, everyone on the phone line, mute your 

12 phone. If you don't have a mute button use 

13 the * and 6 buttons and that will mute your 

14 phones. Use them again when you want to come 

15 off of mute, and also please do not put your 

16 phone on hold. Call back in if you need to 

17 leave the call for a while because the hold 

18 will actually disturb the entire audio system. 

19 Thank you. And I'll just roll call. All of 

20 the Board Members who are here with us in 

21 California are present to note for the record. 

22 And let me just check on Dr. Richardson, 
5

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 whether he's with us?

2 (No response.)

3 MR. KATZ: And Mr. Gibson, how 

4 about Mr. Gibson?

5 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes, I'm here, 

6 Ted.

7 MR. KATZ: Great. Let me try 

8 again. Dr. Richardson? Dave? David, are you 

9 with us? 

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Hello? Can 

11 you hear me?

12 MR. KATZ: Oh yes, now we can. 

13 Great. Glad you could make it.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Again, 

16 welcome this morning and we will start. Lara 

17 again. 

18 DR. HUGHES: Last time, I promise. 

19 All right, does this work? Okay.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes, so we're -- that's 

21 correct. We're discussing Lawrence Berkeley 

22 National Laboratory, and just for the record, 
6

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Dr. Field is recusing himself. He's leaving 

2 the table. And we will come retrieve you at 

3 the end of the session. Okay, we're all set. 

4 Thank you, Lara.

5 DR. HUGHES: Okay, thank you. 

6 Good morning, everybody. This is the NIOSH 

7 evaluation of an SEC petition for Lawrence 

8 Berkeley Laboratory that I'm presenting. 

9 Again, this is a petition that was submitted 

10 to NIOSH under Paragraph 83.14 by a petitioner 

11 for whom NIOSH has determined that a dose 

12 could not be reconstructed. And this 

13 evaluation also considered a Class of worker 

14 similar to the petitioner under the law. For 

15 this petitioner NIOSH was unable to obtain 

16 sufficient amount of information to complete a 

17 dose reconstruction for the claim of the 

18 petitioner. And on December 8 of last year a 

19 claimant was notified -- or the claimant was 

20 notified that the dose reconstruction could 

21 not be completed and the petitioner was 

22 provided with a Special Exposure Cohort 
7

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Petition Form A. The petition was submitted 

2 to NIOSH on December 18 of 2009.

3 Again, this is a two-prong test. 

4 The evaluation part that looks at feasibility 

5 of dose reconstruction as well as -- or 

6 followed by the health-endangerment 

7 determination. A little bit to the history of 

8 the site. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has a 

9 long -- goes fairly far back in history. It 

10 was founded in 1931 on the University of 

11 California, Berkeley campus. It wasn't called 

12 LBNL back then but that's what I call it for 

13 this presentation. In 1941, Lawrence started 

14 a defense contract with what was the National 

15 Defense Research Committee and August 13, 1942 

16 marks the beginning of the Manhattan Engineer 

17 District and also to begin with the covered 

18 period for LBNL which is this program, 

19 basically the earliest covered date that there 

20 is. 

21 By 1945 the -- what is now LBNL 

22 has started to expand in their research and 
8

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 started to migrate off the University of 

2 Berkeley campus where it was initially located 

3 to the hill area east of the Berkeley campus. 

4 And currently there are numerous buildings on 

5 the hill as well as on campus that are 

6 involved in the research that -- actually, 

7 sorry, the buildings on campus and on the hill 

8 were involved in the MED/Atomic Energy 

9 Commission historically, sponsored research 

10 activities and of course, LBNL is still an 

11 operating site today. Here's a photograph 

12 that was taken about 1968. I don't have a 

13 pointer, but you can see the grassy, hilly 

14 area is what is today the laboratory -- what 

15 today is LBNL. The bottom right corner of 

16 this picture shows the University of 

17 California, Berkeley campus where the initial 

18 startup of these operations were. 

19 As for site operations, a large 

20 part of the operations consisted of particle 

21 accelerator development for radioisotope 

22 generation. Various sizes of cyclotrons were 
9

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 developed at the site ranging from 4-inch to 

2 184-inch, 300 MeV Synchrotron, a Van de Graaf 

3 generator, what's called the Bevatron, it's 

4 also a Synchrotron, and the Heavy Ion Linear 

5 Accelerator. In addition to that, they did a 

6 very large amount of radiochemistry 

7 experiments and isolation of new elements, 

8 among them plutonium and many more. In 

9 addition to that they engaged in a study of 

10 fundamental particles and what's actually 

11 quite important for the -- historically, was 

12 the uranium enrichment research. That 

13 research eventually resulted in the 

14 application of the technology and the 

15 development of the Calutron that were used at 

16 Y-12 to enrich the uranium for the first 

17 nuclear weapon. 

18 Radiation operations took place in 

19 all of the laboratories and buildings that 

20 were affiliated with LBNL as far as research 

21 shows. The information that is available for 

22 dose reconstruction, again, the NIOSH existing 
10

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 technical information bulletins and Site 

2 Profile information. We looked at case files 

3 in the NIOSH database. The NIOSH site 

4 research database has records that were 

5 collected during site visits to Lawrence 

6 Berkeley Laboratory and consist of on-site 

7 records that were available as well as special 

8 collection library records that we looked at. 

9 Additionally there were records located at 

10 the Federal Records Center in San Bruno. The 

11 National Archives at various sites in the 

12 country had records. We contacted the 

13 California Radiologic Health Branch, the state 

14 agency that is responsible for licensing. We 

15 also checked records at Argonne, Los Alamos, 

16 Lawrence Livermore and Hanford, and of course 

17 checked electronic databases that are 

18 available from NRC and DOE. In addition, we 

19 looked at documentation affidavits provided by 

20 the petitioner, interviewed former LBNL 

21 employees and looked at scientific and 

22 historical publications. The data that is 
11

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 available for dose reconstruction: internal 

2 monitoring started at this site in the form of 

3 blood counts in the 1940s and 50s which looked 

4 at the actual blood samples of workers. This 

5 information is not useful to reconstruct 

6 doses. Prior to 1964 we have retrieved only 

7 230 individual bioassay samples. These 

8 analyses were not done on the site, but they 

9 were done -- the samples were sent off to 

10 other facilities such as Argonne, Los Alamos 

11 and Lawrence Livermore to do analyses for 

12 transuranics, polonium, radium, just about 

13 anything that they felt needed sampling, 

14 uranium and thorium. This sampling of workers 

15 was not routine and was very limited in scope. 

16 They were done when a worker was suspected of 

17 an intake, or if there was a particular 

18 experiment that was felt that it needed 

19 monitoring. Not until 1960 the site started 

20 an in-house bioassay program and by 1962 the 

21 program had become a routine program and was 

22 comprehensive in scope. Prior to 1964 NIOSH 
12

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 has determined that the internal data is 

2 insufficient to bound internal doses at 

3 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

4 External monitoring data initially 

5 consisted of mainly area survey, using area 

6 survey instrumentation. Film badges were 

7 started -- they started using film badges 

8 around 1944 for select workers who worked in 

9 select locations. NIOSH has not received any 

10 individual worker film badge data associated 

11 with claims before 1948 and no individual 

12 worker film badge data was located prior to 

13 1948. Therefore, pre- 1948 external data is 

14 also insufficient to bound external doses. 

15 Workplace survey data is also available in a 

16 limited scope such as gamma and neutron 

17 surveys that were done around cyclotrons. 

18 Contamination surveys were done in 

19 laboratories on occasion here and there, and 

20 air sampling was also done but in a limited 

21 scope for some buildings. In addition, the 

22 source-term data is somewhat sporadic and this 
13

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 site obviously had a very large variety of 

2 radionuclides in various buildings, and 

3 there's data that is available, it's just too 

4 limited to determine what was located where. 

5 So source-term data is not -- workplace and 

6 source-term data are not sufficient to bound 

7 the dose. And this would apply to all 

8 locations and job titles because this was a 

9 fairly large research facility where a lot of 

10 people were going in and out. As far as we 

11 have determined there were no access controls 

12 of any kind and seem to have been somewhat of 

13 a less strict environment for research.

14 In conclusion, as for feasibility, 

15 NIOSH lacks sufficient monitoring process or 

16 source term information for the various 

17 nuclear research operations at this site to 

18 estimate internal/external radiation doses to 

19 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 

20 employees for the period of August 13, 1942 to 

21 December 31, 1961. NIOSH will use any 

22 individual personal monitoring data that is 
14

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 available for partial dose reconstructions as 

2 appropriate. As for health endangerment, 

3 NIOSH has determined that it is not feasible 

4 to estimate internal radiation doses with 

5 sufficient accuracy and that the health of the 

6 covered employees may have been endangered. 

7 The evidence indicates that workers in the 

8 Class may have accumulated intakes of uranium, 

9 transuranic elements and numerous other 

10 radioactive materials during the period from 

11 August 13, 1942 to December 31, 1961. 

12 This is the summary slide. 

13 Internal dose reconstruction is not feasible 

14 for the years 1942 through 1961. Internal 

15 dose reconstruction is feasible for 1962 to 

16 the present. As for external data, starting 

17 in 1942 through 1947, dose reconstruction is 

18 not feasible. However, starting in 1948 

19 through the present, dose reconstruction is 

20 feasible and occupational medical X-ray dose 

21 reconstruction is feasible for all years of 

22 the covered period. So the NIOSH-proposed 
15

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Class Definition is all employees of the 

2 Department of Energy, its predecessor 

3 agencies, their contractors and subcontractors 

4 who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National 

5 Laboratory in Berkeley, California from August 

6 13, 1942 to December 31, 1961 for a number of 

7 work days aggregating at least 250 work days 

8 occurring either solely under this employment 

9 or in combination with work days within the 

10 parameters established for one or more other 

11 Classes of employees included in the Special 

12 Exposure Cohort. And the recommendation is, 

13 again, the recommended Class period August 13, 

14 42 through December 31, 1961 and the 

15 feasibility conclusion is no and health 

16 endangerment, yes. And that concludes my 

17 presentation.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Dr. 

19 Hughes. That's a musical background there. 

20 Any questions from the Board Members? Yes, 

21 Bob.

22 MEMBER PRESLEY: When you get 
16

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 ready, I need to make the motion.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, well, 

3 first I'll see if we have any questions from 

4 anybody here? Jim?

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: Just one question. 

6 I just don't know, was there limited access 

7 to Berkeley National Laboratories, or between 

8 the main campus and this campus, or how was 

9 that handled?

10 DR. HUGHES: Not that I know of. 

11 It started on-campus and there were quite a 

12 number of graduate students going in and out, 

13 as far as we could tell, especially in the 

14 early years. There might have been access 

15 control -- not any student could run in, but 

16 everybody that would have been employed by 

17 what was called the Radiation Laboratory, it 

18 had various names at the site, or who would 

19 work on the project certainly had access to 

20 the buildings.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, certainly 
17

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 there could have been graduate students who 

2 were not employed or under contract, but I 

3 assume they wouldn't be covered in any event 

4 since they are not by definition -- or are 

5 they? Would they be covered? They're not 

6 Energy employees under the definition of the 

7 law, I guess.

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: Unpaid 

9 contractors?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, no. 

11 Certainly, if you have graduate research going 

12 on, many graduate students are covered under 

13 contracts but I think most places have 

14 graduate students who are also there on their 

15 own dollar. But they wouldn't be eligible 

16 anyway, would they? If they're not an Energy 

17 employee as defined in the law. Because this 

18 -- their presence there wouldn't be covered 

19 here the way this is defined, I don't think.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

21 Rutherford. Based on my understanding, our 

22 understanding is they would not be covered and 
18

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Jeff Kotsch with the Department of Labor shook 

2 his head in agreement with me on that so I 

3 believe we're correct.

4 MS. CANO: Hi, I'm Gina Cano with 

5 the Department of Energy. I just wanted to 

6 touch base. If they were actually paid by the 

7 Department of Energy and there's the link then 

8 they would be covered obviously if the 

9 university is paying them. But it's all about 

10 DOE going through and if they establish 

11 employment then obviously they would be 

12 covered. In some cases they were paid by 

13 Department of Energy, so.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Then -- well, 

15 what about the corollary. What happens if 

16 it's somebody that -- a security guard or 

17 maintenance person or whoever who's covered by 

18 the University of California but not directly 

19 paid through the DOE contract? It would be 

20 sort of in the overhead for that, but yet they 

21 could have a person that could work full-time 

22 in that building possibly.
19

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MS. CANO: We'll have to go back 

2 and check, but I -- my inclination is no, but 

3 we'll have to check. We can clarify that.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Jeff, do 

5 you have anything to add?

6 MR. KOTSCH: No, not really. As 

7 in all of these reviews, they're done on a 

8 case-by-case basis, so we would determine, you 

9 know, attempt to determine their employment 

10 link to DOE. 

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Henry?

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Just a question. 

13 I mean, a lot of the work there would be done 

14 as grants or contracts with DOE, and if --

15 would a student who is working for a professor 

16 who had a grant -- do grants count as being 

17 DOE?

18 MS. CANO: I just want to clarify 

19 something. If there's a contract, some of the 

20 universities had a contract with Department of 

21 Energy for maintenance services, so the 

22 custodians -- when the maintenance folks would 
20

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 go in and clean up the facility. So in 

2 essence, if there's a contractual relationship 

3 to perform those services, then yes.

4 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch. And I 

5 was going to say the University of California 

6 was the contractor so you would have the link 

7 there.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim Lockey, I 

9 thought you had --

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: That was the same 

11 question I was going to ask.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Then 

13 Josie?

14 MEMBER BEACH: I was just 

15 wondering, could you tell me the dates of the 

16 petitioners -- when they filed, what their 

17 dates were?

18 DR. HUGHES: When the petition was 

19 filed?

20 MEMBER BEACH: No, it was filed on 

21 the 18th, but what dates was the petitioner 

22 asking for.
21

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. HUGHES: No, this was a 

2 petition that was solicited by NIOSH.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, it was 

4 solicited by NIOSH. Okay. Well, I understand 

5 that, I just was wondering if there was dates 

6 because you did mention it went to the present 

7 if there was other -- so, I understand, 

8 thanks.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is your question 

10 the cutoff or the --

11 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I was just 

12 wondering if we're going to look into further 

13 dates past 61. I guess I wasn't asking it 

14 very well.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you want to 

16 say anything about the cutoff?

17 DR. HUGHES: The cutoff was 

18 determined with the site establishing a 

19 bioassay program starting in 1960 and as is 

20 the case with many bioassay programs, they hit 

21 a few bumps at the beginning so it wasn't very 

22 comprehensive until they had their methods 
22

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 established. That's the impression I get. 

2 And we actually know -- NIOSH was able to 

3 collect all the internal data at the site and 

4 the reason we know this, they started 

5 numbering their bioassay results starting at 

6 number one and we have all the information. 

7 It just -- the internal dosimetry team has 

8 determined that the cutoff should be 1962 to 

9 be conservative because the initial startup, 

10 it wasn't as comprehensive in scope as it 

11 should have been, maybe.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks. 

13 Mark?

14 MEMBER GRIFFON: I was just -- I 

15 was actually looking for the slide and I don't 

16 see it in what we have on our memory stick. 

17 But the slide you showed with the internal 

18 versus external versus what you can construct 

19 and can't construct. Oh, okay.

20 DR. HUGHES: This one?

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay, so you --

22 you do say you can reconstruct external dose 
23

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 after 48.

2 DR. HUGHES: That's correct.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: And 42 through 

4 47, there was just no badging at all, or?

5 DR. HUGHES: Very limited.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Very limited?

7 DR. HUGHES: Essentially, if we 

8 received a claim with that early employment it 

9 would be hard for DOE to retrieve this data, 

10 to obtain the data with the claim. In a 

11 comprehensive research document all the 

12 records are there. There is some film badge 

13 data here and there, but it's just not -- not 

14 sufficient.

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: And from 48 on, 

16 after 48 did they -- do you have any 

17 description of the external dose program? I 

18 mean, did they badge anyone who -- I guess 

19 what I'm getting at is, did they badge any 

20 worker who was likely to get into areas where 

21 they would have been exposed.

22 DR. HUGHES: Yes.
24

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Because I think 

2 you're talking about -- so they did badge --

3 DR. HUGHES: Yes, they did.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- all workers?

5 DR. HUGHES: I wouldn't say all.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Because then I 

7 would question why you had expanded the 

8 definition to include all workers at LBNL 

9 instead of just, you know. 

10 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: The question that 

12 we've dealt with many times, you know. 

13 Exposed or likely to be exposed, you know.

14 Didn't have sufficient information 

15 to narrow it down, that Class Definition? 

16 That's what I'm getting at, I guess.

17 DR. HUGHES: It would be very hard 

18 to narrow it down I imagine because the 

19 building -- this was a very spread-out site 

20 with many buildings involved.

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

22 Rutherford. I would remind you; not only is 
25

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 it an external issue, it's internal. The 

2 internal actually is what expands the Class 

3 Definition to the end of the covered period at 

4 the end of 1961. So whether we could do 

5 external after 1947 or not, the internal is 

6 driving the Class period out through 1961. 

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: And you're 

8 saying, because of limited access controls, 

9 people even without badging could have got 

10 into areas where they could have internal 

11 exposures?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct. 

13 I think that the problem is we don't have 

14 enough knowledge of how much access control 

15 was there, nor do we have enough data. If we 

16 had indication that there was access controls, 

17 then we still need to have data that would 

18 actually support that access controls were 

19 adequate to prevent the people outside of 

20 those areas from getting exposed as well. And 

21 we don't have that information.

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. Because 
26

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 I'm thinking back to -- and I know you're 

2 going to give us a summary maybe later on 

3 today or whenever, but I'm thinking back to 

4 situations like Y-12 when we had laboratory 

5 workers. And we also discussed the cyclotron 

6 issues and the question of whether people 

7 could have had access to those and therefore 

8 should be included in the Class, so. But I'll 

9 accept that explanation now, thanks.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: John, do you?

11 MEMBER POSTON: I think it's a 

12 good point.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. David 

14 Richardson or Mike Gibson, do you have 

15 questions?

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, this is 

17 David Richardson. Can you hear me?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hold it a 

19 second. We need to turn the volume up so we 

20 can hear you. Okay.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I just wanted 

22 to follow up again on the external dosimetry 
27

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 issue because the contention is that, from 

2 January 1948 you were able to reliably 

3 estimate external doses for these workers. I 

4 mean, that was how I read the summary 

5 findings, and the consequence of that 

6 assertion is that it's the internal dosimetry 

7 which is driving the Class Definition and 

8 starting in 1962, there's adequate internal 

9 dosimetry information that you can stop the 

10 Class there. I'm still hung up on the 

11 external dosimetry and could you explain to me 

12 a little bit more how it is that the external 

13 dosimetry starting in 1948 was adequate for 

14 characterizing these doses?

15 DR. HUGHES: Starting in 1948 the 

16 site had a film badge program in place and 

17 from the data we were able to obtain -- this 

18 is the claimant data as well as other data 

19 that was obtained during data capture. The 

20 film badge data would be available by a name, 

21 worker-name basis in form of summary sheets of 

22 individual film badge results. 
28

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I mean I 

2 understand that there were dosimeters. You 

3 feel that the technology of a dosimeter in 

4 1948 to characterize external exposures to 

5 let's say - - I mean there's going to be 

6 neutrons I'm assuming of relatively high 

7 energy that's all -- I would imagine it's a 

8 really complicated dosimetry problem here when 

9 you're working with cyclotrons and bombarding 

10 targets with extremely high-energy particles. 

11 Am I wrong about that?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

13 Rutherford. I just wanted to clarify one 

14 thing before we answer that question, and I

15 don't think that - - I think Dr. Richardson 

16 has a very good point. I want to point out 

17 the fact that, whether we could reconstruct 

18 the external dose in 48 on is not going to 

19 change the Class Definition and our ability to 

20 do that external dose from 48 to 1962 is only 

21 going to help the non-presumptive cancers 

22 during that period. It will allow us a 
29

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 recourse for those partial dose 

2 reconstructions to give them some dose, and I 

3 just wanted to point that out.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No, and I 

5 appreciated that, and that's how I initially 

6 read this was that the determination was 

7 sufficient without further consideration of 

8 the difficulties of the external dosimetry, 

9 and so I was willing to stop there, but then I 

10 was thinking about your logic for why starting 

11 in 1962. Because now we were able to deal 

12 with the internal dose problems because you 

13 feel like there's adequate bioassay. The 

14 implication has to also be, by that point, the 

15 external dosimetry program is adequate for you 

16 also to figure out the doses. Is that the 

17 case? So was a film badge dosimeter in 1962 

18 -- were they using NTA films at this time at 

19 this site, or are you simply relying on the 

20 workplace monitoring, in which case you have 

21 to have sort of time and dose rate 

22 information? 
30

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. HUGHES: No. By 1962 I 

2 believe they used NTA film, although I would 

3 have to go back and check what the report 

4 says.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I mean 

6 the description of the dosimetry that was in 

7 this document led me to think it was mostly 

8 film badge dosimetry.

9 DR. HUGHES: It would have been 

10 beta/gamma, yes.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: John Mauro has a 

12 comment.

13 DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John 

14 Mauro. I'd just like to point out to the 

15 Board that we were asked to perform a Site 

16 Profile review of Lawrence Berkeley. We've 

17 completed that review. It was sent to DOE for 

18 their clearance. I think we got it back. 

19 Within a week or so, you will be getting our 

20 review. The only reason I bring this is up is 

21 there's a lot of discussion of the very issue 

22 you're talking about: the effectiveness of 
31

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 external dosimetry in complex fields, issues 

2 related to internal dosimetry, so if we have a 

3 Site Profile Review I think that will enrich 

4 the discussion. Very shortly it will be 

5 showing up on your desk.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I would just 

7 add to that, I was going to ask you about that 

8 but also bring up that we do not have a Work 

9 Group on Lawrence Berkeley set up so it's one 

10 of the things to be considered on Thursday. 

11 And then in regards to your comments, David, 

12 when we approve an SEC we are silent on the 

13 issue of what NIOSH says it can do. We cannot 

14 review it. It's part of the review of the 

15 Special Exposure Cohort Petitions, we don't --

16 and if we haven't already sort of delved into 

17 it and approved it we just don't -- we're not 

18 commenting on whether or not it's feasible to 

19 do other types of exposures. So it's a good 

20 point, but just so you know that we're not 

21 basically stating anything one way or the 

22 other about the Board's views on that 
32

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 particular claim or statement from NIOSH. Any 

2 other questions David?

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No, that's it.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And, David, this 

5 is Paul Ziemer. And it doesn't preclude 

6 extending the Class later if evidence shows 

7 that the monitoring was not adequate to 

8 reconstruct dose.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any other 

10 questions? If not, I think it's Bob's turn. 

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: Well, I'd like to 

12 make a motion that we accept this petition and 

13 the reason that I would like to do this, as 

14 you all know, that I worked at Y-12. I have 

15 been a historian for many, many years and have 

16 gone through a lot of the old papers and 

17 things about what was done at Lawrence 

18 Berkeley in the early days, and let me tell 

19 you what, this was the most classified 

20 operation in the United States at that time. 

21 If you weren't on this project you didn't get 

22 in to see what was going on. So I want you to 
33

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 remember that, but also back in the early 

2 days, we didn't have any -- this was all brand 

3 new science going on. They were trying to 

4 build the bomb, get uranium as fast as they 

5 could and it was a time of literal production 

6 experiment going on. So I would like to speak 

7 in support of this motion for the early years.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Bob. 

9 Do we have a second to his motion?

10 MEMBER MUNN: Second.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda seconds 

12 the motion. Any further discussion? Okay. 

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, no discussion so 

14 roll call. So Ms. Beach?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson? Mike?

17 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes, Ted.

18 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen?

19 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston?
34

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson?

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer?

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley?

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

13 MEMBER MUNN: Aye.

14 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey?

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon?

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Dr. Anderson?

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: It's unanimous, 15 
35

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 votes in favor, one recusal: Dr. Field. 

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bill's in the 

3 back there. You can rejoin us. 

4 MEMBER LEMEN: Did you say that on 

5 Thursday we'll discuss setting up the Special 

6 Working Group on this?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Normally 

8 on the last day of our meetings, we have more 

9 work time. I don't know if it's listed on the 

10 agenda today, but we usually then need to 

11 review both assignments to our contractor as 

12 well as the new Work Groups. And that is one 

13 of the ones that I think we need to consider.

14 MEMBER LEMEN: Thank you.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Okay, 

16 we'll now turn to General Electric Evendale 

17 and Pete Darnell.

18 MR. DARNELL: Good morning. My 

19 name is Peter Darnell. Appreciate the 

20 opportunity to come and speak to you about 

21 this Special Exposure Cohort Petition 

22 Evaluation for the General Electric Company, 
36

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Evendale, Ohio. NIOSH received the petition 

2 December 28, 2009. The initial proposed Class 

3 Definition was all employees of the Department 

4 of Energy and its predecessor agencies and 

5 their contractors and subcontractors who 

6 worked at GE Evendale from January 1, 1961 

7 through June 30, 1970. Petition qualified for 

8 evaluation on the 29th of December and the 

9 evaluation report was issued January 20, 2010. 

10 A little bit of the history of the 

11 GE Ohio Site. The Atomic Energy Commission 

12 contract work began in 1961, ended June 30, 

13 1970. We don't have a -- the actual start 

14 date, so we're assuming January 1, 1961. 

15 Contract work was scheduled for Buildings C 

16 and D, and certain smaller auxiliary 

17 structures. We don't have a complete list of 

18 all of those structures. Work was performed 

19 under a use permit through the U.S. Air Force. 

20 Custody of the facilities was returned to the 

21 Air Force on June 30, 1970 and that's the 

22 assumed end date of the AEC contract work. 
37

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Operations at the site included testing fuel 

2 element materials and high-temperature reactor 

3 materials, testing effects of radiation on 

4 refractory metals and alloys, examining 

5 radiation effects of beryllium oxide, 

6 examining fission product transport processes 

7 in reactor fuels, testing effects on clad 

8 uranium-oxide fuels in meltdown environments, 

9 developing process for intensification of 

10 thoria and calcination of thorium oxide in 

11 high-temperature furnaces. In other words, a 

12 lot of very dose-instructive processes. 

13 Buildings designated for the AEC 

14 contract like I said was Buildings C and D. 

15 This was an area called Air Force Plant 36. 

16 It's a 68- acre site within the GE Evendale 

17 Site. Approximately 3,000 employees had 

18 access to the area. Other buildings were used 

19 to support the work, no specific listing. 

20 There was a fenced area just north of 

21 Buildings C and D where radioactive materials 

22 were kept outside. It was a locked gate that 
38

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 separated access. NIOSH has been -- a little 

2 bit on data evaluation. NIOSH has been unable 

3 to collect detailed data describing the 

4 processes or equipment associated with these 

5 operations we've discussed. As a matter of

6 fact, the majority of the information that we 

7 have is actually on the Aircraft Nuclear 

8 Propulsion project which is not part of the 

9 covered period. NIOSH was unable to collect 

10 detailed source term information related to 

11 the DOE and the AEC operations. We do have 

12 data that indicates the existence of thorium 

13 and fission product doses and there was 

14 monitoring for elemental uranium, enriched 

15 uranium and thorium in a bioassay program in 

16 the 1960s. The problem is we have no linkage 

17 between the bioassay data and any of the 

18 individual workers. NIOSH has found no 

19 documentation associating job titles or job 

20 assignments with the specific radiologic 

21 operations. We did do interviews with the 

22 Health and Safety manager for the time period 
39

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 of the AEC operations. He basically told us 

2 that personnel that were deemed at risk were 

3 monitored. But personnel had offices in the 

4 radiological areas and above the radiological 

5 areas that were not monitored. In other 

6 words, general office personnel were in the 

7 same areas intermixed with radiological 

8 operations personnel. Some were monitored, 

9 some were not. These permanent offices were 

10 in the mezzanines above the work areas of 

11 Buildings C and D. And the personnel were 

12 told to stay out of the radiological areas, 

13 but there was no physical access control.

14 Radioactive contamination was 

15 spread from -- the director of Health and 

16 Safety said that contamination was spread from 

17 time to time into the corridors. It was 

18 cleaned up as it was found, but again, no real 

19 controls there. The radiological waste was 

20 stored outdoors north of Building D controlled 

21 by a locked gate. We found no documentation 

22 that shows access to the radiological work 
40

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 areas was limited to operations personnel.

2 Some of the information that was 

3 available through the ORAU Technical 

4 Information Bulletins case files within our 

5 NIOSH database and site research databases. 

6 We interviewed the Health and Safety manager 

7 of the General Electric facility, looked for 

8 information with the Ohio Department of Health 

9 and the Department of Energy, including the 

10 OpenNet repository in the Office of Scientific 

11 and Technical Information, or OSTI. And we 

12 did also look through the National Archive 

13 records. Only one of 127 GE Ohio claims 

14 contained individual internal monitoring data. 

15 DOE legacy management supplied 

16 uranium/thorium urinalysis results which I 

17 mentioned earlier for 1965 through 1968 and 

18 1970 and the results are listed by a sample 

19 number. There's no work identifiers. We 

20 don't know to what work the bioassay belonged 

21 or to what worker the bioassay belonged. And 

22 the data we deem as insufficient for 
41

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 development of coworker dose distribution. 

2 We've been unable -- NIOSH has 

3 been unable to locate fission product bioassay 

4 monitoring data for individuals for the period 

5 being evaluated. We've also been unable to 

6 locate sufficient data to allow for the 

7 estimation of internal dose for monitored GE 

8 Ohio workers. Thirty-two are for the external 

9 dosimetry, 32 of 127 of the claims had 

10 external monitoring data. But again, we don't 

11 know what work it went to, what jobs were the 

12 highest exposure potential jobs and we cannot 

13 at this time use that data for estimating a 

14 monitored dose or bounding the external dose. 

15 Radiological source term. Again, 

16 most of our information is about source term 

17 data for periods outside the AEC operations 

18 period. We do have some source term 

19 information for specific projects and 

20 experiments between January 61 and June 30, 

21 62, but the data again does not identify 

22 operations with the highest exposure 
42

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 potential. NIOSH has found insufficient 

2 source term information to allow us to 

3 sufficiently and accurately perform dose 

4 reconstruction. And we performed the two5 pronged test: feasibility and health 

6 endangerment. Medical exposures we found 

7 using ORAU TIB-0006 that we could perform 

8 diagnostic X-ray dose reconstruction. 

9 Internal exposures were evaluated 

10 and NIOSH has determined there was 

11 insufficient personnel workplace monitoring 

12 data to estimate potential magnitude of 

13 internal doses from exposure to uranium, 

14 thorium or fission products. There's also 

15 insufficient documentation to define the total 

16 quality -- quantity of the source term or to 

17 bound the internal dose from uranium, thorium 

18 and fission products. Whenever data that we 

19 do find in the existing claims or future 

20 claims we intend to use for non-presumptive 

21 dose reconstruction to the extent that the 

22 data fits current NIOSH procedures. For 
43

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 external exposures we evaluate the available 

2 personnel and workplace monitoring data enough 

3 to know that the external dosimetry data is 

4 very scarce and there's insufficient data on 

5 the nature and extent of the radiological 

6 source term. And again, adequate 

7 documentation of the monitoring practices does 

8 not exist. And with the external data we --

9 NIOSH intends to use it to -- for individual 

10 claims to perform dose reconstruction for the 

11 non-presumptive cancers. 

12 The proposed Class Definition: all 

13 employees of the Department of Energy, its 

14 predecessor agencies and their contractors and 

15 subcontractors who worked at the General 

16 Electric Company in Evendale, Ohio from 

17 January 1, 1961 through June 30, 1970 for a 

18 number of work days aggregating at least 250 

19 work days occurring either solely under this 

20 employment or in combination with work days 

21 within the parameters established for one or 

22 more other Classes of employees included in 
44

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the Special Exposure Cohort. NIOSH has 

2 determined it's not feasible to complete dose 

3 reconstructions for sufficient accuracy for 

4 the General Electric Company of Ohio and that 

5 the health of the employees may have been 

6 endangered. In summary, dose reconstructions 

7 are not feasible for all periods of AEC 

8 operations with the exception of occupational 

9 medical X-ray. That concludes my 

10 presentation. Questions?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Pete. 

12 Anybody have -- I'll start off then. I just 

13 want to try and understand the Class 

14 Definition. If I recall from living in 

15 Cincinnati this is quite a large facility.

16 MR. DARNELL: Yes, it is.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And so you're 

18 including everybody that worked in the entire 

19 facility would be eligible under this 

20 definition?

21 MR. DARNELL: That's correct.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. That's 
45

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 huge, yes. 

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: That's huge. 

3 You're talking about thousands and thousands 

4 of people.

5 MR. DARNELL: We looked at the 

6 facility in trying to bound workers, you know, 

7 put people in the facility. We have from 

8 operations personnel or the Health and Safety 

9 director that they had unmonitored workers 

10 commingled with monitored workers. There was 

11 no access control in the building. Anybody 

12 could walk through and people did. Those 

13 buildings were multi-use facilities. NIOSH 

14 has found no way to bound the specific 

15 employees. We can't put somebody in the 

16 building unless they were monitored and we 

17 can't exclude somebody from the building if 

18 they were not monitored.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think -- my 

20 own comment to that is when I read the report 

21 your presentation actually included much more 

22 detail than was in -- the report was pretty 
46

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 sparse. Even piecing together how it was 

2 justifying the Class, I understand that part 

3 better. I guess I still -- I don't think what 

4 you just said is documented at all in the 

5 report and I guess I'm concerned when we're 

6 adding such a large Class in terms of numbers 

7 that have we done due diligence in terms of 

8 looking at that issue. Henry?

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I was, 

10 again, being new or back on the Board here, 

11 having read through a whole bunch of these for 

12 this meeting. I'm just looking for 

13 consistency of approach, and I'm wondering 

14 here, again, given the large size and you say, 

15 well, you can't reconstruct for those who 

16 weren't badged or didn't have monitoring, but 

17 you do say you have quite a number of people 

18 who had biomonitoring, other data. I'm just 

19 curious as to -- it would seem to me clearly 

20 those who you don't have data on would fit the 

21 SEC type of approach that you don't know if 

22 they were in there and out there, but those 
47

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 people who were monitored, it would seem you 

2 might be able to reconstruct their doses so 

3 that you would exclude -- potentially exclude 

4 them.

5 MR. DARNELL: As far as I know we 

6 have one claim with internal monitoring data 

7 that is linked to a person that received that 

8 exposure. We have other internal monitoring 

9 data. We don't know to what operation it 

10 belongs, nor to what personnel it belongs. We 

11 have some external monitoring data in 32 of 

12 the 127 claims. Obviously with those 

13 personnel non-presumptive cancers we would be 

14 able to do some type of external dose 

15 reconstruction, but we have nothing with which 

16 to bound an internal dose. There's -- we have 

17 operations, some, we have some source, we know 

18 there was fission products data -- fission 

19 products there, we know there was thorium 

20 there, we know there was uranium. We have no 

21 way of telling where it was, how to assign it 

22 to a person or how to bound the exposures to 
48

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 personnel.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

3 Rutherford. I do want -- as a person that 

4 drives by the GE facility every day on my way 

5 to work I do -- we do recognize how large the 

6 facility is, and that is one thing that we 

7 went back and said, can we limit this Class. 

8 And the problem was the interview from the 

9 Health and Safety manager, when the interview 

10 -- when he indicated that there were 

11 secretaries and others that were officed in 

12 the same building, in the same area that were 

13 not monitored and were told basically to stay 

14 out of that area, it made it very difficult, 

15 because now I have to determine, well, how do 

16 I determine which secretaries were in the 

17 building and which secretaries on the site 

18 were not in the building. And what other 

19 workers that worked there that went into that 

20 area, you know, went into that building and 

21 what other ones didn't. And when you come 

22 down to that, I mean we originally were going 
49

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to define the Class as only Buildings C and D. 

2 But in the end when you have to try to ensure 

3 that you can define that workforce and you 

4 can't, we had to expand it.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Explain again 

6 why you couldn't do C and D, though?

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we could --

8 like I said, we could identify it as the work 

9 building and Buildings C and D, but the other 

10 issues that are associated with that is that 

11 you have workers that worked in that building 

12 that were not monitored or you know, so we 

13 couldn't be for sure that they would be picked 

14 up in the Class by just defining it as C and 

15 D. The other issue with that is that there 

16 were radioactive materials stored outside of 

17 the facility as well that were not 

18 specifically in C and D. That presented 

19 another issue for us.

20 MR. DARNELL: There were also 

21 auxiliary buildings that were used for some of 

22 the operations and testing that are not even 
50

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 listed in the information that we have. We 

2 know that auxiliary buildings were used, but 

3 not all of them.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But you only 

5 still talked to one person from the facility. 

6 I guess I'm having trouble figuring how you 

7 can reach a conclusion that you can't do 

8 something and you've only talked to one person 

9 at the facility.

10 MR. DARNELL: It was the Health 

11 and Safety director for the entire site. He 

12 was the one that told us about the 

13 contamination spreads that occurred and then 

14 were cleaned up after they were found, no 

15 other controls were done. He was the one that 

16 pointed out that there were unmonitored 

17 workers there as well as monitored workers.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know -- this 

19 is LaVon. The other challenge you get into 

20 is, without data, without any data about stack 

21 monitoring releases or anything else from the 

22 facility. Remember, the whole site is covered 
51

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 so if we define the Class as C and D, solely 

2 just C and D, that means we can't do dose 

3 reconstructions for workers outside of that 

4 building. Now in saying that, that means that 

5 we have to be able to do internal and external 

6 dose for those employees. We can make a 

7 decision, we can say well, we don't believe 

8 there was any exposure outside of that 

9 facility. What's our basis for that? We have 

10 no data. We can say okay, well I can -- I'm 

11 going to come up with an environmental model 

12 that I'm going to bound exposures for those 

13 workers outside of the facility, but what's 

14 the basis for that environmental model? You 

15 know, it's a tough situation when you're 

16 defining these Classes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Lockey?

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: I guess I would 

19 say I think more time needs to be spent on the 

20 GE facility and going back in regard to 

21 reconstructing the history of the facility 

22 maybe when the plant sites were built, when 
52

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 buildings were built. It's hard for me to 

2 fathom with that many employees at that 

3 facility that a significant number of these 

4 employees would be rotating through this 

5 building. 

6 This is a very large company, it 

7 does a lot as you're well aware in Ohio and I 

8 think that better justification needs to be 

9 given as to - - due diligence has to be done 

10 to make sure that there's not a way to come up 

11 with job exposure matrices over time at this 

12 facility to see if it can be isolated, who had 

13 the potential of going in the building and who 

14 absolutely would never have gone into the 

15 building because their job task was as a 

16 turbine machinist at the other end of the 

17 facility. That's -- this is sort of opening 

18 the floodgates and I think it may be justified 

19 to do that, but we really have to have it well 

20 documented that due diligence was done.

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think -- I 

22 understand, I totally agree. Like I said, I 
53

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 drive by the facility every day. The one 

2 thing the Board is going to have to recognize, 

3 in order to make that decision they're 

4 probably going to have to make a decision on a 

5 Class subjectively instead of solely based on 

6 quantitative data, and I just want to point 

7 that out.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I understand. 

