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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

81st MEETING

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY

DECEMBER 7, 2011

 The meeting convened at 8:15 a.m., 

Eastern Standard Time, in the Tampa Marriott 

Westshore, 1001 N. Westshore Blvd., Tampa, 

Florida, James M. Melius, Chairman, presiding.

 

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official
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REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

ANDERSON, DAVID

BATT, CHRISTINA, DCAS

BOSSARD, ROBERT

BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A*

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH

CLAPP, PAT

COLLINS, CARSONCOPE, DORIS*

CURRINGTON, HERBERT

DARNELL, PETE, DCAS

ENSOR, DORIS

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FRISCO, DAVID

FRISCO, PATRICIA

GIRARDO, MARY*

GLEASON, ANNE

GRAYSON, Lois

HAND, DONNA

HILL, ROBERT

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCFEE, MATT, ORAU TEAM

MILLER, CHERIE

MILLER, JOSH

NETON, JIM, DCAS

OSEFF, SEDELL

PRESLEY, LOUISE*

RICHARDS,HOBERT

RICHARDS, ROLAND 

RINGEN, KNUT

ROLFES, MARK, DCAS

ROWE, GORDON*

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

SHERK, RUSSELL

SMITH, STEVE

STIVER, JOHN, SC&A 

SUNDERBRUCH, BILL
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TRICHENOR, DUDLEY

TRIPLETT, TINA*

TURNER, PAT

VAUGHN, DAVID

WOOD, ELIZABETH

*Participating via telephone
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Welcome 5 

Dr. James Melius, Chair

In Honor of Robert W. Presley (1944-2011) 9 

NIOSH Program Update 18

Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH 

DOL Program Update 30

Mr. Jeff Kotsch, DOL 

DOE Program Update 38

Mr. Greg Lewis, DOE 

Work Group Updates 62

SEC Petition Status Update 78

Mr. LaVon Rutherford, NIOSH 

Review of Public Comments from May Meeting

100

Hooker Electrochemical SEC Petition 112

Dr. Henry Anderson, WG Chair

Petitioner 

Roll Call Vote 166

NIOSH 10-Year Review Implementation 168

Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH 

Weldon Spring SEC Petition 205

Mr. John Mauro

Petitioner

Pinellas Plant Site Profile Update 252

Mr. Peter Darnell, NIOSH 

Mr. Philip Schofield, WG Chair

Public Comment 276

Adjournment 334
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 8:33 a.m.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Welcome, 

4 everybody, to whatever this meeting, 81, the 

5 81st meeting, okay, of this Advisory Board. We 

6 have a few Members that are delayed and will 

7 be in, I believe, later today. But the 

8 important ones are here, right? So welcome. 

9 Let me turn it over to Ted who will explain 

10 and get things started, some of the 

11 housekeeping issues. 

12 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Jim. So a 

13 warm welcome, everyone in the room and on the 

14 line. Advisory Board on Radiation Worker 

15 Health. I just extend my welcome as well from 

16 Secretary Sebelius and from Dr. Howard, 

17 director of NIOSH. For folks on the phone the 

18 presentations that you'll hear today and 

19 tomorrow should all be on the NIOSH website 

20 under the Board section so you can follow 

21 along as people talk with the slides, if you 

22 go to the website. You can download those or 
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1 view them online, whichever.

2 We have a public comment session, 

3 we have one public comment session in this 

4 meeting since it's only a two-day meeting and 

5 that's this evening beginning at 5, from 5 to 

6 6:30 or whenever it ends if it ends earlier. 

7 So try to come to the front end of that if you

8 can. 

9 Let me just ask, for folks on the 

10 line, when you're listening to this call 

11 except when you are addressing the group, for 

12 example during the public comment session or 

13 if you're a petitioner during your petition 

14 session, please mute your phone. If your 

15 phone doesn't have a mute button just press 

16 *6, that'll mute your phone, and press *6 

17 again to take your phone off of mute. And 

18 please don't leave the call on hold at any 

19 point, but hang up and dial back in because 

20 putting the call on hold will destroy the 

21 audio for everyone else on the call. 

22 Let me just for the record note 
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1 Member attendance. We have all Members but 

2 Dr. Anderson, Richardson, Field, Lemen and 

3 Griffon, and they're all expected early this 

4 afternoon. 

5 And the last point, everyone in 

6 speaking today, please speak close to the mics 

7 so that they have good audio. Oh, Mike 

8 Gibson. I left a Board Member out, Mike 

9 Gibson is also absent. No, Mike Gibson is on 

10 by phone.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's why I was 

12 --

13 MR. KATZ: Sorry. Thank you. 

14 Mike, can you -- are you on the line right 

15 now? Is that correct? Mr. Gibson? You might 

16 be on mute. Okay, well I don't hear him right 

17 now.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're expecting 

19 him to join us at least later.

20 MR. KATZ: Right.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

22 you, Ted, for that. As we, at least the Board 
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1 Members and I think many of the people in the 

2 audience know after our last in-person Board 

3 Meeting out in the state of Washington one of 

4 our really key Board Members, someone who had 

5 been with the Board from the start, with many 

6 of us, unfortunately had become ill and died 

7 quite suddenly. It's a major loss for us, 

8 someone that we had worked with over many 

9 years and contributed so much to the work of 

10 the Board. So I thought we should take a few 

11 minutes here this morning to, out of respect, 

12 to honor Robert Presley for his work on the 

13 Board and for his long career working at the 

14 Department of Energy. 

15 We worked, in the time period 

16 after Bob became ill, to honor him of his work 

17 and one of the things that we did obtain was 

18 letters from both Secretary Sebelius and from 

19 President Obama to him, so I'm going to ask 

20 Ted to read those letters.

21 MR. KATZ: Dear Mr. Presley, I'm 

22 very sorry to learn about your illness. 
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1 You've been a prized Member of the Advisory 

2 Board of Radiation and Worker Health since its 

3 inception in 2001. Your broad expertise in 

4 nuclear weapons operations, your integrity in 

5 applying considered judgment to the decisions 

6 of the Board and your compassion have 

7 contributed greatly to the Board's outstanding 

8 record of service to the National Institute 

9 for Occupational Safety and Health's Dose 

10 Reconstruction Program, to the Department of 

11 Health and Human Services and to the many 

12 thousands of nuclear weapons workers that we 

13 serve under the Energy Employees Occupational 

14 Illness Compensation Act. 

15 Your many decades of service to 

16 this nation as a nuclear weapons worker at Y17 12 equally deserve our honor. I, together 

18 with the director of NIOSH and many others in 

19 this department and at NIOSH, salute you and 

20 convey our appreciation and sympathy to you, 

21 your wife Louise and your family. Sincerely, 

22 Kathleen Sebelius.
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1 Dear Robert, I recently learned of 

2 the challenges you're facing and I want you to 

3 know how much I admire your strength. My 

4 thoughts are with you during this difficult 

5 time. Your hard work and dedication have 

6 helped protect the health and safety of the 

7 American people and I'm grateful for your 

8 commitment to our nation. 

9 In the days ahead I hope you draw 

10 inspiration from the principles that guide you 

11 and find comfort in the support of friends and 

12 loved ones. Please know Michelle and I will 

13 keep you in our prayers. Sincerely, Barack 

14 Obama.

15 And these letters, they received 

16 these in Bob's last week among a flood of 

17 letters from all over the country from 

18 colleagues who had worked with him all over 

19 the weapons complex.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Ted. 

21 Also, I asked Paul Ziemer who knew Bob well if 

22 he wanted to say few words also.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: My few words here 

2 today cannot begin to capture the impact of 

3 the life of a man such as Bob Presley, but 

4 perhaps it will help us to remember some of 

5 those things that made him a special person.

6 First, I do want to greet Louise 

7 Presley who I believe is still on the line, 

8 and Louise, we send you our love and want you 

9 to know that you continue to be in our 

10 thoughts and prayers. 

11 The Advisory Board lost a valued 

12 Member and friend with the death of Robert Bob 

13 Winton Presley who passed away on September 

14 21st, 2011, at his home after a brief illness 

15 with cancer. Bob was born in Cookeville, 

16 Tennessee. He was the son of Charles and 

17 Charlie Presley. In addition to his mother 

18 who survives, Bob is survived by his wife 

19 Louise of almost 47 years, Louise Stoddard 

20 Presley, by his daughter Brooke Presley Ownby 

21 and her husband Kevin, a granddaughter Kendall 

22 Morgan Ownby and a grandson due this month to 
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1 Brooke and Kevin. 

2 Louise is known to most of our 

3 Board Members and accompanied Bob to many of 

4 our meetings. She was an avid photographer 

5 and really became the unofficial photographer 

6 for this Board, providing many of us with 

7 personal candid shots from Board Meetings as 

8 well as the Board portrait on our website. 

9 Bob's parents moved from Algood, 

10 Tennessee, to the Oak Ridge area when Bob was 

11 just six weeks old so his father could work on 

12 the Manhattan Project at the K-25 plant. A 

13 special note is that his family's first rental 

14 home in Oak Ridge was a two-bedroom flattop 

15 house located at 68 Outer Drive, and it's this 

16 very house that was recently donated by Dr. 

17 Kenneth and Isabelle Fitzpatrick-Smith to the 

18 American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak 

19 Ridge to be reconstructed on the museum 

20 grounds as a symbol of Oak Ridge's history 

21 during the Manhattan Project in time for the 

22 60th anniversary of the museum and the gate-
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1 opening ceremony in March 2009. Bob loved to 

2 tell anyone who would listen that he and Abe 

3 Lincoln both had their childhood homes placed 

4 in museums.

5 Bob graduated from Oak Ridge High 

6 School in 1962, attended Tennessee Technical 

7 University and served as a tank driver and 

8 Army cook in the Tennessee Army National 

9 Guard. He went to work for Union Carbide 

10 nuclear division in the biology division 

11 initially as an animal handler and supervisor 

12 for Oak Ridge National Lab at Y-12. He then 

13 transferred to the Y-12 plant as a materials 

14 dispatcher and held successive jobs in the 

15 product engineering division while working on 

16 weapons production. He also worked with the 

17 Lawrence Livermore Lab, Los Alamos National 

18 Lab and Pantex facility in Texas as well as 

19 the Nevada Test Site. 

20 In his later years of employment 

21 at Y-12 under DOE contractors Lockheed Martin 

22 and BWXT Y-12 he was involved as a protocol 
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1 officer for tours at all of Oak Ridge's 

2 government facilities for Tennessee's elected 

3 officials, U.S. military officials and U.S. 

4 cabinet members such as Secretaries of Energy. 

5 Bob retired from Y-12 in 2002 after 36 years 

6 of service and since retirement has held 

7 consulting jobs with Pro2Serve until 2008 and 

8 at the time of his death was employed by MS 

9 Technology, Incorporated. 

10 Outside of work activities, Bob 

11 became a community volunteer. He joined the 

12 Oak Ridge Jaycees and helped with the very 

13 first Special Olympics at Oak Ridge. He was 

14 also actively involved in the Tennessee 

15 Jaycees where he served as a District 14 

16 director, commander of the volunteer corps and 

17 on the Board of directors for Camp Discovery 

18 in Gainesboro. He was a Tennessee Jaycees 

19 international senator. Bob also became 

20 involved in the Anderson County Fair and the 

21 Tennessee Association of Fairs and served 

22 positions in the East Tennessee and East 
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1 Tennessee Fair Group as director and vice 

2 president, and eventually became president of 

3 the Tennessee Association of Fairs in 1992. 

4 In 1995, Bob assisted Lockheed 

5 Martin Energy Systems to help start a program 

6 called Help to the Smokies which is an 

7 employee volunteer project which he was 

8 involved in rehabilitating picnic areas in the 

9 Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a project 

10 which is continuing today. Also since 2004, 

11 Bob and Louise volunteered many hours on 

12 behalf of the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage 

13 Center in Townsend, Tennessee. 

14 Bob's hobbies included spending 

15 time with family and friends, competitive 

16 barbecue cooking and judging, researching 

17 family genealogy, traveling and collecting 

18 antiques. He loved cooking barbecues for his 

19 church families at Covenant Presbyterian 

20 Church in Oak Ridge and the First United 

21 Methodist Church in Sevierville. And some of 

22 our Board Members will recall the barbecue 
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1 that Bob hosted for us at one of our early 

2 meetings in Oak Ridge. He also enjoyed 

3 visiting and assessing restaurants at all of 

4 our locations where this Board met over the 

5 past decade. That ranged from Ted Drewe's

6 Frozen Custard in St. Louis to Lawry's in Las 

7 Vegas. 

8 Bob was one of the original

9 appointees to the Advisory Board on Radiation 

10 and Worker Health and over the past 10 years 

11 has provided the Board with sound advice and 

12 informed observations based on his many years 

13 of experience in the DOE complex. We will 

14 miss his sage input on nuclear matters, his 

15 culinary recommendations on restaurant and 

16 food selections and his genial companionship 

17 in all our activities. He was a man of 

18 integrity and faith. May his life, which was 

19 exemplified by love of family, love of country 

20 and service to others, be an inspiration to 

21 all of us. Peace to his memory.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Paul. 
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1 I just add what also struck me about Bob was 

2 his great empathy and care for the people that 

3 worked in the complex. For Bob he really was, 

4 really cared and really tried to work very 

5 hard on the work that we do in reviewing 

6 claims and petitions and so forth. But it was 

7 his great respect for the people that he 

8 worked with and care for them that always, 

9 always stood out for me. Can we have a brief 

10 moment of silence in honor of Bob?

11 (Whereupon, a moment of silence 

12 was observed in honor of Robert "Bob" 

13 Presley.)

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

15 And I'd also just like to recognize Ted and 

16 the NIOSH staff for their work during this 

17 difficult time and their work also to get the 

18 letters from the President and from the 

19 Secretary. There's certainly other people in 

20 the department that worked on that. It's not 

21 always easy given how busy things are in 

22 Washington and so forth. So I thank Ted for 
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1 that and for the other work you did. And 

2 certainly I think we know we'll all miss Bob 

3 and all miss seeing him at these meetings. I 

4 can't recall him missing more than one or two 

5 meetings over that whole time period. 

6 We'll go on with our program now. 

7 Stu, you've got a tough act to follow here but 

8 Stu Hinnefeld will give us an update on the 

9 NIOSH program.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. I did pull 

11 my slide presentation up here but -- okay. 

12 I'll just restrict my comments to the program 

13 news portion of the presentation for the sake 

14 of brevity, and so if you have any questions 

15 about the statistics that are in the remainder 

16 of the package, and the presentation I think 

17 was provided to you, I'll be glad to try to 

18 answer questions about any of those 

19 statistics.

20 The DCAS staff assignment 

21 information, I mentioned at our last meeting 

22 that our DCAS deputy director David Sundin had 
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1 accepted a 120-day detail assignment at 

2 another organization in Cincinnati NIOSH. That 

3 120 days ended at the end of October but it 

4 was extended for another 120 days so our 

5 situation at DCAS continues the same and for 

6 the next 120 days, Dave will not be our deputy 

7 director as he's on this detail. And Chris 

8 Ellison will continue to serve as our acting 

9 deputy director again on a detail basis while 

10 Dave is working across the street. So those 

11 of you who may deal with Dave at times will 

12 now be more likely to deal with Chris on 

13 whatever issue you're dealing with.

14 I put the budget on here because 

15 there's a lot of interest in of course federal 

16 budget and what happens in the discussions. 

17 From our viewpoint in Cincinnati the only 

18 thing certain about the federal budget is 

19 uncertainty. So I can tell you that right now 

20 Health and Human Services is operating on a 

21 continuing resolution that lasts through 

22 December 16th. This has sort of been par for 
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1 the course for the past few years as you 

2 always start the year on continuing 

3 resolutions, this is actually the second one 

4 we've been on so far this fiscal year, and 

5 then at the eleventh hour something is done to 

6 move the bar down the road a little ways. That 

7 appears to be what will happen here. A 

8 continuing resolution typically funds you at 

9 the previous year's level or some, you know, 

10 calculation based on that. This continuing 

11 resolution is funded at a very slight decrease 

12 from last year, it was like a 1.5 percent 

13 lower spending rate this year than what we 

14 were spending on last year's, the expectation 

15 for the continuing resolution. And so there 

16 are -- so it's not a particular impact. 

17 There is concern, I think 

18 throughout the administration or throughout 

19 all branches of government that funding 

20 allocations for the year will not be as close 

21 as 1.5 percent. It may be a greater 

22 reduction. And so there's a certain amount of 
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1 conservatism in terms of agencies wanting to 

2 go out and spend money. It's not particularly 

3 affected our program. There are all sorts of 

4 early warning systems about the budget process 

5 that give you a warning about the particular 

6 house of Congress or the administration has 

7 eyes on reducing your budget farther. None of 

8 those warning signs have flashed a warning for 

9 our program which doesn't do anything -- gives 

10 you a little bit of a good feeling but doesn't 

11 really tell you anything definitive. So right 

12 now things look fairly steady as far as we can 

13 read the tea leaves at this point. 

14 There have been -- there is an 

15 impact when you fund a series of continuing 

16 resolutions it does impact your contractors to 

17 a certain extent because you cannot, for 

18 instance, award an entire year funding to a 

19 contractor if the contractor's contract is of 

20 any size at all. You just don't have the 

21 money in time to award the full year. So 

22 there is a certain amount of monthly 
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1 incremental funding going on for the ORAU team 

2 which they are completely used to and I 

3 believe also at this point for the SC&A 

4 contract which is maybe a little bit of a new 

5 wrinkle for SC&A. So, but you know, as long 

6 as the continuing resolutions pass, we are 

7 funded. We fund contracts far enough in 

8 advance that we normally don't get into a bind 

9 of being out of money when it's time to fund 

10 the next month so we think we're going to be 

11 okay through this.

12 The chronic lymphocytic leukemia I 

13 put up there just because people might be 

14 interested in it. There is no particular news 

15 except that it continues to go through review 

16 by Health and Human Services. Health and 

17 Human Services has published, if you'll 

18 recall, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

19 proposing to add chronic lymphocytic leukemia 

20 as a covered cancer, but the rulemaking 

21 actually just eliminates the zero probability 

22 for CLL in the regulation. That is in the 
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1 review process within the administration. The 

2 review process is hard to predict because 

3 there are all these review steps any one of 

4 which can loop back and cause an earlier 

5 worker to do additional work and so you kind 

6 of loop back through. So nothing proceeds, 

7 you can't count on proceeding directly through 

8 the review process and so you can't really 

9 predict the time on that.

10 And then finally this year for the 

11 third year in a row the Senate passed a 

12 resolution denoting October 30th as a day of 

13 remembrance for all nuclear weapons workers. 

14 There were a series of remembrances at a 

15 number of DOE sites. NIOSH participated in 

16 one in Kansas City for the Kansas City plant 

17 in cooperation with the machinists union 

18 there. And the Ombudsman Denise Brock was 

19 very key in arranging the details of that 

20 remembrance ceremony. I participated along 

21 with Denise and the DOL Ombudsman participated 

22 as well, Malcolm Nelson. 
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1 And then I didn't put on the slide 

2 but it occurs to me that at this point in 

3 thinking back on the program and how we're 

4 doing it kind of -- I don't want to be 

5 complacent about this but it's kind of, things 

6 are not looking very bad in the program right 

7 now and from our standpoint, I don't know that 

8 things ever look good but things really looked 

9 bad a few years ago. And so not looking bad 

10 to me is a pretty good place to be. If you'll 

11 think about this, a number of years ago there 

12 was a backlog of dose reconstruction claims at 

13 NIOSH that was over 10,000, over 10,000 claims

14 in our inbox waiting to be done. That number 

15 is now on the order of 800. We are completing 

16 claims now, the vast majority of claims are 

17 completed within nine months of when we 

18 receive the claim, and a shorter time for when 

19 we receive all the information necessary to do 

20 the claim. So in terms of claimant and claim 

21 timeliness, we're just in a far better 

22 position than we have been throughout the life 
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1 of the program.

2 We do have a fair, a large amount 

3 of technical backlog work to do with the Board 

4 in terms of Evaluation Report consideration 

5 for SECs and Site Profile reviews and 

6 resolution of those comments. So our backlog 

7 is not yet done and we have a full plate of 

8 work to do for, certainly for some few years, 

9 some undefined few years it seems to me. And 

10 so we do have work in front of us but it is 

11 different now, a different kind of work. 

12 Along the lines of success stories 

13 and completing things, I did want to say I did 

14 look up some statistics for the Procedures 

15 Subcommittee. Ted reminded me I promised to 

16 say something about this. The Procedures 

17 Subcommittee has reviewed at least 95 

18 technical documents and I say at least 95 

19 because there were 95 reviewed that had 

20 comments or findings of some sort. If there 

21 were any that were reviewed that did not have 

22 any findings, then those procedures or 
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1 documents would be additive onto the 95. Those 

2 reviews resulted in something on the order of 

3 540 -- 540, can you hear me? Am I coming over 

4 the mic? Five hundred and forty total 

5 findings. Now, as we work through the 

6 resolution of those findings though some 300 

7 of those have been closed, are in a closed 

8 status meaning the Board, the Work Group or 

9 the Subcommittee has completed its work and 

10 resolutions have been achieved. There are an 

11 additional 25 that were similar enough to 

12 other findings that the response to a 

13 different finding essentially resolved the 

14 second finding as well. So those are recorded 

15 as addressed in another finding because the 

16 response to the two findings essentially is 

17 identical. And there are some 85 findings 

18 that are what we call in abeyance in the 

19 Procedures Subcommittee which means that we 

20 have agreed on the resolution but one of our 

21 documents needs to be revised in order to 

22 incorporate that provision. And so that --
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1 and the revision hasn't yet been issued. So, 

2 that's why those are held in abeyance. So if 

3 you add all those, and then there are some 50 

4 that were transferred either to a site Work 

5 Group or considered an overarching issue and 

6 have to be dealt with in that fashion. Some 

7 of those overarching issues probably can still 

8 be dealt with by the Procedures Subcommittee 

9 as I understand it. So it leaves you 

10 somewhere less than 100 procedures out of that 

11 total of 540 that are either open, meaning the 

12 Subcommittee hasn't really discussed them yet

13 or they're in progress which means they have 

14 been discussed but we are in the process of 

15 working out resolution to the findings. 

