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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON TBD-6000

+ + + + +

FRIDAY

APRIL 26, 2013

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference, at 10:30 a.m., Eastern 

Daylight Time, Paul L. Ziemer, Chairman, 

presiding.

PRESENT:

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Chairman

JOSIE BEACH, Member

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

DAVE ALLEN, DCAS

BOB ANIGSTEIN, SC&A

BOB BARTON, SC&A

DAN CHUROVICH

SAM GLOVER, DCAS

JOSH KINMAN, DCAS contractor

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

DAN McKEEL

JIM NETON, DCAS

JOHN RAMSPOTT

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

BILL THURBER, SC&A

TOM TOMES, DCAS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome and Roll Call...................... 4

(Ted Katz and Paul Ziemer)

GSI........................................ 8

a. Presentation of DCAS 

April 2013 White Paper ............... 8

b. SC&A Review ......................... 23

Baker Brothers........................... 192

a. DCAS Responses to SC&A 

Review Points ...................... 192

Joslyn Manufacturing & Supply Co......... n/a

Simonds Saw and Steel.................... 210

a. DCAS Responses to

SC&A Review ........................ 210

Adjournment.............................. 262
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 10:29 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. I think this is 

4 close enough to time, and we probably have 

5 everyone online. Good morning, everyone. 

6 This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

7 Worker Health. This is the TBD-6000 Work 

8 Group. Let's get started with roll call. 

9 We're speaking about specific sites, so all 

10 agents and related people please speak also of 

11 the conflict of interests. And let's go with 

12 Board Members.

13 (Roll call.)

14 MR. KATZ: There is an agenda for 

15 this meeting that's posted on the NIOSH 

16 website under the meetings section under 

17 today's date, along with several papers that 

18 are going to be discussed for the four 

19 different sites. 

20 Before I turn it over to the 

21 Chair, just let me, for phone etiquette, 

22 there's a lot of background noise already on 
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1 this phone line, so, please, everyone, 

2 everyone who's not speaking should mute their 

3 phones. If you don't have a mute button, 

4 press * and then six. That will mute your 

5 phone. And then pressing * and then six again 

6 will unmute your phone. But, please, mute 

7 your phone while you're listening because the 

8 background noise is difficult. That sounds 

9 much better already.

10 And, also, for everyone on the 

11 phone, remember don't ever put the call on 

12 hold. Just hang up and dial back in if you 

13 need to, but putting the call on hold will 

14 disrupt the call for everyone else. 

15 So thank you. And with that, 

16 Paul, it's your meeting.

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

18 you, Ted, and good morning, everyone. I'll 

19 officially call the meeting to order. You 

20 should all have an agenda, either online. I 

21 think, perhaps, one of the public callers from 

22 GSI does not have that agenda since he doesn't 
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1 have a computer, but the rest of you do. But 

2 I'll just take a minute here and review what 

3 we'll be covering today.

4 We have four sites that we're 

5 dealing with at the present time: General 

6 Steel Industries; Baker Brothers in Toledo, 

7 Ohio; Joslyn Manufacturing; and Simonds Saw 

8 and Steel. I didn't assign any time intervals 

9 to these four facilities, but it's my 

10 expectation that the bulk of our time will be 

11 focused on General Steel Industries. 

12 And, also, I must apologize. I've 

13 developed a cold here, and I'm having some 

14 trouble with my own voice. So I apologize if 

15 you have a little trouble hearing me or 

16 understanding me this morning, but we'll do 

17 the best we can to proceed through the agenda.

18 My plan is that we would expect a 

19 lunch break at approximately 1 p.m. Eastern 

20 Time. And we will take a comfort break before 

21 that. That comfort break will be determined 

22 either by the Chairman's comfort or someone 
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1 else in more a state of discomfort than I at 

2 some particular time. But, in any event, we 

3 will take a break, as appropriate.

4 So I want to begin with General 

5 Steel Industries and just identify before we 

6 discuss anything that, as a starting point, we 

7 have a White Paper from NIOSH prepared by Dave 

8 Allen, and that White Paper was distributed. 

9 We have two responses from SC&A prepared by 

10 Bob Anigstein, the first called "Review of 

11 NIOSH Estimates of External Exposure at GSI" 

12 and the second called "Review of NIOSH 

13 Estimates of Internal Exposures at GSI." 

14 And then I would also like to call 

15 attention to a number of documents that were 

16 provided by the petitioner. And I do want to 

17 make sure that the petitioner, at some point, 

18 has the opportunity to amplify any points he 

19 wishes to make, as well. 

20 We have a document dated April 

21 5th, a response to Dave Allen and DCAS White 

22 Paper, by Dr. McKeel. We have also from Dr. 
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1 McKeel a paper dated April 22nd, which deals 

2 with the radium era and some information on 

3 building 6 and also some information from the 

4 petitioner regarding the -- if I can get the 

5 paper out here -- the stolen radium plumb-bob. 

6 And I think there may have been one other one. 

7 No, I think that was it, so those three main 

8 documents, as well, that we want to also 

9 acknowledge and have an opportunity to have 

10 input on. 

11 So we're going to begin with Dave 

12 Allen's presentation. And Dave was dealing 

13 mainly with the issue of external dose 

14 estimates for non-radiographers and the issue 

15 of job categories and also how the internal 

16 dose estimates would be carried out and used. 

17 So, Dave, why don't you highlight for us the 

18 issues in your paper, and then we'll proceed 

19 to SC&A.

20 MR. ALLEN: Okay. Thanks, Paul. 

21 Like you said, during the last Work Group 

22 meeting, February 21st, I was asked to do 
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1 those three things you just mentioned. It was 

2 the give our details of the external dose for 

3 non-radiographers prior to 1963 and describe 

4 how we would assign individual cases to the 

5 different job categories, which are, 

6 essentially, radiographer and non7 radiographer, as well as the details on how we 

8 would use the data we already agreed to for 

9 internal dosimetry, exactly how we would use 

10 it for dose estimating.

11 The first one, the non12 radiographer dose estimate, for that one, I 

13 started with the August 1962 survey of the 

14 radiography room, which was surveyed using our 

15 cobalt-60. The new cobalt-60 sources at that 

16 time were being exposed. From the hierarchy 

17 of data, the actual measurements are usually 

18 considered better than any kind of modeling, 

19 so I started with the actual measurements from 

20 the cobalt-60, but, obviously, it has to be 

21 adjusted to account for the differences 

22 between cobalt and radium and the source 
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1 strengths.

2 But, also, there's at least some 

3 indication that some shielding was added soon 

4 before that August 1962 survey. So I adjusted 

5 those survey readings up to account for 

6 additional shielding prior to that survey. 

7 The indications, essentially, were 

8 the, it was a map that indicated 24-inch walls 

9 and a notation that said shielding added June 

10 and July of 1962. And then the prior drawing 

11 of that room was in the AEC initial 

12 application that indicated there were 16-inch 

13 walls. So from that, I took it as eight 

14 additional inches of concrete block shielding 

15 and the write-ups in those AEC documents 

16 indicated mortar-filled, so I indicated or I 

17 took it as eight inches of mortar-filled 

18 concrete block additional shielding added in 

19 June and July of 1962. 

20 So adjusting those readings up for 

21 the lack of, the less shielding in the radium 

22 era and slightly higher source strength of the 
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1 radium, I came up with, adjusted those survey 

2 measurements to what they would be with the 

3 radium sources before the shielding was added. 

4 And from that, you can see from the rest of 

5 this, from that and the work practices source 

6 utilization time, et cetera, which I estimated 

7 a dose for somebody at the wall, on the 

8 outside of that radiography wall, if they were 

9 there all their work time, and that is the 

10 estimate we intended to use for non11 radiographers in the radium era.

12 The next thing on there was how we 

13 would categorize individual claims into 

14 radiographer and non-radiographer. Like I 

15 said during the full Board meeting, we would 

16 start with the telephone interviews. 

17 So what I did was took a search of 

18 all the claims we had from GSI so far, and I 

19 actually started with the job title that's in 

20 our claims database, which is the job title 

21 that the claimant puts on the forms when they 

22 originally filed the claim. And I put a list 
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1 in my White Paper of the types of jobs that we 

2 would flag initially as radiographers, or at 

3 least potential radiographers. That list is a 

4 short list. I took quality control; film 

5 reader; radiographer, obviously; inspector; 

6 anything that said betatron; magnaflux 

7 operator; metallurgy department; or x-ray. 

8 From that, we had 284 claims in 

9 our database, and that search resulted in 21 

10 claims matching one of those. But, as I said, 

11 we would use the telephone interview, and I 

12 did not go through all 284 telephone 

13 interviews as part of this exercise. But I 

14 parsed it a little by starting with those 21

15 to see what those telephone interviews said. 

16 I also look at telephone interviews for 

17 anybody that had a job title as unknown or 

18 some variation of that. And, lastly, I 

19 checked it against the names we had on the 

20 Landauer film badges for the later years, and 

21 I included anybody that names matched that, 

22 and that gave me a list of claims for which I 
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1 actually checked the telephone interviews.

2 That's not the process we intend 

3 to use when we're actually doing claims. You 

4 know, the telephone interviews are always 

5 reviewed, and they would be reviewed for those 

6 job categories or any other indications that 

7 they were doing radiography. This was just an 

8 attempt to see how this process would work.

9 Of the 21 claims we flagged from 

10 the database job titles, you could confirm 11 

11 of them are definitely radiographers from the 

12 telephone interviews and the Landauer records. 

13 Ten of them we could not confirm, but that 

14 doesn't mean they weren't. We still intend to 

15 call them radiographers for the purpose of 

16 dose reconstruction. And I put a little bit 

17 of information that, you know, they may or may 

18 not be and why we would continue to call them 

19 that.

20 And then later on here, besides 

21 those 21 that were flagged from the database 

22 search, there were 23 in there with a job 
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1 title of unknown. As it turns out, when you 

2 start looking at the telephone interview, 

3 that's where people really tell you what they 

4 did and, often, even a job title. And when I 

5 say job title, it may be the actual job title 

6 at the work or it may just say he was a 

7 machinist or a welder or an accountant or 

8 something to that effect. 

9 In any case, I went through what I 

10 found there. The vast majority of them did 

11 have some sort of information in their CATI 

12 interview, in their telephone interview about 

13 what job they did. We did end up adding, I 

14 believe, two after looking at the telephone 

15 interview, even though they were unknown job 

16 titles listed in our database. 

17 And then, lastly, I checked those 

18 whose name matched the Landauer dose records. 

19 The primary issue I had there was the 

20 Landauer dose records were by last name, and 

21 some last names are very common names. For 

22 example, just to make up a name, I don't think 
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1 it actually shows up on Landauer, but if 

2 somebody had a last name of Smith, we would 

3 have a dose record for a Smith. And then if 

4 you searched 286 claim files, you're going to 

5 find more than one Smith in there. And that 

6 was the case we had for several of these, so 

7 it's not unexpected that most of those would 

8 not be considered radiographers. That was 

9 just to give me a list of claims to actually 

10 check their telephone interview for this 

11 exercise.

12 What we did find is we had 31 that 

13 matched the names in the Landauer records, and 

14 11 of those had already been caught with 

15 previous steps. Two were added, but, again, 

16 it was based on the telephone interview, not 

17 just, it was not from the Landauer records but 

18 based on a telephone interview. We just 

19 checked those telephone interviews because of 

20 the Landauer records for this exercise.

21 And two of them, even though they 

22 had some other job title or an unknown, well, 
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1 not an unknown but some other job title, we 

2 ended up adding them or considering them 

3 radiographers because of their telephone 

4 interview. And I think, in the end, we ended 

5 up with 26 claims that we would have 

6 considered radiographers, and we can only 

7 confirm about 12 of those actually were. The 

8 other 14, there's some information in there 

9 indicating at least some of those likely would 

10 not, were not radiographers. But we would 

11 have included them, one because of just 

12 complete lack of, I think it was just one from 

13 complete lack of information. There was no 

14 information, no job title, no information what 

15 he did. There was just no information at all.

16 In any case, moving on to, lastly, 

17 the White Paper discusses the internal dose 

18 estimate. And, previously, we had gone 

19 through a couple of Work Group meetings and 

20 presentation for the Board of the data we 

21 intended to use for the air sample data, and 

22 the 95th percentile of that came out to be 
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1 68.7 dpm per cubic meter. 

2 At the last Work Group, the Work 

3 Group wanted to see, okay, that's the number 

4 we're going to start with, but how are we 

5 going to use it? So in the White Paper, I 

6 started with that 68.7. I intended to assign 

7 that to anybody considered, well, actually, I 

8 intended to assign that for the time period 

9 that they would have been handling uranium. 

10 We have the hours of uranium work that we 

11 previously talked about, we estimated. And 

12 from other previous work with the external 

13 dose, we had a scenario on how long they shot 

14 this uranium and how long it took them to set 

15 up the next shot, et cetera. 

16 I did not give them that intake 

17 or the time they were taking the shots. They 

18 would not have been in the betatron shooting 

19 room at that point. They'd be in a control 

20 room. I gave it to them for the time in 

21 between shots. And after that, that's just 

22 for the direct handling type of airborne.
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1 I did also account for any contamination 

2 that would be caused from that airborne using 

3 the TBD-6000 techniques that we went through 

4 some months ago and, using those settling 

5 rates and settling time, came up with a 

6 contamination value of what it would reach 

7 after such a time as to build up to an 

8 equilibrium value and re-suspended that to get 

9 an airborne that I was intending to use for 

10 the times, actually for full time, which we're 

11 using 3,250 hours a year. So my intent was to 

12 use that re-suspended airborne full time for 

13 everybody's employment, the airborne from 

14 actually handling the uranium for the time 

15 that they would be in the shooting room 

16 setting up shots with the uranium, and then 

17 using TBD or, I'm sorry, TIB-9 for the 

18 ingestion. And we also, I believe, agreed, 

19 either during a Board meeting or a Work Group 

20 meeting, that we should use TIB-70 reduction 

21 of the airborne levels during the residual 

22 period after the operational period stopped. 
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1 And I just put a footnote in there about that, 

2 that we intended to decrease that or using 

3 TIB-70 values.

4 That is, essentially, what the 

5 White Paper says. I summarized some of that. 

6 I don't know if anybody wanted more detail or 

7 not. 

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thanks, 

9 Dave. Let me see, just before we go to SC&A, 

10 if any of the Work Group Members have 

11 questions. I'll ask a couple here, and then 

12 we'll see if others do. 

13 We now know that 1952 is also 

14 included in the active period. Your chart 

15 doesn't include `52. What would you have in 

16 the chart for `52 on the year scheme?

17 MR. ALLEN: I'm sorry. That was 

18 just my neglect there. I would, the intent 

19 would be to continue the same thing back 

20 until, I think it's, if I recall right, it's 

21 October 1st, 1952. What I would probably do 

22 is prorate that uranium work to where, right 
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1 now we have hours per year, so it would be, 

2 essentially, a quarter of that for 1952, 

3 starting October 1st. That would give them 

4 the same intake rate per day starting October 

5 1st, `52 through June 30, `61. And we would 

6 be doing the same thing with the external. 

7 We'd be getting it at the same daily rate.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Okay. 

9 So the inhalation from suspension would be the 

10 same value, the 1441, or not? That's per day, 

11 right?

12 MR. ALLEN: Yes, that's per 

13 calendar day.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. And then 

15 the uranium work hours per year you would, 

16 that would, you'd have to determine what that 

17 is. Is that a quarter of a year?

18 MR. ALLEN: Yes, so it would be 

19 that number there divided by four.

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

21 MR. ALLEN: It would result in the 

22 exact same inhalation and ingestion rate per 
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1 day.

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Got you. 

3 So you end up with the 15.45.

4 MR. ALLEN: Yes, for the 

5 ingestion.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you. 

7 Other Work Group Members, questions?

8 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. I 

9 don't have any real question, but I do want to 

10 call to Dave's attention the fact that on page 

11 seven you have a typo on the date when you 

12 refer to the Work Group meeting in the very 

13 first paragraph.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: December 12th, 

15 2012. 

16 MEMBER MUNN: It says December 

17 this year. 

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: It should have 

19 been last year's date, yes. Right. Josie or 

20 John? 

21 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, this is Josie. 

22 I don't have anything right now.
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. John? 

2 Okay. I'm not hearing John, but he may be on 

3 mute. Oh.

4 MEMBER POSTON: I turned my mute 

5 on instead of off. I don't have any 

6 questions.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you. 

8 Let's go on to Bob Anigstein. Start with your 

9 external exposure document, and then we'll do 

10 the other one separately. So why don't you go 

11 through, I know you handled a number of issues 

12 with the current NIOSH proposal, so I think 

13 you also, are you putting something on our 

14 screens for those --

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, he just did. 

16 Yes, it's up now. At least it's up on mine.

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Can you 

18 reduce the magnification so it fits on the 

19 screen? Did you put this up? Yes. Bob, I'm 

20 not hearing you. Are you on mute maybe? 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I was on mute. I 

22 have the screen on full screen. You should 
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1 see my title page. 

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Actually, 

3 on mine it's way more than full screen.

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Say again.

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: What's your 

6 magnification? Can you reduce it a little bit 

7 or --

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm using full 

9 screen. I'm not sure how to get different 

10 magnification at your end.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, I see. 

12 Okay. Fine. Go ahead.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. Well, I'm 

14 going to run through, we have a number of, as 

15 Paul said, we have a number of issues. So I'm 

16 going to start off. Some of it's a little 

17 repetitious, but I just want to give a quick 

18 framework of the time frame.

19 Now, I wasn't aware. I heard of 

20 the information Dr. McKeel had presented some 

21 time ago that the work started in `52. And as 

22 a matter of fact, SC&A maintained from the 
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1 beginning that it started in `52. But I 

2 wasn't aware that this was becoming official; 

3 so every time you see `53 here on my slide, 

4 include `52.

5 So, anyway, just a quick run 

6 through. It started off with two radium 

7 sources and the 24 MeV betatron, what they 

8 call the old betatron. Then in May `62, GSI 

9 acquired cobalt sources, small cobalt sources, 

10 and there had been orders to discontinue the 

11 radium used by the State of Illinois. 

12 Somewhere late in `63, the new 

13 betatron began operating. We don't have the 

14 exact dates. I assumed October. However, 

15 NIOSH indicated that they would go with whole 

16 year, so you can say all of 1963 the betatron 

17 was in operation. That will be a limiting 

18 exposure during that time. And then June 

19 30th, `66 is the end of the operation period, 

20 beginning a residual period. And I don't 

21 indicate here, but the residual period extends 

22 to 1993.
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1 And the sources of external 

2 exposure, we start just with external, are, of 

3 course, the radium sources during the earlier 

4 period and then the exposure to direct 

5 penetrating radiation photons and neutrons 

6 from betatron operations, which is both the 

7 stray radiation from the betatron itself while 

8 it's on and the delayed radiation from the 

9 activated metal when the betatron is turned 

10 off. And then you have skin exposure both 

11 from handling the uranium, and the natural 

12 uranium itself gives you some beta radiation, 

13 and then that's much higher for a short period 

14 of time after irradiation because you have the 

15 short-lived uranium isotopes that are strong 

16 beta emitters. And then the second source is 

17 the activated steel, also beta emitters.

18 Here are the differences between 

19 SC&A and NIOSH. We've all agreed that 

20 radiographer will be represented by a 

21 triangular distribution with a minimum of 

22 about 6.3 rem; I'm rounding off. A mode, the 
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1 peak of the triangle, is 9.7 and then a 

2 maximum of either 15 or 12. We did some 

3 research. We had mistakenly, and SC&A takes 

4 responsibility for that, I should take 

5 responsibility, we thought that the new AEC 

6 rule lowering the exposures came in `55. No 

7 one ever contradicted that, but Dr. McKeel had 

8 asked for some documentation on that. So we 

9 did some research, and it turns out, no, the 

10 rule was adopted, was promulgated or made 

11 effective January 1st, 1961. So up until, 

12 starting somewhere around 1949 when AEC was 

13 actually not in the business of regulating 

14 radiation exposures, except in the government 

15 complex because they actually were not 

16 licensing anyone to use byproduct material 

17 outside of the government complex, but, 

18 nevertheless, they were abiding by an NCRP 

19 recommendation of 300 millirem, mR or 

20 millirem, they used the terms interchangeably, 

21 per week, which comes out to a maximum of 15 

22 rem in a year. So this was for their own 
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1 operations.

2 And then in February 1957, they 

3 issued the first 10 CFR 20, which was a rule 

4 that applied to all licensees, again, 300 mR 

5 per week, which amounts to 15 rem per year. 

6 So this would affect the limit from `53, or 

7 `52 if you will, through 1960. 

8 Beginning with 1961, 1961 and 

9 1962, the two years of the radium era, the 

10 limit was 12. So the same triangular 

11 distribution, except, I mean a similar 

12 triangular distribution except with an upper 

13 limit of 12 instead of 15. 

14 And then from `63, and NIOSH has 

15 agreed to give it for all of, to use it for 

16 all of `63. Our analysis is that the layout 

17 man should get 9.2 R per year, and NIOSH, I'm 

18 just using betatron as a source and the layout 

19 man is the same scenario, is about 4.5. And, 

20 also, the major distinction is that SC&A 

21 believes that the radiographer doses during 

22 the radium era should apply to all employees, 
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1 whereas NIOSH has two different calculations 

2 for radiographers and for non-radiographers. 

3 This is quite different than in 

4 the, shall we say, new betatron era where 

5 NIOSH had agreed and we understood that that 

6 would also apply, and, apparently, it doesn't, 

7 to the radium era that whatever dose, whatever 

8 was the most claimant-favorable assumption, 

9 that everyone was either a layout man or a 

10 betatron operator, whichever was most 

11 claimant-favorable in a particular instance, 

12 in a particular claim, usually it would be the 

13 layout man, would get that dose. So we were 

14 rather surprised when NIOSH indicated they 

15 would treat the radium era differently.

16 And then reasons for our 

17 disagreement. The scenario that Dave Allen 

18 just presented, and let me show you a quick 

19 picture. I'll go back and forth. This is the 

20 drawing, actually part of the license 

21 application -- no, this was already after --

22 I'm not sure when this was. I think it was 
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1 part of the license application or after the 

2 license application when they were -- I'm 

3 contradicting myself now -- when they gave the 

4 results of a survey. They show that the 

5 scenario that Dave predicted or postulated 

6 where you would have someone standing right 

7 outside the wall is actually unrealistic 

8 because they clearly indicate that these were 

9 areas used for storage of drums. There was no 

10 access to the building on either the, I think 

11 this is north to south, either the north or 

12 the south wall are not accessible. So that's 

13 not a realistic scenario. And then neither is 

14 the east wall that the nearest workstations 

15 would be 20 feet away, 15 to 20 feet away to 

16 the nearest wall. And that would be at the 

17 end wall, so that's actually further from the 

18 sources. The sources are postulated to be in 

19 the middle. So that scenario simply does not 

20 represent any real person.

21 Also, we questioned the idea that 

22 bricks were added, according to information 
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1 supplied by a co-petitioner that the building 

2 was put up in 1955. So, first of all, that 

3 scenario would not apply then for `52 through 

4 into `55 if there was no building. 

5 Secondly, there was no additional 

6 shielding. The additional shielding that is 

7 indicated on the drawing -- remember that 

8 drawing that Dave Allen referred to, similar 

9 to one, not the same one, was furnished by the 

10 nuclear consulting company or corporation. 

11 They were consultants who came in. They took 

12 information they got from GSI. They did not -

13 - their job was to make radiation 

14 measurements, so they were not privy 

15 necessarily to the history of this. 

16 My conclusion is that one of the 

17 radiographers, the only radiographer that was 

18 active during that time who's still available 

19 to be interviewed, said that steel was added, 

20 this steel shielding. That was added at the 

21 time they started using cobalt or just before 

22 because it was necessary to shield the -- you 
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1 know, during the use of cobalt, here were the 

2 steel shields, here were the control cables.

3 So they had a very safe operation 

4 where the operator stood behind a steel shield 

5 and manipulated these cables, just, you know, 

6 long wires that would turn and crank the 

7 sources in and out of the lead shield, whereas 

8 before, during the use of the fishpole, that 

9 made no sense because you can't stand behind a 

10 steel shield. You have to stand right there 

11 where the casting is to put in the fishpole 

12 because they didn't have those steel shields. 

13 And that, I believe, this armor 

14 plate is what was put in during this period of 

15 time and not additional brick work which -- I 

16 won't go into all the details in my report --

17 would have made no sense. It just wouldn't 

18 have made sense because they had already done 

19 a calculation to show that the 16-inch 

20 concrete was sufficiently protected and met 

21 all the regulations. So it would have made 

22 very little sense for them to have submitted 
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1 that application or granted the application, 

2 purchase the cobalt sources, and then said, 

3 oh, by the way, we're going to add more 

4 bricks. So I don't think that's a realistic 

5 scenario.

6 We believe that the only scenario 

7 that you can hang your hat on is the 

8 limitation, and we agreed to the triangular 

9 distribution, that no one got more doses than 

10 the radiographers. And that is the only 

11 plausible bounding number that can apply to 

12 all workers. 

13 We don't know where the other 

14 workers were. We know there were incidents, 

15 for instance, two cases where two individuals 

16 who were not radiographers. Therefore, they 

17 were unmonitored. Two separate cases. One 

18 was inside an army tank in the betatron room 

19 while it was being radiographed. Nobody knew 

20 he was there, and he didn't realize the 

21 betatron was on. And somebody else was also 

22 in what's called in the betatron. We don't 
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1 know how many other such incidents there could 

2 have been.

3 We also know that the fishpole 

4 technique was notorious, was known to be 

5 unsafe. The State of Illinois has banned it. 

6 I did a search, and every state that mentions 

7 it simply says it cannot be used or only under 

8 special circumstances with special permission. 

9 So all in all, without giving 

10 every -- I mean, I have more detail in the 

11 report. We do not believe that the assignment 

12 of the calculated dose that they've allocated 

13 to non-radiographers is scientifically 

14 justified, nor claimant-favorable. It was 

15 always our understanding that the same dose, 

16 just like with the betatron, that the same 

17 dose that is given to the -- everybody gets 

18 the worst case. You don't have to worry about 

19 what his job was, where he was, where he spent 

20 his time. It's unlikely that anyone would 

21 have gotten more than these doses.

22 Going on to, although this was not 
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1 in the most recent report, this was discussed 

2 at a previous Work Group meeting. And there 

3 was a question raised, which I didn't get a 

4 chance to answer it. I was under the weather, 

5 so I wasn't thinking too clearly. But to 

6 summarize the differences between why we have 

7 these differences to the layout man between 

8 SC&A and NIOSH is NIOSH used 15 betatron 

9 scenarios. They started off with modeling 15, 

10 and then they selected on the basis of --

11 perhaps, arbitrary is the wrong word. I 

12 understand how they used. Some of the 

13 scenarios were simply not realistic. You 

14 don't shoot at a 45-degree angle to penetrate 

15 the steel. You always shoot at the shortest 

16 path through the steel.

17 Also, for the position 

18 orientation, which was something that was made 

19 up -- I don't mean to sound disparaging 

20 because it was a range of possible things --

21 the main objection is this normalization that 

22 it can't be more than 10 mR per week. Now, 
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1 this is the picture of a new betatron building 

2 based on an account of one of the 

3 radiographers. Here's the betatron shooting 

4 room. The betatron, this is our scenario. 