9 Mark?

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: This goes back to 

11 the same kind of line of questioning, the due 

12 diligence that was done. You mentioned 32 of 

13 170 claim files have external dose data?

14 MR. DARNELL: Thirty-two of 127, 

15 yes.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: I was curious if 

17 you did any analysis on those files to look 

18 and see if there's any pattern, you know. 

19 Does it break out in any way by job title, by, 

20 you know --

21 MR. DARNELL: That was our 

22 problem. There's no way to tell where that 
54

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 dose came from, what operations the dose came 

2 from.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, but I mean 

4 who was monitored, what jobs --

5 MR. DARNELL: We know what 

6 personnel --

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: If you put a 

8 spreadsheet together with that data I'd love 

9 to see that if you did it.

10 MR. DARNELL: I do not have that 

11 with me.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: But you've done 

13 it? You have done that?

14 MR. DARNELL: Actually, I'm 

15 assuming it was done. I just looked at the 

16 results of the evaluation. 

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean, that's 

18 another step that might -- in addition to 

19 possibly interviewing more people, but that 

20 might be another step to say, you know, look 

21 at this, we've got all sorts of job titles in 

22 here and we can't really make any rational 
55

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 distinction between who, you know, was badged 

2 and wasn't badged. I think --

3 MR. DARNELL: Most of the job 

4 titles that I have seen related to this were 

5 related to plant operations in general rather 

6 than the specific operations that were done in 

7 the AEC work. So you would have a painter 

8 that came by and that had some dose. You 

9 would have a mechanic that had some dose. You 

10 have no idea where they came from, where the 

11 work was actually done that gave this person 

12 their external exposure, but it is listed.

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: I'm just trying 

14 to get a sense of who they put badges on, you 

15 know, and if there was any pattern.

16 MR. DARNELL: Personnel that were 

17 assigned to Buildings C and D worked there 

18 that had badges we can actually place in the 

19 building, but we have other personnel that 

20 were assigned to the building from what the 

21 Health and Safety manager has reported, that 

22 we cannot put a badge on because they were 
56

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 unmonitored.

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I 

3 understand. I just think that would be worth 

4 - if you have that, please post that on the 

5 drive.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer?

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: This question is 

8 either for Pete or LaVon, but if this Class 

9 Definition prevails, what's the approximate 

10 size of the added Class? Has anybody looked 

11 at how many?

12 MR. DARNELL: There were 

13 approximately 3,000 employees at the 

14 facilities at that time period. 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: So the Class size 

16 could easily be double that then because of --

17 yes, okay. Just wanted to get a feel for 

18 that, though. It's not trivial at all.

19 MR. DARNELL: No, it's not 

20 trivial.

21 MR. KATZ: Sorry to interrupt the 

22 dialogue, I just need to make a statement for 
57

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the record. To note that Dr. Lemen has 

2 recused himself. I think he just realized 

3 that there may be a connection that he has to 

4 be concerned about. So to be conservative 

5 about this, he's recused himself.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mike Gibson or 

7 David Richardson, do you have questions?

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I had a 

9 question. This is David Richardson. Can you 

10 hear me?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can, 

12 David.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. There's 

14 a lot of noise on this line again. But my 

15 question was, when I read this document I 

16 didn't even have a sense that the document 

17 established kind of a sense of the magnitudes 

18 of exposures or that exposures had occurred. 

19 It's pretty much written as, we can't relate 

20 anything to anybody and have no ability to 

21 even characterize what the exposures are. But 

22 I think there's a lot of information there 
58

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that would be useful if you are going to 

2 propose this Class. So if the -- while you're 

3 not able to link individuals to the bioassay 

4 results, it would be very useful if you could 

5 provide a description of, well, how many of 

6 them are above detection limit and what are --

7 is there a characterization of those. 

8 For those people who have 

9 dosimetry badges, are they -- do they have 

10 detectable doses? And that would also, it 

11 seems to me, get to if you were to say the 

12 Class was people who worked in two buildings 

13 and you raised the issue of, well, we couldn't 

14 even put bounds on the doses from 

15 environmental exposures from outside, you 

16 know, around the buildings, material that's 

17 stored outside, would a plausible bound be the 

18 maximum dose per monitored worker who was 

19 working inside the process? I mean, it's kind 

20 of partly going to depend upon what the 

21 magnitudes of those doses are, but without any 

22 further information it's sort of hard for us 
59

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to make a judgment. 

2 MR. DARNELL: You're absolutely 

3 correct. We could not link personnel to 

4 doses, doses to personnel, source term data to 

5 operations and where those personnel were 

6 exposed. But to take the environmental limit 

7 and basically make it the occupational limit 

8 and then say that was our environmental dose 

9 personnel, you're still bringing in everybody 

10 from the plant as a possibility of having 

11 health- endangered exposures. We'll get the 

12 other information for you that you asked for, 

13 of course, but at the current time I'd have to 

14 agree with you the document is written that we 

15 cannot put doses on people with specific 

16 operations.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, then 

18 Wanda.

19 MR. KATZ: Brad, one sec. Let me 

20 just -- some people probably joined the call 

21 before the start and didn't get these 

22 instructions, but for everyone who's on the 
60

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 phone line and is listening and we're glad 

2 you're there, would you please mute your 

3 phone, use the *6 button to mute your phone 

4 because as one of the Board Members noted 

5 who's on the phone as well, it's very 

6 difficult to hear on the phone line. So *6 

7 will mute your phone if you don't have a mute 

8 button. Thank you.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I guess, 

10 and maybe this is -- I'm sitting here looking 

11 at Santa Susana that we went to yesterday. 

12 There's no boundaries, there's no nothing, but 

13 they can control them to one building and now 

14 I'm looking at this and I'm really having a 

15 hard time understanding the difference between 

16 these two. I really am. And we're proposing 

17 a 3,000-person Class. And boy, I think we'd 

18 better look at this a little bit more in 

19 detail. I'm trying to figure out the 

20 difference between Santa Susana and this, and 

21 I really can't see a difference myself.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: LaVon, you want 
61

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to?

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I just want 

3 a little response. I don't know that if Brad 

4 means Santa Susana or Canoga. Canoga -- and I 

5 agree if you look at Canoga, you know, we 

6 initially defined a Class as the Vanowen 

7 Building because we felt like we had access 

8 controls, we felt like we had environmental 

9 data, we felt like we had information to limit 

10 that Class to the Vanowen Building. The 

11 information we had at the Vanowen Building and 

12 at Canoga, completely different than what we 

13 got at GE. We have none of that information. 

14 And then, in just trying to limit that Class 

15 to the Vanowen Building at Canoga, we found 

16 the difficulty with the Department of Labor 

17 being able to administer that Class. So you 

18 know, I just wanted to point that back out.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and I 

20 understand too because you're looking at this 

21 whole thing, and as we saw from the people 

22 saying yesterday, these people went absolutely 
62

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 everywhere, and when you go up to Savannah 

2 River or anything else like -- or not Savannah 

3 River, up to the hill as they called it and --

4 but you can put everybody into that building. 

5 And here's the people that really were out 

6 there working into this and I just -- I just 

7 have a problem with it -- bottom line. 

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda?

9 MEMBER MUNN: I'd like to focus 

10 our interest for just a moment on source term. 

11 I understand that you had a difficult time 

12 identifying precisely what all of the 

13 processes were inside the facility.

14 MR. DARNELL: That's correct.

15 MEMBER MUNN: But by the 1960s 

16 there was a fairly rigid process in place 

17 inside AEC and the other nuclear organizations 

18 with respect to tracking of nuclear materials. 

19 I don't believe that the jet propulsion --

20 that the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion group at 

21 GE was making the fuel elements and cladding 

22 that they were testing. 
63

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 They were doing an entirely 

2 different kind of thing there which means that 

3 there has to be records somewhere -- perhaps 

4 you couldn't find it -- but there has to be 

5 records somewhere of what was shipped in and 

6 what was shipped out. Now, who has those 

7 records and how one can identify them I don't 

8 know, but it would seem like the most reliable 

9 method of identifying what quantities were 

10 even available. Whether they were inside, 

11 outside, who had access to them becomes 

12 secondary as long as you know what the 

13 bounding numbers are with respect to 

14 quantities of material that was brought in and 

15 quantities of material that were left. So I 

16 guess the report itself was not clear from my 

17 perspective that it was absolutely impossible 

18 to track radioactive shipments in and out, and 

19 I'm wondering why not.

20 MR. DARNELL: We can go back and 

21 try to find some records, but the last couple 

22 of pages of the report lists documentation 
64

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that we -- where we went through where the 

2 records retrieval was done, what we tried to 

3 find, where we tried to find it, and we came 

4 up with very little information to answer your 

5 questions. Right now, the only thing that I 

6 think that we can do to make this information 

7 better for you is to go do more searches and I 

8 don't actually think those searches are going 

9 to be fruitful.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Well, you have a 

11 better sense of that than I do, certainly. It 

12 just is a concern to know that prior to the 

13 division of AEC that the records that you know 

14 instinctively they had somewhere. 

15 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

16 MEMBER MUNN: They were careful 

17 about that. They knew they were dealing with 

18 serious materials. And the individuals that 

19 I've known from that period are adamant about 

20 their care in meticulously recording 

21 quantities.

22 MR. DARNELL: I don't disagree 
65

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 with you at all.

2 MEMBER MUNN: So it makes you 

3 wonder, if you know that it's out there and 

4 you've tried to find it and you can't, where 

5 is it? I recognize if you've done all you can 

6 do, then you've done all you can do, but I 

7 don't understand where the clearinghouse is 

8 for AEC information, but somebody somewhere 

9 has to have better information on what went 

10 in, what went out, and that would resolve the 

11 entire issue in my mind. You then would be 

12 able to bound your highest possible exposures.

13 MR. DARNELL: I will point out 

14 again that we do have a lot of information on 

15 the aircraft nuclear project. But again, 

16 that's not part of this covered period. There 

17 is information to back up what you're saying 

18 that there is data out there, we just have not 

19 been able to find it for the remainder of 

20 these operations.

21 MEMBER MUNN: That's a shame.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie, then 
66

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Henry?

2 MEMBER BEACH: That was like my 

3 observation.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Share it 

5 with us?

6 MEMBER BEACH: Actually, I was 

7 questioning the dates prior to 1961 and I 

8 realized the cutoff there.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Well, 

10 Henry?

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: I guess what 

12 would be -- what I don't see in the report and 

13 I maybe need to go through it again, but it 

14 really doesn't describe what was the program, 

15 what was the medical program at the time. I 

16 mean, you talk about some of the, you have 32 

17 of 127 claims had external monitoring data, 

18 but you don't say at the facility what's the 

19 extent of the database. I mean, you have 32 

20 of 127. There were 3,000 workers. Were there 

21 120,000 badge monitoring results? And it says 

22 here there was some urinalysis but you can't 
67

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 link them to a person, but we don't know how 

2 many were there during that time and what were 

3 the ranges of values. I mean, if all of those 

4 values were non-detect it could be the 

5 laboratory issue, but that would be valuable 

6 information in understanding the bounding 

7 issue. So I would have liked in this document

8 to see more just to know what was, you know, 

9 like Wanda was saying. It was an important 

10 project but we don't -- and they must have had 

11 --

12 MR. DARNELL: If we knew --

13 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- people that 

14 were monitoring, but we don't know.

15 MR. DARNELL: If we knew what the 

16 program was we definitely would have given 

17 that to you. We do not know what the program 

18 was. The site is an aircraft engine plant. 

19 In general, that's what the entire site is. 

20 The whole site is set up to support that. 

21 They did some of these operations in two 

22 buildings, in some auxiliary buildings to 
68

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 support it. We don't have information more 

2 than what we presented. 

3 The 32 of 127, we have 127 claims 

4 in. Thirty-two of those claims happen to have 

5 external dosimetry data. That's all we know 

6 about it is that they happen to have the 

7 dosimetry data and we know what those results 

8 are. I don't know what they are off the top 

9 of my head so I'm not going to go into that. 

10 We have one claim out of 127 that included 

11 internal dosimetry data. That's all the 

12 information we have. There is no program, 

13 it's not linked to any job, it's not linked 

14 from job categories to operations. The normal 

15 information that we have with sites we do not 

16 have here. So all the information that you're 

17 asking for we don't have. We can go look some 

18 more, but we do not have it.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: So how did the 

20 claimants get their results to file their 

21 claims?

22 MR. DARNELL: They did not. This 
69

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 is 83.14. Oh, their claims? 

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: The data is in 

3 the claim, but if you didn't find the data to 

4 put into the claim, did they --

5 MR. DARNELL: I don't know how to 

6 answer that question, sir. I'm sorry. 

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't know who 

8 was first, but Gen then Bill.

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: In your report 

10 on page 15 you talk about another Class of 

11 coworkers similar to this one that might be 

12 added in a separate SEC and that's really all 

13 you say about it. We're looking at the impact 

14 of this whole facility, I wonder if you could 

15 give a little more information on that, the 

16 time or you know, what is this second Class?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's 

18 boilerplate that they put in every report. 

19 It's a hypothetical Class. It confused me. I 

20 think I asked the same question about two or 

21 three meetings ago because I was all confused.

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: Even within the 
70

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 boilerplate, it's kind of hard. It's a 

2 strange wording.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It certainly is. 

4 Phil?

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Given a lot of 

6 this material, as Wanda says, there should 

7 have been a billet sheet of at least material 

8 coming in. A lot of this obviously had post 

9 mortem analysis done on it. Once you do that, 

10 you open these things -- you drastically 

11 increase the risk for spills, excursion, 

12 incidents, you're generating more waste, and 

13 now you have these different incidents can 

14 happen in different rooms, different parts of 

15 the facility where you had a spill or a glove 

16 leak, you've had whatever -- how these 

17 excursions happen. I don't know how much 

18 documentation there is addressing that if 

19 there is any addressing that.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm sorry, Pete 

21 had to step out for a moment. Could you 

22 repeat the question?
71

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. My 

2 question is, you looked over the work they 

3 did, so obviously they brought in these 

4 materials and did post mortem analysis on it. 

5 That means you're going to cut these up, 

6 you're going to -- as soon as you start 

7 opening these items up you're going to have a 

8 difficult time. The containment now becomes a 

9 greater risk. You have greater risk of 

10 spills, glove leaks, windows, whatever 

11 possible mode there is for an excursion or 

12 incidents of people being exposed who are 

13 getting internal contamination. I don't know 

14 how well this facility documented incidents 

15 like that.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we don't 

17 have a lot of documentation at all on spills, 

18 incidents at the facility that we could define 

19 that. So I can't really help you there. 

20 I think from what I gather the 

21 biggest difficulty we're having here is 

22 obviously the Class Definition and the breadth 
72

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 of that Class Definition. One of the things 

2 we can do is we can go back, set up -- since 

3 it's rather easy and close proximity we can 

4 set up some additional interviews, try to see 

5 if we can find out some additional workers 

6 that worked during that era. We did interview 

7 the petitioner who actually worked during that 

8 era and his father also worked during that era 

9 and gave us a lot of information. It's not 

10 clear in the report, I realize that, but we 

11 can do some additional interviews. 

12 I do want to let you know that we 

13 -- one of the reasons why it's coming up now 

14 is we spent approximately, I'm just guessing, 

15 a year and a half trying to get data that was 

16 supposedly out there from General Electric and 

17 we were unable to get that data. Ultimately 

18 in the end that data, we never got it. So we 

19 can go back, we can do some additional 

20 interviews, we can also see if there are other 

21 sources we can try to get data from to try to 

22 limit the Class. 
73

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you clarify 

2 on why you didn't get it?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think in the 

4 end --

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is General 

6 Electric refusing to turn it over?

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, not at all.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: What had happened 

10 was it was one person was defined as the 

11 source of having that data, if I remember 

12 correctly. Stu might remember, too. But 

13 ultimately in the end that data never 

14 surfaced. And Stu may be able to --

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

17 Hinnefeld. Again, this is from recollection. 

18 My recollection is that GE was helpful to a 

19 point, meaning that they said, yes, we will go 

20 look, we will get these records and then the 

21 next contact with them says well, we're having 

22 difficulty finding them. They're in large 
74

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 repositories. I think some of them were even 

2 in England. So for some reason some records 

3 of these activities are in a division of GE 

4 that somehow is headquartered in England. I 

5 swear I remember it that way. And so --

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's where our 

7 next Board meeting is going to be, then.

8 (Laughter.)

9 MR. HINNEFELD: So they didn't 

10 say, go away, don't bother us. They said, 

11 yes, we'll help you out and then when we would 

12 they didn't call us back religiously. When 

13 they did they said, you know, this is harder 

14 to find than we thought, we thought it would 

15 be here and we can't find anything there, 

16 we're going to check here, because of course 

17 they have a lot of records. And then it just 

18 kind of stopped. I mean, they weren't 

19 responding to us after a while and I think 

20 they maybe gave up in frustration of being 

21 able to find what we were asking for. But I 

22 can go refresh and get maybe an update on 
75

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that. It's been a while since I've asked this 

2 question. 

3 We'll provide -- certainly we owe 

4 the Board some additional work and research in 

5 trying to narrow this down and come up with 

6 better descriptions of the information we do 

7 know, and maybe we can learn some additional 

8 things in the meantime so that we can come 

9 back with maybe a more convincing story.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bob?

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: Pete, let me 

12 bother you. This is Bob Presley. Back in the 

13 time frame that we're talking about, did you 

14 all look for any NMC&A, nuclear material 

15 control accountability records?

16 MR. DARNELL: I can't answer that 

17 off the top of my head.

18 MEMBER PRESLEY: Okay. The reason 

19 I ask that is back in that time frame, the 

20 complex had a tremendous nuclear material 

21 controls group for all the sites.

22 MR. DARNELL: Yes, sir.
76

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER PRESLEY: Because at that 

2 time we were still keeping up with every gram 

3 of material that we had. That would be one 

4 way if you can find those records, number one, 

5 find out what was sent in, number two, where 

6 it came from, the amounts it was sent in and 

7 then if you can find their records inside GE, 

8 they will tell you what buildings that that 

9 material was dispersed into if you can find 

10 that. That would be one of my suggestions.

11 MR. DARNELL: We'll give it a 

12 shot.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Lockey?

14 MEMBER LOCKEY: I was just 

15 wondering, would it be possible when you talk 

16 to the former workers, that you probe them in 

17 relationship to additional workers who were in 

18 the building or did the job task, their 

19 supervisors, plant manager in charge of that 

20 project and really go out and try to expand 

21 the information that you're receiving so at 

22 least we have some kind of feeling about what 
77

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 was going on and who might have been involved 

2 and who wasn't involved.

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I think we 

4 can definitely do that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark, then Brad.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, along those 

7 same lines I was curious if you queried the 

8 CATI database for all the claimants because 

9 oftentimes, this has been one of my pet peeves 

10 over the years, but the question of people 

11 that mention others that they worked with that 

12 might be good to talk to as far as -- and if 

13 they were mentioned, then you know. Because I 

14 know you said you talked to the Health and 

15 Safety director. It might be very interesting 

16 to talk to some production people that know 

17 production history. 

18 I've had instances where I've 

19 interviewed people at some sites and they've 

20 said, oh, I know where -- I've got a copy of 

21 those records and come to my garage, you know? 

22 And they actually saved some log books from 
78

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 years back, going back to the 50s and 60s. So 

2 you know, those kinds of things may be out 

3 there. They may not complete the picture, but 

4 at least it's in the sort of due diligence.

5 MR. DARNELL: I don't remember the 

6 CATIs being listed as part of the document 

7 review that --

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: They weren't? 

9 Okay. I was assuming they were. That's good.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad?

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Do we have a Site 

12 Profile for this one?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: No Site Profile?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, sir.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just want to 

17 express what I'm kind of feeling because I'm 

18 sitting here on Work Groups for Fernald, 

19 Mound, Savannah River, all these other ones 

20 that we have people continuously everywhere. 

21 I've always been amazed when you can tell me 

22 where a person was all through those years and 
79

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 if not we're going to use this information. 

2 And now all of a sudden we come to this one 

3 and it's, boom, we can't do anything. And 

4 there has been questions numerous times of, 

5 well, how you can tell where this person was 

6 at, how can you tell. Now granted, each one 

7 of these sites has their own uniqueness to it, 

8 but it is surprising to me to all of a sudden 

9 just 3,000 people and people that have really 

10 worked in this industry deep down and dirty, 

11 and -- but you can. That's just my 

12 frustration. I think that we ought to do a 

13 little bit more work on this and continue on.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Lockey?

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: I wanted to ask 

16 about Air Force building. What does that 

17 mean? Does that mean the Air Force actually 

18 was in charge of the building, or is that just 

19 designated Air Force building?

20 MR. DARNELL: There were times 

21 before the designated period and after the 

22 designated period where the Air Force had 
80

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 control, did the use permits and ran whatever 

2 operations were going on.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: Would the Air 

4 Force have any records? Department of 

5 Defense? I mean, I'm just curious. Would the 

6 Air Force -- could they have retained any of 

7 those records?

8 MR. DARNELL: There was data that 

9 the Air Force gave on the Aircraft Nuclear 

10 Propulsion project. We have a lot of 

11 information about that, but it doesn't cover 

12 the AEC work. So I don't know if they have 

13 anything further on stuff that wasn't -- on 

14 work that was not theirs. 

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: I guess my 

16 question is the building was turned over to 

17 the Air Force and then went back to the Air 

18 Force, so I'm wondering whether somehow they 

19 might have retained some of those records just 

20 by accident or by proxy or whatever.

21 MR. DARNELL: We can definitely go 

22 back and double-check.
81

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER LOCKEY: That's all I would 

2 ask you.

3 MR. DARNELL: My guess would be no 

4 because we got the information for the period 

5 before from the Air Force already. But we can 

6 definitely go double-check.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can we -- oh, 

8 Bill. Okay. You get the last comment.

9 MEMBER FIELD: Thanks. I assume 

10 this is the case, but it sounds like you got 

11 most of your information from one safety 

12 officer.

13 MR. DARNELL: For the interview.

14 MEMBER FIELD: For the interview. 

15 And I'm assuming this is a yes, but was it 

16 the safety officer for this period?

17 MR. DARNELL: Correct.

18 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. Were there 

19 other safety officers during that time?

20 MR. DARNELL: During that time 

21 period? None that I know of. 

22 MEMBER FIELD: I'd raise the 
82

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 points Jim made as far as linking job Class or 

2 job code with bioassay information. I think 

3 that would help at least give us an indication 

4 of what kind of activities people were 

5 involved with.

6 MR. DARNELL: Well, the bioassay 

7 data we have is number one, got this, number 

8 two, got that, and that's it.

9 MEMBER FIELD: Well, at least the 

10 external then.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we've 

12 sort of resolved this and I think we're 

13 deferring action on it, that NIOSH will go 

14 back and gather some additional information. 

15 We have - - the83.14’s, we traditionally refer 

16 to the SEC Evaluation Work Group and so that 

17 would be a way of sort of monitoring what's 

18 going on, tracking it and then sort of 

19 determining, you know, what the appropriate 

20 course of action is going forward. It could 

21 be -- I assume it will end up in a revised 

22 Evaluation Report.
83

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, that's 

2 correct. What we'll do is we'll go back, 

3 we'll do the additional interviews that we 

4 just discussed, do some additional research 

5 and then we'll update our Evaluation Report 

6 with that information. In the meantime we 

7 will try to also put together the existing 

8 data we have in some format to use for Mark or 

9 any other Board Members, Mr. Field, to look at 

10 as well.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

12 you. Does anybody, Board Members have -- is 

13 that satisfactory with everybody? Okay. 

14 Okay. Good. It's time for our break and we 

15 will reconvene at 11 o'clock.

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

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

18 resumed at 11:01 a.m.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If everyone will 

20 get seated we'll get started. Okay, our 

21 lawyer is in the room, we can start again.

22 MR. KATZ: Let me check on the 
84

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 lines. Dr. Richardson and Mr. Gibson, are you 

2 with us?

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I am.

4 MEMBER GIBSON: I am here, Ted.

5 MR. KATZ: Great, thank you. 

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I make a 

7 request for one piece of information before we 

8 close up with GE Evendale? 

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I was 

11 wondering if NIOSH could also provide to the 

12 Board a basis for the projection that there 

13 would be 3,000 people added to -- in that 

14 Class if it was defined as they're saying.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think they can 

16 provide further information on the employment 

17 there. Some of us who have lived in 

18 Cincinnati actually believe it's much higher 

19 than that.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, because I 

21 was looking. Ohio -- the listing of major 

22 employers has currently 6,000 workers there, 
85

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 in 1980, 16,000 workers employed by GE in the 

2 Cincinnati area, and in the 1950s about 12,000 

3 workers at the Evendale plant. So my 

4 expectation is that over the decade from 1960 

5 to 1970 it's much larger than 3,000. I would 

6 just like some more bounds on that number.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's a good 

8 point. We were -- good. Yes, we think --

9 we're guessing 10 to 15 so that sounds --

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, thank 

11 you.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

13 David. And Department of Energy, Gina?

14 MEMBER GIBSON: Dr. Melius?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

16 MEMBER GIBSON: I just had one 

17 question also. Has there been any thought 

18 given to maybe NIOSH doing a worker outreach 

19 meeting around the GE plant to gather 

20 information? 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The people 

22 involved from NIOSH are not here right now, so 
86

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Stu I don't know if you want to -- who were 

2 answering before, LaVon and Pete, but.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: No, we haven't 

4 specifically done an outreach meeting in that 

5 particular sense for GE. I think we did some 

6 interviews as part of the evaluation Report of 

7 Investigation, but we haven't specifically 

8 done an outreach meeting. I think we'd have 

9 to -- for the purposes of the discussion, you 

10 know, satisfying the questions that were 

11 raised in the discussion just before the break 

12 I think what we would like to do is seek out, 

13 you know, specific individuals or people who 

14 might be, you know, help us answer some of 

15 those questions. 

16 So these could be people who 

17 worked during the era in question in the 

18 buildings in question. That's going to be the 

19 most helpful. And so outreach meetings as we 

20 normally structure them tend not to be that 

21 focused, although we could give it a shot in 

22 this case, we just have to maybe try a 
87

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 different avenue in developing the target 

2 audience for the attendees for the work. You 

3 know, we just got the marching orders here 

4 before the break and so we haven't really 

5 formulated a plan, but that's certainly 

6 something that we would consider as a 

7 possibility. 

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks, 

9 Stu. Now Gina?

10 MS. CANO: Thank you, Dr. Melius. 

11 This is Gina Cano with the Department of 

12 Energy. I just want to go ahead and enter 

13 into official record that we presented all the 

14 Board Members with a commemorative pin that 

15 was provided to the workers in honor of the 

16 National Day of Remembrance which was October 

17 30th. As many of you know, Congress passed a 

18 resolution honoring the thousands of women and 

19 men who worked to support the nuclear work 

20 efforts back in the Cold War, and activities 

21 took place across the complex on October the 

22 30th. And the Office of Health, Safety and 
88

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Security, we basically developed these pins. 

2 It's a replica of a pin that was provided to 

3 all the workers in 1945 by the Secretary of 

4 War to approximately 132 Manhattan Project 

5 workers. And what I provided to the Board is 

6 a replica of that pin. But again, we want to 

7 thank everybody for your efforts and also for 

8 all the workers who supported the Cold War 

9 efforts. We think this is long past overdue 

10 in supporting them from Congress. Thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, and 

12 thank you for the work in organizing the 

13 events around that also. Okay. Our agenda 

14 next issue is Blockson Chemical. And as I 

15 recall from the last meeting we wanted to set 

16 up a time here to discuss that and bring 

17 particularly the newer Board Members up to 

18 speed on where we were in our discussions, 

19 deliberations on Blockson which have a long 

20 and convoluted history. We thought to start 

21 off the discussion maybe some perspective on 

22 it would -- Wanda Munn, who chaired the Work 
89

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Group on Blockson, will give a brief 

2 presentation based on her presentation a year, 

3 year and a half ago at the Board where the 

4 Work Group reported back. Hopefully this will 

5 help set some context for this.

6 MEMBER MUNN: This is essentially 

7 going to be the same presentation that the 

8 Board as it was constituted in 2008 has 

9 already seen. If you're new here, it'll be 

10 new for you, but hopefully this will be of 

11 some help to our new members. I am going to 

12 go through this very quickly because most of 

13 the material that's covered in it you have in 

14 much more detail on your hard disk that you 

15 were given. Sorry, you were given a CD, 

16 weren't you? But I don't believe that this 

17 presentation is there. Hopefully, it will be 

18 a short wrap-up.

19 These are the people who were 

20 involved in the Work Group itself. I was the 

21 Chair, Mike Gibson, Dr. Melius, Dr. Roessler 

22 and Brad Clawson was there also. Originally, 
90

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 we had two SEC petitions that were qualified 

2 in 2006. The Technical Basis Document which 

3 had been originally provided was found to have 

4 -- be short in a number of technical material 

5 issues with very specific nomenclature that 

6 needed to be revised. So after the Board had 

7 constituted this Working Group, we did not 

8 meet for a considerable amount of time while 

9 NIOSH completed the revision of the TBD and 

10 held several near-site meetings with the 

11 workers. 

12 SC&A reviewed our Site Profile, 

13 our SEC petition and the Evaluation Report, 

14 and they had seven findings which were results 

15 of that. They involved the default of the 

16 upper bound of the inhalation rate for 

17 uranium, the thorium-232 enrichment ratio that 

18 was likely to be found in the process stream, 

19 the thorium-230 that had not been included in 

20 the exposure matrix, a possible thorium 

21 raffinate stream that was unaddressed and 

22 additional data that was requested to support 
91

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 some additional radioactive values of one sort 

2 or another, only one of which was radon. 

3 Verified possible exposure from tailings and 

4 trace levels of radium-226 and progeny. 

5 We discussed each of those in 

6 considerable length and ultimately we had 

7 White Papers for the permanent record on not 

8 all of those topics, but most of them. Each 

9 one of those seven findings had been resolved 

10 to the satisfaction of both NIOSH and the 

11 technical contractor. I'd like to reemphasize 

12 that. It's a point which I think the new 

13 members need to be particularly aware of. 

14 NIOSH and the technical contractor resolved 

15 all of the original findings that were there.

16 We had additional detailed 

17 questions that were addressed and, on January 

18 of 2008 we brought this to the Board 

19 unsuccessfully. We had two additional actions 

20 that we were directed to look at by the 

21 members of the Board in January of 2008. So 

22 we went back to the drawing board, we 
92

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 revisited those indicated concerns, we met 

2 again in St. Louis at the full Board meeting 

3 for the final resolution in June and we were 

4 unsuccessful in achieving agreement. 

5 The Work Group itself was divided 

6 on this issue. The Chair had asked three 

7 questions with four of the five Work Group 

8 members present at the time. I asked about 

9 the SC&A review, about the NIOSH SEC report 

10 and about the Site Profile. When I asked this 

11 question, SC&A had identified seven findings 

12 of significance in their review of the site. 

13 Following detailed technical investigation and 

14 interaction with experts and workers, they 

15 report all issues resolved. Do you accept its 

16 report? All four of the members present said 

17 yes, they accepted the SC&A report. 

18 Second question: NIOSH has sought 

19 information in-depth for all activities on 

20 this site and has reported they have adequate 

21 data to reconstruct or bound radiation dose 

22 for Blockson workers. Do you accept this 
93

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 report? Two of the members said yes, two of 

2 the members said no. 

3 The third question was, the Site 

4 Profile has been completely rewritten, 

5 reviewed and revised at length. Do you accept 

6 the current Site Profile? Two members 

7 answered yes, two members answered no. As 

8 Chair, I then brought this recommendation to 

9 accept the NIOSH position that adequate data 

10 exists to reasonably bound with sufficient 

11 accuracy any radiation exposure which could 

12 have resulted from employment at Blockson 

13 Chemical Company during its contract period as 

14 an Atomic Weapons Employer. That was placed 

15 before the Board. 

16 The Board requested additional 

17 information on radon. They requested 

18 pertinent supporting documents that were 

19 distributed and reviewed by all of the Board 

20 Members. The issue was tabled, which means no 

21 vote was taken on it until further discussion 

22 could be undertaken. In August of 2008 the 
94

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radon White Paper was produced by SC&A and was 

2 distributed to the full Board. We were 

3 provided previously issued contractor reports 

4 that closed all seven findings formally and 

5 other salient internal working documents, and 

6 multiple transcripts were released for the 

7 meetings that had transpired, all released 

8 simultaneously. 

9 The conclusion at that time was 

10 the Work Group had nothing further to offer. 

11 The question was then turned over to the Board 

12 in its entirety to resolve the unanswered 

13 question of where we were going with the 

14 Blockson Chemical Company and that is where we 

15 stand to this day. 

16 We have discussed it on one 

17 additional occasion and it's been requested by 

18 myself that this be taken from the table and a 

19 final vote on two different occasions; that 

20 has not occurred. So the status at this point 

21 as I understand it is the motion has been made 

22 to accept the NIOSH report. That has not --
95

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that's on the table. It has not been voted 

2 on. At our last meeting my recollection is we 

3 were asked to wait until the four new members 

4 were aboard so that they could cast their 

5 votes as they see fit. I have nothing else. 

6 I suspect that Dr. Melius has material that he 

7 wants to bring to you or at least open the 

8 discussion to the Board at this time. I don't 

9 think I can answer any further questions since 

10 you've seen essentially what we've done in the 

11 Working Group. If there are any questions, I 

12 would attempt to do that. 

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any specific 

14 questions for Wanda before we open it more 

15 generally? I guess, also I don't know if Jim 

16 Neton or anybody from NIOSH want to speak to 

17 this? Okay. Yes, Bill.

18 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, Wanda, it 

19 would really be helpful -- there was a lot of 

20 documents to go through, a lot of the Working 

21 Group reports and this may be asking a lot, 

22 but is there any way to succinctly describe 
96

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 what the areas of disagreement were within the 

2 Working Group?

3 MEMBER MUNN: The primary areas of 

4 disagreement as I would characterize them, and 

5 I'm sure Mark will be willing to expand on 

6 this if that's not accurate. The primary 

7 concern was radon and how radon was going to 

8 be handled as the doses were reconstructed, 

9 whether it could, in fact, be bounded. There 

10 was a great deal of discussion within this 

11 group with regard to whether stratification 

12 would occur within that particular facility 

13 such that one set of employees was more likely 

14 to be highly exposed to radon than another. 

15 Other than that, Mark, would you like to 

16 address any additional concerns?

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, actually that 

18 was my remaining concern. I should point out 

19 I wasn't really a member of the Work Group. I 

20 was asked as a guest at one of the Work Group 

21 meetings, but I wasn't on the Work Group. So 

22 other Work Group members may have -- but that 
97

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 was one that I was concerned about.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The only thing 

3 I'll add that may help or may not is the 

4 original approach for modeling radon was based 

5 on surrogate data from studies of the Florida 

6 phosphate facility. The -- both, I believe, 

7 SC&A and the Work Group members had concerns 

8 about that, whether that was appropriate given 

9 that those were essentially open-air sited 

10 facilities as opposed to this which was a 

11 closed facility, whether that would be 

12 appropriate. I think NIOSH agreed with that 

13 also. And then it moved on, well, could 

14 another model be constructed to bound and used 

15 for those reconstructions for radon. And 

16 then, I think, the issue came down to 

17 basically can that model be validated, and 

18 validated I think sort of broadly defined. 

19 What information we have would support that 

20 model. I think we talked about various other 

21 sources of data, whether other industrial 

22 facilities, maybe not even involving radon but 
98

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 some material with similar properties there

2 might be some data on from NIOSH or other 

3 investigations where there was other radon 

4 there. And then the last meeting where we 

5 discussed -- I believe there was some data 

6 from a Polish study that NIOSH briefly 

7 presented. I believe that's been shared with

8 the Board. I thought that NIOSH was going to 

9 do some follow-up on that, but basically I 

10 think the issue has come down to, you know, do 

11 we have enough supporting data or is there 

12 other sources of supporting data that would 

13 help us to believe that that's a valid model 

14 that could be used both for Blockson and also 

15 I believe NIOSH intends to use it at a number 

16 of other facilities. So there are 

17 implications here. Not only can we 

18 reconstruct doses at Blockson, while that's 

19 the focus of this discussion, so to speak, but 

20 I think also recognizing that this model is 

21 going to be used -- could be used at other 

22 facilities; that NIOSH has not moved forward 
99

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 using it at other facilities -- waiting for 

2 the Board to reach some conclusion on this. 

3 And I just think, just sort of for background, 

4 the Board has voted on, I believe, the 

5 original motion to accept the report several 

6 times and -- I shouldn't say several -- a few 

7 times and it basically had been deadlocked on 

8 it. So if that helps sort of set the scene 

9 for it.

10 MEMBER FIELD: Can I follow up 

11 then quickly?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure.

13 MEMBER FIELD: So the thinking was 

14 that you can bound the air exchange rates in 

15 the building. Obviously you have no air 

16 exchange rate, you have a higher value for air 

17 exchange, and you can bound the emanation in 

18 some form from zero emanation up to 100 

19 percent, you know, worst-case emanation. Is 

20 there any information to show how much ore or 

21 how many tons were placed through the 

22 digestion in a given amount of time?
100

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that was fully 

2 covered. We know what came in, we know what 

3 went out, we know what period was covered. 

4 This operation -- well, both stations --

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda, can you 

6 just get closer to the mic because it's hard 

7 to hear?

8 MEMBER MUNN: All right. There 

9 was a phosphate operation and this was a 

10 secondary process which occurred for just a 

11 little over 10 years and the production 

12 records are very well in hand. It's known 

13 what went in, it's known what went out. 

14 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. And I guess 

15 my final question would be there's a lot of 

16 information with air exchange rates, with 

17 emanation. It seems like the remaining factor 

18 is really the spatial variation within the 

19 facility of radon. Is there any consideration 

20 to methods that could be used to bound that or 

21 document it that have the scientific backing 

22 to support it?
101

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim 

2 Neton. I might elaborate a little bit on what 

3 Wanda said, which was all correct. But the 

4 model that was developed was a probabilistic 

5 model so we took -- actually SC&A -- in 

6 conjunction with SC&A, it's sort of a long 

7 story, but we've ended up with this 

8 probabilistic model that used the 

9 distributions of the various parameters that 

10 are relevant to the contribution of the 

11 variation of the concentration in the 

12 building. The key parameters as you indicated 

13 were the ventilation rate of the building, the 

14 volume of the building, the input term of the 

15 ore itself and the release rate into the 

16 atmosphere. The model allows for those --

17 they have set distributions put them out then. 

18 It allows for them to vary independently and 

19 we've selected the 95th percentile of the end 

20 result of the Monte Carlo calculation. So 

21 allowing all those parameters to vary 

22 independently, you pick to the highest value, 
102

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 I think we ended up with something on the 

2 order of 17 picocuries per liter. 

3 The issue of the variation, the 

4 spatial variability within the building itself 

5 was the issue, the very issue that Mark has 

6 posed for a while now. And it's at least my 

7 opinion that the variation is in some ways 

8 handled by the allowance of those parameters 

9 in the probabilistic model to vary 

10 independently. So in other words you would 

11 have a variation in locations where maybe the 

12 ventilation rate would be lower than another 

13 location, that sort of thing. So -- and the 

14 emanation fraction as well. So allowing those 

15 to vary independently I think somehow 

16 addresses that. 