16 The other part of this is that of 

17 the unreviewed documents that we have 

18 published very many of those are not technical 

19 documents, very many are administrative. So I 

20 believe the 95 documents that have been 

21 reviewed represent really the great, great 

22 majority of potential to be reviewed. A few 
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1 documents get written as we go forward so 

2 there maybe will always be some come up, but 

3 the great majority of them seem to have been 

4 written. Now, that tally of total documents, 

5 that may -- there's another hundred or so 

6 total documents. I don't think that includes 

7 every chapter of every Site Profile. I think 

8 the Site Profiles themselves are excluded from 

9 that. So there are somewhere on the order of 

10 a hundred documents we've identified that have 

11 not been reviewed, many of which are 

12 administrative. So, that's what I had to 

13 report. I'd be glad to answer any questions 

14 or I hope I didn't step on anything from 

15 anybody else.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks. Any 

17 questions for Stu? 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, I'm sorry. I 

19 have one other personnel matter, the one I 

20 wanted to say. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: I wanted to 
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1 introduce Christina Batt. Christina is 

2 relatively new with our Office of 

3 Congressional Liaison, for lack of a better 

4 term I call it, Office of Congressional 

5 Liaison. And she is taking on the assignment 

6 for our program that Jason Broehm had had. 

7 Most of you probably know Jason or remember 

8 Jason. He's still there, he's still working 

9 in that same office it's just that I guess he 

10 had done his time in purgatory and doesn't 

11 have to deal with our program anymore. And so 

12 that now falls to Christina. 

13 (Laughter.)

14 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm not sure that 

15 they told her that was the assignment when she 

16 took it. 

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Short straw, 

18 right? Okay, any questions for Stu? Stu will 

19 be speaking later so if you want to have 

20 questions on all of the statistics and haven't 

21 had a chance to look them over, we'll get 

22 another chance at him. So thank you for that. 
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1 A couple of housekeeping things. 

2 Has everybody, all the Board Members, gotten 

3 their opportunity to get all the information 

4 off? No, okay. And another personnel matter 

5 you reminded me, Stu. I recently ran into our 

6 former court reporter, longtime court reporter 

7 who was working on another NIOSH advisory 

8 board up in New York City so I got to visit 

9 with him and he sent his greetings to 

10 everybody. Yes, Ray did that, said hello to 

11 everybody. Still remembers us. Nancy Adams 

12 was there with me also. She saw him too, we 

13 got the chance to visit.

14 Okay. Our next up I believe is 

15 Jeff Kotsch from the Department of Labor. 

16 MR. KOTSCH: Good morning. This 

17 will be the DOL announcement. Just a quick 

18 overview of the Act. This is more of an 

19 abbreviated set of slides this time so, but 

20 we'll get to that as we move through. The Act 

21 was enacted in October 2000, Part B was the 

22 mandatory federal entitlement by DOL and Part 
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1 D at that time was state workers comp 

2 assistance which was conducted by the 

3 Department of Energy. The amendments in 

4 October 2004 abolished Part D and created the 

5 Part E program which was transferred to the 

6 Department of Labor and that's the toxic 

7 exposure portion. As of, and a couple of 

8 these dates are changing throughout the 

9 slides, but as of November 8th, 148,340 cases 

10 and over $7.5 billion of total compensation 

11 have been paid. 

12 Obviously under the Act we have 

13 Department of Labor, Energy, Health and Human 

14 Services and Justice which works with the RECA 

15 portion. And the last slide is just, I mean 

16 the last portion is just we have the national 

17 office in D.C. of course but regional offices, 

18 district offices in Jacksonville, Cleveland, 

19 Denver and Seattle. 

20 These are -- I'm sorry. Just a 

21 pie chart on the Part B cases filed and the 

22 percentages of each, just a couple of them, 36 
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1 percent at NIOSH, SEC cases referred to NIOSH, 

2 9 percent; SEC cases never sent because 

3 basically we determined they fulfill the 

4 existing Class, 9 percent; 10 percent were 

5 RECA cases; the others, 36 percent include 

6 chronic beryllium disease, silicosis, things 

7 like that. 

8 This slide is for essentially 

9 cases added by -- or yes, added for the SEC 

10 classes. We're showing 3666 cases withdrawn 

11 from NIOSH for SEC Class review. Of those a 

12 little over 3,000 have become final decisions 

13 with 2919 final approvals by the Department of 

14 Labor. We have a process whereby cases out of 

15 the district offices have recommended 

16 decisions. They go to our Final Adjudication 

17 Branch. They are reviewed and then become 

18 final approvals. There's also an appeal 

19 process in there if wanted by the claimant. So 

20 we have 36 recommended but no final, 150 

21 pending and 408 cases that were closed. So we 

22 have final decisions in 83 percent of the 
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1 cases.

2 These are -- this slide is for the 

3 referral of case status. A little over 36,000 

4 cases have been referred to NIOSH for dose 

5 reconstruction. A little under 34,000 have 

6 been returned and are currently at or were at 

7 DOL, which 29,713 had dose reconstructions and 

8 the remainder were pulled back or sent back 

9 without a dose reconstruction, and 2148 cases 

10 that are currently at NIOSH. It's a little 

11 bit higher than the NIOSH-reported numbers. We 

12 always have that disconnect between the 

13 reported values. We're indicating that 1524 

14 initial referrals and 624 are re-works or 

15 returns. Again, those are generally cases 

16 that the Department of Labor has received 

17 additional cancer information or employment 

18 information, those are the two basic reasons.

19 This is the slide for the NIOSH 

20 dose reconstruction case status. Again, 

21 29,713 cases have been returned by NIOSH that 

22 are currently at DOL with dose reconstruction. 
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1 And there you see the other, the breakdown of 

2 those, ultimately resulting in about 34 

3 percent of final decisions of approval and the 

4 remainder denials. And then this is just the 

5 breakdown by cases, and again a reminder that 

6 there's always fewer cases than claimants 

7 because there could be more than one claimant 

8 in a case in which case that would be the 

9 payees. We've had accepted dose 

10 reconstruction cases, 7987. These are for 

11 11,000-almost 300 payees for $1.18 billion in 

12 compensation. Accepted SEC classes -- cases, 

13 I'm sorry, 14,493 for $2.15 billion in 

14 compensation. The next is 523 cases accepted 

15 for both SEC status and a PoC. That should be 

16 greater than 50, that would be for payment for 

17 medical benefits for cancers that are not 

18 specified cancers. That's $78 million and 

19 adding up to a little over 23,000 cases for 

20 $3.4 billion in compensation. And then just a 

21 bar chart for the -- indicating the 34,281 

22 final decisions approved, the 23,880 cases 
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1 denied and the breakdown off to the side, the 

2 primary being in this case almost 17,000 just 

3 with a PoC less than 50 percent. 

4 Just the running slide of cases 

5 received by DOL. Still a steady influx around 

6 400 a month in to Labor to begin with. I 

7 actually want to go back, or behind this to 

8 some of the other slides that are in the 

9 handout that probably should have been up 

10 further. But you can read these too. Some of 

11 those just relate to the definitions and the 

12 program, verifying employment. I just went to 

13 get to this, again, the running slide for Part 

14 B cases sent to NIOSH. It's running around 

15 the upper two hundreds, maybe the low three 

16 hundreds per month still. It seems to have 

17 been pretty steady. We're always curious 

18 whether that would, or how that was going to 

19 work out. Just there if you want to look too, 

20 there are the slides of the four top sites, 

21 Hanford, Y-12, Oak Ridge, GDP, K-25 and 

22 Bethlehem Steel. And actually if you look 
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1 through those you'll see that the Bethlehem 

2 Steel one is tailing off so that may, I don't 

3 know who the next one behind that is but it 

4 may come up eventually. And then the last 

5 couple of slides are just some of the local 

6 ones, either local as in the case of Pinellas 

7 or facilities that we were going to discuss 

8 during this meeting so we put up some of the 

9 statistics for those. For Pinellas we've had 

10 1344 cases for Part B and D. And you see the 

11 Part B approvals, 121; Part E, 177 for $26.9 

12 million. And that's it.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you, 

14 Jeff. Questions for Jeff? We have a quiet 

15 Board this morning. I have a question or I 

16 guess a request because I'm not sure that you 

17 can answer this or should be able to answer 

18 this right off the top of your head, but it 

19 would be useful to know, have some idea of 

20 what outreach efforts are under way from DOL, 

21 just to get a sense of how you're reaching. 

22 And I don't think we've really had an update 
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1 on that. We're aware from DOE's presentation 

2 of sort of the joint outreach that's going on 

3 and so forth, but I'd just be curious to hear 

4 at some point.

5 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, we can do that 

6 next time and keep that as a continuing part. 

7 I mean, obviously any time there's an SEC 

8 Class that becomes implemented there will be 

9 an outreach effort associated with that, just 

10 as right now we're planning for the Pantex one 

11 which will probably be in late, early or late 

12 February I guess. Or no, I think the Class 

13 becomes effective in middle to late February 

14 so our effort will actually probably be right 

15 after that. And I think we're doing the three 

16 of them right now and I always forget which 

17 ones those are. But yes, we can do that.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just think it 

19 would be helpful. We haven't talked about it 

20 for a while, it would just be useful 

21 information for the Board to have when we're 

22 doing that.
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1 MR. KOTSCH: Sure.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Like I said, I 

3 wasn't expecting an answer.

4 MR. KOTSCH: We can do that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, good. Thank 

6 you. Other questions from the Board? Okay. 

7 Well Jeff will be around I believe for most of 

8 the meeting so we'll, if we have other 

9 questions later. Our next agenda item, 

10 Department of Energy. Greg Lewis, welcome.

11 MR. LEWIS: Good morning, 

12 everyone. I'm Greg Lewis and I'm the director 

13 of Former Worker Compensation Support at the 

14 Department of Energy. I do want to talk about 

15 a couple of the items that Stu had mentioned. 

16 I wanted to mention the National Day of 

17 Remembrance that we also participated in

18 supporting about a month ago. We attended a 

19 few of the events and helped the group the 

20 Cold War Patriots set up a few of their own 

21 events as well. 

22 And then I also wanted to talk 
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1 about the continuing resolution. As Stu 

2 mentioned, the current continuing resolution 

3 expires on December 16th and I think that the 

4 percentage we've been allowed to spend is 

5 somewhere around 15 percent right now or 15 

6 and change at least for the Department of 

7 Energy and that's based on our last year's 

8 spending amount. So as far as where that 

9 leaves our program we had some carryover from 

10 last year and given the amount we were allowed 

11 to allocate out to our field sites and the 

12 percentage that they're allowed to spend, 

13 we've been able to operate at full capacity 

14 all of our field sites. 

15 I will say the difficulty with a 

16 CR becomes more apparent the longer the CR 

17 continues because especially with a program 

18 like this where, you know, as SECs come in and 

19 come out and as outreach takes place there are 

20 more and less applicants at one site versus 

21 another. It becomes harder to transition 

22 funds around to these different sites because 
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1 with the percentage, especially you know, the 

2 lower the percentage is so now at 15 percent 

3 if an SEC went into effect say at Pantex and 

4 we needed to send some more funds there, to 

5 get them $15 we'd have to send them $100 and 

6 they'd only be allowed to spend $15. And as 

7 you can imagine that puts us at our budget 

8 very quickly. So currently, given our 

9 carryover and given the percentage as I said 

10 we've been able to operate at full capacity 

11 but as the CR goes on potentially into January 

12 or February if it were to do so occasionally 

13 in the past in those situations we've run into 

14 temporary funding shortfalls at one site 

15 versus another and we do our best to move 

16 money around. So that's sort of the 

17 situation.

18 So our core mandate at the 

19 Department of Energy is to work on behalf of 

20 program claimants to ensure that all available 

21 worker and facility records and data are 

22 provided to DOL, NIOSH and the Advisory Board. 
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1 We have three main responsibilities. We 

2 respond to requests for individual claim 

3 information, we respond and provide assistance 

4 to DOL and NIOSH for large-scale records 

5 research projects like Special Exposure 

6 Cohorts or the Department of Labor Site 

7 Exposure Matrix, and we conduct research along 

8 with NIOSH and DOL into facility coverage.

9 The backbone of our program at DOE 

10 are the site point of contacts that we have 

11 out at all of our, you know we have 10 major 

12 operations offices in over 30 sites that 

13 participate in this program. So we have one 

14 individual out at each of these sites who 

15 coordinates and manages the EEOICPA program 

16 and our records response out at those sites. 

17 They, as I said manage how we gather records 

18 so we coordinate with the different site 

19 departments, medical, radiological, incident, 

20 accident, things like that, to make sure that 

21 the right records are being gathered for all 

22 of the individuals and we're providing them in 
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1 a timely manner. And they also, again, 

2 coordinate these large-scale records research 

3 efforts you know with NIOSH and SC&A team 

4 leads on the various sites.

5 We do about, as you see some 

6 numbers here, I'll go to the next slide, we do 

7 about 18,000 records requests a year. I 

8 always make sure to add our numbers are not 

9 necessarily going to match Department of 

10 Labor's and NIOSH's because those aren't 

11 claims per year, those are requests. So if an 

12 individual worked at multiple sites, if they 

13 worked at three different sites we would count 

14 that as three different requests because we 

15 had to gather records on three separate 

16 occasions.

17 And our responses are very 

18 detailed. They're not just a few pages, 

19 they're not always in one location. As I 

20 alluded to earlier we go to multiple different 

21 departments at the active sites, medical, 

22 radiological, human resources. A request for 
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1 one individual, we can provide hundreds of 

2 pages, many hundreds of pages in some cases if 

3 an individual had a long career or worked at, 

4 you know, multiple different areas or had 

5 multiple job titles. 

6 One site I have there as an 

7 example routinely checks about 40 different 

8 sources for responsive records. That comes 

9 into play particularly at sites that have had 

10 multiple prime contractors over the years. 

11 They may have each brought in their own admin 

12 systems or databases to manage records. We 

13 might have to go to microfilm, microfiche, 

14 hard copy records, federal record centers or 

15 different document management programs. And 

16 again with the large-scale records research 

17 projects that's kind of our second major task 

18 under EEOICPA. We are at the mercy of 

19 Department of Labor and NIOSH typically. You 

20 guys need the information to do your jobs and 

21 we do our best to provide you what you need in 

22 a timely manner. These projects can be 
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1 extensive, they can take many years and many,

2 many site visits. We're often supporting 

3 multiple projects at once.

4 I listed a few of the projects 

5 that are going on right now. These aren't 

6 certainly all of the large-scale projects but 

7 these are just a few of them that we've been 

8 supporting in the last few months. And of 

9 course, you know, in the Florida area, 

10 Pinellas, we haven't been supporting too much 

11 data-capture I believe. It seems like most of 

12 that has already taken place but we were 

13 attempting to facilitate some interviews and 

14 we had some delays there but we're still 

15 attempting to do that and are hoping to set up 

16 these interviews within the next few months.

17 Document reviews. We do review 

18 final reports at DOE headquarters before they 

19 go public just to make sure there are no, you 

20 know, data sensitivity classification 

21 concerns, official use only. And we have a 

22 security plan, I've provided the link there, 
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1 which kind of details how we do these reviews, 

2 what's reviewed in addition to some of our 

3 other protocols for how to get on-site and 

4 clearances, things like that. So that's a 

5 useful tool. We're actually in the process of 

6 updating that now. We don't believe we're 

7 going to be making any, you know, large-scale 

8 changes. It's mostly just to, you know, 

9 update since the last, I think it was 2008 

10 that the original security plan came in so 

11 we're just kind of updating the links, making 

12 sure we have the right manuals, orders, 

13 reference material on there. We may add some 

14 additional information based on some things 

15 we've run into in the last two years but we 

16 don't anticipate it being a major overhaul or 

17 anything.

18 Since the last Advisory Board 

19 Meeting, NIOSH has submitted, or NIOSH and the 

20 Advisory Board and SC&A have submitted a total 

21 of 60 documents. The average turnaround time 

22 is about eight working days, but we've done it 
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1 in less when needed.

2 I think I talked a little bit 

3 about SEC support but our sites participated 

4 in Board Working Group and conference calls. 

5 We hold routine conference calls and meetings 

6 with DOL and SC&A to make sure that we're

7 meeting their needs and they're getting the 

8 information they need both from DOE 

9 headquarters and from the DOE sites. And 

10 we've tried to facilitate secure meetings in, 

11 you know, areas where classified discussions 

12 can take place if necessary. And then the

13 third main responsibility that DOE has under 

14 the law is to research the facilities, the 

15 facility coverage issues. And we're, you 

16 know, that's ongoing. We're always looking 

17 into a few sites, making sure that the years 

18 are correct, the facility descriptions are 

19 correct. I know recently we've been working 

20 on Monsanto site and I know there's going to 

21 be a slight change coming out there. It's 

22 kind of off the top of my head but there's 
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1 always a few of those. 

2 Our Office of Legacy Management 

3 supports our facility research. They are the 

4 group that handles the records for closure 

5 sites so they have a broad-based knowledge of 

6 the DOE complex, the operations and what went 

7 on at DOE sites. They also understand how 

8 records are managed and the various systems we

9 use in DOE. So they're a tremendous resource 

10 both for facility coverage issues as well as, 

11 you know, the SEC and other large-scale site 

12 research projects. 

13 We're always looking for 

14 additional records collections to be indexed 

15 and bring them into the collections that we 

16 search and, you know, use to respond to DOL 

17 and NIOSH. You know, when we determine that 

18 there's a collection that may not be indexed 

19 appropriately or that we have not been using 

20 to respond to EEOICPA claims and we feel like 

21 we maybe should, we will get together with 

22 that particular site to evaluate the 
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1 collection, determine if indeed it is useful 

2 for EEOICPA and if in the format it's in, 

3 it's, you know, we're able to use it. If not 

4 we will go through and index. We might scan 

5 and digitize the records, make them 

6 electronic. We might just index so we can 

7 find them easier. But you know, when we do 

8 that we'll go front to back through the 

9 collection, make sure it's in a format we can 

10 use and then we'll coordinate with DOL and 

11 NIOSH to go back through, you know, any past 

12 claim that might be affected. So obviously if 

13 we do find a new resource we don't want it 

14 just to be used for claims going forward, we 

15 want to make sure that all claimants get the 

16 benefit of that resource so we coordinate with 

17 DOL and NIOSH to make sure that happens.

18 And we've also been reviewing the 

19 Department of Labor's Site Exposure Matrix 

20 Database. We conducted the original review in 

21 2008. Initially the database had been 

22 gathered out at DOE sites and DOE records by 
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1 the Department of Labor and they had had it 

2 behind their firewall accessible only to their 

3 claims examiners but in 2008 they approached 

4 us about reviewing this database so they could 

5 put it out into a public forum. We did that 

6 in 2008 and I believe it was either, I think 

7 it was maybe early 2009 that it was actually 

8 released. I can't remember offhand. But 

9 we've also been conducting periodic reviews as 

10 the Department of Labor gathers new 

11 information or they also have a link on their 

12 website where members of the public or worker 

13 advocates can submit information. As that 

14 information is submitted or gathered by DOL, 

15 periodically we'll review it so that can 

16 become part of the public SEM. We've done two 

17 reviews so far and the third started in 

18 October and I think we're looking to get that 

19 back to Department of Labor I think in 

20 January.

21 And then outreach, I know you had 

22 asked about outreach and I know that speaks to 
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1 some of the things that DOL does on their own. 

2 There are many but also there's the Joint 

3 Outreach Task Group that we, NIOSH, Department 

4 of Labor, DOE and also the DOE Former Worker 

5 Medical Screening Programs coordinate to do 

6 some joint outreach. They're all essentially 

7 trying to reach the same, or more or less the 

8 same former worker population. So in the 

9 interest of combining resources and making the 

10 process more efficient we created a joint 

11 outreach group that will go out and hold some 

12 town hall meetings and you know, be able to 

13 provide individuals for each of those programs 

14 to talk to workers. So it's sort of a one15 stop shop for worker information. 

16 I think currently we're planning 

17 on in the new year I think we had looked into 

18 going to the California Bay Area to conduct 

19 some outreach for Livermore, Berkeley, GE 

20 Vallecitos, Stanford Linear Accelerator 

21 Center. There's a number of sites, we felt 

22 like we've got good value in going out there 
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1 because there was at least four to five 

2 different sites that we'll be able to mail 

3 and, you know, let folks know we're coming out 

4 there. And then we're also planning I believe 

5 to go to the Ohio area and potentially hold 

6 two to three meetings in different locations 

7 not necessarily -- I know we've been to the 

8 Cincinnati area and the Portsmouth area for 

9 the major sites but I think we're looking into 

10 Dayton where there's Mound and there's a few 

11 other AWEs and then also some areas where 

12 there's more of an AWE concentration 

13 potentially, in northern Ohio. So that's, you 

14 know, again those are -- we haven't finalized 

15 dates and exact locations for those but just 

16 to give you an idea of where we're looking at 

17 going this coming year.