5 Here's the picture. Here's the betatron 

6 itself. Here is the casting that we 

7 hypothesize is like a typical casting, 

8 representative casting. 

9 And we put the layout, we tried 

10 two positions for the layout, and we found 

11 that this was the most claimant-favorable to 

12 get the highest dose. So this was the only 

13 thing that we modeled at this time.

14 Now, NIOSH -- so here would be the 

15 same thing, the betatron would be here, the 

16 casting would be here, and NIOSH calculates 

17 the doses to the film badges. Well, there 

18 were several things wrong with that.

19 First of all, they borrowed, we 

20 shared the MCNP model. Well, the initial MCNP 

21 model that we ran back in 2008, to make it 

22 claimant-favorable, we were calculating that. 
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1 We weren't thinking of this type of scenario. 

2 We were calculating the doses to the operator 

3 in the control room and absent knowledge of 

4 the walls. The only thing we had to go by 

5 then were the FUSRAP reports, so we didn't 

6 know really what these walls were like here, 

7 the side wall. So we made them thin and 

8 lightweight to make it more claimant-favorable 

9 to have a higher dose. 

10 Since then, we got the FOIA 

11 material from NRC where there was much more 

12 detail, and it turned out that these walls 

13 actually were heavier. They were filled with 

14 mortar. They were not hollow. And, 

15 therefore, and assuming -- and then we also 

16 tried to match the later survey reports from 

17 the large cobalt-60 source. The nominally 80 

18 curie source was more like 50 curie by the 

19 time they did those measurements. And we saw 

20 no way could we match those if we used thin 

21 walls. I think here and there we assumed 

22 there were thin walls. Where we used the 
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1 thicker walls, the ones that were described, 

2 you came closer. You came a lot closer.

3 So in this instance, the thin 

4 walls are not claimant-favorable because they 

5 assume a lot of scattered radiation that gets 

6 on the film badges and says, well, if the film 

7 badges never got more than 10 mR for a whole 

8 168-hour week, then we're limited in which 

9 shooting scenarios are possible. 

10 And that's mistaken for two 

11 reasons. One is the walls were too thin. 

12 They basically modeled this whole area as 

13 empty space. Now, this area was filled with 

14 furniture, all kinds of equipment which we 

15 don't know, of course, what had been the 

16 details of. And so, therefore, it's incorrect 

17 to say the radiation was coming but no 

18 attenuation from here to there and also 

19 through the thin wall. 

20 And then the final assumption, and 

21 this was an understandable misunderstanding 

22 which we clarified by having our consultant, 
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1 who was a former Landauer official, and he was 

2 in contact with the current vice president of 

3 Landauer who does go way back and does know 

4 what was, dug up the records. 

5 At that time, they supplied, as is 

6 in the film badge records -- every film badge 

7 record weekly reports has a control badge 

8 numbered zero. And the NIOSH assumption was, 

9 well, if that badge always shows M, minimal, 

10 which it does, it means that it's under 10 mR, 

11 that would mean for other badges it could be 

12 under 10 mR; therefore, it could not have been 

13 important. That's not correct. It turns out 

14 that their practice was to take that reading 

15 on that badge and subtract it from all the 

16 other badges, including itself. So that badge 

17 was, by definition, always zero on the report. 

18 The only time they would report an 

19 actual reading for that badge was if the raw 

20 reading was more than 50 millirem or if it was 

21 higher than one-half of all the badges issued 

22 to the workers, if it was a higher reading 
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1 than the lowest half of the badges. Then, and 

2 only then, would they notify the client, hey, 

3 something is wrong there, you're keeping your 

4 control badge in a high radiation area, and 

5 that questioned the validity of all the 

6 readings. But since that never happened, we 

7 don't know anything about the control badge. 

8 The fact that it said M cannot be used in the 

9 model.

10 Now, there was another badge that 

11 was called betatron CTL, badge number one. We 

12 have no information on where it was kept. One 

13 person that was a former employee that was 

14 interviewed by one of the -- well I can't 

15 mention his name -- said he distributed the 

16 badges and he had no recollection of any 

17 control badge. So even on his report there 

18 was a beta -- I misspelled it, betatron. Put 

19 in the T here. Sorry. There's no spellcheck 

20 on this. 

21 That could have just as well been 

22 kept in the old betatron building because we 
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1 have information from a supervisor, former 

2 supervisor, no longer with us, who said his 

3 office was in the old betatron building. So 

4 even though the film badge rack was here, 

5 maybe that second badge was kept there. We 

6 just don't know, and, not knowing, you can't 

7 use that, that information. And, again, we 

8 have problem with the model, even if it 

9 worked, to be kept in that betatron building.

10 More minor problem is NIOSH 

11 assumed that the worker, the layout man, was 

12 here dead center on the railroad track. First 

13 of all, that's unrealistic. He'll be blocking 

14 the rail tracks if he had his casting there, 

15 so castings couldn't move in and out. But 

16 more important, that actually was not the 

17 worse position. We modeled this position and 

18 also one, a symmetrical one, on the other side 

19 of the railroad tracks, and it turned out this 

20 is the highest one because it's actually lying 

21 outside of the betatron, you had this ribbon 

22 door so you could not literally see it, but 
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1 that it showed negligible shielding and the 

2 beam strongly focused forward. But, 

3 nevertheless, it trails off, but not to zero. 

4 And at this steep angle, you still get some 

5 direct radiation. So that's another reason 

6 why we have a higher dose, you know, the 9.2 

7 instead of the 4.6.

8 And then there was other things. 

9 They included a door, heavy door. 0.85 inches, 

10 two centimeters, heavy-steel door in their 

11 model where the worker described as a sheet 

12 metal. And then the reason for the difference 

13 in the beta dose is they use, actually, SC&A 

14 results, and this was brought up before. I'm 

15 just mentioning it for completeness. We used 

16 a very early, one of the earliest releases of 

17 the MCNPX that did this activated metal. And 

18 since then, there have been improvements in 

19 the model. They said it was a beta model, 

20 nothing to do with beta, the beta particle, 

21 you know, alpha, beta, gamma, in terms of 

22 testing. It was a preliminary experimental 
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1 release. And since then, they have the final 

2 release, and that one, which they've improved 

3 the code and that one gives much higher beta 

4 concentrations of the beta-emitting nuclides 

5 activated in the steel. 

6 Okay. And then here's just to 

7 round out the picture. For the photons 

8 exposures, our greatest concern that we see 

9 that even for the neutron we have 

10 approximately three times the exposure rate, 

11 dose rate, as NIOSH calculated. And the beta 

12 dose, depending on what year because of the 

13 different mixes of uranium and steel during 

14 those times, we go as high as three times on 

15 the beta dose and five times through the other 

16 skin.

17 Okay. Perhaps I should stop now 

18 and ask for questions because now we're going 

19 to a different topic. This has all been about 

20 direct external -- Paul, what should I do? 

21 Should we just continue?

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: No, this is 
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1 probably a good point to ask for questions. 

2 So let's do that. First let's see if the Work 

3 Group Members have some questions. Josie, 

4 John, Wanda?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Well, this is Wanda. 

6 One of the questions that comes to mind, 

7 listening to Bob's presentation, has to do 

8 with the use of -- can you go back one slide 

9 to the one that you were looking at before? 

10 No, no, the one where you were talking about 

11 the -- yes.

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This one?

13 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, right, the 

14 MCNPX version that was used.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, yes. That 

16 only affects the beta dose.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but the beta 

18 dose is important in the --

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: For skin, for 

20 skin, it's very important.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly, and what we 

22 have going on right here. My question has to 
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1 do with whether this difference in the 

2 versions that were used that's been discussed, 

3 does NIOSH have a rationale for using that 

4 preliminary version?

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, my 

6 understanding is they didn't use that version. 

7 They used our results, the results that -- we 

8 shared our runs with them back in 2008.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And they used 

11 those, those, those runs because that's all 

12 that was available then. Two years later, 

13 when the final version came out, we re-ran it, 

14 and we did a comparison. We showed a much 

15 higher activation of the beta-emitting 

16 radionuclides.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I'm probably 

18 not formulating my question properly, I guess; 

19 and it probably needs to be addressed to 

20 NIOSH. I really have some question in my mind 

21 as to what sort of discussion and whether any 

22 adjustment was made following this use of the 
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1 later, of the final MCNPX. I guess I really 

2 should be asking NIOSH that, rather than you, 

3 Bob. I just --

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay.

5 MEMBER MUNN: -- can't --

6 MR. ALLEN: Wanda, this is Dave. 

7 I think we discussed this one in the Work 

8 Group back when we were discussing the issues 

9 with the SEC petition.

10 MEMBER MUNN: I think we did, but 

11 I'm trying to remember what was said. It 

12 raises another issue, I mean it raises another 

13 question in my mind, and I couldn't remember 

14 what we said.

15 MR. ALLEN: Probably because there 

16 wasn't a whole large discussion. We agreed 

17 with SC&A. As I recall, Version 26E was just 

18 in its infancy as far as this technique, and 

19 then they found some issues with it, revised 

20 it, and the revised version gives a different 

21 number and everyone agreed the revised version 

22 with the correction should be the one used.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: And the key question 

2 for me is always how significant is that? My 

3 assumption is that it's not truly very 

4 significant.

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, it's a three6 to five-fold difference.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Three- to five-fold 

8 difference for how many cases at GSI?

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, I have no idea 

10 how many skin cancers there were. 

11 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. Just wanted 

12 to get a feel for what impact that had.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But if Dave said 

14 that NIOSH will make that adjustment, then the 

15 question is moot.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it seems to me 

17 that it is.

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay.

19 MEMBER MUNN: All right. 

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Other 

21 questions? John or Josie? 

22 MEMBER POSTON: No, I'm fine.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: I'm fine, as well. 

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Now, it 

3 seemed to me, because we only got this 

4 material a couple of days ago and I think the 

5 petitioners probably only got it yesterday or 

6 pretty recently, and I don't know if NIOSH has 

7 had a chance to review the SC&A material in 

8 any depth. Dave or Jim Neton, do you have any 

9 sort of responses on the SC&A paper at this 

10 time? 

11 One of my concerns is that there 

12 may, you know, if we've gotten this material 

13 very late and some of it I ended up reading 

14 this morning, but it seems to me that, before 

15 we can resolve some of these differences, that 

16 there may be a little more time needed. I'm 

17 thinking in terms of scheduling of their 

18 meetings in a few weeks, unless NIOSH is ready 

19 to respond at this point.

20 MR. ALLEN: I think we're ready to 

21 respond, at least, you know, like you said, 

22 there wasn't a lot of time, but I think we can 
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1 answer most of the issues raised by Bob.

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Are you 

3 going to do that, Dave? 

4 MR. ALLEN: Yes, I'd like to start 

5 it.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

7 MR. ALLEN: Starting back at the 

8 beginning there with the building 6 dose rates 

9 outside, I think Bob said he didn't feel there 

10 was any reason to believe or it wasn't 

11 credible that bricks were added, as far as 

12 shielding, to the building 6 radiography room. 

13 And I think he put "illogical" in his write-up 

14 on that. 

15 The first thing I wanted to point 

16 out is we started with the cobalt-60 

17 measurements, and then we adjusted them up for 

18 a slightly stronger, and we adjusted them up 

19 again for shielding that was added. If 

20 there's no shielding added, then our estimate 

21 is simply too high. 

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I agree, but I 
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1 just, I'm pointing out it's just unrealistic. 

2 I agree it is too high, would be higher. But 

3 it's high, not low.

4 MR. ALLEN: And it seems illogical 

5 that you basically said that, because we 

6 accounted for shielding that was added that 

7 you said we're not sure was added and that 

8 workers were not necessarily next to the wall 

9 where we placed them, that our estimate is, 

10 essentially, too high again; and, therefore, 

11 we should use the radiography dose, which is 

12 considerably higher. That seems very 

13 illogical to me that you would, your 

14 resolution would counteract your basis. 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Our opinion is 

16 that this scenario is simply unrealistic and 

17 not scientifically correct and cannot be used, 

18 whether it's -- it cannot be used as a basis 

19 for dose reconstruction because that's one of 

20 the requirements of the Act that we're 

21 supposed to comment on is whether it's 

22 scientifically correct. And since it's a 
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1 completely, I mean, it's basically something 

2 that's made up, and I don't mean to sound 

3 pejorative, but the reason for giving the high 

4 doses, the radiographer doses is that is the 

5 only scenario that we have some reasonable 

6 assurance and actual agreement among all the 

7 parties that these are bounding doses. Nobody 

8 can get higher than that. So if we go with 

9 that, we say here is something we can know. 

10 The other is there is a million 

11 possibilities of what about, what about some 

12 inadvertent exposures, what about the man who 

13 took the radium source home, which we now know

14 really did happen and there was a credible 

15 account, and I guess perhaps we incorrectly 

16 questioned whether that really happened. 

17 There's pretty concrete evidence. So we're 

18 simply saying that the radiographer dose gives 

19 you a broad enough umbrella that will cover 

20 all of these unknowns.

21 John Mauro, do you want to sort of 

22 weigh in on this? Because you had some strong 
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1 opinions on it, also. 

2 DR. MAURO: Yes. We almost have a 

3 philosophical difference. What we're really 

4 saying is that, to try to mechanistically 

5 model other scenarios, other than the 

6 triangular one, puts us in a place that's very 

7 difficult to do. I understand that you have 

8 done your best to parse people, that you felt 

9 these 22 were the number of people. You know, 

10 we're pretty confident that it's reasonable to 

11 assign the high-end doses to those guys, and 

12 even that may be pretty high, you know, 

13 because in the triangular distribution, we get 

14 up there pretty high. 

15 And so we have no dispute that you 

16 picked a good group, you picked a good 

17 distribution for the high-end exposures. But 

18 then the philosophy goes, okay, but now we've 

19 got these other 200 people, and the sense is 

20 that we now have another way to assign doses 

21 to them and it's something different and 

22 substantially lower than the other one. 
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1 So we're sort of caught in a 

2 difficult spot, the spot being we're not 

3 comfortable with the fact that you have this 

4 other group that we can say that, well, 

5 they're less likely to have experienced the 

6 high-end doses because of the job categories, 

7 but we're not that sure because of two things. 

8 One is we don't really know where they were, 

9 how long they were, and what they did. So 

10 what you've done is say, well, we're going to 

11 hypothesize that they were here for this time 

12 period and assign to them that dose. That's a 

13 construct to somehow find a way to deal with 

14 these other 200 people.

15 And in my sense, and, again, this 

16 is not really science now. What this is, is 

17 what I would consider to be where science and 

18 policy come together and some prudent 

19 judgments have to be made. And the way I see 

20 it is we're in a difficult spot, and I respect 

21 and understand why you want to make the parse 

22 where you made it. But I'm not sure if you 
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1 really can, and I come down in a place that 

2 says, given that we really don't know what to 

3 do with these other 200 workers, what do you 

4 do? Do you assign to them this number, this 

5 construct, which has certain limitations that 

6 we discussed and limitations that may be, 

7 where, as we just said, they may be, for that 

8 construct, the degree to which it actually 

9 exists and we know who they are, might 

10 actually be too high. So we're in a funny 

11 place.

12 In my opinion, I like to keep 

13 things simple and say that, well, I have a 

14 different way of looking at it. I'm saying we 

15 have all these workers that were somewhere 

16 involved, and I use the term the radiological 

17 envelope where people were coming and going 

18 and may have been here, may have been there. 

19 They may not have been radiographers. They 

20 may have been welders. They may have done 

21 this job, and they may have done that. 

22 And so we can't really get at this 
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1 thing mechanistically, but we can say with 

2 confidence that this upper triangle captures 

3 it all. And in a way, it probably is 

4 extremely claimant-favorable for an awful lot 

5 of workers, but I see no other alternative, 

6 unless, of course, as we mentioned in our last 

7 meeting, there's affirmative evidence that, 

8 no, this person, this person was 

9 administrative and spent just about all his 

10 time, we know that, out of this thing that I'm 

11 calling this radiological envelope. 

12 So it's almost like a 

13 philosophical difference on how to deal with a 

14 difficult circumstance. And SC&A's position 

15 is I think that, and it's a judgment call, me, 

16 I would go with the upper-end triangular and 

17 apply it to everyone and the rare individual 

18 that I could say with confidence, no, it just 

19 doesn't apply to that person. Then I could 

20 see going to some lower number. What that 

21 lower number is I don't know.

22 I know I'm going on a bit. So I 
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1 see that the majority of those workers, these 

2 two hundred twenty-something workers, the 

3 steps should be we're going to give them the 

4 upper end unless we have some affirmative 

5 reason not to. 

6 DR. NETON: John, this is Jim. I 

7 think you're starting to get towards where I 

8 think our position really is, and that is if 

9 it doesn't, you know -- we normally do not 

10 provide this high dose to all workers if there 

11 is evidence that, you know, they were clearly 

12 administrative in nature for the entirety of 

13 their career, and there's precedent set for 

14 this. We've done this in TBD-6000 --

15 DR. MAURO: Yes.

16 DR. NETON: -- which has been 

17 vetted and agreed to that there are different 

18 Classes of workers, such as supervisory or 

19 plant worker, that sort of thing. And maybe 

20 the issue here is, in Dave's example, we tried 

21 to be a little too fine-tuned with the 

22 analysis. But I think you would agree, and it 
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1 sounds like you would, that there are certain 

2 categories of workers that they have never 

3 really entered the plant much at all, such as 

4 secretarial or accounting type folks that may 

5 have traversed the plant but not have worked 

6 their entire time in there. And to give them 

7 this very high-end triangular distribution 

8 seems to us to be not reasonable. 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, Jim, it's 

10 Bob. See, I'm thinking along those lines. 

11 See, if that were the case, and we even 

12 discussed this at the last meeting when you 

13 said, you know, Bob, how about give them zero, 

14 and you said, no, no, you can't give them 

15 zero. Well, this would have been a judgment 

16 that should have been made perhaps by DOL that 

17 only a certain category of workers are even 

18 considered, even fall under EEOICPA.

19 DR. NETON: No, no, that's not the 

20 way it works, Bob. All dose reconstructions 

21 are sent to us. And if a dose reconstruction 

22 is zero, it's zero, and we would return it 
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1 that way. I mean, we get dose reconstructions 

2 for places that had no radiation exposures, 

3 and the doses come out with almost zero, maybe 

4 medical exposure. So our jurisdiction is to 

5 take the Class of employees or the eligible 

6 employees at that site and reconstruct their 

7 dose, whether it's zero or 15 rem. 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But I'm saying, 

9 perhaps I'm misunderstanding, perhaps I'm 

10 misunderstanding the policy under the Act. 

11 But it would seem to me that the Act, that if 

12 these people are covered by the Act, and 

13 maybe, you know, again, this is not my place 

14 at all, but maybe they shouldn't have been. 

15 Maybe there should have been two categories of 

16 people, and the only employees that are 

17 eligible were those with known contact with 

18 radiation --

19 DR. NETON: No, no, Bob, that's 

20 what dose reconstruction is all about: to 

21 decide which one had high exposures and medium 

22 exposures and low exposures in some 
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1 quantitative fashion. That's what we do. 

2 DR. MAURO: Jim, I'd like to go 

3 back to where you're coming from because I 

4 like where we're going with this conversation. 

5 And I think the difference in thinking is I 

6 look at it, I have 228 -- I think that's the 

7 exact number, 228? Is that the right number 

8 of claimants? 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Two hundred 

10 eighty-four. Two hundred eighty-four minus 

11 twenty-seven. 

12 DR. MAURO: Okay, whatever that 

13 number is. I can't do it in my head.

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Two fifty-seven.

15 DR. MAURO: See, I would look at 

16 it, I'm going to give it to all of them unless 

17 I have reason to believe I shouldn't, as 

18 opposed to the other way around. I, right 

19 now, have some evidence that I should give it 

20 to these 28 and the rest not and only because, 

21 and I would agree with you that it's only 

22 because of this site, because of the 
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1 circumstances that we've encountered at this 

2 site and for reasons we don't have to go into 

3 right now because we've discussed it many, 

4 many times.

5 So I would come out and say, 

6 listen, I'm going to give it to everyone, 

7 except for those ones that I can say, you 

8 know, it would really be ridiculous to assign 

9 this dose to this person and we have 

10 affirmative reasons for believing that. And I 

11 don't think that's what happened.

12 Now, what we would give these 

13 other people, let's say we could do that, 

14 let's say we went through some exercise and 

15 you could go through and you could say, 

16 listen, I can say with a high degree of 

17 confidence on a case-by-case basis that these 

18 are the conditions under which I would not 

19 assign the upper end and here they are, here 

20 are the people. And then you would say and, 

21 because of that, here's the dose I would give 

22 them.
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1 Now, whether it's the dose that 

2 you folks derived, it sounds like there's some 

3 difficulty with that approach because, you 

4 see, the other dose that you're applying, as 

5 far as I'm concerned, they're still within the 

6 radiological envelope. And so I say to myself 

7 that model that you've come up with for 

8 assigning some other doses, you know, to me, 

9 if you're in the radiological envelope and 

10 you're wandering around in the facility where 

11 there is the fish poles being used and there's 

12 these kinds of exposures maybe occurring, the 

13 person falls in that box. But if you could 

14 say that, no, they're more administrative, 

15 secretarial, and there's good evidence to that 

16 effect, these are the ones we're going to 

17 cherry-pick out and assign something else, 

18 which may be what you would call an ambient 

19 dose. I'm not even sure what it would be.

20 So it's just a different way of 

21 coming at the problem. I think, 

22 fundamentally, we're in agreement, and the 
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1 problem is how do we draw that line? 

2 DR. NETON: I think we are in 

3 agreement, and I don't think that Dave's 

4 calculation is incorrect. I think it's a 

5 reasonable approximation for what these folks 

6 received. It happens to be about an order of 

7 magnitude of 10 percent of the middle dose 

8 that's assigned to the radiographers. 

9 MR. ALLEN: Okay, okay.

10 DR. NETON: And that precedent, 

11 and that wasn't designed that way, that's just 

12 the way it came out, that is, often we use 

13 that in other situations where a person that 

14 was not a so-called process or production 

15 worker would receive 10 percent of the 

16 production dose. So it kind of fits in that 

17 envelope. I don't see that it's necessarily 

18 an inappropriate dose to assign. 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But what do you do 

20 with the guy who was a radiographer and he was 

21 sitting outside the tank? There's one case a 

22 name was supplied, in another case there was 
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1 no name given. 

2 DR. NETON: No, no, I'm suggesting 

3 --

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We won't know. 

5 When you're doing a dose reconstruction, you 

6 won't know who that person was.

7 DR. NETON: Bob, I'm suggesting 

8 that we don't parse it that thinly or that 

9 finely. We just say anyone who was a 

10 production process type worker would receive X 

11 dose, the high dose. And people who clearly 

12 fall in this administrative type category 

13 would not.

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. That's not 

15 the way Dave explained it.

16 DR. NETON: I understand. I 

17 started off by saying --

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. That sounds 

19 good. I can go with that. Another thing let 

20 me just throw out off the top of my head, 

21 there's also, in the AEC regulations two 

22 categories, as I'm sure all of us health 
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1 physicists know but it was different in those 

2 days, the two categories of exposure. There 

3 was exposure limitations on people who were 

4 inside the restricted area, meaning the posted 

5 area, nobody is allowed here without a film 

6 badge, and also the unrestricted area. The 

7 unrestricted area, at that time, at least in 

8 the 1961 rule, I'm not sure about the earlier 

9 rule, was 500 mR per year.

10 So it would seem reasonable to 

11 say, well, if they're observing good radiation 

12 practices, nobody got more than 500 mR except 

13 the people who were directly involved with 

14 radiation work. So that would seem to be --

15 I'm just throwing it out to --

16 DR. NETON: That doesn't sound 

17 like a bad idea, except then you get into this 

18 argument, well, did they really exercise good 

19 control practices? And you take Dave's 

20 calculation, and it puts an upper bound on 

21 someone who even was not --

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: If you apply that, 
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1 if you applied that, that to the 

2 administrative workers, I have no problem.

3 DR. NETON: Well, I think we're in 

4 agreement here then. I think that's, I don't 

5 see any --

6 DR. MAURO: I think we've come to 

7 the nub of the issue, and that is parsing is 

8 fine, but it was sort of surprising to me that 

9 only 28 workers out of the two hundred and 

10 whatever would fall into the high-end 

11 category. 

12 DR. NETON: Yes, and I hear you, 

13 and I'm thinking about this even with the ones 

14 where the CATIs put them in one bin or the 

15 other. It's difficult to say that a person 

16 didn't actually do some radiography at some 

17 point, you know. Mostly, we have the current 

18 job title, and you can go back a few years, 

19 but I'm more comfortable with the split with 

20 administrative versus what I would call 

21 production or process workers.

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Me, too.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: And this is Josie. 

2 I have a question. This will be for Dave 

3 Allen. If you look on page four of your 

4 report, Dave, it talks about the dose limit of 

5 the triangle of the higher limit 12 and then 

6 15 in 1953 to 1954. Is that the cutoff date 

7 there or are we going -- I was under the 

8 impression it would be through `62 for that 

9 higher end. 

10 MR. ALLEN: That's not going to be 

11 the right cutoff date. From what I looked up, 

12 I thought it was 1958. From what Bob put in 

13 his paper, he's saying, I believe it was 1960.

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, that was my 

15 fault. It was actually `55 that we had said 

16 earlier, and that was my error. And I have 

17 the actual, if anybody wants it -- as a matter 

18 of fact, it's in my report in the references, 

19 the actual -- it just so happens that we have 

20 a lawyer who's one of our associates who's 

21 also knowledgeable in radiation and health 

22 physics who used to work with us, and he was 
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1 able to dig up these rules.

2 DR. MAURO: I think we're in 

3 agreement that, whatever the rule was that is 

4 applicable based on historical records, we're 

5 going to go with that. Right now, it's our 

6 understanding it was right up to what? 1960?

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: January 1st, 1961 

8 when the 12 rem came in.

9 DR. MAURO: Now, if it turns out 

10 you believe it's something different than the 

11 15, it's something other, and you have records 

12 for that, I mean, we're making our case that 

13 we think it goes to that. So, yes, Josie, 

14 we're saying that we think we should change 

15 that date from -- what was it? That would be 

16 before --

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It was `55 --

18 DR. MAURO: We're saying we think 

19 --

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- through `60.

21 DR. MAURO: `61.

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, through `60. 
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1 Through 1960. January 1st, `61 is the lower -

2 -

3 DR. MAURO: Right. Certainly, if 

4 NIOSH goes into this issue, because I got to 

5 say we didn't look that closely at it. We 

6 should have. Now, when they look at it 

7 closely, if you see something different, you 

8 know, we could always talk about that. But I 

9 think we're in agreement --

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'll be very 

11 surprised if they saw a different Federal 

12 Register than we did.

13 DR. MAURO: Listen, I'm ready for 

14 anything. But I'm saying that the philosophy, 

15 though, is whatever is determined to be the 

16 applicable bound and the year in which that 

17 occurred and when it changed, I think that we 

18 both agree that's what we're going to use as 

19 the upper end of our triangular distribution. 