17 This Polish study that we had 

18 unfortunately was not contemporaneous with the 

19 50s. The issue we have is, as far as I can 

20 tell, there is virtually no radon monitoring 

21 data in phosphate plants from the 50s and even 

22 the 60s. The earliest data we have or the 
103

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 best data we have come from around the 1970s. 

2 But this Polish study I think in -- I forget 

3 which time frame. It was fairly recent. But 

4 they did -- they put long-term track edge cups 

5 throughout a building I think in the 

6 wintertime when it was fairly locked up and 

7 looked at the variability and we didn't see 

8 that huge of variation throughout the building 

9 itself. It was kind of a similar facility, 

10 similar production rates, that sort of thing. 

11 So it ends up sort of being a weight-of-the12 evidence argument. There is no good way that 

13 we could think of to model this sort of 

14 spatial variability in itself, and we feel 

15 picking the 95th percentile helps to account 

16 for some of the uncertainty that we observe. 

17 We ended up with a 95th percentile, I think 

18 it's around 17 picocuries per liter for a 

19 source term that comes into the building at 

20 about 30 picocuries per gram radon.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else? 

22 Mark, you look like --
104

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, just -- I 

2 was actually going to ask, Jim, it's -- we've 

3 been around this block before I know, but the 

4 question on the production data. I know that 

5 we had some -- I think I'm getting a little 

6 deja vu here, but I think there were some memo 

7 reports that were the basis for the production 

8 rates? I know I've asked this question before 

9 but I really forget the answer, but it wasn't 

10 a 24- hour operation was it?

11 DR. NETON: Yes, it was.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: It was a 24-hour, 

13 we've confirmed that?

14 DR. NETON: Twenty-four hours a 

15 day, seven days a week.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: All right.

17 DR. NETON: We're pretty confident 

18 about that.

19 MEMBER GRIFFON: So they never had 

20 -- no maintenance or anything. They never had 

21 to shut the thing down.

22 DR. NETON: Well we allow for -- I 
105

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 think the model itself allowed for some of 

2 these activities. I forgot, but yes.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: So it was 24 

4 hours. I didn't recall that.

5 DR. NETON: Yes, we had that from 

6 worker testimony or worker interviews and that 

7 sort of thing. And I think there's actually a 

8 White Paper that was one of the Q&As that we -

9 - many of the Q&As we developed addressed that 

10 issue at one point.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: And then the 

12 6,000 tons per day, I know I looked into this 

13 but there -- just from Bill's information, I 

14 think there's a couple of memo reports, right, 

15 included in there.

16 DR. NETON: Right, and we actually 

17 went through the DOE records of the amount. 

18 We sort of back-calculated the production 

19 rate, the processing rate of the ore based on 

20 the production rate of the uranium product 

21 itself because there's a certain known 

22 percentage that was coming out the other end. 
106

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So we're fairly comfortable with those 

2 numbers.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: And those first 

4 numbers, was it multiple memo reports or was 

5 there one memo? I can't remember. I had to 

6 look that up.

7 DR. NETON: I don't know exactly, 

8 but I think the issue here though is not so 

9 much, are those numbers exactly known because 

10 they could be allowed to vary within the model 

11 itself. So I think the real question here is, 

12 is a probabilistic model of this nature 

13 sufficiently scientifically valid in order to 

14 be used in the reconstruction of doses for 

15 this Class. Again, you know, one can look at 

16 the parameters that were modeled and if one 

17 believes that the distributions aren't 

18 appropriate we can certainly entertain 

19 discussions about how those should be widened 

20 or narrowed. I think the real question is, is 

21 the model itself a valid approach.

22 MEMBER MUNN: The other 
107

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 interesting thing about that particular site 

2 was that workers did not have specific 

3 assigned designations in work sites. 

4 Everybody did everything inside the building 

5 at one time or another. They moved from one 

6 job to another. And there were from six to 

7 twelve individuals in the building at any 

8 given time following the processes through all 

9 three shifts.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim? Dr. 

11 Lockey?

12 MEMBER LOCKEY: John, could you 

13 bring me back up to date about SC&A's 

14 evaluation of the model and where you are with 

15 that -- where you were with that? I just need 

16 my memory refreshed.

17 DR. MAURO: When you think of the 

18 model as an equation -- this is John Mauro, 

19 SC&A. Yes, to go back to the beginning, 

20 originally when NIOSH proposed 2.3 picocuries 

21 per liter as the default radon concentration 

22 for Blockson we were asked to review that and 
108

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to see whether or not we felt it was a 

2 reasonable number. And when we did that, we 

3 did two things. One, we reviewed the data 

4 upon which that 2.3 picocuries per liter came 

5 from and, as indicated just now, we had a 

6 problem with it because of the surrogate-data 

7 issue. It actually came from facilities which 

8 were not very much like the Blockson facility. 

9 And then we said, okay, but nevertheless, 

10 does the number seem to be reasonable and to 

11 check that number we like to come at a problem 

12 from a different direction. So at that time 

13 we developed a model which simulated the 

14 concentration that we thought that might be in 

15 the building. So in effect, in a strange sort 

16 of way, we developed the model to see if --

17 where 2.3 would come in. And when we ran the 

18 model --- you know, we have all the equations 

19 laid out, we pick the distributions for all 

20 the key input parameters, we ran it, and we 

21 came out the back end with a concentration 

22 that was -- well, in our case we picked 
109

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 different distributions. We came up with 

2 around 30 picocuries per liter. So we 

3 concluded that the 2.3 number is not very good 

4 for two reasons. One, it came from a data 

5 source that really wasn't a very good 

6 surrogate and, two, when we ran our model, 

7 we're coming up with numbers that are about 10 

8 times higher. And at that point we stopped 

9 and delivered our report. At that point I 

10 believe NIOSH took a look at the model and 

11 said -- and my recollection is that they 

12 agreed that the use of the 2.3 as a surrogate 

13 had its limitations. And by the way, there 

14 were also some radon measurements taken at 

15 Blockson in the 1980s which were relatively 

16 low, as a matter of fact, lower than the 2.3, 

17 but we also had a problem with using that as a 

18 surrogate because it was 30 years later. And 

19 we said, you know, we don't know what 

20 happened. We know that when we look at the 

21 history of the facility there were some design 

22 changes, some ventilation changes. We know 
110

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that there were vent hoods put in the interim, 

2 so there were things that happened between the 

3 time period of interest and the time when the 

4 radon measurements were made that we're 

5 saying, hmm, that sort of fails our surrogate 

6 test. So we had a problem with using 

7 surrogate data. And at that point we said 

8 however, this model in our mind is a fairly 

9 good simulation. Radon is just, it's a very 

10 good type of problem that's amenable to 

11 modeling this particular Class of problem. So 

12 we ran the model and we came up with a number 

13 that turned out to be at the 95th percentile, 

14 about 30 as opposed to 17 picocuries per 

15 liter, and the reason was we were a little bit 

16 more -- our distributions were wider regarding 

17 air turnover rates primarily. I think that 

18 was the single reason. Since we weren't sure 

19 what the air turnover rate is, we reviewed 

20 literature on air turnover rates and we came 

21 up with a range that went from about 0.25 air 

22 changes per hour up to five. That was our 
111

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 distribution. It could have been as low as 

2 0.25 and as high as five. And I believe NIOSH 

3 ran a distribution where they started perhaps 

4 one or 0.5, I'm not sure, about one. And that 

5 was the reason why our 95th percentile came in 

6 about twice as high as their 95th percentile. 

7 However, SC&A's position is this model is a 

8 reasonable approach, scientifically sound 

9 approach for predicting the average -- and 

10 very important. What we calculated was the 

11 95th percentile confidence level of the 

12 average annual concentration of radon in the 

13 building, okay? So it's -- so this is really 

14 an estimate, a confidence level that we can 

15 say with a high level of confidence that we do 

16 not believe it's plausible that the average 

17 annual radon concentration in the building 

18 could be higher than 30 picocuries per liter. 

19 The issue of stratification. The 

20 model is not designed for stratification. It 

21 cannot be designed for stratification because 

22 that involves creating compartments where we 
112

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 understand the size of the compartments and 

2 the exchange rates in the compartments. So, 

3 that didn't work. But we were asked to come 

4 up with strategies to try to validate the 

5 model and I think we came up with five 

6 strategies, one of which was the one I believe 

7 you folks looked into, strategy number three, 

8 where you obtained some data. Not so much to 

9 look at the absolute value, but from the data 

10 that was out there to see what the variability 

11 is in a building. And the variability, as a 

12 result of Jim's work, was relatively narrow. 

13 That is, the average annual concentration --

14 if we were in this room and there was a source 

15 of radon being produced in this room there's 

16 no doubt, from day to day and location to 

17 location, the concentrations could vary 

18 substantially. But when you average any given 

19 part of the room over the course of a year, it 

20 sort of flattens out. So and that coupled up 

21 with the fact that workers sort of move from 

22 location to location to location, SC&A walks 
113

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 away from this saying, you know, if there's 

2 any place where a model is going to work, 

3 serve us well, it's in a situation like this. 

4 So yes, we came down as saying though we may 

5 disagree on the distribution of the input 

6 parameters, we believe the structure of the 

7 model fundamentally, to address this Class of 

8 problems, is scientifically sound.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any of the other 

10 new members who have question? Henry or Dick, 

11 and then check with David.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, one of the 

13 problems with models and the Monte Carlo 

14 things is you put in the values and it will 

15 generate a distribution. It doesn't really 

16 tell you the reliability of those 

17 distributions, it's simply the combination of 

18 all of the possibilities run, you know, 

19 however many times you do it. So you know, so 

20 I mean my question is, so you got some 

21 measurements from the 1980s. Do you have 

22 ventilation information from the 1980s? Do 
114

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 you have the other variables in 1980s, that 

2 you could put into the model and see what it 

3 would predict in this facility in 1980, or are 

4 you -- are you just going to -- would you just 

5 use the same set -- range of variables which 

6 would then predict what you found for the 

7 earlier years which is going to be quite 

8 different, as you pointed out, from what you 

9 actually measure? I mean, is there any 

10 validation for, you know, the -- you can 

11 always adjust the ranges that you put into 

12 your model and that'll change the 95 percent 

13 or the median value because it's basically 

14 just generating a distribution based on those. 

15 So you know, you can -- if you don't like one 

16 number you can adjust a little and then it'll 

17 say, well that's closer to kind of what our 

18 professional judgment is but it isn't 

19 particularly science- based. That's my only 

20 concern with Monte Carlo simulations.

21 DR. NETON: Well, there's a lot 

22 encompassed in what you said there, but I 
115

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 think I'd remind you that we did use the 95th 

2 percentile of the distribution, meaning it was 

3 the high end of all the possible combinations 

4 of the outcomes of those calculations that we 

5 ended up using. We're not applying a 

6 distribution with a central value and putting 

7 uncertainty about it. We're saying it's the 

8 95th percentile. If you do a sensitivity 

9 analysis on this model there's only a couple 

10 of things that drive the high concentration: 

11 ventilation rate and source term input.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Right.

13 DR. NETON: Assuming we know the 

14 building size, which I think we do because 

15 it's -- we have a floor diagram of it. So you 

16 know, the ventilation rates that were input 

17 into the model were based on a literature 

18 review of possible ventilation rates, in 

19 particular, oriented towards the time frame 

20 that this building was in operation. John

21 mentioned that they use a low rate of about a 

22 quarter of an air turnover per hour. We felt 
116

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that was on the low side. Our professional 

2 judgment was about 1 would be on the low end 

3 and 5 would be on the high end to bound it, in 

4 that 1950s era. Now, I will say that we have 

5 data other than 1980s -- we had only one or 

6 two measurements -- I think we had about five 

7 measurements, but only one or two in the area 

8 of question at Blockson in the 80s. But there 

9 are some fairly decent measurements taken in 

10 the 1970s, there's an Idaho phosphate plant 

11 that NIOSH actually surveyed in that time 

12 period, and the values are fairly low. 

13 They're much, much lower than what we're using 

14 here. I mean, in the -- somewhat in line with 

15 what we saw at the Florida phosphate plant. 

16 And the interesting thing to me is that the 

17 data in the 70s are there, there's not much in 

18 the 50s, but you don't see any indication in 

19 the literature that there were overt efforts 

20 taken to lower the concentrations down to 

21 these levels. In a sense, you know, someone 

22 realizes these concentrations were very high 
117

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 and all of a sudden they start ventilating the 

2 plants because they felt radon was an issue. 

3 So that kind of stuff in and of itself doesn't 

4 prove much, but other -- I don't have any 

5 evidence that there was, you know, belief that 

6 there were higher concentrations in the 50s 

7 that needed to be mitigated. So sort of a 

8 long-winded answer to your question. I don't 

9 know if I answered or not.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: I mean, there's 

11 no question with this kind of a model, you can 

12 put a bound. The question is, is it a 

13 reasonable bound and then you start to say 

14 well, is a ten-fold factor sufficient, is a 

15 twenty-fold factor. I mean, you can just go 

16 to -- call it an uncertainty factor and take 

17 whatever the measurement you have, multiply it 

18 by a hundred like we do with risk assessment 

19 and say, well, we're pretty confident.

20 DR. NETON: Well, I think maybe 

21 one needs to look a little closer at the model 

22 itself, too. There's some conservatism built 
118

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 into it in the sense that, where the radon 

2 comes out in this process is when the ore 

3 itself is put into these digester tanks. 

4 These are very large vatted tanks that, from 

5 my recollection, went pretty much the length 

6 of the building, very high. They were like 

7 2-story tall tanks. So the radon -- the ore, 

8 when it's put into those tanks, is digested 

9 and the model assumes virtually -- well, it 

10 does assume instantaneous release from those 

11 tanks, immediately into the building itself, 

12 and assumes a fairly high fraction of release. 

13 I forget, I think the model, the middle value 

14 is maybe 50 percent but allows it to go up to 

15 100 percent release and that's essentially 

16 like saying that you open a can of Coke and it 

17 immediately goes flat, because the radon is a 

18 gas dissolved into this liquid mixture and the 

19 model assumes essentially that all that radon 

20 is instantaneously released into the building. 

21 So there's some very good conservatism, I 

22 think, built into the calculations.
119

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER ANDERSON: I'm just 

2 suspicious about that kind of modeling is all.

3 MR. CELESTINE: May I have a word? 

4 This is Frank Celestine, an employee at that 

5 facility. Started out as Texas City Refinery, 

6 went to Borden. Then it changed finally to 

7 Amoco and it had another name in between, 

8 Smith- Douglass. Now, nobody can tell me that 

9 --

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excuse me, sir 

11 --

12 MR. CELESTINE: -- working in that 

13 facility and all of the employees has come 

14 down with cancer and are dying as a result of 

15 the cancer. We got all of that stuff in that 

16 particular company and that -- they didn't 

17 supply us with nothing to protect us. They 

18 just let us go in --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excuse me sir --

20 MR. CELESTINE: -- what kind of 

21 material we were dealing with or nothing and 

22 that's why all these people are dying from 
120

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 cancer and I have lung cancer myself.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, sir, 

3 but we're talking about a different facility 

4 and this is not the public comment period, but 

5 your remarks will be noted. We're not talking 

6 about Texas City facility here.

7 MR. CELESTINE: Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. I'll 

9 get back to you in a second, I wanted to --

10 Dick, do you have any questions?

11 MEMBER LEMEN: I was just curious 

12 on the SC&A report. It's dated February 10. 

13 Is that the correct date on it? 2010.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No.

15 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, that's what 

16 it says on what we were given: February 10, 

17 2010. Well, I don't know what this is doing 

18 then because it asks the question. Then it's 

19 tied on the evaluation of radon levels in 

20 Building 40 at Blockson Chemical. She's my 

21 witness. 

22 (Laughter.)
121

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, it's on the 

2 footer. It says July 30, 2008. Okay, well 

3 thanks -- thank you for confusing me.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MEMBER ANDERSON: Thank you, Bill 

6 Gates.

7 MEMBER LEMEN: I guess the 

8 question that you raised in this has already 

9 been answered then. My question, at the end 

10 of this report was that you said, however, 

11 given the large uncertainties in radon release 

12 fractions for the ore during crushing and 

13 digestion, and the uncertainty in the air 

14 exchange rates for Building 40, a higher 

15 default value may be needed but I think you've 

16 addressed that, so. 

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David 

18 Richardson?

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you have any 

21 questions?

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I've got a few 
122

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 questions, starting with the model input 

2 parameters. Why do a distribution for the 

3 volume of the building?

4 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

5 The square area of the building was taken from 

6 a very old diagram, I think, that requires 

7 some interpolation and if I recall also there 

8 was some indication there may have been a wall 

9 two-thirds of the way down the building 

10 separating one part from another. And so to 

11 account for that it was modeled as a 

12 distribution.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What would the 

14 impact of the wall be? I understand that it 

15 would be to reduce the volume of the building.

16 DR. NETON: Exactly.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Would it be to 

18 increase the concentration?

19 DR. NETON: Exactly.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, it 

21 would increase the concentration because the 

22 air exchange rate would be still assumed to be 
123

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 --

2 DR. NETON: Right, the air 

3 exchange rate is independent of the volume of 

4 the building, so yes.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It's not just 

6 one over seconds.

7 DR. NETON: Well, the air exchange 

8 rate is independent of the volume of the 

9 building so the direct result if you made the 

10 building smaller would be to directly --

11 proportionateley increase the concentration of 

12 radon.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. The 

14 evolution fraction has got a distribution 

15 going from zero to 1.

16 DR. NETON: Yes.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Is zero a 

18 plausible bound?

19 DR. NETON: We believe so. This 

20 is a very huge tank, it's a 

21 thousands-of-gallon -- very large tank, 

22 2-story tanks and it's plausible that the 
124

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radon is entrained in this liquid. We could 

2 not find any good values for the release 

3 fraction of radon from liquids of that nature. 

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What is it, a 

5 hot sulfuric acid? Is that what it is?

6 DR. NETON: Yes, it's a hot 

7 sulfuric acid tank which is also very near the 

8 building. There was no account taken of the 

9 fact that there were -- we don't know if there 

10 was actually forced ventilation over those 

11 tanks at the time, but there were certainly 

12 open louvers to the top of the building, so 

13 the model assumed that it all distributes into 

14 the building where, in fact, due to convective 

15 forces, a fair fraction may actually have 

16 exited the building itself.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And that would 

18 be -- that latter part you're capturing within 

19 this parameter for the evolution fraction?

20 DR. NETON: Well.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Kind of --

22 DR. NETON: Zero to one --
125

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, it's 

2 hard to believe that's zero, right? Because I 

3 mean, it had to go someplace, right?

4 DR. NETON: We've had Naomi Harley 

5 review this model, I'm sure you're familiar 

6 with Dr. Harley, and in her opinion that was a 

7 reasonable approach.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But yes, I 

9 mean, I -- yes. Bottom line, I guess one of 

10 my concerns with Monte Carlo monitoring is 

11 sometimes people end up saying what somebody 

12 said is what we're, you know -- these all have 

13 bounds and we're kind of taking the upper 

14 bound of a series of Monte Carlo draws through 

15 these gives you something which is reflective 

16 of the upper bound of them all. But in fact, 

17 that convolution of all these distributions is 

18 also impacted by the lower bounds. And if you 

19 have implausible lower bounds on a 

20 distribution it does ripple through.

21 DR. NETON: That's absolutely 

22 true. And we're very open to discussing all 
126

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the bounds on these models. As I said 

2 earlier, those values are up for discussion. 

3 It's really whether or not this is a valid 

4 analytical or probabilistic approach to 

5 bounding the radon in the building.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. One 

7 other question just in terms of how this is 

8 applied then. The slide that I'm looking at, 

9 this is Blockson Chemical radon PowerPoint. 

10 It says that the reconstruction will apply the 

11 95th percentile to the workers during the 

12 covered period. Now, do you put an 

13 uncertainty distribution around that value, or 

14 are you entering these in as then fixed doses?

15 DR. NETON: That would be put in 

16 as a fixed -- it would be converted to a 

17 working-level value and put in as a fixed 

18 working-level value assuming the person 

19 breathed that concentration every hour of the 

20 entire year.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, okay. 

22 Thank you, that's all the questions I have.
127

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks 

2 David. Jim Lockey, you started to have --

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: I do. As I recall 

4 from our last discussion on this, the radon 

5 issue from a medical perspective really 

6 applies to lung cancer. And setting an upper 

7 bound at this level -- I think essentially --

8 if you have lung cancer I think you're going 

9 to fall within that boundary. Is that what I 

10 recall from last time?

11 DR. NETON: I'm not sure. I think 

12 it is true that radon exposure primarily 

13 causes lung cancer, but our models do allow 

14 for doses to other systemic organs but it 

15 would be a very small fraction of what the 

16 lung would receive. My recollection is that 

17 the Blockson model, the way it's structured 

18 gives fairly large intakes of uranium and 

19 other progeny within the plant such that I 

20 think most of the lung cancers are compensable 

21 under this model, under the model for uranium 

22 exposure alone, uranium and long-lived progeny 
128

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 of uranium. 

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: I think that would 

3 be my concern is the model -- any doubt here 

4 -- the doubt is going to be of lung cancer 

5 risk and that this model is going to encompass 

6 those people that have lung cancer.

7 DR. NETON: Well, we did a rough 

8 look at this a long time ago and I'm not sure 

9 it's still valid, but at the time we looked at 

10 it, the current model the way it's structured 

11 wouldn't change any cases in our possession. 

12 But that was some time ago and frankly, I'm 

13 not sure how that really should weigh into the

14 decision on the scientific validity of the 

15 model itself. 

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: I'm just talking 

17 about the medical perspective. 

18 DR. NETON: From a practical 

19 perspective you're absolutely -- that's 

20 correct. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

22 questions from the Board? Yes, Bill.
129

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER FIELD: I just want to 

2 comment, I guess, on what you said toward the 

3 end about the emanation. I think radon 

4 follows Ostwald's solubility coefficients, 

5 right? And much like water does. So it's, 

6 like you said, it's really going to depend on 

7 what it's produced within, but if you have 

8 heating and agitation I would find it hard to 

9 believe that there wouldn't be some release. 

10 I mean, even rivers, there's production of 

11 radon in the rivers but you can never see any 

12 radon in a river when you do a measurement. 

13 So of course you've got flow and other things 

14 working there, but I don't think this has 

15 anything to do with whether or not you can't 

16 bound. I think you can still bound it, it's 

17 just a matter of what's reasonable from a 

18 literature perspective. I think there is 

19 information out there on the solubility 

20 coefficient.

21 DR. NETON: Well, the Ostwald 

22 solubility coefficient predicts about a 1:1000 
130

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 ratio, but that really doesn't talk about the 

2 release fraction, the release rate.

3 MEMBER FIELD: Right, that's what 

4 I'm talking about.

5 DR. NETON: Yes. Ostwald is just 

6 really an equilibrium concentration value but 

7 I'm not aware of anything out there that 

8 speaks directly to the release rate from a 

9 liquid in a tank. I mean we've looked pretty 

10 hard and I think SC&A has, as well. I don't 

11 recall anything that was directly relevant to 

12 this analysis. But I would tend to agree with 

13 you, zero -- you've got to remember I think 

14 this is a columnar tank, very tall, so the 

15 radon, if there is some sort of a fractional 

16 release or migration rate of the radon gas 

17 through the column, you would have to have a 

18 fairly high release movement rate through the 

19 column to emanate all of that, all of it. And 

20 so depending on what the traveling rate of the 

21 bolus of the gas is through the column you 

22 could come up with a theoretical lower bound.
131

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER FIELD: Right, right, and 

2 then the other variable is the mixing within 

3 the vat, the temperature and also the surface 

4 area because it's already coming from the 

5 surface, and then if it's mixed and has 

6 contact with the surface that's where it's 

7 really emanating from.

8 DR. NETON: Exactly. 

9 DR. MAURO: When we looked at the 

10 distribution we said, well, what would be the 

11 lower end? We know it's not zero. Something 

12 is coming up, but is zero a good -- is a good 

13 place to start. So what we ran was a 

14 diffusion calculation. We have an 

15 approximation of the dimensions, three16 dimensional dimensions and the movement. So 

17 we're saying okay, what fraction of the radon 

18 might lead -- if only diffusion was at work, 

19 just diffusion, no invective transport, and 

20 the number we came out with a small fraction 

21 of 1 percent. In other words, of what goes 

22 through the building, for all intents and 
132

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 purposes, use zero. We could have put in, I 

2 forget the number, it was like 0.01 percent, 

3 some very, very small number, so for all 

4 intents and purposes it doesn't change 

5 anything so we just left it at zero.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Lemen?

7 MEMBER LEMEN: I just want to make 

8 one. For a new Board Member like myself I 

9 found several of these documents that have the 

10 wrong dates apparently on it. Couldn't NIOSH 

11 clean that up and make it a little bit easier 

12 for us to try and put a history together?

13 DR. NETON: I'm sorry, I think 

14 what you're probably looking at is a Word 

15 document and that must be like an autofill in 

16 the date function or something?

17 MEMBER LEMEN: No it's not, 

18 because the bottom thing has April 22, 2008, 

19 then in the title page itself under the NIOSH 

20 Office of Compensation Analysis and Support 

21 has April 22, 2009. Now that's not a title 

22 fill-in, somebody had to type that in.
133

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. NETON: Is it a Word document 

2 you're looking at?

3 MEMBER LEMEN: It's a Word 

4 document, but it still would not change it 

5 from one year to the other for the same date.

6 DR. NETON: We'll look into that. 

7 I apologize.

8 MEMBER LEMEN: And there's several 

9 documents in here that way, and if I'm going 

10 to put a history together I can't do it if I 

11 have -- if I don't know what year.

12 DR. NETON: We apologize for those 

13 errors and we'll look to make sure we correct 

14 those. 

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry?

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: Can we change 

17 topic here? I have one other question. There 

18 seemed to be -- I mean, I read all of your 

19 minutes during a football game so I've got to 

20 say I maybe didn't follow it too well.

21 MEMBER MUNN: I'm sure you got all 

22 the fine points.
134

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Green Bay wasn't 

2 playing.

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: But in -- it 

4 seemed at one point there was a sample, I 

5 think it was a soil or a sample that suggested 

6 there was enriched uranium was measured in one 

7 of the -- that's the other site? Okay. 

8 That's Chapman, okay. Never mind. I read 

9 them both at the same time, they sort of -- I 

10 don't remember the score either.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think all 

12 those Bud Light commercials -- okay. Any 

13 other questions? I know why Dr. Ziemer was 

14 anxious to point out to me this morning that 

15 this wasn't him to chair this particular 

16 section because we continue to wrestle with 

17 what to do here. I think the question I'd 

18 start with is for the new Board Members. 

19 Hopefully, some of this background was 

20 helpful, but do you feel ready to move forward 

21 on this, or would you like to be able to think 

22 more, refer back to the documents, see if you 
135

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 can get the dates straightened out and look at 

2 it in more detail before we -- we're asking 

3 you in 45 minutes to go through a lot of 

4 history and a lot of complications at your 

5 first full meeting and you haven't been on the 

6 Board very long, so it is requesting a lot. I 

7 don't want to move forward if you're not going 

8 to be comfortable with doing that yet. 

9 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, for myself I 

10 think that I need more time because I'm 

11 confused about the history now because I 

12 thought I had put these documents in the right 

13 order.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Bill?

15 MEMBER FIELD: I'm fine to vote 

16 now.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And 

18 Henry?

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: I think I'm 

20 ready.

21 MEMBER MUNN: He's ready to vote 

22 on Chapman.
136

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 (Laughter.)

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: That one, too. 

3 The directive we got was to spend a lot of 

4 time on these and I did, and now that I've 

5 confused them, I think I'm ready.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David 

7 Richardson?

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I'm -- at 

9 least one of the Board Members is asking for 

10 more time, is that the way I'm understanding 

11 this?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct, yes.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, I 

14 wouldn't be opposed to having a little bit 

15 more time to think about it. I'm not so much 

16 -- I think it's the bigger issue that I'm 

17 still trying to struggle with of, kind of, the 

18 philosophy of the approach of having a cohort 

19 that has an unmeasured exposure and 

20 reconstructing it through a probabilistic 

21 model. I'm not, you know, I guess I'm not 

22 philosophically opposed to that, but maybe it 
137

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 would be worth spending a little bit more time 

2 to think about.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

4 MEMBER LEMEN: I'd just like to 

5 say one other thing. If we're going to hold 

6 up doing this on account of me wanting more 

7 time, let's not do that. If the Board feels 

8 comfortable, let's go ahead and vote about it. 

9 I don't want to be the one individual that 

10 holds this up. I'll, as a new member, respect 

11 your judgment on this.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, Dick, we 

13 appreciate that, but I think it's also that we 

14 try to reach as much agreement among Board 

15 Members as possible. We've had several votes 

16 on this, we've been split on those votes and 

17 in our recommendations going forward. To the 

18 extent that it's possible I think we try to 

19 reach as much agreement as we can. So I guess 

20 I would hesitate -- I don't want to force 

21 people to do that. I really want people to --

22 again, it's not something holding up something 
138

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 two years or something. We've already spent a 

2 lot of time on this. We do owe the 

3 petitioners an answer, but I think waiting 

4 another meeting until you've had -- the new 

5 Board Members have had time to review this and 

6 reflect on what you've learned today I think 

7 is --

8 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, if we do do 

9 that, could I ask NIOSH to provide an update 

10 of chronological events on this with the right 

11 dates on it so I can get this thing in my mind 

12 squared away?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can get 

14 that straightened out. Is there anything else 

15 that, any action items from last meeting that 

16 NIOSH owes the Board relative to this site? I 

17 thought you were going to do some follow-up on 

18 the Polish study and I can't recall.

19 DR. NETON: First, to Dr. Lemen's 

20 question. Are you referring to the CD that 

21 you were provided that had all the documents 

22 on it?
139

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes, yes.

2 DR. NETON: Okay. I just wanted 

3 to make sure that's -- we will fix that.

4 MEMBER LEMEN: There were like 

5 maybe 40 documents on it or something like 

6 that.

7 DR. NETON: Okay. I apologize, I 

8 have no idea why those dates are like that, 

9 but we'll get to the bottom of it. To Dr. 

10 Melius' question, NIOSH as far as I recall had 

11 no formal action items. We did have a brief 

12 conversation at one point on the side about --

13 on the side. Somewhere I remember having a 

14 conversation about NIOSH reviewing, trying to 

15 do two things. One was to possibly get some 

16 more background information on the Polish 

17 study. If you recall, the data, although they 

18 claim to have been distributed about the 

19 plant, we really didn't know which locations. 

20 One could assume that they were fairly widely 

21 distributed to get a maximum distribution, but 

22 you couldn't get that from the publication 
140

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 itself. I did try to locate this person, the 

2 author. It turns out that she was a visiting 

3 scientist at the time the study was published 

4 somewhere in the southwestern U.S. And I did 

5 as best I could to try to locate her at her 

6 home institution in Poland and I couldn't find 

7 it. I did what I could on the internet with 

8 Google searches and such, and tracking 

9 publication records, and she seems to have 

10 disappeared at least from the radar screen as 

11 far as I could tell. So I was not successful 

12 with that.

13 The second issue was to redouble 

14 our efforts to look to see if we could 

15 actually validate the model somehow, using the 

16 Mallinckrodt data. I admitted the last time 

17 that I had not done an exhaustive search of 

18 the documents looking for floor plans and 

19 processing rates and such that could be used 

20 as input terms at Mallinckrodt. I've gone 

21 back and looked through the data. I did find 

22 some floor plans, some diagrams, but they 
141

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 didn't appear to me, at least, to be of 

2 sufficient clarity to be able to use in a 

3 model, especially when you couple it with the 

4 fact that one needs to know specifically the 

5 input term into that cell, that compartment. 

6 And if you recall at Mallinckrodt they had a 

7 variable uranium content in the ore from 10 to 

8 70 percent. I found no information to 

9 indicate what the percentage of the uranium --

10 of the actual production rate on a monthly 

11 basis as well as the variability of the 

12 uranium ore content which would directly be 

13 relevant to the amount of radon being 

14 released. So a long answer again, but I did 

15 some follow-up and was unsuccessful in 

16 answering either of those questions.

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: I think, Jim, 

18 while you're still there, I think part of the 

19 reasoning for following up on the Polish study 

20 was the same. Did you have enough 

21 information? I forget. I know you had 

22 measurement data for the Polish study, but you 
142

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 didn't have floor plans and stuff like that?

2 DR. NETON: It seemed to be a 

3 fairly wide open facility though, I mean as 

4 far as -- it wasn't -- Mallinckrodt was very 

5 compartmentalized at those times. There was 

6 indication in the reports that at one time the 

7 radon was getting high in one area, they 

8 closed the doors off and those sort of things 

9 that just really made me feel uncomfortable of 

10 applying a model. I mean, even if we came up 

11 with a model and assumed it validated, there 

12 would be so many questions unanswered, you 

13 know, one could argue it's fortuitous that it 

14 came out that way.

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: That's for 

16 Mallinckrodt or for the Polish?

17 DR. NETON: The Mallinckrodt.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: How about the 

19 Polish facility?

20 DR. NETON: The Polish facility 

21 seemed to me to be a large industrial plant, 

22 sort of open of the same nature. But again, I 
143

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 can't prove that, I just --

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: You don't have 

3 enough information to put in parameters, is 

4 that what you're saying? To test the model.

5 DR. NETON: But nonetheless, what 

6 we do have is this dispersal of data about the 

7 plant that indicates that the concentrations 

8 themselves were not that variable, as variable 

9 as one might think. There was one other 

10 issue, the Mallinckrodt, I did provide at one 

11 point a discussion of the radon concentrations 

12 that were actually observed at Mallinckrodt 

13 during a certain time period and if you recall 

14 we're proposing 17 picocuries per liter and 

15 even at its heyday at Mallinckrodt during the 

16 production of the Belgian Congo ore, you know, 

17 on the order of 100 or so picocuries per liter 

18 seemed to be about the right number, and this 

19 ore was about 70 percent uranium by weight. 

20 Tremendously much more concentrated than the 

21 30 picocuries per liter -- per gram of uranium 

22 that was brought into the Blockson facility. 
144

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So that, again, these are all sort of weight 

2 of the evidence type issues. None of them in 

3 themselves validate the model, but they 

4 certainly do provide supportive information.

5 MEMBER LEMEN: Could I ask one 

6 question? The Polish study was a 95 Polish 

7 study? 1995?

8 DR. NETON: It was published in 

9 95. I'm not sure when the data --

10 MEMBER LEMEN: Can you provide 

11 that to the Board? I just asked Wanda and she 

12 said the Board had not received it.

13 DR. NETON: Is that right? I 

14 thought I had provided it, but I'll certainly 

15 send it.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I believe it's 

17 on the O: drive.

18 DR. NETON: It's probably on the 

19 O: drive, but I think it's okay to send to the 

20 Board. I always worry about copyright issues 

21 when you start sending out publications, but 

22 if not, I can point --
145

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fair use, 

2 but yes, if you can send it out that would 

3 make it easy.

4 DR. NETON: Okay, I'll do that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're going to 

6 be relying on it for discussion. 

7 DR. NETON: No problem.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: And I was just 

9 going to follow up on the variability 

10 question. I mean, again, the statement that 

11 Jim made in his presentation before rings in 

12 my ears as we go through this issue several 

13 times that there is no good way to model 

14 spatial variability. I mean, I like that part 

15 of your conclusion. But the -- I guess I'm 

16 turning back to the -- there's also some 

17 Blockson data which we all agree was not very 

18 -- I mean, I think it sort of pushed it aside 

19 as far as using it for a model, but if I 

20 recall, and I was trying to find the document 

21 while all the discussions were going on. I 

22 couldn't find it. I know I have it somewhere. 
146

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 But there was -- I guess I would consider 

2 this the variability in that sampling as well. 

3 Of course, those were not year-long samples 

4 or anything like that. They weren't set out 

5 for months, so you have to consider that, but 

6 -- I know there were some odd high readings in 

7 some places where you would not necessarily --

8 DR. NETON: I don't think that was 

9 necessarily a problem at Blockson. You might 

10 be thinking of --

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: It might be 

12 another facility.

13 DR. NETON: I think you're 

14 thinking of the Florida phosphate data where 

15 you had some interesting readings outside.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Could have been. 

17 I remember seeing some of the readings in the 

18 offices were some of the highest readings out 

19 of the whole data set and things like that.

20 DR. NETON: That's not at 

21 Blockson. 

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: It might not be 
147

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Blockson.

2 DR. NETON: There was at the Idaho 

3 phosphate plant data I think there was a high 

4 reading near one of the offices. Not a high, 

5 but you know, maybe 2 picocuries per liter 

6 compared to, you know, 1.1 or something else 

7 for a plant. Blockson, if I recall, there was 

8 only one or two measurements in Building 40 

9 itself. Just so that the new members are 

10 aware, Building 55 is the building that is the 

11 covered facility at Blockson. That is where 

12 the radon -- I mean, the uranium was actually 

13 precipitated out of the solution as part of 

14 the -- it was added as part of the AEC 

15 contract to produce uranium. Building 40 is 

16 really not part of Building 55. It's a 

17 separate building, but the way the facility 

18 designation reads is Building 55 and other 

19 related processes or something like that, 

20 which brings into play Building 40 which was 

21 the main balance of the plant where they made 

22 the phosphate products, and that's where the 
148

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radon issue comes up. There would have been 

2 very little radon in Building 55 because the 

3 radium had already been removed before it got 

4 there.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. So 

6 we will schedule this for our next meeting in 

7 May, in Buffalo still. Okay. Our next agenda 

8 item is another site where the Board has been 

9 deadlocked on and that's I think a little bit 

10 more straightforward. It's not as much --

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: Can I ask one 

12 other thing?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, sure.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: It might be 

15 helpful if NIOSH by that time could tell us, 

16 are there other facilities in the queue where 

17 this kind of probabilistic modeling would be 

18 the solution to problems that are being faced, 

19 I mean, or is this unique here? I think 

20 partly my concern is one of policy. I mean, 

21 once you go to probabilistic modeling you 

22 could do that for the urine levels, I mean. 
149

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 You basically don't need any data, all you 

2 need is bounds and then you generate it and 

3 out it comes and then everyone looks at it and 

4 scratches their head and says we'll adjust 

5 this a little bit. So I mean, it would be 

6 helpful to know, do you see this as a step 

7 forward that it would be very helpful to have 

8 such a model to use elsewhere.

9 DR. NETON: There are several 

10 facilities that process -- that made uranium 

11 as part of the phosphate production process 

12 for the DOE. The one that's of immediate 

13 concern right now is Texas City Chemicals 

14 because we have an SEC petition evaluation for 

15 it that's being held up until this issue can 

16 be resolved, or at least we're holding it. 

17 But there are a couple other similar 

18 facilities, about a handful, and we can 

19 provide that information. 

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Back to 

21 Chapman. Dr. Poston who chairs the Work 

22 Group.
150

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER POSTON: Thank you, Dr. 