18 And then I mentioned the Former 

19 Worker Medical Screening Program. The mission 

20 of the former worker screening program is to 

21 identify and notify former workers at risk for 

22 occupational disease and offer them medical 
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1 screening that can lead to treatment. So, 

2 what it is, it's a free medical screening 

3 program for any former worker at the 

4 Department of Energy, any of our sites, any 

5 worker and no matter where you live now we can 

6 provide you with a free screening. So, I have 

7 a link there to more information on the former 

8 worker program. And then here is contact 

9 information. There's two different former 

10 worker programs for workers in the area of 

11 Pinellas. It would be for production workers. 

12 It would be with Drs. Cragle, McInerney and 

13 Newman, and for construction workers, Knut 

14 Ringen is the principal investigator and 

15 there's contact information there. So I would 

16 encourage any former workers here, any of you 

17 that might know former workers to encourage 

18 them to look into this program. It's a 

19 tremendous resource, it's free and we try to 

20 identify things early and facilitate 

21 successful treatment. So I think that's it. 

22 Does anyone have any questions?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I could have 

2 guessed that. Go ahead, Brad. Thank you, 

3 Greg, by the way.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'd like to thank 

5 you especially for the Hanford and the Sandia, 

6 that was, it was very good. And especially 

7 when we were at Sandia we found out that we 

8 had some of the Pinellas people that had moved 

9 up there and were actually available and they 

10 brought them in for getting [Identifying 

11 information redacted] to come onto the site in 

12 such short order when we found this out. It 

13 was I know just a matter of hours and you were 

14 able to do that. We'd like to thank you for 

15 that.

16 As the security, as your security 

17 plan changes though you will keep us informed 

18 of any other changes so that we make sure that 

19 our security plan matches what yours do. I'd 

20 appreciate that.

21 MR. LEWIS: Absolutely and you'll 

22 be informed before it goes final. We're still 
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1 in the early stages of doing that. We've 

2 brought in -- our new security advisor is 

3 aware of it. That's one of the things he's 

4 going to be taking a look into, so. But we'll 

5 make sure to keep you --

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Another question 

7 that I have is do you supply DOE -- or DOL 

8 with the dates for the facilities, the covered 

9 periods? Are you the one that -- is DOE the 

10 one that supplies that to DOL? 

11 MR. LEWIS: The way that it works 

12 is DOE determines whether or not a facility is 

13 covered for AWEs and DOL determines coverage 

14 for Department of Energy facilities, and then 

15 Department of Labor determines the years for 

16 both. So DOE decides whether an AWE is 

17 covered or not and then Department of Labor 

18 has the final say on the specific years, 

19 although, you know, we work closely with DOL 

20 on the research.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. The reason 

22 I bring this up is especially some of the 
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1 older facilities, Pinellas, I mean not 

2 Pinellas, but Medina and Clarksville, and some 

3 of the records that we recovered at Sandia 

4 showed earlier work at Medina than what is the 

5 covered years and we just, I guess I was 

6 wondering which way would we need to have 

7 people to be able to look at this because 

8 Clarksville is the right years and Medina was 

9 exactly the same but there's like a ten-year 

10 difference of coverage.

11 MR. LEWIS: I mean in terms of who 

12 to provide it to I think you could provide it 

13 to either us or Department of Labor or even 

14 NIOSH, honestly. You know, any of the groups 

15 that receives it will, you know, coordinate 

16 with the others. We all work together to make 

17 sure that the right years are on there. I 

18 think the final say officially is with the 

19 Department of Labor so you could provide it to 

20 them but if you provide it to us or NIOSH 

21 it'll all get to the same place.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, I think we 
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1 should go through NIOSH since we advise NIOSH 

2 and do it that way. Yes, that's how we've 

3 done it before.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, then that 

5 was my main concern of the differences that we 

6 have run across so thank you.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: While we're on 

8 that clarification, who handles then the 

9 residual period issues? That gets even a 

10 little bit more different.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: The residual 

12 periods are defined by our Residual 

13 Contamination Report.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: So the residual 

16 period questions are for us.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Okay. 

18 Thank you. Other questions? Our meeting, 

19 we're actually meeting in the Bay Area in --

20 you want to do the dates?

21 MR. KATZ: February 28th until 

22 March 1st.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, the end of 

2 February. Ted and I were emailing back, we're 

3 trying to decide where to meet, given all the 

4 different facilities and so forth down there. 

5 I think we ended up in Oakland, is that --

6 were you trying to use claim data or is that 

7 not working out?

8 MR. KATZ: We had tried to use 

9 claim data. There's more claims for the 

10 Berkeley location than there is for Lawrence 

11 Livermore. So we're aiming for the Oakland 

12 area but we're having a lot of trouble with 

13 hotels so it's not settled as to where we'll -

14 - we may have to just go where we can get a 

15 place, between San Jose and Oakland. We spoke 

16 about San Jose, we may end up there anyway 

17 because of hotel difficulties. No, well it's 

18 trying to decide where people are likely to 

19 come to the meetings. It's not into that. And 

20 we probably should also coordinate with DOL in 

21 terms of if the outreach should be done at the 

22 same time or beforehand. It's a little --
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1 MR. LEWIS: It does make sense. 

2 We'd be glad to work with.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes, good, 

4 let's do that.

5 MEMBER MUNN: The problem is that 

6 people often aren't where the hotel is.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I know, I 

8 know. It's hard, a big area and there's 

9 traffic and things like that out there. Any 

10 other questions for Greg? If not then, okay, 

11 thank you. Appreciate it. 

12 Board Members, we have a funny 

13 schedule this time partly because some of our 

14 Board Members we knew would be delayed coming 

15 here. We sort of backed off certain issues 

16 till this afternoon, tomorrow morning. Also, 

17 we were trying to schedule times when the 

18 petitioners could come on. So, we have a 

19 number of issues we can go through this 

20 morning. I wanted to do the ten year 

21 discussion when as many Board Members were 

22 here as possible so we delayed that till this 
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1 afternoon and we should, and obviously for the 

2 active petitions we need to keep those on as 

3 scheduled as much as possible so that, because 

4 that's when the petitioners are expecting us 

5 to be discussing them. So we have a fairly 

6 long work session this morning which usually 

7 is longer at the end. And we don't have 

8 everybody here so we're going to be jumping 

9 around a little bit. 

10 I'll give you warning, LaVon, I 

11 think right after the break I would suggest 

12 that we have LaVon give his presentation which 

13 I don't believe is very long. And -- but also 

14 that will give us some more time at the end if 

15 we're still wrestling with some of the SEC 

16 evaluations. It's hard to predict at this 

17 point in time. 

18 The other thing I draw to 

19 everybody's attention, there aren't a lot of 

20 comments there but from the, what is it, the 

21 May meeting we have the public comments we 

22 should go through. Ted sent those out some 
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1 time ago to everybody and along with the 

2 transcripts and so forth, but there's a 

3 spreadsheet that looked to me about two pages, 

4 I think. So we'll try to go through those 

5 maybe after the break also. I just want to 

6 make sure everybody has access to it. If not 

7 we can delay that. It wouldn't take long, but 

8 if we can get that done it would probably be a 

9 good idea.

10 What I thought we would do, start 

11 with is Work Group updates. There are at 

12 least some of them we can get through before 

13 the -- aren't on the schedule and that we do 

14 have at least the chairs here. We'll do that. 

15 And you're in luck again, Josie: Brookhaven. 

16 MEMBER BEACH: There's not 

17 anything more for me to report on Brookhaven 

18 other than what I've reported the last couple 

19 of meetings. We're waiting for NIOSH's work 

20 and for NIOSH to report to us on Brookhaven at 

21 this point.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So remind us.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Can you hear me?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. I think 

4 that once -- well, once I do my presentation 

5 in a little bit --

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well --

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- but we're 

8 moving forward with an 83.14 that will adjust 

9 and take care of some of the issues and I'll 

10 talk a little bit about that shortly. 

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. He was 

12 going to surprise us at the end. That was --

13 do that. Fernald, we have an update later on 

14 in the meeting so I think that's, we will wait 

15 till that. Hanford, I think we're waiting, 

16 someone said an SC&A report. Arjun, are you 

17 still back there? And I think we need to 

18 schedule a Work Group meeting fairly shortly.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: We have reviewed 

20 the revised Site Profile, you know, from an 

21 SEC point of view and had a number of findings 

22 so we could schedule a Work Group meeting that 
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1 has -- that report has been with NIOSH for a 

2 couple of months.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: And there's the US 

5 Testing SEC petition, 00155. I have a draft 

6 review from Joyce Lipsztein in my computer. I 

7 hope that we'll be sending that to DOE for 

8 review and then sending it out to the Work 

9 Group. It will be very straightforward, 

10 there's not a lot there. So I think the main 

11 issues are going to be in the first 57, SEC 

12 57, but our work should be complete by early 

13 January. Most, 95 percent of it is done.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, so do we 

15 think Joyce's report will be to the Board, to 

16 the Work Group and to NIOSH say mid-January? I 

17 mean, I'm just trying to forget out when to 

18 schedule --

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So we'll 

21 plan on a Work Group meeting mid- to late, 

22 probably late January. 
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, late January 

2 or early February would probably be safer.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. The great 

4 blizzard of whatever.

5 (Laughter.)

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks. 

7 Thanks, Arjun. Idaho?

8 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Nothing more 

9 than what we had the last meeting. They're 

10 working on it.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Good. Ted, 

12 did we get this time an update from reports 

13 and so forth? We normally -- did I miss it 

14 or?

15 MR. KATZ: We got an update on 

16 status of work.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: We did.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes, the coordination 

21 document it's called. DCAS coordination 

22 document.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. They have 

2 not -- they didn't print that out, that's why 

3 I was asking. Okay, waiting on that. Lawrence 

4 Berkeley. Paul.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: We have not met 

6 yet.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Are you 

8 planning to meet or what's the --

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, we don't 

10 have any immediate plans. We've been, this is 

11 sort of a priority thing.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's a site --

13 yes, I know that.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: What's available 

15 for us to review in terms of there is an SC&A 

16 document and I don't believe we have the 

17 responses to that yet from NIOSH. So there 

18 have been other sites and so on that have 

19 taken precedence for the larger Board that 

20 have precluded us focusing on that site. 

21 Obviously, it's going to come on the screen 

22 fairly soon, I would think. And possibly we 
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1 could have an initial meeting while we meet 

2 out there to sort of scope things out but 

3 we're not there yet.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

5 MR. KATZ: So I just think we need

6 to check with DCAS as to whether they have it 

7 within their scopes to look at the SC&A 

8 review, thinking about the California meeting.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: I will have to 

10 find out.

11 MR. KATZ: Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Los 

13 Alamos, we need to come back when Mark is 

14 here. Mound?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. Mound met in 

16 November and I do have a brief report. The 

17 status of Mound's SEC issues to date are as 

18 follows. We combined eight issues. These 

19 were all considered internal dose issues that 

20 revolve around the lack of bioassays and the 

21 ability of NIOSH to dose-reconstruct using 

22 source term information. NIOSH has issued a 
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1 detailed White Paper in response to SC&A's 

2 detailed Mound Internal Dosimetry Data 

3 Adequacy and Completeness paper that was out 

4 in June. At this time SC&A is currently 

5 reviewing NIOSH's paper. But discussions at 

6 our recent Work Group meeting, we felt that 

7 there was a clear path for resolution. 

8 The second issue is the radon 

9 issue for which an SEC was granted by the 

10 Board last year. However, there are a couple 

11 of concerns with the existing Class Definition 

12 that the Work Group is addressing and should 

13 be able to make full recommendations to the 

14 Board during our February meeting. The last 

15 SEC issue that we're working with is issue 6, 

16 tritides. This issue remains open with a 

17 couple of key issues. First is regarding the 

18 feasibility of using tritium swipe data for 

19 dose reconstruction purposes.

20 In terms of support, workers in 

21 the period of 1980-forward including the D&D 

22 phase. Another key aspect of that review is 
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1 whether those workers with the exposure 

2 potential can be identified. The Work Group 

3 has scheduled a secure meeting in Germantown 

4 for January 6th to move this issue to closure.

5 The other two issues that we were 

6 able to close during our November meeting was 

7 issue 10 which is the D&D period of 1995 to 

8 2006. NIOSH reported that 90 percent 

9 compliance rate for former D&D workers for 

10 providing termination bioassays, which is 

11 quite high. The Work Group recommended that 

12 NIOSH perform some follow-up analysis on 100 

13 randomly selected last-entry radiation work 

14 permits and RWPs. This was completed and it 

15 did help to validate the RWP compliance rate 

16 and it was at a fairly high rate of 85 

17 percent. The Work Group felt that was in good 

18 standing so we closed that issue. 

19 Issues 14 and 15 dealt with 

20 neutron dose and the Work Group had three 

21 action items, one concerning MCMP specifically 

22 comparing the two MCMP analyses to the NTA 
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1 track fading values, and the third was NTA 

2 data for 1951 to 1960. SC&A and the Work 

3 Group agreed with NIOSH's response on all 

4 three issues so we closed that item. 

5 The Mound issues matrix was 

6 updated on November 3rd, 2011. It is 

7 available for more in-depth review of each of 

8 the issues discussed with reference to the

9 White Papers produced. I do plan on bringing 

10 this before the Board in February hopefully to 

11 close out those last three SEC that I 

12 mentioned earlier.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think 

14 that would, I think we should plan. And even 

15 if the Work Group is uncertain about your 

16 recommendation I think it would probably be 

17 good to have some Board discussion of that at 

18 that meeting. So let's plan and do that 

19 because that's, it's been a while. We should 

20 at least try to see where we can go with that. 

21 Any questions for Josie? Okay. Pantex. Just 

22 because we do something at the last meeting 
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1 doesn't mean you're off the hook, Brad. 

2 There's more to do.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, there is. 

4 Actually, after we passed the SEC for Pantex I 

5 guess we're still, have we officially got the 

6 letter sent in?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. One of the 

9 things that had been came out and I heard it 

10 today was that Pantex was needing some kind of 

11 worker outreach so I was glad to hear that 

12 that's been going on. We still have some Site 

13 Profile issues that we're still dealing with, 

14 with Pantex and we'll just continue on.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I thought there 

16 was an issue of the additional years also.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, that is 

18 correct. We, at the Work Group meeting, to be 

19 able to proceed with the SEC forward, we had 

20 the later years up till 1990 from 1985 and 

21 some previous years. We're still looking into 

22 that and researching that. We're waiting for 
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1 NIOSH to give us their evaluation for the 85 

2 to 90 time frame. And we've done some data 

3 recovery for the earlier years and SC&A's got 

4 that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Do we 

6 know, did NIOSH have a schedule for when they 

7 -- I'm just trying to push on this one a 

8 little bit. We've been talking about it 

9 recently and rather than having to go back and 

10 sort of re-familiarize ourselves with it I 

11 think it helps to -- if we can move it along. 

12 It may not be possible. Okay. 

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: It is going on.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, good, 

15 good. No, I just think we put a lot of effort 

16 into it and the Board has a fair amount of 

17 familiarity now with Pantex and if we can we 

18 should. Okay.

19 MR. KATZ: For the court reporter, 

20 your mic was off. What Stu said is that it is 

21 on the schedule and he'll look into this.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Pinellas we'll 
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1 hear later this afternoon. Portsmouth, 

2 Paducah, K-25? Do you have a catchy name we 

3 can do for that? PDP, okay, yes, that's 

4 better.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We actually met 

6 and we have managed to reduce three different 

7 matrices, basically, to one.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: So we've made a 

10 lot of progress there.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, good. This 

12 is really mostly, it's a Site Profile.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, update, 

15 because these, we're legislatively. Rocky 

16 Flats group I believe had met, had a 

17 conference call. We'll wait for Mark. Sandia, 

18 I don't know if they -- did they meet?

19 MEMBER BEACH: I can report on 

20 Sandia.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

22 MEMBER BEACH: So the Work Group 
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1 has not met but a couple of us went down to 

2 Sandia for a site visit and interviews in 

3 November, and that was very successful.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, good. It's 

5 all relatively new so it's going to take a 

6 while.

7 MR. KATZ: Right, and the Work 

8 Group is following up in Germantown, too, on 

9 Sandia as well aren't we? Or is that just 

10 Medina?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Medina12 Clarksville.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't know if 

15 Mike's on the phone for Santa Susana, I'm not 

16 even sure there was any action.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Nothing.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Nothing? Okay. 

19 Savannah River we'll hear about science 

20 issues. I believe the group met and we'll 

21 wait for -- David is coming, right? Yes. So 

22 we'll hear from that. SEC issues, nothing 
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1 pending there. Dose Reconstruction 

2 Subcommittee, we'll wait for Mark. Our 

3 favorite Committee, Subcommittee, excuse me. 

4 This is our favorite committee. 

5 MEMBER MUNN: I'm glad. It's my 

6 favorite, too. It keeps me off the streets 

7 and that's very good for my community. 

8 I want to thank Stu for the 

9 overview during his presentation. I wasn't 

10 expecting that and was very glad to hear it 

11 myself because one of the problems that we've 

12 had with our new database is that it does not 

13 easily give us that overall kind of 

14 information, so thanks to Ted and to Stu for 

15 making sure that that information came along. 

16 It was much appreciated.

17 We have not met and there's 

18 nothing new to report since the information 

19 that was provided at our last teleconference 

20 meeting. We do continue to plan our meeting 

21 in Cincinnati on January the 9th at which time 

22 we will take up the action items that will be 
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1 provided then.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 

3 questions for Wanda? TBD-6000.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: The focus of TBD5 6000 this past summer and fall has been on 

6 General Steel Industries. Our last meeting 

7 was in November: November 2nd. We actually 

8 thought that we perhaps might have a specific 

9 recommendation for this meeting dealing with 

10 the early years at General Steel which would 

11 have been the period of 1953 to '62 since the 

12 radiological practices appear to be different 

13 in those early years compared to the '63 

14 onward. However, there was some new 

15 information we were dealing with at this 

16 November meeting so the Work Group, as it 

17 turns out, is not prepared to give a specific 

18 recommendation to recommend an SEC at this 

19 time. However, that option is of course still 

20 open. We do have several White Papers that 

21 are still due from NIOSH. They're scheduled 

22 for delivery December 31st or thereabouts. I 
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1 say thereabouts because that's a holiday week 

2 of course but in any event there are several 

3 more White Papers that are coming due. They 

4 were scheduled to be reviewed by the Work 

5 Group as well as by SC&A and we have another 

6 meeting scheduled for March to deal again with 

7 the GS issues. So we are hopeful that we will 

8 be in a position to make some more specific 

9 recommendations at the next full Board 

10 Meeting.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any questions 

12 for Paul? Thank you. Thank you, Paul, on 

13 that. And I guess the other, again I don't 

14 know if Mike's on the line. We have the 

15 Worker Outreach.

16 MEMBER BEACH: I can give a quick 

17 overview.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, yes.

19 MEMBER BEACH: It's not much 

20 different than what Ted reported on our 

21 October meeting. The Worker Outreach Sampling 

22 Plan was approved by the Work Group so SC&A is 
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1 moving forward with that evaluation. And I 

2 think Joe was going to have to push it back a 

3 month. Joe, when do we expect that? At the 

4 end of December or is it early next year? 

5 MR. KATZ: I think, Josie, it's 

6 more around a March time frame, isn't that 

7 right, Joe?

8 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, is it? Sorry. 

9 Okay, so --

10 MR. KATZ: Is that correct? March 

11 approximately?

12 MR. FITZGERALD: End of March. 

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, end of March. 

14 MEMBER BEACH: And with that, the 

15 Work Group will again schedule a meeting, I'm 

16 sure. 

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. Okay. 

18 That completes the Work Group reports that 

19 we're able to go through. What I am going to 

20 suggest, since we're running ahead of schedule 

21 and we have nothing tightly scheduled between 

22 now and lunchtime is that we take our break 
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1 now, that we return at 10:30 and we'll have 

2 LaVon then. And I think we will probably be 

3 able to break early for lunch also since we 

4 have a very limited amount of more work we can 

5 do until other Board Members arrive, until 

6 things get scheduled. So LaVon, you get 

7 practiced and get ready. We'll come back. I 

8 would like to either try or schedule the other 

9 Board Members during our break here, to try to 

10 see if you can identify, find the public 

11 comment information, that email so that we can 

12 try to go through that quickly after LaVon's 

13 presentation. And also, prepare a lot of hard 

14 questions for LaVon since we have some time. 

15 Thank you. We'll reconvene at 10:30.

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

17 matter went off the record at 9:59 a.m. and 

18 resumed at 10:40 a.m.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, I think we 

20 have everybody back. We will reconvene and 

21 we've added one of our missing Board Members 

22 has arrived, Henry Anderson, so welcome, 
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1 Henry. Directly from SeaWorld. And Henry, 

2 for your benefit, we're way off. I'm on a 

3 funny schedule here so we're, LaVon's been 

4 moved up and then we're probably going to do a 

5 little bit of Board business and then break 

6 for lunch. We're packed into mostly stuff 

7 scheduled for this afternoon and tomorrow 

8 morning. So we are preparing lots of 

9 questions for LaVon. LaVon.

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right, thank 

11 you, Dr. Melius. I'm going to talk about the 

12 status of upcoming SEC petitions. Again, we 

13 provide this update to the Advisory Board in 

14 preparations so they can prepare for future 

15 Work Group meetings, Board Meetings. They 

16 also have an understanding of what we 

17 currently have under our plate for evaluation 

18 -- on our plate for evaluation and sites that 

19 we're getting new petitions for.

20 At the time of this, preparing 

21 this presentation we had 196 petitions. We 

22 now have 198 petitions. We picked up two in 
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1 the last couple of weeks. So we have actually 

2 eight petitions in the qualification process. 

3 We have 117 petitions that qualify, five 

4 evaluations in progress and we've completed 

5 112 evaluations. And you can see that 73 

6 petitions did not qualify. 

7 Currently we have a number of 

8 petitions that are in the evaluation process. 