20 Now, we believe it's through 1960. If you 

21 find that it's something different, then, of 

22 course, we need to talk about that. 
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1 So, Josie, I think the answer to 

2 your question is it is our, SC&A's 

3 recommendation that, as best we can tell, it 

4 looks like that 15 should be pushed up a 

5 little bit from the `55 date up to 1960.

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Through 1960.

7 DR. MAURO: Through 1960. There 

8 you go. 

9 MR. ALLEN: Yes. And this is 

10 Dave, and I agree with them. The 10 CFR 20 is 

11 the controlling standard when it's in effect 

12 at the time. You know, assuming that's what 

13 it says, then, yes, we'll push it up through 

14 1960. I had NBS 59 out, and then I realized 

15 where the error between the `54 and `58 came 

16 from. There was an amendment that changed NBS 

17 59 to, essentially, 12 rem per year, but they 

18 left the `54 cover page on it, which confused 

19 --

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, what happened 

21 was AEC took three years from the time they 

22 suggested the rule to actually promulgate it.
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1 MR. ALLEN: Right. So, like I 

2 said, we would agree --

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The NBS Handbook 

4 came out earlier. 

5 DR. MAURO: I think we've got this 

6 part solved, and I think the only, the place 

7 that's really the -- we'll get the internal in 

8 a second. But, I mean, from an external point 

9 of view, I think we're there. I think it 

10 really becomes a matter that, as Jim said, to 

11 maybe take a closer look at where does that 

12 split really occur? Is it 28 people, or is it 

13 something bigger? In other words, is the tent 

14 going to be a little bigger for putting the 

15 people into the upper-end distribution? And, 

16 of course, this is going to be a judgment 

17 call, and I believe that, in the end, you 

18 know, we're all going to see it maybe a little 

19 differently and we're going to converge, as we 

20 always do. We try to, anyway, converge on, 

21 okay, I think we've placed in the right place.

22 Right now, our sense is it's not 
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1 in the right place, you know, where that cut 

2 is occurring. It just doesn't, you know, the 

3 nature of the work and the classification of 

4 the workers. If you folks are willing to go 

5 back and take another look at that, maybe make 

6 it a bigger tent, and be comfortable with it, 

7 I think that we're on our way to resolving 

8 this. 

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Let me 

10 pose a question for NIOSH at this point. This 

11 is Ziemer again. And either Dave or Jen, I 

12 think what I heard that NIOSH would propose is 

13 that you would not use the triangular 

14 distribution if you had, basically, solid 

15 information that confirmed that the person 

16 could not have been in the radiological area, 

17 such as a secretary. We're talking about 

18 before, if that group, aside from everybody 

19 else in the plant and under those conditions, 

20 are you saying that everyone else in the plant 

21 would get the brand new distribution --

22 DR. NETON: This is Jim. That's 
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1 what I'm saying, that we would make the 

2 dividing line, what I would call production 

3 process workers versus administrative 

4 personnel. 

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Now, can that 

6 actually be done in practice is my question? 

7 Because it's not unlike the question we had 

8 even at GE Cincinnati where we said is there a 

9 way that that could actually be identified?

10 DR. NETON: Well, this is a little 

11 different, Paul, in the sense that we're not 

12 saying that they didn't enter the radiological 

13 area. We're saying that we can bound their 

14 dose if they did using Dave's calculation.

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, well --

16 DR. NETON: We don't need to 

17 necessarily say they never entered the area. 

18 We could say that, if they did, they certainly 

19 weren't doing radiography. And if they 

20 weren't doing radiography, then this 

21 approximately 900 millirem or milliroentgen 

22 would bound their exposure per year. And, in 
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1 fact, we do this. Again, we have different 

2 categories of workers in TBD --

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Well, 

4 yes, I'm not disputing that. I'm trying to 

5 understand how it would actually be 

6 administered in terms of doing it. So if 

7 there was any doubt that the person was 

8 somehow outside basically most of the time, 

9 they would be assigned the higher dose.

10 DR. NETON: Correct. They would 

11 be given the benefit of the doubt and 

12 claimant-favorable assumption and be assigned 

13 the higher dose.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right, right. 

15 So it comes down to that issue, Allen 

16 described it as the size of the tip. Yes --

17 DR. NETON: Well, I suspect that 

18 this is going to enlarge the group 

19 tremendously, you know. If you were in the 

20 process production area, you'll be assigned 

21 the high -- I don't know what fraction of the 

22 people will show up as administration, but I 
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1 suspect it's a fairly small percentage of the 

2 total workforce. I haven't looked at it.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So are you 

4 proposing that you would go back and kind of 

5 do the reverse of what Dave did and say can we 

6 find from either the CATIs or the job 

7 description people who definitely were not in 

8 the radiological area for --

9 DR. NETON: I had intended to do 

10 that as an exercise. I mean, I was trying to 

11 describe the approach we would take in dose 

12 reconstruction, but if --

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, I think 

14 I'm asking do we know we can even do it? And 

15 if we can't, then it defaults to the larger 

16 group.

17 DR. NETON: Well, we just don't 

18 know. Well, it would, but, in practice, 

19 though, I would still like to maintain that 

20 option if we, you know, if it's, if the data 

21 are there and we have job categories of people 

22 who, for instance, were secretaries their 
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1 entire career or during their employment 

2 period, we want them to have that option to 

3 assign the lower dose. That's all we're 

4 saying. I mean, it just doesn't make sense to 

5 take someone with a job category of secretary, 

6 or maybe accountant, or draftsman, and say 

7 that they received up to 15 rem exposure every 

8 year of their employment. It just doesn't 

9 make sense to us. 

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. 

11 DR. NETON: We can go back and re12 look at the job categories, but I think what 

13 we would do is very much like we've done in 

14 the past at many other sites. This is not 

15 unique. This is not something that we're 

16 proposing that is unique to GSI.

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Well, I 

18 want to ask one additional question. I'll ask 

19 SC&A this question.

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Tom, I have 

21 another --

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Hang on, Bob. 
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1 Hang on just a minute. Here's the question: 

2 so if this approach were used, I assume SC&A 

3 still has some issue with that actual 

4 calculation in terms of the dimension or the 

5 shielding or the actual value --

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, that's what I 

7 was just going to get to. We had done in an 

8 earlier report a calculation of the dose using 

9 the actual radiography room to someone 

10 standing just outside the door with the radium 

11 sources exposed, and the difference being this 

12 would not have been caught by the later survey 

13 because the steel shields had been installed. 

14 Now, prior to installation of the steel 

15 shields, you had a clear path for radiation 

16 from the radium source in the middle of the 

17 room going right through a very thin door, 

18 typically a hollow steel door total of an 

19 eighth-inch or quarter-inch of steel, someone 

20 outside. And there we calculated, based on 

21 the 30-percent occupancy, which was something 

22 taken from the NCC assumption, that there 
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1 would be 2 rem a year, 2.086, if I remember 

2 correctly. And that's based on a direct 

3 calculation, and I think it's a little more 

4 defensible. I mean, obviously, it sounds like 

5 I'm promoting it because we did it, but it 

6 seems to be a little more defensible. And 

7 they could change the occupancy factor to 

8 whatever seems, you know, that's a judgment 

9 call. That's not a physics problem.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: It would be 

11 different for people who were plant workers 

12 versus the casual --

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, this would 

14 be a casual person. I mean, you could 

15 hypothesize that a casual person would have 

16 walked up to that radiography room, and this 

17 would have been, by far, the most highly18 exposed location just outside the door, steel 

19 door, as opposed to outside the thick sand20 filled bricks. We didn't know what fraction 

21 of the wall was actual concrete and what 

22 fraction was sand. We modeled it as if it 
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1 were just sand because sand has a lower 

2 density than concrete, so, essentially, we 

3 made sand walls. But that doesn't really 

4 matter because we're looking at the radiation 

5 through the door, so the walls really have 

6 nothing to do with it.

7 That's a suggestion. I'm not 

8 saying it's a policy statement. It's a 

9 suggestion because before actually NIOSH had 

10 adopted that, and I said, well, no, we did not 

11 intend for this to be the definitive dose for 

12 all non-radiographers. But now that you're 

13 limiting the Class to whom it would apply, 

14 that would seem to be a good starting point, 

15 and we'll be happy to share the MCNP files if 

16 you wanted to check them. And this is a very 

17 sample calculation. It could be done with any 

18 version of MCNP, just the direct photon 

19 radiation.

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thanks, 

21 Bob. Let's see if there's other questions.

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Hello?
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, still 

2 there?

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I heard a beep.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Paul, this is 

5 Josie. I don't have any questions right now. 

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Now, I 

7 want to do one other -- we hadn't made a final 

8 decision on this, but I know that Dr. McKeel 

9 had some -- I'm hearing some noises here, but 

10 Dr. McKeel had some issues with Dave Allen's 

11 presentation and maybe some issues with some 

12 of the shielding issues, as well. Dan, I'm 

13 going to give you an opportunity, if you want 

14 to comment at this point, on this external 

15 dose issue. 

16 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, I'm muted. Can 

17 you hear me all right? 

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, go ahead.

19 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. Well, I do 

20 have some comments. I guess the first points 

21 that I want to make that I think has been 

22 totally overlooked in this morning's entire 
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1 discussion, and that is that the scheme that 

2 NIOSH seems to be near agreement upon that 

3 there will be two classes of workers under 

4 this new plan, which I assume we're all in 

5 agreement we're working toward a revised 

6 Appendix BB.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That is correct.

8 DR. MCKEEL: Do we agree with 

9 that? 

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

11 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. And under the 

12 old Appendix BB, there was also a two-level 

13 plan there. It didn't include office workers, 

14 but it included, primarily, radiographers, 

15 betatron and isotope, et cetera, versus non16 betatron, isotope radiographers, so all the 

17 other people in the plant. In that scheme, 

18 that would have included office workers. 

19 And the fourth paper that I sent 

20 you all in the wee hours of this day, which I 

21 thought was extremely important, was to point 

22 out that there was a meeting held by NIOSH, a 
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1 town hall meeting, October 9th of 2007. And 

2 in that meeting, Dave Allen made an extensive 

3 presentation of the facts that -- and this was 

4 in the period, this was October 2007. I have 

5 information from Laurie Breyer that somewhere 

6 around two-thirds of the dose reconstruction 

7 done at GSI had already been completed. And 

8 Dave Allen made the statement over and over 

9 and over in many different ways that almost 

10 everybody was assigned the highest dose, that 

11 is as it was put in that meeting summary of 

12 betatron radiographers. 

13 Now, that's basically the same 

14 thing that was said on December the 11th, 

15 2012, just before the full Board voted to deny 

16 SEC 105. And I had said in my administrative 

17 review that we filed for SEC 105 with HHS that 

18 those remarks by Dave Allen but also 

19 contributed to by others was a very serious 

20 misleading of the Board. 

21 I also think that Dave Allen's 

22 statements in October 9th of 2007 were very 
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1 serious misleading of the public as to what 

2 would be done with the dose reconstructions, 

3 and that's my question that I have today. I 

4 have two questions. One is Dave Allen's 

5 presentation today did not reflect that he had 

6 read any of my papers. There's no reference 

7 to the 1952 data. There's no reference by 

8 Dave Allen to my and John Ramspott's 

9 information that we sent about the inner 

10 structure in building 6 being built in 1955, 

11 that the walls were one row thick of blocks, 

12 concrete blocks with holes that were filled 

13 with river sand that were six to eight inches 

14 wide, not 16 inches wide, not 24 inches wide, 

15 that the workers deny that bricks were ever 

16 added to the outside of those walls. All of 

17 those facts we had just sent. And, you know, 

18 I hear no indication that Dave Allen read that 

19 material, considered any of those things, and 

20 certainly they're not entered into his models, 

21 which are based on solid concrete walls that 

22 are 16 to 24 inches thick.
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1 We know that the walls in the 

2 inner building were not solid concrete because 

3 we now have two workers, Mr. Churovich is on 

4 the phone and he's one of them, and 

5 [identifying information redacted] who was an 

6 employee that was there from 1950 through 1977 

7 and was there, actually, for a very long time 

8 and directly observed the inner structure 

9 being built in 1955. So all the facts that we 

10 put in our paper were [identifying information 

11 redacted] affidavit, eyewitness, sworn 

12 statement, and Mr. Churovich can amplify that 

13 showing the same thing. 

14 But the main problem with all of 

15 this scenario that the highest dose will be 

16 assigned is the fact that, based on the 

17 completed dose reconstructions that I've seen 

18 and that John Ramspott has seen, it is 

19 definitely simply not true what Dave Allen 

20 said would be the case in 2007 and it's not 

21 true what Dave Allen was referring to in 

22 December the 11th. And I am skeptical that, 
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1 even though you may say that the highest dose 

2 should be assigned to everybody, that the 

3 language we're all using is so vague about 

4 which jobs are going to be covered under the 

5 highest dose scenario that dose reconstructors 

6 will be free to do whatever they want to do.

7 I have a communication, too, 

8 actually, from Laurie Ishak Breyer, who is the 

9 SEC counselor, where she laid out explicitly 

10 that, as we all know, Appendix BB has two 

11 levels of dose assignment. And, in general, 

12 my observation is that the real betatron 

13 isotope operators, which are only a few, as 

14 Dave Allen pointed out. A deceased betatron 

15 radiographer, John Terry Dutko, sent you all a 

16 list that there were 11 radiographers that he 

17 was aware of that filed claims. That's all.

18 And so, you know, so 11 from 284 

19 only leaves you, that's 273 people who are not 

20 betatron radiographers. And according to Dave 

21 Allen, in 2007, most of those people should 

22 have gotten the betatron radiographer doses. 
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1 Well, they didn't get those doses. They were 

2 assigned the lower dose level, just like 

3 Appendix BB Rev 0 in 2007 indicated they 

4 would.

5 So here's what I have to say. 

6 Before any of this morning's discussion is 

7 credible at all, NIOSH now must produce 

8 statistics where it breaks down the statistics 

9 that should have been delivered a long time 

10 ago to add fact to this broad general 

11 discussion, which is entirely qualitative and 

12 it's based on supposition and speculation and 

13 so forth.

14 And so what they need to do is 

15 they need to say, of all the people who've 

16 undergone dose reconstruction, how many of 

17 those people are strictly classified as 

18 radiographers? That certainly should include 

19 the 11 people that Terry Dutko identified. It 

20 certainly should include the 12 radiographers 

21 that Dave Allen spoke about this morning. But 

22 the most important thing he needs to fill in 
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1 is how many of the remaining 273 people were 

2 assigned that highest betatron radiography 

3 dose? And I will be surprised if that number 

4 isn't way lower. I think you're going to find 

5 that the dose reconstructors gave the non6 radiographers the non-radiographer dose and, 

7 in general, the radiographers got the 

8 radiographer's higher dose.

9 Now, of course, the problem is for 

10 Rev 1 of Appendix BB we have another huge 

11 problem, and that is, in the former Rev 0, the 

12 betatron operators got higher doses than the 

13 other workers did by an order of magnitude 

14 tenfold at least, whereas the situation has 

15 changed dramatically now that NIOSH has 

16 reverted to normalizing the MCNPX betatron 

17 model to the film badge reading. And the idea 

18 that, as you heard today, Bob Anigstein said 

19 the fact that you have to normalize to no more 

20 than 10 millirem doses on the film badges, and 

21 Bob gave you his reasons this morning why SC&A 

22 doesn't even think that normalization process 
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1 is valid.

2 So I think, I think that is a very 

3 major thing. I think that for the radium 

4 calculations for the non-radiographers, you 

5 know, you have to use half-value layers of 

6 river sand for an eight-inch or six-inch thick

7 wall. And, also, the quotations that Bob 

8 Anigstein gave this morning that no workers 

9 came within 20 feet of the inner structure is 

10 refuted by abundant testimony from many 

11 workers who knew that area. 

12 [Identifying information 

13 redacted], who observed the inner building 

14 being built, reminded all of us, I didn't know 

15 this before, that he parked his locomotive in 

16 the winter in building 6 very close to the 

17 inner radiography room in building 6. John 

18 Ramspott reminds me that it's virtually a 

19 straight line from that thin door of the inner 

20 building, which, by the way, there's testimony 

21 that we believe that that door wasn't even 

22 present probably up until 1962.
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1 [Identifying information redacted] 

2 testifies that when he saw the building 6 

3 inner building being built that they framed in 

4 the door, but they didn't put a door on that 

5 structure. So we think that it may be that 

6 there was no door on that up until 1962 when 

7 the cobalt-60 licenses were built. But in any 

8 case, even if there was a thin door, radium 

9 could penetrate that quite easily, and it was 

10 a straight shot into the foundry building 

11 which was right across from that inner 

12 building, which was, by the way, for the 

13 record, roofless.

14 So I just think the entire 

15 modeling and the entire idea that you can 

16 assign everybody this high dose and that it 

17 actually will be carried out during actual 

18 dose reconstructions is really a house of 

19 cards this morning. I think that the Work 

20 Group should ask NIOSH to provide the 

21 statistics that show that non-radiographers 

22 have been assigned radiographer doses and that 
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1 this scheme that's being proposed actually 

2 comports with the facts of what has been done 

3 since dose reconstructions really began at GSI 

4 in 2007.

5 So, anyway, I have -- oh, and 

6 there's one other thing I just need to mention 

7 about today's discussion. When we're talking 

8 about, when Jim Neton is talking about 

9 identifying and Paul Ziemer is talking about 

10 identifying workers who were secretaries and 

11 accountants and, interestingly, Dave Allen 

12 brought up accountants in 2007 at the October 

13 meeting, but Paul wants to be able to identify 

14 those people solidly, and I'm saying that's 

15 not possible. And I point out to you that I 

16 had written Rachel Leiton and asked her about 

17 whether Department of Labor was able to 

18 identify radiographers and non-radiographers 

19 at GSI, and she wrote back to me and I sent 

20 that letter to all of you and the Board. She 

21 wrote back that their system, quote, was not 

22 sophisticated enough to distinguish 
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1 radiographers and non-radiographers at GSI, 

2 that most of the job classifications DOL had 

3 related to chemical operators and laboratory 

4 workers.

5 So I think that's another issue 

6 that has to be reconciled, and I think it 

7 would save a lot of heartache and angst and 

8 mistakes and time and money and effort if 

9 Department of Labor could be consulted on this 

10 matter. Can they actually pick out 

11 secretaries and accountants from all the other 

12 people that they would have to distinguish? 

13 Can Department of Labor help you pick out 

14 radiographers? I just feel that that's going 

15 to be impossible to administer accurately.

16 So I have other comments about the 

17 internal doses, and I have to say on the SC&A 

18 papers that, you know, I got my copies 

19 yesterday. That's not nearly enough time to 

20 review those papers and digest them. I find 

21 out this morning that Dr. Anigstein has a 

22 PowerPoint. I think all of you all well know 
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1 that every time that a PowerPoint is shown I 

2 want a copy, and that could have been done 

3 proactively. You know, the petitioners ought 

4 to have the material that's presented at Work 

5 Group meetings, and I've asked for that over 

6 and over again. 

7 So while all that discussion was 

8 going on and you all were watching everything 

9 on your screens, I had no access to that 

10 information, and I need to have that. So, you 

11 know, I wrote you all four papers, and three 

12 of them came in much earlier. The response to 

13 Dave Allen took three days, and it's 24 pages 

14 long. And I need you to read that, and I need 

15 it to be discussed intelligently this morning, 

16 along with Dave Allen's paper and along with 

17 the two papers that SC&A wrote in response to 

18 it.

19 So I guess the final thing I would 

20 say is I noticed that Dave Allen mentioned 

21 that radium-226, exposure was the way he put 

22 it, was slightly more than you get from 
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1 cobalt-60. Well, you know, I'm not a house 

2 physicist, but it wasn't hard to read that 

3 radium-226 generates five alphas with energies 

4 up to 7.7 MeV each, plus the gamma photons 

5 that are 2.3 MeV versus, as you all know 

6 better than me, Co60 only has gamma photons in 

7 the 1 to 1.1 MeV range. 

8 So I think, again, that's a, it's 

9 a misleading statement to say it's only 

10 slightly greater. It's more than two-fold 

11 greater energy wise, radium compared to 

12 cobalt-60. 

13 And I'd also mention that you all 

14 act as though you know a lot about the GSI 

15 radium sources, but, in fact, you all don't 

16 know who manufactured them, who was the 

17 vendor, when they were purchased, whether 

18 there were any radon leak tests which I have 

19 in my papers. He brought that up to this Work 

20 Group in 2009. And, you know, all of that 

21 should have been worked out years ago. 

22 In fact, when the radium plumb-bob 
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1 incident was first described, it was described 

2 as a stolen plumb-bob. The word radium was 

3 not attached to that at all. And now that 

4 John Ramspott and I have read about all of 

5 this extensively, it's pretty clear to us that 

6 plumb-bob, plumb-bob refers to a radium 

7 source. It doesn't apply to a cobalt source. 

8 It doesn't apply to a radium source. So as 

9 soon as that testimony came up in 2006, 

10 everybody should have started looking for 

11 radium-226 sources at GSI. And the NRC FOIA 

12 2010-0012 that I obtained and NRC supplied to 

13 us in full unredacted, that clearly has in 

14 there that both St. Louis Testing and NCC 

15 performed leak tests on the GSI sources. 

16 Now, presumably, that was on their 

17 cobalt sources, but what's really relevant is 

18 who or did anyone perform leak tests on the 

19 GSI radium-226 sources? And you all know 

20 better than I do that those sources build up 

21 gasses within the little capsule, and they 

22 often rupture, and that's the reason why they 
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1 were so dangerous. That's the reason why 

2 their use was discontinued. That's the reason 

3 why people had to, for safety reasons, perform 

4 leak tests. And we don't know anything about 

5 that at GSI and, as far as I can tell, the 

6 effort has not been expended to find out about 

7 that, to get those records from NRC or the 

8 Department of Energy.

9 I've sent three FOIA requests to 

10 get those license records for NCC and for St. 

11 Louis Testing, and I can't get them. NRC says 

12 they have no records of those licenses. 

13 Department of Energy, Pat Worthington, Dr. 

14 Worthington just wrote me and I sent that to 

15 you all. The Department of Energy cannot find 

16 those byproduct licenses for either NCC or for 

17 St. Louis Testing.

18 So the way I look at that is that 

19 all that information that's in the GSI license 

20 application that talks about NCC, St. Louis 

21 Testing, some of the facts in there are just 

22 plain wrong. We certainly believe the 
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1 drawings of the inner building 6 building in 

2 that GSI license application are just plain 

3 wrong. They weren't 16 inches, they weren't 

4 24 inches thick.

5 So, anyway, that's basically what 

6 I have to say on that. I do have some 

7 comments to make about the internal doses, but 

8 I'll let it go at that. Thank you.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We'll get to 

10 those later, Dan. Thank you. Let me make a 

11 couple of comments here just for the record. 

12 On the radium sources, the alpha energies are 

13 not pertinent since none of the alphas can get 

14 out through that capsule. So our --

15 MR. KATZ: Paul, you --

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I'm on mute. 

17 Sorry. I was on mute. Just a couple of 

18 comments here. I just wanted to mention, on 

19 the radium sources, the alpha energies aren't 

20 of importance here since the alphas do not get 

21 outside of the capsule. So the alpha radium 

22 sources are very well known in terms of the 
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1 exposure rate, as are cobalt, so those numbers 

2 that Dave has used were very well known 

3 numbers in terms of the output at various 

4 distances per unit activity. They're very 

5 well-known, well-established numbers.

6 One other thing I'll comment on 

7 because, on the leak test issues, we had 

8 commented way back that one of the reasons 

9 radium was removed from use around the country 

10 and it was not mandated by AEC, they had no 

11 control over radium and this was really done 

12 on a consensus basis and enforced by states 

13 mainly, but was the leaking issue. 

14 Now, not all radium sources leak, 

15 and one of the issues would be for 

16 radiographers, if you had a leaking source, 

17 you basically couldn't use it for radiography 

18 because you would be contaminating your films 

19 with the leaking material. So the fact that 

20 one was able to continue to use the films in 

21 radiography is, at least, an indirect 

22 indication that there was leakage because if 
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1 you had such leakage you wouldn't be able to 

2 really conduct valid radiography pictures.

3 And there was indication in some 

4 of those early records, at least statements 

5 that leak testing was done. We don't have 

6 those records, but, indirectly, one can 

7 confirm from the fact that they were able to 

8 use those sources for radiography that they 

9 weren't leakers and, hence, the external 

10 contamination apparently was not an issue. 

11 Now, I --

12 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. 

13 Can I please? I need to break in because 

14 you're just overriding my central point. My 

15 central point is that when it was time for 

16 GSI, when they bought their cobalt-60 sources, 

17 there's some early letters from the AEC saying 

18 that their leak testing and calibration 

19 records for the survey meters were late, that 

20 they hadn't done them. 

21 So, certainly, for those meters 

22 and those sources, the AEC was very interested 
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1 in whether those tests had been performed. 

2 And I know from everything I've read that 

3 radium, when you say, I believe your term was 

4 that you can infer that the GSI radium sources 

5 which were used for at least 10 to 11 years, 

6 and don't forget the information that you all 

7 cite as the basis for saying that AEC limits 

8 were not exceeded, that statement in the GSI 

9 license says that those measurements went back 

10 20 years. And so that means well before 1952 

11 there was some source that was being used at 

12 GSI. The betatron didn't come in until 1952. 

13 And so the main source that would be used at 

14 GSI for the first part of those 20 years was 

15 radium-226. That's all they had.

16 And so I'm saying that, and I 

17 believe you would have to admit this, that at 

18 any well-run installation that people did do 

19 leak tests for radium-226 sources, and the 

20 literature is full of methods to do that using 

21 Polaroid land film and so forth. And as I 

22 said, those leaks, a lot of them couldn't be 
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1 seen, couldn't be seen by visual inspection. 

2 And, of course, the marker that made them 

3 visible was the radon that was released 

4 through, those tiny holes in the capsule would 

5 expose the underlying film and that would show 

6 you the sources of the leaking.

7 So I'm going to claim again that 

8 it was probable that the GSI radium-226 

9 sources did leak. We had no idea whether they 

10 were changed out at all. We just have no 

11 records about that. If you say they weren't 

12 ever, that leaking was not an issue, that was 

13 your phrase, I don't believe we know that. I 

14 think that's speculation and conjecture. So, 

15 you know --

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, I don't 

17 agree with that because if they were leaking 

18 that would show up in at least two ways. One 

19 is your survey meters would not be usable 

20 because they would be contaminated. Number 

21 two, your films would be contaminated and 

22 would not be usable.
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1 DR. MCKEEL: Well, here's the 

2 problem. You don't have any films, you don't 

3 have any reports, you don't have any 

4 calibration record on any test instruments. 

5 So all of those things could have occurred, 

6 and we would never know the difference. We 

7 simply do not have records. Everybody is 

8 making up things that should have been the 

9 case at GSI, but we have no proof that they 

10 were actually the case.

11 So, again, you know, I cannot 

12 require anything. I can just say that the 

13 petitioners, and speaking for the workers and 

14 the advocates at this site, strongly believe 

15 that you all should, to be claimant-favorable, 

16 presume that those radium sources did leak

17 radon and you have to bound those doses. 

18 That's all I'll say about that.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Bob, do you have 

20 a comment?