2 Melius. The members of the Work Group were 

3 Michael Gibson, Mark Griffon, Genevieve 

4 Roessler, and I think Brad Clawson was the 

5 alternate. And I must admit that I was given 

6 this assignment soon after I came on the Board 

7 and I was quite naive about how easy this was 

8 going to be. We had a history of the Chapman 

9 Valve going back to February of 2005 when 

10 there was a worker outreach meeting. The 

11 petition was discussed by the Board and it was 

12 assigned to SC&A in September of 2006 to 

13 evaluate the Site Profile, and then at that 

14 point the Working Group was appointed. And as 

15 I said, I was quite enthusiastic so I went 

16 with John Mauro and Arjun Makhijani and Mark 

17 Rolfes to the site to tour the site as it was, 

18 to participate in interviews with petitioners 

19 and all kinds of things to try -- because I 

20 thought, well, I really wanted to understand 

21 what was going on. And then we had a couple 

22 of Work Group meetings and at least one or two 
151

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 telephone calls. In summary, basically the 

2 situation as I see it is like this. There are 

3 plenty of badge data for external dosimetry 

4 for these workers. So the external dose is 

5 not in question and so the big discussion 

6 centered around internal dose. 

7 Let me go back and clarify a 

8 couple of things. We're talking about 

9 Building 23, which no longer exists, at the 

10 Chapman Valve Manufacturing Company in Indian 

11 Orchard, Massachusetts and the covered period 

12 is January 1, 1948 through December 31, 1949, 

13 a 2-year period. It turns out there was also 

14 a residual period from January 1, 1991 through 

15 December 31, 1993 where there was FUSRAP 

16 activities on the site. The actual production 

17 period at the Indian Orchard Site was only 

18 about three months. They were machining 

19 uranium metal for use in the Brookhaven 

20 reactor, but the covered period is two years, 

21 whereas actually the activities were only 

22 carried on for a short period of time. So as 
152

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 I said, the effort was focused on, how do you 

2 assign, or was it possible to assign internal 

3 dosimetry to these folks. We were fortunate 

4 enough to find a fairly large document 

5 prepared by H.K. Ferguson on machining of the 

6 uranium for - the title was Machining of 

7 Uranium for Brookhaven Reactor which was dated 

8 in 1949 and that gave us a really good 

9 understanding of the health physics 

10 procedures, the production schedules, rates, 

11 quantities, details of the operations with 

12 photos and maps, dates and details of minor 

13 fires that actually occurred in the facility, 

14 as you know, uranium is pyrophoric cleanup and 

15 decontamination and waste disposal. We also 

16 had a limited amount of data for air 

17 concentrations in the facility. And so 

18 NIOSH's approach, which at the time seemed 

19 very logical to me, was to take the highest 

20 air concentration in the facility that was 

21 measured during the period and assume that 

22 that air concentration existed in the building 
153

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 every day for -- during the work week, and 

2 that the workers were exposed at that, not for 

3 the three months, but for two years. So they 

4 used that to calculate their intakes and then 

5 did the PoC calculation, the Probability of 

6 Causation calculation. So, the idea is that 

7 if the external dose which was not in question 

8 and the internal dose which was estimated 

9 using this method. I guess I'm telling a lie.

10 DR. NETON: We did. We had urine 

11 sampling data from the Chapman Valve facility. 

12 We used the highest urine sample.

13 MEMBER POSTON: Oh, I stand 

14 corrected. They used the highest urine 

15 sample. But the logic is the same, right? 

16 You assume that that represented the intake 

17 over a two-year period for the workers. And 

18 so using external dose and the bioassay data 

19 which provide the internal dose the 

20 Probability of Causation was calculated and 

21 the logic is under these very extreme 

22 circumstances of assumptions, if the PoC 
154

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 didn't equal or exceed 50 percent it would 

2 never exceed 50 percent. And so based on 

3 those calculations -- it's been a long time, 

4 Jim -- the recommendation was that the SEC be 

5 denied. So we brought that to the Board.

6 All the members of the Work Group, 

7 when we had our meeting face to face, voted in 

8 favor of bringing that recommendation to the 

9 Board. When we voted on it, it turned out 

10 that the members of the Work Group, some 

11 members of the Work Group voted against the 

12 motion. So we had a discussion. One of the 

13 problems with the Work Group was the thing 

14 that Andy just brought up, and that was in the 

15 FUSRAP period there was one sample, soil 

16 sample, I believe that was obtained outside of 

17 the loading dock which showed that there might 

18 be slightly elevated enriched uranium present. 

19 So Jim Neton very dutifully got in touch with 

20 the folks at Oak Ridge, discussed that. We 

21 were not able to ascertain its source. We 

22 felt, some of us felt it was likely that since 
155

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 they were dealing with uranium metal that it 

2 was not from that particular process, it may 

3 have been something else. We later learned 

4 that there may have been activities with the

5 Navy and we pulled that string, but we got no 

6 cooperation at all from the Department of 

7 Defense. Jim again inquired about the 

8 activities and we were not informed of any 

9 activities. As I recall and -- Jim, I'll let 

10 you correct me. As I recall, looking at this 

11 one sample statistically not being enriched 

12 was not outside of the possibilities. Is that 

13 correct? Again, I'm --

14 DR. NETON: I'm not certain. I 

15 thought that in the very beginning, but when 

16 we actually posed that question to the team 

17 leader from Oak Ridge who was a team leader 

18 for the project he brought that question to 

19 some people down at Oak Ridge that remembered. 

20 They could not determine the exact analysis, 

21 but they thought that it would have been 

22 enriched uranium. If they reported it as 
156

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 slightly enriched they believed it was 

2 slightly enriched.

3 MEMBER POSTON: But it was low 

4 enriched, I think around 2 percent.

5 DR. NETON: Yes, very low.

6 MEMBER POSTON: So as I understand 

7 what was going on, this issue is on the table. 

8 We've tried to remove it from the table at 

9 least once and it's still on the table. And 

10 just as with so many things I learned a lot of 

11 lessons, but I do think we owe it to the 

12 petitioners either to make a decision one way 

13 or the other. Just like the Blockson it's 

14 been around a long time and we need to dispose 

15 of this one way or the other.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let me just 

17 clarify one thing with assistance from Dr. 

18 Ziemer. Technically, this is not tabled in 

19 the formal sort of form of a motion which 

20 Blockson was, so we don't have an active 

21 motion. We've been deadlocked and it's always 

22 been for further consideration. So if there's 
157

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 not a tabled motion, we don't -- if we decide 

2 to act on it we don't need to take the motion 

3 off the table. 

4 Secondly, again this may be my 

5 faulty memory also because it has a long 

6 history trying to remember this, but I believe 

7 at one point that NIOSH had inquired of DoD 

8 and DoD had done some sort of a computer 

9 search for records. There were some other 

10 potential contracting records available from 

11 the Department of Defense, maybe from Navy, I 

12 don't recall specifically, but it would have 

13 involved a manual search of these records to 

14 try to find if there was a contract. And 

15 NIOSH decided that it was not sort of feasible 

16 to do. It would have been difficult and I 

17 think there were questions as to how much 

18 cooperation they would have gotten from DoD to 

19 be able to do that. But there was a decision 

20 not to pursue that as I recall. So we just 

21 don't know. Does that fit? Jim, I saw you 

22 nodding your head, but just to -- for the 
158

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 record.

2 DR. NETON: That's correct. We 

3 found or through the Navy, I don't remember 

4 exactly how this came about, but we received 

5 indications that the facility had a large 

6 number of contracts with the Navy during its 

7 operation up until the time that this enriched 

8 uranium sample was discovered, but all we were 

9 able to find was the titles of the contracts 

10 and that in and of itself was not sufficient 

11 to allow us to determine which thread to pull. 

12 The contract didn't say, like, working with 

13 contaminated valving or something like that, 

14 so it wasn't possible. We would have had to 

15 go through a large number of contracts 

16 possibly with no fruitful outcome and we 

17 didn't think it was worth pulling that thread.

18 MEMBER POSTON: But the conclusion

19 was, at least the Working Group concluded 

20 before we came to the committee that we 

21 believed that NIOSH's approach was sufficient 

22 to bound the doses and I think that's the 
159

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 important conclusion and that's what we 

2 brought to the Board. 

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Again, this may 

4 be my memory and it differs from what Dr. 

5 Poston just said, but much of the discussion I 

6 believe of the enriched sample went on after 

7 the Work Group. The further inquiry was into 

8 the enriched sample, into sort of how that was 

9 analyzed and reached. So it was sort of after 

10 the Work Group had presented and we were 

11 trying to resolve the issue. I think it's 

12 also fair to say that, as part of the 

13 transcripts, I think the concern was did the 

14 enriched sample reflect an activity that went 

15 on, some type of production activity that went 

16 on at that facility that just was not 

17 documented in the record. So the concern was 

18 one was it from the nuclear navy, or could it 

19 be from some other contract.

20 MEMBER POSTON: I'd have to look 

21 at the transcripts, but I thought we discussed 

22 it in a telephone conference. We did have a 
160

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Working Group meeting over telephone because 

2 when this came up we did ask that it be 

3 investigated and that's when Jim made all his 

4 inquiries at Oak Ridge and so forth through 

5 the FUSRAP group. The key is, to me, the key 

6 is the rods that were being machined at this 

7 facility were natural uranium and so the one 

8 sample is anomalous in that it's enriched 

9 uranium, and we haven't found any data or any 

10 indication that the rods that were being 

11 machined were enriched uranium, that there 

12 were ever any rods machined that were enriched 

13 uranium. So it's an anomalous situation. We 

14 haven't been able to solve what that is. 

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I think 

16 that's fair. Brad, you were a member of the 

17 Work Group or an alternate? I can't recall.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'm an alternate 

19 on that. Part of the issue that I had with 

20 it, and I just wanted to bring this up. What 

21 Dr. Poston said is exactly correct. I believe 

22 they had only two or three samples, I believe 
161

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 it was two samples that were even pulled. One 

2 was enriched, one wasn't. The question also 

3 came up because through the petitioners --

4 that of other work that came back there was 

5 supposedly valves, so forth, that came back 

6 from Oak Ridge, Tennessee to be repaired and 

7 so forth that possibly could have been 

8 contaminated. This is where the other 

9 facility that had always been brought in to 

10 Chapman Valve, and I can't remember -- Dean 

11 Street that kept coming back into this, kept 

12 playing into it. So part of the issue that I 

13 personally had was I did not really think that 

14 we had a grasp of everything that had gone on 

15 in those facilities had been adequately 

16 addressed. As we've come to find out through 

17 all of these sites, that they're all 

18 interchanged. They all do things back and 

19 forth, and I do realize that it's a very 

20 complicated issue, but the bottom line is I 

21 don't think that for me that I could not say 

22 certainly that we were bounding them on one 
162

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 premise but we didn't really have everything, 

2 all the information to be able to say that. 

3 We were using one source term where there 

4 could have been more source terms.

5 MEMBER POSTON: I'll leave it to 

6 John or Arjun, but my recollection is that 

7 when we had the interviews the folks told us 

8 that those valves did come to the Chapman 

9 Valve facility and then they were -- but they 

10 didn't come in the facility. They were 

11 transferred from railroad cars I believe to 

12 trucks and then taken to the Dean Street 

13 facility. So we didn't really consider that 

14 that was part of the source term to which the 

15 workers inside the facility were being 

16 exposed. Is that your recollection, John? So 

17 that was the reason that we didn't -- that 

18 came from the discussion with the workers, not 

19 something that we learned through documents 

20 and so forth.

21 DR. MAURO: Yes, during our 

22 interviews with the workers there were a 
163

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 number, maybe a dozen workers in the room and 

2 there was -- one of the women even pointed 

3 out, yes, we would get the shipment of a large 

4 container which we referred to as a manifold, 

5 and she described it as best she can, and that 

6 was the first indication to us. We looked at 

7 each other when she was describing this that 

8 perhaps there were some manifolds coming back 

9 because these were facilities for the 

10 enrichment facility that were being tested. 

11 We thought perhaps Dean Street was not only 

12 sending things out, but they were getting 

13 things back and maybe that's the source --

14 when it came back there may have been some 

15 residue, but that was just speculation on our 

16 part. In other words, we can't say that that 

17 in fact is the source. The only thing we can 

18 say is that when we look at the Ferguson 

19 report which is extraordinarily detailed, it 

20 tells a very rich description of what took 

21 place those two years, I believe, and there's 

22 nothing in there that would indicate that 
164

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 there was anything other than the machining of 

2 these natural uranium rods for Brookhaven 

3 reactor. So you know, nothing subsequent to 

4 these investigations for example that Jim 

5 looked into indicated that there was anything 

6 coming back from Oak Ridge. So we don't have 

7 any evidence that yes, some material came from 

8 Oak Ridge to Dean Street. We know it went 

9 from Dean Street to Oak Ridge, but not from 

10 Oak Ridge back to Dean Street. 

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Arjun, did you 

12 have anything to add to that? And then Jim.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: The only thing I 

14 might add is the person who dealt with the 

15 shipments from Oak Ridge to Dean Street had a 

16 very clear memory of things. She remembered 

17 names of people that she wrote letters to, and 

18 she was very clear that things came back for 

19 repair. She was also clear, just for the 

20 record, that they came back during the 

21 Manhattan Project and that the activity that 

22 she was describing stopped during the 
165

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Manhattan Project. That said, I would agree 

2 with John that we, in our research that we did 

3 agree that it was an enriched uranium sample. 

4 We could not find any evidence as to where 

5 that sample came from or how it got there.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, Jim.

7 DR. NETON: I just -- one comment 

8 on what Brad mentioned was that it's true that 

9 I think Oak Ridge only measured three samples 

10 for enrichment and one out of three came back 

11 enriched, or something like that. Two out of 

12 three or two out of four, one out of two? One 

13 out of two. So the point is that the argument 

14 was made well then. You don't really know how 

15 much enriched uranium might have been around 

16 the plant. But we actually went back and 

17 looked at the closure docket after the FUSRAP 

18 clean-up had been done and they took a number 

19 of samples and analyzed them for enrichment, 

20 and I don't recall the exact number, but I 

21 looked at about nine of those samples and they 

22 -- I saw no sample of the nine that were 
166

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 measured or something in that vicinity that 

2 were -- they were all consistent with natural 

3 uranium. There was no evidence of any 

4 enriched uranium and they did measure them 

5 isotopically.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Arjun, yes?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just one more 

8 thing. I looked at the same sample as Jim and 

9 I would agree with him that all the other 

10 samples were natural uranium. This is from 

11 memory from some time back. But the thing 

12 about that 2.1 percent, I don't remember the 

13 date on which it was taken, but it was much 

14 after the period we're talking about. And 

15 when the activities ended, you know, there was 

16 still a lot of metal being processed at 

17 Chapman Valve. And so the enrichment that was 

18 found later would not necessarily be 

19 indicative of the enrichment at whatever time 

20 that it was deposited. It would be some 

21 dilution.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark?
167

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER GRIFFON: I think he means 

2 dilution in the soil or in the, you know.

3 MEMBER POSTON: How is that going 

4 to change the enrichment?

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: When you have dust 

6 that has natural uranium in it mixed with an 

7 enriched uranium sample --

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: It's possible.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- the enrichment 

10 of the resultant sample that you would --

11 MEMBER POSTON: If you don't do a 

12 separation.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: At least that's my 

14 opinion.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark?

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: I was just going 

17 to follow up with Jim because I'm trying to 

18 remember the nine samples that you said they 

19 did an isotopic analysis on at the end, the 

20 FUSRAP? Was that final survey data? I don't 

21 recall looking for that. Because I know I 

22 asked for -- I think it was Bechtel Jacobs 
168

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that did the clean-up.

2 DR. NETON: Yes, Bechtel Jacobs 

3 did the clean-up.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: And we never had 

5 any luck tracking down their reports, did we? 

6 Internal reports.

7 DR. NETON: Well, we talked about 

8 this a while ago. I think there's a 

9 regulatory docket that was prepared at the 

10 closure of that facility having been cleaned 

11 up. That's where I found those results and I 

12 think it's out there on the O: drive. But 

13 this was a formal report that was issued. I 

14 think what you were looking for Mark earlier 

15 was waste transfer.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, some kind 

17 of waste transfer.

18 DR. NETON: I found nothing of 

19 that nature. This is where I ran across these 

20 isotopic analyses that were done.

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: Because I think 

22 what you're -- I mean, I've been through this 
169

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 process a number of times at sites and you 

2 have your characterization survey. Then they 

3 probably did a final closure so they -- in 

4 which case you're sampling a cleaned up site. 

5 So I would expect a lot of natural uranium in 

6 the isotopic analysis.

7 DR. NETON: I don't know if these 

8 were cleaned up sites.

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay, I'm just 

10 trying to clarify.

11 DR. NETON: I think these were the 

12 characterization prior to the clean-up is my 

13 recollection, but I'd have to go back and 

14 check that for sure.

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, I want to 

16 check that, too.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do any of the 

18 new Board Members have questions or have we 

19 confused you, as we will. I'll start with you 

20 David Richardson. Sorry to put you on the 

21 spot, David.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Have all the 
170

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 issues that were -- been resolved with SC&A, 

2 issues that SC&A raised in their review?

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you -- yes. 

4 Have all the SC&A issues been reviewed?

5 DR. NETON: Yes, all the technical 

6 issues related to the machining of the uranium 

7 rods themselves have been resolved. SC&A's 

8 report I think does mention this unexplained 

9 enriched sample, but I'm not sure what they 

10 made of it other than it does exist.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, that is 

12 the unresolved issue. I don't know whether --

13 DR. MAURO: And we also came to 

14 the independent conclusion -- our radiochemist 

15 looked at the sample and we believe it is a 

16 real -- it's not a statistical anomaly in 

17 terms of the sample. It's a real enrichment. 

18 When it was deposited, we don't know.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

20 questions, David?

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 
171

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Bill?

2 MEMBER FIELD: Maybe more 

3 clarification than questions. Going through 

4 this amount of material is laborious so 

5 there's just a couple of clarifications. The 

6 SEC petition was for January 1, 48 through 

7 12/31/49? Does that sound right?

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's the 

9 covered period, yes.

10 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. And during 

11 this time period, what was the duration of 

12 actual activities?

13 MEMBER POSTON: It was only three 

14 months.

15 MEMBER FIELD: Okay, so it's only 

16 three months. That wasn't clear when I went 

17 through the documents for the first time. And 

18 the questions with bioassay were -- can you 

19 just clarify what percent of the workers were 

20 monitored with urinalysis?

21 DR. NETON: We had a few -- I 

22 don't remember the exact number of bioassay 
172

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 samples now, but there were a number. Most of 

2 them were at or below the detection limit of, 

3 you know, traditional photofluorometric 

4 uranium analysis and so we selected the 

5 highest sample that was measured of any of the 

6 workers and applied that in a chronic bioassay 

7 model approach and assumed that all claimants 

8 had breathed that amount of air to get that 

9 level of uranium in their urine for the entire 

10 -- I don't recall now if it was partitioned 

11 with this 3-month interlude, or whether we 

12 just went over the whole period, but that was 

13 the basic.

14 MEMBER POSTON: My recollection is 

15 you went for the whole period.

16 DR. NETON: Right, so we just 

17 assumed how much uranium could you have 

18 breathed in and been excreting continually for 

19 the entire operation that amount of uranium.

20 MEMBER FIELD: And you assumed a 

21 constant exposure?

22 DR. NETON: Yes, a chronic 
173

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 exposure model that would generate that amount 

2 of urine in your -- uranium in your urine over 

3 the extended period of time. And then as 

4 usual we would pick the most favorable 

5 solubility Class for that -- for the claimant, 

6 to make sure that they got the highest PoC.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: I can help maybe 

8 clarify that a little bit. There were like 40 

9 samples taken on two different days, mainly I 

10 think it was July 27, 48 and June 11, 48 are 

11 most of the samples. There might have been a 

12 couple other dates when samples were taken, 

13 but they were the two big sample-collection 

14 dates. Forty samples and it looks like a wide 

15 variety. They have job titles with these. 

16 There's a wide variety of jobs covered as 

17 well.

18 MEMBER FIELD: So from the data 

19 that I read it looks like the documentation 

20 for external radiation is pretty good as far 

21 as badges that the workers wore, and there was 

22 some question about the bioassay but you're 
174

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 taking the worst case scenario based on the 

2 one urinalysis.

3 DR. NETON: I don't think the 

4 question here is the bioassay model or even 

5 covering the exposure during what happened in 

6 the covered period with the uranium rods. The 

7 issue seems to be that we maybe don't know the 

8 full source term because of this sample that 

9 was found in I think it was 1970s of enriched 

10 uranium near the loading dock, and so there's 

11 some concern in people's minds that we're not 

12 covering the whole source term. But the 

13 reality is what added this covered facility 

14 was the machining of the uranium rods for the 

15 Brookhaven reactor and that's what we 

16 reconstructed.

17 MEMBER FIELD: It's kind of 

18 interesting in a way because, if your SEC 

19 petition would have been for a longer period, 

20 there would have been more questions involved. 

21 As it is it's a two-year period when there's 

22 three months of work. So the question is, if 
175

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 your SEC petition was for a later date then 

2 there's even more question about the 

3 possibility --

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: What's the defined 

5 period?

6 MEMBER FIELD: What's the defined 

7 period?

8 DR. NETON: Well, I think the 

9 question is could that enriched uranium have 

10 been there during the covered period and we're 

11 not covering it? Was there some other 

12 operation going on during that period, and we 

13 have no information to suggest that.

14 MEMBER FIELD: And from what I 

15 hear it's not that you just don't have the 

16 information, but the information you have does 

17 not point that there was an activity.

18 DR. NETON: Oh absolutely, yes. I 

19 mean, this Ferguson report that's a fairly 

20 well defined document, a fairly well developed 

21 document that Dr. Poston mentioned, explained 

22 in extreme detail the nature of the materials, 
176

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 and we have no doubt in our mind that every 

2 rod -- in fact, they stamped these rods when 

3 they came through they were natural uranium. 

4 There would be no reason to run enriched 

5 uranium through the Brookhaven reactor.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: And I guess I 

7 would agree that that process is pretty well 

8 defined and the exposures from that process 

9 are pretty well defined. I would point to 

10 another document on the O: drive and I was 

11 looking for the reference ID number, but I 

12 can't place it. I will find it for other

13 Board Members. But it mentions -- I think 

14 this is a DOE -- when they initially define 

15 the site and the time frame for the site they 

16 do their own research, and I think it's a 

17 compilation of what they found originally. 

18 And it says that, where is it -- very little 

19 information has been found that describes the 

20 specific operations involving radioactive 

21 material conducted at this facility. The memo 

22 mentions three operations, production of 
177

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 valves and manifolds for Y-12 which we've 

2 talked about a little bit, machining of 

3 uranium rods which is the Brookhaven process 

4 and uranium rolling which we haven't heard 

5 anything about. So my contention for the last 

6 several meetings has been that just because we 

7 have this one pesky piece of information we 

8 have to have some rationale for what caused it 

9 to be there in 1970. If we don't know -- and 

10 this reinforces my statement that I don't 

11 think we know enough about the process 

12 history. We know a lot about the rod process, 

13 the Brookhaven operation under H.K. Ferguson, 

14 but I'm not sure we know the other pieces of 

15 what could have went on there. And I'm not 

16 sure that it would have even been during that 

17 time period, but I can't say it wasn't, so.

18 DR. NETON: That was going to be 

19 my point, Mark. I mean, I think we have a 

20 very good characterization of the radiological 

21 operations that occurred during the petition 

22 time period. We have no indication that there 
178

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 was any other radiological operations going on 

2 at that time and that's what we've covered.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, except for 

4 this one pesky piece of information.

5 DR. NETON: No, but I mean what 

6 I'm saying is the Ferguson report details all 

7 the radiological controls that were put in 

8 place at the facility in Building 23 to 

9 accommodate the rolling of the rods. There's 

10 nothing else that we've found during that 

11 period, that two- year period that says that 

12 uranium rods were being rolled at the same 

13 time. I mean, so it could -- may have 

14 happened, but in my opinion it wouldn't have 

15 been during that covered period that the 

16 petitioner requested.

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean, this is 

18 DOE's research to define the time period for 

19 the site, you know, in this document that I 

20 have, and I've got to get the reference ID, 

21 but I mean they state these other -- they were 

22 looking at these other operations, so --
179

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. NETON: I understand. 

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- just because 

3 you didn't find follow-up reports doesn't 

4 allow me to say okay, forget about it and 

5 forget about this other piece of data too, you 

6 know? That's all I'm saying.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry or Dick, 

8 do you have questions?

9 MEMBER LEMEN: I would just like 

10 one clarification from what Bill said as to 

11 what the exact Class Definition is. Is it 

12 what it says in here, January 1, 48 through 

13 December 31, 49, and then January 1, 91 

14 through December 31, 1993?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Those are 

16 the covered periods. They're not really a 

17 Class Definition because NIOSH when they did 

18 their evaluation basically said their 

19 evaluation was to turn down the petition. 

20 That group should not be added to the SEC 

21 Class. So there is no Class Definition. It's 

22 a covered period.
180

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER GRIFFON: I don't think 91 

2 through 93 was necessarily residual, it was a 

3 cleanup period wasn't it? It was --

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

5 MEMBER LEMEN: So the proposal as 

6 it is now is to reject it?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That was the 

8 recommendation from the Work Group. There is 

9 no -- that was the proposal, but there's no 

10 motion active.

11 MEMBER LEMEN: But that's what 

12 NIOSH's recommendation was?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct.

14 MEMBER LEMEN: Okay. That's all 

15 my questions.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry?

17 MEMBER POSTON: It is the Work 

18 Group's recommendation it be accepted?

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: Is there -- I 

21 mean, the pesky sample now that I've got it at 

22 the right facility, is there any indication in 
181

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the later period that enriched uranium would 

2 have been there? So that, you know, you don't 

3 -- I mean, the issue of well, do we attribute 

4 it to the early years or later years. If 

5 there's some indication that some enriched 

6 uranium moved through there in some other way 

7 then that would help explain, but if through 

8 the whole period there's no indication that 

9 there was any enriched uranium materials going 

10 through there then we're sort of left with, 

11 you know, a big question.

12 DR. NETON: That's right. We've 

13 spent considerable effort trying to identify 

14 where this uranium sample could have --

15 enriched uranium sample could have come from 

16 and we uncovered nothing.

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: My next question 

18 --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can I just 

20 clarify? But NIOSH did refuse to go pursue 

21 that any further with the Department of 

22 Defense. That's on the transcript from a 
182

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 statement from Larry Elliott. Doing a manual 

2 search, he said he would not do it. That was 

3 a judgment he made.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: Then my other 

5 question is we've now got ten years of 

6 experience going into the data from, you know, 

7 lots and lots of facilities. Have you ever 

8 come across an unexplained sample like this 

9 before?

10 DR. NETON: That's a tough 

11 question. 

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: I know.

13 DR. NETON: I don't know, off the 

14 top of my head, anything. I would say that we 

15 have -- Mark brought up the issue of rolling 

16 operations. We have a very good track record 

17 of where the rolling operations occurred. 

18 This all started with Bethlehem Steel and we 

19 know -- we have very good compilation of 

20 multiple reports that indicate where these 

21 rolling operations occurred. We have no 

22 indication that it ever occurred at Chapman 
183

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Valve. So that would have been the only other 

2 piece. I mean, the valves, Dr. Melius is 

3 correct, we didn't continue and finalize our 

4 search on the valves from the Navy because of 

5 the volume of work required.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: I will say, when 

7 I was preparing for this meeting, that the 

8 mention of rolling in here surprised me.

9 DR. NETON: We could provide you 

10 numerous documents on the history of the 

11 rolling activities in the AEC operations 

12 because they're fairly well documented. We've 

13 uncovered a lot of information on that.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Roessler, 

15 yes.

16 MEMBER ROESSLER: You're referring 

17 to this pesky sample as being enriched 

18 uranium, and as I remember going back there 

19 was this sample that somebody took and I can't 

20 remember how he analyzed it or evaluated it, 

21 but said it was consistent perhaps with 

22 enriched uranium. But I think we had some 
184

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 discussions, and I don't remember if this was 

2 a spectral analysis or you know, that the 

3 energy region that was showing could have been 

4 something else and I think we ought to go back 

5 to that. Am I remembering incorrectly?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, you're 

7 remembering correctly, Dr. Roessler. We spent 

8 some time trying to determine whether it was 

9 truly an enriched uranium sample and the fact 

10 is we hired the team leader of the project to 

11 go back and confer with his folks down at Oak 

12 Ridge to try to recollect how that sample was 

13 analyzed and no one could remember. It could 

14 have been isotopic analysis, it could have 

15 been gamma spec, we don't know. 

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Jim, that's not 

17 quite the way I remember reading. I read over 

18 that interview. He said likely mass spec or 

19 alpha spec.

20 DR. NETON: Did he say likely? 

21 Okay.

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. So I --
185

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. NETON: I was going to --

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- look at 

3 Foley's interview. It's interesting to read 

4 that.

5 DR. NETON: I was going to follow 

6 up saying that was their eventual opinion, 

7 that it was likely to be enriched, but I 

8 misremembered that other piece. Thanks for 

9 correcting me.

10 MEMBER MUNN: But still, nobody 

11 knows. So we're spending all this time 

12 debating about whether or not this possible 

13 enriched piece of material which may or may 

14 not have been in the facility or near the 

15 facility at the time that we have concerns has 

16 any bearing at all on any claimants' current 

17 process before us. It seems to beg the 

18 question how much impact such a thing could 

19 have had in any case during this three-month 

20 period.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I will go back 

22 to my question we have on Blockson which is 
186

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 since this was -- this session was designed, 

2 the information provided was for the new 

3 members to get up to speed and understand 

4 what's been a longstanding and difficult 

5 situation for the Board, are you comfortable 

6 taking some steps if there were a motion, or 

7 would you prefer to have more time to read the 

8 information and give input maybe in the 

9 context of what you've heard today and to 

10 gather more of that. Henry, I'll start with 

11 you.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: I don't know 

13 what more we would get.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: I'm not sure 

16 that it's resolved the issues, but I'm not 

17 sure what I would ask for if I would say this 

18 is what I need. I shuffled through it the 

19 best I could, so.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Dick?

21 MEMBER LEMEN: I'm ready to hear 

22 the motion.
187

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Bill?

2 MEMBER FIELD: It would be nice to 

3 get more information, but it sounds like we're 

4 not going to get that so I guess I'm ready, 

5 given the information we have.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David? David, 

7 can you - do you need more information or are 

8 you prepared?

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What are you 

10 offering?

11 (Laughter.)

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't know. I 

13 guess it would be more time to become familiar 

14 with the CD that you were sent that had all 

15 this information on it. 

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Again, I 

17 wouldn't be opposed to that. If everybody 

18 else is ready to move ahead I could do that, 

19 but you know, I don't think I have this 

20 entirely digested, no.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. In that 

22 case I think that we will postpone until the 
188

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 next meeting and we'll put this on the agenda 

2 again. Because I think it's only fair to the 

3 new members to do that. If there's specific 

4 information. Actually, what I was thinking 

5 for both Blockson and Chapman we will put our 

6 Board call on the 31st. We will put both of 

7 them on just as an informational discussion in 

8 case there are questions that come up in the 

9 meantime so that when we get to the May 

10 meeting that we'll -- everyone will have the 

11 information that they're seeking. So if 

12 there's further information you get, let us 

13 know in the meanwhile and so forth. 

14 MEMBER FIELD: Can I just ask so 

15 that we -- so we know what we're thinking 

16 about during this period. Would it be 

17 possible -- I don't know the procedures, how 

18 they're usually run by the Board, but would it 

19 be possible to hear the motion so we can 

20 consider what's being considered?

21 MEMBER BEACH: I have a question. 

22 Would it be helpful to maybe give them the 
189

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 dates of some of the transcripts that they 

2 could review those as well?

3 MEMBER LEMEN: We've got the 

4 transcripts.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It might be --

6 the Board does not. I believe that only the 

7 new members received those CDs, is that -- and 

8 the same on Blockson. It actually might be 

9 helpful for those of us on the Board to review 

10 those also.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: All the 

12 transcripts are on the website.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Well, yes. We're 

14 big kids, they're on the website, we know 

15 where to find them.

16 MEMBER POSTON: Can't we answer 

17 the question? Bill, the motion from the Work 

18 Group was to accept NIOSH's recommendation 

19 that the SEC be denied.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: I believe that it 

21 was not specifically to deny an SEC so much as 

22 it -- if I could just clarify the wording. I 
190

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 believe that NIOSH said that they could 

2 reconstruct dose with sufficient accuracy.

3 MEMBER POSTON: Doesn't that 

4 follow, then?

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. I think the 

6 effect is the same. I don't believe that they 

7 actually put it in those words.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: But I do want to 

9 -- just for the record and while John was 

10 talking I was searching the transcript for the 

11 word recommendation and I don't think the Work 

12 Group ever made a recommendation. There's 

13 actually some dialogue in here where Lew Wade 

14 explained that the Work Group won't be making 

15 a recommendation, but rather presenting their 

16 findings to the full Board. So I'm not sure 

17 who made the motion. I'm not disputing your 

18 notion of what went on, but I don't think we 

19 made a formal recommendation from the Work 

20 Group. It doesn't make a difference to where 

21 we're at, but yes.

22 MEMBER LEMEN: I agree with you, I 
191

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 don't think the Board minutes say what the 

2 committee decided. Because I was to the left 

3 and I agree with Bill that we should see at 

4 some point what is being proposed. But I 

5 think I have an idea of what it is.

6 MEMBER POSTON: Well here, I will 

7 read you the slide if you will give me a 

8 moment.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I will.

10 MEMBER POSTON: It says, after 

11 much discussion and exchange of information 

12 among the NIOSH staff, the SC&A staff and the 

13 CV Work Group, the Work Group concludes that 

14 the NIOSH approach to dose reconstruction will 

15 provide bounding but claimant-favorable 

16 estimates of doses to the workers at Chapman 

17 Valve over the periods of interest in this 

18 petition. Based on this conclusion the Work 

19 Group does not recommend that SEC status is 

20 warranted for CV employees. I don't know what 

21 it says in the transcript, but that's what the 

22 slide said.
192

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay, it 

2 is time for our lunch break. We are running 

3 about 20 minutes late so maybe if we could be 

4 back about -- cut a little bit short because 

5 we do have a petitioner we believe that will 

6 be on the phone with us for the discussion of 

7 United Nuclear. So if we could try to get 

8 back by 2:15. Two-fifteen, we'll plan on 

9 starting.

10 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

11 matter went off the record at 12:54 p.m. and 

12 resumed at 2:18 p.m.) 

13 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N

14 

15 (2:18 p.m.)

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have got to 

17 try to stick somewhat on schedule for the rest 

18 of the afternoon because we have people 

19 calling in on specific sites, so petitioners 

20 or other interested parties. So we're going 

21 to try to be timely. We have to make up 15 

22 minutes at some point. So why don't we start 
193

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 with United Nuclear?

2 Did you have an announcement, Ted?

3 MR. KATZ: I just wanted to check 

4 in with our Board Members who are afar. David 

5 Richardson, are you with us yet?

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. Can you 

7 hear me?

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Great. Thank you. And 

10 Mike Gibson?

11 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes, Ted, I am 

12 here.

13 MR. KATZ: Great. Thank you.

14 And then just a reminder for 

15 everyone else listening in on the phone, 

16 please mute your phones. Use the *6 if you 

17 don't have a mute button. Thank you.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Check and make 

19 sure is the petitioner on.

20 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes. Thank you.

21 And is the petitioner for United 

22 Nuclear Corporation on the line with us now? 
194

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 If you're muted, you might have to unmute your 

2 phone to let us know.

3 (No response.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. We don't know.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we start 

6 anyway. We can't --

7 UNITED NUCLEAR CORPORATION - SEC PETITION

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. My 

9 name is LaVon Rutherford. I am the Special 

10 Exposure Cohort Health Physics Team Leader for 

11 OCAS. And I am going to talk to you about the 

12 United Nuclear Corporation SEC petition.

13 This petition was received on June 

14 19th of 2008. The petitioner-proposed Class 

15 is all employees who worked at the United 

16 Nuclear Corp. in Hematite, Missouri from 

17 January 1, 1958 through December 31, 1969 and 

18 January 1, 1970 through July 31st, 2006.

19 The petition qualified for 

20 evaluation on November 4th of 2008. And the 

21 basis of qualification was a lack of personal 

22 monitoring records, specifically at that time 
195

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 for thorium.

2 The Department of Energy facility 

3 database initially indicated the site was 

4 covered through the end of 1969. During our 

5 evaluation, we uncovered information that we 

6 felt that the Class warranted -- extended 

7 through 1973, actually, the covered period. 

8 We provided that information to the Department 

9 of Labor and the Department of Energy in 

10 February of 2009.

11 In May of 2009, they ultimately 

12 responded and concurred with our assessment 

13 that the covered period should be extended 

14 through 1973. This has other implications, 

15 which you will hear soon.

16 So the Class evaluated. We 

17 evaluated all site employees that worked in 

18 any area at United Nuclear Corp. from January 

19 1, 1958 through December 31, 1973, which is 

20 the covered period, and January 1, 1974 

21 through July 31st of 2006.

22 As you have seen earlier, we 
196

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 received this petition in '08. So the first 

2 question is why did it take so long to 

3 complete the evaluation? During the 

4 qualification process, we granted the 

5 petitioner extensions to respond to 

6 deficiencies and clarifications that we had 

7 with the petition.

8 And ultimately we did qualify that 

9 petition. We worked through those issues. 

10 Also, in March of 2009, approximately a month 

11 before we were ready to issue our Evaluation 

12 Report, up to this point, we had had very 

13 little luck receiving documentation through 

14 the current site operator, Westinghouse.

15 And in March of 2009, for some 

16 reason, they determined that they would grant 

17 us access to the documentation that they had 

18 during the covered period. And it was a 

19 determination by the OCAS Director that we 

20 would extend our evaluation to retrieve that 

21 documentation.

22 So we went and we performed two 
197

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 data captures in March and April of 2009 and 

2 recovered a large amount of documentation. 

3 And as we were ready to complete our analysis 

4 again in our evaluation, that's when in May of 

5 2009 the Department of Labor issued their 

6 finding that they concurred with us that the 

7 covered period should be extended through 

8 1973.

9 So now we had a period of 1970 to 

10 '73, where we had to reconstruct all exposures 

11 versus what we were originally thinking we 

12 were only going to reconstruct residual 

13 contamination. This forced us to go back and 

14 further evaluate that period, the '70 to '73 

15 period.

16 And, with all luck, during the 

17 1970 to '73 period, looking at the data that 

18 we had, we determined that the bioassay, the 

19 contractor who was analyzing the bioassay 

20 during that period was a contractor that we 

21 had previously determined we would not accept 

22 their data because it was deemed unreliable 
198

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 based on their actions at another site. So we 

2 would not use the 1970 to '73 bioassay data.

3 Most of the Board Members will 

4 remember an evaluation under NUMEC where we 

5 actually had that same contractor. This 

6 initial problem existed at the Sandia. And we 

7 have pretty much stuck to our guns on not 

8 accepting their data once that falsification 

9 issue arose.

10 A little background. United 

11 Nuclear Hematite was on approximately 228 

12 acres of land. It was purchased by 

13 Mallinckrodt, roughly 40 miles south of St. 

14 Louis. Mallinckrodt was the initial operator 

15 of the site. And they sold their rights to 

16 United Nuclear. I can't remember the exact 

17 year, during the covered period time frame.