9 Clinton Engineering Works and Oak Ridge, 

10 Tennessee has been under evaluation for some 

11 time. We have actually determined it. We 

12 have an infeasibility to do dose 

13 reconstruction at Clinton Engineering Works 

14 for that time period so we are going to 

15 recommend a Class. However, the difficulty 

16 we're having at this time is defining a Class 

17 that can be administered by the Department of 

18 Labor. We presented a Class to DOL which was 

19 specific to the warehouses at the Elza Gate 

20 and the Department of Labor based on the 

21 information they had at hand felt that they 

22 could not administer that Class. You know, a 
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1 lot of times we will immediately go to, okay, 

2 all employees at Clinton Engineering Works. 

3 However, remember Clinton Engineering Works 

4 was pretty much the entire site of Oak Ridge. 

5 So what we're doing is we're going back and 

6 we're doing some additional interviews with 

7 some old-timers that were around during that 

8 time period to see if they can provide us some 

9 information. We're also going back and 

10 looking at a lot of the data captures that 

11 were done early on in the program for Oak 

12 Ridge. We were not specifically looking at 

13 Clinton Engineering Works. So we're going 

14 back and reevaluating some of those data 

15 captures to see if maybe we need to revisit 

16 some of those sites. However, we do hope that 

17 we will have something that the Department of 

18 Labor can work with and we can make a 

19 presentation on that at the February Board 

20 Meeting.

21 Another petition that's under 

22 evaluation is Oak Ridge National Lab. This is 
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1 the early years at ORNL. We anticipate 

2 completing that Evaluation Report sometime in 

3 February. That may slip a little because of 

4 some -- going back to review some air sample 

5 data. We're working that out right now. 

6 However, even at best I don't think we would 

7 be prepared for the February meeting, so I 

8 think it would slip to the next meeting 

9 anyway.

10 Sandia National Lab, we received a 

11 petition that actually worked out very well. 

12 It's funny me saying that but it worked out 

13 well in that this petition was for the post 

14 years. We've already added a Class up to 1962 

15 at Sandia National Lab. We identified during 

16 that time that we did that evaluation that 

17 there's some additional work that needed to be 

18 done. And so this petition works well and 

19 we're continuing that work. We've qualified 

20 this petition, we're moving the evaluation 

21 forward. We hope to have that completed by 

22 March of next year.
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1 Titanium Alloys Manufacturing. We 

2 received this petition back in July. We 

3 actually had recognized up front that there 

4 were some questions with the facility 

5 designation. It was a period of '50 to '56. 

6 However, based on our review, it really looked 

7 like the facility designation should have 

8 probably been the '55-'56 time period. We 

9 went back with this information to the 

10 Department of Labor and ultimately they have 

11 adjusted that time frame on that. We do 

12 anticipate having this report completed in 

13 February and we may have this done in time for 

14 the February meeting.

15 Brookhaven National Lab. As I 

16 mentioned earlier with Josie we went back and 

17 we've been working through the issues of BNL 

18 with the Work Group and ultimately we made a 

19 determination that we do have an infeasibility 

20 and we do need to add another Class at 

21 Brookhaven National Lab. So we're working an 

22 83.14 at this time. We will add -- to add the 
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1 1980 through 1993 period. We have already 

2 received the Form A back from a proposed 

3 petitioner and we are moving forward to have 

4 this one presented at the February meeting. 

5 We continue to do some evaluation. 

6 Grand Junctions Operation Office, we had added 

7 a Class sometime back. At that time when we 

8 added that Class we had informed the Board we 

9 were going to continue our evaluation for the 

10 post-1975 period. We wanted to review some 

11 additional data that was, that we knew existed 

12 at Idaho as well as at the NARA office. We're 

13 about completed with that. We've got some of 

14 that data in, we're moving forward. We 

15 anticipate having our Evaluation Report for 

16 the post-1975 period complete in March next 

17 year. 

18 Sandia National Lab. Again, I 

19 mentioned we were -- had identified concerns 

20 at Sandia even for the post -- it says '60 

21 period, but 1962 period. This additional work 

22 has now been pulled into this new petition we 
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1 have and we anticipate having that work 

2 completed in March of next year.

3 Petitions in qualification phase 

4 at this time. We received another Hanford 

5 petition, that petition's in qualification 

6 phase. Iowa Ordnance Plant. This one, we 

7 have actually moved this one through the 

8 petitioning process and we did not qualify 

9 this petition. This was a petition for areas 

10 that are currently not covered under the 

11 program at Iowa Ordnance Plant. We did 

12 provide the information that the petitioner 

13 provided to us to the Department of Labor, in 

14 case there was anything that would possibly 

15 change their mind in the facility designation. 

16 Nothing did. So we've actually moved to close 

17 this petition and they have requested an 

18 administrative review. 

19 We have a Rocky Flats petition 

20 that we're in the qualification phase with, as 

21 well another one for Savannah River Site. 

22 Nuclear Metals, Inc. And then with the two we 
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1 just recently received that are not on the 

2 presentation are one for Ventron Corporation 

3 and another for the Westinghouse Nuclear Fuels 

4 Division in Cheswick, Pennsylvania. And so 

5 those are moving through the qualification 

6 phase. Also, Hangar 481 I wanted to update.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I may have 

8 misunderstood you, LaVon, but I have a 

9 question. You said there were six in 

10 qualification and there's five there.

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: I know, I noticed 

12 that actually, Dr. Melius. 

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Are you trying 

14 to pull one over here?

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: The first slide 

16 is wrong. There are actually five. Actually, 

17 there are seven counting the two new ones we 

18 got in and so that is, the second slide that I 

19 presented which was identified six in the 

20 qualification process is actually five. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We figured that 

22 out without even toes.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, that was 

2 good. I threw that in there, I wanted to give 

3 you something to ask me. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, LaVon, 

5 you're back.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. One other 

7 thing I wanted to talk about was Hangar 481. 

8 Hangar 481, we completed our evaluation some 

9 time ago. The -- went through a number of 

10 little processes with the petitioner, went 

11 back to the site with the petitioner and 

12 ultimately we were holding up moving forward 

13 on Hangar 481 because the petitioner had a 

14 FOIA request in. Just last week or, you know, 

15 last week we received from the petitioner an 

16 email that the petitioner wanted to withdraw 

17 that FOIA request. And so then actually this 

18 week, we actually received a subsequent email 

19 from the petitioner indicating that they were 

20 formulating a plan for an additional FOIA 

21 request. So I don't know exactly what they're 

22 going to request, I don't know if, you know --
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1 it wasn't clear that they had specifics with 

2 that FOIA request and I can't really say much 

3 more about it than that. And that's about it 

4 for my presentation. Questions?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm sorry, Ted 

6 was -- is the new FOIA request a -- have you 

7 seen that? 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: No.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You haven't seen 

10 that yet, okay.

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, we just got 

12 the email that indicated that he was planning 

13 another FOIA request but did not indicate what 

14 specifically he was looking for. Originally, 

15 I will let you know that the petitioner had 

16 indicated in the recent, the previous FOIA 

17 request they were requesting the interviews 

18 that we -- they wanted the names of the 

19 individuals that were interviewed by NIOSH and 

20 so they could, I guess, re-interview those 

21 people. However, we can't release names due 

22 to Privacy Act. So they had indicated also 
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1 that they may provide a letter to the Board 

2 that would question the validity of those 

3 interviews.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I guess 

5 we'll wait but -- so chances are that may be 

6 on our -- if you make sure we get an update at 

7 our Board call?

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I will.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Coming up on 

10 that so we -- because that's been out there. I 

11 think we want the petitioners to have 

12 documents and information. There's been new 

13 information developed so I think we understood 

14 that but at the same time we sort of lose 

15 track of these and we need to, you know, close 

16 that out as a -- you know, handle it as 

17 appropriate.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Okay.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 

20 questions for LaVon? Yes, Paul.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: You want me to 

22 talk really slow, is that correct?
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1 (Laughter.)

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: LaVon, beyond the 

3 sites for -- and petitions that you're 

4 currently working on can you give us some idea 

5 of what's out there in terms of particularly 

6 AWEs for which there have been neither 

7 petitions nor claims? What's the pool of 

8 potential sites out there where we might 

9 expect? And obviously they won't all be in 

10 that category but what's the maximum? Are we 

11 talking about another couple of dozen or 

12 couple of hundred?

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think around a 

14 hundred, as Stu had just mentioned to me I 

15 think a hundred at the most would be left that 

16 either we don't have any claims for, you know, 

17 that -- in fact, and I'll bring this up, at 

18 one point, at one time we had thought about 

19 actually taking these sites and that we don't 

20 have a claim for that's currently covered 

21 under the program and putting together a short 

22 summary of what data do we have, what 
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1 information do we have. And so we can be 

2 prepared when we do get a claim in does this 

3 one really need to move right away to an 83.14 

4 or what. It's still on our list to do that 

5 but we haven't got there yet, I mean, from all 

6 the other work that we have.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I'll comment 

8 on that. We have so much work still to do 

9 that we know we have to do that we didn't want 

10 to spend a lot of work on a speculative maybe 

11 this will come in handy later on. So it's a 

12 matter of prioritizing the work.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, and I 

14 certainly wasn't expecting you to do that. I 

15 was just trying to get a feel for what's out 

16 there still and wondering if, for example, if 

17 there might be a number of these sites for 

18 which the contracts are for things that didn't 

19 actually require people to work with nuclear 

20 materials. Contracts that might have been for 

21 theoretical studies of one sort or another, 

22 but we don't necessarily know that at this 
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1 time I guess.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, I think what 

3 we typically see is when we get a claim in or 

4 we get a petition in, we find that information 

5 out when we initially do that initial research 

6 and then we jump on it, push it through.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you. 

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just to follow 

9 up on that because one of the reasons I had 

10 asked Jeff for sort of an update on the 

11 outreach program. My understanding is that in 

12 general and probably as appropriate DOL does 

13 their outreach after, you know, a site like an 

14 SEC would be approved. And this would apply 

15 also to the AWE sites. And I guess I don't 

16 know, again, reviewing 200 sites is a lot of 

17 work to do but at the same time if there are 

18 sites out there that are large and we think 

19 that there were, you know, the potential for 

20 substantial exposures, you know, you wonder. I 

21 mean, because you look at some of these sites 

22 even when we do get an 83.14 there are really 
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1 very few claims.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: You're correct.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You know, and 

4 even though I think some of them have had at 

5 least, you know, some significant exposures 

6 out there and you know, given time going by 

7 and so forth there are at least some pool of 

8 claimants that there ought to be outreach for 

9 or some way of letting them know about the 

10 program just out of, you know, a basis for 

11 being fair and equitable. So as you're, you 

12 know, gathering information or whatever, 

13 there's some way of sorting it that way or at 

14 least identifying key sites and so forth. And 

15 then maybe we'll talk more when next meeting 

16 if Jeff gives us an update on the outreach and 

17 so forth. But it's sort of hard for DOL to do 

18 outreach without knowing a lot about the site 

19 and where it hasn't been developed so it's a 

20 little bit of a chicken/egg kind of thing. But 

21 how people would find out. I remember the 

22 gentleman from an 83.14 we had I think several 
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1 months ago who -- was the USA Today articles 

2 or whatever that ran, what, 10 years ago? The 

3 program started was what got him, you know, he 

4 remembered that his father had worked at one 

5 of these facilities and that they'd mentioned.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, it was 

7 Westinghouse Atomic Power Development. I 

8 remember.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. So I mean 

10 it's -- and there hasn't been a USA Today 

11 article in I don't think -- you know, that one 

12 just covered, I can't remember how many sites 

13 but it certainly wasn't -- didn't have 

14 information on all of them or at least 

15 detailed enough for people to recognize. So 

16 at some point when we have sort of the 

17 resources and the time I think it's worth 

18 trying to look at it not as a big project but 

19 is there some way of narrowing that down.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other questions, 

22 comments from the Board? I have one other 
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1 question, it's just probably my memory, but 

2 for Brookhaven the 83.14, is that a new issue 

3 or is it a continuation of sort of the older 

4 issues there?

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: It's a 

6 continuation of the old, the issue that we had 

7 previously identified a question of records 

8 and being able to retrieve those records. It 

9 is a continuation of that same issue.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And it's a 

11 little bit surprising to me that it would --

12 at that type of a facility that would extend 

13 for such a long period of time. I mean, I 

14 don't doubt you but it's just, '80 to '93 is, 

15 that's --

16 MEMBER BEACH: The Work Group is 

17 not surprised.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: I don't know if I 

20 want to comment on that.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not 

22 expecting you to. 
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly. We're 

2 working with Brookhaven to find out where 

3 their records are and ensure that, you know, 

4 that they are getting us the records that we 

5 need. I mean, the difficulty we have is when 

6 we get a claim and we do a search on our 

7 records and we have more records than they're 

8 providing from the DOE. When DOE requests the 

9 data from them, or where the DOE request goes 

10 in and they send us the personal dosimetry 

11 records and then we do a search on our 

12 internal records and we're coming up with more 

13 personal dosimetry data, that immediately puts 

14 their records management in question. 

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Just to clarify 

16 these are things that we have captured on a 

17 data capture.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: We've gone there 

20 on data captures, brought these records back 

21 and then subsequently would send a records 

22 request for an individual, get that person's 
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1 record back and it, the record that Brookhaven 

2 returned to us for the individual would not 

3 include some data that we had captured 

4 independently on a data capture. That's the 

5 issue we faced there. We actually have a 

6 staff member meeting next week with Brookhaven 

7 personnel in person along with Greg to try to 

8 see if we're really getting their attention.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Greg, do 

10 you want to comment?

11 MR. LEWIS: Yes. It's an issue 

12 that we thought we had addressed before. So 

13 the one thing I would say from our standpoint, 

14 it's not -- there's been some concerns with 

15 how comprehensive their records were. We had 

16 gone out, we had addressed that. There have 

17 been a number of collections that were 

18 indexed. There was a large, a huge I'd say 

19 warehouse but it was really like a two, a 

20 double room where we had scanned and indexed 

21 everything in there. And we kept thinking we 

22 had solved the problem by taking those steps 
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1 and lo and behold we find another case where 

2 they didn't match up. So we're, you know, 

3 this meeting, our aim here is to get all of 

4 the groups at Brookhaven together who have 

5 records and figure out, you know, either how 

6 are things slipping through the cracks or 

7 where are, you know, why does NIOSH have 

8 records that we are then unable to find. So 

9 you know, we're trying to get to the bottom of 

10 it and actually solve it so we don't have 

11 these reoccurring issues, because again, we 

12 thought we had addressed this about a year 

13 ago. We thought we had finally fixed the 

14 problem so we're hoping to get it right this 

15 time.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think one of 

17 the challenges you have with these national 

18 labs is you have so many different little 

19 entities on a site and they all seem to 

20 manage, especially like Brookhaven, they 

21 manage their own records. There was no 

22 central repository for records management as 
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1 you see like with some of the other production 

2 facilities, you know, where you had a central 

3 repository. And some of these national labs 

4 you don't see that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So do we think 

6 that this same issue applies at some of the 

7 other?

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: We're reviewing 

9 that at Sandia National Lab --

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sandia, that's 

11 what I was thinking.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- at this time.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 

14 MR. LEWIS: And I would say yes, 

15 there's definitely difficulties at the 

16 national lab. I don't think that they all 

17 have the same level of difficulties that we've 

18 run into at Brookhaven.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: I agree.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: LaVon, I have just 

22 one question on Iowa Ordnance because we've 
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1 had them before. Is this a new 83.14 or 13? 

2 Is it a new time period or a new area? Just 

3 very briefly what's the nature of that one?

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually it was 

5 an 83.13 and it was a new petition. It was 

6 for an area that is currently not covered in 

7 the program. And the petitioner had 

8 petitioned for this, actually petitioned for 

9 this area. We initially told the petitioner 

10 that you need to go through the Department of 

11 Labor to have that done, to see if that area 

12 can be added under the facility designation. 

13 They indicated that they had done that. We 

14 provided the information that the petitioner 

15 provided to us, we provided that to the 

16 Department of Labor. Department of Labor came 

17 back and said, you know, again that this area 

18 is not a covered area under the program and 

19 therefore we moved to close that petition. So 

20 that petition from our standpoint's been 

21 administratively closed. However, that 

22 petitioner did request an administrative 
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1 review and so it will go to the three-person 

2 panel appointed by the director for that 

3 review.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: So it's an issue 

5 of whether or not this other area should have 

6 been covered by the existing work that we 

7 already looked at.

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I know it's 

9 an existing -- it's whether this area should 

10 be -- is a covered area under the program 

11 itself.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, okay.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. And so 

14 that's not something that we would consider, 

15 NIOSH, and that's why we provided that 

16 information to the Department of Labor.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: So this one 

18 possibly wouldn't even come to us then.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, more than 

20 likely it will not come to you unless for some 

21 reason the administrative review panel found 

22 some other reason that -- but again, even the 
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1 administrative review panel can't make a 

2 decision on what to add to area. That 

3 decision has to be made by the Department of 

4 Labor. So I would not expect to see this one.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any further 

7 questions or comments for LaVon? Okay. We 

8 let you off easy, LaVon. So, Henry, we went 

9 through a number of the Work Groups' reports 

10 before. I think Hooker, we're going to get 

11 updated on and I don't know if there's 

12 anything else to update on.

13 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, we 

14 discussed others but. We did discuss others 

15 and there -- we're waiting for updates from 

16 NIOSH on those. So it's, United Nuclear is 

17 one of those. So there's going to be some 

18 changes made and responses but other than 

19 that, Hooker was our major focus.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. Good, 

21 thank you. 

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: Our next meeting 
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1 will be a teleconference.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay. I'd 

3 like to turn now to the public comments from 

4 the May meeting. And that was the email 

5 people got on December 2nd from Ted. Was 

6 everybody able to access that in some way? 

7 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry, I can't 

9 remember if you were, I don't think you were 

10 here yet. We're talking about the tally of 

11 the public comments from the May meeting. It's 

12 a listing and a spreadsheet and the attached 

13 transcripts and so forth that are in there. 

14 And I think these are usually relatively 

15 straightforward and just really two pages is 

16 what I have on my computer and so forth. 

17 MR. KATZ: While you're doing that 

18 let me just, I noticed there are some more 

19 people from the public who have joined us and 

20 I didn't make an announcement earlier this 

21 morning because it was thin in here but I'll 

22 announce it again later this afternoon. There 
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1 is a public comment session today. It begins 

2 at 5. And for those of you in the public who 

3 are here in the room who would like to make 

4 comments, there's a sign-up sheet at the table 

5 outside this door immediately to your left. So 

6 if you would sign in. There are two, 

7 actually, sign-up sheets. There's one that's 

8 just signing in that you're registering your 

9 attendance at the meeting, but there's a 

10 second sheet if you wish to comment during the 

11 public comment session. You should, when you 

12 have a chance, there's no rush, you can do it 

13 at lunch or whatever but sign in if you want 

14 to make public comments so that we can order 

15 the public comments and get through those in 

16 an expeditious way. Thanks.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So I'm just 

18 going to go through these one by one but I 

19 think we can do it briefly. They're pretty 

20 straightforward. First set of comments have 

21 to do with Fernald site and were directed to 

22 the Work Group and to the NIOSH technical 
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1 person handling it, Mark Rolfes. I think 

2 those are pretty straightforward and 

3 appropriate. 

4 The next comments are Robert 

5 Stephan who was reading a letter from 

6 Representative Costello regarding General 

7 Steel Industries. I think that was 

8 acknowledged and so forth there, that.

9 The next set of comments were 

10 related to, two were related to, the first two 

11 were Rocky Flats regarding, essentially 

12 referred to the Work Group and that Work Group 

13 has since met so Mark may have already 

14 addressed those in the Work Group meeting. I'm 

15 not sure on that. There was an FOI question 

16 that was related to the FOI office.

17 And there's some questions on 

18 Hanford from one the Hanford petitioners about 

19 some new information and I think they were 

20 concerned about whether those were being, 

21 whether NIOSH was aware of some of that 

22 information. And as I recall some they were, 
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1 some they weren't, but they said they would, 

2 Sam Glover was here. He said they would 

3 follow up and so forth on information. So 

4 anybody have comments? That's the May 24th 

5 listing I have. Any questions or any Board 

6 Members have? Okay. 

7 MR. KATZ: Sorry, Wanda, I can't 

8 read lips.

9 MEMBER MUNN: I was wondering if 

10 you re-sent that to my CDC email address.

11 MR. KATZ: Sure, I'll resend it.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Ted reached your 

13 limit. 

14 MR. KATZ: Well, actually I don't 

15 know if I have it on here. Do you have it to 

16 send it to your email?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So for May 25th, 

18 I have a comment from one of the petitioners 

19 thanking us for rapid response to the Sandia 

20 SEC petition and really no follow-up necessary 

21 on that. Another petitioner related to 

22 Hanford really was just making a statement 
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1 relative to that petition and I think as 

2 Arjun's already reported we'll have a review 

3 of that, of the NIOSH evaluation of that 

4 petition shortly and the Work Group will be 

5 meeting to discuss that. Another comment on 

6 Hanford again related to US Testing and so 

7 forth and it's the same, the same issue and 

8 same response. 

9 There were comments from the 

10 Weldon Springs related to that person there, 

11 again related to concerns about the data 

12 quality and the SEC review process there. 

13 We'll have an update on that this afternoon 

14 but those comments are referred to the Work 

15 Group and to the NIOSH technical person, 

16 appears to be appropriate. Some more and 

17 similar comments on the Weldon Springs and 

18 again directed in the same way and so forth. 

19 And comments from the, I guess 

20 someone related to the GE, a former worker at 

21 GE-Evendale and again, sort of concerned about 

22 how long it had taken for the follow-up 
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1 review. And again that had been addressed 

2 actually at that last meeting. We approved 

3 it. So these were really for that. And two 

4 other similar comments there. Again, it was 

5 approved. 