21 DR. MCKEEL: I do have one other 

22 comment. I'm sorry. But, you know, you call 
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1 me out of order. I thought that I was going 

2 to be on the spot after all the discussions 

3 were had from SC&A. But I want to mention 

4 that when Bob Anigstein was going through his 

5 list of sources at GSI during the radium era, 

6 he mentioned radium and the betatron. But, in 

7 fact, we have testimony that there was 

8 iridium-192 source and there were two 250 kVp 

9 x-ray machines, and the same situation told 

10 during the, quote, betatron era. It wasn't 

11 just the two betatrons and two cobalt sources. 

12 There were also the two kVp, 250 kVp 

13 machines. There was the iridium source and 

14 two overlooked sources that when I was 

15 preparing the administrative review we ran 

16 across. But there's testimony from three 

17 workers at GSI that they were required as part 

18 of their radiographer GSI jobs to go over to 

19 American Steel and to use their one million 

20 kVp x-ray machine and their iridium-192 source 

21 to do overflow GSI work. And, more 

22 importantly, those men were required to wear 
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1 their GSI film badges over to American Steel.

2 So I understand that's a legal 

3 question as to whether work done by GSI 

4 employees at another facility should be 

5 covered under their dose reconstructions under 

6 the Act, but that is a fact. It is on the 

7 record, and it was put on the record during 

8 two worker meetings in July and August of 

9 2006. 

10 Okay. Thank you. 

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Bob, you 

12 had a comment? 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, I have a 

14 couple of comments. First of all, about the 

15 exclusion, I never said that no worker could 

16 approach within 20 feet. I said there were no 

17 workstations. That was according to the GSI 

18 application. There were no workstations in 

19 that area. There's 20 feet on either side to 

20 the nearest work area, and there was oil drum 

21 storage on one side, which made it difficult 

22 to approach the walls. There was one wall, I 
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1 think it would be the east, the west wall, 

2 which was approachable. Obviously, they had 

3 to go in and out the door. But there was no 

4 permanent station where somebody would spend a 

5 good part of eight hours a day. That was what 

6 I meant. I never meant to say that they could 

7 not approach the wall.

8 The other statement was about the, 

9 some comments about the leak testing and the 

10 radium. The fact that the AEC raised a 

11 question about the cobalt leak testing was 

12 simply a matter of how the regulation was 

13 interpreted. And Dr. Kronecker of the NCC, 

14 the Nuclear-Chicago Corporation, simply said 

15 he assumed that they had to be tested within 

16 six months of being put into use, not within 

17 six months of it being first -- they did do 

18 leak testing. There was just a quibble over 

19 what was the appropriate date, and he said now 

20 we understand the right date. It's not that 

21 they didn't know about leak testing and they 

22 did not do leak testing. 
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1 And the same way with the 

2 instrument calibration. It was a question of 

3 the dates that it had to be done on.

4 Now, I did some independent 

5 research I never got around to reporting on 

6 what was, the radium sources were not owned by 

7 GSI. They were leased; and, as a matter of 

8 fact, that's one of the reasons given in the 

9 license application why they wanted to get rid 

10 of them, besides the fact that the State of 

11 Illinois ordered them to, which I think was 

12 the real reason, but also that the leasing was 

13 pretty much extremely expensive in those days. 

14 So even the leasing was expensive, and they 

15 thought it was cheaper to simply buy the 

16 cobalt sources outright and be done with it 

17 and not have to pay, you know, annual, 

18 monthly, whatever it was, lease.

19 And that being the case, now, we 

20 don't know who was the purveyor, but I did 

21 find information on some purveyors that leased 

22 radium sources. And they also provided at a 
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1 very low cost leak testing. There were two 

2 ways. They would either sell a leak testing 

3 kit, and I'm going by memory but at some very 

4 nominal cost, like $19. I know we're talking 

5 about years back, but still $19 on the 

6 operation side of GSI was not significant. Or 

7 they could send the sources, and they would 

8 leak test them. And, again, I'm just trying 

9 to, I think it was something like $70. Less 

10 than a hundred dollars and they would leak 

11 test them. But since they were leased 

12 sources, it would be very simple to say, okay, 

13 send us, we're sending you the source for leak 

14 testing, send us another one in the meantime 

15 since we could just swap them since they're 

16 owned by this company anyway.

17 So it's not proof. But given 

18 everything else, that they went to the expense 

19 of having film badges when they weren't 

20 required to, it would seem very reasonable to 

21 think that, since leak testing was provided at 

22 a nominal cost, why would they not take 
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1 advantage of it? That's sort of a heuristic 

2 argument. It's not conclusive proof.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. We need 

4 to take a comfort break here. We've had a lot 

5 of discussion, but let's take a ten-minute 

6 break and then we'll return, have one more 

7 discussion, and then we'll do our lunch break 

8 probably about a quarter after one Eastern 

9 Time. Okay, ten minute break. 

10 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

11 matter went off the record at 

12 12:32 p.m. and resumed at 12:46 

13 p.m.)

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think we'll go 

15 ahead and proceed. I want to start with a 

16 question, which I will ask NIOSH. Let me 

17 frame it this way: if we were to proceed with 

18 a scheme such as they describe with the 

19 triangular distribution and the idea that 

20 everyone would get that dose unless you could 

21 specifically confirm that there's no way they 

22 would have been in the operational area, 
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1 number one, I assume that that would result 

2 not only in a revision of Appendix BB but 

3 would initiate a PER that would go back and 

4 review all of the previous dose 

5 reconstructions, at least those that were 

6 below the 50-percent value, and determine 

7 whether or not they now are qualified for 

8 compensation under the revision. Is that 

9 correct?

10 MR. ALLEN: This is Dave Allen. 

11 Yes, that's correct. I mean, that's been the 

12 plan all along is to settle all the issues, 

13 revise the appendix, and then perform a PER.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And, essentially 

15 --

16 DR. NETON: Paul, this is Jim. 

17 I'd like to correct one thing you said. You 

18 said that we would confirm there's no way they 

19 entered the radiological area.

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. I want to 

21 --

22 DR. NETON: I would say that we 
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1 would confirm there was no way that they 

2 actually performed radiography. That's really 

3 what we're saying because these people did not 

4 perform radiography --

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Excuse me. This 

6 is Bob. That's not what John Mauro and I 

7 understood you to say earlier. There will be 

8 an exclusion for proven administrative 

9 personnel who would not have been in the 

10 plant. Obviously, some secretary might have 

11 been sent to give a message to a radiographer, 

12 the boss wants to see you or something like 

13 that. But I mean they would not be only in 

14 the plant. Now, we're going back and forth 

15 because --

16 DR. NETON: No, no, no, I 

17 misspoke. What I meant was they could have 

18 been in the plant by, you know, traversing it, 

19 delivering paychecks, you know, whatever. So 

20 Paul said that they would not been in the 

21 plant, but I'm saying they could have been in 

22 the plant but they were administrative 
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1 personnel only and --

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, yes, that's 

3 what we understood you to say. We hope --

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But anyone who 

5 worked in the plant --

6 DR. NETON: Right. They did not 

7 work --

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: -- would be 

9 considered a radiographer under this scheme.

10 DR. NETON: Correct. I misspoke.

11 Thanks for correcting me, too. 

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, okay. I 

13 wanted to make sure I understood where that 

14 was going. And then the other part of it is 

15 then, if they were in the category where they 

16 were what you're calling currently sort of 

17 administrative, I'm not using that necessarily 

18 as the job title but conceptually, not someone 

19 who worked within the plant on a regular 

20 basis, you were going to apply the lower dose 

21 based on the calculation that Dave had 

22 developed. 
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1 And what I wanted to ascertain

2 was, and perhaps this would be a next step, a 

3 couple of things. One is that there's 

4 agreement between SC&A and NIOSH as to how 

5 that is actually calculated and, number two, 

6 that NIOSH would look at the issues raised by 

7 the petitioner in terms of the wall and so on 

8 and at least confirm what they did in terms of 

9 those issues. We had some debates about the 

10 composition and the thicknesses and just to 

11 assure that those were taken into 

12 consideration. Is that something that -- and 

13 I just raise this at this point. I need to 

14 get into it from the other Work Group Members, 

15 but I'm trying to think about the next step 

16 here because, to come to closure, you need 

17 agreement on some of these things. 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob. I've 

19 got two problems, not to be, you know, beating 

20 a dead horse. One is if you assumed that the 

21 wall thickness never changes, as Dave pointed 

22 out, it doesn't matter what the wall is 
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1 because then he would simply be using the 

2 survey measurement and then make a correction 

3 for the difference between radium and cobalt 

4 and the 500 millicuries and the 260 or 80 

5 millicuries.

6 But the other question this raises 

7 is what do you do, starting in `52 into 

8 sometime in `55, when there was no building? 

9 I mean, we've accepted, I believe I talked to 

10 you privately, Paul, and we've accepted that 

11 the email that Dr. McKeel furnished indicating 

12 that this was built in `55. We have no real 

13 reason to not believe that because the only 

14 information, just to round out the picture, 

15 that I had was somebody whom I interviewed, I 

16 believe it was a radiographer, a part-time 

17 radiographer, who said, well, it was there 

18 forever, but they really didn't know because 

19 he didn't come to work, he had worked earlier 

20 at GSI but then he came back in `56, `56 or 

21 `57. So he simply said definitely the 

22 building was there when he came back, but he 
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1 really didn't know about the earlier time. 

2 So, therefore, in the absence of 

3 any other information, I'm just sounding, I'm 

4 just deliberately sounding skeptical, but even 

5 with skepticism that account that it was built 

6 in `65 is consistent with most of the other 

7 information we have. So given that, how can 

8 you possibly use that calculation to assign 

9 doses in `52, `53, `54, and at least part of 

10 `55? 

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, that's, 

12 essentially, the question I'm asking.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, whereas my 

14 suggestion, again, it's not meant to be self15 serving, is the MCNP calculation we did, which 

16 only took credit for a very thin steel door, 

17 kind of eliminates that question. Of course, 

18 it does assume that there is some kind of a 

19 structure which excludes people from coming 

20 any closer to the radium source within that 

21 door, so, actually, I have to withdraw that. 

22 That would be good for after the building was 
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1 put up, but it would not, again, it would not 

2 serve when there was no building. And that, 

3 again, is a puzzlement. What do you do?

4 I would suggest simply saying, 

5 since we adopted the regulatory limit, or at 

6 least this triangular distribution which 

7 incorporates a regulatory limit, to 

8 radiographers, why not use the limit to 

9 members of the public? They were people 

10 occupying unrestricted areas, which, from `61, 

11 was 500 millirem. I'm not sure if the earlier 

12 rule had a limit, had a non -- I would have to 

13 look at that. 

14 DR. MAURO: Oh, 500 millirem has 

15 been around for a long time and then, of 

16 course, was changed --

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: That goes back to, 

18 that was in the `61 rule. I'm not sure if it 

19 was in the `57 rule.

20 DR. MAURO: This is John --

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But I have it, I 

22 have it here. I can find it.
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1 DR. MAURO: But before we go too 

2 far down that road, I think we have changed 

3 the paradigm sufficiently that says we're now 

4 talking about what doses we're going to assign 

5 to people who we think spent a very limited 

6 time in the operations area, predominantly not 

7 in the operations area, which means that it 

8 becomes a different kind of problem than the 

9 one that David modeled. And I have to say 

10 that, you know, there has to be a prudently 

11 conservative, we want to assign something to 

12 these people that probably had minimal 

13 potential for exposure. 

14 What you propose, Bob, is 

15 certainly one way to come at it, namely if 

16 there was a non-occupational limit. But, you 

17 know, I have to say right now I'm not sure how 

18 you would come at the problem. You may not 

19 want to, you know, go with David's approach 

20 because David's approach really is saying that 

21 those people were working, the ones that you 

22 were talking about were working in this 
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1 envelope and they're going to be the people 

2 that are going to get the big triangle.

3 Now we have a different group of 

4 people that we really never engaged before, 

5 these administrative personnel that only 

6 occasionally may have entered the area. So I 

7 think this is going to require a little bit of 

8 thought. 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: By the way, I'm 

10 just looking at the `57 rule. The `57 rule 

11 goes to, is 2 millirem per hour or 100 

12 millirem in seven days, assuming 100-percent 

13 occupancy. It does not have an annual limit, 

14 you know, to account for the fact that people 

15 are not going to be at the worst location. 

16 This is for any unrestricted area. So at 500 

17 millirem in any seven days would be up to, you 

18 know, 50 weeks, that would be 5 rem. 

19 DR. MAURO: No, see, what that 

20 restricted area --

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is the 

22 unrestricted area.
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1 DR. MAURO: Right. Inside that, 

2 though, the reason that was set up is because 

3 if you're inside that you do have the 

4 potential to have an exposure --

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, no, excuse me, 

6 John, there was one for restricted area and 

7 another one for unrestricted area. 

8 Unrestricted area is everything outside the 

9 sign that says "radiation, keep out." And --

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I just want to 

11 conceptually get the idea. I want to hear 

12 from Jim Neton and Dave Allen, conceptually, 

13 what do you think about how to go forward on 

14 this? 

15 MR. ALLEN: Well, this is Dave. 

16 I'd like to get things settled as much as 

17 possible today, and I'm not real comfortable 

18 with the idea of basing the 1954 dose on a 

19 1957 limit. But, honestly, we had a model 

20 previously for the radiography outside the 

21 radiography room. It involved people at a 

22 boundary and then walking through the area. 
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1 That ends up being, I think, around, if I 

2 remember right, around 1.3 rem per year. We 

3 could use that for the administrative type of 

4 people.

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Now, Jim, that's 

6 consistent with the -- because even in `57 

7 there was a 2 mR per hour rule.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Jim Neton, do 

9 you have any comments?

10 DR. NETON: Yes, I agree with the 

11 one that we talked about earlier that John 

12 alluded to is probably not the right approach. 

13 I think Dave hit on the right one. I think 

14 the one where people could have been walking 

15 through the plant while they're doing 

16 radiography and just been incidentally 

17 exposed, I like that approach.

18 DR. MAURO: Me, too.

19 DR. NETON: It doesn't involve any 

20 --

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: What number are we 

22 talking about now? 
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1 DR. NETON: It was the 1.3, Dave, 

2 did you say? 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I see. Okay. 

4 That was based on what kind of occupancy? Not 

5 full-time occupancy, obviously. 

6 MEMBER MUNN: Casual walking 

7 through.

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. That sounds 

9 good. I would say, I would say that's 

10 reasonable. 

11 DR. MAURO: The philosophy, the 

12 concept is solid. The actual number you pick 

13 is a judgment call, but the idea of coming at 

14 the problem that way sounds to me the right 

15 way to come at it.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Any reasonable 

17 person would certainly take the position that 

18 1.3 rem a year for casual occupancy is more 

19 than generous. 

20 DR. MAURO: I agree with you, 

21 Wanda.

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. 
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1 MEMBER MUNN: It's probably a 

2 tenth of that for purposes of dose 

3 reconstruction. That certainly could not be 

4 argued by anyone as not being limiting.

5 MEMBER BEACH: And, Paul, this is 

6 Josie. I can agree with that, also. 

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. And I 

8 don't know. John, did you come back on the 

9 line? 

10 MEMBER POSTON: Hello? I'm here.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Did you 

12 hear this past discussion, or did you just get 

13 aboard? 

14 MEMBER POSTON: No, no, I heard 

15 the discussion and everything.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Any 

17 comments or --

18 MEMBER POSTON: No, I'm okay with 

19 it.

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, okay. So 

21 what's being proposed then is a triangular 

22 distribution, which would apply to everybody, 
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1 basically, that worked in the plant, with the 

2 exception of individuals who you can confirm, 

3 either through CATIs or otherwise, were not 

4 regular in-plant workers, who we're currently 

5 calling administrative, and that they would be 

6 assigned an annual dose based on the previous 

7 calculations that were based on the radium 

8 being used in the open areas and the 

9 possibility of people walking, actually 

10 walking through the restricted area, which I 

11 think at that time was 2 mR per hour. Is that 

12 correct? 

13 MR. ALLEN: Yes, I think that 

14 calculation was based on the reports that they 

15 made a boundary at one and a half times the 

16 distance, the --

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Whatever that 

18 was. Right, right. 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, in that case -

20 - this is Bob. In that case, I have to 

21 disagree because that was a third hand account 

22 that we got of one and a half times the 
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1 distance of one person talking to somebody 

2 else, and I don't think we can go by that. I 

3 think the fact that it was a 2 mR per hour 

4 boundary seems reasonable. One and a half 

5 times is not, I don't agree with. I don't 

6 think that's -- that has been contradicted by 

7 other accounts, and I don't think that can be 

8 used as a basis. Now I understand why it's 

9 less than full-time occupancy. 

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think, Dave, 

11 you used the 2 in your calculation, didn't 

12 you? 

13 MR. ALLEN: I could be wrong, but 

14 I'm pretty sure that was the lower dose that 

15 you give one and a half times distance.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Gave you the 2 

17 or --

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: He took the 2 mR 

19 and simply used the inverse square law, so it 

20 was, essentially, 2 mR divided by 2.25, which 

21 is the square of 1.5.

22 MR. ALLEN: Yes, I'm pretty sure 
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1 that's the way that was calculated. 

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, you need 

3 to go back and double-check.

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, the math I'm 

5 sure is correct because we checked that. The 

6 assumption we don't agree with. And the 2 mR 

7 per hour continuous occupancy brings us right 

8 back -- I would still argue for the 10 CFR 20 

9 rule, which would then give you 5 rem for the 

10 period up to January 1st, 1961 and would give 

11 you 500 millirem, drops by a factor of ten, 

12 after that. Since we're using that for the 

13 radiographers, it seems reasonable to use that 

14 for those administrative personnel 

15 conceptually. And if you want to do a 

16 distribution based on the maximum, I wouldn't 

17 object to that, like a uniform distribution 

18 from zero to --

19 MR. ALLEN: The 5 rem would 

20 conclude 100-percent occupancy, though. 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, no, the 5 rem, 

22 yes, the 5 rem, the 1957 rule is silent on 
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1 occupancy. It simply says in an unrestricted 

2 area you will not have any exposure rate, if 

3 it were occupied full-time, would result in 

4 more than 100 mR per week. In the `62 rule, 

5 `61 rule, it goes further. It has those same 

6 words but, on top of that, that no person 

7 should have more than 500 millirem in a year, 

8 no real person. First, they talked about a 

9 fictitious person, you know, a ghost being 

10 there all the time. And then they say for a 

11 real person it shouldn't be more than 500 

12 millirem. It's silent on that. 

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We got to go 

14 back to 1952.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I know. I said 

16 the earlier rule, which would have been 

17 applicable in -- it was promulgated in `57, 

18 but it was observed by the AEC prior to that. 

19 They simply did not have the power to 

20 regulate. And since all we're going by is the 

21 assumption that they follow the AEC limits, 

22 even though they were not subject to them 
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1 because they were not an AEC licensee, so, by 

2 the same philosophy as we're adopting to 15, I 

3 would suggest the 5 would probably bring us 

4 right back to that triangle.

5 DR. MAURO: Mind my jumping in 

6 here? There's something about that that 

7 disturbs me. I can't envision under any 

8 circumstances an administrative person who 

9 maybe occasionally walks into the operational 

10 area ending up getting 5 rem a year.

11 MEMBER MUNN: No. 

12 DR. MAURO: I don't like that. I 

13 think that's, I think we've got to -- if we're 

14 going to go to the regulatory limit, you know, 

15 that worked well for the upper end triangle, 

16 but to apply that to an administrative 

17 personnel, I think that's just pushing it too 

18 far. I like the idea of coming up with a kind 

19 of thing that David was talking about. 

20 Whether you draw the line at 2 mR per hour, 

21 the --

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But if you do the 
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1 2 mR per hour you end up with 5 rem.

2 DR. MAURO: No, no, I'm not saying 

3 he's there all the time. I'm saying the 

4 person leaves his office someplace in the 

5 administrative building, he comes in and, 

6 maybe inappropriately, crosses over, walks 

7 through, and --

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But then we have 

9 to assume an occupancy --

10 DR. MAURO: Here we are arguing 

11 between SC&A, but you do that, we do that on 

12 TBD-6000 where they break up people into 

13 supervisory personnel, operators --

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: All right.

15 DR. MAURO: -- and there's a 

16 percentage of time that the person is present 

17 in a particular setting. And, of course, 

18 there's a certain amount of judgment made when 

19 they say, well, we're going to assume it's 5 

20 percent, 25 percent, 50 percent, these 

21 different categories of workers. I think that 

22 philosophy holds. We've always been 
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1 comfortable with that as applied to TBD-6000, 

2 and I think that the same kind of thing goes 

3 here. It's just a matter of making that 

4 judgment, you know, what percent of the time 

5 would the person be in the vicinity of this 

6 operations area if his job is administrative 

7 type. So the idea of giving someone 5 rem in 

8 a year as an administrator, I have a strong 

9 reaction --

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I agree with you.

11 DR. MAURO: Yes.

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I just couldn't 

13 think of anything, any other --

14 DR. MAURO: And, Board Members, we 

15 apologize. Here we've got SC&A jumping in and 

16 arguing. But the --

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, we obviously 

18 didn't discuss this ahead of time.

19 DR. MAURO: We didn't. 

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. I'm going 

21 to interrupt at this point. We're on a 

22 concept here, and part of that concept needs 
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1 to be further developed. I think, I don't 

2 know if this is going to require a technical 

3 call between NIOSH and SC&A to hammer out how 

4 this would go, but I think the Work Group 

5 needs to know what that's going to look like 

6 for those people that we're currently calling 

7 administrative. I think we have general 

8 agreement that everybody else in the plant, at 

9 least during the radium era, would get 

10 whatever the triangular distribution delivers 

11 to them. And we're talking about a few folks, 

12 apparently, that would get a lower dose and 

13 what that's going to look like.

14 So do we need to have a technical 

15 call or just do this -- NIOSH, do you have 

16 enough information to flesh this out and give 

17 us what you think it looks like and have SC&A 

18 take a look at what you're proposing?

19 MR. ALLEN: I have a general idea 

20 where people want the number to end up. I'm 

21 not quite sure how I'm going to get there, but 

22 I can come up with something. 
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1 DR. NETON: Yes, I think we can 

2 come up with something. I don't think this is 

3 the forum, correct forum for a technical call. 

4 We have to be working out, you know, technical 

5 -- we'd be doing more than working out 

6 technical details. We'd be developing an 

7 approach. So I think it would be better for 

8 us, NIOSH, to put something out there and --

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, and I don't 

10 want to start with the proposition in saying 

11 where do you want to end up. I think you've 

12 got to make some reasonable assumptions and 

13 see what that brings you to. It's got to be 

14 plausible and still be claimant-favorable and 

15 still, you know, take into consideration the 

16 situation there. 

17 MEMBER MUNN: Well, we discussed 

18 the possibility earlier of where a line might 

19 be drawn, and that seems credible, although 

20 extremely favorable, for non-radiographer 

21 personnel. And it would appear to me to be a 

22 logical starting point, even though it is 
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1 extremely generous. And anyone who is 

2 familiar with how plants operated in the 1950s 

3 knows that that would be a very firm basis on 

4 which to make the ground rules for how you're 

5 going to approach it. 

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. And so do 

7 we have agreement that we're not going to make 

8 a final decision on this, but we'll ask NIOSH 

9 to flesh that part out, give SC&A a chance to 

10 look at this. When are we talking about time11 wise here, Jim or Dave?

12 DR. NETON: I'll leave that up to 

13 Dave since he's the one doing it. 

14 MR. ALLEN: If we're just talking 

15 about this -- I'm thinking me and Jim can put 

16 our heads together and come up with whatever 

17 concept we want to. I can get it written up 

18 and out late next week possibly. 

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

20 MR. ALLEN: An email, a White 

21 Paper, or what are we looking for? 

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, I think a 
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1 White Paper would do it, and then SC&A will 

2 have an opportunity to comment on that. So I 

3 want to push this toward getting resolution on 

4 this and having another, it's going to have to 

5 be a telephone meeting, but, you know, if we 

6 can do that within a month or so, that would 

7 be great. I want to try to tie this up.

8 MR. ALLEN: I think, for this

9 particular issue, I think we can shoot for a 

10 White Paper towards the end of next week, but 

11 I don't want to guarantee it. I can guarantee 

12 you two weeks.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

14 MR. ALLEN: But I'll shoot for 

15 next week.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: All right. And I 

18 would like to have two weeks to respond to it.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right, right, 

20 right. Okay. So we'll push ahead on that 

21 part of it and try to get it resolved. We 

22 want to take a look at the internal dose issue 
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1 next. I'm looking at the clock here. It's 

2 1:15 Eastern Time. We need to take a lunch 

3 break. Let's take, would 45 minutes be enough 

4 for everybody? Reconvene at two?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Fine with me. 

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, let's do 

7 that. We'll take a 45-minute break and 

8 reconvene. We want to discuss the internal 

9 dose issues for GSI, and then I think the 

10 other three facilities, what we have left to 

11 do -- I'm sorry? I'm not hearing what 

12 somebody is saying.

13 DR. NETON: It sounded like a 

14 Cincinnati Bell recording of some kind. 

15 MEMBER MUNN: It sounded like it. 

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. And we'll 

17 proceed from there. So we'll take a 45-minute 

18 lunch break. Thank you. 

19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 

20 the record at 1:12 p.m. and 

21 resumed at 2:00 p.m.)

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We're back in 
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1 session, still dealing with GSI. We'd like to 

2 now address the estimates of internal 

3 exposure. Dave covered his part for us for 

4 NIOSH this morning, and we want to hear from 

5 Bob Anigstein and John Mauro, and they have 

6 also distributed their comments called Review 

7 of NIOSH Estimates of Internal Exposures at 

8 GSI. Who's got the lead on this? Bob, do you 

9 still? Or John?

10 DR. MAURO: Yes, Paul. Bob does 

11 have the lead. He's probably on --

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm on mute. I 

13 was on mute. I have my briefing on the screen 

14 now, if everybody can see it, the 11th page of 

15 the presentation. Is that visible to 

16 everyone? 

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, Bob. 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. All right. 

19 So I start off with, this is the log-normal 

20 distribution that we all agreed to. It was 

21 NIOSH and SC&A making comments, and we went 

22 back and forth in the Work Group, educated. 
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1 So we all agree to use a distribution with a 

2 geometric mean of 17.54 dpm per cubic meter. 

3 Oh, John, you just did something. 

4 DR. MAURO: Yes, my mistake. I'll 

5 --

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, okay. And 

7 then a 95th percentile of 68.7 dpm per cubic 

8 meter. And using that distribution, I 

9 calculated the arithmetic mean. There's a 

10 formula for that of 24.72. We'll get to the 

11 reason for that in a moment. 

12 Here is the comparison. We differ 

13 very much on the model of how to use these 

14 parameters to calculate the intakes. So NIOSH 

15 presented, I was reproducing from Dave Allen's 

16 report, a range of intakes, at least during 

17 the operational period, from 15 to about 34 

18 something dpm per calendar day. Our model is 

19 for all workers and through all periods right 

20 up until the beginning of the residual period. 

21 We get 264 dpm per calendar day, and I'll get 

22 to how we do that. And then after June 30th, 
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1 `66, we use the same number, but we decrease 

2 it exponentially by the amount in OTIB-70. 