18 Site operations involve mainly 

19 about a seven-acre tract in the geographic 

20 center of the property. Construction of the 

21 facility began in 1956, and it became 

22 operational in September of 1956.
199

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Their main mission from the 

2 beginning through the end of the covered 

3 period was producing uranium fuel, mainly for 

4 the Navy fuel program and other government 

5 applications.

6 The production facilities 

7 consisted of two main buildings. And it also 

8 included some incoming storage and blending 

9 buildings and outgoing storage building 

10 located between the two main buildings. I 

11 also want to point out that the AEC covered 

12 work did not begin until 1958. And I will 

13 discuss that in a few moments.

14 A little picture of the site. I 

15 should have blown it up a little bit bigger. 

16 Building 240 was the initial production 

17 facility, built in 1956. Building 255 was 

18 built in the 1957-58 time frame.

19 Building 240, to go back to it, 

20 was where most of the operations, where the 

21 uranium enrichment fuel work -- it was broken 

22 down into three separate rooms, Blue Room, 
200

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Green Room, and Red Room, depending on the 

2 enrichment. That's where most of the uranium 

3 fuel production work began; 255 is where the 

4 uranium oxide pellet fuel was produced for the 

5 most part.

6 The facility was built '58-'59 

7 time frame and also included the Item Room, 

8 which is where a lot of the experimental work 

9 and stuff that went on with Navy fuels; 250 

10 and 251, 250 and 251, were storage areas. 

11 They were also some blending operations. And 

12 250 was built in 1956; 251 was built in 

13 '57-'58 time frame.

14 One-zero-one and 120 were 

15 buildings that were actually on the site when 

16 Mallinckrodt purchased it in 1956. It was 

17 called a tile building. And I can't remember

18 the other exact name he used for it, but the 

19 site used those mainly for storage.

20 One-ten was actually not built 

21 until 1972. And that was the administrative 

22 building that later was used from the time it 
201

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 was produced in 1972 as an administrative 

2 building and -- security access.

3 The Atomic Energy Commission 

4 covered work began in 1958 with a contract to 

5 process un-irradiated scrap. It continued 

6 until 1973. Again, throughout its history, 

7 the UNC Hematite plant's primary function was 

8 to manufacture uranium metal and uranium 

9 compounds from natural and enriched uranium 

10 feedstocks for use as fuel in nuclear 

11 reactors, including the U.S. Navy submarine 

12 reactors.

13 Where we look for information. We 

14 looked at Site Profiles. We do have a Site 

15 Profile for this facility. It was on 

16 Battelle-6000, Appendix D.

17 That Battelle-6000, Appendix D was 

18 developed before we actually got all the 

19 information from the Hematite site. And I 

20 will discuss that a little bit later.

21 We looked at technical information 

22 bulletins. We had interviews with former 
202

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 workers. We also had interviews that were 

2 provided by the petitioner as well in 

3 affidavits, in the form of affidavits.

4 We looked at the existing claim 

5 files; again, documentation provided by the 

6 petitioner. We looked at the site research 

7 database. And we did additional data 

8 captures.

9 Our main data capture was at 

10 Westinghouse Electric Company. We had very 

11 little documentation at the time on the site. 

12 We did have some early inspection reports. 

13 We had some bioassay data prior to our data 

14 capture at Westinghouse. And we had some air 

15 monitoring data. We also had a little bit of 

16 film badge data. But with our data capture at 

17 Westinghouse, we did get a lot more of that 

18 data.

19 We went to the Missouri Department 

20 of Natural Resources, DOE Germantown, DOE 

21 Legacy Management, OSTI, NNSA, the NRC ADAMS 

22 database, and then NRC, also Washington State 
203

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 University, Southern Illinois University.

2 We did an OpenNet search on OSTI 

3 database. We did internet searches. We 

4 looked at the CEDR database and other various 

5 DOE locations, National Academies Press, and 

6 United States and United Kingdom Patent 

7 Offices.

8 You will look at the table above. 

9 This is actually out of the report. And 

10 you'll notice it's June 8 of 2009. I wanted 

11 to identify what we had in the report but also 

12 provide an update.

13 We had 51 claims that were 

14 initially identified for UNC. Of those 51, 11 

15 were pulled, 8 of those for SEC for 

16 Mallinckrodt. So they went SEC. The other 

17 three were pulled by DOL for other reasons.

18 We had another eight of those 

19 claims that were compensated by using Appendix 

20 D of Battelle-6000 prior to this evaluation, 

21 and we had five claims that were held up with 

22 DOL under employment verification.
204

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So at the time, we only really had 

2 23 claims that we were concerned with that we 

3 went in and we linked the data that we 

4 received from the facility. And we came back. 

5 And of those 23 claims, we had internal and 

6 external monitoring data for those 23 claims 

7 at the site. And at that time, we had 

8 completed 33 dose reconstructions.

9 Since then we have received two 

10 additional claims. We now have 53 total 

11 claims that had been received at one time. 

12 The same number have been -- pulled.

13 We completed 37 dose 

14 reconstructions. And of those 37 dose 

15 reconstructions, 33 of those claims have some 

16 level of internal and external monitoring. I 

17 say "some level" depending on the -- because 

18 you'll find out in reading it operators were 

19 monitored more frequently than the 

20 non-operators.

21 Again, UNC Site operations, 

22 primary focus when manufacturing uranium metal 
205

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 and uranium compounds from natural and 

2 enriched feedstocks. They also recovered 

3 uranium, especially enriched uranium, from 

4 scrap, process effluents, and other wastes.

5 Documentation indicates in 1964 

6 UNC Hematite produced thorium-uranium oxide 

7 fuel pellets to demonstrate its ability to 

8 produce the product in an attempt to obtain 

9 breeder reactor fuel contracts.

10 Some of the Board Members will 

11 remember another site that we actually did an 

12 SEC for, W. R. Grace. W. R. Grace was a site 

13 that also was trying to get the contracts for 

14 this thorium-uranium fuel mixture. And so 

15 they were making the pellets as well.

16 In 1964 or '63 time frame based on 

17 the documentation, the Hematite Site decided 

18 they wanted to attempt to get into this 

19 process because they felt that it could be 

20 very good with breeder reactors coming along, 

21 could be a process that ultimately could get a 

22 lot of production.
206

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So in '64, again, they produced 

2 uranium-thorium pellets for that year. And 

3 they used those and actually provided them as 

4 samples in later years. As you can see, the 

5 material was on site until 1968.

6 Our source compounds. Uranium was 

7 normal and enriched, solid form and in various 

8 compounds, including uranium hexafluoride, 

9 tetrafluoride, and dioxide. Thorium, the only 

10 source of thorium was in the form of thorium 

11 dioxide powder.

12 Our internal exposure sources 

13 during a Class period, airborne uranium and 

14 thorium associated with fuel production, 

15 airborne uranium from scrap recovery. Also, 

16 external sources were photon and beta 

17 exposures from uranium and thorium. And also 

18 you had the neutrons from alpha-neutron 

19 reactions with enriched uranium and fluorine.

20 Our internal monitoring data. 

21 You'll notice I point to table 6-1 and 6-2 of 

22 the Evaluation Report. Urinalysis data exists 
207

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 for all years except 1961. It exists for 1970 

2 through '73. However, as I discussed earlier, 

3 the contractor that was doing the bioassay 

4 during that period, we've deemed that 

5 unreliable. So we are not using that data in

6 the '70 to '73 period.

7 In 1961, the contractor determined 

8 that -- actually, the site determined that 

9 they could comply with 10 CFR 20 requirements 

10 and not have a routine bioassay program but 

11 only bioassay during events or conditions 

12 where they felt that it warranted.

13 Ultimately that didn't go very 

14 well because they had upset condition. And 

15 they ended up sending some workers down to 

16 Y-12 to have some analysis done on those 

17 workers and actually ended up having some 

18 initial whole body counts done as well. So in 

19 1962, they reimplemented their program. And 

20 their program, bioassay program, continued 

21 throughout the covered period.

22 Routine whole body counts are 
208

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 available starting in 1968. This is pretty 

2 much consistent with when whole body counts 

3 became more prevalent. And we have some 

4 non-routine, as I mentioned, whole body counts 

5 in 1963-65 time frame as well. Those were for 

6 incident investigations for the most part.

7 Other internal monitoring data. A 

8 considerable amount of air data is available 

9 for the covered period, as it is identified in 

10 table 6-2. The data includes general area 

11 breathing zone and process samples.

12 There are only 11 samples in 1958, 

13 but, again, that was the start of the AEC 

14 period. I also want to point out in the 1956 

15 AEC inspection report indicated that there 

16 were only 40 workers at the site in 1956. In 

17 1958, that had increased to 60. We believe 

18 based on the dosimetry data and based on the 

19 documentation that in 1970, around the 1970 

20 period, they were up closer to around 200 

21 employees. Over 200 air samples for thorium 

22 operations were retrieved for the 1964 period.
209

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 External monitoring data. Film 

2 badge data exists for all years, as identified 

3 in table 6-2 of the report. The amount of 

4 data for 1958 through 1960 is not quantified 

5 in the table. We used, actually, summary data 

6 for that period from the AEC inspection.

7 We also had additional -- we could 

8 probably update that and give you better 

9 numbers now on the '58-'59 period than what we 

10 have. I should have provided that. I 

11 apologize. But we do have summary information 

12 from '58 to '60 now.

13 Maximum exposures and average 

14 exposures are also identified in the 

15 compliance inspection reports. The AEC 

16 inspection reports identify for the given 

17 period for that inspection period, here is the 

18 maximum exposure that was identified. And 

19 here are what the average exposures are. And 

20 those are in the references that we provided 

21 to the Board.

22 So our two-prong test, we evaluate 
210

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 is it feasible to estimate level of radiation 

2 dose of individual members of the Class with 

3 sufficient accuracy. And if so, if it's not 

4 feasible, then is there a reasonable 

5 likelihood that their health had been 

6 endangered?

7 In this case, we feel that we have 

8 the available monitoring records, process 

9 descriptions, and source term data are 

10 adequate to reconstruct dose with sufficient 

11 accuracy for the evaluated Class of employees.

12 Our internal dose feasibility 

13 approach. All existing claims at the time --

14 and that is wrong. It says, "All existing 

15 claims have individual personnel monitoring 

16 data." Thirty-three of the 37 claims that we 

17 completed dose reconstruction had personnel 

18 monitoring data, internal and external data. 

19 Individual personnel monitoring data can be 

20 used to reconstruct the dose.

21 In addition, we have thorium air 

22 data, which consists of general area breathing 
211

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 zone stack and hood air sample data 

2 representative of all operations performed for 

3 thorium-uranium fuel pellet work. This work 

4 was performed in the same areas that the 

5 uranium oxide pellet work was done, with the 

6 same type of equipment. And we have air data 

7 from that.

8 Whole body counts and air data. 

9 Because we cannot use the bioassay data from 

10 '71 to '73, we looked at the whole body 

11 counts. And we also looked at the air data 

12 that we had. Is the air data from the '71 to 

13 '73 period consistent with what we had seen in 

14 the previous years? And yes, it is.

15 We looked at the plant activities 

16 during that time frame. Did they change in 

17 that '70 to '73 period that would possibly 

18 give us indication that exposures might have 

19 been different and that they did not change? 

20 So the air data from this period is consistent 

21 with the values from the previous years.

22 We also have Appendix D of 
212

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Battelle-6000. It is specific for United 

2 Nuclear Corp. The Appendix contains intake 

3 values for types of workers based on 

4 urinalysis and air data. I will say that the 

5 Appendix is currently being revised at this 

6 time because we got a lot of additional data.

7 We do know that the air intake 

8 values based on the bioassay data that we 

9 have, the air intake values that were defined 

10 in Appendix D are bounding and that based on 

11 the urinalysis data that we have retrieved.

12 We also have to revise Appendix D 

13 because the covered period extended to 1973, 

14 which Appendix D originally only addressed up 

15 to 1969. So we have to revise it for that as 

16 well.

17 We also have to revise Appendix D 

18 because of 1964 thorium exposures. That was 

19 not originally recognized. We have the 

20 approach for that as well.

21 External dose. Film badge data 

22 exists for existing claims. We have Appendix 
213

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 D again, Battelle-6000 used the -- the 

2 Appendix contains external dose values for 

3 types of workers. It's a very similar 

4 approach to what is used for the internal dose 

5 based on the AEC inspection reports.

6 Again, this Appendix, as I said, 

7 is being revised to include the '71 to '73 

8 time frame. And it's also going to evaluate 

9 the additional external monitoring data that 

10 we received from the March and April data 

11 capture.

12 Also neutron exposures we are 

13 estimating using TIB-0024. Estimation of 

14 neutron dose rates from alpha-n reactions in 

15 uranium and thorium compounds. I did provide 

16 -- on the Board's O: drive, there are sample 

17 dose reconstructions as well for those.

18 Residual exposures. Appendix D 

19 estimates internal and external dose for the 

20 residual period by taking the highest intake 

21 rate from the intakes derived from the 

22 bioassay data and air data, and converting 
214

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that to an air concentration, assume it 

2 settles and accumulates over a year.

3 And then the intake value is then 

4 determined using a resuspension factor. And 

5 external dose is based on surface 

6 contamination.

7 Although we feel this is bounding, 

8 we are revising this approach as well in 

9 Appendix D to be consistent with TIB-0070. I 

10 think that TIB-0070 has been a pretty good 

11 document that we have been able to get a 

12 consistent path forward with doing our 

13 residual exposure periods.

14 And so we are revising that. And 

15 what we will do is we will take the highest --

16 or an air concentration from the 1973 period 

17 based on the data we have and do a decay 

18 function down to the data that we currently 

19 have from the end of the -- which they're 

20 still remediating that site and 

21 decommissioning that site at this time. So we 

22 have data for that.
215

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So our feasibility determination 

2 is we can do internal dose and we can do 

3 external dose for the '58 through 2006. And, 

4 again, this is just a different recommendation 

5 is that we can -- NIOSH finds that radiation 

6 dose estimates can be reconstructed for 

7 compensation purposes for the period.

8 Questions?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Board? Phil?

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. I am a 

11 little concerned about how you are going to do 

12 the internal dose for people who may not have 

13 any bioassay or --

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: What we did is we 

15 actually did -- it's basically a coworker 

16 model. We took the internal dose or the 

17 bioassay data that we had, and from that 

18 bioassay data, basically we developed a 

19 distribution. And then we set it up for 

20 operators getting a certain amount and so on.

21 Now, again, I told you we are

22 revising that based on the additional internal 
216

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 data that we have. We have received a lot 

2 more internal data from that March, April 

3 2009.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

5 questions? I have a question that just helps, 

6 maybe help decide how to go forward a little 

7 bit. I believe that SC&A has reviewed the 

8 Site Profile. I'm not sure which site --

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I can 

10 actually --

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- which era 

12 that -- maybe you can clarify.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I believe 

14 that SC&A looked at that prior to getting all 

15 of the documents that we recently received. 

16 So their take on this site at that time is not 

17 really fair to what the -- I'm sure that they 

18 would say that they haven't had the 

19 opportunity to review all of the existing 

20 documentation that we received in the March 

21 and April of 2009. So you are correct.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I believe 
217

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 your report was, SC&A report was sent to us in 

2 October.

3 DR. MAURO: That is correct.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have never 

5 set up a Work Group to deal with that. That's 

6 one of the other pending issues we had to 

7 decide on.

8 Yes, Paul? And then --

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I wanted to 

10 point out that, first of all, on TBD-6001, 

11 that is in the Work Group. The revision has 

12 not been looked at. I think we still have the 

13 findings from SC&A on 6001. This Appendix has 

14 not been looked at or technically assigned to 

15 the Work Group.

16 You may recall last time the Board 

17 assigned Bliss & Laughlin and I think Electro 

18 --

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Electro-Met, yes.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- Electro 

21 Metallurgical to TBD 6000/6001 Work Group. So 

22 that Work Group now has the resolution 
218

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 matrices for both TBD-6000, 6001.

2 It has the matrix for Appendix BB, 

3 which is the site, what amounts to a Site 

4 Profile for General Steel Industries. It has 

5 the matrix for the General Steel Industries 

6 petition. It has Bliss & Laughlin and Electro 

7 Metallurgical and possibly this one if it's so 

8 assigned.

9 So that workload is getting a 

10 little heavy, but I simply point that out.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie?

12 MEMBER BEACH: This is an 

13 observation and a question. I noticed on our 

14 memory sticks that we were given -- we got the 

15 ER report for August. And it looks like 

16 there's a rev 1 out.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: I am glad you 

18 brought that up. I was going to actually 

19 mention that. The report that came out in 

20 August is actually the report.

21 The revision that came out, if you 

22 look at page 1 of the data capture synopsis of 
219

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the Evaluation Report, the only thing that 

2 changed in the report from August of 2009 to 

3 the recent one we just printed out was the 

4 first page of the data capture synopsis did 

5 not reflect the actual data capture in March 

6 and April of 2009. So our feasibility 

7 determination, everything in the report is the 

8 same except for that one thing.

9 We did contact -- I think I sent 

10 that out in an email to the Board. It may not 

11 have provided that clarification. I 

12 apologize.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do we have the 

14 petitioner on the line? If the petitioner is 

15 on the line, could you speak up for United 

16 Nuclear, petitioner for United Nuclear on the 

17 line?

18 (No response.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: I do want to 

21 point out that the petitioner -- I talked to 

22 the petitioner last week. And even though she 
220

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 has not been on the line, I wanted to point 

2 out that she did point out that she did not 

3 receive all of her FOIA requests. She FOIA 

4 requested all of the reference documents on 

5 the Evaluation Report. And she had not 

6 received that all. So I do want to point that 

7 out.

8 We're working on getting that all 

9 to her. There were some kind of difficulties 

10 she had. If you remember, we delayed 

11 presentation on this.

12 We were going to present this at 

13 the October meeting. And because of family 

14 issues, she requested us move this to this 

15 meeting.

16 So she didn't get the FOIA request 

17 in because of her movement until December. We 

18 were unable to get her FOIA request completed 

19 prior to this meeting. I wanted to point that 

20 out. I know that was a concern of hers.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just want to 

22 -- just a clarification also for the new 
221

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 members is I guess our usual pattern on 

2 something like this, which has not been 

3 reviewed and where we haven't had a Work Group 

4 or a review is to refer it to a Work Group for 

5 the SEC evaluation and for resolution.

6 And here it's a little bit more 

7 confusing because we've had a Site Profile, 

8 but it's really not an up-to-date Site 

9 Profile. And it really won't be for a while. 

10 And we've got Paul's Work Group also, but, 

11 anyway, just keep that in mind.

12 Henry?

13 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. On your 

14 slide, the basis for the petitioner was lack 

15 of personnel monitoring records for thorium 

16 and how you have turned up.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Actually, 

18 that is pretty much what happened. If you 

19 look at the March and April time frame of 

20 2009, last year, during our evaluation, when 

21 we did that data capture, prior to that, we 

22 did not have any of the air sample data that 
222

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 we retrieved, the 200 air sample data, 200 air 

2 samples from that period. So yes, that is 

3 when we got that.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: But you had been 

5 -- performing dose constructions without that 

6 information --

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: You are correct, 

8 and that is a very good point. And what will 

9 happen is that when we revise our Appendix D 

10 and we complete that, at some point, we will 

11 have to do a PER, a Program Evaluation that we 

12 will go back and we will determine if any of 

13 the existing dose reconstructions that we 

14 completed are potentially affected by this 

15 change in the Appendix. So we would have to 

16 revisit those claims.

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: So your 

18 assumption when you were doing those was 

19 despite their having processed thorium, there 

20 was no thorium exposure? How did you do it?

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, we were 

22 unaware there was any thorium processing going 
223

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 on at the site at all.

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: If you look at 

4 the Appendix D, which is available on the O: 

5 drive, you can actually see that we had no 

6 indications. And we had no indications from 

7 the documentation that we had the thorium 

8 operations occur, only after we had -- during 

9 the petitioning process by the petitioner, one 

10 of the affidavits provided by the petitioner 

11 actually had identified thorium operations and 

12 that had -- for these thorium pellet 

13 operations.

14 And from that, we were able to --

15 okay. We got additional information. And I 

16 can't remember what it was, but we felt that 

17 would qualify the petition to evaluate this 

18 thorium exposure.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Gen? Then Brad, 

20 then Bill.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: Do you have 

22 whole body counts for before 1971?
224

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. We have 

2 whole body counts starting in 1968.

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Help me 

6 understand your table 6.2. Like bioassay, 

7 you've got seven. Then we go over. Then 

8 we've got a 21, then parentheses, what I'm 

9 looking at a lot is the X. And the X says 

10 that we don't have data, but then we've got 

11 3,822.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Wait. What page 

13 are you on, Brad? I'm sorry.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: It's table 6-2, 

15 page 28. I'm just trying to understand the 

16 table that --

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. You 

18 know, I have to be honest with you. I went 

19 back and -- okay. Are you looking at '58 

20 through '60?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, or any of 

22 these. I am trying to figure out because 
225

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 we've got smears and --

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Sure. First of 

3 all, the parentheses number, all the 

4 parentheses numbers are the Site Research 

5 Database number. So if you go onto the Site 

6 Research Database, you can take that number, 

7 put it in there, and you will find that data. 

8 I really like that about the table.

9 If you look at '58 through '60, I 

10 actually -- and I know Mark likes that a lot 

11 because the '58 through '60 period, you will 

12 actually see in the film badge data the Xs 

13 with a 2 by that. And if you actually go to 

14 the 2, it explains at the end of the report. 

15 And it says, "Indicates data exists, but the 

16 specific number of samples collected or 

17 individual monitored was not available."

18 So at the time -- and that is what 

19 I had mentioned. We could actually have 

20 provided an updated number to that. And I 

21 will work to do that for the Board and get you 

22 updated numbers for that. When this table was 
226

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 initially put together, we were loading and 

2 linking all of that data at the time.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I was just 

4 trying to figure out what that second number 

5 was.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Sure. Yes.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Thanks.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bill?

9 MEMBER FIELD: Yes. I just had a 

10 general question about when you see that there 

11 is thorium exposure -- and this is probably 

12 more related to my inexperience with exposure 

13 assessment and how it is done. Do you look at 

14 the exposure for also the decay products for 

15 thorium?

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Sure. I 

17 anticipated that, actually, you would ask 

18 that. You know, in the current form that we 

19 got this, I would not anticipate a high thoron 

20 concentration from the daughter product 

21 because we got thorium oxide powder.

22 The concern that you get into is 
227

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 when you actually combined it and heat it 

2 together do you drive the daughters out. 

3 There is actually a very good document in the 

4 references where Hematite actually recognized 

5 that issue. They knew that they had a -- at 

6 the point where they were combining and 

7 heating the process, they would drive those 

8 daughters out. And they took the thorium MPC 

9 limit, and they took the uranium MPC limit.

10 Initially they used a modified MPC 

11 based on the uranium and thorium. And then 

12 during the actual operations where they 

13 combined them, they stuck with the thorium MPC 

14 limit. And they also discussed why they felt 

15 the daughter products, although they would be 

16 driven out, would not provide an exposure 

17 concern to the workforce. I can get you that 

18 number. It's a pretty good document.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. On the 

20 phone, Mike Gibson or David Richardson, do you 

21 have questions?

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. I have a 
228

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 couple of questions.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can we have some 

3 volume, please?

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: How many 

5 people worked at this site?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: I am sorry, Dr. 

7 Richardson. Could you repeat that?

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: How many 

9 people worked at the site during this period?

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, during 

11 the early period of 1956, there were roughly 

12 40 people that worked there. It's not a large 

13 site. In 1958, based on AEC inspection 

14 documents, it indicated they increased to 

15 around 60 workers.

16 And then based on the monitoring 

17 data and the other information that we have 

18 uncovered, we believe in the 1970 period, it 

19 was more closely around 200 workers.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And there were 

21 a couple of things that struck me. One was 

22 the weekly badging. And another one was the 
229

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 fact that you've come up with such a high 

2 level of completeness for the bioassay data, 

3 which would be different than even a facility 

4 like Y-12 or something like that.

5 So I don't know. Is this a 

6 consequence of this starting out as a Navy 

7 facility? I don't know. Maybe that's my 

8 personal bias.

9 (Laughter.)

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: I've got the same 

11 personal bias. So you're all right.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, it's 

13 sort of remarkable.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I don't 

15 know the reason. I really don't know.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

17 questions from Board Members? Anybody have a 

18 -- maybe not a motion but a recommendation on 

19 what we -- again, as I said, the standard 

20 practice would be review this to a Work Group 

21 and to SC&A for review which we probably would 

22 do it at some point anyway. I think we need 
230

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to decide which Work Group, which we can 

2 decide tomorrow if we did that, though.

3 Wanda?

4 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I am wondering 

5 what we would achieve by postponing this, what 

6 new material is likely to be discovered that 

7 would change the assertion that these claims 

8 can be reconstructed now.

9 I understand that the fullness of 

10 the material can yet be developed further. 

11 There is some question as to whether that 

12 would be productive in any way other than to 

13 verify that claims which have already been 

14 done were adequately done.

15 Is there any reason why we should 

16 not continue to allow the new information to 

17 be developed as it wishes to be without 

18 holding up any dose reconstruction activities 

19 that are going on at the time?

20 It seems unlikely that what is 

21 going to transpire will change the ability to 

22 do dose reconstructions.
231

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I guess I would 

2 have two responses to that. One is I don't 

3 think we would be necessarily holding up dose 

4 reconstructions by referring to the Work Group 

5 because NIOSH's usual pattern in this 

6 situation would be to continue to do dose 

7 reconstructions. To the extent they may be 

8 held up because they are still developing some 

9 of the information also, it may go on, but 

10 that is going to happen anyway.

11 Secondly, we do have from LaVon 

12 information, and I think some transmitted 

13 through other people at NIOSH that the 

14 petitioner had some concerns and was trying to 

15 receive additional information about it.

16 MEMBER MUNN: That's true.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think we 

18 owe some duty to the petitioner to do that. 

19 We thought the petitioner was going to be on 

20 the call today, but we tried to reach the 

21 petitioner.

22 I don't know what happened with 
232

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that, but I guess I am a little uncomfortable 

2 moving forward without hearing from the 

3 petitioner and without the petitioner getting 

4 the information that they had requested 

5 earlier.

6 MEMBER MUNN: That's certainly 

7 true --

8 MS. BROCK: Dr. Melius, this is 

9 Denise Brock. I am on the phone. Prior to 

10 the meeting being reconvened, I did hear the 

11 petitioner online. It was very light. So I 

12 don't know if she was probably having some 

13 problems with her phone.

14 I have not heard her speak up yet, 

15 but that was what she had stated, that she was 

16 wishing that she could have her presentation 

17 put off until the May Board meeting.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Well, that resolves 

19 the issue for us if that is the petitioner's 

20 wish. We can certainly do that. And in the 

21 interim, if it was necessary to assign this to 

22 any Work Group, then the existing Work Group 
233

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 is -- I can't speak for the Chair, but the 

2 Work Group certainly exists that -- for that 

3 specific purpose.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We could take 

5 that under consideration. I will have 

6 discussions with that Work Group Chair.

7 MS. EATON: Denise, I'm on the 

8 line.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hold on. There 

10 are voices on.

11 MS. EATON: Hello?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hi.

13 MS. BROCK: Dr. Melius, I believe 

14 the petitioner is on the line now.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

16 MS. EATON: Yes. I apologize. I 

17 am not real familiar with how you turn your 

18 mute off. So I tried, but it was 

19 unsuccessful. I apologize for that.

20 I'm calling on my cell phone. If 

21 you can tell me how to get back on with this 

22 land line, I would appreciate it.
234

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MR. KATZ: You are on. We're 

2 listening to you.

3 MS. EATON: Yes, I know, but I 

4 want to hang up my cell phone. I had to call 

5 you in again.

6 MR. KATZ: Oh, I see. Oh, I see. 

7 So wait. You want to hang up and call back 

8 in again?

9 MS. EATON: No. I am on the other 

10 phone, but how do you turn the mute off?

11 MR. KATZ: Oh. You have turned 

12 the mute off. I thought I understood that.

13 MS. EATON: Okay. Let's start 

14 over.

15 MR. KATZ: *6. *6 to turn mute 

16 off.

17 MS. EATON: *6?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

19 MS. EATON: Thank you. Can you 

20 hear me now?

21 MR. KATZ: Perfectly.

22 MS. EATON: Thank you. I 
235

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 apologize for that. I did not know how to get 

2 back on. But yes, I have been on the line. 

3 This is Clarissa Eaton. I am hesitant to 

4 really -- I don't want to forfeit my 

5 opportunity later on, but I am just here 

6 observing. I just wanted to let you know I am 

7 on the line.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But you don't 

9 have any comments at this point? Okay.

10 MS. EATON: Again, will I be 

11 forfeiting anything?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, no. 

13 You're not by saying anything now. You will 

14 have other opportunity.

15 MS. EATON: Well, I do have a 

16 couple of comments about the thorium work that 

17 was done there and all the daughter products 

18 that go along with it.

19 Secondly, there seems to be a lot 

20 of secrecy around this plant. And I'm not 

21 speaking so much of this particular -- but in 

22 the past with our community group we have been 
236

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 very unlucky at getting a lot of 

2 straightforward answers.

3 I still would like to reserve my 

4 time, if I may, to review some of the --

5 documents of my FOIA request and be able to 

6 try to -- through that. I would ask that you 

7 reserve, not make a decision today, that you 

8 would give us a little bit more time. And I 

9 apologize for that.

10 I think there are a lot of 

11 questions that we still have. And that's all 

12 I really wanted to say for now.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

14 you. I apologize about the difficulties with 

15 the technology. We'll remind Ted Katz to tell 

16 people how to unmute. We are very good at 

17 telling people to mute but not telling them 

18 how to unmute. And it's sometimes different 

19 on -- I've had the same trouble.

20 MS. EATON: If I may say one more 

21 thing? I had sent Mr. Elliott a letter, a 

22 pretty lengthy letter, when I found out about 
237

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 alleged data that had recently -- in the 11th 

2 hour of the ball game.

3 I am a little uneasy about that 

4 only because Westinghouse is the current owner 

5 and operator. But I had noticed in the past 

6 there have been some discrepancies with their 

7 safety, their documents, for instance, they 

8 had claimed that the petitioner, [identifying 

9 information redacted], had given a 

10 [identifying information redacted] sample in 

11 which he said that he had never participated 

12 in, but, yet, they somehow come up with the 

13 documents or the tests. And that was before 

14 the company had released any information.

15 My second concern is the fact that 

16 they were withholding the information when 

17 this is a federally legislated program. I 

18 don't understand how they can hold onto 

19 pertinent documents that may clarify some of 

20 these workers' illnesses. To me that is gross 

21 misconduct.

22 And I was really shocked to learn 
238

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that there was no consequence or anything 

2 about that. That was part of my letter to Mr. 

3 Elliott. I requested that he respond in 

4 writing on what his thought about the 

5 situation was.

6 It makes me very suspicious that, 

7 all of a sudden, now they went from no docs to 

8 truckloads. You know, I could have prepared 

9 documents in the time that we had filed the 

10 petition. And I'm very uneasy about the fact 

11 that Westinghouse was able to produce a 

12 [identifying information redacted] that 

13 [identifying information redacted] had never 

14 participated in. I believe I brought that up 

15 in my petition as well.

16 Those are just some of my 

17 concerns. But, again, I would like to reserve 

18 my time to give a better and more accurate 

19 presentation at the proper time if we are 

20 granted that opportunity.

21 Thank you.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 
239

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 you.

2 So is it the general consensus of 

3 the Board that we delay? Okay. Yes?

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Do you want me to 

5 make that motion?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think 

7 that it is really necessary, just continue 

8 open. We can continue. It's not necessary. 

9 And we'll move on to our next site, which is 

10 --

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: And you are 

12 going to refer her to some committee?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And we 

14 will make that assignment tomorrow.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: You'll negotiate 

16 that?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We'll negotiate 

18 that with the good friend sitting next to me 

19 here.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Can I ask a 

21 question?

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: We've got 
240

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 somebody on the phone.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: This is David 

3 Richardson again.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes?

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I was just 

6 wondering if there was any opportunity right 

7 now for there to be a response to the points 

8 that were raised there.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Which are you 

10 referring to, David?

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Are there 

12 repercussions to withholding data was one of 

13 the questions. Are there questions about the 

14 authenticity of the data that appeared at the 

15 11th hour? So I wrote those as two of the 

16 questions. There may have been others.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

18 Hinnefeld from OCAS. Repercussions to not 

19 providing data I would guess there are not 

20 probably any. We can with the assistance of 

21 the Department of Labor subpoena information. 

22 And that is an administrative subpoena.
241

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 I mean, I don't know that there is 

2 any particular consequence of a violation of 

3 an administrative subpoena. So I don't know 

4 that there are any repercussions from people 

5 who refuse to provide the data.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Are there any 

7 repercussions to providing you with falsified 

8 data?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: To our knowledge, 

10 that has never happened. And I don't know 

11 that I have had to pursue that. I think that 

12 would require some consultation with people, 

13 other people, in the Institute and perhaps 

14 maybe other agencies to get a better answer. 

15 I don't know.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I would like 

17 an answer to that question. I mean, I think 

18 that is a fundamental question.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I will see what I 

20 can do.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. We can 

22 talk about it either tomorrow or at the next 
242

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 --

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And, again, 

3 because I am still shocked by kind of the 

4 urinalysis data that you got now for these 

5 people who now all have, 33 of the 37 people 

6 have urinalysis data, you described the 

7 program as being on a quarterly or a biannual 

8 basis, urinalysis samples. Do those people 

9 have urinalysis results on a quarterly or a 

10 biannual basis? 

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Dr. Richardson, 

12 this is LaVon Rutherford. Actually, as I had 

13 said in my presentation, it is varying. Not 

14 all of them have quarterly all the way through 

15 their period. Not all of them have biannually 

16 all the way through their period.

17 There are different amounts of 

18 that data. And that's why I had indicated it 

19 is varying. I couldn't go through and -- I 

20 guess I could have actually went through and 

21 broken it down into the percentages that had 

22 100 percent and so on, but it would have taken 
243

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 some effort. That information is there.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. Yes. I 

3 mean, you know, in my experience, that would 

4 be phenomenal. It would be almost 

5 unbelievable. I mean, maybe that is the case 

6 because it is a small facility, but at DOE 

7 sites, I have just not encountered people that 

8 have that complete of a bioassay sampling 

9 result. But maybe that's -- again, but okay. 

10 Thank you. That is useful.

11 MS. EATON: May I say one more 

12 thing?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: I think the 

14 claimant wanted to say one more thing or the 

15 petitioner.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, Clarissa?

17 MS. EATON: Yes, sir. One thing 

18 you also said, that you had quite a bit of 

19 personnel internal and external data from some 

20 of the employees. But the Item Room you said 

21 they had a lot of experimental work. And, for 

22 example, the petitioner [identifying 
244

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 information redacted], who was a [identifying 

2 information redacted], he was around the hot 

3 stuff the most.

4 I am just wondering if the data 

5 you have isn't from areas where one would 

6 imagine the levels to not be quite as high as 

7 they would be in the Item Room, where the 

8 experimental work was carried on.

9 You know, as far as what data you 

10 have for which people or which department, is 

11 the Item Room where they had the experimental 

12 work? How much data do you have for one of 

13 the hottest areas of the plant in the data 

14 capture that you have?

15 Did I ask that -- do you 

16 understand my question?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, Ms. Eaton, I 

18 did understand that question. We do have 

19 actual data for the -- we have bioassay data 

20 for some of the workers out of the item plant. 

21 We also have air data from that as well.

22 And, as I pointed out during my 
245

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 presentation and you pointed out yourself, 

2 that is a unique area because there were 

3 research activities that were being conducted 

4 at that time with Navy fuel, both internal and 

5 external.

6 MS. EATON: And then one final 

7 thought. Did you say you had absolutely no 

8 thorium records or minimal?

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Prior to the data 

10 capture that occurred in March and April of 

11 2009, we had no thorium monitoring records at 

12 all. And then during that data capture in 

13 March and April of 2009, actually, 

14 Westinghouse sent us a table, a list of all 

15 the different documents and types and things 

16 that they had. And in that, we recognized the 

17 thorium air sampling data. And so we 

18 recovered that during that March and April 

19 time frame.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think there 

21 will be further opportunity. This will be 

22 followed up. We actually have scheduled a 
246

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 review of another petition with another 

2 petitioner on. I really think we should move 

3 on at this point. You will have other 

4 opportunity to ask some questions and follow 

5 up on this.

6 MS. EATON: Thank you, sir.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

8 Now we have Hangar 481 at Kirtland 

9 Air Base and Sam Glover.

10 DR. GLOVER: Thank you, Dr.

11 Melius. Can you hear me okay? All right.

12 HANGAR 481 AT KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE

13 SEC PETITION

14 DR. GLOVER: So this is a Special 

15 Exposure Cohort Petition Evaluation Report for 

16 Hangar 481. This actually is one of the --

17 well, it was one of the newest sites that we 

18 had. When we got this -- LaVon, about when 

19 did this start? When did we actually get 

20 Hangar 481 as a new site?

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, gee.

22 DR. GLOVER: Essentially as soon 
247

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 as we got an Evaluation Report, we had done no 

2 site research. We had no information about 

3 the facility. So we had to hit the ground 

4 running and produce this report and go through 

5 the evaluation.

6 You will also note this probably 

7 has as many slides as I did for Hanford. It 

8 is probably harder to work on a site that has 

9 potentially low exposure and because of the 

10 monitoring types that you have versus a 

11 facility which is extremely complex. But I 

12 will go through these so we will stay on time.

13 All right. A bit about the site 

14 history. Hangar 481 is located at Kirtland 

15 Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

16 Ross Aviation, which had operations based at 

17 Hangar 481, was under contractual agreement 

18 with DOE to provide air transport of personnel 

19 and equipment associated with DOE operations 

20 at the Sandia National Laboratory, of course, 

21 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.**

22 Ross Aviation maintained air 
248

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 transport services for government-owned 

2 aircraft at government-owned facilities. 

3 These included Kirtland Air Force Base; Las 

4 Vegas, Nevada; Tonopah Test Range; Los Alamos; 

5 and Desert Rock, Nevada. They transported 

6 equipment, including packages containing 

7 radioactive materials associated with the 

8 atomic weapons programs.

9 I apologize. For some reason, the 

10 PDF, in the report, it actually circles where 

11 Hangar 481 is. And so when I copied this in, 

12 I didn't recognize that it did not grab that 

13 off of the piece.

14 But Hangar 481 if I can get this 

15 little laser to work with my fingers is right 

16 up here off of Apron C. It's right up here. 

17 Hot Pad Number 5, which we discuss in the 

18 report, is way off, if I can aim this little 

19 thing, is way off over here.

20 And I want to be clear. This is 

21 only Hangar 481. Department of Labor defined 

22 this very strictly at the Hangar 481, not on 
249

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the hot pads, not anywhere else. These are 

2 the activities that occurred in Hangar 481.

3 This is a picture of Hangar 481. 

4 So the petition overview. It was received 

5 February 27th, 2009. And this, of course, 

6 should not be an 83.14. It should be an 

7 83.13. September 8, 2009, it qualified for 

8 evaluation. That doesn't seem right. 

9 December 18th, we had an Evaluation Report 

10 issued. So I would double check. That seems 

11 to be lengthy. There seems to be an error, a 

12 typo.