6 So anybody have any questions or 

7 comments on those referrals? Again, we're 

8 talking about the referrals of these, not --

9 when we know about the resolution we can talk 

10 about it but you know, again, these are back 

11 in May and it's really, were the comments 

12 appropriately referred and are they being

13 followed up on sometimes takes time. So if 

14 there are no questions or comments on that. 

15 And again, Wanda, I know you may not have had 

16 time to review or refresh yourself on this and 

17 if you have comments later on we can come back 

18 to it. I don't want to --

19 MEMBER MUNN: I have seen it 

20 before and didn't have comments the time I saw 

21 it the first time. 

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: I do have a 

2 question. I just want to follow up on the 

3 General Steel Industries one. It said that 

4 the response went to Ted and to DCAS. Was 

5 there a response to the individual who 

6 indicated the concern? This is item number 6 

7 in the matrix there. I believe it was --

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm going to have 

9 to see it. I didn't print it.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think it was one 

11 of the Illinois staffers, that is, the -- I'm 

12 trying to remember her name. 

13 MR. KATZ: It was a letter from 

14 Costello that Robert Stephan read.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, the --

16 MR. KATZ: Yes.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

18 MR. KATZ: So it was referring to 

19 --

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- response to 

21 either Mr. Stephan or Costello?

22 MR. KATZ: So I don't know about a 
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1 response from DCAS but it was also just 

2 referred to in other words to you as the Work 

3 Group chair.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, but the 

5 issue is beyond the Work Group. There's an 

6 implication that there's a Board policy which 

7 I don't think there actually is a policy one 

8 way or the other. There's no policy 

9 restricting Work Groups on putting time limits 

10 on when they finish their work. In the 

11 absence of a time limit, I suppose that can be 

12 implied as being a Board policy that you have 

13 unlimited time. But I just wondered if there 

14 had been a response to Mr. Stephan or if there 

15 was any statement implying what the policy is.

16 MR. KATZ: I think Jim or you, I 

17 think Jim responded at the time to Robert 

18 Stephan to explain that we were concerned 

19 about timeliness and about moving this along 

20 but this is sort of a case where there's just 

21 been a lot of material generated and it's, 

22 that's been why this one has taken exceedingly 
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1 long.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's my -- I 

3 can't pull up the transcript quickly enough 

4 to.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: As far as you know 

6 the response was the verbal one.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. I just, I 

9 couldn't remember.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's an 

11 appropriate question. Any other comments? 

12 Okay. If not, I think we, and I don't believe 

13 we have any other Board business that we can 

14 conduct until we have everybody here.

15 MR. KATZ: For scheduling, we 

16 should have everyone else.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we need to 

18 have everybody here, as many as possible 

19 anyway and do that. So we will now break and 

20 we will reconvene at, I believe at 1:30. 

21 MR. KATZ: Yes, we can lock up the 

22 room if you'd like to leave your computers. 
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1 Absolutely.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we will 

3 reconvene in this room at 1:30 and the first 

4 item of business will be the Hooker SEC 

5 petition.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

7 matter went off the record at 11:20 a.m. and 

8 resumed at 1:34 p.m.)

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, we'll get 

10 started now. Welcome back, everybody, to our 

11 Board Meeting and I'll start with letting Ted 

12 make some announcements and check the phone.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, welcome, everyone, 

14 for the afternoon session. Let me just remind 

15 then people, I don't know if we have any new 

16 public members here this afternoon yet but we 

17 have a public comment session that begins at 5 

18 o'clock and if you'd like to make comments, 

19 please sign in on the sign-in sheet at the 

20 front desk. There are two sign-in sheets, 

21 one's for just signing in to attend the 

22 meeting but the second is to sign up for 
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1 public comments. Please do that at some point 

2 this afternoon if you wish to make comment.

3 Let me remind everyone on the 

4 phone line of two things. One, please mute 

5 your phone except when you're addressing the 

6 group and if you don't have a mute button, 

7 press *6 to mute and *6 to come off of mute. 

8 And also please, someone at some point this 

9 morning put the call on hold and we had their 

10 music, we had to cut them off. So please 

11 don't put the call on hold at any point. Hang 

12 up and dial back in if you need to leave the 

13 call and you won't disrupt the call for the 

14 other folks, especially for the other folks on 

15 the phone line who will only be hearing your 

16 music. Okay and I think that covers it for 

17 me. 

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, very good. 

19 Okay, we will start our first item of the 

20 afternoon: the Hooker Electrochemical SEC 

21 petition. Henry Anderson, I think, will do a 

22 presentation. Thank you, Henry.
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay, as all of 

2 you should remember in August we went through 

3 a review of a Special Cohort Evaluation and 

4 what I'm going to give you today is a bit of 

5 an update. You gave us some charges, our Work 

6 Group to go back. 

7 But just to update everybody, 

8 Hooker was classified as an AWE employer 

9 facility from '43 to '48 with a residual 

10 period up to '76. They primarily produced 

11 non-radioactive chemicals at the facility but 

12 they did during that period of time 

13 concentrate uranium-contaminated mag fluoride 

14 slag using hydrochloric acid from their P-45 

15 process. A special building was constructed 

16 to do the concentrating operation, that 

17 building was completed in 1944 and most of the 

18 slag-handling was conducted outdoors while 

19 indoors was the dissolving and concentrating 

20 process, and then the de-watering, I guess. 

21 It's not watering, but making a dry sludge 

22 which was then re-packed. Material was 
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1 concentrated from about 1 percent to 2 percent 

2 and the incoming material was 0.2 percent 

3 uranium by mass. 

4 The slag came in 500-pound barrels 

5 from Electro Metallurgical. We've talked 

6 about that site as well. Barrels were then 

7 dumped onto a conveyor belt, carried the slag 

8 into the digest tanks and then the 

9 hydrochloric acid was added and diluted to the 

10 pH. Tanks were agitated and then about once 

11 every two days the liquid was decanted, more 

12 hydrochloric acid was added and the digestion, 

13 the slurry was then neutralized, pumped 

14 through a filter press. The filtered material 

15 was then put back in barrels again to be 

16 shipped on for further processing. So it was 

17 a fairly straightforward process, I think, 

18 that we've seen at some of these other sites, 

19 very similar to the other facilities that the 

20 committee, the AWE committee has been looking 

21 at. 

22 The cohort petition main 
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1 contention was that there were unmonitored 

2 workers. They presented an affidavit 

3 indicating there was no internal or external 

4 monitoring done at Hooker and NIOSH could find 

5 no indication of monitoring in the records 

6 either. 

7 The dose reconstruction 

8 methodology was originally described in an 

9 Appendix AA to the TBD-6001. Then, when the 

10 TBD-6001 was retired and each of the 

11 individual sites were then given their own TBD 

12 a Hooker TBD replaced the Appendix AA. It was 

13 changed in the proposed method of dose 

14 reconstruction including revising the approach 

15 to the use of surrogate data for internal dose 

16 reconstruction. The petition timeline was 

17 submitted on March 9th with a proposed Class 

18 for the furnace room. The finding was not 

19 qualified initially, went back to the 

20 petitioner with some suggestions. A proposed 

21 Class revision was sent in on the 26th of 

22 September. It was qualified for evaluation in 
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1 October and in May of 2010 the Evaluation 

2 Report was issued and it was assigned to the 

3 AWE formerly 6001 Work Group for review. 

4 We went through this at several 

5 meetings of the Work Group and after SC&A's 

6 review and our discussions with NIOSH in 

7 August, again keeping in mind that our meeting 

8 was shortly before the August presentation and 

9 therefore not a lot of time had transpired for 

10 the petitioners to get access to the minutes 

11 from our Work Group meeting. But we did make 

12 a recommendation of denial in August. The 

13 Board after some discussion, tabled the 

14 recommendation of denial and requested that we 

15 obtain a more detailed review of the surrogate 

16 data assessment and we tasked SC&A to do that. 

17 And this also would allow more time for the 

18 petitioners to get access to documents as well 

19 as the minutes of our Work Group meeting.

20 In September we, AWE, the Work 

21 Group received a report from SC&A further 

22 detailing what they did and how they evaluated 
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1 the NIOSH proposal for surrogate data use. You 

2 should all have received that memo as well. 

3 Our Work Group met on the 21st of November to 

4 discuss predominantly the White Paper as well 

5 as to review any other outstanding issues. And 

6 as you'll see from the document, the original 

7 surrogate data proposal by NIOSH was based on 

8 analysis of 18 air samplers for handling of C9 2 slag at three different facilities, 

10 Electromet, Fernald and Mallinckrodt.

11 Predominantly the samples that 

12 were available and included in that were from 

13 Fernald. They used the upper 95th percentile 

14 of air sampling results in that exposure 

15 reconstruction surrogate data modeling, and as 

16 you'll see more than 70 percent of the air 

17 samples are BZ. The residual period 

18 deposition/resuspension model used was the one 

19 that has been used in other sites for residual 

20 periods with a resuspension factor of one to 

21 ten to the minus sixth per meter and no source 

22 term decay.
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1 So the modeling was predominantly 

2 done for the handling of slag in the wooden 

3 barrels based on the MCNPX calculations. 

4 Exposure to workers and surface contamination 

5 again was based on those calculations of slag 

6 dust settling from the 95th percentile air 

7 concentration. So the critical issue here is 

8 the surrogate data, the establishment of the 

9 95th upper percentile and then from that flows 

10 the exposures on surface contamination, et 

11 cetera. External dose rates for the residual 

12 period were the same as for the operating 

13 period. 

14 In May NIOSH issued their White 

15 Paper as I said for the use of surrogate data. 

16 That now has been expanded upon and we 

17 initially requested NIOSH to revise the White 

18 Paper so that it would be better, it was clear 

19 where the samples came from and what they were 

20 and how they were used. That was done and 

21 then we forwarded that to SC&A for their 

22 review which they did. Then this was all 
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1 before the August meeting and they felt that 

2 they used as a measure our Board guidelines 

3 for the use of surrogate data. The NIOSH 

4 White Paper had gone through addressing each 

5 one of our surrogate use criteria and SC&A 

6 felt that the selected surrogate data would 

7 result in a plausible bounding estimate for 

8 the internal exposures at Hooker. The Thurber 

9 September 22nd memo, SC&A when they presented 

10 and did the discussion in August pointed out 

11 that there actually were, or they felt that it 

12 was appropriate to use an expanded number of 

13 samples anywhere. Their initial review they 

14 used 67 samples and there were some additional 

15 samples and they felt several of the samples 

16 that NIOSH included in their use of the 18 

17 probably didn't quite fit the criteria so they 

18 removed those. So the total number of samples 

19 is somewhere between 67 and 72 that SC&A used. 

20 And when they calculated using that expanded 

21 number the upper confidence limit really was 

22 quite similar to what NIOSH had found. NIOSH 
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1 was using 806 as the upper 95th percentile 

2 with the expanded analysis. The two different 

3 analyses, SC&A had a low value of 555 and with 

4 the larger number of samples, the 759 value

5 all pretty much within the same range.

6 SC&A and our Work Group concluded 

7 that when one is looking at the 95th 

8 percentile it's not particularly sensitive to 

9 the differing technical judgments of the two 

10 groups on which samples to select. I think 

11 our Work Group felt that the use of only 18 

12 samples might be a bit on the small side so we 

13 were very I would say comforted to see that 

14 when SC&A expanded it in fact it -- you now 

15 had a more robust database but the results 

16 really were quite similar and in fact the 

17 NIOSH value which turned out to be a bit 

18 higher therefore would in fact be sufficiently 

19 protected.

20 After our meeting and discussions 

21 in November we continue as a Work Group to 

22 believe that the surrogate data used as 
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1 proposed followed our criteria and therefore 

2 was appropriate to use it when one uses our 

3 criteria as the measure. The doses for 

4 workers at Hooker can be plausibly 

5 reconstructed using the information in the 

6 Hooker TBD and we continued to hold to our 

7 previous recommendation on petition SEC-0014

8 that it be rejected, that in fact doses could 

9 be reconstructed.

10 There were three remaining issues 

11 that were also discussed in August and that is 

12 simply the use of surrogate data, that in fact 

13 there were no measurements at this facility. 

14 But our criteria for the use of surrogate data 

15 I think were quite carefully evaluated. Again, 

16 the total number of samples used could be 

17 argued we never set a lower limit to make it 

18 representative or reasonable. Then the issue 

19 was also raised that for our surrogate data 

20 use a large proportion of those samples came 

21 from Fernald and the Fernald Work Group really 

22 had not spent much time looking at the air 
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1 data because they were actually using the 

2 biomonitoring data which again in our protocol 

3 we always go with the biomonitoring data 

4 before we would kind of default to the air 

5 monitoring data. And there was some question 

6 about whether the Fernald data was reliable 

7 and therefore we should use it. 

8 Our Work Group, we really weren't 

9 in a position to review all of the air data or 

10 all of the data from Fernald to make a 

11 judgment on whether or not it's reliable or 

12 not. But that's one of the issues we'd like 

13 to discuss today and we had asked NIOSH to 

14 present. They had looked at it, looked at the 

15 challenge to that data and whether this 

16 particular set of data that we're using could 

17 be determined to be reliable and therefore 

18 appropriate for use with the surrogate data. 

19 If one takes out the Fernald data then the 

20 total number of, in the original number of 

21 samples that NIOSH was using falls 

22 substantially and we get into the small 
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1 numbers on yes, it is comparable or useful 

2 data but is it robust enough to actually use 

3 to calculate surrogate exposures.

4 Then the third issue was raised to 

5 us. We as a committee were not aware that the 

6 petitioners had a FOIA request in and 

7 therefore they had requested that we postpone 

8 at this meeting further decision-making until 

9 they had actually received a response to the 

10 FOIA since our Work Group wasn't familiar with 

11 what the requests were in the FOIA. And since 

12 then I don't know if, Ted, you want to speak 

13 to the FOIA issue or not but my understanding 

14 is it was a rather generic request for all 

15 email traffic of which now NIOSH has 

16 identified some 4,000 documents which now have 

17 to go through redacting out personal names and 

18 things like that in it where in the past when 

19 we've postponed it's typically been that the 

20 FOIA request was for technical documents that 

21 the petitioners had not been able to get 

22 access to or review where this one is a much 
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1 more generic type of request. And again the 

2 issue would be do we delay what could be a 

3 number of months as the FOIA review and 

4 approval works its way through HHS and then 

5 over to DOL as well. And the FOIA request 

6 went in I think about four months ago, was 

7 that what we found out?

8 MR. KATZ: I think the end of 

9 August.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: End of August, 

11 so it's been in the works for awhile. But it 

12 really is unlikely to uncover a great deal of 

13 new, or any new technical information as best 

14 we can tell. So that, these are really the 

15 three issues that we bring to you and I don't 

16 know if NIOSH, someone wants to? I'll turn it 

17 to John and let him talk about the Fernald 

18 data.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Ted needs to say 

20 something and then I wanted to say something.

21 MR. KATZ: So before we launch 

22 into any discussion about the Fernald data two 
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1 things. One, I need to note for the record 

2 that Dr. Lockey has a conflict with Fernald so 

3 he will recuse himself from any discussion of 

4 Fernald. He doesn't need to leave the table 

5 because this is about Hooker, not Fernald, but 

6 he does need to recuse himself from the 

7 discussion. 

8 Likewise there are a couple of 

9 DCAS staff here who also have conflicts. I 

10 believe it's Jim Neton and Stu Hinnefeld, is 

11 that correct? And LaVon Rutherford, okay. 

12 Oh, and Pete Darnell is waving his hands, 

13 that's four. Those individuals too would of 

14 course not participate in any discussion of 

15 Fernald. So I just need to note that for the 

16 record. They don't need to leave though 

17 because again this is not about Fernald, it's 

18 about Hooker for the most part.

19 And the other thing, I just wanted 

20 to check as well on the line whether we have, 

21 since we're discussing an SEC petition at this 

22 point whether we have Mike Gibson on the line? 
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1 And Mike, if you are I assume you're on mute. 

2 You might have to un-mute yourself to let us 

3 know. And Mark Griffon, do you know? Mark 

4 Griffon, are you on the line possibly? And I 

5 guess I could try too Richard Lemen who's the 

6 third missing Member. Are you on the line? 

7 Okay, not hearing them unless they pop up 

8 shortly we'll assume they're absent right now.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, before the 

10 recusals do not participate I was going to 

11 open it up if anybody had questions for Henry. 

12 Josie, go ahead.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Henry, I just have 

14 a quick question. Your Work Group recommends 

15 to reject this SEC. Was that a unanimous 

16 decision within the Work Group?

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I believe 

18 so.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: The Work Group 

21 is only three, so.

22 MEMBER BEACH: That's why I was 
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1 wondering.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, any other 

3 Board questions?

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: And again, 

5 really the measure we used was not do we want 

6 to use surrogate data or not but rather does 

7 it meet the criteria that we rather 

8 laboriously worked through for the Board. And 

9 so our judgment was it met our criteria, 

10 therefore it would be appropriate to use it if 

11 you're going to use surrogate data at all.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. No more 

13 questions for Henry. Why don't we hear I 

14 believe Mark. Are you? And those of you that 

15 have recused are recused.

16 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this is Mark 

17 Rolfes with NIOSH. I'm a health physicist. 

18 I've been involved in the Fernald Work Group 

19 for I guess, I've been responsible for the 

20 Fernald site for probably about the past eight 

21 or nine years and have been working to review 

22 the Fernald air sampling data, the Fernald 
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1 data. We did --

2 MS. GIRARDO: Hello? My phone 

3 died out and I had to call back in so I don't 

4 know what -- sorry I missed.

5 MR. KATZ: Mary, hi. This is Ted 

6 Katz. That's Mary Girardo I believe on the 

7 line. Mary, right now we're in presentation 

8 phase of this discussion of Hooker. Okay? So 

9 this is not a comment session yet.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we will 

11 open it up. There will be a chance for 

12 comments in a few minutes.

13 MS. GIRARDO: Okay, thank you.

14 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead, Mark.

16 MR. ROLFES: I believe one of the 

17 concerns with the air sampling data, we had 

18 received an affidavit. It was actually 

19 prepared for a court case earlier on or for a 

20 court hearing involving the Fernald site. That 

21 was an individual who had indicated that he 

22 had been asked to conduct some re-sampling of 
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1 high airborne operations in plant 5. Now, 

2 this was involving green salt materials, it 

3 was involving the uranium and not a uranium 

4 contaminated material such as magnesium 

5 fluoride. But the concern about the air 

6 monitoring data, this individual had indicated 

7 that he had sampled the operation and had 

8 gotten an air concentration above the maximum 

9 allowable concentration so he was asked by his 

10 supervisor to re-sample that operation once 

11 again. This apparently occurred another five 

12 times. So he had been asked to re-sample this 

13 high air concentration operation approximately 

14 seven times. On the last time he was told to 

15 re-sample again and he had indicated that he 

16 had sampled in a location upwind from the 

17 workers' breathing zone. And at that time he 

18 had obtained a result which was below the 

19 maximum allowable concentration. 

20 So we have no indication that the 

21 first seven data points are destroyed or 

22 manipulated in any way. There's a possibility 
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1 that the final data point for this particular 

2 operation could have been manipulated to 

3 appear to have had a lower air concentration. 

4 However, if you take a look at the data that 

5 is collected we have no indication that the 

6 first seven data points were destroyed and we 

7 don't believe that the distribution of the air 

8 concentrations for that particular sample 

9 would be skewed significantly by one low 

10 sample. I don't know if there are any 

11 additional details that you would like but we 

12 do have this individual's affidavit available 

13 to us, and then also a deposition which 

14 clarifies some of the points of this 

15 particular single air sample where the 

16 individual had expressed concern that he was, 

17 he felt that he was manipulating some of the 

18 data. 

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Could you 

20 comment on the dates when this happened?

21 MR. ROLFES: The individual did 

22 not specify a particular date, he only 
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1 specified a particular operation which was the 

2 plant 5 jolting operation where they were 

3 compacting green salt and magnesium prior to 

4 reducing it into uranium metal. It is 

5 possible, well the Fernald facility didn't 

6 operate until after Hooker was closed. So as 

7 far as the specific data I don't have one 

8 because one was not provided to us.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I guess I have a 

10 question though it's more for SC&A to comment 

11 on. I don't know if Bill Thurber is on the 

12 line who wrote the report but I think the 

13 question is in your review of this the data 

14 set, did you think -- and I think your 

15 conclusion was that it was robust enough --

16 pardon me, Wanda -- and also that there was 

17 appropriate in terms of what operations were 

18 covered to be used for this. In some ways it 

19 could be a separate determination on, I guess 

20 what I'm getting at, on Fernald itself because 

21 there may be other operations and so forth and 

22 the comprehensiveness or utility of the data 
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1 for that could, you know, could reach a 

2 different determination. So, that's -- I 

3 guess it's sort of, you know, we're focusing 

4 in here on sort of the utility of this and 

5 appropriateness of this Fernald data set for 

6 use in -- on the Hooker facility. Is that?

7 DR. MAURO: Yes, I understand your 

8 question. This is John Mauro, I'm with SC&A. 

9 Bill Thurber I do not believe is on the line. 

10 I spoke to him earlier to see if he could join 

11 us but he was engaged in some other matters. 

12 But we did speak at length about it to refresh 

13 my memory regarding the matters with regard to 

14 this specific issue. And he was very careful 

15 in selecting data related to the handling of 

16 the slag type material so that he picked air 

17 sampling data that was as closely related to 

18 the operations. And it did not only include 

19 Fernald, but it also included these other two 

20 facilities.

21 And so I guess to answer your 

22 question the data set, now I just -- we didn't 
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1 investigate the issue related to Fernald and 

2 the questions that were just answered by Mark 

3 but all I can say is it sounds like the data 

4 set that was at question at Fernald really was 

5 the different airborne samples and operation 

6 than the particular type of dumping operation 

7 related to this dolomite slag type material. 