3 The basis for disagreement. Okay. 

4 The NIOSH model postulates exposure to this 

5 95th percentile concentration, but during only 

6 20 percent of the uranium handling hours each 

7 year. So the maximum uranium handling hours 

8 would be something like 437  hours, so, 

9 roughly, 80 hours a year will be the maximum 

10 amount of time where the workers, the betatron 

11 operators -- we're then giving the same thing 

12 to all workers, would be exposed to that dust 

13 because that's the time that they spent 

14 handling the uranium setting up a shot. In 

15 between, the shots were assumed to be 60 

16 minutes each and took 15 minutes to set up, so 

17 you take a total of 75 minutes and 15 minutes 

18 is 20 percent of that.

19 Then they say, however, how do you 

20 account for the time in between the shots. 

21 Well, we simply say, well, you have this 

22 deposition for 30 days. It only happens once, 
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1 at the beginning of the operational period. 

2 The dust settles for 30 days. They derive 

3 taking the 30 days, multiplying it by this 

4 68.7 dpm per cubic meter and multiplying by 

5 the deposition velocity of 7.5 times ten to 

6 the minus four per meter. They calculate a 

7 surficial contamination of 1.34 times ten to 

8 the fifth dpm per square meter. And then they 

9 apply a resuspension factor of 10 to the minus 

10 5 to then get the resultant dust from the 

11 surface contamination. Now, this is very 

12 important to follow.

13 Our objection is, first of all, 

14 this 30-day deposition, that's a period it 

15 takes to equilibrate if you have a constant 

16 concentration. It does not apply to these 

17 intermittent concentrations. We don't know, 

18 even though we know how many total hours there 

19 were per year, we don't know whether all the 

20 uranium worked with at the ending of the year, 

21 which is probably unlikely, or whether they 

22 did it once a week for a few hours, which is 
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1 arithmetically possible, or they -- we just 

2 don't know what the intervals were.

3 But, nevertheless, the 30-day 

4 deposition would mean to have the dust 

5 generated during a short period of time, and 

6 then it takes 30 days for it to settle. That 

7 means a column of air will be about 2 

8 kilometers, which is not plausible. The 

9 building is only 35 feet high, approximately, 

10 in size. And, more important, we go back to 

11 the basic definition of resuspension factors. 

12 Even though it's called resuspension, what it 

13 really is, is a ratio of the concentration in 

14 the air and the concentration on the surface. 

15 So if the concentration in the air, we accept 

16 the 68.7 dpm per cubic meter and the 

17 concentration on the air is 1.34 times ten to 

18 the fifth, so 134,000 dpm per square meter, we 

19 end up with an effective resuspension factor 

20 of five times ten to the minus four. So 

21 they're depositing it, assuming -- they 

22 calculate the surface contamination assuming 
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1 five times ten to the minus four, and then 

2 they calculate, they re-calculate the air 

3 concentration using ten to the minus five, a 

4 50-fold difference.

5 And, yet, while this dust is 

6 settling, and there's no reason it would only 

7 happen once. If it happened once, it would 

8 happen every time they handled the uranium. 

9 Nobody is being exposed to it, except for the 

10 15 minutes it's settling and, yet, the 

11 building is vacant, essentially. No one is 

12 breathing this 68.7 dpm per cubic meter that 

13 is gradually settling over a period of 30 

14 days. 

15 So the model is not consistent. 

16 It's not consistent. It's not scientifically 

17 correct. And then a more minor point is the 

18 control room is not airtight, so, even if 

19 you're in the control room, there would be 

20 some uranium drifting in. They would be 

21 tracking it on their feet and so forth, so 

22 they would not be -- now, our model is a 
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1 bounding assumption, but it simply assumes 

2 that, because we don't know how long the dust 

3 takes to settle and we don't know how often. 

4 We do know the total time, but we don't know 

5 whether this happens once a week, once a 

6 month, once a year. Our assumption is assume 

7 that we have this concentration all the time, 

8 but then if it's all the time then it's 

9 unrealistic to assume it's a 95th percentile 

10 because that's only five percent of the thing. 

11 So we say either use the arithmetic mean or 

12 use the entire distribution and put that into 

13 IREP, which would be comparable to the 

14 arithmetic mean. The way statistics work, 

15 it's hard to predict exactly what it would be.

16 So we're saying that, assuming the 

17 arithmetic mean, we get this 264 calculated 

18 over a period of a year and then divide it up 

19 into 365 days, so we get 264 dpm per calendar 

20 day, which is, roughly, depending on what year 

21 you pick, it's roughly ten times the NIOSH. 

22 And just as a matter of point of reference, 
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1 the dpm per calendar day, we're talking, it's 

2 probably not very meaningful. It's 

3 comparable. What you get out of here by 

4 looking up the dose conversion factors, it's 

5 equivalent to one rem per year effective dose, 

6 one and a fraction. Much closer to one than to 

7 two. So it's not an unreasonable, it's not 

8 like they're being -- especially when we 

9 consider the doses now that are from external 

10 and then the lung dose is a few rem, I think 

11 maybe six, so it's not a huge addition to the 

12 external dose that they're already getting, 

13 but it is certainly claimant-favorable. And, 

14 again, if it's given all the error, it would 

15 be unreasonable to assume it's a 95th 

16 percentile and it's defensible. It has a 

17 simple but outgoing and all the mechanism of 

18 the 30 days is what is the settling rate and 

19 where does the dust come from and how come 

20 it's not being inhaled? This avoids all of 

21 these questions, so we think it's a preferable 

22 model and it's bounding and, yet, plausible.
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1 So that's really where we stand on 

2 this. 

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: What about the 

4 residual period, Bob? 

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Say again.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Residual period.

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, the residual 

8 period, we simply assume that this is the, we 

9 have this concentration -- sorry about the 

10 phone in the background. I can't turn it off. 

11 This is the concentration at the end of 

12 residual period, at the very start of the 

13 residual period, we had the same 

14 concentration. And we also do not believe 

15 that you can jump from ten to the minus five 

16 to ten to the minus six because, as NIOSH, 

17 Dave Allen points out, agrees, the ten to the 

18 minus six is based on an age activity in a 

19 quiescent region. 

20 Now, gradually, this uranium will 

21 age, but it's certainly not quiescent. I 

22 mean, you have the floor of the betatron room 
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1 is being constantly traversed by foot traffic, 

2 by vehicles. So, if anything, ten to the 

3 minus fifth is on the low side, but we won't 

4 question that.

5 But you really don't need to know 

6 that because, by using the -- our floor 

7 concentration will be much higher, and then we 

8 would re-suspend that amount, so we will get 

9 back, basically we will get back this 24.7, 

10 and that's what we would go by, 24.7 

11 decreasing exponentially month by month, year 

12 by year, however it's calculated, using the 

13 OTIB-70 approach, which we agree with. 

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, that's 

15 what I was trying to determine. So you're 

16 suggesting that ten to the minus six is not 

17 applicable. What are you proposing in its 

18 place? Just an exponential --

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Ten to the minus -

20 - well, if you want to do it this way, you can 

21 always propose ten to the minus fifth, the 

22 same as in your operational period. But our 
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1 model doesn't actually involve a resuspension 

2 factor because we simply say, whatever the 

3 mechanism is, this is what you're going to get 

4 in the air is 24.7, and you can use that and 

5 the ten to the minus fifth to calculate the 

6 floor concentration and then multiply it again 

7 by ten to the minus fifth to get the air 

8 concentration. But, you know, that doesn't, 

9 it's just a closed loop. 

10 So during the residual period, we 

11 would say it's the same floor concentration 

12 decreasing by whatever that is, 0.4 or 4067 

13 per day I think it is, I'm just going by 

14 memory now, and year by year, of course, that 

15 decreases. So at the end of 30 years, you 

16 have a substantially, much, much lower 

17 activity. 

18 But, again, the advantage of this 

19 model is the simplicity and the bounding 

20 nature, and it requires really no assumptions 

21 other than the initial distribution, which we 

22 all agreed to. 
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

2 you, Bob. I'm wondering if NIOSH has had a 

3 chance to take a look at this and have any 

4 initial responses, Dave or Jim.

5 MR. ALLEN: Yes, this is Dave. 

6 I've had a chance to look at it, and I may not 

7 have digested it all completely, but, yes, I 

8 take some issues with it. First of all, Bob 

9 was saying that the contamination levels 

10 somehow were not realistic because it would 

11 have to be settling from some 2-kilometer 

12 column or something.

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes.

14 MR. ALLEN: No. I mean, this is, 

15 this is, this is bounding. It is true that, 

16 once you start handling the uranium, you get 

17 some airborne and it would take some time to 

18 settle enough to reach that balance between 

19 removal mechanisms and production and the 

20 settling rate. But, I mean, this is something 

21 we hashed out long ago in TBD-6000 and came to 

22 the conclusion that the 30 days with that 
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1 deposition rate was appropriate for what that 

2 balance would eventually reach. We didn't do 

3 a bounding estimate by assuming that we 

4 reached that equilibrium concentration right 

5 off the bat, yes. But the rest of that was 

6 I'm not sure what.

7 As far as he mentioned, oh, the 

8 20-percent factor or whatever. You've got to 

9 realize that that is for, the airborne that we 

10 agreed on is actually for handling the uranium 

11 metal by whatever means, by hands, by fork 

12 truck, by chain falls, et cetera, where you 

13 get some airborne from rubbing oxidation off 

14 of that. That's not happening when it's being 

15 x-rayed. That's what the purpose of that 20 

16 percent was. That's when you start getting --

17 about the only mechanism at that point is 

18 resuspension of contamination, and that's at 

19 its maximum level from the start.

20 The intent is to give that --

21 actually, in the calculations, we gave that 

22 resuspension for 3,250 hours per year. So 
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1 we're trying to account for that resuspension, 

2 including in the control room while the shot 

3 is going on. That is being accounted for, so 

4 the argument about the room not being airtight 

5 or tracking some contamination in there, 

6 that's accounted for.

7 And, lastly, I'd like to point out 

8 that the uranium handling, you know, we've 

9 done this estimate long ago based on purchase 

10 orders. It was nowhere near 100 percent of 

11 their job. It was a part of their job, and we 

12 have an estimate, based on the purchase 

13 orders, of 100 hours per year. I think the 

14 maximum might hit 400 something hours per 

15 year, but it's nowhere near 3,250. 

16 I don't think it's more 

17 scientifically valid to take the average of 

18 the air concentrations you get from handling 

19 uranium and apply it to 3,000 hours when they 

20 only actually handled it for something less 

21 than 400. And to call that more 

22 scientifically valid makes no sense to me at 
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1 all.

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, the main 

3 point is you cannot have the dust settling, if 

4 you want to have a 30-day settling and there 

5 are frequent handlings, then it would be in 

6 there all the time because if you assume if 

7 it's at least once a month that they're 

8 handling it and it takes 30 days for it to 

9 settle, then it will always be there. You 

10 can't have it settling and not have anyone 

11 breathing it. You can't say the dust is in 

12 the air, it's settling on the floor, but that 

13 doesn't count. The only thing that counts is 

14 it's being re-suspended from the floor after 

15 it settled. That's where the problem comes 

16 in.

17 MR. ALLEN: That's a separate 

18 argument, and we've talked about that one 

19 before several times, too. And that is, 

20 basically, it also doesn't instantaneously 

21 reach this equilibrium level. It takes some 

22 time to build up this, you know, when you 
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1 start working with uranium, it doesn't 

2 instantly become --

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, but that's 

4 not in the model. That's not accounted for. 

5 And before you had, the problem we had before 

6 was instantaneous settling, that it only 

7 settled, that it stopped settling the moment 

8 the activity, the handling stopped. Now we're 

9 pulling in 30 days, but if you throw in the 30 

10 days, it's always there. If it's at least 

11 once a month, it's always going to be there.

12 MR. ALLEN: Bob, we're accounting 

13 for resuspension.

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, but you're 

15 saying it's settling. You're saying there is 

16 68.7 dpm per cubic meter in the air for 30 

17 days while it's settling to the floor, and 

18 this same phenomenon should take place for 

19 each batch of uranium that comes in to be 

20 handled and radiographed. So, therefore, it's 

21 continuous. You can't say, you cannot say the 

22 dust is settling but no one is breathing it 
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1 until it hits the floor and it gets re2 suspended. That's illogical.

3 MR. ALLEN: No. What we're saying 

4 is the level of contamination that reaches the 

5 balance between removal and production can be 

6 estimated by the settling rate that we've been 

7 using and settling it for 30 days. Whether 

8 that happens in 30 days, 7 days, or one hour, 

9 it means the same.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But if you're 

11 sticking with the 7.5 and ten to the minus 

12 four deposition velocity, which has been 

13 agreed to, then you can't have it both ways. 

14 You can't say it settles immediately and have 

15 it as settling at that slow rate. 

16 MR. ALLEN: No, I'm saying the 

17 combination of that settling rate with that 

18 time gives you the equilibrium value that we 

19 saw for the Adley paper and --

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I know, but all of 

21 those are not, none of that is this 

22 intermittent handling that we have here.
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1 MR. ALLEN: That is true. If your 

2 removal mechanism continues and your 

3 production mechanism does not, then the actual 

4 equilibrium value would be somewhat lower.

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes.

6 MR. ALLEN: Okay. So we're 

7 overestimating the equilibrium --

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, but you're 

9 not. You're using two different ratios. 

10 You're using a ratio of what's on the ground 

11 to what's in the air of ten to the minus fifth 

12 and the ratio of what's in the air to the 

13 ground is five to the minus four. Those two 

14 are just completely inconsistent.

15 MR. ALLEN: I think bottom line is 

16 we're overestimating the surface contamination 

17 using these numbers --

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I don't think so.

19 MR. ALLEN: -- and we are 

20 estimating the inhalation from direct handling 

21 for the time period that they're direct 

22 handling based on the 95th percentile of the 
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1 distribution we agreed to.

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The 95th 

3 percentile for those few minutes, those 15 

4 minutes per 75 minutes, is claimant-favorable. 

5 But the assumption that you can have 

6 something in the air -- I mean, you just 

7 cannot, if you go with these parameters, then 

8 you cannot have the result that you get and 

9 not have it, and have it plausible and 

10 consistent. It's just not consistent. You 

11 cannot have this stuff settling to the ground 

12 and no one is breathing it while it's 

13 settling.

14 MR. ALLEN: Well, yes, you can. 

15 People leave the shooting area, Bob.

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But you're 

17 assuming that this contamination is all over. 

18 Yes, they leave the shooting area, but they 

19 don't leave it for 30 days.

20 MR. ALLEN: Assuming the 68 is 

21 entirely from resuspension.

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, but it's 
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1 falling. You have it falling continuously for 

2 30 days. That's the only way you can build 

3 this up is to, the only way you can get this 

4 number, this 1.34 times ten to the fifth 

5 square meter, is to have it falling for 30 

6 days, and it cannot be falling for 30 days at 

7 68.7 dpm per cubic meter and then say but 

8 nobody is breathing it. 

9 MR. ALLEN: No, we're assuming 

10 it's building up over some time to an 

11 equilibrium value, and we're bounding this 

12 estimate by assuming it's there from the 

13 start. We know that's an overestimate. 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But you can't have 

15 -- whatever it is, if 30 days, and I think 30 

16 days was the agreed-on number. I don't think 

17 it's an excessive number. I think there was 

18 even talk about having it higher in our 

19 critique. So if 30 days is what's agreed to, 

20 you can't say it's an overestimate and we 

21 won't use it. If 30 days is agreed to, then 

22 you have to say it's settling for 30 days. If 
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1 it's settling for 30 days, someone is there 

2 breathing it for 30 days. And then next month 

3 they come in with another shipment of uranium, 

4 and it starts all over again. 

5 We just can't accept this 

6 calculation. It's not valid.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. I'm going 

8 to jump in at this point because I'm assuming 

9 the rest of the Work Group is in the same boat 

10 I am. I just got this paper yesterday, and I 

11 haven't had a chance to observe it. I've 

12 heard both of the arguments here now, and it

13 seems to me this is one where we're going to 

14 have to consider it further. I don't know. 

15 Other Work Group Members, are you in the same 

16 boat that I am that we need to look these 

17 papers over in more detail and, having heard 

18 these arguments, try to sift through this? 

19 MEMBER BEACH: Paul, this is 

20 Josie. I definitely agree with that. I think 

21 SC&A and NIOSH really need to come together a 

22 little closer because they're far away from 
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1 each other on this. 

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: These arguments 

3 are also very technical, as opposed to 

4 philosophical, at this point. Who else is 

5 trying to comment here? 

6 MR. KATZ: Oh, it's Ted, Paul. 

7 I'm just, I just wanted to suggest this is 

8 exactly the kind of thing that we do have 

9 technical calls for because there's a 

10 communication issue, which is why they're 

11 apart, too. And until they can hash that out, 

12 nobody gets a very clear picture of what the 

13 bottom line is on either side. So this would 

14 be a good one for them to actually have a 

15 technical call and just straighten out where 

16 each of them is coming from here and why 

17 there's this different understanding of what's 

18 being said. 

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I agree with 

20 that. And I think what we'll do is ask NIOSH 

21 and SC&A to arrange such a technical call, let 

22 us know when you're going to do it. The Work 
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1 Group Members may wish to listen in and be 

2 informed as to what that discussion is. And 

3 then we can go from there.

4 I also, before we leave that, I 

5 do, in fairness, want to give the petitioner 

6 an opportunity for, he had some comments on 

7 the residual period, as well. And, Dan 

8 McKeel, if you want to input some comments 

9 here, this would be appropriate.

10 DR. MCKEEL: Thank you, Dr. 

11 Ziemer. Yes, I do have some comments. The 

12 most salient one is that I have been stating 

13 for a long time and in my recent papers for 

14 this meeting have in there that I don't think 

15 OTIB-70, the model in there, at all 

16 recapitulates what happened at GSI during the 

17 residual period. So I'm talking now of the 

18 residual period. And that is that TIB-70, as 

19 I understand it, and I think everybody has 

20 been saying, assumes that you know the 

21 airborne concentration of uranium, say at the 

22 beginning of the residual period, and then you 
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1 calculate a smooth exponential function. And 

2 I think that's the way it was just described: 

3 a smooth exponential function. It decays down 

4 over the rest of the residual period, which, 

5 in the case of GSI, goes from 1967 through 

6 1992. 

7 And we have provided, that is the 

8 petitioners, site experts, workers, have 

9 provided really enormous affidavit, eyewitness 

10 testimony, and written records that many 

11 different companies occupied the General Steel 

12 Industries building complex, Buildings 6 

13 through 10, all during the residual period. 

14 And, you know, they had various steel 

15 production activities going on there, pickling 

16 the steel in acid, et cetera, and some of 

17 those activities were in Building 6, some of 

18 them were in Buildings 9 and 10.

19 And we have also long pointed out 

20 that, unlike what's being talked about right 

21 now, the uranium deposition did not only occur 

22 in the two betatron buildings. The two 
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1 betatron buildings were only reachable for 

2 uranium by rail. And railroad cars driven by 

3 engines, two different types, would take the 

4 cars and the uranium into the betatron 

5 building. But along the way, they traversed 

6 from the dock, the loading docks. The ingots 

7 were weighed. They were handled there. 

8 There's old 2006 testimony and some new 

9 testimony that the uranium was stored 

10 temporarily before and after it was returned 

11 to Mallinckrodt in a Building 6 locked metal 

12 cage. Then it was put on the railcars and 

13 transported -- oh, and those cars were cleaned 

14 of dust about twice a year, and they were then 

15 transported alongside the factory and through 

16 Buildings 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 into the new 

17 betatron building, and then the tracks ran 

18 outside and into the old betatron building.

19 So not only were there, you know -

20 - so that was the situation in the betatron 

21 building. But inside General Steel there was 

22 all along that transport pathway, we've called 
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1 it the uranium transport pathway, there were 

2 repeated disturbances. And so what you would 

3 have to have is a cyclical model where there 

4 were alternating cycles of new resuspension of 

5 the dust with the uranium in it and then 

6 settling. And the exact periods that those 

7 companies occupied the General Steel complex 

8 and exactly what they did and how much dust 

9 was disturbed are all completely unknown. But 

10 a simplistic model, like TIB-70, that assumes 

11 a constant level at the beginning or a known 

12 level at the beginning and then decaying down 

13 in an exponential smooth function, it's 

14 scientifically not an applicable model. It 

15 can't be used. You've got to come up with 

16 something else. 

17 And I don't know. I think that's 

18 as much as I can say. I have mentioned this 

19 many times, but I need today, I need to hear 

20 both NIOSH and SC&A tell me why the reasoning 

21 that I've just outlined is not correct. Why 

22 do they think that TIB-70 should apply? And I 
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1 would also go back and remind this Work Group 

2 that applying TIB-70 for the residual period 

3 at GSI is a relatively new idea. 

4 Before, there was a model based on 

5 the amount of residual uranium that was in an 

6 industrial vacuum cleaner found in the old 

7 betatron building when DOE came to clean up 

8 the site at the end of the residual period, 

9 and there was then going to be back10 extrapolation to get to the mid-point and the 

11 beginning of the residual period. And I think 

12 we convinced everybody that the old and new 

13 betatron buildings certainly were disturbed 

14 mightily with power washings, renovations, 

15 reconstruction, and so forth. But right after 

16 that and in several papers, in great detail, 

17 we outlined that the whole rest of the uranium 

18 transport pathway was similarly disturbed all 

19 during the residual period. 

20 So I would like to hear NIOSH and 

21 SC&A defend the use of TIB-70 for the residual 

22 period at all. And to save time, I do want to 
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1 get in just a couple of comments that I did 

2 not get a chance to make this morning. And 

3 that is when you all were talking about 

4 assigning ability based on jobs. Then, as I 

5 understand it, the two classifications now are 

6 people who worked in the production areas, 

7 which haven't been defined, by the way, and 

8 administrative personnel. 

9 And so my specific questions are, 

10 would Dr. Neton and Dave Allen, would they 

11 think that clerk and timekeeper would be 

12 people that they would place in the 

13 administrative personnel. And I'm worried 

14 that that might be the case, but we certainly 

15 know of both clerks and timekeepers, for 

16 example a timekeeper whose job was to track 

17 down specific castings that had been inspected 

18 by the betatron. Soon or immediately after 

19 they were inspected, his job was to go all 

20 throughout the plant and look at those 

21 castings and certify what was done and where 

22 they were and was the problem being taken care 
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1 of. And then we know of several clerks who 

2 also later became and inherited the job of 

3 handling all the film badges, and so they were 

4 in contact with the operators, they were in 

5 and out of the betatron buildings, and so 

6 forth.

7 I think even for the 

8 administrative personnel you're going to have 

9 a very, very difficult time saying with any 

10 degree of certainty that administrative 

11 personnel, including secretaries, that they 

12 always worked in the administrative building, 

13 which was away from the rest of the plant. So 

14 that's another comment.

15 And the final two comments quick, 

16 and that is that overexposure instance, like 

17 the radium-226 stolen plumb-bob that was later 

18 returned after about a week to GSI, there's a 

19 section of 42 CFR, which is Section 83.9, and 

20 there are two subsections in there that say 

21 that on such overexposure incidents, it is not 

22 sufficient for only worker affidavits to be 
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1 assessed, that NIOSH, and it says that 

2 specifically, has to do further investigation 

3 into those incidents. 

4 And this is a situation where the 

5 one we've documented in our paper that 

6 happened in October of 1953 where it's very 

7 possible and likely that more than just the 

8 person who took the plumb-bob was exposed to 

9 that radium source. The newspaper stories, 

10 some of them say that the radium source was 

11 kept at the plant for a while. We know that 

12 it was recovered offsite, but we don't know 

13 whether one individual or many individuals 

14 came into contact with that. So I believe 

15 that's an incident that has to be where the 

16 dose has to be calculated not for an 

17 individual but for the group of people that 

18 may be exposed. 

19 And I guess, in that regard, we're 

20 now talking about Appendix BB and dose 

21 reconstruction and not about the SEC. And I 

22 may be incorrect, but it seems to me that we 
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1 need to be talking about assigning doses based 

2 on sufficient accuracy, rather than just 

3 bounding limits, which, in my view, some of 

4 the Members discussed. And, certainly, to 

5 some of the Work Group Members, it sounds like 

6 some of the bounding limits are, quote, too 

7 claimant-favorable or may, in fact, be 

8 implausible. 

9 So, you know, speaking for the 

10 workers, I think they do need to be claimant11 favorable, but I just worry that we're not 

12 really addressing the issue of, with all our 

13 assumptions and all the, well, I just say 

14 guesses that we're making at various things, 

15 conditions of the workplace, that we're really 

16 operating within the bounds of sufficient 

17 accuracy. 

18 And the final thing I would say is 

19 that Dave Allen was asked earlier, I think by 

20 Dr. Ziemer, how he would handle the 1952 

21 operational period. And I believe Mr. Allen 

22 said that he thought that the purchase orders 
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1 defined the number of hours that were allowed 

2 at GSI for the uranium, and that's the way the 

3 source term was defined. Well, I just remind 

4 everybody there are no purchase orders from 

5 1952 up through, I think it's March of 1958. 

6 So really what you're doing is taking 1958 and 

7 later data and back-extrapolating to those 

8 early years, but I will remind you that the 

9 1952 documents that I contributed through a 

10 FOIA request and that NIOSH contributed a 

11 couple of days later and that have led to the 

12 official extension of the GSI operational AEC 

13 contract period to start October 1, 1952, that 

14 those documents actually described different 

15 types of betatron NDT research and development 

16 work that was ongoing in 1952 and, 

17 specifically, they were working with thin 

18 billets and they were also working with what 

19 is described as a new uranium shield, you 

20 know, S-H-I-E-L-D, that was constructed by 

21 Mallinckrodt and was being tested and refined 

22 at GSI for the betatron work. So this is 
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1 really very different kind of work than the 

2 NDT work that went on from 1953 through 1966.

3 I guess that's my comment. I 

4 think that that, in other words, the 1952 dose 

5 assignments need to be made bearing those 

6 other facts in mind. And I thank you for 

7 letting me have the time.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thanks, 

9 Dan. I'm not sure that SC&A and NIOSH would 

10 be prepared to address the TBD-70 issues 

11 today, but I would suggest that, in the 

12 technical call, that they at least try to 

13 address the impact those changing conditions 

14 that Dr. McKeel mentioned and that we're also 

15 aware of in terms of whether or not the 

16 proposed approach for the residual period 

17 would, in fact, bound those kinds of 

18 situations where we have those changes going 

19 on. 

20 DR. MCKEEL: Dr. Ziemer, this is 

21 Dan McKeel again. If I just may make one 

22 comment about the technical call.
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

2 DR. MCKEEL: Several months ago, I 

3 wrote Ted Katz and Josh Kinman to try to find 

4 out if there had been -- this was while I was 

5 preparing my administrative review on SEC 105 

6 -- I tried to find out if there had been any 

7 past technical calls or technical meetings for 

8 GSI between SC&A and NIOSH and was told that 

9 that information was not really available, 

10 they really didn't think there had been, but 

11 nobody could be very definite about that 

12 issue.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I can tell you 

14 that I'm not aware of any. If there were, I'm 

15 not aware of them. 