13 So the petitioner concerns were 

14 lack of personnel monitoring for certain 

15 individuals employed at Hangar 481; deceased 

16 former Ross Aviation employee at the Hangar 

17 481 did not wear dose monitoring badges, and 

18 to the best of his knowledge, there was no 

19 monitoring of any kind at Hangar 481 or 

20 adjacent thereto.

21 They also said that shipments of 

22 substances and items were delivered to the 
250

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 hangar in guarded shipments from Sandia 

2 National Labs and loaded into planes at Hangar 

3 481 with further delivery by personnel wearing 

4 dose badges.

5 They further submitted a statement 

6 by another Hangar 481 employee, who said, I

7 recall pilots, flight engineers, and flight 

8 mechanics who were present at the time of 

9 loading on the ramp would be wearing radiation 

10 dose badges. I was not required to wear 

11 radiation badges during times that I assisted 

12 in loading cargo into the planes or while 

13 cleaning the planes.

14 So the employee's name was 

15 redacted would have been working in the 

16 offices in the hangar building and on 

17 occasions when the cargo would have been 

18 loaded into airplanes parked at the ramp 

19 located adjacent to the Ross Aviation hangar.

20 So why did we qualify the 

21 petition? Based on other research that we 

22 conducted for Hangar 481 data capture efforts, 
251

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 we determined that it has access to summary 

2 reports that contained personnel monitoring 

3 data, but we did not have the individual data. 

4 We actually only had summary data that 

5 responds to the overall. We lacked the 

6 individual monitoring records.

7 So NIOSH identified a lack of 

8 individual dosimetry results for the evaluated 

9 period. NIOSH found support for the petition 

10 basis regarding lost or otherwise unavailable 

11 personnel monitoring data.

12 The petitioner proposed Class 

13 Definition as all employees who worked at 

14 Hangar 481, Kirtland Air Force Base from March 

15 1, 1989 through February 29th, 1996.

16 The petitioner-proposed Class was 

17 evaluated by NIOSH. And this evaluated Class 

18 represents the entire covered period as 

19 defined by the Department of Labor.

20 I will say for the record that we 

21 do have a letter to the Department of Labor. 

22 We have evidence that the contract preceded 
252

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 this date. But we are required by law to only 

2 review the data in the covered period.

3 Sources of available information. 

4 We conducted extensive search of the DOE 

5 databases and internet resources, certainly 

6 used the ORAU Technical Information Bulletins, 

7 procedures, and the Technical Basis Documents, 

8 including those at the Nevada Test Site; 

9 Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico; 

10 Tonopah Test Range, Nevada. We used the TIB 

11 on X-ray procedures, as we often do.

12 We had 194 documents at the time 

13 this was written for the Site Research 

14 Database. We certainly had the case file in 

15 the Claims Tracking System.

16 We had summaries of personnel 

17 radiation exposure for Ross Aviation during 

18 the covered period, a Nuclear Regulatory 

19 Commission radiation exposure information 

20 recording system, and also DOE occupational 

21 radiation exposure reports for 1996.

22 NIOSH also reviewed a document 
253

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 that was provided as part of the basis for 

2 exempting Ross Aviation from performing 

3 internal exposure monitoring for Hangar 481 

4 activities. We also had the documentation 

5 provided by the petitioner.

6 Eight interviews were conducted as 

7 part of this. We had two with current or 

8 former DOE Albuquerque employees and also two 

9 individuals with the NNSA, or -- I'm sorry --

10 the National Nuclear Security Administration, 

11 Office of Secure Transportation; three former 

12 Ross Aviation employees, including the former 

13 Director of Safety and Security and the former 

14 General Manager and Personnel Director.

15 As of this, we had one. I did 

16 note that on the Department of Labor 

17 statistics, they showed three or four claims. 

18 So we have a discrepancy. That may have been 

19 as a result of just the difference in dates 

20 between now and then. We had one at the 

21 completion of this report.

22 All right. So activities at 
254

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Hangar 481 that we observed. We have 

2 radioactive materials were transported in 

3 sealed containers in accordance with DOT 

4 requirements.

5 From former Ross employee 

6 accounts, radioactive shipment loading 

7 activities took place on specific loading 

8 areas, called hot pads. They were located at 

9 least 6,000 feet from Hangar 481. And I want 

10 to reiterate that hot pads are not considered 

11 part of the facility. Cleaning and servicing 

12 of unloaded aircraft took place at Hangar 481.

13 Based on Ross Aviation shipment 

14 records, radioactive material shipments 

15 predominantly consisted of tritium, depleted 

16 uranium, and mixed fission products.

17 During the majority of the covered 

18 period at the site, aircraft non-destructive 

19 testing was performed at Hangar 481 via X-ray 

20 analysis. It was documented and also 

21 reaffirmed in interviews that this operation 

22 was performed for short durations and 
255

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 typically at night or during the night in 

2 off-shift hours.

3 A Health Protection Division 

4 appraisal document dated April 1994 stated 

5 that the X-ray operations at Hangar 481 had 

6 been curtailed. 

7 So information gained through 

8 personal interviews with a former Ross 

9 Aviation Safety Director indicates that the 

10 X-ray testing was outsourced sometime around 

11 1992 or early '93, but the interviewee was 

12 unsure of the exact date. After that, X-ray 

13 testing was no longer performed at Hangar 481. 

14 The planes were taken to an off-site 

15 facility.

16 Of course, only non-destructive 

17 testing operations performed at the covered 

18 facility would be evaluated or in this 

19 evaluation.

20 A December 2nd, 1992, Occupational 

21 Safety and Health Inspection Report stated 

22 that Ross Aviation does not handle, store, or 
256

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 use radioactive materials in the Albuquerque 

2 facilities. There is an X-ray machine used in 

3 one building. Most people wear external 

4 dosimetry to support other Ross Aviation 

5 activities involving loading and unloading 

6 aircraft as well as flight operations.

7 It further states Ross Aviation 

8 uses a Baltograph IV X-ray unit and a central 

9 console. This unit is operated for 

10 non-destructive testing and inspections, 

11 approximately ten minutes per month. There 

12 are only two qualified operators, who are the 

13 only current radiological workers at Ross 

14 Aviation. Inspection records, operator 

15 training records, and device 

16 records/interlocks were inspected, and no 

17 discrepancies noted.

18 The Ross External Dosimetry 

19 Program is contracted through Eberline. It is 

20 in the DOE Laboratory Accreditation Program. 

21 The highest recorded exposure for 1991 was 

22 approximately 45 millirem. No discrepancies 
257

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 were identified in the dosimetry records from 

2 Eberline to Ross Aviation.

3 On August 7th, 1997, the 

4 Transportation Safety Division of DOE's 

5 Albuquerque Operations Office issued the 

6 technical basis for radioactive material 

7 intake potential involving Ross Aviation at 

8 Hangar 481.

9 Based on one, the TSD agents' 

10 specified tasks, they have no contact with 

11 package contents; that the operational history 

12 with confirmatory surveys showed no package 

13 breach or leakage; the use of DOT-compliant 

14 shipping packages and programs, the document 

15 concluded no credible path for an intake of 

16 radioactive materials occurred during normal 

17 operations.

18 We did state that because Kirtland 

19 Air Force Base is directly adjacent to the 

20 Sandia National Lab, it is conceivable that 

21 internal dose to individuals working at 481 

22 could have occurred as a result of ambient 
258

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 exposures. So we did consider that as part of 

2 this evaluation.

3 Based on the available information 

4 on the radiological program and potential for 

5 internal exposure sources, NIOSH concluded 

6 that internal radiological exposures to Ross 

7 Aviation employees resulting from services 

8 rendered for the DOE at Hangar 481 are 

9 unlikely to have occurred.

10 Radioactive materials handled by 

11 workers at 481 were in sealed DOT-compliant 

12 containers and monitored in compliance with 

13 DOT regulations to verify radiation and 

14 contamination levels on package exteriors. 

15 Results of available radiological surveys 

16 performed on the packages and in the transport 

17 aircraft support this premise.

18 So now we're going to talk about 

19 the external sources of exposure. External 

20 radiological exposures to employees occurred 

21 as a result of handling the packages. Those 

22 radioactive materials emit photon and particle 
259

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radiation: gamma and beta. However, since 

2 the materials were sealed in packages, photon 

3 radiation was the dominant external form.

4 Non-destructive testing was 

5 performed at Hangar 481 via X-ray analysis. 

6 This work was performed at night, as we 

7 previously discussed.

8 In a personal interview, a former 

9 Ross Aviation Safety Director stated the names 

10 of two individuals involved in Hangar 481 

11 activities. The names provided are listed in 

12 the personal monitoring summary available to 

13 NIOSH.

14 Therefore, NIOSH concludes that 

15 the personnel dose from these operations would 

16 be accounted for in the personal exposure 

17 summary data available to NIOSH.

18 According to the available 

19 radioactive material shipping documents 

20 associated with Hangar 481, the principal 

21 photon-emitting radioactive materials were 

22 predominantly depleted uranium and mixed 
260

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 fission products.

2 Photon exposures from depleted 

3 uranium are primarily from thorium-234, the 

4 daughter of uranium-238. Photon exposures 

5 were also possible from radioactive material 

6 shipments containing mixed fission products. 

7 Shipping documents indicated that such 

8 shipments consisted of samples taken from 

9 weapon-test tunnels. 

10 Non-destructive X-ray testing was 

11 performed at Hangar 481 and served as a 

12 potential external photon exposure source. 

13 This work was performed, as we discussed, 

14 about 10 minutes per month in the evenings. 

15 Bremsstrahlung effects could be considered as 

16 a photon source but are accounted for in the 

17 exposure summary data.

18 Beta/neutron. Due to the fact 

19 that the radioactive materials were 

20 transported in sealed DOT-compliant 

21 containers, beta exposure was not likely. 

22 However, as recorded in the personnel 
261

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 dosimetry data, some shallow exposure is 

2 listed in that non-penetrating photon 

3 radiation did occur.

4 Neutron generators were frequently 

5 transported by aircraft at Hangar 481. These 

6 devices emit neutrons only when powered and 

7 energized. Since these devices were only 

8 being transported, neutron exposure was 

9 infeasible.

10 This statement was backed up by 

11 neutron monitoring data which indicated that 

12 no positive neutron doses were ever recorded 

13 for any individual at Hangar 481. Based on 

14 this information, neutron exposure is not 

15 considered as a factor in this report.

16 For incidents, the petitioner did 

17 not file a claim on the basis of exposure 

18 incidents. It did not indicate knowledge of 

19 any having occurred at the Hangar 481. The 

20 former Director of Safety and Security stated 

21 there were no incidents involving radioactive 

22 material shipments at Ross that he was aware 
262

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 of.

2 A NIOSH review of all Ross 

3 Aviation/Hangar 481 documents that we have in 

4 the Site Research Database has no information 

5 regarding any radiological incidents. 

6 Therefore, incidents are not considered a 

7 factor at this site.

8 External dosimetry monitoring 

9 practices. Interviews indicated that those 

10 with the highest exposure potential were 

11 monitored: mechanics, pilots, those involved 

12 with handling or securing packages; 

13 non-destructive X-ray testing was a source of 

14 external dose to specific individuals and that 

15 they were badged.

16 Thermoluminescent dosimeters were 

17 issued and exchanged quarterly. We have 

18 shallow and deep dose. In 1996, activities 

19 had ceased. So no monitoring was required. 

20 That is the end of the contract period.

21 Area monitoring focused on surveys 

22 for contamination in areas where it was 
263

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 possible for contamination to spread from 

2 damaged or improper packaging.

3 Records found included shipping 

4 records and surveys of empty aircraft. The 

5 source term data could be obtained by 

6 reviewing radioactive shipping records and 

7 receipts.

8 Shipping surveys were reviewed and 

9 were found to contain isotope data as well as 

10 surface and one-meter dose rates. External 

11 dose rates from packages and time estimates 

12 could be used to estimate maximum doses for 

13 those who handled radioactive packages.

14 However, based on the hierarchy of 

15 data established by OCAS, personal dosimetry 

16 information is preferred. Even though we 

17 don't have individual dosimetry results, we do 

18 have results for the group that was monitored.

19 The available area monitoring data 

20 support that there was no spread of 

21 contamination. These data also provide 

22 information about the program and plane 
264

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 conditions.

2 However, the data do not provide a 

3 reasonable means of bounding external doses 

4 and are, thus, not supportive of external dose 

5 reconstruction. Bounding of external doses 

6 will rely on the available TLD data for the 

7 group.

8 And so this is a table, 7.1, out 

9 of the report. You see here we have the 

10 number of monitored individuals. This is the 

11 maximum individual shallow dose, the maximum 

12 individual deep dose, and the total 

13 person-millirem. You see there was not a lot 

14 of dose at this facility that was recorded.

15 Eberline provided external badge 

16 services. Records of external dose for 

17 individuals have not yet been received, 

18 although we are working to try to recover 

19 those.

20 Annual summaries of external dose 

21 are available and will be used to bound dose 

22 until such data become available. NIOSH will 
265

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 use the highest recorded annual dose for all 

2 years during the covered period for all 

3 individuals, deep dose of 172 millirem per 

4 year, shallow dose of 89 millirem per year, 

5 including the partial year of 1996.

6 Since this measured dose would 

7 include ambient dose, no additional 

8 environmental external dose will be assigned. 

9 Dose estimates will be used to evaluate the 

10 partial year of 1996, even though the activity 

11 had ended and no exposure to radioactive 

12 materials was expected. Medical dose will be 

13 bounded by assuming standard TIB-0006 X-ray 

14 examinations using standard NIOSH methods.

15 So internal dose. Based on the 

16 findings provided in the Evaluation Report, 

17 NIOSH has concluded there is no potential for 

18 internal dose.

19 Proximity to the Sandia National 

20 Laboratory suggests that ambient internal dose 

21 be evaluated using the information from the 

22 Sandia Site Profile.
266

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So a sample dose reconstruction. 

2 These are on the Advisory Board working site. 

3 We used a non-destructive technician, a male, 

4 birth date 1923. We did a few cancers, lung, 

5 basal cell carcinoma, and prostate, to kind of 

6 give you a feel for the types of doses with 

7 the probability of the causation. We assumed 

8 a date of 12/31/2009 as the date of diagnosis; 

9 ethnicity: White, non-Hispanic; and never 

10 smoked.

11 We used maximum photon and 

12 electron doses for all years, 100 percent 

13 anterior to posterior exposure, 100 percent 30 

14 to 250 keV photons, 100 percent greater than 

15 15 keV Beta.

16 Organ dose conversion factors of 

17 unity. Assigned missed dose assuming all dose 

18 from a year was from a single TLD exchange. 

19 Their dose would be missed dose.

20 Intakes from environmental 

21 internal dose and annual medical X-rays. So 

22 the total PoC from all three cancers would 
267

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 have been about 26.24 percent. You see the 

2 dose that was calculated, medical dose, 

3 internal, the total. Here is the Probability 

4 of Causation for each of the cancers.

5 So NIOSH evaluated the petition 

6 using the guidelines in 42 CFR 83.13 and 

7 submits a summary of findings in a petition. 

8 This was issued December 18th, 2009.

9 We applied, of course, the 

10 two-prong test that was discussed many times 

11 previously. And we found that the available 

12 monitoring records, process descriptions, and 

13 source term data are adequate to complete dose 

14 reconstructions with sufficient accuracy to 

15 evaluate a Class of employees, health 

16 endangerment determination not required.

17 In summary, we find that 

18 environmental, gamma, beta, and occupational 

19 medical X-ray are all feasible.

20 Thank you very much.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Sam.

22 Questions from Board Members?
268

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER LOCKEY: Who unloaded the 

2 planes on the pads for the pads? Who did 

3 that? Who was responsible for that job duty? 

4 The pads are not included as part of the 

5 hangar, the hot pads.

6 DR. GLOVER: It very well could 

7 have been Ross Aviation personnel who -- Bob 

8 may have had direct knowledge of who actually 

9 went out to the site.

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: I shipped stuff 

11 on the site probably every week for close to 

12 20 years. It's called the round robin. It's 

13 the plane that ran from side to side. It 

14 started out on Monday in like a big circle and 

15 ended up back -- in I think Albuquerque for 

16 the weekend.

17 Wherever the plane landed, it 

18 always landed way away from the airport. In 

19 Knoxville, we used the military side to load 

20 the plane.

21 Y-12's people were the ones that 

22 did the loading and unloading. They were 
269

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 always badged. The stuff that we put on the 

2 airplane was always in a DOT container.

3 And you ought to be able to find 

4 the records for everything from everywhere 

5 because they monitored what went on that plane 

6 to a fare thee well because if they had had an 

7 accident or something like that, then they 

8 would have stopped the program with this thing 

9 flying.

10 And if it went to the test site, 

11 the test site people were the people that 

12 loaded it and unloaded it. If it went to 

13 Livermore, their people were the ones that 

14 went to the plane and loaded it and unloaded 

15 it, the same thing for Sandia.

16 Knowing what I know about it, 

17 probably the only time that it ever went into 

18 the hangar was to get its NDT checkups and to 

19 have the plane cleaned. I guarantee you it 

20 was probably checked out fairly well before it 

21 ever made sure that there wasn't any residual 

22 radiation before it ever went to the hangar.
270

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Phil?

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. I can say 

3 when the planes lasted in Los Alamos and took 

4 off in Los Alamos, there was LANL personnel 

5 who loaded and unloaded them. There were 

6 several flights a day, usually to and from 

7 Nevada Test Site.

8 Ross Aviation employees did not 

9 load or unload those planes, at least in Los 

10 Alamos. I can't say about any other 

11 facilities, but I know at least there, it was 

12 done by LANL personnel.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Mike 

14 Gibson or David Richardson, do you have 

15 questions for Sam?

16 (No response.)

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. John 

18 Poston I believe has a question.

19 MEMBER POSTON: Sam, it is just a 

20 curiosity. Those of us who have been around a 

21 long time know that Ross has been flying for 

22 -- why was this period chosen and not the --
271

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER PRESLEY: The whole time.

2 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

3 -- not the whole time?

4 MEMBER PRESLEY: They were flying 

5 the whole time I was over there.

6 DR. GLOVER: Yes. We provided 

7 some information to the Department of Labor. 

8 And they have that under their consideration.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you clarify 

10 that a little bit, the same on the hot pads, 

11 too? I mean, I'm sure it's an issue, but in 

12 terms of the covered facility. So you're 

13 saying you provided this additional 

14 information to the Department of Labor for 

15 consideration about expanding the time period?

16 DR. GLOVER: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Is the 

18 petitioner on the line?

19 MR. ARMIJO: Yes, sir.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Would you 

21 like to speak, have any comments related to 

22 the petition?
272

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MR. ARMIJO: Yes, we do. And 

2 thank you very much.

3 We have been listening to the 

4 presentation. I take it the first speaker was 

5 Dr. Sam Glover?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct.

7 MR. ARMIJO: And there were a 

8 couple of other speakers after him. And I 

9 heard what they said, but I wonder if you 

10 could tell me in the order of the two that 

11 spoke who spoke up.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not sure I 

13 can get the order, but one was Robert Presley, 

14 who is a Board Member. And the other was Phil 

15 Schofield, who is also a Board Member. And I 

16 believe that was the order in which they 

17 spoke.

18 MR. ARMIJO: Thank you.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then the 

20 third one, last question, was from Dr. John 

21 Poston, who is also a Board Member.

22 MR. ARMIJO: I would like to 
273

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 address a few things. My name is Roberto 

2 Armijo, I go by Bob. And I am the attorney 

3 for the petitioner, who is also present. His 

4 name is Benito Salazar. He is seated right 

5 beside me.

6 He is the petitioner and the 

7 surviving husband of his wife, Monica, who 

8 passed away as a result of pancreatic cancer 

9 that she contracted after working several 

10 years there at Ross Aviation and several other 

11 places. All of those details are in the 

12 petition as far as dates and so forth.

13 One of the comments I wanted to 

14 make first of all is to the term of coverage 

15 by this application. The documentation that 

16 was provided to us identified only the time 

17 period that we have spoken to in the petition, 

18 which was that 1989 through 1996 time period.

19 We thought that the period was 

20 longer than that, but we were never given any 

21 information to confirm that, in fact, the time 

22 period that Ross had a contract was longer 
274

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 than the period we were given.

2 Our client went to work there --

3 what was it? -- 1985?

4 MR. SALAZAR: Nineteen 

5 eighty-five.

6 MR. ARMIJO: She was there 1985 to 

7 1994. And we wanted to claim the entire 

8 period but felt that we needed to be 

9 respectful of the information provided to us. 

10 And so we limited it to that.

11 I heard the comment made that 

12 apparently there was indeed a contract for a 

13 longer period of time than was disclosed to 

14 us. And since the Department of Labor helped 

15 us to get this information, I suspect that, 

16 likewise, what was disclosed to them, at least 

17 at the time that we were trying to put this 

18 together, failed to include the entire time 

19 period.

20 I noticed in the petition itself, 

21 looking at the Appendix, that, indeed, there 

22 was a 1998 reference to some testing. On page 
275

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 12-11-9 of the petition, the fourth from the 

2 last entry indicates there was a shipping 

3 record in 1988, July 12 of 1988, which would 

4 have been long before the period that we have.

5 If, indeed, there was a longer 

6 term of the existence of a contract, we think 

7 that that needs to be corrected somewhere in 

8 this process, maybe not today and maybe 

9 another petition needs to be filed. But if, 

10 in fact, there was a longer term that Ross 

11 Aviation had a contract that potentially would 

12 provide coverage, that needs to be recognized 

13 and somehow added to this.

14 The second observation that I 

15 would like to make has to do with the table 

16 7.1. It appears that -- and Dr. Glover I 

17 think made a very fine summary of this 

18 petition. And, you know, we can't complain 

19 about the reasoning and analysis that went 

20 into this. We may, respectfully, disagree 

21 with the conclusions and perhaps the 

22 completeness, but, I mean, we really have no 
276

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 way to attack the substance of what has been 

2 done. And so my comments I hope aren't taken 

3 that way.

4 I do notice on table 7.1, page 

5 12-11-09 of the report that the total 

6 person-mrems that were listed in 1994 was 

7 1,501, which at least seems to us as lay 

8 people to be a very high number, particularly 

9 when it is compared to the other numbers 

10 reported.

11 And, of course, 1994 would have 

12 been the last year that our client's wife 

13 worked there and before she retired or stopped 

14 working there.

15 The third thing that I would like 

16 to mention is it appears that the Eberline 

17 data on page 12-11-09 of the report at the 

18 bottom, it indicates NIOSH is working with 

19 Landauer to obtain from Eberline the raw data 

20 represented in the summary reports to permit 

21 data validation for the pedigree review of 

22 this report.
277

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 It would be our position that that 

2 information is not yet available, that the 

3 submission of this report by NIOSH would be 

4 premature, and that it wouldn't be fair to 

5 allow this to become final without having that 

6 data available to the extent that it may alter 

7 the outcome of this.

8 The next thing that I would like 

9 to state is the report itself does have a map 

10 that shows Hangar 481 and its location in 

11 association to other items or other places at 

12 Kirtland Air Force Base. The comment was made 

13 that all of the loadings took place at hot 

14 pads located quite a distance from the hangar.

15 Now, I don't want to mistake this, 

16 but my understanding was that the description 

17 of the area covered by this petition included 

18 Hangar 481 and the adjacent apron to that. 

19 The hot pads obviously weren't included.

20 It's my recollection that the 

21 statement that we obtained from one of the 

22 workers there indicated that the loading 
278

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 actually took place at the apron, which would 

2 have been right adjacent to the hangar we're 

3 talking about.

4 Now, obviously the personnel who 

5 were there who are more knowledgeable than I 

6 am about these things may differ about that, 

7 but that is a statement that is in the record 

8 in the affidavit that was submitted by a 

9 person that we were able to find that actually 

10 worked there.

11 The next thing I would like to 

12 state is that we really feel that since there 

13 was no actual monitoring of the personnel such 

14 as Monica at this location, that truly there 

15 would not be a way to know for sure that we 

16 did not have an overexposed situation.

17 I recognize that there may very 

18 well be secondary sources that can be referred 

19 to to try and reconstruct by some other means 

20 a reconstruction of dose, but we would urge 

21 the Board to consider the fact that it is 

22 impossible to know everything that might have 
279

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 gone on, especially for those people who are 

2 on the outside looking in and that in the 

3 sense of making sure that there would be a 

4 general consensus of acceptance of this 

5 process, that some leeway needs to be granted 

6 to the fact that we do not have any individual 

7 biomonitoring at all, right or wrong, for the 

8 people that worked there at the hangar.

9 Maybe this is not something that 

10 should be brought up, but I suppose I will. 

11 In today's newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal, 

12 the Metro and New Mexico section, of course, 

13 this is talking February 10, 2010 and not back 

14 during the time that we're talking about in 

15 terms of this petition.

16 Above the fold that indicates that 

17 the Air Force decertifies the squadron at 

18 Kirtland that maintains the 2000 nuclear 

19 warheads or more that are stored at Kirtland 

20 Air Force Base, it goes on to say that there 

21 are no safety risks and that they expect the 

22 decertification to be taken care of, but 
280

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 certainly the article suggests that there was 

2 or there is nuclear activity going on there as 

3 far as storing of a large number of nuclear 

4 warheads at Kirtland Air Force Base.

5 The article doesn't say where, and 

6 I can't verify the sources of [identifying 

7 information redacted], the Journal staff 

8 writer who wrote that report. However, I 

9 don't have any articles from the time frame of 

10 similar reports, and I don't even know if 

11 these 2,000-plus nuclear warheads were 

12 actually stored there back in the 1989 to 1996 

13 time frame or possibly the earlier time frame, 

14 but there certainly are a lot of things that 

15 may go on that may not necessarily be 

16 identified in the secondary sources that would 

17 be queried.

18 Also, the information concerning 

19 this matter, again, it's impressive, the work 

20 that went into this. We haven't had an 

21 opportunity yet to go forward with our FOIA 

22 requests.
281

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 And I did speak with Mr. 

2 Rutherford in January after we had received 

3 this report and after I had had an opportunity 

4 for my client to come to the office so that we 

5 could review it. And I expressed the concern 

6 that we would like to submit a FOIA request 

7 for some of the documentation, particularly 

8 those statements appropriately redacted, of 

9 course, that were obtained from Ross personnel 

10 and others that formed a basis for this.

11 We don't have any evidence that we 

12 were ever given any incorrect information, but 

13 we did have a difficult time to start with 

14 getting any information.

15 And it was just through the good 

16 efforts of the Labor Department in 

17 communicating with the Department of Energy 

18 that we are able to find out at all that there 

19 was indeed a contract. And once we did find 

20 out there was this contract, we limited it to 

21 the period we have. We are now learning there 

22 was a longer period.
282

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So I think that we need to 

2 scrutinize the information that may be 

3 available to us through FOIA requests in order 

4 that we can fully understand and come up to 

5 something as far as this petition is 

6 concerned.

7 As I understand it in talking with 

8 Mr. Rutherford, the potential exists that we 

9 could request that this either be referred to 

10 a Work Group for further evaluation. And it 

11 would seem to me that that would be an

12 appropriate thing to request.

13 We also would like the opportunity 

14 if it can be done without great interruption 

15 to the process that this Board goes through 

16 that the finalization of this be held in 

17 abeyance until we have an opportunity to do 

18 our review of documents.

19 Mr. Rutherford indicated that it 

20 would probably be very unlikely that those 

21 documents could be provided to us prior to 

22 this hearing. And since I was still in the 
283

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 process and my client as well of trying to 

2 understand the data, we decided that we would 

3 delay requesting FOIA requests until we had 

4 this meeting.

5 And then it can be, the 

6 information can be, provided to us in a timely 

7 fashion without trying to break the bank, so 

8 to speak, to get this information right away.

9 I appreciate very much the 

10 comments that were made by Mr. Robert Presley. 

11 I believe he's the gentleman who spoke that 

12 he had firsthand knowledge about the loading 

13 and unloading of the planes over the years at 

14 Kirtland Air Force Base and how that was done. 

15 And I certainly don't dispute anything he 

16 says at all.

17 The gentleman that said that we 

18 have the statement in the file indicating that 

19 some of this activity took place at the 

20 hangar, you know, he may have been mistaken, 

21 but it was stated. So I wonder if maybe there 

22 might have been opportunities when things were 
284

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 taken to the area immediately adjacent to the 

2 hangar to be looked at.

3 I don't recall the gentleman who 

4 also indicated that these planes would have 

5 been very carefully screened before they were 

6 put into the hangar for determination of 

7 whether there was any, I suppose, radiation 

8 available or on the planes, but it is clear 

9 that these planes were stored in the hangar 

10 where our client's wife worked. And she would 

11 have walked through those areas regularly as 

12 part of her duties during the day.

13 There is a comment that there was 

14 some testing by an X-ray machine that we 

15 learned about in this report. And the 

16 statement is it was only ever done at night. 

17 So there was some form of testing and a need 

18 to do that testing actually in the hangar 

19 building.

20 That raises a question of what 

21 materials might have been in that building 

22 that needed to be tested and whether they may 
285

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 have been there during the day when our client 

2 was there or perhaps under the context of the 

3 petition when other employees who were not 

4 monitored for internal/external dose might 

5 have been present.

6 I think that is about all I can 

7 say. If I have said some things that are 

8 incorrect here, I certainly apologize. We 

9 very much respect the work that this Board is 

10 doing. We very much respect the work that 

11 NIOSH has done.

12 We respectfully believe that more 

13 work needs to be done before this petition can 

14 be decided. We would request that it be 

15 referred to a Work Group. We would also 

16 request that we be given the opportunity to 

17 present FOIA requests, obtain additional 

18 information, and to participate further in 

19 this process.

20 And ultimately we believe that 

21 this SEC petition tracking number 00139 should 

22 be accepted and approved and that the Hangar 
286

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 481 Site should ultimately be added to the 

2 list of Special Exposure Cohorts.

3 So thank you for listening to us. 

4 And I stand ready to answer any questions 

5 that may need to be addressed to us. Of 

6 course, my client is available as well, 

7 although he would not have a great deal of 

8 information because of the privacy things that 

9 he respected while his wife worked there.

10 Thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

12 Sam Glover, do you have responses 

13 to any of those questions?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

15 Hinnefeld from OCAS. I think that we are 

16 certainly supportive of the idea that the 

17 petitioner is entitled to the information that 

18 he intends to FOIA before any particular 

19 action is taken on this. I think that is only 

20 fair that that information be made available.

21 I'm not sure what other question 

22 or --
287

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I jotted 

2 down some of these. One I think I can answer, 

3 but you can correct me, Stu. One was a 

4 question about the covered time period area. 

5 What we were talking about before was that 

6 NIOSH has already referred some information 

7 relative to that to the Department of Labor.

8 Department of Labor is the Agency 

9 that makes the determinations on what is the 

10 covered time period. And presumably they have 

11 this information under consideration now and 

12 will be following up on it.

13 I don't know. Jeff, can you? 

14 Jeff Kotsch is here from the Department of 

15 Labor. I don't know if you have knowledge of 

16 that or --

17 MR. KOTSCH: I don't have direct 

18 knowledge --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

20 MR. KOTSCH: This is Jeff Kotsch, 

21 Labor.

22 -- direct knowledge of that 
288

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 submittal because that goes into a different 

2 part of our organization, but if it was 

3 submitted, they will be evaluating it.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks 

5 for that.

6 And then I believe one of the 

7 other questions, you were requesting -- this 

8 is from Eberline -- some additional data, 

9 individual records. And I think his question 

10 was, what is happening with that request?

11 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess these are 

12 part of the records that now Landauer is the 

13 holder of. Is that right, Sam?

14 DR. GLOVER: That's correct. Yes, 

15 sir.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: We are working 

17 with Landauer to establish essentially their 

18 entire customer list, you know, what customers 

19 did they have, what years were they customers 

20 of Landauer or these certain other predecessor 

21 companies that Landauer later acquired.

22 And so we don't have that product 
289

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 from Landauer yet. There is a possibility we 

2 get some of the actual original microfiche 

3 ourselves for duplication, but I haven't been 

4 in contact with Landauer for several weeks 

5 now. So I don't know exactly where they 

6 stand.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

8 DR. GLOVER: The only brief thing 

9 I would say is that for the preceding period 

10 --

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you speak up 

12 a little bit?

13 DR. GLOVER: I am sorry. I must 

14 have dangled down a little bit.

15 For the preceding period before 

16 this covered period, Sandia actually did the 

17 monitoring. And we actually have the records 

18 from Sandia.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

20 you.

21 Any other Board Members have 

22 questions? Josie?
290

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER BEACH: I don't know if I 

2 have a question so much. I would be 

3 interested, on slide 41, you did mention that 

4 internal would be assessed using Sandia 

5 National Lab. I would just be interested in 

6 hearing a little bit more about how you would 

7 assign dose from an internal perspective from 

8 Sandia's Site Profile.

9 DR. GLOVER: Because Sandia is 

10 part of the base, it has emission rates or 

11 what the maximum internal-related intakes are 

12 for various radionuclides. And we would use 

13 those during our process for doing the example 

14 dose construction. We did use those as part 

15 of our dose construction process.

16 And those are included in the 

17 Sandia Site Profile, but that's just because 

18 it's near, we figured that would be bounding 

19 to be included as part of the Sandia part.

20 MEMBER BEACH: And do you have 

21 those for all of the years listed?

22 DR. GLOVER: It goes back, way, 
291

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 way back, yes.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Thanks.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer?

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: I was just going 

5 to comment on the question that was raised by 

6 the petitioner's attorney about the values in 

7 table 7.1, particularly the item for the year 

8 1994, which shows a total person-rem of 1,501.

9 I just wanted to make sure that it 

10 is understood that that is the total dose of 

11 taking in the 66 monitored individuals and 

12 adding those doses together, which on average 

13 is about 23 millirem per person, with the 

14 highest value being the one in the table, 172.

15 And I recognize that, for example, 

16 in 1995, the dose, average dose, is going to 

17 be about half that. So in that sense, yes, 

18 that year is higher, but to put the 23 

19 millirem in perspective, that is much less. 

20 It's less than ten percent of what the average 

21 person gets from natural background and is 

22 about half of what everybody gets from the 
292

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 natural potassium that is in our muscle 

2 tissues, at least for those who have muscle.

3 (Laughter.)

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I don't want 

5 to trivialize that. I just want to make sure 

6 that we don't have the impression that these 

7 are high numbers. They are not high.

8 MR. ARMIJO: Thank you, Doctor.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

10 I believe that, I think NIOSH has 

11 said that given when this report came out that 

12 -- and, again, I think our usual practice had 

13 been with these 83.13s to refer for further 

14 review, both by a Work Group and possibly by 

15 SC&A. So is that something everyone on the 

16 Board is comfortable with pursuing?

17 MEMBER MUNN: I am not. I am not 

18 comfortable with that at all.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

20 MEMBER MUNN: That seems extremely 

21 excessive in light of the information that is 

22 available here. There do not seem to be any 
293

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 major technical issues to be addressed, which 

2 is our normal process.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

4 MEMBER MUNN: That's why we go 

5 through that normal process, because of the 

6 technical issues involved. The technical 

7 issues here are fairly straightforward.

8 It would appear that the claimant 

9 certainly has a right and a need for better 

10 information with respect to their claim. And 

11 that should be forthcoming from the agencies 

12 with whom they interact.

13 But, just as the description of 

14 what constitutes serious dose needs further 

15 explanation for the petitioner, certainly what 

16 is involved with the DOT packaging and what 

17 might be expected, even if people were in 

18 close proximity to that, needs to be better 

19 explained, I think, for the client and for the 

20 client's attorney.

21 That does not in my view give any 

22 reason for us to stipulate a Work Group or any 
294

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 further action from our technical contractor. 

2 I think the technical expertise that is 

3 necessary to evaluate this probably exists on 

4 this Board.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Does 

6 anybody else have comments on that?

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: I feel the same 

8 way Wanda does. I mean, I would hate to see 

9 us spend the time and the money for something 

10 that has been -- I feel like Mr. Glover has 

11 spent a tremendous amount of time and effort 

12 telling us what they found out on this.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Does anybody 

14 disagree with deferring the petition until the 

15 next -- we can defer. I just would add that 

16 if we do defer it and it comes up in the whole 

17 meeting, we want to spend significant time at 

18 the meeting dealing with this petition simply 

19 because we won't have a Work Group.

20 And I think it sort of behooves us 

21 on the Board to make sure that we have 

22 reviewed, all of us have reviewed, the 
295

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 information and are comfortable with it and 

2 make sure that any questions that we have have 

3 been addressed. That's all.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Hopefully NIOSH has 

5 an adequate amount of information available 

6 that they will be able to respond to the 

7 claimant and make us privy to the responses to 

8 the claimant's questions so that we would not 

9 be required to spend an undue amount of time 

10 and energy on this specific claim.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

12 comments on that?

13 (No response.)

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We will 

15 defer and then we can deal with this. And 

16 then we will take a 15-minute break. Then at 

17 4:15, we need to start right at 4:15 because 

18 we have other people coming on the phones.

19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

20 matter went off the record at 4:00 p.m. and 

21 resumed at 4:16 p.m.)

22 MR. KATZ: We are about to get 
296

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 started again. Let me check the phone lines 

2 first for Dr. Richardson and Mr. Gibson. Do 

3 we have you on the line?

4 MEMBER GIBSON: Ted, this is Mike. 

5 I'm here.

6 MR. KATZ: Great.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Great. That is two. 

9 So let me also check on the line to see if we 

10 have the petitioner for NTS.

11 MR. FUNK: Yes, I am here, Ted, 

12 one of them, John Funk.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes. Welcome, John. I 

14 recognize your voice.

15 MS. GLENN: Raili Glenn.

16 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry? Is that 

17 Raili Glenn?

18 MS. GLENN: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Welcome to you, too.

20 MS. GLENN: Thank you.

21 MR. KATZ: And let me also check. 

22 There was supposed to be a staff person or 
297

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 two, actually, from Senator Reid's office. 

2 Are you on the line with us?

3 MS. ROZNER: We are, but also Paul 

4 Stednick, petitioner, is on the line. Paul?

5 MR. STEDNICK: Yes.

6 MS. ROZNER: And then it's Kathy 

7 Rozner and Sabrina Badger.

8 MR. KATZ: Well, welcome to you 

9 all, too. That's great.

10 Oh, yes. And so the next point of 

11 order is for members that have conflicts at 

12 this point to recuse themselves. Let me note 

13 for the record that Mark Griffon is headed out 

14 the back.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. And 

16 we will get started. We are here for an 

17 update on the Nevada Test Site SEC petition. 

18 We are going to hear from three people in 

19 order: Jim Neton; Arjun Makhijani; and then 

20 Bob Presley, who is head of the Nevada Test 

21 Site Work Group. So we will start with Jim 

22 Neton.
298

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Melius.

2 NEVADA TEST SITE SEC PETITION

3 DR. NETON: Since there are three 

4 presentations and I can see the screens of 

5 some of the folks' laptops on the table, make 

6 sure you have the right presentations in front 

7 of you. This is the NIOSH presentation to 

8 cover the Evaluation Report for SEC petition 

9 84, which is indicated on the slide here as 

10 revision 1. Oh, I'm sorry. You have hard 

11 copy handouts? Okay. Sorry.