8 So the best I can do is say that I believe the 

9 data set that was -- the numbers of 

10 measurements that were selected by Bill 

11 specifically for this analysis is probably not 

12 affected by this particular issue that was 

13 raised earlier. And I think Mark addressed 

14 that matter if that helps.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I would 

16 just, I guess in thinking about it is here we 

17 have actually, you know, two different -- you 

18 sort of independently went back to the 

19 sampling data set and essentially made a, I 

20 won't say it was a completely independent 

21 selection but sort of re-looked at the whole 

22 selection issue --
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- in terms of 

3 its appropriateness. So again, I think that 

4 speaks to, you know, that it would be 

5 something that would certainly lend some 

6 credibility to this part of the process. Yes, 

7 thank you. Dr. Poston? Oh, okay. Brad, 

8 okay. I'm sorry, I was -- I guess he put it 

9 up and you moved your hand at the same time 

10 and I just.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just bring into 

12 question because the Fernald Work Group is not 

13 using air sampling data because it was in 

14 question and that's why we went to the bio 

15 part. And Mark brought that up but we have 

16 not dug into if the air sampling data is good. 

17 There is an affidavit out there that it was 

18 questioned and Mark brought up numerous times 

19 that there's nothing to say that this was 

20 taken out, this information, but there's 

21 nothing to, you know. There's many questions 

22 with the air sampling data on it, especially 
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1 with Fernald.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer?

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: But in the 

4 hierarchy of things I think the bio-samples 

5 take precedence in any event over air sampling 

6 data. It was not, maybe Mark can clarify but 

7 I thought that was the rationale as opposed to 

8 the credentialing of the data in some way.

9 MR. ROLFES: That's correct, Dr. 

10 Ziemer. Anytime that we have bioassay 

11 monitoring available to us we would use that 

12 as one of the highest pieces of, you know, one 

13 of the pieces of information that's highest on 

14 the health physics hierarchy of data that we 

15 would use to perform a dose reconstruction 

16 specific for an individual. Because of the 

17 wealth of information that we have for 

18 Fernald, the number of bioassay samples that 

19 we have collected there's no need for us to 

20 use the uranium air sampling data. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David?

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I'm afraid the 
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1 conversation is making me more confused, not 

2 less confused. The document that -- documents 

3 that we're looking at regarding Hooker are 

4 using the Fernald air data, is that correct? I 

5 mean, they're described here as air 

6 concentrations. So the issue of the hierarchy 

7 is I don't think germane to how the Fernald 

8 data are being applied to the Hooker 

9 situation. If I'm understanding the 

10 discussion correctly we're back to estimation 

11 of air concentrations for Hooker based on 

12 Fernald air monitoring data.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me 

14 clarify what my point was. I thought there 

15 was an implication that the Fernald Group was 

16 not using the air sample data because of 

17 questionable credentials as it were, but the 

18 reason it's not used has to do with the 

19 hierarchy issue. That was my point.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, okay.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: And part of my 

22 point was because the Fernald Work Group, 
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1 because we are not using that air sampling 

2 data we have not gone into it and dug into it 

3 as we could because we used the bioassay.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think, 

5 this is a further point but I think one of the 

6 points I was trying to make is that I'm not 

7 sure it is necessary before we act on Hooker 

8 for you to have done that given the selection, 

9 given the process that's in place for applying 

10 that in the Hooker evaluation. I guess I'm 

11 not as concerned about that in terms of the 

12 application given the way that we're using 

13 that data, given what we know about it and 

14 given the way that the data was selected. And 

15 again, if this were being used in Fernald I 

16 could actually see where the Fernald Group 

17 could reach a different determination 

18 depending as you would apply it to that 

19 overall workforce. It can differ and I think 

20 it's how are we using it as applied to the 

21 Hooker operations and the type of work that 

22 was done at Hooker. Any other comments or 
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1 questions? 

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So is the 

3 argument that there's coherence between 

4 evidence from Electromet, Mallinckrodt and 

5 Fernald and therefore we're not hanging our 

6 hat entirely upon the Fernald air sampling 

7 data whether some of us have concerns about it 

8 or not?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That. Yes, 

10 that's one. Sort of a separate, in some sense 

11 validation by the fact that we have at least 

12 to some extent was an independent selection of 

13 samples by SC&A for use, simply developed 

14 their own data set for use here. And again, 

15 so we're not as reliant on just simply one 

16 group, NIOSH going in and making that 

17 determination. Yes. Any other questions at 

18 this point? Okay.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask 

20 one question of SC&A?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: This was about 
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1 -- I mean, one of the other issues with using 

2 surrogate data is not just extrapolation 

3 between places but also extrapolations over 

4 time. And here some of the samples that we're 

5 talking about are taken let's say a decade to 

6 two decades after the period of operations. 

7 You're shaking your head no.

8 DR. MAURO: The timeliness -- I 

9 remember the surrogate data report, I reviewed 

10 it, Bill prepared it and timeliness was one of 

11 the issues. And I recall the position, and 

12 I'd have to look at it again, was that the 

13 timeliness was supportive. In other words, it 

14 wasn't that we had a break there. There's 

15 five criteria and that was one of them. And I 

16 can't give you the dates but I recall our 

17 finding was that the timeliness worked in a 

18 favorable way.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And from what 

20 I recall from what's in the report it's that 

21 the process was relatively consistent over 

22 time and so despite the fact that samples are 
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1 separated by a period of 15 years there's a 

2 sense that there weren't process changes.

3 DR. MAURO: Your recollection is 

4 better than mine. I wish I could say that I 

5 could -- we could probably get our hands on it 

6 because I remember the summary page where we 

7 have the criteria, we summarize each one. That 

8 may very well have been some of the language 

9 in there. I'm sure that the language itself 

10 is relatively brief. The summary level at the 

11 end of the report. If we could bring it up 

12 maybe it's even possible to show it on the 

13 screen, each of the -- our findings and the 

14 rationale why we felt they met the exclusivity 

15 requirement. That had to do with 95th 

16 percentile, the impact. And then the second 

17 one had to do with timeliness and I remember 

18 coming out favorably but it wouldn't hurt to 

19 just take a look at that if it's possible to 

20 just grab it.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If you let me 

22 get a word in I can point out where it is. 
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1 Page 5 of 7, sort of the middle of the page 

2 there. I don't think it's, I'm not sure if 

3 putting it up is even necessary. I mean, the 

4 process is slag handling, and slag handling is 

5 I think unlikely to have changed significantly 

6 over that time period. I think that's -- and 

7 that's the rationale that's stated in the SC&A 

8 report. I actually had the same question so I 

9 had to look back to the report while we were 

10 talking earlier.

11 DR. MAURO: Thanks for helping me 

12 out on that.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Which is why I 

14 had it up, because I think it is an important 

15 question that came up. Jim, did you have a 

16 comment?

17 DR. NETON: I was just going to 

18 read from the report that the surrogate data 

19 used for the natural right dumping operations 

20 collected between 1947 and '59. So all the 

21 surrogate data was in that time frame. And I 

22 forget the years now that Hooker is under 
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1 review for but it's in that same.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 

3 additional questions? If not then I'd like to 

4 hear from the -- is the petitioner still on 

5 the line and wish to make comments?

6 MS. GIRARDO: Yes, I'm here.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Go ahead. 

8 If you have any comments to make now you may.

9 MS. GIRARDO: Okay. Who am I 

10 talking to?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: This is Dr. 

12 Melius and the whole Board, and to the 

13 audience.

14 MS. GIRARDO: Okay. I have 

15 several items that I wanted to read off here. 

16 Item 1, before the Board makes any decision 

17 regarding Hooker Electrochemical Corp., 

18 petitioners request an extension of time since 

19 the request to Freedom of Information has not 

20 been answered. This extension would include 

21 time to receive and time to digest the 

22 material.
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1 Even though the petitioners were 

2 contacted by the federal advocate inquiring 

3 into this request, they are not throwing in 

4 the towel and feel justified in needing this 

5 extension. They also question whether anyone 

6 besides a Freedom of Information officer has 

7 the right to call the petitioner. The 

8 petitioners further add that they object to 

9 being contacted and cross examined.

10 Item 2, on the matter of the 

11 Ordnance Works in Lewiston, New York, would 

12 the Board reconsider these points? The Hooker 

13 workers went to the "dump" location on orders 

14 from their employer. Therefore, they were not 

15 Ordnance Works employees, but Hooker's since 

16 their salaries were supplied by Hooker. They 

17 should not be treated as outside contractors 

18 since they themselves did not receive any pay 

19 directly from another employer. Therefore, 

20 since Hooker sent them there and they were 

21 working for Hooker, the Lewiston site becomes 

22 a Hooker location and since this SEC includes 
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1 all locations, then it should be retroactively 

2 approved to the date of the SEC in Lewiston. 

3 The Board might also want to ponder the fact 

4 that nowhere in the United States could a 

5 comparable "dump" site be found. That is 

6 amazing.

7 Item 3, keeping in mind, that 

8 Mallinckrodt does not fit the description of a 

9 company that is near, would the Board give 

10 serious consideration to this question? If 

11 the documents for Mallinckrodt were found to 

12 be spurious in regard to thorium, then can the 

13 Board be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that 

14 the Mallinckrodt documents on uranium can 

15 validly and justifiably be used in judging 

16 Hooker Electrochemical Company?

17 Item 4, would the Board also 

18 consider that three companies have been 

19 mentioned throughout this decision-making 

20 process regarding Hooker Electrochemical 

21 Corporation, namely, Electromet, Fernald and 

22 Mallinckrodt. However, the Work Group seems 
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1 to have focused only on Mallinckrodt and the 

2 other two companies were still being debated 

3 when the Work Group made their decision. This 

4 does not serve the petitioners of Hooker 

5 Electrochemical Corporation in a just manner.

6 This also does, in fact, 

7 invalidate the Work Group's recommendation for 

8 denial of the SEC because a judgment was made 

9 before all the evidence was in. According to 

10 the history of "surrogate data," a minimum of 

11 three companies was chosen to strengthen the 

12 validity of the comparison. Now, if you 

13 eliminate two of those companies and just use 

14 one, you have invalidated the "surrogate 

15 data." So as a further illustration, using a 

16 company that could not be trusted in one 

17 regard only opens the door to suspicion of any 

18 comparison if you insist on using that same 

19 company, namely Mallinckrodt. 

20 You also must remember that 

21 Fernald was questionable in its practices. 

22 Ethics must play a role in the selection of 
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1 candidates for "surrogate data." And the 

2 Hooker Electrochemical Corporation in this 

3 case, the use of these three companies as 

4 "surrogate data" is certainly suspect. 

5 Item 5. When asked for an 

6 explanation during the last Work Group 

7 teleconference of SC&A about their report on 

8 the 95 percentile, the answer given was that 

9 although their figure differed from those of 

10 NIOSH, they conceded to NIOSH since SC&A 

11 believed it to be more favorable to the 

12 claimant. The petitioner asked, "In what way 

13 was it more favorable, SEC or dose 

14 reconstruction?" The answer was dose 

15 reconstruction. The petitioner balked at that 

16 and left the conference knowing that SEC is 

17 more favorable to the claimant than dose 

18 reconstruction.

19 Item 6. The petitioners have been 

20 made to know that they are dealing with 

21 scientists who cannot fathom anything beyond 

22 formulas, statistics, or in a word anything 
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1 that is not quantitative. In addition, the 

2 petitioners remind the Board that the author 

3 of the 10-Year Review for NIOSH points out how 

4 to the petitioners NIOSH is looked at as an 

5 enemy. To the reader of the 10-Year Review 

6 only one statement sums up the whole study and 

7 it is this: NIOSH, you have done some things 

8 okay, but all in all, you could have done a 

9 better job.

10 What has also sadly come to the 

11 attention of the petitioner is that there is 

12 the distinct possibility that Hooker 

13 Electrochemical Corporation is being set up as 

14 a test case for all future companies coming 

15 under review for this program and that is 

16 probably the "real" reason for the obvious 

17 rush to close by the Work Group as defined --

18 and the Board -- back up a little bit. That 

19 is probably the real reason for the obvious 

20 rush to close by the Work Group and the Board, 

21 not the loss of "freshness" to the memory of 

22 the Work Group as defined by the federal 
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1 advocate regarding the Freedom of Information 

2 inquiry.

3 Now we the petitioners hope that 

4 you are all better than all of that and we 

5 leave you with these words entitled, "The Rule 

6 of Three." 

7 If one is good, why look for 

8 three? 

9 This is the current baffling 

10 mystery! 

11 Who says "surrogate data" is the 

12 way to go? 

13 Not those who are really in the 

14 know!

15 Compensatory programs must be free 

16 of this numerical "Rule of Three." 

17 These scientists, as great as they 

18 are,

19 From simple math have gone too 

20 far.

21 

22 Three locations minus two
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1 An equation of one, can't be true!

2 The example given was very clear.

3 Surrogates' locality must be 

4 reasonably near.

5 

6 Searching the country is a ploy

7 Leading to what can only annoy.

8 Surrogate data must have very 

9 clear specifics,

10 Not the generality of mathematical 

11 hieroglyphics.

12 

13 Can't all of you truthfully see

14 Surrogate data isn't what it used 

15 to be?

16 

17 What is needed is a clear recipe,

18 Listing steps as one, two, three.

19 

20 Surrogate data's original true 

21 design

22 Did not have compensatory programs 
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1 in mind.

2 This has been made very clear.

3 Seeing an injustice leads to fear.

4 

5 Realistically, the Surrogate Data 

6 use

7 Has resulted in a sad abuse.

8 The question is why the need was 

9 seen

10 Especially when "no records" was 

11 the theme?

12 

13 What is the real truth behind this 

14 obstruction?

15 Is it only to satisfy the "lovers" 

16 of dose reconstruction!

17 I want to thank all of you for the 

18 attention you've given me this afternoon, and 

19 even though we are still in the season of 

20 Advent, on behalf of the petitioners I'd 

21 sincerely like to extend to all of you a 

22 Christmas wish that God will grant all of you 
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1 the promises that the birth of Christ holds 

2 remembering that they are solely for men of 

3 good will. Thank you. 

4 MR. KATZ: Mary, hi, this is Ted 

5 Katz. Before -- I imagine you'll hang in with 

6 us but if you would, it sounds like you might 

7 have had a written statement there. And while 

8 we could all hear you here it took a lot of 

9 concentration and I wonder if you wouldn't 

10 mind for the court reporter's sake in 

11 particular sending me your written statement 

12 if you indeed have it written down?

13 MS. GIRARDO: Yes, it is. I'm all 

14 set to go and good old Josh there will receive 

15 it by email.

16 MR. KATZ: Thank you. If you just 

17 email it to me, Mary, that would be great. I 

18 think you have my email address. Ted Katz. 

19 Thanks.

20 MS. GIRARDO: No, I don't, but I 

21 can send it to Josh and he can forward it to 

22 you.
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay, that'll work too. 

2 Thank you. 

3 MS. GIRARDO: Pardon me?

4 MR. KATZ: That'll work too. 

5 That'll be great, Mary. If you send it to 

6 Josh he'll get it to me. Thank you. 

7 MS. GIRARDO: Yes, I appreciate 

8 that you realize it took concentration. 

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks. Okay, 

10 Board Members. Questions or further 

11 questions? Comments? Yes, Paul. We will. I 

12 was going to sort of -- first, I was going to 

13 see if there was any other questions about --

14 that came up. Yes.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess, you know 

16 I realize we have to use surrogate data and 

17 we've had high debates over surrogate data. 

18 But the thing that bothers me about Hooker a 

19 little bit is how much data do you have? 

20 According to the paperwork there, zero. Is 

21 there any air sampling data from them or 

22 bioassay from Hooker? So it's zippo. And I 
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1 understand, I just really have a hard time 

2 using surrogate data from a site, three sites 

3 actually that are in question, in my mind in 

4 question. I just, that to me is using, you 

5 know, you can use as much information as you 

6 want but if it's no good. Just wondering.

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: I think the, I 

8 mean that's part of the issue. And what we 

9 tried to do was use the criteria that we set 

10 up to see. And the criteria don't really say 

11 you have to have some measurements or 

12 something at a facility at all. This 

13 basically was just a, you know, a fairly 

14 simple process of moving stuff through and 

15 dissolving it and then filtering it out and 

16 re-bagging it so the process was very similar 

17 at these things. I think as a committee when 

18 we looked at it, it was kind of, of all the 

19 possible surrogate data uses that the 

20 committee has looked at this seemed to be the 

21 closest to the measurements are of activities 

22 that are performed at all of these various 
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1 facilities rather than trying to use some 

2 others. So it's about as good as you can get 

3 but the fact that there are no measurements 

4 from the facility at least as I understand it 

5 at all, that, you know, again that is an 

6 issue. But we don't have any indication that 

7 anything here was done differently. But 

8 again, nobody was there to say yes, this is --

9 they didn't move from here to Fernald for 

10 instance to say oh yes, we did it the same. 

11 So it's a conundrum as to if it's, 

12 the data is now relatively robust, the 

13 estimates are upper bound so what do we want 

14 to do. That's basically, we're three of us 

15 and we're asking the rest of you to weigh in. 

16 I think we were a little uneasy with it as 

17 well but it's, we came down on the side of 

18 using this data. If you agree to use the data 

19 then it follows that you'd have to, you know, 

20 reject the SEC. 

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: And Henry, I 

22 understand your point. I understand your 
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1 conundrum too. I just, my personal feeling is 

2 I thought the reason we had SECs if we had 

3 insufficient data, this is why SECs were put 

4 in. That's my conundrum.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, SECs were 

6 put in if we're unable to do dose 

7 reconstruction with sufficient accuracy and I 

8 think that's, yes. There are sites where 

9 there's lots of data as we know and it does 

10 not lend itself. So that's not the only 

11 criteria. You know, it is obviously one 

12 factor in that but it's sort of keeping in 

13 mind. And I think also as a Board we voted

14 to, you know, use surrogate data in, you know, 

15 certain criteria. In looking this over I tend 

16 to agree with Henry and the Work Group, this 

17 is certainly a simple enough operation and a 

18 straightforward enough use that I'm very 

19 comfortable with it. Jim Lockey?

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Ted, make sure I 

21 can comment on this. But on slide 13, the 

22 Thurber memo, what I was really looking at was 
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1 the 95 percent confidence level and how 

2 assured you were of that boundary. It seemed 

3 like from that memo that no matter what 

4 technique you were using that was going to be 

5 a bounding dose. Am I interpreting that 

6 right?

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. I mean, 

8 you've got a range but --

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: But that is --

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: -- the 

11 distributions when you get out to the 95th is 

12 not much difference. Because the ones that 

13 stay in in all of the analyses, the high ones 

14 stay there so you're not eliminating enough 

15 that it really weights it.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: But if you use 

17 different technical judgments it is still 

18 going to be found -- it wasn't --

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I mean you 

20 go NIOSH -- and they haven't changed their 

21 position -- said to use 18 samples now. I 

22 think four of those samples SC&A thought well, 
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1 those really aren't what some of these guys 

2 may be doing so they took them out when they 

3 did theirs and then they added in a great deal 

4 larger numbers because I think our committee 

5 was sort of looking at well, what's the 

6 smallest. You can calculate a 95 percent 

7 confidence interval around 3 points but you 

8 know, those statistics are pretty flexible at 

9 that time. So whether you use 67 samples or 

10 18, the number, the 95th percentile you know 

11 moved a little but not much and I think we 

12 stayed with NIOSH's because theirs actually 

13 was a little bit higher, not because we 

14 thought it was a more robust approach.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 

16 have -- I think there are two reasons that 

17 have been put forward for possibly delaying 

18 this again so I wanted to talk about this 

19 before we move forward. I think the first 

20 issue was the one, well, we have not finished 

21 our review of the data that's being, the sites 

22 from which the data is being used, you know, 
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1 the surrogate data comes from, particularly 

2 Fernald. And I think the question is whether 

3 that is, is it necessary to weight. It's not 

4 something that's likely to happen very soon 

5 given all the work that the Fernald Work Group 

6 has, and other issues on the SEC that the 

7 Fernald Work Group has to deal with so it 

8 would mean a substantial delay. And I just 

9 don't know if people had thoughts or comments 

10 on that, or think strongly we should delay or 

11 should not delay? Wanda?

12 MEMBER MUNN: There appears to be 

13 no extreme reason for us to delay for that 

14 particular purpose. If we postpone each one 

15 of especially these AWEs that come to us based 

16 on the assumption that we haven't completed 

17 some similar kind of activity or some related 

18 activity at the larger site then we could just 

19 push everything to the back-burner and 

20 nobody's going to be happy with that. It does 

21 not appear that there's a close enough 

22 association that it would be necessary for us 
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1 to postpone for that specific reason.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

3 Josie?

4 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I would argue 

5 the opposite. There's an awful lot of data 

6 from Fernald being used for this surrogate 

7 data I believe. The biggest share of it is 

8 from Fernald, 95 percent. So didn't the 

9 petitioner also ask us to delay?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: For a number of 

11 reasons. I'm going through --

12 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so --

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- the reasons 

14 that have come out one at a time so we can --

15 MEMBER BEACH: So there's my 

16 reason for Fernald, 95 percent.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 

18 want to? 