16 DR. MCKEEL: But one thing that --

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Because I assume 

18 that, if there had been, I certainly would --

19 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. Well, I 

20 appreciate that, and that's what I kind of 

21 turned up with. But what I also learned 

22 during that is that the petitioner, I'm the 
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1 one asking the questions about TIB-70, but 

2 there are two things that that arrangement 

3 that you're outlining is really not at all 

4 satisfactory to me because I have, I cannot 

5 listen to those technical calls and there are 

6 no minutes and there is no transcript and 

7 there are no notes kept. So nobody in the 

8 Work Group, unless they choose to listen in, 

9 will ever know the results of that technical 

10 meeting, except as reported. And all I can 

11 say is, having sat through now 16 meetings of 

12 this Work Group, I know that we need to see 

13 the numbers. I personally won't be satisfied 

14 until I see each and every number that's 

15 discussed in there, and I need to hear or see 

16 in writing the specific reasons why TIB-70 is 

17 or is not judged to be a satisfactory model 

18 for the GSI residual period.

19 So I'm not trying to interfere 

20 with your process. But I do decry the fact 

21 that it is not an open process for the 

22 petitioners, and I need to be aware. So I 
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1 guess I would ask do you ever let petitioners 

2 listen in? 

3 MR. KATZ: This is Ted. The 

4 technical calls, we're not going to deal with 

5 the TIB-70 issue in the technical call because 

6 really those are restricted to clarifying when 

7 we have just the kind of communication in 

8 technical sort of understanding issues that we 

9 have in this case. I mean that's what they're 

10 limited to, but we don't do any kind of 

11 discussion in terms of agreement or what have 

12 you between SC&A and NIOSH on how to deal with 

13 an approach. We don't do those in the 

14 technical calls.

15 So, I mean, that will happen, that 

16 discussion, if we can't, for example, the TIB17 70 response to Dan, I mean, that can happen 

18 today if they're ready to address that sort of 

19 philosophical question or that general 

20 question today or it will happen at the next 

21 Work Group meeting. But that won't get 

22 addressed in a technical call because that 
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1 just is not what we use technical calls for.

2 DR. MCKEEL: All right. Well, I 

3 appreciate that. And I would also say that 

4 what I'm really asking for is, I have made my 

5 arguments in writing several times and today 

6 on why I don't, I don't think the TIB-70 is a 

7 satisfactory model. And I would like NIOSH 

8 and SC&A to come back to me and say, Dan, we 

9 agree with you, or, Dan, we do not agree with 

10 you for the following reasons and lay it out, 

11 one, two, three, four. 

12 And so I don't think a technical 

13 meeting would be satisfactory to answer my 

14 questions. And, obviously, I understand that 

15 maybe the question can't be answered today. 

16 On the other hand, the model is being proposed 

17 today, and everybody is talking about the 

18 model, so I don't really see why SC&A and 

19 NIOSH couldn't answer my question today. 

20 DR. MAURO: I'd be happy to answer 

21 it, this is John, unless Jim wants to. 

22 DR. MCKEEL: No, I want to hear 
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1 first Dave Allen because Dave Allen is 

2 proposing -- NIOSH is the one that's supposed 

3 to bound and determine doses with sufficient 

4 accuracy. And, Dr. Mauro, I would enjoy 

5 hearing your idea, but I want to hear Dave 

6 Allen defend his use of TIB-70, please, first.

7 MR. ALLEN: My defense is pretty 

8 simple. TIB-70 was based on more than one 

9 site and there's more than one type of site. 

10 I think a steel mill, a chemical, at least one 

11 chemical place, and a few other sites, and the 

12 numbers all came out to be somewhat consistent 

13 as far as how fast the available contamination 

14 was reduced over time. It essentially comes 

15 down to an industrial type of atmosphere. It 

16 may not be applicable to an office; but, to a 

17 steel mill and a chemical plant, it seems to 

18 be --

19 DR. MCKEEL: Dave, here's my 

20 response to that. I have said, just like, you 

21 know, you first proposed using TBD-6000 

22 surrogate data at GSI, and then that was 
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1 challenged for various specific reasons. And, 

2 eventually, you wound up using surrogate data 

3 that was really not in TBD-6000, and it did 

4 have to be rather stringently, more 

5 stringently justified in order to have it 

6 acceptable for use. 

7 Now, I've said I'm not -- I think 

8 Dr. Ziemer referred to my question as a 

9 general question. It's not a general 

10 question. It's a highly specific question. 

11 I'm saying that there was not, the 

12 model says that you take an initial high 

13 level, and by high I mean a level of uranium 

14 in the air, and then you model how that 

15 decays, that concentration decays, diminishes, 

16 over time. And the curve fit is a smooth 

17 exponential curve. 

18 And I'm saying that if you just 

19 think about what happened at GSI with multiple 

20 companies moving in, each time massively 

21 disturbing the dust on the floor, along the 

22 railroad tracks, in the buildings, and also 
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1 inside the betatron building, that that was 

2 not what happened during the residual period

3 at GSI. Even at GSI, in the betatron 

4 buildings, the old betatron building was 

5 constantly used for storing transformers, and 

6 we went into all of that information. And 

7 things were done in that building basically 

8 from the end of the operational period in `66 

9 all the way through at least the late 1988s, 

10 the betatrons were stored in there, 

11 transformers, PCB-containing oil, et cetera. 

12 So I'm just saying that TIB-70 is 

13 not a model for what happened at GSI. And, 

14 personally, I don't see how it could be fit as 

15 a model for that, regardless of things that 

16 you said, that it applies to a few other 

17 sites. And I understand that you've widely 

18 applied that as a model for AWE sites in 

19 general, but I just think it's a poor model 

20 for GSI.

21 DR. MAURO: Can I take a shot at 

22 this? 
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1 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, go ahead, 

2 John. 

3 DR. MAURO: Please. It's so easy 

4 to get lost in the woods when you talk about 

5 this stuff, and let's keep it real simple. 

6 Let's, for a moment, make believe we know what 

7 the concentration in becquerels per meter 

8 squared is on the ground, on the surfaces, in 

9 the vicinity where the uranium was handled, 

10 and we know it in units of becquerels per 

11 meter squared. Let's stipulate that. Let's 

12 make believe we know that. All right. Now --

13 DR. MCKEEL: John, when you're 

14 doing this model, when you say where uranium 

15 was handled, are you talking about all 

16 throughout all the buildings along the 

17 transport --

18 DR. MAURO: Yes. I'll say yes to 

19 that.

20 DR. MCKEEL: All right.

21 DR. MAURO: I'll say yes to that. 

22 All right. So let's assume that we all agree 
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1 that, yes, we could place a plausible upper 

2 bound on what we believe to be on the 

3 surfaces, on the floor in your house right 

4 now, okay? And it's there. Now, all OTIB-70 

5 says is that, once you have some good idea of

6 what you think is a plausible upper bound on 

7 what the accumulation was on surfaces at the 

8 time of the end of operations, what happens 

9 then is that, okay, you're no longer adding 

10 anything to it. The only thing that's going 

11 to happen to the stuff that's on the ground 

12 now is it's going to be re-suspended, come 

13 back down, and leave through various natural 

14 attenuation processes. 

15 So the question you're really 

16 asking, Dr. McKeel, is, all right, you have to 

17 agree that, if we're stipulating we know 

18 what's on the surface in becquerels per meter 

19 squared. And then --

20 DR. MCKEEL: No, no, Dr. Mauro, 

21 I'm sorry. This is where my --

22 DR. MAURO: We'll get --
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1 DR. MCKEEL: -- comment gets 

2 distorted. You don't have any measurements --

3 DR. MAURO: No, no, we'll get 

4 there. See, I'm trying to parse it in a way 

5 so that we can get our heads wrapped around --

6 DR. MCKEEL: Well, but don't say 

7 if you know the amount that was --

8 DR. MAURO: I'm going to get --

9 DR. MCKEEL: -- on surfaces at the 

10 end of the operational period. You don't know 

11 that.

12 DR. MAURO: I'm going to show you 

13 how we're going to get there.

14 DR. MCKEEL: Okay.

15 DR. MAURO: Because that's a 

16 tougher problem.

17 DR. MCKEEL: It's an impossible 

18 problem, in my view.

19 DR. MAURO: I could stop at this 

20 point, and then we could leave it to the 

21 technical call, but I think I've got the 

22 answer to this thing.
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1 DR. MCKEEL: I don't think you 

2 better leave it to the technical call because, 

3 like Mr. Katz said, that's not an appropriate 

4 topic for the technical call. 

5 DR. MAURO: Well, I'll leave it up 

6 to the Work Group. If you'd like me to tell 

7 my story, I'll be happy to, or we can save it 

8 for another time --

9 DR. MCKEEL: I will be quiet. Go 

10 ahead.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, right now, 

12 right now the model is a separate question. 

13 We know the starting point. We're stipulating 

14 that, say you know the starting point because, 

15 in fact, we have a value that we're using for 

16 the starting point. It may be that that's not 

17 accepted by all, but the question was how can 

18 the TBD-70 be used if we have all these 

19 disturbances, and I think that's what you're 

20 trying to address. 

21 DR. MAURO: And that's all I'm 

22 trying to do. 
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1 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. That would be 

2 fine. I would appreciate it if you would 

3 finish your --

4 DR. MAURO: Yes, it becomes -- and 

5 I understand your question because I struggled 

6 with the question for quite some time. So we 

7 know, let's say we know becquerels per meter 

8 squared on the surface anywhere. We know it. 

9 Now, the question is what happens? 

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: John, use dpm per 

11 meter squared to be consistent. 

12 DR. MAURO: dpm per meter squared. 

13 Okay. Now, what's going to happen here, 

14 what's going to happen is that material is 

15 going to be re-suspended. Okay. Starting at 

16 day one of the residual period, it's going to 

17 be re-suspended. And what you're really 

18 saying is, whatever the activity is on day one 

19 during the residual period, you're concerned 

20 about that resuspension factor. So am I. 

21 And one of the things that I've 

22 been arguing for the longest time is that if 
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1 you got a place that's very dirty and it's got 

2 loose contamination on it, the resuspension 

3 factor could be pretty high, okay? Stay with 

4 me. NIOSH typically used to use ten to the 

5 minus six. I'm sure that, in the 

6 circumstances that we're talking about where 

7 there's a lot of activity going on, ten to the 

8 minus five is probably a pretty good number. 

9 But you know what? I'd be the first to say 

10 there actually may be certain circumstances 

11 over certain short time periods where the 

12 resuspension factor could be even ten to the 

13 minus four. So I'm not disagreeing with you 

14 on that. 

15 But, in principle, on that day one 

16 of the first day of the residual period, if 

17 you know what's on the surface, you can very 

18 readily determine what might be airborne for 

19 inhalation by applying an appropriate 

20 resuspension factor. And in my mind, the 

21 resuspension factor of ten to the minus five, 

22 I would say, I would argue strongly, unless 
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1 there was clean-up right after they finished 

2 operations, if there was no clean-up and the 

3 material was allowed to accumulate and it was 

4 loose, I would go with ten to the minus five. 

5 And if you're right that there was 

6 a lot of really aggressive activity going on 

7 in a given room, I would go with ten to the 

8 minus four. So you're actually arguing now 

9 the judgment of when do you use ten to the 

10 minus six, when do you use ten to the minus 

11 five, when do you use ten to the minus four.

12 Right now, I mean, what you just described, I 

13 could see someone saying, you know, because I 

14 do know circumstances where it goes up to the 

15 ten to the minus four. 

16 So now let's say a reasonable 

17 disturbance is on the order of ten to the 

18 minus five, and I'm very familiar with the 

19 literature and that's not a bad number when 

20 there's loose contamination. But now what 

21 happens, though, is that number doesn't -- so 

22 you get a concentration in the air on day one 
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1 by simply multiplying the activity that's on 

2 the surface in dpm per square meter times the 

3 resuspension factor, whatever number you 

4 decide to pick, and you get what's in the air.

5 But what happens is that's going 

6 to go down. Now, what NIOSH has done in OTIB7 70 is they selected a rate at which it goes 

8 down, which is 0.00067 per day. That's a 

9 very, very slow rate of decline. In fact, in 

10 other words, they're being very claimant11 favorable, and I know where they got that 

12 data. We don't have to go into the details of 

13 it, but they picked data in a way that it 

14 probably goes down faster than that, but 

15 they're going to assume that that 

16 concentration in the air is going down very, 

17 very gradually.

18 So in my opinion, if you have 

19 found a pretty good number for what's on the 

20 surface and we could agree on a fairly 

21 reasonable resuspension factor based on the 

22 amount of aggression to which the stuff might 
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1 have been disturbed, and then there's no doubt 

2 in my mind the 0.00067 per day number, the 

3 rate at which it smoothly goes down 

4 exponentially, is extremely claimant5 favorable. You're done. You've got the 

6 problem.

7 So all we're really talking about 

8 right now, at least for the residual period, 

9 is we need to come to agreement on what we 

10 believe to be a reasonable dpm per meter 

11 squared that was present on the surface, on 

12 average, because when you're dealing with 

13 resuspension you're not interested in the high 

14 spot, the low spot. You're interested in what 

15 the average is because it's an integrative 

16 process.

17 So a good reasonable, plausible 

18 upper bound is, for the average concentration 

19 of the uranium in dpm per square meter that 

20 was on the surfaces on day one of the residual 

21 period, we need to agree on what resuspension 

22 factor seems to make sense for the kind of 
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1 activities that took place in those various 

2 rooms during the residual period. And we 

3 certainly, in my mind, the 0.00067 rate of 

4 decline is a great number, and it's done. 

5 You're done.

6 Now, we have a little work to do. 

7 Clearly, we haven't decided what is that 

8 activity that's on the surface at the end. 

9 And there may be some disagreement regarding 

10 what's the best resuspension factor, but this 

11 is a very manageable problem. It's just a 

12 matter of sitting together, taking our hats 

13 off, and put our science together and saying 

14 what's the sensible thing to do.

15 So as far as I'm concerned, the 

16 residual period problem, we will solve. The 

17 biggest problem we have-- and that's my story 

18 on the residual period. The biggest problem 

19 we're going to have, and I think, 

20 conceptually, I know the solution to this, 

21 too. I have a conceptual approach that is 

22 fundamentally what Bob described. 
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1 You see, what happens is, and shut 

2 me off if you think I'm going too far, but 

3 what happens is surrogate data was found that 

4 says, listen, there's a number of sites out 

5 there that were handling uranium and they 

6 measured the airborne activity, the breathing 

7 zone, the activity for people that were 

8 handling uranium, and they said that's a 

9 pretty good surrogate data because we're doing 

10 it because the same kind of thing was being 

11 done at GSI. And --

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: John, I'm going 

13 to cut you off here. 

14 DR. MAURO: Okay. I'll stop here 

15 because I think I've got my --

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: All right. Just 

17 one other comment. I think one of the 

18 questions, and Dr. McKeel can correct me if 

19 I'm wrong, was the issue of the TBD-70 

20 approach looks like a smooth curve when, in 

21 reality, there may be what I'll call

22 disturbances along the way, so you get these 
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1 spikes. I think you're saying, though, that, 

2 overall, the area under the curve, if you get 

3 a spike, you still only have so much material 

4 that you're dealing with, you're not adding 

5 any source term. So in the end, the area 

6 under the curve, if you've got spikes along 

7 the way, you're spiking something that has 

8 already been depleted to some extent.

9 DR. MAURO: Yes, absolutely.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And so to get 

11 the spike, the total or the integrated amount 

12 under the curve ends up, over the long term, 

13 as being the same. Is that what you're 

14 saying?

15 DR. MAURO: Yes, yes. And the 

16 real question is that resuspension factor is a 

17 thing that picks up the spike. You see, when 

18 I hear the word spike, it means, oh, all of a 

19 sudden someone came along and did something to 

20 generate, to re-suspend a lot more. And there 

21 could be short periods of time where that 

22 occurs, but we have a lot of data on that. So 
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1 we can pick the right resuspension factor.

2 And you're right. There could be 

3 times when you have more, times when you have 

4 less. But it's continually going down because 

5 natural attenuation by air turnover is going 

6 to cause this thing to drop and the rate of 

7 decline overall -- think of it like this: 

8 there's a certain number of curies in the 

9 building, you know, in the building. And 

10 those curies are going down, and they're going 

11 down because of natural attenuation. And the 

12 approach that NIOSH has picked, the rate at 

13 which it's going down is very, very slow. In 

14 other words, the 0.00067 per day, so it's 

15 going down.

16 Now, during that time period, yes, 

17 you've got periods when you have a little bit 

18 more resuspension, periods when you have less. 

19 But if you pick the right resuspension factor 

20 that you say effectively represents the 

21 airborne dust-loading that's due to these 

22 processes, someone could very well argue ten 
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1 to the minus four for maybe some short periods 

2 of time --

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: John, remember, we 

4 don't need a suspension factor if we simply go 

5 with the declining constant air concentration.

6 DR. MAURO: You could do that.

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: So then, as long 

8 as you say you agree that it's the same 

9 resuspension, the resuspension factor doesn't 

10 change during the residual period, then all 

11 you need is a declining air concentration. 

12 DR. MAURO: That's another 

13 shortcut. But --

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Because, you know, 

15 it's back and forth. You end up with the same 

16 number.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes. Well, what 

18 you've just done is a shortcut to OTIB-70.

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, no, no. I 

20 still use the OTIB-70 as a decrement, and that 

21 is also shown in other comments -- I know we 

22 can't talk about this forever --
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1 DR. MCKEEL: So this is Dan 

2 McKeel. I need to get a word in edgewise 

3 here. 

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. Well, just a 

5 second, Dan. Let me answer, you asked SC&A to 

6 answer the question. I would like to answer 

7 one of your points that you already made and 

8 you requested an answer to.

9 DR. MCKEEL: Okay.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: So please give me 

11 a chance. I mean, John has said some of this, 

12 and that is of course the actual disturbances 

13 are episodic and they're not a smooth curve. 

14 The smooth curve is simply an averaging 

15 because no matter what happens, on average, 

16 there's air coming into the building and air 

17 going out. It's not a sealed, it's not a 

18 hermetically-sealed system. And every time 

19 there's air movement, some of the uranium dust 

20 is removed permanently from the building, so 

21 there's always going to be some decrease even 

22 if, on a given day -- as a matter of fact, the 
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1 more you stir it up, the more it decreases 

2 because then you have more in the air and it 

3 will go out with the ventilation system.

4 So all of that, when you average 

5 it over, if you look at it for any one moment, 

6 you're right, it's all over the place. But if 

7 you average it out over a course of a year, 

8 and doses are almost always assigned on the 

9 basis of a year, the smooth curve is not a bad 

10 approximation. And the more it gets cleaned 

11 up, the less there is. So when you're saying 

12 there were aggressive clean-ups, this is 

13 actually claimant-favorable because the OTIB14 70 approach does not assume any aggressive 

15 clean-ups. So if there's a clean-up, it means 

16 you washed it down, it went out into the 

17 sewers, and it's gone. 

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Dan, do you have 

19 an additional comment? Let Dan make his 

20 comment now. 

21 DR. MCKEEL: All right. Here's my 

22 comment. Dr. Mauro made this comment. He 
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1 said that his model that he was talking about 

2 would be a problem if there had been clean3 ups, he said unless there was clean-up after 

4 operations. Okay. Well, what I --

5 DR. MAURO: Well, that's, you 

6 know, you're misusing -- that was only doing 

7 the backwards calculation. I hear where 

8 you're going, and I think, again --

9 DR. MCKEEL: Well, no, you need to 

10 let me finish because you don't know where I'm 

11 going.

12 DR. MAURO: My apologies.

13 DR. MCKEEL: All right. What I'm 

14 saying is that each of these companies that 

15 came in did different activities and, 

16 therefore, if you had to model, truly model 

17 what was going on in there, there would be, I 

18 understand that there are different daily 

19 resuspension and settling rates, velocities, 

20 and so forth. On the other hand, if you 

21 thought about the residual period as a series 

22 of events and each event was a new company 
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1 moving in there and setting up operations, 

2 doing various steel operations, and then 

3 moving out, then, in fact, it would be clear 

4 that those companies did various types of 

5 clean-up operations once they were leaving, 

6 getting ready for the next owner to come in. 

7 They were leasing the space. They didn't own 

8 the space. They were leasing the space.

9 And so I think that the proper way 

10 to model that mathematically is, first, you 

11 would have to calculate each one of those 

12 events as a separate -- you'd have to know the 

13 amount of uranium in the building, in the 

14 buildings as a whole, and then you'd have to 

15 know the resuspension factor for that company, 

16 on average, and for however long they were 

17 there, one month or two years. And we do 

18 think that they were there from those limits. 

19 Some were there for months, some were there 

20 for years. And then you would have to know 

21 what the uranium level was in the air and on 

22 the surfaces after they left. That would be 
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1 your new start point for the next company.

2 So, you know, you would have a 

3 series of curves with peaks, and there's no a 

4 priori reason to think that the settling would 

5 be exactly the same. If they did different 

6 things, the composition of the dust particles, 

7 their size and so forth, their mass, what they 

8 contain, that could all change. 

9 So these places were constantly 

10 being disturbed and made up. And then, 

11 eventually, I understand that if you had that 

12 series of curves, you may be able to fit an 

13 exponential curve. It may take some other 

14 kind of curve. That's not the only kind of 

15 curve that will fit data, as you all know. 

16 But we don't have that data. That's a guess. 

17 It's an educated guess, but, basically, what 

18 you're saying is, Dan, we have TIB-70 and 

19 we've put in certain surrogate data in there, 

20 and, by golly, I'm saying, I'm declaring that 

21 those are good numbers. Well, if there's no 

22 measured data at GSI, which there is, there is 
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1 zero measured data, no breathing zone data, no 

2 process zone data, no ambient air data at GSI 

3 ever at the entire plant in all of operations, 

4 then, basically, you're making an educated 

5 guess. And I'm saying that if that's the best 

6 you can do and so forth, but I can tell you I 

7 would never, never buy the explanation that's 

8 been given out that that exponential curve 

9 actually has a good relationship with real 

10 data, except, except for those sites that are 

11 defined in OTIB-70, and that's it.

12 You know, I understand this is a 

13 deep philosophical argument. I'm not going to 

14 pursue it any longer, but I appreciate the 

15 explanations. But I certainly am not 

16 convinced, so I think I'll leave it at that. 

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thanks, 

18 Dan. Now, I'm going to bring us to a close on 

19 this facility for the day. We have two tasks 

20 that have to be done. The first one, NIOSH is 

21 going to prepare their final model for what 

22 I'm calling today the administrators. And 
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1 then SC&A is going to review that, and we're 

2 hoping to have another meeting then in, 

3 roughly, a month or four to six weeks, 

4 something like that. And, also, we're going 

5 to have SC&A and NIOSH conduct a technical 

6 call, which they'll arrange, to deal with the 

7 residual period. 

8 MR. CHUROVICH: Dr. Anigstein, 

9 this is Dan Churovich. Can I interrupt just a 

10 second? 

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Who's speaking?

12 MR. CHUROVICH: Dan Churovich. I 

13 was there, and let me tell you, you're talking 

14 about people handling something, handling 

15 radioactive material. What if they don't know 

16 what they're handling? 

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Well, the 

18 models don't depend on whether or not they 

19 knew it. We're assuming that they're going to 

20 get exposed, so the models will cover that. 

21 Anyway, we have those two tasks to complete, 

22 and then we will schedule another face, or not 
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1 face to face but a phone call meeting. It's 

2 got to be a phone call for my purposes at this 

3 time. 

4 And so that's where we'll leave it 

5 on GSI for today, and I want to move ahead 

6 quickly to Baker Brothers. And we had some 

7 DCAS responses to the SC&A review. And, Tom, 

8 if you're still on the line, you can address 

9 the Baker Brothers issues there for us. 

10 MR. TOMES: Okay. This is Tom. 

11 Just to summarize, we have received a brief 

12 paper from today on talking points for the 

13 Baker Brothers ER, and they listed several 

14 issues to discuss, the most significant of 

15 which was possible contamination levels from 

16 fires at the facility. And during the 

17 previous meeting, John Mauro discussed or he 

18 thought that that could have a bearing on the 

19 modeling. 

20 And so, in the interim, I put 

21 together some information and sent it out 

22 showing that it's likely that Baker Brothers 
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1 was possibly not decontaminated, but was at

2 least cleaned up based on information that 

3 DuPont required those contractors to sweep and 

4 remove all visible residues from the surfaces 

5 and machines and ship it back to the 

6 government. And that was required for the 

7 various contractors that we have records of in 

8 1943 and `44. We don't have specific 

9 information on the dates and what specific 

10 activities were done at Baker Brothers, but we 

11 do have records of shipping and sweepings in 

12 1943, which would have occurred after the 

13 fires were under control.

14 So, based on that, SC&A responded 

15 and sent us some information saying that it is 

16 likely that they had some clean-up and that 

17 they feel that we can likely bound these, but 

18 they say there may be some issues with the 

19 numbers that we use. The ER assumes a 

20 contamination level, an airborne level of 5480 

21 dpm per cubic meter. That's based on a 

22 bounding operator concentration for machining 
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1 operations out of TBD-6000.

2 And that was used as the 

3 conventional settling and resuspension model 

4 that has been just discussed for GSI and came 

5 up with an air concentration for the beginning 

6 of residual period. And I believe the 

7 question that SC&A proposed in their memo was 

8 the clean-up, was the supposed clean-up at 

9 Baker Brothers sufficient such that the 

10 resuspension factor was valid that we used? 

11 We used ten to the minus six, presuming if 

12 there was some clean-up that there was not a 

13 lot of loose contamination. 

14 And just to summarize what they 

15 were doing, the operations at Baker Brothers 

16 ended approximately, I don't know the exact 

17 date, but it ended in August 1944. And they 

18 had containers of scrap and residues that were 

19 sitting around the facility, and they were 

20 there for some weeks later. And there was 

21 some records of shipments being, the last 

22 shipment that I saw a record of was October 
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1 1944 being shipped out of there.

2 So the ER, basically, uses this 

3 information to assume that by the end of 1944 

4 that the contamination levels in there, in the 

5 ER would bound those doses and that the 

6 resuspension factor of ten to the minus six 

7 would also be a valid number to use. 

8 And there are some other issues. 

9 I don't know if you want to get into more 

10 discussion of that, but there are some other 

11 minor issues that SC&A identified in the 

12 talking points that we can --

13 DR. NETON: Yes, Tom. This is 

14 Jim. I think that, you know, we have to keep 

15 in mind that this was an analysis that was 

16 done to determine if there was any SEC issues 

17 in the residual period that would keep it from 

18 not being an SEC. So, you know, I'd like to, 

19 personally -- this is Jim -- I'd like to just 

20 focus on those issues for this call. 

21 DR. MAURO: Jim, I agree with you 

22 completely because this is where we've really 
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1 been paying attention. Certainly, we'll get 

2 to the others. These are, basically, issues 

3 seven and eight in our original list, and, as 

4 you recall in our last meeting, you know, what 

5 we really did was we were asked to take a 

6 quick look, take a look at it, and we came up 

7 with this list of concerns. And the big ones 

8 that we felt are the ones you just described.

9 Bill Thurber and I, and especially 

10 Bill did all the heavy lifting and has a good 

11 story to tell regarding it, and it's a story 

12 that, you know, to go to the end of the story, 

13 I think we're okay. That's the take-away. So 

14 I take the end of the story away, but it's 

15 important to know where we're headed. 