12 Petition 84 was submitted to NIOSH 

13 as an 83.13. That is on behalf of a Class of 

14 employees for a person who filed that thought 

15 we couldn't reconstruct dose with sufficient 

16 accuracy during the requested period, which 

17 was all employees at the DOE and DOE 

18 contractors or subcontractors who worked at 

19 the Nevada Test Site from January '63 through

20 September '92. And that is through 

21 essentially the end of underground testing at 

22 the Nevada Test Site or underground nuclear 
299

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 weapons testing.

2 If you will recall, earlier there 

3 was an SEC Class added for the above-ground 

4 testing period, which was all activities prior 

5 to 1963.

6 I have a brief summary of the 

7 petition history here. I think Bob Presley 

8 has a somewhat more detailed presentation that 

9 goes into a lot of the discussions and Working 

10 Groups and such that were held regarding this 

11 petition. And they are quite extensive.

12 The petition was received way back 

13 in February of 2007, qualified April 2007. 

14 And our original evaluation for revision 0 was 

15 issued September 27th, 2007. I believe Mark 

16 Rolfes presented that report to the Board in 

17 January of 2008.

18 Since that time, the Petition 

19 Evaluation Report was referred to a Working 

20 Group for evaluation. And there have been a 

21 number of discussions that have gone on 

22 related to our ability to reconstruct dose 
300

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 with sufficient accuracy during this time 

2 period.

3 And ultimately, after a lot of 

4 discussion, deliberation, NIOSH issued a 

5 position paper on our ability to reconstruct 

6 internal dose on November 25th, 2009 and 

7 subsequently issued this Evaluation Report, 

8 rev. 1, January 25th, 2010.

9 The Class that NIOSH evaluated for 

10 purposes of revision 1 is slightly different 

11 than that of revision 0, that being that the 

12 covered time period now goes from January 1st, 

13 '63 through December 31st, 1992.

14 If you recall, the other petition 

15 I think was through September 1992. We added 

16 those few months because the last shot 

17 happened in September. And given the fact 

18 that it may take some time to wind down 

19 operations and do subsequent testing, we felt 

20 covering through the end of that year, 

21 calendar year, was more appropriate, that 

22 coupled with the fact that some documentation 
301

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 allows us to start reconstructing dose in 

2 1993, which I'll talk about in a little bit.

3 Okay. You've seen this before. 

4 This is right out of revision 0, the site 

5 history. Obviously the Nevada Test Site is a 

6 fairly large site, 1,400 square miles, that 

7 conducted above-ground testing from January 

8 '51 through July '62. As I mentioned, that 

9 piece of the Nevada Test Site covered period 

10 is already a member of the Special Exposure 

11 Cohort.

12 From the partial test entry, it 

13 was ratified in '63. Underground testing was 

14 only conducted with the last underground test 

15 being in 1992.

16 Aside from testing of weapons, 

17 there were several other operations, a number 

18 of other operations, that occurred at the 

19 Nevada Test Site, such as research into 

20 nuclear reactors, nuclear-powered rockets, 

21 peaceful uses of nuclear energy, Project 

22 Ploughshare. And, of course, there was a 
302

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 number of waste management issues associated 

2 with the waste that was generated during all 

3 of this testing of nuclear weapons.

4 This is our usual list of 

5 information available to evaluate what we 

6 have, how we can do dose reconstruction at the 

7 Nevada Test Site. Again, this is exactly what 

8 was in revision 0.

9 We have technical information 

10 bulletins. We had a number of radiation 

11 safety reports and surveys, operating 

12 procedures. There is a fairly good robust 

13 document set available to us as to how things 

14 were at least conceptually done at Nevada Test 

15 Site, although there are some important gaps 

16 that I will talk about later.

17 We also have these all loaded on 

18 the site research database. We conducted 

19 interviews with former test site workers and 

20 Livermore staff, who worked out at the test 

21 site during the shots.

22 The petition also provided some 
303

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 affidavits, affidavits that relayed where they 

2 thought the holes may have been in our ability 

3 to reconstruct doses. And, of course, we have 

4 the case files with the NIOSH claimant 

5 database.

6 This is not in the revision 0. 

7 This is a very important piece. This last 

8 bullet is we now have in our possession and 

9 have evaluated the Nevada Test Site electronic 

10 database for personnel monitoring data. That 

11 would be a complete collection of the bioassay 

12 data that was taken on the workers. That will 

13 play an important role in my discussion as I 

14 go forward.

15 Here is the slide that depicts the 

16 number of cases that we have from Nevada Test 

17 Site. It's a fairly substantial number: 

18 1,863 cases or claims that have been submitted 

19 as of the end of last month. We have 

20 completed 1,310 of those. And 196 of those 

21 were pulled by the Department of Labor in 

22 response to the granting of the original SEC 
304

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 petition for workers between 1951 and '62.

2 For this period that I am 

3 discussing here, '63 to '92, there are a 

4 significant number of claims in this petition 

5 pool: 1,411. Not interestingly but as a 

6 fact, only about a third of those cases have 

7 internal dosimetry monitoring data available 

8 in the records that were supplied by the 

9 Department of Energy.

10 Conversely, there is a very robust 

11 collection of external dosimetry monitoring 

12 data. I think, I didn't do the calculation, 

13 but it seems to be 1,392 out of 1,411, 

14 somewhere around 98 percent of the cases that 

15 we have received have some form of external 

16 monitoring information.

17 The petition had a number of bases 

18 and concerns that were raised. And I just 

19 listed them there. And as the Work Group 

20 undertook efforts to determine if we could 

21 really do these dose reconstructions with 

22 sufficient accuracy, each and every one of 
305

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 these concerns was discussed in some detail.

2 Those included hot particle 

3 exposures, defeating universal badging, that 

4 was a concern that indicated that workers 

5 would remove their badges as they got to 

6 exposure limits that in order to keep working 

7 as they approached exposure limits, they would 

8 remove their badges and not wear them, that 

9 sort of thing. A lot of effort was put into 

10 that during the Work Group deliberations. And 

11 eventually that issue was addressed.

12 Ambient dose reconstruction; that 

13 is, the environmental modeling that was done, 

14 we now had a -- we finally have developed a 

15 fairly robust ambient dose model.

16 There were some concerns raised 

17 about records verification, validation. You 

18 know, have we gone through and vetted these 

19 records and made sure they're complete? And 

20 what is the quality of the data associated 

21 with that sort of thing? Incidents were 

22 raised, as often is in the case of petitions.
306

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 And internal dose reconstruction 

2 was an issue, was the only real issue that was 

3 left unresolved at the end of all of these 

4 extensive Working Group discussions.

5 External dosimeters for 

6 assemblers, I don't recall exactly the 

7 discussions on that, but external dosimetry 

8 ended up being an area where we feel that we 

9 can do dose reconstructions and then destroyed 

10 or lost records.

11 So all of these issues were 

12 discussed in some way, shape, or form. And 

13 keep in mind the internal dosimetry is the 

14 area that we still have unresolved.

15 So during the process, NIOSH went 

16 back to the drawing board or not the drawing 

17 board but went back to the data and collected 

18 some additional monitoring data, reviewed our 

19 sources of information.

20 And, again, as I indicated, we 

21 resolved all of the issues with one exception. 

22 And that is listed at the bottom of the 
307

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 slide. Can NIOSH bound internal dose for 

2 unmonitored workers who have the potential for 

3 exposure?

4 As I mentioned, only about a third 

5 of the workers, the claimants, had internal 

6 monitoring data in their records. It was 

7 pretty clear to us that there were other 

8 Classes of workers, eventually pretty clear to 

9 us that there were other Classes of workers, 

10 that could have been exposed of those 66 

11 percent that weren't monitored, which would 

12 necessitate the need to have a coworker model 

13 to determine what their potential internal 

14 exposures may have been, as I said here on the 

15 bottom. In other words, can NIOSH develop a 

16 suitable coworker model to bound doses?

17 I'm getting a little ahead of 

18 myself. As I said, about two-thirds have no 

19 monitoring data. And so we evaluated a number 

20 of approaches that could be used to fill in 

21 this gap.

22 One of the initial attempts by 
308

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 NIOSH was to look at the external monitoring 

2 record, the people with external monitoring, 

3 because we had a very robust external 

4 monitoring pool, and determine did the people 

5 who were most highly exposed externally also 

6 have the highest internal exposures.

7 And after some very vigorous 

8 debate and discussion on that, the bottom line 

9 is there was no correlation between external 

10 exposure and the internal monitoring data that 

11 we could hang a hat on it. SC&A correctly 

12 identified that as an issue fairly early on.

13 In addition to that, of the people 

14 who were monitored, the rad safety workers 

15 were the most frequently sampled workers in 

16 the database.

17 Now, that is well and good, but 

18 there is no real a priori reason to believe 

19 that the rad safety technicians and workers 

20 were the most highest exposed workers on the 

21 site. It's true that they were there and 

22 present at virtually all radiological 
309

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 operations, but were they really in there 

2 hands on doing the work near the source term? 

3 It's hard to convince yourself that that was 

4 true.

5 I think the second most frequently 

6 monitored workforce was the security personnel 

7 and, again, similar situation. They certainly 

8 had access to all areas of the site, 

9 radioactive materials. But, again, were they 

10 really the type of workers that were involved 

11 in drillbacks and mining operations, that sort 

12 of thing? If you really answered the question 

13 honestly, the answer is probably no, can't 

14 really say for sure.

15 Again, there is a variety of above 

16 and below-ground activities that had a fairly 

17 high potential for exposure that were above 

18 and beyond the radiological technicians.

19 So the idea was, then, well, what 

20 was the basis for why these workers were 

21 monitored? Could we go through the records 

22 and find some good documentation, describe the 
310

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 technical basis for the bioassay sampling 

2 program?

3 We looked very long and hard for 

4 information to the point that they picked the 

5 people with the highest potential of exposures 

6 and that is why they were monitored and that 

7 sort of thing.

8 And at the end of the day, nothing 

9 came out. There was no real basis that we 

10 could find in all the documentation that we 

11 reviewed that indicated that there was a good, 

12 solid basis behind who was selected for the 

13 monitoring programs. I'm not saying there 

14 wasn't, but we just couldn't find any 

15 documentation to that effect.

16 The other issue is, remember, 

17 we're trying to develop a coworker model here. 

18 So, at a minimum, what you need to establish 

19 the internal coworker model is that at least 

20 the people that were sampled that you have 

21 data for are, at a minimum, representative of 

22 the exposure population or in most cases, a 
311

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 lot of times we'll see that the most highly 

2 exposed workers were monitored. Neither of 

3 those conditions could be determined in this 

4 case.

5 To help evaluate some of these 

6 issues even further, we obtained the complete 

7 electronic data set for the bioassay samples 

8 for the Nevada Test Site. It was unknown to 

9 us through the early parts of the discussions 

10 that this data set was available and was 

11 linkable uniquely to individual employees. 

12 That was key. I mean, once we found that out, 

13 we made extreme efforts to get this database 

14 very quickly to analyze it.

15 It had greater than 100,000 

16 results. I think there may be about 124,000 

17 bioassay results during the period that we're 

18 evaluating here for seven different exposure 

19 types.

20 Unfortunately, though, although 

21 there were unique results by employee, they 

22 were ordered by name and Social Security 
312

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 number. There was no indication in the 

2 database itself of job type or work location. 

3 So, again, we couldn't connect these 100,000 

4 results with who was what doing when and 

5 where, that sort of thing, probably when but 

6 not where they were doing it.

7 Most of the results were for 

8 tritium, plutonium, gamma, and beta analyses, 

9 which is nice. And it's very good, a lot of 

10 data sets. But there are a lot more nuclides 

11 than that present at the Nevada Test Site. I 

12 mean, they were detonating nuclear weapons 

13 that develop a whole cadre of fission 

14 activation products, that sort of thing that 

15 we'll talk about a little later.

16 In addition to the fact that we 

17 couldn't link any of these workers in the 

18 database to what they did, there were data 

19 gaps, some data gaps identified in the 

20 database, specifically fission product 

21 analyses, fission product results analyses, 

22 were not, specific fission product analyses 
313

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 results were not reported. That is, these 

2 were beta/gamma analyses. So you know the 

3 beta/gamma activity.

4 But, again, you're detonating a 

5 nuclear weapon. There are a large number of 

6 different fission products: cesium, the 

7 cobalts, the iodines, strontium, those sorts 

8 of nuclides. And the concentrations of those 

9 radionuclides varies considerably depending on 

10 when a sample may be taken in relation to when 

11 the shot was because some of them have short 

12 half-lives and they decay away, that sort of 

13 thing.

14 Also, we only found about 300 

15 bioassay records for uranium out of this 

16 entire data set. And the number of plutonium 

17 monitored workers was fewer than 200 for many 

18 of the years that we looked at.

19 In fact, what somewhat surprises 

20 me, of the plutonium results that we looked 

21 at, there were a fair number of positive 

22 plutonium results.
314

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 I initially expected, looking 

2 through this database, that the plutonium 

3 results would all be sort of at the detection 

4 limit. That was not the case in this 

5 situation. So there were clear exposures to 

6 plutonium for these workers, at least by 

7 looking at the bioassay results.

8 So after careful review of all the 

9 data, including the database, several coworker 

10 model issues remain. I talked about these: 

11 the unknown technical basis for the samples 

12 collected, you know, who was collected and why 

13 or who was monitored, what type of workers are 

14 monitored, why were they monitored, the 

15 existence of the data gaps in the records, the 

16 unique nature of the work activities at the 

17 Nevada Test Site.

18 Unlike a lot of other sites, like 

19 Fernald, say, or Savannah River, where they 

20 have sort of a continuing operation ongoing 

21 where you can have a routine bioassay sampling 

22 program and take a urine sample monthly, 
315

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 quarterly, whatever, and have some good 

2 confidence that your people aren't being 

3 exposed, the Nevada Test Site was somewhat of 

4 an episodic event. It was campaign-driven.

5 There would be nothing going on or 

6 not nothing, but the shots would occur sort of 

7 sporadically. And a lot of activity would be 

8 going on for a short period of time and then 

9 nothing for a while.

10 So these were sort of sporadic 

11 events that occurred, which doesn't really 

12 lend itself very well to a chronic coworker 

13 model, the type that we have developed for 

14 many of the sites coupled with the fact that 

15 there was a wide array of work activities 

16 ongoing. You have drillback operations, 

17 tunneling, tunnel operations, contaminated 

18 soil all over the site in general, people 

19 disturbing that type of soil, reactor 

20 experiments ongoing, that sort of thing; and, 

21 again, the wide variety of radionuclides 

22 present in the source term. Virtually I 
316

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 wouldn't say the entire periodic table, but a 

2 good portion of it, of the radioactive 

3 elements, were present at the site.

4 So because of all of that, NIOSH 

5 has found that the available monitoring data 

6 are inadequate to complete internal dose 

7 reconstruction. We can't develop a coworker 

8 model. At least at this point, we don't feel 

9 we can develop an adequate coworker model to 

10 bound the doses for those two-thirds of the 

11 workers that weren't monitored.

12 Some workers in the Class may have 

13 had their health endangered through exposure 

14 to inhalation of these particulates as a 

15 result of the testing of these weapons.

16 So the proposed Class at this 

17 point is all employed at the Department of 

18 Energy, its predecessor agencies and 

19 contractors and subcontractors who worked at 

20 the Nevada Test Site from January 1st, '63 

21 through December 31st, '92, for an aggregate 

22 of 250 days.
317

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 This last slide is just our 

2 standard summary, where it says that we cannot 

3 reconstruct internal dose for that period from 

4 '63 to '92, but we believe we can reconstruct 

5 external dose for gamma/beta, neutron, and 

6 occupational medical X-rays.

7 That concludes my presentation.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

9 you, Jim.

10 Are there questions for Dr. Neton 

11 from the Board? We can ask some now. And we 

12 can also have some later after the other

13 presentations. Dr. Ziemer?

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Jim, could you 

15 remind me, had NIOSH proposed a coworker model 

16 for the internal prior to this most recent 

17 analysis of the --

18 DR. NETON: Yes. That was the 

19 so-called top 100 that I alluded to during my 

20 presentation. We took the top 100, the people 

21 with the top 100 external exposures, 

22 cumulative external exposures, and tried to 
318

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 correlate their bioassay results with --

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. That was my 

3 thought. So I was a little surprised that 

4 after obtaining over 100,000 actual bioassays, 

5 that your position somewhat reversed, maybe 

6 more than somewhat. So I am trying to 

7 understand this fully.

8 I think I recognize the issue of 

9 health physicists not necessarily being the 

10 highest because I think I have had enough 

11 practical experience to know that once you got 

12 the readings, you let people work and stood 

13 back and let time things and so on. So that 

14 is not so surprising.

15 However, to me it would be 

16 somewhat surprising if the population of 

17 bioassays somehow did not include the highest 

18 exposed workers. You would almost have to 

19 postulate that someone sat back and said, you 

20 know, "Let's do a bioassay program on the 

21 lowest exposed workers."

22 I know I am sort of being a little 
319

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 facetious here, but it seems to me pretty hard 

2 to say that that group of 125,000 did not 

3 include a sufficient representation that you 

4 couldn't, at least theoretically, develop a 

5 coworker model. Now, I'll just leave that 

6 hanging there for a minute because I want to 

7 add to that.

8 I believe, though, what you are 

9 also saying is that, even if that were true, 

10 it's not appropriately isotopically specific. 

11 Am I understanding this right that, yes, we 

12 have these samples, but there are a lot of key 

13 ones that aren't covered?

14 DR. NETON: That's art of it.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: And that would 

16 make a little more sense to me if that is the 

17 issue. I am trying to sort out why. In fact, 

18 well, let me make the third point. On the 

19 campaign-driven approach, I guess, although I 

20 agree that that is very different from sort of 

21 the routine chronic, it seems to me 

22 intuitively one could still develop an 
320

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 appropriate model that would be bounding, that 

2 it would be more complex, I'm sure.

3 DR. NETON: Yes.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Does that in your 

5 mind, the campaign-driven aspect, rule out in 

6 and of itself a coworker model?

7 DR. NETON: I think there are 

8 several things that you talked --

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. They're 

10 all kind of mingling in my mind.

11 DR. NETON: Yes.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm trying to sort 

13 out what is the sort of, which factors are the 

14 game-breaker here?

15 I mean, I think in principle, it 

16 seems to me in principle, you could do a 

17 coworker model, even in a campaign-driven 

18 thing, if you had the right nuclides sampled.

19 DR. NETON: I think that is a kind 

20 of deal breaker, the campaign-driven, the 

21 incident-driven approach that was used, aside 

22 from the fact that we don't have all of the 
321

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radionuclides that were covered. You could do 

2 some scaling --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Well, I'm 

4 thinking the lack of nuclides may be the deal 

5 breaker for me, but --

6 DR. NETON: That's one of them, 

7 but think about the scenario here where prior 

8 to 1993, the site was operating under what I 

9 would call an ICRP-2 type bioassay program.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

11 DR. NETON: That is based on 

12 making sure that workers were at less than the 

13 maximum permissible body burden, which all of 

14 the other sites that we dealt with have been 

15 as well.

16 The unique nature of the Nevada 

17 Test Site is that these were sort of 

18 incident/campaign-driven. So you could 

19 establish parameters and say, "Okay. I think 

20 all of these workers based on a few air 

21 samples I have taken are well below the MPBB. 

22 The maximum permissible body burden or the 
322

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 maximum permissible concentration of air is 

2 going to be such that they will not be 

3 overexposed."

4 Well, that, in and of itself, 

5 would not require you to take any bioassay 

6 samples. So here you have this ongoing sort 

7 of chronic exposures. And then it seems to us 

8 that the samples, a lot that we have, were 

9 taken almost on like an incident-type basis.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. You have 

11 multiple samples in a given day.

12 DR. NETON: Right.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: I understand that, 

14 yes. Yes.

15 DR. NETON: Right. And so, then, 

16 were all of the incidents captured?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

18 DR. NETON: You don't have sort of 

19 this routine baseline that you can rely on 

20 like we do at the sites that had these 

21 chronic-type exposure situations or very 

22 routine operations, where you have uranium 
323

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 samples every three months or six months and 

2 you can sort of put a cap on it?

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

4 DR. NETON: And so, then, on top 

5 of that, it's not just one type of operation. 

6 You have these drillbacks, these ventings 

7 that occurred. And some of the ventings were 

8 pretty robust. I mean, I think there are a 

9 million curies or something like that vented 

10 during this period of fission activation-type 

11 products, noble gases. I think all those 

12 factors together, the campaign-driven nature, 

13 the fact that we don't have the knowledge of 

14 the isotopic specifics, and the fact that the 

15 isotopic-specific composition changes as a 

16 function of time post-detonation.

17 So if you took a sample one week 

18 after a shot versus three weeks, you have a 

19 completely different mixture. One would argue 

20 that those are short half-lives and the 

21 exposures are not very large, but I'm not 

22 sure. It depends on how large. There could 
324

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 have been some substantial episodic exposures 

2 that occurred very closely in time.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could I ask one 

4 other? Also, there was an implication that 

5 the coworker model had to be job-specific. 

6 But we have had models that aren't 

7 job-specific. Is that really an issue? I 

8 mean, couldn't there be a -- I mean, suppose 

9 you had the highest exposed group. You 

10 wouldn't need to know what other people's jobs 

11 were if you --

12 DR. NETON: True, yes.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. So the 

14 issue of not --

15 DR. NETON: Well, except you have 

16 had some really disparate work activities here 

17 ongoing, very different than a plant 

18 environment. I mean, you have people that are 

19 exposed at reactor experiments that caught 

20 fire. There is one Class of workers. There 

21 are people who were involved in these 

22 drillbacks, another Class. There are 
325

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 tunnelers who are largely exposed to a lot of 

2 tritium.

3 So you have some fairly unique job 

4 categories out there exposed to fairly 

5 different source terms, I guess. I mean, so 

6 it's a little different than if you have a 

7 uranium product and you're generating uranium 

8 aerosol and you say, "Okay. I know that this 

9 worker at the rolling mill had the highest 

10 potential for airborne uranium," then we could 

11 cap the doses to the workers. But this one is 

12 a little different. It's also the --

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: So in your mind, 

14 it's more the combination of all of these 

15 factors that no single one is the deal breaker 

16 necessarily, but taken together, they're --

17 DR. NETON: Yes. I never really 

18 thought about one of them particularly being 

19 --

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I'm trying 

21 to in my mind eliminate some -- like I asked 

22 the question about the job thing. I mean, if 
326

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 you had a complete set of bioassay and you had 

2 sampled for the right nuclides, then would it 

3 matter?

4 DR. NETON: Yes. Yes. If we had 

5 all of the highest exposed workers monitored 

6 for all of the nuclides, then picking the 

7 highest value in the distribution would allow 

8 us to do some bounding, bounding calculations. 

9 But I'm not sure we can. I don't think we 

10 can do that here.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 

13 have, Board Members have, questions? David 

14 Richardson or Mike Gibson?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Why don't 

17 we move on to our next presentation? Arjun? 

18 Arjun Makhijani from SC&A will be presenting 

19 as soon as our technical person returns.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Actually, Dr. 

21 Ziemer, some of the specifics will come out, 

22 some of these slides.
327

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 After NIOSH issued their paper on 

2 November 25th, "Internal Dose Issues Analysis" 

3 -- it was a Type H paper -- the Working Group 

4 met and asked SC&A to review that paper. And 

5 so I am just going to focus on that review and 

6 not go over any other issues since there was 

7 only one question we were looking at.

8 As we mentioned, the objective was 

9 to review the conclusion that doses can't be 

10 constructed with sufficient accuracy, was it 

11 valid and robust. We had a couple of 

12 corollary objectives. We had two other 

13 reports that were issued and sent to the 

14 Working Group October 2008 and March 2009 in 

15 which we looked at NIOSH's Evaluation Report 

16 and suggested that there weren't enough data 

17 of quality enough to construct a coworker 

18 model for the members of the Class.

19 And so we wanted to see whether 

20 since there was a much larger data set, 

21 whether that data set confirmed our findings 

22 or changed them in some way or provided any 
328

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 new insights into dose reconstruction 

2 feasibility.

3 So we reviewed the electronic 

4 database by job type. The reason the job type 

5 thing is important since it came up is were 

6 the people who were monitored among the most 

7 exposed. And so you could construct a 

8 coworker model. That was a question that had 

9 come up in the October and March studies that 

10 we had done.

11 In those studies, we had looked at 

12 the 100 that had been selected, 100 workers 

13 selected by NIOSH for their coworker model. 

14 And we also had taken 20 workers at random 

15 from among the claimants in six different job 

16 types, which are listed there: RadSafe, 

17 laborers, miners, welders, wiremen, security.

18 And these job types were selected 

19 partly because some of them were monitored 

20 more frequently than others and partly from 

21 interviews as to which ones might have had 

22 exposure, significant exposure potential for 
329

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radionuclides internally. Then we also 

2 examined each one of NIOSH's four findings to 

3 see whether we agreed with them or not.

4 Okay. So, just to go over briefly 

5 our prior findings, we have kind of mushed 

6 them into a few bullets. There were a number 

7 of findings. So we found, as Jim has said, 

8 that the 100 workers were not sufficiently 

9 representative and could not be used for a 

10 coworker model, partly because of how they 

11 were selected. But then we have these other 

12 120 that we had selected at random in six job 

13 types.

14 What we found in that was that the 

15 RadSafe for plutonium, for instance, there was 

16 almost no monitoring except for RadSafe 

17 throughout the period.

18 Security workers were monitored 

19 but only after the 1980s. So for four job 

20 types, there was almost no plutonium bioassay. 

21 So once you split it up by job type, then you 

22 have to show that RadSafe were the most 
330

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 exposed and then how do you do that. In the 

2 initial -- there weren't enough data for 

3 plutonium to do that.

4 There were some data for tritium 

5 that indicated that RadSafe was not the most 

6 exposed job type, that miners were the most 

7 exposed job type. But they had almost no 

8 plutonium data.

9 So then we have also some concerns 

10 about the quality of plutonium and gamma 

11 bioassay data, not about the others. And 

12 specifically a lot of those concerns related 

13 to minimum detectable amounts. And very often 

14 positive results were reported in the bioassay 

15 data that were less than the minimum 

16 detectable amounts and became unclear how you 

17 interpret those positive results.

18 We also determined that it was 

19 important to examine data by period. And so 

20 the job of coworker model feasibility 

21 remained. That was the earlier set of 

22 findings.
331

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 So we compared the electronic 

2 database. And the electronic database did 

3 contain Social Security numbers, but, as Jim 

4 has said, did not contain job types. So we 

5 sorted the database to match.

6 And I have to say Bob Barton, our 

7 young nuclear engineer, did a lot of heavy 

8 lifting. He's not here, but he really had 

9 played a stalwart role in helping us do this 

10 analysis well and very rapidly. 

11 And so we sorted the database by 

12 Social Security number and matched it to the 

13 claimant database of NIOSH and extracted all 

14 of the claimants from the workers in the 

15 electronic database and then examined the same 

16 six job types so we could compare.

17 Now, there is an essential 

18 difference between the claimants in this data 

19 set and the claimants selected at random 

20 earlier because this data set consists only of 

21 workers who had some bioassay.

22 And, as Jim has told you, most 
332

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 workers, at least most claimants, did not have 

2 any bioassay. So it was not a directly 

3 comparable data set, but we found almost 

4 exactly the same patterns emerging in this 

5 data set.

6 RadSafe were the most monitored. 

7 Security workers have data in the 1980s and 

8 that you could not make comparisons of RadSafe 

9 with other job types because in many cases, 

10 there just wasn't enough data. In most cases, 

11 there was not enough data for most periods. 

12 And then the quality concerns seem to persist.

13 Now, this electronic database was 

14 not complete. We did a simple test to see 

15 whether all of the claimants that we had 

16 examined previously as having monitoring data 

17 in our earlier analyses were in this 

18 electronic database. And depending on the 

19 type of monitoring, a minority, but in one 

20 case a significant minority, was not in the 

21 database.

22 All right. So here this 
333

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 illustrates the importance of examining the 

2 data by period. And the blue diamonds are the 

3 1960s. And you can see it might have been 

4 some incidents in the 1980s that represent the 

5 top three points there, but most of the high 

6 readings are for the 1960s, even though the 

7 number of readings in the 1960s are the 

8 smallest number. As you can see by the 

9 frequency of points, most of the data are from 

10 the 1970s and 1980s.

11 All right. Now, there was a new 

12 finding here. Because we had a lot more data, 

13 we were able if we ignored periods, which you 

14 can't really do if you want to construct a 

15 coworker model, but if you ignored period, 

16 what kind of pattern emerged about relative 

17 exposure potential? And it turns out that no 

18 single job type emerges as having high 

19 exposure potential.

20 There are some indications, as Dr. 

21 Ziemer was saying, that RadSafe did not have 

22 the highest exposure potential. I will show 
334

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 you some.

2 So we did this for tritium. And 

3 you can see the right-most -- the curves would 

4 represent the groups with highest exposure 

5 potential. So here the right-most curve is 

6 for miners. And then you have, well, you 

7 know, different parts of the rank ordering.

8 You either have the laborers or 

9 the wiremen. And all of these people do 

10 pretty closeup work in contaminated areas. So 

11 you can see that the RadSafe workers, which 

12 are the pink or magenta, had lower exposure 

13 potential than most.

14 But this doesn't really represent 

15 exposure potential as you would represent it 

16 in a coworker model because period is missing. 

17 And you can do this comparison only because 

18 this is an indicative thing and not a 

19 definitive conclusion. This is the same --

20 MEMBER POSTON: What unit is this?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: You know, these 

22 are the kinds of units that appear. They are 
335

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 microcuries per cc. They've been written as 

2 MI per cc because that is how they appear in 

3 the original data. And there is some 

4 discussion about units and the odd ways of 

5 writing the units in the NTS bioassay data 

6 presented some difficulties in analysis, but 

7 we have written the original notations down in 

8 the graphs.

9 MEMBER POSTON: So that is 

10 microcuries?

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

12 MEMBER POSTON: Okay.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: And you have the 

14 full report, Dr. Poston. And there is some 

15 discussion of that, of the unit question, in 

16 the report.

17 So this is the same, the gamma 

18 bioassay results. And you can see here that 

19 except for security workers, RadSafe actually 

20 have generally lower results for given rank 

21 order than all four other job types.

22 You get the same for gross beta, 
336

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 not quite the same but approximately. And 

2 then you also see if I go back, in tritium, 

3 you see miners having the higher results.

4 With gamma, you see welders and 

5 laborers having the higher results. With 

6 gross beta, you see -- what are the brown? 

7 You see miners having the higher results. So 

8 there is no single job type that emerges as 

9 indicating the highest exposure potential so 

10 you could go there. Even if you did, these 

11 job types had no plutonium data from among 

12 these four types of bioassay where there were 

13 the most monitoring data.

14 All right. So the conclusions 

15 from our review of this extensive database 

16 were that it's essentially the same. We had 

17 actually a very large sample that we analyzed 

18 before.

19 We analyzed 220 claimants out of 

20 1,400 and odd that I don't remember the number 

21 that Dr. Neton talked about but a very large 

22 sample from among the claimants in NIOSH's 
337

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 database.

2 In fact, we felt so strongly that 

3 we did not think that analysis of further data 

4 would yield any different conclusions, that 

5 the pattern that emerged with the electronic 

6 database did not fill in the gaps that we had 

7 discovered previously.

8 Then we examined the four findings 

9 of NIOSH, that not sufficient documented 

10 evidence about the rationale. And we agreed 

11 that there were several job types that had 

12 exposure potential. And that data were very 

13 sparse for most job types in most periods 

14 except for the RadSafe job type. And, as I 

15 have mentioned, the partial exception to that 

16 was security workers in the 1980s.

17 The data do not support a 

18 conclusion that monitoring was driven by 

19 exposure potential. That is also an 

20 indicative conclusion because if it's 

21 campaign-driven, you can't really determine 

22 that very easily.
338

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Then the second finding was the 

2 thing that came up about fission products and 

3 the timing. There is actually a long section 

4 in the report written by Rich Leggett.

5 I had promised Dr. Roessler during 

6 the Working Group meeting that Rich Leggett's 

7 views would be consulted on this question. 

8 And there is actually a long section that he 

9 drafted that is in the report on this 

10 particular question.

11 And there, you know, Dr. Leggett 

12 noted that if you knew the timing of the 

13 exposure and the timing of the analysis of the 

14 sample, you could probably tell a lot.

15 But in this case, there were so 

16 many short-lived radionuclides. And there is 

17 an example given where even if you had a 

18 bioassay for iodine, where you did not know 

19 the time of analysis, that you could easily be 

20 off by an order of magnitude depending on what 

21 isotope you assumed it was due to.

22 In that case, it actually was not. 
339

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Most of the exposure appeared to be due to 

2 I-133, not I-131, which mostly people look 

3 for. So under other circumstances, gross beta 

4 data could be more useful than here.

5 Then as part of that same finding, 

6 there was also a question about insufficiency 

7 of uranium data. And the number of workers 

8 monitored for plutonium would be small.

9 And so the plutonium source term 

10 actually and exposure potential turn out to be 

11 significant. And the data for most job types 

12 are just not available.

13 Dr. Ziemer raised this question 

14 earlier. And the bottom line there is because 

15 plutonium data are concentrated with a RadSafe 

16 job type and they don't appear to have -- you 

17 can't establish that they have the highest 

18 exposure potential. So you cannot actually 

19 construct a coworker model based on the 

20 available data, even though in some there are 

21 quite a lot of bioassay samples.

22 Then this question about 
340

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 shorter-term campaign-driven activities. And, 

2 actually, Harry Chmelynski did this 

3 statistical analysis to try to determine 

4 whether there was routine sampling or episodic 

5 sampling or some mixture.

6 And here is gamma bioassay data by 

7 job type, no periods here, with normal scores. 

8 And routine sampling would be indicated by a 

9 straight line more or less around points 

10 clustered around a straight line with a 

11 log-normal distribution, but you can see all 

12 of these lines are pretty wiggly. And they're 

13 not indicated. They don't indicate a routine 

14 sampling.

15 There is some evidence that some 

16 workers may have been sampled routinely at 

17 some points, but mostly it does not appear to 

18 be routine sampling.

19 Then there was a question of what 

20 about the other radionuclide? We have talked 

21 about the four types of bioassay sampling. 

22 Actually, the revision of the Site Profile, I 
341

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 think the site description, the latest 

2 revision has a table showing how many 

3 different kinds of radionuclides there were 

4 because of the many different job types, the 

5 testing, the reactor testing, the waste 

6 handling, the laboratory work.

7 And many radionuclides have no 

8 data that we could discover, like thorium or 

9 radium. Iodines have almost no data. 

10 Americium have no or almost no data. Now, I 

11 cannot remember whether there were a few data 

12 points.

13 And then in our earlier reports, 

14 we had actually reported some iodine-131, 133, 

15 and 135 data, but there were very, very few 

16 data points, even among all 220 workers. And 

17 in the electronic database, we found none.

18 So the overall conclusion of NIOSH 

19 has just been reported. I won't repeat it. 

20 We concurred with this conclusion. We also 

21 examined each of the four points to see 

22 whether every one of them was important and 
342

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 valid. And because we agreed with all four of 

2 them, we concluded that NIOSH's finding was 

3 also robust.

4 We did not look at the period 

5 beyond 1993 where NIOSH said in their paper 

6 that they can do dose reconstruction. Our 

7 mandate was to look at the SEC period.

8 We did look a little bit at this 

9 period, October, November, December 1992, to 

10 see whether there was any dramatic change in 

11 monitoring patterns or anything like that. 

12 And there is a short description of that in 

13 the full report.

14 And we found generally that the 

15 frequency of monitoring went down a little 

16 bit, but there were no significant changes. 

17 And so we agreed that since activities go on, 

18 that it was reasonable to extend the period by 

19 three months. We also felt that partial dose 

20 reconstruction can be done with some 

21 appropriate cautions.

22 This was our team. I managed the 
343

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 task. And Joyce Lipsztein and Rich Leggett 

2 were the internal dosimetry, and Harry 

3 Chmelynski did the statistics. Bob Barton and 

4 Lynn Anspaugh, John Mauro were reviewers and 

5 John Mauro, of course, the project manager and 

6 signed off on the report.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Very good. 

8 Thank you, Arjun.

9 Do we, any Board Members, have 

10 questions for Arjun? Dr. Ziemer?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Sorry to 

12 monopolize this. Arjun, I want to look on 

13 slide 12 where you are responding to NIOSH 

14 finding 1. The statement is, "The data do not 

15 support a conclusion that monitoring was 

16 driven by exposure potential." I would like 

17 to ask if you could comment on the reverse. 

18 Do the data support a conclusion that the 

19 monitoring was not driven by exposure 

20 potential?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: No. I mean, we 

22 discussed this question some, Dr. Ziemer. And 
344

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 we don't have any conclusion as to what other 

2 than it seemed to be --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: I wanted to make 

4 that clear. It doesn't support it either way.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Either way.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I believe, if 

8 I remember correctly, Mr. Roessler, there was 

9 some discussion of this during the Working 

10 Group meeting and admittedly speculative that 

11 perhaps security workers and RadSafe were 

12 monitored because they were available more 

13 routinely, more easily.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: I just think it is 

15 important on the record that you are not 

16 stating that it wasn't, --

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, no. We're not 

18 stating --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- only that you 

20 can't support that it was.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. We're not --

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think both sides 
345

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 of that are important.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree with that. 

3 We're not stating, as you asked earlier, Jim 

4 Neton, that was there, some kind of selective 

5 are we going to bias our results by selecting 

6 the lowest exposure potential? No, no. We're 

7 not saying that.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.

9 One other thing. And I just want 

10 to clarify. I'm looking at slide 16, which is 

11 the episodic bioassay sampling. It's one of a 

12 number of similar curves.

13 Can you tell me whether those 

14 curves are simply the points or did you fit --

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no. There is 

16 no fitting.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: No fitting?

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: No.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Because I 

20 was going to mention that I could probably fit 

21 a straight line to those data points, just for 

22 the record because you said they don't fit a 
346

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 straight line. You haven't fit anything to 

2 them.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I can fit a 

5 straight line to most data points.

6 (Laughter.)

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I was going 

8 to say that you can run a straight line 

9 through any number of data points.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, sure. 

11 Right.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: The question is --

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: And then the 

14 argument is, which kind of curve fits better 

15 in terms of the departure from the points? 

16 You haven't fit anything here.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: No. We didn't 

18 feel it was necessary.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. I just want 

20 for the record the statement that this doesn't 

21 fit a straight line. You have not examined 

22 that --
347

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, we didn't 

2 think --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- or have you?

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Whether something 

5 fits a straight line or not, you know, there's 

6 a continuum as to whether it's a straight line 

7 or not. You have to examine the x minus x 

8 bar2 as the --

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Exactly.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- as the figure 

11 of merit.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: And, looking at 

14 this, it didn't seem necessary to do that 

15 because you're going to have a high x minus x 

16 bar2.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: I've seen a lot of 

18 graduate theses that have bigger scatter than 

19 this that fits a straight line. 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would like to 

21 hope that this is somewhat beyond a graduate 

22 thesis.
348

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Not at Purdue, of 

2 course.

3 (Laughter.)

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: But at Texas A&M, 

5 this is a good straight line. I can't help 

6 putting those things in.