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: The only thing, 

20 if we do on the Fernald I guess we need to 

21 then have a strategy for how do you go about

22 validating that data. You can't ignore the 
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1 affidavit that came in, that's a concern, so 

2 you either have to say any concern like that 

3 means the data is gone or shouldn't be used, 

4 or we do like here and say well, in this 

5 particular instance, this type of air sample 

6 data is, it's consistent with the other data 

7 and therefore it's appropriate to be used. But 

8 we need a -- there needs to be some decision 

9 because we can't make the affidavit go away so 

10 you're always going to have that question 

11 there. It's only a matter of does it apply to 

12 these, you know, 16 or the broader number of 

13 samples as well. But there is consistency, I 

14 mean, within the Fernald data it's pretty 

15 consistent whether you'll be using the smaller 

16 number of samples or the larger number. So 

17 there don't seem to be any major outliers 

18 there but it's how are we going to resolve 

19 that and maybe we just need to have more time 

20 with the Board to decide on, you know, 

21 expanding our surrogate data use thing to do 

22 you need to have different criteria to be 
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1 added.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just add 

3 that also keep in mind that none of our 

4 decisions are final. There's always new 

5 information that can come forward and I expect 

6 we'll have surprises all sorts of ways down 

7 the road. Because as we know, even finding 

8 documents is not by far a perfect process as 

9 we go along here. So there is opportunity for 

10 these decisions to be reopened. And so I 

11 think that is something to keep in mind that 

12 you know, should, whenever the Fernald data or 

13 some other thing gets reviewed and reopened 

14 then there's a different finding then the 

15 implications of that for other sites would be 

16 looked at and could be addressed. Paul, you 

17 had a comment too?

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, Mark has 

19 addressed how that was looked at as far as 

20 Fernald but I just wanted to sort of reinforce 

21 one thing. And that is the implication that a 

22 survey person would be sent back to get a 
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1 better result is perhaps misleading. And I've 

2 had many cases like this. If I have a, when I 

3 was active doing this if I had a person who 

4 came in with a high sample I would always send 

5 them back for re-sampling because you want to 

6 number one, confirm that and number two, 

7 figure out where it's coming from. So 

8 multiple samples of a high reading above some 

9 limit is very common. The other part of that 

10 I think Mark pointed to was there's no 

11 indication that these high samples were 

12 removed from the distribution that was used. 

13 So in my mind the pedigree of the data is not 

14 in question. I don't know if the Fernald 

15 group will be looking at this data. Otherwise, 

16 do we need it for anything else? I'm on the 

17 Fernald Group and I don't remember that we 

18 actually need this. 

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, this is 

20 what I wanted to bring up, Paul. As you said 

21 there's no data showing that this data that 

22 was recovered was removed, but there's nothing 
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1 showing that it was also left in there. The 

2 question with the data comes up to is also 

3 it's not uncommon to go out there and get a 

4 high result but in the deposition I believe 

5 that it mentioned that -- he was to get one 

6 that was in order. The question of the whole 

7 air sampling data was in question so the 

8 Fernald Work Group, we have not looked at that 

9 because we are not going to use it. 

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, that's why 

11 I was asking who was really going to examine 

12 this. Would it be Fernald or?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: I understand the 

14 Work Group's -- all I wanted is the Fernald 

15 Work Group Chair to let people realize that we 

16 are not using the air sampling data for 

17 Fernald. So we have not dug into it for 

18 verifying its validity or anything else like 

19 that. We early on shut it off because we went 

20 with the urinalysis because that's what 

21 Fernald had very good.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The second issue 
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1 that's been brought up in terms of delaying 

2 this would be -- is the issue of the Freedom 

3 of Information request which my understanding 

4 is it will take a significant amount of time 

5 before that is addressed. I think while the 

6 Board, I think Henry stated this also is that 

7 while the Board has -- we have a precedent of, 

8 in situations where there are new technical 

9 documents or new information relevant to a 

10 petition being -- we've delayed action on. As 

11 far as I recall we have never delayed it for 

12 sort of a broad data request, particularly one 

13 dealing with emails and other information, not 

14 for technical documents. Personally I think 

15 those are different situations in terms of 

16 process and how we go about it. But I don't 

17 know if other people have comments or thoughts 

18 on that? If not I think we need to at least 

19 try to bring some closure today and looking 

20 for, I guess we really have a motion. 

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: You have a 

22 motion.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Action on? 

2 I think if anybody wants delay they can offer 

3 that as a motion but if not I think we should 

4 proceed to vote. The motion would be to 

5 accept NIOSH's findings and to basically turn 

6 down the SEC petition at this time. If no 

7 further discussion then, Ted, do you want to 

8 call the roll?

9 MR. KATZ: Okay. Excuse me?

10 MEMBER FIELD: What are we voting 

11 on?

12 MR. KATZ: We're voting on a 

13 motion to accept the NIOSH recommendation that 

14 the Class should not be added, that dose 

15 reconstruction can be done.

16 MR. KATZ: So, Dr. Anderson.

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 

18 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

19 MEMBER BEACH: No.

20 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: No. 

22 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.
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1 MEMBER FIELD: Yes. 

2 MR. KATZ: Just going to check on 

3 the phone, Mr. Gibson. Mike, are you on the 

4 line?

5 Okay, he is absent and the Board's 

6 policy is all absent Members we collect their 

7 vote after the fact.

8 Mr. Griffon, are you on the line?

9 Absent. And Dr. Lemen is not 

10 available, I believe, I know that.

11 Dr. Lockey?

12 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

18 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON. Yes

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: No.

3 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: So this action won't be 

6 complete until we collect the absentee votes 

7 but the motion will pass because it has nine 

8 yeas. So the motion does pass. 

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Next on 

10 the agenda, Stu, there you are. Now we're 

11 going to switch to doing the NIOSH 10-Year 

12 Review. I will say that we will need to stop 

13 this discussion right at 3:15 because we do 

14 have a presentation on the Weldon Spring and 

15 the petitioner is going to be on the line. I 

16 think we should try to say that -- and we will 

17 pick up on further discussion or questions, 

18 I'm not sure either -- depending on how we do 

19 with Weldon Spring or we'll pick it up 

20 tomorrow during our various times for Work 

21 Group discussions. Because I think this is 

22 important but. 
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. 

2 Ziemer, and thank you to the Board for -- I 

3 just flashed back three or four years --

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead, Mr. 

5 Elliott.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MR. HINNEFELD: You can always 

8 count on me for comic relief. Thank you, Dr. 

9 Melius, and thank you to the Board for 

10 agreeing to talk about this. This is, our 10-

11 Year Program Review is a process that's been 

12 going on for, I guess we started almost two 

13 years ago now in terms of the actual 

14 announcement that this was going to happen. 

15 And so then there was an investigation by a 

16 series of investigators sort of evaluating how 

17 we have done and they provided some pretty 

18 thoughtful and careful and helpful suggestions 

19 that we are struggling to implement, or we are 

20 working to implement. It's not so much a 

21 struggle as it's just work and of course we 

22 have jobs anyway so this is additive to what 
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1 we're trying to accomplish and keep the 

2 research and the dose reconstruction process 

3 moving and the SEC processes and all that. But 

4 I think that there's some very key 

5 interactions and very key relationships 

6 between the 10-Year Review objectives, what 

7 we're trying to accomplish in terms of our 

8 process improvements and the Board's action 

9 and the Board's oversight of the program. So 

10 I think there's some very key interactions 

11 here that I hope we can take advantage of in 

12 our work with the Board going forward.

13 Just to refresh everybody's memory 

14 the 10-Year Program Review was presented in a 

15 series of five review reports on the topics of 

16 dose reconstruction, quality of science, 

17 timeliness of programs and program products, 

18 SEC petitions and quality of science. All 

19 these reports are still available through our 

20 website. They're not actually posted on our 

21 website but from our website there's a link to 

22 the docket where all these reports are and 
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1 there is a sixth report which is sort of a 

2 summary of priority recommendations. 

3 That sixth report was prepared by 

4 NIOSH management and it is an attempt to 

5 identify what are considered the priority 

6 items and priority items to work on from those 

7 five reports. I believe all six of those 

8 reports were included on your memory stick for 

9 this meeting.

10 I'm going to go through these in a 

11 slightly different order than what they're 

12 listed here just for convenience of my 

13 presentation. The first area I want to talk 

14 about is quality of service and this relates 

15 to how well are we providing information to 

16 and listening to information from our claimant 

17 community and the advocate community. 

18 This kind of, this particular area 

19 of review and this particular question sort of 

20 rang true with me about the time this review 

21 started getting going when ANWAG posted on 

22 their website a summary of a poll that they 
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1 had done of people who had been affected by 

2 this program in some way. And there were a 

3 lot of findings on there and some of them were 

4 about the Department of Labor's part, some of 

5 them were about our part, some you couldn't 

6 really tell for sure which agency had caused 

7 the reaction of the claimant. 

8 But there was a clear message 

9 throughout that that certainly in our, the 

10 ones that pertained to our interactions and 

11 the ones that were sort of not terribly 

12 identifiable, and the clear message was that 

13 people don't think that we listen to them and 

14 when we talk to them they can't understand us. 

15 So to me that said a lot about 

16 what is it, you know, about some things that 

17 we need to improve. And so the quality of 

18 service findings in the 10-Year Program Review 

19 very much mirror those kinds of messages, that 

20 our communications to people is not done in a 

21 way that people can understand very well and 

22 that we do not, the claimants believe we don't 
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1 listen to them, so we are not communicating 

2 well enough with them. Maybe we're not 

3 listening well enough. Maybe we're listening 

4 better than they think and we just don't 

5 reinforce back to them that we heard what they 

6 said.

7 So, anyway, along these lines 

8 there were several issues or groupings of 

9 issues that we've been asked to look at from 

10 quality of service standpoint. One of those 

11 is related to our use of customer-supplied 

12 information, that being claimants and 

13 advocates. And to start that we figured we 

14 better inventory the various ways that we hear 

15 from our customers and there are a lot. There 

16 are a lot of routine ways we hear from our 

17 customers. We have routine passive 

18 communication vehicles where our website is 

19 open and people can write to our website. They 

20 can send comments to the docket. The more 

21 active ones, we go out to worker outreach 

22 meetings and try to obtain input from them or 
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1 explain to them what we're doing. We go to 

2 the Joint Worker Outreach with the Department 

3 of Energy and Department of Labor. We are now 

4 capturing and cataloguing the comments that 

5 are made to this body in public comment. And 

6 so we are now trying to build a system where 

7 we will have all these comments obtainable and 

8 that we are making sure that we are gathering 

9 the comments, dispositioning the comments in 

10 some fashion, you know, the ones that require 

11 response. We get a response and then we'll 

12 have to work out a way for how to make those 

13 responses available so that people know that 

14 we are getting back to them. It may be a 

15 mixture of direct communication to the 

16 commenter and postings of things for instance 

17 said in this meeting, or however we wanted to 

18 deal with those.

19 With respect to issues related to 

20 understandability of information, we've done 

21 quite a lot of work on this and we are 

22 continuing to do more because there's so much 
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1 to do. We write so many communication 

2 vehicles from routine communication vehicles 

3 about dose reconstruction that we include in 

4 the packet that we send to new claimants to 

5 the information on our website which is really 

6 what's getting the bulk of the work right now 

7 on to the letters we send to petitioners and 

8 the letters we attach to SEC documentation. We 

9 have in fact rewritten some of the SEC routine 

10 documents and have managed to reduce the 

11 readability scale as determined by this little 

12 piece of software in Microsoft Word from about 

13 14 to 16 years of education down to about 12 

14 years of education for the ones we've done. So 

15 that's what we're trying to accomplish is to 

16 make the readability of these documents 

17 somewhat easier. We really feel like we 

18 should be writing for no higher than a high 

19 school graduate if we can. One of the things 

20 that work against us is reconstruction has 

21 four syllables and the number of syllables per 

22 word increases your readability scale in these 
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1 software. So we do have a little bit of an 

2 uphill battle on some of these things.

3 And then access to information, we 

4 are engaged in a project to aggressively put 

5 on our website Work Group products so that 

6 people who participate in our Work Groups can 

7 understand the documents or see the documents 

8 at least that are being discussed. I'm sure 

9 it's hard enough to follow along with our 

10 discussions at Work Groups but if you can't 

11 even see the document that's being discussed 

12 you really don't have a hope. So we're trying 

13 to do that and we're trying to get up there 

14 the products from the various reviews that 

15 SC&A and the various Work Groups have done of 

16 our work to make sure those are available and 

17 available to the public. So this is, all 

18 these things are ongoing projects in order to 

19 try to arrive at a system that we can envision 

20 but have not accomplished yet. Before I move 

21 off that is there anything anybody wants to 

22 say in this area? Okay. 
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1 Timeliness of the five is the one 

2 that we feel like we're probably in the best 

3 shape in. The recommendations had to do with 

4 maintaining a high priority on an aggressive, 

5 well a high priority for DOL returns. The 

6 reason for that is that a person whose dose 

7 reconstruction is returned to us has already 

8 been in the system once, had to go through the 

9 dose reconstruction process, has been in it 

10 that long and then their case is returned to 

11 us because of an additional cancer or 

12 something and they're back in the system 

13 again. And they view their involvement with 

14 the process from the time they filed until now 

15 until they get their answer. So we place a 

16 higher priority on DOL returns and try to get 

17 those out more quickly than for instance new 

18 claims. We also continue to adopt aggressive 

19 timeliness objectives for dose reconstruction. 

20 Certainly we are now striving to 

21 get them all out within nine months of when we 

22 first receive it and a much shorter time from 
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1 when we have all the information available 

2 because the first part of the process on a 

3 claim is to get more information usually from 

4 the Department of Energy. So we are -- and we 

5 do that, both of those objectives we carry 

6 forward into the award fee criteria for our 

7 dose reconstruction contractor and those are 

8 updated every six months. So as we make 

9 progress we can continue to look for more 

10 aggressive objectives in the future.

11 The final one is aggressive time 

12 limits for the completion of the review of SEC 

13 petitions is a recommendation that we're going 

14 to struggle with a lot. We certainly already 

15 attempt to prepare our Evaluation Reports in 

16 the 180 days when at all possible and the 

17 review of course is a Board function. It 

18 depends upon our ability to provide additional 

19 information quickly as well as SC&A's and so 

20 that's a very complicated one. I think it may 

21 be that the Board may or may not want to 

22 consider whether it wants to have suggestions 
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1 about that.

2 There is, and I list it in that 

3 order because there is a third group, the 

4 third report is about SEC petitions. And so 

5 the timeliness on SEC petitions is probably 

6 better thought of in the SEC petition grouping 

7 of recommendation. 

8 One thing I meant to mention 

9 awhile ago when I was talking about quality of 

10 service is that many of these communication, 

11 the clarity of our communication and are we 

12 listening to our claimants, to our customers. 

13 Those are the kinds of questions that the 

14 Worker Outreach Work Group is and has been 

15 addressing and continues to address. And so 

16 along those lines I think that that piece of 

17 work, the 10-Year Review piece of work program 

18 in that area is a good source of material for 

19 the Worker Outreach Work Group to take up and 

20 say okay, in conjunction with this Work Group 

21 then can we move forward and does the Work 

22 Group want to do that. 
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1 Of course the Work Group will do 

2 what it wants, it's just a suggestion on my 

3 part that these activities we expect to engage 

4 us for awhile and we would certainly rather 

5 have the Advisory Board participate to the 

6 extent that they want, the Work Group 

7 participate to the extent that they want, for 

8 instance commenting on interim products. Maybe 

9 it's as easy as that, just, we have an interim 

10 product, a draft product, have the Work Group 

11 look at it then. I would rather have them 

12 look at it then and provide recommendations in 

13 all durations in course while we're preparing 

14 than to bring forth the full-fledged product 

15 and then have the Advisory Board at that point 

16 ask questions about well, why didn't you do 

17 this and this and this. So it would be much 

18 easier, much more fulfilling from our 

19 standpoint if we could at least get that 

20 feedback from the various Work Groups as we go 

21 through these processes.

22 With respect to SEC petitions of 
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1 course again there is an SEC Petition Work 

2 Group and so there is a Board structure that 

3 is set up to provide that same sort of 

4 interaction assistance to us in the SEC 

5 petition recommendation. For those of us in 

6 the trenches these are probably some of the 

7 more difficult of the recommendations to get 

8 our heads around because they speak of things 

9 that we don't necessarily speak of in terms of 

10 dividing policy and science. We tend to think 

11 of questions that come before us as science 

12 questions and the reviewers view is that, you 

13 know, in very many cases these decisions that 

14 are presented and addressed as science issues, 

15 you know, science really can't provide you the 

16 answer for, that the answer is going to be the 

17 result of a policy and what policy do you 

18 choose to guide you in certain circumstances. 

19 So the recommendation really was to think in 

20 those terms of what is it that science can 

21 inform us about and what is it that a policy 

22 has to provide our path. And so, and 
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1 specifically speak in those fashions. Part of 

2 this whole discussion, I don't know if this is 

3 -- to show you how confused I am I don't know 

4 if this is a science question or a policy 

5 question is that when you deal with a 

6 particular issue like thorium you should talk 

7 about the evolution and the context of why 

8 thorium now, why this thorium in the context 

9 of other thorium decisions you have made about 

10 reconstructability, why are you reaching this 

11 decision now in the context of other decisions 

12 along that same type of situation. I just use 

13 thorium by chance, it doesn't have to be a 

14 radionuclide-specific sort of question. So 

15 that's one thing is to kind of, you know, what 

16 determination you're making now and how does 

17 that fit in the context of other decisions. 

18 And part of this is also to write 

19 a policy memo which sort of describes, okay, 

20 we've done the science, it took us so far but 

21 here are the various policy positions that are 

22 being proposed in order to reach the 
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1 conclusion that we reached. So it has to do 

2 with that, speaking of some questions as 

3 policy questions and others as science 

4 questions.

5 The second large bullet there, 

6 work to define sufficient accuracy is of 

7 course very difficult. If we could have done 

8 that easily we would have done it when we 

9 wrote the regulation. I think our best 

10 approach there is to use the history of the 

11 program so far. We've got, what, eight years 

12 worth of history of SEC. I forget exactly

13 when the regulation was published. And so, 

14 and there have been quite a number of 

15 decisions made to add SECs or not to add SECs 

16 and so it's kind of a, for lack of a better 

17 term a case law study here to determine what 

18 is it, you know, what are the kinds of

19 situations and is there some way that we can 

20 use the precedents that have been reached so 

21 far in order to work on a series of statements 

22 about what does it mean to be sufficiently 
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1 accurate. So that again is quite a difficult 

2 one. We're not terribly far down the road on 

3 that.

4 The final one has to do with 

5 utilizing people other than, like, different 

6 than me to deal with some of these questions 

7 because the -- and I may be part of the 

8 contributing factor to why this ended up in 

9 the report. It's my experience as a health 

10 physicist that most of the times in your 

11 career you're given a set of data and you're 

12 told, you know, what's the answer and so you 

13 write down a set of assumptions and you say 

14 here's my answer. And it's not, you're not 

15 normally given the option to say, you know, 

16 there's not a sufficiency grade or a 

17 sufficiently accurate grade on my answer. I 

18 gave you all my assumptions so based on those 

19 assumptions these are my answers and so you 

20 just provide an answer, you know. I can't 

21 give you a sufficiently accurate answer is 

22 normally one of the things in the vernacular, 
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1 it's not one of the options when you were 

2 given the assignment. So there's a sort of 

3 professional, you know. 

4 So what we were trying to guard 

5 against or what we want to guard against, I'm 

6 not exactly sure how to do this since we're 

7 mainly health physicists in DCAS is to guard 

8 against that particular orientation, the 

9 professional orientation to provide an answer, 

10 you know, rather than to opt out, to say there 

11 is no sufficiently accurate answer here. So 

12 we are hopeful, you know, to find additional 

13 resources that we can utilize within the 

14 Institute probably on an assignment. I don't 

15 think we'd like to do a big hiring move in 

16 DCAS but maybe on an as-assignment as we move 

17 forward to utilize some additional resources 

18 for questions like that. Before I move on. 

19 And as I said earlier, there is an SEC 

20 Petition Work Group so these types of 

21 questions and the kinds of interaction I 

22 described earlier would serve us well I think 
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1 if we could work through this with the SEC 

2 Petition Work Group. 

3 The quality of science findings, 

4 again, there is a Scientific Issues Work 

5 Group. The Scientific Issues Work Group can 

6 choose to take these things up or not I think, 

7 it would depend on what they want to do. It 

8 would probably provide helpful guidance to us 

9 to see feedback at some points along the way 

10 rather than wait until the end. But one of 

11 the items was that as a general rule we don't 

12 get peer review on very many of the documents 

13 we publish. We do get some expert review for 

14 questions such as should CLL be a covered 

15 cancer, things like that, but we haven't --

16 but as a general rule we don't get peer review 

17 like a journal article gets peer review on the 

18 documents that we write. 

19 We're not entirely sure ourselves 

20 that everything we write really warrants peer 

21 review but we think there probably may be a 

22 category of things that we would want to put 
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1 in that category of maybe this needs some 

2 other review, some peer review besides just 

3 those of us in the program. And so what we 

4 intend to do is try to develop some guidance 

5 to sort of identify at what point, what kinds 

6 of things do you want to get peer reviewed. 

7 I'm going to look at Jim on this because if I 

8 say anything wrong I think he's going to hit 

9 me with his shoe or something.

10 (Laughter.)

11 MR. HINNEFELD: The second item 

12 was to assess validity of indirect exposure 

13 methods. Now, one the, of course, indirect 

14 exposure methods is coworker use of -- use of 

15 coworker method. We are in fact starting on a 

16 trial run validation using Savannah River 

17 Site. That's the site that we feel like there 

18 is sufficient data from other programs and 

19 uses have been done elsewhere that lend itself 

20 to testing our coworker approach against the 

21 Savannah River, using the Savannah River as an 

22 example. So we're going to start there. If 
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1 possible if we can identify additional sites 

2 where we have sufficient other, you know, 

3 outside data uses of it that would allow us to 

4 do the validity we might do those as well. But 

5 we're going to try to do that, something along 

6 those lines to test validity of indirect 

7 exposure methods. 

8 And I characterized the degree of 

9 claimant favorability in our current methods. 