16 I think your arguments, we looked 

17 very carefully at your arguments, and I think 

18 Bill has a rich story to explain that will 

19 help, that will close this thing out. Bill, 

20 you there? 

21 MR. THURBER: Yes, I'm here.

22 DR. MAURO: You got it. 
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1 MR. THURBER: Okay. Very, very 

2 quickly. In part, speaking to Jim Neton's 

3 point about whether these are SEC issues or 

4 not, based on our review, we don't think they 

5 are. 

6 Let's talk first about the 

7 question of the evidence that Tom presented on 

8 whether there was clean-up or not. And, 

9 certainly, it's a judgment call as to whether 

10 you can irrefutably say that clean-up was done 

11 or not. Rather than making that judgment, 

12 what we said in our memo is, look, you don't 

13 have to make a judgment as to whether clean-up 

14 was done or not, but you do then have to make 

15 a decision as to what resuspension factor you 

16 will use. 

17 So looking at the problem that 

18 way, you don't have to say, well, the evidence 

19 is irrefutable that clean-up occurred. You 

20 just say: we're not convinced, so we're going 

21 to adjust the resuspension factor. 

22 But that leaves open the question 
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1 of whether any, whether the chip fires were 

2 sufficient to cause initial levels of 

3 contamination at the beginning of the residual 

4 period that would be greater than those you 

5 would obtain by using TBD-6000. And we 

6 provided information in our memo, well, TBD7 6000 says that the limiting air concentration 

8 for machining operations was 5,480 Dpm per 

9 cubic meter. And that happened to be a worst10 case number from all of the machining 

11 operations that they looked at in TBD-6000, 

12 which were originally derived from the paper 

13 by Harris and Kingsley. And that number of 

14 5,480 dpm per cubic meter was for centerless 

15 grinding. They picked that as representative 

16 of any operator doing machining. 

17 In fact, typical machining 

18 operations such as running lathes, the number 

19 was one to two orders of magnitude lower, but 

20 that's the level of conservatism that was 

21 built into the generic operator category for 

22 machining in TBD-6000. 
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1 Well, we looked at some data that 

2 was in the Harris and Kingsley paper that was 

3 not woven into TBD-6000, and they said, for 

4 the case where a fire actually occurred, it 

5 wasn't with machining but it was with 

6 briquetting uranium turnings, which would be 

7 quite similar, that the average exposure was 

8 only 600 dpm per cubic meter. Again, about an 

9 order of magnitude lower than the generic TBD10 6000 number.

11 We also looked at data from Adley, 

12 a paper that we've talked about on a number of 

13 occasions in the past, and they had machining 

14 data. And in many instances, their machining 

15 data noted that there was heavy fume or 

16 burning during the machining operation. And 

17 in none of these instances that Adley quoted, 

18 and I think there was seven or eight of them, 

19 was the airborne concentration close to the 

20 generic TBD-6000 limit. 

21 So we concluded that the TBD-6000 

22 value of 5,480 dpm per cubic meter was an 
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1 appropriate bounding number, even if there 

2 were chip fires. And so those were basically 

3 the two conclusions that we arrived at as, A, 

4 if you don't believe that clean-up occurred, 

5 you can deal with that by adjusting the 

6 resuspension level; and, B, the TBD-6000 

7 generic number for machining adequately covers 

8 the air concentration from chip fires. And we 

9 feel that both of those are not SEC issues.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you 

11 very much. Any questions, Board Members, Work 

12 Group Members? 

13 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. I 

14 don't have any question, just a comment. 

15 Earlier, it was indicated that the two items 

16 that were being addressed were items seven and 

17 eight of the original report. I didn't go 

18 back and look at the original report, but 

19 Bill's report covers items eight and nine, I 

20 believe. 

21 DR. MAURO: I may have had the 

22 numbers wrong, Wanda. 
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, just a nit, for 

2 the record. 

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

4 MEMBER MUNN: It was an excellent 

5 report, easily understood, and it looks clear 

6 to me. 

7 DR. MAURO: Just to add a little 

8 bit. What the real question is, when you look 

9 at the story that's being told, NIOSH makes a 

10 very good argument that it probably was 

11 cleaned up, you know, because that was the 

12 practice that was being used widely at that 

13 time and there's good reason to believe that 

14 they probably did clean up after the fires 

15 because of the practice that was involved. 

16 But we don't actually have direct statements, 

17 you know, that this happened at this facility.

18 So we asked ourselves, okay, so 

19 someone may not accept that. I mean, someone 

20 may say, well, listen, unless you have 

21 affirmative proof that, yes, it was cleaned 

22 up, but we're saying that, even if you don't, 
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1 you know, if it was cleaned up, that's the end 

2 of the story, and you go, you know, and then 

3 you use ten to the minus six resuspension 

4 factor. But if it wasn't cleaned up, let's 

5 say someone says, well, you know, we think it 

6 -- but even then, that 5,000 number is so 

7 large that it envelopes even if there was some 

8 fires. But, of course, then, if you make that 

9 assumption, then you don't use the ten to the 

10 minus six. Then you use the ten to the minus 

11 five. 

12 And I think that's where we are 

13 right now. And this is a judgment that, I 

14 guess, needs to be made because we're not 

15 saying that the answer, everything is done. 

16 What we're really saying is, depending on

17 which path you want to go down, whether you 

18 want to say, yes, it was cleaned up because of 

19 the evidence as laid out in the report. Well, 

20 if you go with that, then go with that ten to 

21 the minus six resuspension factor and the 

22 0.00067 per day depletion rate. 
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1 If you think that, well, we like 

2 to be a little bit more claimant-favorable 

3 since we don't have all that direct evidence, 

4 okay, don't do that. The airborne 

5 concentration is fine. Go with the standard 

6 approach, but don't use ten to the minus six, 

7 use ten to the minus five because it wasn't 

8 cleaned up. 

9 So it's really, that's the choice 

10 that needs to be made by, I guess, NIOSH and 

11 the Work Group, which approach. But, 

12 certainly, it's a solvable problem.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you 

14 very much. I did want to check with Ted. 

15 Ted, were there petitioners on this one that 

16 wanted to comment? 

17 MR. KATZ: No. Paul, I think the 

18 message we got is that the petitioner here is 

19 already fine with what happened with the SEC 

20 action and was not planning to participate. 

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So I 

22 think we can -- what do we need to do action-
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1 wise? Remind me. We need to recommend to the 

2 Board on the residual period, or where do we 

3 start? 

4 DR. MAURO: This is John. Yes. 

5 We're dealing with whether or not the residual 

6 period was -- you know, the SEC is covered, 

7 but the residual period is a question. And 

8 there's a strategy that was adopted for 

9 dealing with the residual period, and the only 

10 thing that we brought up was this fire thing. 

11 Well, that may mess you up a little bit 

12 because does the approach that NIOSH has 

13 adopted, is it adequate to envelope and deal 

14 with the fact that there were indoor fires?

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, you're 

16 basically saying, either way, it still is 

17 appropriate for bounding this.

18 DR. MAURO: Yes, yes, yes.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And I'm not sure 

20 it's going to give a very different answer. 

21 It may be a slightly different one, but the 

22 recommendation we have to make to the full 
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1 Board is whether or not an SEC should be 

2 provided for the residual period; isn't that 

3 correct? 

4 MS. LIN: Dr. Ziemer, this is 

5 Jenny Lin with OGC. And Ted can correct me if 

6 I'm not right on this, but my recollection is 

7 that the Advisory Board, when they voted on 

8 recommending adding the SEC Class for the 

9 operational period, they specifically leave 

10 open the questions about residual 

11 contamination and then also task the Work 

12 Group to evaluate the dose reconstruction 

13 methods for the residual contamination period. 

14 So do you think that the Advisory Board will 

15 require a recommendation from the Work Group? 

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. So what 

17 we would need would be a motion to make a 

18 recommendation to the full Board on the 

19 residual period. 

20 MS. LIN: That's my understanding. 

21 MEMBER BEACH: So, Paul, this is 

22 Josie. I want to be clear because I heard 
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1 John say that we could go, we could decide 

2 either ten to the minus five or ten to the 

3 minus six. John, is your recommendation ten 

4 to the minus five or minus six? 

5 DR. MAURO: Where I come down on 

6 this, okay, and understand that this is a 

7 judgment call, there is a lot of evidence that 

8 the standard practice at the time for this 

9 type of facility at that time and the process 

10 that was used is that they did clean up. The 

11 fact that we --

12 MEMBER BEACH: Well, let me stop 

13 for just a sec. So I understand that --

14 DR. NETON: So, Josie, this is a 

15 Site Profile issue, I think, that we're 

16 dealing with at this site.

17 DR. MAURO: Oh, now, we're dealing 

18 with a Site Profile. Right. 

19 MEMBER BEACH: You're absolutely 

20 correct on that, yes. 

21 DR. NETON: So I don't know if 

22 that needs to be decided before the Work Group 
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1 recommends to the Board whether an SEC should 

2 be added during the residual period, I guess. 

3 MEMBER BEACH: You're absolutely 

4 correct. Sorry about that. So I'm good. 

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: It could be 

6 either one, but it still is a tractable 

7 problem. And we don't have to decide that at 

8 this point, yes. 

9 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So we're 

10 just looking at the 1945 to `96 time period, 

11 whether it's an SEC or not. I'm clear. Thank 

12 you. 

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. So who 

14 wishes to make a motion? 

15 MEMBER MUNN: I'll be glad to make 

16 that motion. Based on the information that we 

17 have today, it appears that my motion would be 

18 that we recommend to the Board that an SEC not 

19 be granted because it is possible for dose 

20 reconstructions to be done for Baker Brothers 

21 for the time in question.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: For the residual 
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1 period.

2 MEMBER BEACH: And this is Josie. 

3 I'll second that.

4 MEMBER MUNN: For the residual 

5 period.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And Josie 

7 seconded it. Further discussion? Okay. 

8 Let's just get a quick individual vote. All 

9 in favor -- well, John, is John back? Wanda?

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Josie? 

12 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I'll vote yes. 

14 Two yeses. It's not required that John vote. 

15 I'll simply report to the Work Group or to 

16 the full Board that we're recommending that an 

17 SEC not be granted for the residual period for 

18 Baker Brothers.

19 Ted, can we do this on the phone 

20 call, do you think, or do we need to go for 

21 the full Board meeting? 

22 MR. KATZ: Well, my only question 
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1 -- well, I think we do because, one, it's not 

2 on the agenda.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Right, 

4 right.

5 MR. KATZ: And, usually, I think 

6 that's important for petitioners.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, we'll do it 

8 in the full Board meeting then.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right, okay. 

11 Let's move on to Joslyn, and I think all we 

12 have is a brief report of status from DCAS, 

13 right? On Joslyn? 

14 DR. NETON: Actually, I think 

15 that, well, I didn't know whether SC&A was 

16 going to present what they provided. We 

17 haven't had this very long. It's only been a 

18 few weeks, and we're still working on it. So 

19 we really don't have anything to report as far 

20 as our reaction to the report at this time. 

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think I would 

22 prefer that we simply leave it at that and not 
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1 discuss the review at this point, if that's 

2 all right, in terms of time and personal 

3 issues here with me. So if there's no 

4 objection, we'll carry Joslyn forward to our 

5 next meeting, and that will give NIOSH a 

6 chance to complete their responses. Is that 

7 agreeable? 

8 MEMBER MUNN: Reasonable, yes. 

9 MEMBER BEACH: I'm agreeable with 

10 that. 

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Let's 

12 move on then to Simonds Saw. I've got to pull 

13 up my file here. Let's see. On Simonds Saw, 

14 let's see, we have some fairly recent NIOSH 

15 responses on that. Is that where we are on 

16 this? 

17 MR. TOMES: This is Tom Tomes. 

18 Yes, we just forwarded updated responses from 

19 NIOSH to the matrix a few days ago. We were 

20 looking at a few of the issues that we had 

21 left open on responses previously.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. You want 
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1 to go through those with us quickly? 

2 MR. TOMES: Yes.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Does anybody 

4 have the matrix? 

5 MEMBER BEACH: This is Josie. I 

6 do. 

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think we have 

8 a copy dated -- I don't see a date on my copy 

9 here. 

10 MEMBER BEACH: April 23rd is what 

11 I have.

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, April 23rd. 

13 Right. Go ahead, Tom. You want to cover to 

14 that? 

15 MR. TOMES: Okay. I'll just go 

16 through the findings one by one. Finding one 

17 concerns discussion of the external dose 

18 models, and our response to that was that 

19 NIOSH believes that our model was sufficient. 

20 SC&A had questioned why we did not use the 

21 extrapolated film badges that were available. 

22 That issue concerned, I think there were 20 
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1 film badge results from a seven-day period, 

2 and NIOSH did not use those. We did not 

3 consider them to be a sufficient 

4 representative of the doses, so we went 

5 through some other methods to reconstruct 

6 dose. 

7 And SC&A pointed out that if you 

8 extrapolate some of those film badges that 

9 some of the workers would have had a higher 

10 dose than what the NIOSH model is. And I went 

11 through and reviewed those and concurred with 

12 SC&A's numbers, but some of those badges, in 

13 particular the highest badge results, was 

14 suspect. Based on all the survey data we 

15 have, we just didn't feel that that was a 

16 valid result and we feel that the methods we 

17 chose is representative of the external doses. 

18 And that was our response previously, and we 

19 didn't add any additional response to that. 

20 MR. BARTON: This is Bob Barton 

21 with SC&A. Just to kind of clarify a little 

22 bit on that finding, I think this wasn't 
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1 necessarily that we thought the film badge 

2 data should be used as opposed to the approach 

3 that NIOSH adopted, which depends on some 

4 surrogate data from Aliquippa Forge. They had 

5 one general area measurement that was used in 

6 some MCNP runs to develop their external dose 

7 values. 

8 What we're basically saying was we 

9 do have these film badges, so let's take a 

10 look. Let's just extrapolate them to the full 

11 year, like what was just described, and what 

12 do the numbers say? And we found that, if you 

13 extrapolate them, we found that some of the 

14 workers did have higher external doses. 

15 So the intent of that finding was 

16 not to say, well, now you should replace the 

17 methods that NIOSH used with these film badge 

18 data. Really what we're saying is, given that 

19 we have these data and a way to compare them, 

20 NIOSH should consider modifying their approach 

21 to ensure that the external doses you're going 

22 to be assigning are going to be favorable to 
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1 all the claimants, the highest-exposed people, 

2 because, as the film badge data show, it 

3 sounds like at least one of those workers may 

4 have suspect results. But there were others, 

5 too, that still had a higher extrapolated 

6 external doses then what they would get from 

7 the TBD methods.

8 I'd also like to note that, in 

9 extrapolating those film badge, we didn't 

10 include any sort of, you know, ambient dose 

11 from between rolling periods. So, you know, 

12 when they're not rolling uranium, there's 

13 still contamination present at the site. And 

14 NIOSH took that into account in their number. 

15 We didn't take it into account in our number. 

16 So, basically, what that would do, if you did 

17 add that in, it would add about another rem 

18 and a half. So you can kind of add that to 

19 those numbers.

20 And, also, I'd like to note that 

21 those film badges were taken in 1949, I 

22 believe, which, if you look at Simonds' plant 
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1 history, you know, they started off and they 

2 didn't really know a whole lot and, you know, 

3 things were very contaminated. They started 

4 instituting some industrial controls. Things 

5 got a lot better, and that's kind of in that 

6 1949 period where things get a lot better. So 

7 those film badges themselves might represent 

8 sort of a more ideal condition at the plant 

9 than would have been experienced throughout 

10 the plant history. 

11 So, basically, what we're saying 

12 is, we're not saying, you know, pull out your 

13 method, which probably is a very good estimate 

14 what the actual external exposure potential 

15 was. But given that we do have these data and 

16 they show that some workers likely experienced 

17 higher external doses, then maybe you want to 

18 go back and sort of modify your approach so 

19 that we can be assured that, when we do assign 

20 external doses, that it's going to be bounding 

21 to all the workers there.

22 And, also, I think it's important 
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1 that in the TBD you kind of discuss those film 

2 badge results similar to the way of if you 

3 extrapolated it and, you know, explain that 

4 the rationale for why that one worker who had 

5 the rather high external results that maybe 

6 his was suspect, but then we have these other 

7 workers that may have had higher doses, but we 

8 looked at this, and, you know, because of our 

9 proposed model, we are, in fact, bounding.

10 So, again, we weren't saying that, 

11 you know, you should use this film badge data 

12 only and throw away everything else. We're 

13 just saying, in light of it, you should 

14 consider modifying your approach. 

15 MR. TOMES: Bob, this is Tom. I 

16 did look at that data quite a bit, and I agree 

17 with you that the TBD, the TBD mentions these 

18 results, but it doesn't really go into an 

19 analysis of those results. But I agree that 

20 those should not be used as a sole basis for 

21 assigning the dose. 

22 What I find surprising, if you 
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1 discard the questionable results, I found that 

2 the numbers in the TBD agreed with the 

3 extrapolated film badges better than I would 

4 have expected. Some of those values in the 

5 TBD were derived with, some of them had 

6 relatively large GSDs. And you take all the 

7 uncertainty into consideration, the numbers 

8 are in fairly good agreement.

9 MR. BARTON: Well, no, I agree, it 

10 serves both to validate that your approach is 

11 accurate but also that these film badge data 

12 results are accurate. All I'm saying, I 

13 guess, is that, you know, given the fact that 

14 we have these film badges and if you 

15 extrapolate them out and you consider the 

16 ambient dose, which we hadn't done in the

17 original review, and the fact that the film 

18 badges themselves were taken during a period 

19 when they had their industrial controls in 

20 place so, again, radiation levels were a 

21 little bit smaller, you know, all these things 

22 combined, you know, maybe you should take a 
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1 look at those methods and consider increasing 

2 the assigned external dose just so you can 

3 ensure that you're going to be bounding. 

4 That's where I come out on it. 

5 MR. TOMES: I disagree with that, 

6 Bob. I agree that looking at these badges, 

7 Jim, is a good thing, and maybe to explain a 

8 little better why we're not using them as the 

9 basis for assigning doses. But taking one 

10 measurement and extrapolating it for the 

11 entire year just strikes me as being -- and 

12 especially ones with the highest, using the 

13 highest value that is suspect anyway, just 

14 doesn't strike me as being a good practice. 

15 MR. BARTON: No, no, that's not, I 

16 did not say they use the highest value. I'm 

17 just saying --

18 MR. TOMES: No, but none of the 

19 other ones exceed. And the fact is that we 

20 have a large --

21 MR. BARTON: No, no, no, there are 

22 others that exceed it. I mean, I'm looking at 
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1 -- they review at least 6 of the 20 workers.

2 MR. TOMES: And do you assign 

3 those as a constant value or what do you do? 

4 I mean, we already have a large GSD to account 

5 for the uncertainty in the model. I forget 

6 what it is, Tom, but --

7 MR. BARTON: There are several 

8 different ones because of the components. I 

9 believe the large one is 4-point something.

10 MR. TOMES: Yes, 4-point something 

11 GSD on the central estimate, which is quite 

12 generous. So we're acknowledging, by doing 

13 that, that we're not 100 percent certain that 

14 the central estimate is exactly right, but we 

15 acknowledge that there's another level of 

16 values. To increase the central estimate just 

17 based on one film badge measurement, to me, 

18 doesn't make sense. That's our opinion, and I 

19 think we'd be happy to explain maybe that a 

20 little better in the TBD, but I can't see 

21 increasing the dose based on those badge 

22 measurements. 
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1 MR. BARTON: Well, that's 

2 certainly a judgment call for the Board. And 

3 I do agree that it would be definitely 

4 beneficial to the TBD to put out that 

5 rationale that, listen, we do have these 

6 results and, even though if we extrapolate 

7 them out, and take some of these things into 

8 consideration, like the fact that 

9 contamination levels were a little bit lower 

10 here and --

11 MR. TOMES: Well, I don't think 

12 the definition of lower --

13 (Simultaneous speakers.)

14 MR. BARTON: -- our work is going 

15 to be favorable to the claimant for, you know, 

16 reasons A, B, and C. So, I mean, if that 

17 argument is sound and everybody agrees with 

18 that, then I wholeheartedly agree with let's 

19 put that rationale and that text into the TBD 

20 so that, you know, as people read it and they 

21 say, well, there are film badges, what 

22 happened to them, you know, what are they 
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1 like, you can say, well, we looked into that 

2 and for these reasons we feel our model is not 

3 only more accurate but also more claimant4 favorable. 

5 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. I 

6 believe the model is more claimant-favorable. 

7 I've compared these, and I just pulled up the 

8 TBD and some of the dose has a GSD of 5.7. 

9 And the model allows for, I guess you could 

10 say the model allows for more uncertainty than 

11 the film badge does in some regard. 

12 DR. MAURO: This is John. I think 

13 I can help out a little bit, too. I 

14 understand where we are on this. Jim, you 

15 recently made a very nice demonstration where 

16 you pointed out that when you put in a GSD of 

17 five or four, whatever you're putting it on a 

18 number, and with a geometric mean, you could 

19 say to yourself -- this is a very important 

20 point, and I think it's worth just spending a 

21 minute or two on it.

22 When we look at some numbers, very 
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1 often we will look at the arithmetic mean and 

2 we say here's the number, here's the dose 

3 rate. Let's say it turns out to be, we come 

4 up with a number that's lower than the 

5 geometric mean that NIOSH might come up with 

6 by a factor of two, three, or four. Someone 

7 might say, oh, my goodness, you folks, SC&A, 

8 are coming in with an arithmetic mean with no 

9 uncertainty that's four times higher than the 

10 geometric mean that NIOSH is coming up with. 

11 And my reaction was: we can't have this, you 

12 know. We're coming in four times higher. 

13 But then Jim went through a 

14 calculation, and we just went through this, 

15 and it's the same situation we have here. If 

16 you come with a number that has a geometric 

17 mean, a value, that's, let's say, lower than 

18 my arithmetic mean by a factor of four, one 

19 would say that's a lot. 

20 But then when one realizes that 

21 Jim is also assigning -- it sounds like I'm 

22 promoting it, but I agree with the argument. 
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1 When they assign a geometric standard 

2 deviation of five on top of that geometric 

3 mean, and then they run IREP and they pluck 

4 off the upper 99th percentile dose, what 

5 happens is you end up getting a Probability of 

6 Causation that's higher using the method that 

7 Jim just described.

8 So what I'm hearing now, we have a 

9 similar -- Jim, tell me if we have a similar 

10 situation here. If you were to use the film 

11 badge data that might be somewhat higher, as 

12 pointed out by Bob Barton, and your standard 

13 uncertainty, I believe, of 30 percent on the 

14 spread on a film badge reading, as compared to 

15 saying, well, using some other method that 

16 comes up with whatever the model is that has a 

17 geometric mean of a value and a geometric 

18 standard deviation of about four, is that what 

19 we're really comparing here? 

20 MR. TOMES: Well, if you're going 

21 to say that 30 percent would be the 

22 uncertainty, I'd say yes. I mean, it's hard 
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1 to predict in general, but when you're 

2 comparing 30 percent, normal distribution of 

3 30 percent to a GSD of four, even five, hands 

4 down, the distribution --

5 DR. MAURO: Your PoC is going to 

6 come in higher. Well, I guess then my 

7 question becomes, if you were to use the film 

8 badge numbers, you extrapolate the values that 

9 were referred to by Bob, you would have to 

10 pick a number and assign some uncertainty to 

11 it when you inserted that into your IREP 

12 calculations.

13 MR. TOMES: Right. And I would 

14 have no idea what uncertainty was assigned --

15 DR. MAURO: Yes. Well, you see --

16 MR. TOMES: -- to one measurement 

17 based on one campaign. Was that the highest 

18 campaign? Was that the high value? Who 

19 knows? There's no pedigree on this film badge 

20 data at all. It's just one measurement at one 

21 point in time.

22 DR. MAURO: I only bring this up 
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1 because, even though I've been working on 

2 this, this project for quite some time, the 

3 light went on when I realized that that when 

4 you assign a GSD of five to a number with a 

5 geometric mean, I usually just look at the 

6 geometric mean and then do my own calculation. 

7 Very often, it's an average. I'll add up 

8 some numbers and say, how close do I come? 

9 And if I come pretty close, I'll say, okay, 

10 everything looks okay. But if I come in four 

11 times higher, I say, oh, something is wrong, 

12 and that happened recently.

13 But then Jim pointed out but, no, 

14 we're not using a fixed value of what the dose 

15 is. We're using the geometric mean with a 

16 standard deviation of five. And then he ran 

17 IREP, and he came in with a Probability of 

18 Causation that was much higher than mine. 

19 So all I can say is, to help out 

20 here a little bit, this is something that I 

21 learned only in the last month, that I 

22 probably should have known for quite some 
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1 time. If we have a similar situation here 

2 where you're assigning a fairly large 

3 geometric standard deviation to your number, 

4 that probably will envelope what might be 

5 relatively small. How big are the differences 

6 between the number you came up with, Bob, and 

7 the number that NIOSH is using for this 

8 particular person? 

9 MR. BARTON: In the highest case, 

10 it's about 20 roentgen. And like NIOSH 

11 pointed out, they have reason to believe that 

12 that measurement is suspect, and, you know, 

13 there are some that are ten and some that are 

14 a little smaller than that. Honestly, in 

15 listening to this discussion, it sounds like 

16 there's a very compelling argument to say, no, 

17 no, no, what's in the TBD right now is, in 

18 fact, the most claimant-favorable method, even 

19 in light of these limited film badge results. 

20 And I think maybe the solution here is, well, 

21 let's put it in there. Let's lay all the 

22 cards on the table. Yes, we have these film 
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1 badge results, and if you were to do this sort 

2 of exercise where you extrapolate to a year, 

3 yes, you will see some of the results on an 

4 annual basis are higher, yet the method that 

5 we've chosen is, in fact, more claimant6 favorable for the reasons that are kind of 

7 being laid out here. 

8 DR. MAURO: I know that may be a 

9 little bit of extra work for NIOSH, but I 

10 think telling that story is important. 

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, I'm 

12 wondering if it wouldn't be helpful, Jim, if 

13 NIOSH went ahead and expanded here on this 

14 response or to the SC&A preliminary response. 

15 And that will, I think, help the Work Group, 

16 as well. 

17 DR. NETON: Well, I thought Tom --

18 Tom, didn't you do that? I thought you 

19 provided the --

20 MR. TOMES: I didn't provide any 

21 additional response on these external dose 

22 issues. 
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1 DR. NETON: Yes, and I'm happy to 

2 revise the TBD. As you're going to see in the 

3 next discussion, we're going to revise the TBD 

4 anyway for various reasons. And we're happy 

5 to go in there and add this logic into the 

6 TBD. If you want more explanation other than 

7 what we just talked about, we can do that, as 

8 well, prior to modifying the TBD. It was in 

9 our discussion that occurred just here, I 

10 think.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I was looking at 

12 the finding itself, and I think on this 

13 finding the last response we have is the SC&A 

14 preliminary response. 

15 DR. NETON: No, no, I thought we 

16 provided a response on top of that.

17 MR. TOMES: Not on finding one, 

18 Jim. 

19 DR. NETON: Oh, we didn't?

20 MR. TOMES: No. 

21 MEMBER BEACH: Just on some of 

22 them.
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1 DR. NETON: Oh, okay. I'm sorry. 