7 But my point remains that this is 

8 --

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't --

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: It's just as you 

11 visualize it, that is what it is.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's not in the 

13 report. Now, Harry, are you on the line?

14 (No response.)

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: No. I had not 

16 actually thought Harry would be on the line. 

17 I didn't anticipate this particular question. 

18 Now, Harry may have --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. I just want 

20 to make sure that we're not saying more than 

21 the data say.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I actually 
349

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 reported a conversation I had with Harry about 

2 this. I can't represent that Harry did not do 

3 all of that fitting before he had that 

4 conversation with me. It's just that it's not 

5 in our report --

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- for the record.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, Dr. Poston, 

9 you get equal time at the appropriate --

10 (Laughter.)

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- to talk about 

12 your graduate students.

13 Bill?

14 MEMBER FIELD: One question I have 

15 is it's hard to tell by some of these plots. 

16 But if you would say, is this a true statement 

17 that the variation between groups is lesser or 

18 greater than within?

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: The variation 

20 between groups?

21 MEMBER FIELD: Between or within 

22 variation. Are you seeing greater variation 
350

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 within the different groups or between them? 

2 In other words, like if you did a regression, 

3 would these be significantly different?

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, we can look 

5 at some of these data. You know, I would say 

6 the variation within groups except for 

7 security workers who were only monitored in 

8 the '80s tended to have low results.

9 So we have no -- in many cases, we 

10 have no data for most periods. So we can't 

11 really say. But if you put it all together 

12 like this in this rank ordering, you would see 

13 that the variation within the group would 

14 appear to be bigger because they have results 

15 that are all over the map.

16 However, the most important defect 

17 of all of these graphs, which are indicative, 

18 is that they are not parsed by period because 

19 we really don't have enough data --

20 MEMBER FIELD: I understand. I 

21 understand.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- to make those 
351

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 statements.

2 MEMBER FIELD: No. I guess my 

3 point was if you would select a surrogate 

4 data, within that one group, there would be 

5 such a large range that it would be hard to 

6 differentiate between different groups. It 

7 would overwhelm it in some ways, the 

8 variation.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. I mean, 

10 normally you're trying to find some group of 

11 workers that is representative, as Dr. Neton 

12 said, of those with the higher exposure 

13 potential. So then if you choose a median or 

14 95th percentile value, you are reasonably 

15 confident that you are going to be bounding 

16 dose.

17 But in this case, you just don't 

18 have the information to be able to do that. 

19 And whatever information there is indicates 

20 that these data are really, even though there 

21 are lots of data points, they are quite 

22 insufficient to the task.
352

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David Richardson 

2 or Mike Gibson, do you have questions for 

3 Arjun?

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

6 you.

7 Okay, Arjun. Robert Presley, who 

8 was Chair of the Work Group on the Nevada Test 

9 Site, will now present.

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: If there are no 

11 more questions, I presume everybody is ready 

12 to vote.

13 (Laughter.)

14 MEMBER PRESLEY: All right. I 

15 wanted to see if everybody was awake or not.

16 I would like to thank SC&A, John 

17 Mauro, Arjun for the work that they have done 

18 on this. As you will see when we get into 

19 this, we have been going for approximately 

20 four years.

21 This is probably one of the first 

22 SEC petitions that a Working Group was started 
353

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 on. Mark Rolfes was the NIOSH lead. And, of 

2 course, we had members, myself as Chair, Brad, 

3 Wanda, Gen, and Phil, working on this.

4 The program started out in 

5 February 2004. It was approved by, the NTS 

6 Site Profile was released by NIOSH. December 

7 of '05, SC&A issued their first draft review 

8 of the NIOSH NTS Site Profile. And in the 

9 Spring of 2006, a Working Group was formed to 

10 review the Site Profile for accuracy and 

11 authenticity. SC&A was tasked with reviewing 

12 the NTS Site Profile and its findings to the 

13 NTS Working Group.

14 Over the years, we have been 

15 criticized for taking so long and not having 

16 enough meetings. This, like I said, is 

17 probably one of the largest undertakings that 

18 any Working Group has done.

19 Also I would like to state, as you 

20 will see, this Working Group has had 15 

21 meetings in the last four, about three and a 

22 half years, to try to get this thing to come 
354

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to a close.

2 The tasks for the Working Group 

3 that the Working Group may recommend to the 

4 Board are NIOSH changes to the Site Profile as 

5 it finds appropriate. The Working Group 

6 should review Evaluation Reports for related 

7 SEC petitions and develop recommendations to 

8 the Board on adding Classes to the SEC.

9 Under "Site Profile Review," SC&A 

10 issued a report with 25 findings on the NIOSH 

11 NTS Site Profile in December of 2007. Some of 

12 the findings were determined to be 

13 appropriate. Changes were made to the 

14 Technical Basis Document. And you will see 

15 resulting information.

16 Other findings required 

17 significant resolution of differing techniques 

18 and positions between NIOSH and SC&A. The NTS 

19 Site Profile was updated to provide 

20 clarification for the use of the technical 

21 information bulletins.

22 The Working Group reviewed. Some 
355

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 findings were found to be appropriate to other 

2 sites. These were passed on to the NIOSH and 

3 the Board with the recommendations that a 

4 Working Group be appointed to look into these 

5 findings as a multiple-site issue.

6 Here is the history I was talking 

7 about. I'm not going to read these off. 

8 We've had a tremendous amount of work time on 

9 this. There's been a tremendous amount of 

10 discussion or reading to get to where we are 

11 today.

12 Topics that were reviewed and 

13 discussed: environmental internal dose 

14 reconstruction methodology, radiation 

15 monitoring practices, external coworker dose 

16 data, external exposure geometries, 

17 neutron/photon ratios, time-dependent 

18 beta/gamma ratios, internal coworker dose 

19 data, radon exposures, and an infamous site 

20 Area 51.

21 Major issues complex-wide. We had 

22 dose reconstruction that covered significant 
356

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radionuclides; hot particles, internal and 

2 external; oronasal breathing and ingestion; 

3 dosimetry limitations/reliability; missed 

4 dose; extremity monitoring; badging geometry; 

5 assumptions for unmonitored workers; and 

6 high-fired plutonium.

7 The history of the NTS Working 

8 Group. On December the 19th, 2007, the NTS 

9 Working Group reviewed all 25 of SC&A's 

10 findings. NIOSH worked to resolve each 

11 finding and update the Site Profile as 

12 appropriate.

13 January 2008, the NTS Working 

14 Group was tasked by the Board to review the 

15 NIOSH Special Exposure Cohort Petition 

16 Evaluation Report, NTS SEC-0084.

17 January 7th, 2008, the Working 

18 Group reviewed and discussed open comments 

19 concerning factors for external doses due to 

20 geometry of organs related to the location of 

21 film badges, and internal nonuse of film 

22 badges. Issue is resolved and NIOSH's update 
357

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 on the Site Profile. 

2 As part of the SEC discussion, 

3 NIOSH presented an extensive analysis of 

4 worker affidavits, re-entry data, access logs, 

5 external dosimetry records, and pocket 

6 ionization chambers and data.

7 April the 23rd, 2009, the status 

8 of the three most recent issues were 

9 discussed: removal of dosimetry badges. This 

10 was found to be an SEC issue. NIOSH and the 

11 Working Group considered this issue closed in 

12 the NTS Site Profile and the SEC analysis.

13 Environmental intake model was 

14 deemed to be a Site Profile issue. NIOSH 

15 proposed a combination of air monitoring data 

16 with a resuspension model for assigning 

17 internal dose to workers inside radiological 

18 areas and outside controlled areas.

19 Number third was coworker internal 

20 dose model. That was also deemed an SEC 

21 issue. NIOSH proposed using bioassay data 

22 from the 100 highest externally exposed NTS 
358

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 claimants to bound unmonitored workers for 

2 internal dose. And this is where we started 

3 another direction.

4 Under the history, the 

5 discussions, the top 100 coworker models, in 

6 the SEC-0084 Evaluation Report, NIOSH proposed 

7 using bioassay data from the 100 highest 

8 externally exposed NTS workers to bound

9 unmonitored workers' internal dose, 

10 discussions by NIOSH, SC&A, and NTS workers on 

11 who would be in the most-exposed groups, a lot 

12 of discussion.

13 NIOSH agreed to request additional 

14 bioassay data from DOE for a more defensible 

15 coworker intake model. We had six Site 

16 Profile or Technical Basis Documents that came 

17 to light. There they are. They went 

18 everywhere from an introduction site 

19 description, medical X-ray dose, environmental 

20 dose, internal dose, and external dose.

21 When you look at what took so 

22 long, Jim, what has this got? Six hundred? 
359

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 The six documents were 600 pages, something 

2 like that, a tremendous amount of paperwork to 

3 go through and keep up.

4 April the 10th, 2006, NIOSH issued 

5 an 83.14 SEC Evaluation Report. And, of 

6 course, as everybody knows, this was voted on 

7 and accepted. And the Class was added July 

8 26, 2006.

9 On petition 0084, NTS covers, the 

10 new petition covers, January the 1st, 1963 

11 through September the 30th, 1992. On 

12 September the 25th, 2007, NIOSH Evaluation 

13 Report determined that significant information 

14 is available to allow dose reconstructions to 

15 be completed with sufficient accuracy. At 

16 this point in time, we thought okay. 

17 Everything is good.

18 But on April the 13th, 2009 at the 

19 Working Group meeting, NIOSH informed the 

20 Working Group that they had found four new 

21 databases that had somewhere in the 

22 neighborhood of over 100,000 bioassay records 
360

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 for NTS workers. The Working Group tasked 

2 NIOSH with reviewing its data to see if it 

3 would change the NIOSH, their present position 

4 on 83.14.

5 NIOSH reviewed the new bioassay 

6 data. They published their findings on 

7 November the 25th, 2009. NIOSH reported its 

8 new position on the SEC-14 to the NTS Working 

9 Group at our last meeting, on December the 

10 15th, 2009.

11 And NIOSH reported to the NTS 

12 Working Group that upon completion of the 

13 review, there were data gaps and concerns 

14 associated with the internal monitoring data 

15 from the NTS Site between 1963 through 1992. 

16 Based on the new information and 

17 the NIOSH review, NIOSH has identified a need 

18 to modify its original position on the 

19 SEC-0084-NTS Evaluation Report.

20 And upon review of the data and 

21 the NIOSH report and our help with SC&A, on 

22 November the 25th, 2009, the NTS Working Group 
361

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 has voted to recommend the acceptance of 

2 petition SEC-0084.14 from January the 1st, 

3 1963 to December the 31st, 1992.

4 Have you got any questions?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad 

7 Clawson with the Work Group. When you were 

8 thanking the people, I guess one of the things 

9 I wanted to bring up, too, is a thanks to John 

10 Funk. John tirelessly brought an awful lot of 

11 information to both the Working Group, NIOSH, 

12 and SC&A. It was amazing with what came up.

13 I just wanted to take the 

14 opportunity to tell him how much we appreciate 

15 it. And I'm sure that the Nevada Test Site 

16 people thank him, too.

17 MEMBER PRESLEY: Thank you, Brad.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

19 questions for Bob?

20 (No response.)

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No? We also 

22 should hear from the petitioners. I believe 
362

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 they're on the line.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: John is.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I know John is.

4 MR. FUNK: I will wait until last.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You will go 

6 last?

7 MR. FUNK: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Ms. Glenn?

9 MR. STEDNICK: I am Paul Stednick. 

10 I was one of the petition people on the 

11 Special Exposure Cohort with Senator Reid's 

12 people. There are a lot of those things that 

13 I didn't understand was going on.

14 I am no chemist in that, but I 

15 worked in, a lot of people worked in, 

16 drilling. And that is where we did all the 

17 post-shot work. And to talk to these people 

18 who make these statements is unbelievable what 

19 you get from them, how film badges was throwed 

20 away and different other situations, which we 

21 have all brought up.

22 I believe that these people that 
363

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 worked out at the Test Site that have come up 

2 with the cancers and that should be 

3 compensated for it.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

5 you.

6 Who else is there that wishes to 

7 speak?

8 MS. GLENN: My name is Raili 

9 Glenn. I am also a petitioner.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Do you 

11 have comments?

12 MS. GLENN: Yes. Yes. My name is 

13 Raili Glenn. My husband is David Glenn. 

14 After he graduated with honors from Washington 

15 State University, David got a job at Lawrence 

16 Livermore National Lab to do experiment and 

17 theoretical studies.

18 He often traveled to NTS Test 

19 Site. He was stationed at the Test Site for 

20 weeks at a time depending on the particular 

21 task.

22 David was charged with many 
364

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 nuclear tests at NTS. David also worked in 

2 tunnels that were damp with water seeping in. 

3 He would have to get on his hands and knees 

4 to install diagnostic equipment, often way 

5 back in the tunnel. There he would have to 

6 install his instruments and remove them after 

7 the job was over and take the readings on the 

8 cages. 

9 David dedicated his whole life to 

10 work on U.S.A. government research to keep the 

11 country safe from other superpowers, basically 

12 in time of Cold War. Our nation's space 

13 program would not be up in scale like it is 

14 today if we didn't choose the nuclear testing. 

15 They also benefit from that.

16 David's work in NTS' most 

17 contaminated areas, like Yucca Valley, Rainier 

18 Mesa, Areas 12, 16, and 20, no protective 

19 clothing was ever worn. And he often got only 

20 three hours of sleep at night. And he was on 

21 a monthly salary. And there was not overtime 

22 pay. If you count the late hours he spent at 
365

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the work, he ended up working minimum wages.

2 David had written publications on 

3 the plant area and after that, and initially 

4 was shut down to the Nevada Test Site and cut 

5 testing in half. Six thousand curies of 

6 radioactive material were suspended in 

7 atmosphere. The radionuclide included 

8 diffusion products associated with the 

9 detonation device.

10 David did dynamic flow studies, 

11 which were conducted over a wide range of high 

12 energy type flows. The project was 500 

13 pipings of marble was used close to nuclear 

14 events that exposure potentially for an 

15 exposure in an area previously tests that has 

16 been done.

17 David also had a health physics 

18 degree. He was there. There was a danger of 

19 getting too much radiation contamination. He 

20 loved his job. He loved his country, just 

21 like a soldier getting into war and they know 

22 there is a danger. But they also know that if 
366

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 they get into it, the government will pay the 

2 medical and if they die, their families get 

3 some benefits.

4 David had to pay all of his 

5 medical expenses, which totaled $167,272. 

6 Common sense tells me, how can a person be 

7 working 25 years in that kind of 

8 hours/environment not to get contaminated?

9 At age 58, David was diagnosed 

10 with cancer, polycythemia vera and 

11 thrombocytosis. Polycythemia vera is a 

12 pre-leukemia progressive bone marrow disease. 

13 It is the same diagnostic rubric used by NCI, 

14 DOL, and EEIOCPA as leukemia. His cancer 

15 turned to leukemia.

16 It was a long time to be on 

17 chemotherapy. It was hard for him and his 

18 family. He had to take every day 

19 chemotherapy, hydroxyurea, and also three 

20 times a week in sections.

21 That is not the way to spend your 

22 retirement, what's supposed to be your golden 
367

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 years. David was suffering damages also, 

2 radiative contamination.

3 David's illness did not only harm 

4 David but also his family. I had to quit 

5 working to take care of him and take him to 

6 medical treatments and doctors appointments, 

7 which happened several times a week. It had a 

8 big impact in my life: financially, 

9 physically, mentally, and emotionally. At 

10 least I did not have to testify this to you. 

11 But, unfortunately, this is not a case because 

12 he is not here anymore.

13 I thank you for listening. And I 

14 hope that you are looking quickly at my case 

15 and bringing this case to a closure.

16 Do you have any questions?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, but thank 

18 you very much.

19 Other petitioners? I don't have 

20 the list here. Mr. Funk?

21 MS. CLAYTON: This is Dorothy 

22 Clayton.
368

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

2 MS. CLAYTON: Yes. I just want to 

3 thank the Working Group for all the hard work 

4 that they did. I just appreciate the SEC for 

5 the widows that have been waiting a long time 

6 for this. And also I would like to thank the 

7 SC&A group. They did a wonderful job, too. 

8 Thank you very much.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

10 MS. CHRISTIANSON: Hello, sir?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes? Go ahead.

12 MS. CHRISTIANSON: All right. 

13 Yes. My name is Kathy Christianson. I am an 

14 authorized representative for a widow for her 

15 husband who worked at Nevada Test Site. And 

16 I, too, would like to thank you.

17 We filed a claim in '02 and have 

18 been waiting for this time to come. I do 

19 thank you all for reviewing what you did and 

20 for all the inaccuracies that were always very 

21 disturbing and hard to explain in all of our 

22 petitions and findings of facts and denials 
369

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 and appeals and on and on.

2 So we have been watching the whole 

3 thing as it has fallen down. And we do 

4 appreciate you reconsidering the decision and 

5 to acknowledge these people. We're all around 

6 that stuff all the time. And I would like to 

7 thank you for that.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

9 you.

10 Anybody else from the petitioner 

11 group?

12 MR. FUNK: This is John Funk.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes?

14 MR. FUNK: I would like to thank 

15 the Board and all the working boards, 

16 especially the working board, especially Brad, 

17 and also like to thank Dorothy Clayton, too, 

18 because she was very instrumental in a lot of 

19 this stuff coming out in the open.

20 So thank you, Dorothy. And thanks 

21 to all the Board Members for all the hard work 

22 you did. And that's about all I've got to say 
370

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 now.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

3 MR. FUNK: Thank you.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Mr. 

5 Funk.

6 I believe Sabrina Badger from 

7 Senator Reid's office is on the line. There 

8 is a letter from Senator Reid that has been 

9 sent to the Board. We all have it. We were 

10 given it. It's under the material we provided 

11 the beginning of the meeting under 

12 "Miscellaneous." It's the third file from the 

13 bottom.

14 MS. ROZNER: Hi. Actually, this 

15 is Kathy Rozner with Senator Reid's office. I 

16 suffer with bronchitis. So Sabrina will be 

17 reading the letter.

18 But I just wanted to also say that 

19 Senator Reid wanted to thank Dr. Ziemer for 

20 his years of dedicated service as the Board's 

21 Chair and also to congratulate Dr. Melius on 

22 his new position. We look forward to working 
371

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 with both of you.

2 And, with that, I will turn it 

3 over to Sabrina.

4 MS. BADGER: Hi. Thank you. 

5 Okay. Here's the statement from Senator Reid. 

6 Thank you, Chairman Melius and distinguished 

7 members of the Advisory Board for the 

8 opportunity to make this statement.

9 As someone who helped write the 

10 authorizing legislation for the Energy 

11 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 

12 Program Act, EEOICPA, I know that this program 

13 is not working for our Cold War veterans as 

14 Congress intended.

15 Today I urge you to grant those 

16 who worked at the Nevada Test Site, NTS, from 

17 January 1st, 1963 to December 31st, 1992 

18 membership in the Special Exposure Cohort, 

19 SEC. NTS workers cannot and will not receive

20 the timely, fair, and adequate compensations 

21 and medical benefits they deserve unless they 

22 are granted SEC status.
372

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 As you know, I helped several NTS 

2 workers and survivors submit an SEC petition 

3 to the National Institute for Occupational 

4 Safety and Health, NIOSH, three years ago. 

5 And I supported and monitored the progress of 

6 the petitions since then.

7 I was happy to see real progress 

8 being made in the last year to address the 

9 scientific merits of the NTS SEC petitions. 

10 And I commend Sanford Cohen & Associates, 

11 NIOSH, and the NTS Working Group for the work 

12 they have done to research and consider the 

13 technical and scientific concerns related to 

14 NIOSH's original denial of the petition.

15 At their December 15th, 2009 

16 meeting, the NTS Work Group voted unanimously 

17 to accept as their own recommendation NIOSH's 

18 revised position paper recommending that NTS 

19 workers employed during the underground 

20 testing years be added to the SEC.

21 As you know, NIOSH's revised 

22 position paper finds that the internal 
373

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 radiation dose received by employees at the 

2 Nevada Test Site from January 1st, 1963 

3 through December 31st, 1993 cannot be 

4 estimated. Therefore, these workers fully 

5 deserve to be granted SEC status.

6 I appreciate your addressing an 

7 issue that is so critical to Nevada's Cold War 

8 veterans and their families. And I ask that 

9 the Board accept the NTS Work Group's 

10 recommendation, which is supported by NIOSH 

11 and the Board's independent contractor, 

12 Sanford Cohen & Associates, SC&A, as soon as 

13 possible.

14 Further delay in voting to add NTS 

15 workers employed during the underground 

16 testing years would be a betrayal to these men 

17 and women, who clearly deserve this 

18 compensation.

19 While the addition of those who 

20 worked at NTS during the underground testing 

21 years to the SEC will be a tremendous step 

22 towards ensuring Nevada's Cold War veterans 
374

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 are given the recognition and compensation 

2 they deserve, there are several issues I would 

3 ask the Board to address after you have voted 

4 on those recommendations.

5 Following your vote, I ask that 

6 the Board begin to deliberate the scientific 

7 merits of adding to the SEC certain other 

8 workers who do not fall into the SEC 

9 categories for either the atmospheric or 

10 underground testing years.

11 Specifically, I ask that the Board 

12 examine the 250-day rule and the addition of 

13 cancers, such as, but not limited to, basal 

14 cell carcinoma and chronic lymphocytic 

15 leukemia, CLL.

16 Again, I ask that the Board 

17 address these issues after granting NTS 

18 workers employed during the underground 

19 testing years membership in the SEC.

20 Ten years ago Congress passed 

21 EEOICPA in order to help our Cold War veterans 

22 avoid years of waiting and bureaucratic 
375

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 nightmares so that they may receive the 

2 compensation they deserve.

3 Unfortunately, this has not always 

4 been the case for many NTS workers, some of 

5 whom died while unnecessary bureaucratic 

6 delays kept their claims from being approved.

7 I would like to thank you for all 

8 the work you have done for EEOICPA claimants 

9 over the years. And I certainly hope you will 

10 carefully consider and vote to add workers 

11 employed at the NTS during the underground 

12 testing years as members of the SEC, as both 

13 the science and patriotic duty demand.

14 Thank you.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

16 Okay. Any further questions of 

17 Mr. Presley, Mr. Neton, SC&A, Arjun before we 

18 --

19 (No response.)

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If not, do I 

21 hear a motion?

22 MEMBER PRESLEY: So moved.
376

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Second.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Second from 

3 Phil. If not any further discussion, Ted, do 

4 you want to call the vote? The motion is from 

5 Mr. Presley.

6 MS. HOWELL: Would you please 

7 state for the record what the motion actually 

8 is?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think the 

10 motion would be, in fact, to accept the NIOSH 

11 proposed Class for the SEC, which is all 

12 employees of the Department of Energy, its 

13 predecessor agency, and its contractors and 

14 subcontractors who worked at the Nevada Test 

15 Site from January 1st, 1963 through December 

16 31st, 1992 for a number of workdays, 

17 aggregating at least 250 workdays, occurring 

18 solely under this employment or in combination 

19 with workdays within the parameters 

20 established for one or more other Classes in 

21 the SEC.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay. So I am going to 
377

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 run this alphabetically. Dr. Anderson?

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

4 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

8 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson?

10 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon?

12 (No response.)

13 MR. KATZ: Oh, wait. I'm sorry. 

14 Mr. Griffon is recused. Excuse me.

15 Dr. Lemen?

16 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

20 MEMBER MUNN: Although I believe 

21 that the science is adequate to do the 

22 required dose reconstruction, I will vote yes.
378

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston?

2 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley?

4 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson?

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer?

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: That is unanimous, 15 

14 in favor, 1 Board Member recused. In favor.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

16 you.

17 And I would just add that in 

18 response to --

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: Ted, I will say 

20 yes, too.

21 MR. KATZ: Oh, how did I do that? 

22 I'm sorry. Dr. Lockey, I don't know how I 
379

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 missed you. But Dr. Lockey says yes.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We recorded your 

3 vote anyway.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MR. KATZ: I don't know how I did 

6 that. Sorry.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: I just wanted to 

8 make sure he knew I was here.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just add 

10 in regard to some of the issues mentioned in 

11 Senator Reid's letter -- and we will respond 

12 formally to it, but the 250-day issue, as I 

13 will report tomorrow from -- we had a meeting 

14 of that Work Group on Friday and are making 

15 progress.

16 We will have another Work Group. 

17 I hope to be able to report back on that and 

18 hopefully with some recommendations to the 

19 Board at our next meeting in May. And that 

20 includes consideration of the Nevada Test Site 

21 along with some other sites.

22 And I believe, as we heard from 
380

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Dr. Neton earlier from NIOSH, NIOSH is making 

2 progress and is about to go forward on the 

3 chronic lymphocytic leukemia issue, pending 

4 some further I guess review within the 

5 Department and so forth. We expect that to go 

6 forward.

7 And I believe at our last meeting, 

8 actually, we talked about the basal cell 

9 carcinoma issue also. And I believe that is 

10 also something moving forward. So I think we 

11 can respond affirmatively to all of those. 

12 And we will be following up.

13 With that, we will take a short 

14 break. Then 6:00 o'clock we have public 

15 comment period.

16 I do want to relieve Dr. Lockey of 

17 some of his worries here. I have actually 

18 done -- I think we have four letters that we 

19 need to approve regarding that. I have 

20 already completed three of them since I 

21 actually found the old one on the computer. 

22 And I'll take care of the other one, too.
381

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MEMBER LOCKEY: I would say Dr. 

2 Lockey is appreciative of that.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And with 

4 that, we'll break for 15 minutes or so and 

5 start again at 6:00 o'clock.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

7 matter went off the record at 5:46 p.m. and 

8 resumed at 6:04 p.m.)

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If we will get 

10 seated, we will get started. We have a public 

11 comment session. Just to remind you, tomorrow 

12 we have a number of Work Group reports to go 

13 over, including one from our Worker Outreach 

14 Group.

15 And there were some documents that 

16 were sent to you, you have also been provided 

17 here at the meeting that we will be going over 

18 tomorrow. And they include some 

19 recommendations and options for further 

20 follow-up that we would like to try to address 

21 and reach some agreement on tomorrow.

22 So pay attention to those and be 
382

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 ready to deal with them, I guess, along with 

2 all the other things we will be doing 

3 tomorrow. So do that.

4 And we will now have our public 

5 comment session. I will turn it over first to 

6 Ted to give his --

7 MR. KATZ: Right. Thanks. Just 

8 on that last note about the presentation for 

9 Worker Outreach tomorrow, if any of you Board 

10 Members can't find the file for discussion 

11 related to Worker Outreach, let me know. It's 

12 back there in paper, too, or pick it up, the 

13 paper, please.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: There are two 

15 files. One is a presentation, PowerPoint 

16 presentation; and the other is a Word 

17 document.

18 MR. KATZ: It's an option paper 

19 for dealing with comments to the Board. Okay?

20 So then we still do not have any 

21 people signed to present public comments here 

22 in the room. So it will be people on the 
383

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 line. And we will check with the room, but I 

2 don't see anybody possibly who would comment.

3 So, just to remind you or some of 

4 you may not know on the line with respect to 

5 making public comments, the Board, NIOSH, has 

6 a redaction policy, which is just to be very 

7 succinct about it.

8 Everything you say is transcribed 

9 verbatim and ends up in the transcript that is 

10 available to all of the public on the NIOSH 

11 website, a transcript of the Board meeting. 

12 So if you give your name, the name will be 

13 there. Any other personal information you 

14 give, that will be there as well. But any 

15 information you provide about third parties, 

16 other people, that is identifying for those 

17 other third parties would be redacted, just to 

18 let you know that. And if you want to know 

19 the full policy in all its glory, you can find 

20 it on the NIOSH website under the Board 

21 section, I believe.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I would add 
384

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 to that that we also have a policy of comments 

2 should be limited to ten minutes or less. And 

3 we will hold to that policy.

4 The one person we know that did 

5 want to make public comment is Terrie Barrie. 

6 Terrie, are you on the line?

7 MS. BARRIE: Yes, I am, Doctor.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We can 

9 hear you. So go ahead.

10 PUBLIC COMMENT

11 MS. BARRIE: Okay. Well, good 

12 evening, Dr. Melius and members of the Board. 

13 My name is Terrie Barrie. And I am with the 

14 Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups. I 

15 want to thank you and Ted Katz for allowing me 

16 to call in my public comments tonight.

17 I also want to congratulate you, 

18 Dr. Melius, for being named by President Obama 

19 as Chair of the Advisory Board and to you, Dr. 

20 Ziemer -- can you hear me?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can hear 

22 you.
385

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 MS. BARRIER: Okay. And to Dr. 

2 Ziemer, I thank you for your years of 

3 dedicated service. I am pleased that you will 

4 continue with the Board. And, finally, a 

5 sincere welcome to the new Board Members.

6 I want to express my appreciation 

7 to Dr. Howard also for his commitment to 

8 review the program. As you know, over the 

9 years the advocates and claimants have raised 

10 many issues concerning Dose Reconstruction and 

11 the SEC petition process.

12 If I may, I would like to give a 

13 few examples from the Rocky Flats SEC petition 

14 and Site Profile to show why this review is 

15 necessary.

16 You are aware that I recently 

17 raised an issue where the workers in Building 

18 460 were exposed unknowingly and without 

19 monitoring to plutonium and uranium. LaVon 

20 Rutherford is currently looking into this.

21 However, just this past Sunday, 

22 another former Rocky Flats worker came forward 
386

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 and informed me that workers in building 440 

2 were exposed to and monitored for neutron 

3 radiation, at least during the years 2000 to 

4 2005.

5 I checked with NIOSH's Site 

6 Profiles. And page 52 states about building 

7 440, and I quote, "No radioactive material is 

8 known to be present," end of quote.

9 A quick search on the internet 

10 turned up a picture of a glove box cell that 

11 was used to process nuclear residue and DOE 

12 documents from approximately 1996, which 

13 reveals the plan to turn Building 440 into a 

14 temporary waste storage site.

15 The Board voted yesterday, I 

16 believe, that Santa Susana Field Laboratory 

17 should be approved for SEC status. This was a 

18 proper decision to make considering that there 

19 were limited dosimetry records available that 

20 would allow NIOSH to reconstruct dose for that 

21 facility.

22 I wish to remind the Board that 
387

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Rocky Flats also had questionable dosimetry 

2 records. You may remember that SC&A issued a 

3 report on the completeness of records for 

4 years 1969 and 1970. Page 4 of that report 

5 has a table which illustrates the percentage 

6 of penetrating dose entered into the HIS 

7 database that had zero readings.

8 The year with the highest 

9 percentage of zeroes during the production era 

10 was 1981, with 63.2 percent zero dose defined. 

11 During the cleanup era, 2004 was the year 

12 with the highest zero readings. And that was 

13 at 79.7 percent.

14 During recent Board Working Group 

15 meetings, the discussions often involved 

16 whether a model was considered reasonable.

17 I would like to put this question 

18 to the Board and to NIOSH. Is it reasonable 

19 that a nuclear weapons facility during 

20 production years and cleanup years would be so 

21 safe that workers were never exposed to 

22 radiation 30, 40, 60, even 80 percent of the 
388

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 time? If you conclude that it is not 

2 reasonable, then I respectfully request that a 

3 second look must be taken at this issue.

4 One of the reasons that the zero 

5 readings may have not been explored more 

6 thoroughly during the SEC debate was that 

7 NIOSH and the Board accepted Roger Falk's 

8 explanation. You can find his opinion on page 

9 109 of SC&A's Rocky Flats Site Profile review.

10 Last week NIOSH issued its 

11 conflict of interest/appearance of bias 

12 policy. If this policy were in place five 

13 years ago, it is likely that a more critical 

14 eye would have been taken to Mr. Falk's 

15 opinion.

16 For the new members of the Board, 

17 I wish to explain that Roger Falk was the 

18 Manager of the Dosimetry Program at Rocky 

19 Flats. He wrote the first Site Profile for 

20 the facility and also coauthored the neutron 

21 dose reconstruction project, which is used to 

22 reconstruct dose for Rocky Flats claimants for 
389

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 years 1967 through 1970.

2 This new policy for future SEC 

3 petitions is very important. And we 

4 appreciate it. And I also want to let you 

5 know that Rocky Flats is not the only site 

6 where the person in charge of the Dosimetry 

7 Department was also used as a site expert.

8 I have a question. Will NIOSH now 

9 review technical documents drafted by 

10 conflicted personnel?

11 The advocates have repeatedly 

12 raised problems of conflict of interest with 

13 certain personnel, both during the Board's 

14 public comment periods as well as letters to 

15 HHS. I am thankful the policy is now in 

16 place.

17 The policy mentions that personnel 

18 can apply to HHS for a waiver. And it may be 

19 in the interest of the stakeholders that 

20 waivers be awarded in certain circumstances.

21 Will these applications and 

22 subsequent decisions be available online to 
390

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 the stakeholders? Will Board Members who have 

2 work experience at sites be eligible to apply 

3 for a waiver so they can speak as a private 

4 site expert?

5 Again, I thank you for this 

6 opportunity to address the Board. And ANWAG 

7 looks forward to the new cooperative spirit in 

8 addressing the concerns of all of the 

9 stakeholders. Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

11 Terrie.

12 Is there anybody else on the phone 

13 who wishes to make public comments?

14 MR. FUNK: This is John Funk here 

15 from Nevada Test Site.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Hi, John.

17 MR. FUNK: One more small comment 

18 I would like to bring to the attention of 

19 NIOSH. It is my understanding -- I might be 

20 wrong, but is it that Yucca Mountain is not 

21 included in the Nevada Test Site SEC? Is that 

22 correct?
391

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That is correct.

2 MR. FUNK: Okay. This is why I 

3 want to bring this up. Yucca Mountain sits in 

4 Area 25. Area 25 was part of the Nevada Test 

5 Site during the testing period. So there were 

6 people going to be working over there and may 

7 get disqualified because they were in Area 25, 

8 which might be referred to as Yucca Mountain. 

9 And I would like to bring it to your 

10 attention.

11 The Yucca Mountain project only 

12 became official in 1994. I know this because 

13 I was employed there at the time by Peter 

14 Kiewit Underground. And I built the mole plug 

15 out there.

16 And that is when they renegotiated 

17 the collective bargaining agreement because 

18 the funding for Yucca Mountain was not 

19 American taxpayers' money but was franchise 

20 generator users' tax.

21 That only became a -- Yucca 

22 Mountain was a depository project in 1994. So 
392

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 we're going to have people that are going to 

2 be showing up working in Area 25. I want to 

3 make sure that this is understood that this 

4 was part of the Nevada Test Site up until 

5 1994.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. My 

7 understanding -- maybe Stu or somebody could 

8 address this, but that it would be an issue 

9 that would come up when a person would apply 

10 through the Department of Labor, correct? And 

11 I think we could certainly pass this along to 

12 the Department of Labor to make sure that that 

13 is understood when people apply. Is that?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: As I understand 

15 the question and understand how things would 

16 work, this does sound like a question for one 

17 of the other agencies, either Labor or Energy, 

18 because it sounds as if it is a facility 

19 designation. It is a description sort of 

20 issue that falls into the category of the 

21 other agencies, I believe.

22 MR. FUNK: If you look at the map 
393

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 on the Nevada Test Site, you will see Area 25. 

2 And you also see a little notation there 

3 where it says, Yucca Mountain. The original 

4 boundaries of Nevada Test Site for the testing 

5 period, Yucca Mountain is in it, contained 

6 within that area.

7 And there was no repository at the 

8 time. All there was was the source tower for 

9 the environmental task. And there was Super 

10 Kukla. And there was a couple of other things 

11 going on out there.

12 There was people working out

13 there. And they're going to show up as 

14 working in that area. And some of them might 

15 mistakenly say Jackass Flats or Yucca 

16 Mountain. And they will automatically be 

17 disqualified because they will think they were 

18 working on the Yucca Mountain repository 

19 project when they were actually working 

20 somewhere else.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Again --

22 MR. FUNK: I want to make sure 
394

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 they get that clear that Yucca Mountain 

2 repository only became official in 1994. And 

3 that could be verified by the collective 

4 bargaining agreement because the only person 

5 on the bargaining agreement for Yucca Mountain 

6 was Peter Kiewit, Kiewit Underground. 

7 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

8 Hinnefeld again. You are very clear in your 

9 description. I do understand the situation 

10 you are describing, and I do understand the 

11 possible ramification.

12 I think it is a facility 

13 designation and an employment verification 

14 issue that would occur with the other 

15 agencies. But we will certainly pass the 

16 information along to them.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will follow 

18 up with Department of Labor on that, clarify 

19 that.

20 Anybody else on the phone who 

21 would like to make public comments?

22 MR. DOLL: Yes, I would.
395

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Can you 

2 identify yourself?

3 MR. DOLL: Yes. My name is Lou 

4 Doll. I am a retired pipefitter in 

5 Cincinnati. I was at the recent SEC meeting 

6 in Cincinnati for Fernald.

7 I worked construction at the 

8 Fernald Site from 1983 to 2004: from 1983 to 

9 1986 under National Lead of Ohio, 1986 to 1992 

10 under Westinghouse, 1993 to 2004 under Fluor.

11 Under National Lead of Ohio, 

12 construction worker subs were treated much 

13 differently than the in-house National Lead 

14 workers. We were not provided the same levels 

15 of PPE and were not given urinalysis and other 

16 monitoring equipment in our work areas. We 

17 were called intermittent workers, who would be 

18 gone when the job ended. However, many of us 

19 spent years at the plant.

20 Urinalysis and other tests were 

21 gradually phased in under Westinghouse when 

22 they took over. The years National Lead of 
396

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Ohio, '51 through '81, were in the plant, 

2 construction workers were seen as expendable.

3 Much of the work we did in the 

4 demolition and reconstruction of existing 

5 equipment buildings were tasks no one else 

6 wanted to do. We were never told of the 

7 dangerous chemicals and radioactive materials 

8 we were exposed to doing this work.

9 In 1982 through 1986, we installed 

10 and then reworked the uranium enrichment 

11 process, the green salt process in the pilot 

12 plant 13A. We worked without respirators and 

13 green salt, hex, hydrofluoric acid, and 

14 anhydrous ammonia. We were only provided a 

15 TLD dosimeter for beta/gamma, not alpha. No 

16 urinalyses were taken. We couldn't even get a 

17 rad tech to survey the work area.

18 We were threatened with firing 

19 when we borrowed a frisker to check the area 

20 and found out everything was hot. This was 

21 the norm for construction. And we had 

22 projects in all areas of the plant: One, two, 
397

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 three, four, five, seven, eight, nine silos, 

2 general sump.

3 We were in these areas for 

4 extended periods of time; whereas, most of the 

5 plant workers were only in certain areas of 

6 the plant, knew their exposures, and were 

7 provided a higher level of PPE in testing.

8 To say during the period of 1951 

9 through 1981 that you can do dose 

10 reconstruction on construction workers without 

11 data and using the data from plant workers is 

12 questionable at best. Lumping these workers 

13 in using plant workers' data is wrong.

14 I thank you very much.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

16 Is there anybody else on the phone 

17 who wishes to make public comments?

18 (No response.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. In that 

20 case, if there is no one else who wishes to 

21 make public comments, we will close the 

22 session. And we will reconvene tomorrow 
398

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 morning at 9:00 a.m. Thank you.

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

3 matter went off the record at 6:22 p.m.) 

4