2 I thought we had done something on finding 

3 one and presented --

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, this one 

5 didn't have it in, and I think that would be 

6 helpful for us --

7 DR. NETON: Okay. We will do that 

8 then. We will provide that.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And then I don't 

10 know the extent to -- well, what we all really 

11 want to do is close these findings. And I'm 

12 hesitant to close this just based on this 

13 discussion without really, I mean --

14 DR. NETON: Well, I think we would 

15 hold this finding in abeyance until we 

16 modified the Site Profile.

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, right.

18 DR. NETON: But since we haven't 

19 really responded in writing yet, I think we 

20 should.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

22 DR. NETON: I thought we already 
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1 had. Sorry.

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, I think 

3 that the same is true on the second finding. 

4 We have the preliminary response from SC&A, 

5 but we don't have a NIOSH response on that 

6 one.

7 DR. NETON: Well, Tom has gone and 

8 done some selective responses that are going 

9 to -- well, we address what we thought were 

10 the big ticket items. The first one we were 

11 pretty positive that we didn't need to modify 

12 it, and we will respond to that more fully. 

13 But the second thing that we're going to talk 

14 about, I'll let Tom deal -- unless we want to 

15 talk about this a little more.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: No, I think we 

17 can move ahead.

18 DR. NETON: And the second issue 

19 has to do with the reconstruction of internal 

20 dose and --

21 MEMBER MUNN: Are we going to 

22 address these in order? 
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1 DR. NETON: No, no, we're going to 

2 address finding one and then, Tom, what's the 

3 next finding that we're going to --

4 MR. TOMES: Well, it covers more 

5 than one finding, the intake model. Well, 

6 these findings, finding two concerns the 

7 exposure studies.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Finding three, 

9 and that gets pretty much repeated. I think 

10 your finding three is the one you want to 

11 focus on probably, right? 

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I think so. The 

13 urinalysis --

14 DR. NETON: Well, actually, well, 

15 here's the bottom line is anything to do with 

16 internal dose is going to change at Simonds 

17 Saw and Steel, and that's because this Site 

18 Profile was written, it was one of the very 

19 first Site Profiles that was written. And 

20 SC&A correctly, in their review, identified 

21 that, you know, there are some things that 

22 just are different than what we normally do. 
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1 For instance, you know, taking the data and 

2 multiplying it by a factor of two to make it 

3 claimant-favorable and, even in the residual 

4 period, how we handle, you know, this was 

5 written before TIB-70 was done.

6 So we are going to go back and 

7 revise the Site Profile to be more in line 

8 with our current way of doing business in the 

9 internal dosimetry world, and that would be 

10 to, you know, take the log normal 

11 distribution, the data, pick the 95th 

12 percentile, and use that in the reconstruction 

13 of internal dose, as well as using the TIB-70 

14 approach for the residual period, which would 

15 take the last measured air sample during the 

16 operational period, use that as a starting 

17 point for modeling the residual air 

18 concentrations over time.

19 So those cover a number of these 

20 findings. I think there's three or four that 

21 are wrapped up in this internal dose issue. 

22 And we're going to do that. I mean, that's 
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1 something that we just have to do. It's 

2 probably something we should have done 

3 earlier, but so be it. It's time. 

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, I think 

5 your finding three and finding four, those 

6 two, and let me see, maybe finding five, as 

7 well --

8 DR. NETON: Tom, I think you had a 

9 handle on which ones were affected. 

10 MR. TOMES: I can go ahead 

11 through. I just refer to the matrix to keep 

12 it straight. I think it started with, the 

13 internal discussion started with finding two, 

14 and that was where one of the findings was, 

15 additional review of the air monitoring data, 

16 and I believe that we concluded that the 

17 analysis was the way to go on assessing 

18 intakes for that one. 

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. But you 

20 didn't provide us any wording on finding two, 

21 but you did on finding three. 

22 MR. TOMES: Well, my initial 
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1 response, I do have an initial response on 

2 finding --

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right, right, 

4 right, right. We had the initial response.

5 MR. TOMES: And I think SC&A 

6 agreed --

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: SC&A agreed on 

8 that one, right. 

9 MR. TOMES: And then finding three 

10 we just discussed, that we're going to revise 

11 the TBD. And finding four concerns different 

12 exposure categories for the workers in the 

13 mill. And I think my response to that is 

14 listed in the overall response to finding 

15 three. We've looked at that pretty closely, 

16 and SC&A correctly points out that we have 

17 information on exposures at different shifts 

18 and different workers and I spent hours going 

19 through the urine data and trying to correlate 

20 that information with the urine results, and 

21 the information is inconclusive. Why I say 

22 that is because one category of worker may 
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1 have the highest exposures on a certain day, 

2 another category on a different day, and same 

3 for the shift work. It just does not seem 

4 that we can parse the data sufficiently to be 

5 confident that we could separate the workers 

6 out.

7 Additionally, there's workers 

8 whose particular function is not known. So to 

9 try to assign a lower dose for a certain 

10 worker would be very difficult, and that's why 

11 we're proposing to revise the TBD and specify 

12 the 95th percentile. And that's, basically, 

13 the crux of finding number four there.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, let me 

15 interrupt here a minute, just so we can sort 

16 of be consistent on this. On finding two, 

17 it's basically SC&A said they agreed to, but 

18 they did have a caveat there. And I need to 

19 ask SC&A, are we in only partial agreement on 

20 finding two? 

21 MR. BARTON: Dr. Ziemer, this is 

22 Bob Barton. Yes, there is that caveat there 
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1 at the end of finding two. Findings two 

2 through five really all concerned the internal 

3 dose model during the occupational period. 

4 And as NIOSH just explained, they're going in 

5 and they're going to revise that. And the 

6 fact that they're going to be applying the 

7 95th percentile, and we've had some internal 

8 discussions at SC&A with John Mauro and John 

9 Stiver, and we concur with that position. 

10 Because there's so much variability in the 

11 exposure potential that is seen in the daily 

12 weighted exposure reports, I mean, you could 

13 have two workers on the roughing roll, and the 

14 worker on the east side has a magnitude, an 

15 order of magnitude higher exposure than the 

16 one on the west side.

17 So there's a whole lot of 

18 variability, and that was really the crux of 

19 our concern with these four findings on the 

20 internal dose model. And for my mind, at 

21 least as it stands right now, the proposed 

22 approach of going through and, if you're a 
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1 mill worker, since you don't really know at 

2 any given time which job type was going to 

3 have the highest exposure potential, you can 

4 assign the 95th percentile and assume a 

5 chronic intake rate. And we believe that 

6 really kind of puts our major concern there 

7 with the internal dose model to rest. 

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So I'm merely 

9 asking whether we can go ahead and close, for 

10 example, finding two at this point?

11 MR. BARTON: I think probably. We 

12 are in agreement, but it kind of does 

13 necessitate those changes --

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, it's more 

15 to put it in abeyance maybe.

16 MR. BARTON: Right. That's what I 

17 would recommend. 

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So on finding 

19 one, we're just going to leave that in process 

20 because we don't have the words on it. 

21 Finding two, are we okay to do it in abeyance? 

22 Let me ask the Work Group.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Paul, this is 

2 Josie. I'm okay with that. 

3 MEMBER MUNN: Sure. 

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Which 

5 means, basically, there's agreement that we 

6 have to yet see it in the final document. 

7 Finding three, are we going to be in the same 

8 category there, I guess. SC&A agrees with 

9 NIOSH's plan to further evaluate bioassay 

10 data, et cetera. And then NIOSH gave us some 

11 additional information what they're going to 

12 do. Are we all, everybody okay on that one? 

13 Can we put that in abeyance, as well? 

14 MEMBER MUNN: Looks good to me. 

15 MEMBER BEACH: It's fine with me. 

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: NIOSH and SC&A, 

17 are we okay on that? 

18 DR. NETON: Yes, okay by me. 

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I just want to 

20 make sure we're in agreement. 

21 DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John. 

22 I'm in agreement. I do have a question, a 
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1 suggestion. When you do the rewrite and 

2 explain that you're using the 95th percentile, 

3 which, you know, philosophically, for the

4 reasons discussed, it's the right thing. One 

5 of the things I never really understood that, 

6 perhaps, I should have understood is: when you 

7 have a whole bunch of bioassay data and it 

8 sounds like that's for workers, are you 

9 saying, let's say you've got 100 measurements 

10 or 1,000 measurements, whatever, bioassay data 

11 taken over a certain period of time covering a 

12 large number of workers, do you pool all those 

13 numbers and just say I'm going to rank order 

14 them or put them on a log normal and say I'm 

15 picking off the upper 95th percentile 

16 concentration in becquerels per liter? That 

17 means this is your upper 95th percentile 

18 concentration of uranium you've observed in 

19 urine. Once you have that number, how do you 

20 convert that into what the annual intake is 

21 for a person? 

22 In other words, if you say that, 
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1 okay, this is the concentration that we're 

2 going to assume this person experienced at the 

3 end of 1959 and then you ask yourself the 

4 question: what would his chronic intake be so 

5 that --

6 DR. NETON: Right. The chronic 

7 intake scenario. What could he have been 

8 breathing and been excreting that level of 

9 uranium in his urine on a chronic basis? 

10 Starting from first employment, obviously. 

11 DR. MAURO: Oh, so it's like on an 

12 annual. So for any given worker, you have a 

13 particular year, you're saying we're going to 

14 assume that this is the concentration that 

15 would have been in his urine, you know, 

16 because this is a co-worker model, in effect, 

17 would have been in his urine, and then you 

18 back-calculate what would his chronic intake 

19 have been for that year to give him that at 

20 the end of 365 days? 

21 DR. NETON: Right.

22 DR. MAURO: Okay, good. You know, 
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1 explaining that, because I was never quite 

2 sure how you used the 95th percentile in a co3 worker model. As I said, maybe I should have 

4 been, but I wasn't sure whether you did it by 

5 pooling the data or you actually went ahead 

6 and took the real people that have real data 

7 that you can actually recreate what each, out 

8 of the large population --

9 DR. NETON: That would be pretty 

10 difficult.

11 DR. MAURO: Okay, good. Well, the 

12 approach you're using, just for the Board, is 

13 very claimant-favorable because, by doing 

14 that, you're really, you're in effect saying 

15 that everyone has urine concentration that's 

16 at the upper 95th percentile year after year 

17 after year and calculating what the chronic 

18 intake would be that would give him that urine 

19 concentration. So to assume that everyone is 

20 always at that level, or at least within the 

21 category -- I can only say you make groupings. 

22 Another group you may say is at some other 
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1 level. But, I mean, you place an upper bound 

2 on the people you believe might have gotten 

3 some exposure. In my opinion, and I think 

4 SC&A's opinion, that is a very claimant5 favorable approach to doing co-worker 

6 modeling. 

7 MR. BARTON: If I could make 

8 another comment along those lines, too. The 

9 95th percentile is going to be used for mill 

10 workers, and also the median value is going to 

11 be used for more administrative people. And I 

12 guess my only comment on that one, I mean,

13 certainly, it seems like a reasonable 

14 approach, but the TBD never really discusses, 

15 you know, what these administrative people, 

16 like where were they working. I mean, one 

17 would expect that, you know, that they'd be a 

18 significant distance away from the plant where 

19 they wouldn't be exposed to these types of 

20 things and, you know, they'd only have 

21 periodic exposures of short duration walking 

22 through the plant. So it's, you know, 
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1 bounding to use that value, but I would 

2 suggest, since the TBD is going to be 

3 modified, to give a specific intake model for 

4 these administrative positions, and we should 

5 probably discuss it in the TBD a little bit as 

6 to, you know, where were they actually located 

7 and, you know, they wouldn't have been in the 

8 highly contaminated areas very much at all, 

9 just to sort of flesh that out and justify 

10 that rationale. 

11 DR. NETON: Yes, that's a good 

12 suggestion. And we're actually, internally, 

13 wrestling with documenting that in a single 

14 document now because, as you know, most often, 

15 for a co-worker model at other facilities, we 

16 use the 50th percentile for people who weren't 

17 monitored. And then we will occasionally use 

18 the 95th percentile if we believe that the 

19 person falls into the upper range of 

20 exposures. And we have documentation as to 

21 who gets that in various other places, but 

22 it's not really been consolidated in one 
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1 central location, and we're going to work 

2 towards defining that a little better. 

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That will be 

4 helpful. Thank you. Let me ask on finding 

5 four, can we go and do in abeyance on that 

6 one? I think we agreed on there. 

7 MEMBER MUNN: I think so. 

8 DR. NETON: Yes, okay by NIOSH.

9 MR. BARTON: Yes, Dr. Ziemer. 

10 Findings two through five, as I said, are all 

11 related to that internal co-worker model. 

12 And, really, the solution is pretty much 

13 constant for all of these findings and the 

14 addition of maybe adding a little more 

15 explanation in the TBD to really justify and 

16 buttress the approach. 

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. And I 

18 think finding five is in the same boat. I 

19 just want to have all of these on the record. 

20 And if there's any exception, let me know, 

21 but it looks like we have agreement on these 

22 as well. Is that correct? 
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1 MR. BARTON: Yes, I would agree 

2 with that. 

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Everybody okay 

4 if we go in abeyance on that one? 

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

6 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I'm fine. 

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Finding six 

8 appears to be in the same boat. 

9 MR. BARTON: No, in finding six and 

10 seven, we're talking about the residual period 

11 now. A little different.

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We have 

13 agreement here, though. 

14 MR. BARTON: Well, on here, 

15 finding six was saying that the responses wrap 

16 into --

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh --

18 MR. BARTON: -- finding seven.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Gotcha, 

20 gotcha. Okay. Let's look at that for finding 

21 seven. 

22 MR. BARTON: So, essentially, 
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1 it's, again, the external approach to 

2 assigning external doses. We're really just 

3 looking for a little more documentation as to 

4 how much data was available to define the 

5 selected values that were used to model the 

6 external dose, just a little more discussion 

7 of what's out there and flesh out why the 

8 values that were chosen are clearly going to 

9 be claimant-favorable and bounding. 

10 One other issue associated with 

11 this was that, in the residual period, the 

12 workday was decreased from ten hours, which 

13 was assumed during the operational period, to 

14 eight hours. And we didn't really see a 

15 rationale for that. We don't know if shifts 

16 actually did decrease to that point, and I 

17 believe part of NIOSH's response was that, 

18 well, we have this very large GSD associated 

19 with it, so that covers the fact that we're 

20 shortening the workday. But I'm not sure if 

21 the two are really related. I mean, I guess I 

22 would ask: is there a rationale for shortening 
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1 the workday other than we still were being 

2 overly claimant-favorable already, or what is 

3 DCAS' position there? Are they still on the 

4 line? 

5 DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John. I 

6 have to say I don't like that. In other 

7 words, there are times when the large standard 

8 deviation serves us well. In a case like 

9 this, it's just too easy to just throw a big 

10 standard deviation and say, oh, that accounts 

11 for the work hour duration. 

12 DR. NETON: I don't disagree with 

13 you, John. Tom, are you still there? 

14 MR. TOMES: I am, yes. 

15 DR. NETON: I'm not sure. We 

16 probably need to go back and look at this a 

17 little closer. I can't offer a -- I would 

18 leave this finding open because six is really, 

19 seven is a different beast, I think. Seven 

20 covers residual period, but it has to do with 

21 internal. Six is an external issue. I don't 

22 know that I can, I personally can't describe 
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1 what we're doing right now here to any great 

2 extent, unless Tom can add to it. 

3 MR. TOMES: Well, I'll have to go 

4 back and look at that more.

5 DR. NETON: Yes. So I think, 

6 right now, we just leave finding six open, 

7 from our perspective, and we'll sharpen our 

8 thinking on this, if that's okay. 

9 MEMBER MUNN: That seems like a 

10 smart thing to do. 

11 MR. KATZ: Yes, this is Ted. Just 

12 to keep our nomenclature consistent, you'd 

13 call this in progress, too. The topic is 

14 engaged.

15 MR. TOMES: Well, finding seven 

16 was the issue of the residual internal dose, 

17 and this is where we've looked at this and 

18 indicated that we need to revise the TBD and 

19 specifically consider the 1954 data, which was 

20 not included, and look at the number we're 

21 using for the start of the intake --

22 DR. NETON: Right. With the 
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1 exception of TIB-70, you know, and this has 

2 been a standard practice, lacking any other 

3 information, if we have an air concentration 

4 that was taken at the end of the operational 

5 period, we will use that as a starting point 

6 for resuspension at the beginning of the 

7 residual period, recognizing that it will 

8 certainly be bounding because it would include 

9 both operations and resuspension. But, 

10 nonetheless, it will be bounding, and then 

11 we'll decrement that using standard TIB-70 

12 depletion factor, and that's what we intend to 

13 do. We'll go back and make this consistent 

14 with how we do business at other AWEs.

15 MR. BARTON: Well, I had a comment 

16 here or, actually, I have a question first. 

17 When you say you're going to, did you say 

18 you're going to include the 1954 data or are 

19 you going to pool that with the current data 

20 set? Because what you're doing now is, I 

21 guess, an average of several measurements --

22 DR. NETON: No, the current data 
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1 set -- and, again, this was just done I think 

2 in 2006 or something -- used a bunch of 

3 operational data. And, of course, the earlier 

4 years are not necessarily representative of 

5 the resuspension that might have been 

6 occurring at the end of operations. So the 

7 best value to use is a general area air sample 

8 measurement as close to the end of the 

9 operational period as possible, and that would 

10 be used as a starting point of air 

11 concentrations in the residual period.

12 MR. BARTON: I noticed in the 

13 response it basically said that the 1948, 

14 which was the first year of operational data, 

15 wasn't appropriate for these later periods or 

16 wasn't representative of the type of 

17 contamination you find at the end of an 

18 operational period. Unfortunately, we don't 

19 have any measurements, you know, after 1954, 

20 so that's kind of problematic because --

21 DR. NETON: Maybe I misunderstood 

22 the data we have. Whatever we have at the 
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1 very end of the operational period, as close 

2 to the end of operational period as possible 

3 is the data that we would use.

4 MR. BARTON: Right. It's about 

5 three years away from the end of operations. 

6 But I'd also point out, from a consistency 

7 standpoint, I mean, you say that he 1948 

8 conditions aren't representative of that later 

9 period in the operations, but, actually, your 

10 internal dose model assumes it is. Basically, 

11 what you said was, because we don't have any 

12 bioassay measurements during the later period 

13 and there's evidence that several of these 

14 industrial controls they had put into lower 

15 exposures were either removed or rendered 

16 ineffective, that we're going to assume that 

17 after 1952 the intake rates on a per-day basis 

18 are going to be the same as they were in 1948. 

19 DR. NETON: No, that's not 

20 consistent with our current thinking. We're 

21 going to have to modify that. 

22 MR. BARTON: Okay.
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1 DR. NETON: Think about what we're 

2 trying to do. We're trying to reconstruct the 

3 internal dose in the residual period when 

4 there's no AEC activity at all.

5 MR. BARTON: Right.

6 MR. TOMES: This is Tom. The 

7 statement 1948 in that response concerns a 

8 question of whether the 1948 data was used in 

9 the current estimates for general area air. 

10 And SC&A read it and thought, because the 1948 

11 reference was listed, that it was actually 

12 used. And the point was that the data was 

13 compiled together, but the 1948 data was not 

14 used. And what that data shows is that 

15 general area air in 1948 was significantly 

16 higher than it was in latter years, and that 

17 general area air from 1949 through `53 was 

18 relatively consistent. It varied somewhat but 

19 not a great deal. 

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: It looked like 

21 you used the `49 to `53 for your starting 

22 value. Is that the 94 micrograms per cubic 
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1 meter value? Does that come from the 1949 

2 through `53 exposure studies? 

3 MR. TOMES: Yes, that's an average 

4 of 50 results, and they were, those values 

5 were four specific areas taken out of the AEC 

6 daily weighted exposure studies that were used 

7 in worker estimates. So the numbers are not 

8 going to agree with, if you just throw all the 

9 numbers that SC&A compiled, they're not going 

10 to agree because the math was done a little 

11 bit different on those. 

12 DR. NETON: Yes, and we're not 

13 going to use those values anyway so --

14 MR. BARTON: Well, I guess my 

15 point was, you know, we're saying that the 

16 conditions in 1948 are not going to be 

17 representative of the conditions at the end of 

18 the period in 1957 for the purposes of 

19 reconstructing residual doses, and then you 

20 flip a few pages back in the TBD and we're 

21 saying we're going to use the 1948 bioassay 

22 results to represent the internal exposures 
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1 from 1953 through 1957. So there's a little 

2 bit of an inconsistency there, I guess. 

3 DR. NETON: I'm saying that we're 

4 not going to do that. I don't know how many 

5 times I have to say this, but that's not going 

6 to be used. We're going to take all that out, 

7 and we're going to say the residual period 

8 will be reconstructed based on air sample data 

9 as close to the end of the operational period 

10 as possible. We're trying to figure out how 

11 much airborne there was to inhale when there's 

12 no AEC work going on. That's all we're trying 

13 to do. And a general area air sample taken at 

14 the end of the operational period will be a 

15 bounding value for that intake value, intake 

16 estimate. 

17 We've done this at a number of 

18 sites. This is not a new thing. It's 

19 something that didn't exist when we wrote this 

20 TBD the first time, although I do see we 

21 revised it since then. We should have 

22 incorporated that when we did the revision.
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So, Jim, will 

2 that be different from what we're reading here 

3 right now even? 

4 DR. NETON: We're reading where?

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: In the NIOSH 

6 response of 4/23.

7 DR. NETON: Yes, I don't have that 

8 in front of me, so I don't know what --

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, it says 

10 that you're going to use the 94 micrograms per 

11 cubic meter based on `49 through `53. I think 

12 that's --

13 DR. NETON: Yes. That was a 

14 description of how that number came about in 

15 response to SC&A's comments. But this says 

16 that we're going to revise it and consider the 

17 1954 data. There's no number in there because 

18 we haven't done that yet. 

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it will 

20 undoubtedly be a small one. 

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So this one 

22 needs to stay in progress then, I think.
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1 DR. NETON: Yes. Oh, yes, yes. 

2 We're going to revise the entire section to --

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

4 DR. NETON: -- comport to the TIB5 70 approach. 

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. 

7 MR. BARTON: And just to kind of 

8 get it on the record, the other facet of 

9 finding seven involves a depletion factor from 

10 1983 to the measurements that were taken in 

11 2007, somewhere around there, and NIOSH agreed 

12 to take a look at that, so that would kind of 

13 fit under the umbrella of this finding being 

14 in progress.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

16 MR. TOMES: Just as some 

17 background, the facility was isolated in 1982 

18 and roped off and isolated, and it's been 

19 isolated ever since. And the contamination 

20 levels were, if you look at the surveys, it 

21 was almost all fixed contamination, and 

22 there's been, it was isolated to keep people 
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1 out and there's been no work done on it. And 

2 that was our basis for assuming that as the 

3 depletion period. 

4 MEMBER MUNN: Not much has 

5 changed. 

6 DR. NETON: Well, the section will 

7 be revised and the language added, so in 

8 progress or in abeyance, I guess. 

9 MEMBER MUNN: Are we filling in 

10 those actions to be taken --

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Put in progress. 

12 This will be in progress.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. I think 

15 that's far as we can go on Simonds Saw today.

16 DR. NETON: Could I just say one 

17 thing about the Simonds Saw? Even though 

18 there's going to be wholesale changes in the 

19 internal dose models for the early years, we 

20 have to remember that this was already an SEC. 

21 And so it's my impression that not much is 

22 going to change. We're going to do a PER, 
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1 obviously, when this comes out, but it won't 

2 change much because the SEC cancers tend to be 

3 the ones that have concentrated the uranium in 

4 the first place. So I don't expect there to 

5 be very much in the way of compensation 

6 decisions. It won't be zero, but it's not 

7 going to be huge. 

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Got you. Okay. 

9 I think we're finished for the day, except a 

10 date for the next meeting, which will be 

11 focused simply on the GSI stuff. Ted, do you 

12 have some dates that we can look at or --

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, let me just sort 

14 that out because I think we need to give Dave 

15 Allen, the full two weeks, even though he said 

16 he might get it done sooner, and then Bob also 

17 wanted two weeks, and I think that's fine. 

18 And then I think we need to be sure to have 

19 time to get Privacy Act material Privacy Act 

20 cleared after that, so that's really at least 

21 another week to be certain, so let me look at 

22 the calendar. So I think we're into not 
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1 sooner, I wouldn't meet sooner than the first 

2 week in June for this teleconference, just to 

3 be safe, because we do want to get the 

4 petitioners, for example, materials in advance 

5 because I know, I'm sure Dan is very tired of 

6 making his point. 

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. I won't be 

8 able to do anything the first week of June. 

9 MR. KATZ: Okay. The second week 

10 of June, unfortunately, I have to block off. 

11 It may become open but it's not open for me 

12 right now. Now, the next week is the week of 

13 the 17th, and the 17th and 18th are going to 

14 be consumed, I'm fairly certain, but the 19th, 

15 20th, 21st are all okay on my calendar. I 

16 don't know how those work for any of you. And 

17 this is, again, a teleconference, so we're not 

18 traveling. 

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The 19th or 20th 

20 is fine. 

21 MEMBER BEACH: And this is Josie. 

22 Those are both fine for me, too. 
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Likewise. 

2 Wanda. 

3 MR. KATZ: You, too, Wanda?

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: And, NIOSH and SC&A, 

6 that seems okay to you guys? 

7 DR. NETON: Yes. This is Jim 

8 Neton. It works for me. I don't think Dave 

9 Allen is on the phone right now, but if it 

10 doesn't we can let you know but --

11 MR. ALLEN: I'm on. 

12 DR. NETON: Oh, you're on? Okay.

13 MR. KATZ: So Dave Allen, is the 

14 19th and 20th, do they seem okay to you, of 

15 June? 

16 MR. ALLEN: Yes, they can work. 

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. And same for 

18 John and Bob? 

19 DR. MAURO: Bob's not on the line, 

20 but I will say yes. 

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. Okay. So then 

22 let's just, let's write in, let's plan on, I 
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1 guess, we have some uncertainty about the 19th 

2 in terms of people traveling, so the 20th, 

3 let's just plan on the 20th. 

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The 20th? Okay. 

5 Let's do the 20th.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. And since this 

7 will be a teleconference and Wanda is out west 

8 and Josie, I think this was a good time to 

9 start? Is that right for you two, 10:30 a.m. 

10 Eastern Time?

11 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that's decent. 

12 MEMBER BEACH: That's fine. 

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That's good. 

14 Okay. 

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

16 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry to 

17 interrupt. This is John. Were we going to 

18 have a technical conference call --

19 MR. KATZ: Yes, right. And, John, 

20 we can arrange that outside of this. 

21 DR. MAURO: Okay. Very good. 

22 MR. KATZ: But, yes, we will need 
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1 to schedule that, and we should do that, you 

2 know, in the near term so that you guys can 

3 sort out your understanding. 

4 DR. MAURO: Yes, the sooner the 

5 better. We have some ideas, and so when you 

6 folks are ready we're ready. 

7 MR. KATZ: Okay. So folks from 

8 DCAS, just let me know, and I'll set that up. 

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

10 you, everybody. We're adjourned. 

11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

12 matter was concluded at 4:20 p.m.)

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22
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1

2