10 We talk about how claimant-favorable we are 

11 but we never really quantify it or say 

12 anything other than well, it's claimant13 favorable. And so from this standpoint we 

14 hope to sort of take an inventory of 

15 approaches that we consider claimant-favorable 

16 and I believe there was a Health Physics 

17 Journal article published a few years ago that 

18 kind of talks about various things that are in 

19 dose reconstruction that seemed to be 

20 favorable and we'll see if we can't in some 

21 fashion do some sort of comparison of that, 

22 the approaches described there to approach 
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1 that in maybe a more -- that might be used in 

2 other programs, whatever that might be. 

3 We were specifically asked to 

4 evaluate the utility of the EPA surrogate data 

5 protocol which is relevant to surrogate data 

6 usage. 

7 We've taken a preliminary, this 

8 next bullet, NIOSH Review, that's supposed to 

9 be small. It's not supposed to be the same 

10 level, it's supposed to be a sub-bullet to the 

11 Evaluate Utility Of. Our preliminary 

12 evaluation is that it doesn't seem to be, you 

13 know, the criteria in that doesn't seem to be 

14 all that dissimilar from IG-004 but we are 

15 continuing to review and we're asking non-DCAS 

16 reviewers, I'm not sure they're all non-NIOSH 

17 but we're going to ask non-DCAS reviewers 

18 including non-health physicists to make a read 

19 of that EPA document and see how they feel 

20 that compares to how we're doing things. Of 

21 course they're going to have to learn how we 

22 do things too. 
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1 I think we've already arranged 

2 some industrial hygienists to start after the 

3 first of the year as one of the people looking 

4 at that because the EPA surrogate protocol 

5 isn't specific to radiation. In fact, it's 

6 mainly about other toxins, not about 

7 radiation.

8 And then the final topic from the 

9 10-Year Review document was the dose 

10 reconstruction topic. And one of the 

11 recommendations was directly to work with the 

12 Subcommittee on dose reconstruction reviews on 

13 the QA/QC evaluation. So we really are hoping 

14 to work with the Subcommittee. The 

15 Subcommittee had already taken up the issue of 

16 dose reconstruction quality. I think if the 

17 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee Members when 

18 they read this report probably said gee whiz, 

19 we've already said all that because I think a 

20 great deal of this 10-Year Review report on QA 

21 of dose reconstruction actually came from the 

22 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee. And we have 
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1 in fact discussed at the last Dose 

2 Reconstruction Subcommittee meeting some 

3 planned actions associated with the dose 

4 reconstruction quality. From that meeting of 

5 the Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee there was 

6 the suggestion that gee, there ought to be 

7 some sort of duplicate analysis program, sort 

8 of ongoing duplicate analysis program so that 

9 you have some ongoing measure of the quality 

10 of dose reconstruction. So there were a 

11 number of suggestions at that Subcommittee 

12 meeting about how that might be accomplished. 

13 The one that we hit upon that we 

14 thought that we can do given the availability 

15 of people with sufficient breadth of knowledge 

16 and also maintaining at least some sort of 

17 blindness to the test, some sort of blind test 

18 is a duplicate dose reconstruction where we 

19 will select claims that we will do a dose 

20 reconstruction for in DCAS. 

21 These will be claims that the 

22 actual project's dose reconstruction will be 
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1 done by our contractor. The contractor will 

2 not know what claims we select. They'll work 

3 these claims as they would normally work them 

4 and then once they have delivered them we will 

5 compare the two dose reconstructions to see if 

6 they are, you know, if they are close 

7 together. We don't expect them necessarily to 

8 be exactly the same but we would expect that 

9 they would be done in the same way and pretty 

10 close. The comparison, we have an idea of how 

11 we're going to compare the duplicate to the 

12 actual production but until we actually start 

13 comparing and see what we see, I mean we've 

14 got sort of a checklist of things we're going 

15 to check. 

16 It's a little unclear to us 

17 exactly what we'll be able to tell from that 

18 but I would think we would be able to tell at 

19 the very least are the directions consistent 

20 and are the directions to dose reconstructors 

21 clear because theoretically they should make 

22 the same major decisions about how the dose 
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1 reconstruction is done. Because they should 

2 be following the same instructions. 

3 Now, this application has started. 

4 We have started selecting dose reconstructions 

5 and we've started doing the duplicate dose 

6 reconstructions. So we're selecting on the 

7 order of two a week, roughly 2 percent, that's 

8 a popular number for reviews. I think the 

9 DTRA review did 2 percent of dose 

10 reconstructions, the Advisory Board has a goal 

11 to review 2 percent of dose reconstructions. I 

12 think we're all basing our 2 percent on the 

13 fact that that's what somebody else is doing, 

14 so that's what we're doing as well.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You mean that's 

16 valid then. 

17 (Laughter.)

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Without a sharp 

19 statistical test at the end it's hard to know 

20 what your sample size has to be because, you 

21 know, you don't have that sharp statistical 

22 test that you're performing. So we're pulling 
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1 about, it turns out somewhere about two a week 

2 we're pulling and starting to do the dose 

3 reconstructions. And last report I had we 

4 have not received any of the production dose 

5 reconstructions yet of the ones that have been 

6 pulled. They will come sometime later. 

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: Is that done 

8 randomly?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, the computer 

10 pulls them out randomly. And in fact we had 

11 to build in the ability to reject some because 

12 the claims that were pulled, we had a claim 

13 that was pulled that for instance falls into 

14 what we're trying to add as a Class. And we 

15 think there's going to be a Class so that we 

16 think that that claim will never get a 

17 production dose reconstruction. So there's 

18 been at least one instance when we rejected 

19 the claim that was pulled randomly because we 

20 didn't think we would ever get one to compare 

21 the duplicate to. 

22 The computer system, the NOCTS 
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1 tracking system which actually, it not only 

2 provides, keeps all the files but also all of 

3 our work is done on that computer system by 

4 clicking buttons. You approve something by 

5 clicking a button and that moves it to the 

6 next step in the process. That application 

7 randomly pulls cases and puts them in a new 

8 inbox. This new inbox is for someone to do 

9 the duplicate, one of our dose reconstructors 

10 or one of our health physicists to do the 

11 duplicate dose reconstruction.

12 The other specific recommendation 

13 about dose reconstruction quality from the 10-

14 Year Review was that if there are -- since the 

15 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee continues to 

16 find findings of dose reconstructions despite 

17 the quality that we try to do on them so far 

18 why is that? Why is it that there are 

19 findings still found in dose reconstruction 

20 review? So to get a handle on that we looked 

21 at the five most recently completed cases for 

22 which we had a dose -- in the last set of dose 
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1 reconstruction reviews. The last set that was 

2 available to us I think was the twelfth set 

3 that we had to report on when we made this 

4 selection. From the dose reconstructions that 

5 were reviewed in the twelfth set we picked the 

6 five that had the latest completion date for 

7 our dose reconstruction because we wanted to 

8 get the most recent information we could. We 

9 didn't want to start to try to figure this out 

10 on cases that were done eight and nine years 

11 ago. We wanted to do as recently as we could. 

12 And we've looked at those findings and we're 

13 doing analysis of those findings and a 

14 preliminary analysis, our preliminary look at 

15 those has been done to determine was this in 

16 fact a quality error and then the next step, 

17 well then, how did it happen. How did this 

18 occur that despite what we believe is a pretty 

19 careful inspection our quality program, 

20 there's usually inspection for people checking 

21 it, why did that happen. And of course once 

22 you know why it happens then you decide what 
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1 can we do to make it not happen anymore. So 

2 we have the preliminary review of those cases. 

3 I'm hoping we'll be able to talk about those 

4 at the next Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee 

5 meeting which I think is the 19th of this 

6 month. 

7 And then there's the other issue 

8 of should we eliminate overestimating dose 

9 reconstructions. This has been discussed in 

10 the Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee as well. 

11 The problem with overestimating dose 

12 reconstruction is that you overestimate 

13 somebody's dose, you send them a non14 compensable dose reconstruction and they then 

15 get another cancer, and it comes back for re16 work and your overestimating technique that 

17 you used the first time now with the 

18 additional cancer makes it a compensable 

19 claim. You know, overestimating is only 

20 supposed to be done for non-compensable claims 

21 so now you have to change your approach and 

22 take out some of the overestimating you did 
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1 and either do a best estimate or get closer to 

2 a best estimate. 

3 And so you have a case where a 

4 person had one cancer and got a certain PoC 

5 value and then they get a second cancer and 

6 they get a lower PoC value. And in our dose 

7 reconstruction we say every time, this is an 

8 overestimate, if the situation changed a new 

9 dose reconstruction has to be done. It may 

10 not be as high, you know, may not be as high. 

11 But it just doesn't resonate, it just doesn't 

12 make any sense to people that they had one 

13 cancer and they got this number and they get a 

14 second cancer, they got a lower number. It 

15 just doesn't make any sense. So there's a 

16 recommendation to do away with the process of 

17 overestimates in general.

18 So we did ask our contractor for a 

19 cost analysis and it would be extremely 

20 expensive not to do dose reconstruction. It 

21 would add millions of dollars a year at our 

22 current production rate to the cost of -- I'm 
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1 thinking $2 to $3 million a year if we didn't 

2 do any overestimates at all. We're looking at 

3 other things we can do to maybe not do as many 

4 overestimates. 

5 One thing we are pursuing is 

6 trying to, we wanted to approach the DOE, we 

7 haven't quite done this yet so I'm surprising 

8 Greg with this, but we gathered the sites, the 

9 names of the sites that do not routinely 

10 provide us medical exposure information with 

11 the personal exposure histories. And so what 

12 that does is typically what happens, if we do 

13 that we'll say well, if we don't get the

14 exposure, the X-ray information, we will just 

15 do a default, assume they got an X-ray every 

16 year, include that in the dose reconstruction 

17 then it's overestimating claimant-favorable. 

18 The default is usually one a year, the Site 

19 Profile doesn't specify what default really 

20 is. And so then those are some of these 

21 overestimates. Then we re-work it and we 

22 write off and ask, you know, well, this is 
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1 getting to close to 50 percent so we write for 

2 the actual exposure X-ray information and 

3 there are a number of sites who can provide it 

4 if you ask specifically for it. 

5 So we intend to approach DOE and 

6 say hey, why don't we just get these sites to 

7 just all the time as a routine matter send us 

8 all the exposure information so we won't have 

9 to deal with that and then stop the 

10 overestimating part with medical, use the 

11 actual medical X-ray information. So that's 

12 one thing we could do to do fewer dose 

13 reconstructions. The other thing -- re: 

14 overestimates.

15 The other thing we're considering 

16 is to not, you know, the overwhelming number 

17 of cases, or the biggest majority of cases 

18 that come back are skin cancer cases because 

19 very often a person gets a skin cancer, 

20 they're going to get additional skin cancers. 

21 Maybe just don't overestimate skin cancers. 

22 Now, all of these have a cost and that cost, 
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1 the effort we use to move to dose 

2 reconstruction so that we don't do all these 

3 overestimates, this effort is then subtracted 

4 from probably Site Profile finding resolution 

5 because we'll try to keep SECs going as much 

6 as we can but that delays our ability to 

7 remove those SECs. 

8 So the question about how much is 

9 it worth and where do you, you know, what 

10 decision do you make and how much is it worth 

11 to stop doing overestimates comes down to a 

12 comparison of what's the impact on the whole

13 program. So we're really working on kind of 

14 an entire program long-term look at what we 

15 expect work and cost to be, how to think of 

16 when we might be in position to do something 

17 like that without this huge backlog of 

18 technical work that I prefer not to pay into, 

19 or are there some things we can do more 

20 cheaply like the medical X-ray. Or some other 

21 things I haven't even mentioned that we've 

22 thought of that might provide us some relief 
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1 from overestimates at a low cost. So those 

2 are what we're looking at there.

3 Again, this topic has also been in 

4 front of the Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee 

5 and I think they might want to participate 

6 with us as we go along as well I think, as we 

7 do this. I think that's the last of my 

8 slides, so.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It is. We're 

10 running to 3:15. What we'll try to do is 

11 either come back depending how long Weldon 

12 Spring takes at the end of that or, I know 

13 you've been a long time without a break, the 

14 Board has, or we will certainly take it up 

15 probably right after lunch tomorrow for 

16 questions. I would ask everybody to think 

17 about the, you know, I think one way of moving 

18 and implementing, helping DCAS to implement 

19 these recommendations and help evaluate what 

20 to do would be to refer a number of these to 

21 Work Groups for follow-up. A simple one is 

22 what Stu mentioned with the Worker Outreach 
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1 and review of some of the new communication 

2 stuff, documents and so forth that would be I 

3 think very much in line with them and could be 

4 done on a sort of periodic basis as that gets 

5 implemented. 

6 But I think on a number of these 

7 other situations we need to decide how they 

8 would work and where is the best Work Group. 

9 So if you all think about that also and then 

10 when we, after we've had a chance to discuss 

11 this some more and then ask Stu some questions 

12 we'll maybe try to resolve some of those 

13 referrals and so forth. So, Stu if you can. 

14 We'll try to keep everything, the slides in 

15 mind and if you can be ready for questions and 

16 so forth when you come back I think it would 

17 be useful.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: I'll be here.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm here all week 

21 as they say in the comedy clubs.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks 
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1 very much for that. We'll now move along to 

2 the Weldon Spring SEC petition which we'll 

3 have a presentation on. Actually, Mike Gibson 

4 couldn't be here. I'm not sure if Mike's on 

5 the phone but Dr. Lemen was going to do the 

6 presentation. He didn't make it so we've 

7 recruited John Mauro to do sort of the Work 

8 Group presentation I believe is the way we 

9 decided to proceed. We'll hear that, we'll 

10 ask questions. I do believe the petitioners 

11 will be on the line, may want to comment. I 

12 would say up front that as I understand it the 

13 Work Group does not have a recommendation at 

14 this point, there's still some issues to be 

15 resolved. The idea of this presentation is 

16 just to get some of these issues in front of 

17 the full Board and give us an update and then 

18 could be very likely at our next Board meeting 

19 we will be ready to proceed on this. I'm not 

20 sure how tight that schedule is but I think it 

21 sounds right so keep this in mind. That's why 

22 we want to spend a little bit of time on it 
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1 today and we thank John for under some 

2 relatively short notice working this out 

3 because -- and agreeing to do this. So, John. 

4 So when we ask John questions and he hesitates 

5 or something remember that he's not, he was a 

6 recruit.

7 DR. MAURO: Good afternoon, this 

8 is John Mauro.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let me just 

10 interrupt one second.

11 DR. MAURO: Sure.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Again, for these 

13 people that are here because of the Pinellas 

14 site we will, after this session and we will 

15 be taking a break but starting around 4:30 we 

16 will start first off with a presentation on 

17 Pinellas and the activities there directly 

18 followed by the public comment period. If you 

19 wish to make public comments it's helpful if 

20 you've signed up at the front desk when you 

21 come in. It just gives us an order to call on 

22 people though it's not -- a little bit more 
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1 informal on that. But we will be doing that 

2 starting at around, between 4:30 and 5 so 

3 everybody knows that. So go ahead, John.

4 DR. MAURO: Okay, thank you. Thank 

5 you very much, Dr. Melius. I'm John Mauro and 

6 I will be preparing this. Ron Buchanan, are 

7 you on the line?

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, I am.

9 DR. MAURO: Thanks, Ron. Ron has 

10 done all the heavy lifting here and he did 

11 help prepare these slides. And I'll do my 

12 best, I'm fairly close it, been following this 

13 pretty closely but certainly Ron will be there 

14 to help answer any questions. 

15 The first slide is simply a 

16 summary of the history of operations at Weldon 

17 Spring. The most important bullet out of all 

18 of these that we're looking at is the one that 

19 says June 1957 to 12/31/1966. That's the time 

20 period when there were uranium operations and 

21 that's the time period that's under 

22 consideration for a possible SEC. So we're 
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1 going to be talking about those uranium 

2 operations.

3 This is a sketch of the facility. 

4 What's important here is there's a raffinate 

5 pit area, an open pit area where there was 

6 some potential for exposure and off to the 

7 right side is the operations area just to give 

8 you a general idea of the layout. You folks 

9 may remember we made a visit there one time 

10 and this is a photograph of a disposal cell. 

11 Some of you may remember we were actually on 

12 top of that and took some pictures awhile 

13 back. So let me move on.

14 There's quite a history here. The 

15 work that began on Weldon started with the 

16 Site Profile in 2005 that was issued and SC&A 

17 reviewed the Site Profile. There were 28 

18 issues on the Site Profile that were in place. 

19 then an SEC was qualified and in April 2010 

20 there was the Evaluation Report. And then is 

21 when the Work Group activities began 

22 intensively and there were a series of five 
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1 meetings the last of which was last week. And 

2 it turns out I believe there are nine SEC 

3 issues and 28 Site Profile issues. The 28 

4 Site Profile issues were tracked. We did our 

5 best to keep them in place as we were moving 

6 through the nine SEC issues so that when we 

7 got through this process we would largely have 

8 covered just about everything that needed to 

9 be covered. 

10 A lot has been covered and I will 

11 briefly identify the nine SEC issues. The 

12 first one of course is a classic one that's 

13 applicable all the time, accuracy and 

14 completeness of the internal and external 

15 dosimetry data and the degree to which there 

16 was sufficient data to build a coworker model. 

17 The second issue was egress monitoring. There 

18 was limited or minimal amount of egress 

19 monitoring. So these workers leaving the 

20 premises and whether or not there may have

21 been some surface contamination of concern. 

22 The third issue was it turns out the last year 
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1 of concern here, 1967, there was minimal or 

2 lack of records, I think it was a minimal 

3 amount of records available to do dose 

4 reconstruction so the question becomes how are 

5 you going to do dose reconstructions if you 

6 have limited data. 

7 Number 4, radon/thoron 

8 measurements. There are no, there are 

9 buildings where uranium and uranium progeny 

10 including ore were handled, where radon and 

11 boron for thorium were handled so therefore 

12 you have radon and thoron becoming airborne 

13 within the building and the question is how 

14 are you going to reconstruct the doses there. 

15 That's what you're going to see later on, 

16 that's one of the subjects that I believe that 

17 will require a bit of deliberation. 

18 The next is recycled uranium. This 

19 issue in many respects was addressed and has 

20 been addressed and took advantage of the great 

21 deal of work that took place at Fernald. 

22 There's an issue related to neutron dose 
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1 reconstruction, we'll talk about that in a 

2 minute, but right now I'm just trying to give 

3 you a sense of the nature of the issues and 

4 then we'll get on to how they were resolved. 

5 There was this outdoor quarry that had the 

6 raffinate pits and there's airborne dust 

7 loadings associated with that. The question 

8 is since there were limited data collected 

9 during the actual operations period but later 

10 on data were collected post '67 and the 

11 question is can you reconstruct doses during 

12 operations period using later data. Accidents 

13 and incidents, how are you going to 

14 reconstruct doses to people who may have been 

15 involved in many of the accidents, the 

16 incidents that occurred at a facility like 

17 this.

18 And the last one has to do with 

19 the doses to extremities. When you don't 

20 actually monitor the hands or different parts 

21 of the body, how are you going to reconstruct 

22 the doses if you only have a film badge 
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1 sitting on your lapel? 

2 Those are the nine SEC issues and 

3 we're going to go over those and how they've 

4 been either closed or which ones are still 

5 active. There were also 28 Site Profile 

6 issues but most of these have been subsumed 

7 within, are subsumed within the nine. So 

8 we're in, what I would say is we're in a very 

9 mature stage of addressing these, not only the 

10 nine but also the 28. 

11 Okay, we're getting now the 

12 substance. The first issue is the accuracy 

13 and completeness of data. Can you 

14 reconstruct, do you have adequate data to 

15 reconstruct doses? One of the first issues 

16 that came up was that, well, there is a CER 

17 database that supported epi-related work which 

18 is a second order database. And there were 

19 some questions regarding whether or not that 

20 database was going to be used, and very often 

21 there are questions when you work with these 

22 electronic databases with secondary data. That 
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1 was resolved because NIOSH has committed to 

2 working with the original, what I would call 

3 hard copy data, the bioassay data and the film 

4 badge data. So that's how that was addressed. 

5 And then the question becomes okay, given that 

6 you're going to work with the, we'll call it 

7 the original data, how do we know the data is 

8 complete? Turns out that NIOSH's position on 

9 this matter is that they have complete data 

10 and that given that they have a richness of 

11 data they can do reconstruction, both external 

12 and internal. The Work Group tasked SC&A to 

13 see if that's true. 

14 So what we went in is grabbed 15 

15 of the operators, people who have in our 

16 judgment the greatest potential for exposure, 

17 and grabbed those workers and did -- only 15 

18 workers were grabbed so it doesn't sound like 

19 much but it's a lot of work to go through each 

20 of their records for their entire work history 

21 and to see how complete those production 

22 workers, I called them operation workers, 
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1 production workers, how complete their data 

2 are, both external and internal. And we found 

3 that it was very complete. So at least for 

4 the sample that we grabbed it validated 

5 NIOSH's position that yes, we have a fairly 

6 complete data set at least based on the sample 

7 that we reviewed and that given that you do 

8 have a fairly complete data set for these 

9 production workers the sense is that if and 

10 when the time came when you needed a coworker 

11 model it could be developed. Let me point out 

12 though that a coworker model has not been 

13 developed and that was of some concern to the 

14 Work Group, not having a coworker model. But 

15 in our last conference call which was last 

16 week we discussed this matter and it's our 

17 understanding that I believe over 200 cases 

18 have already been processed and in none of 

19 those cases was it necessary to resort to a 

20 coworker model. And the outcome of that 

21 conversation was that's pretty strong evidence 

22 that you have fairly complete data but even 
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1 more importantly the survey of the 15 workers 

2 implies that if the time comes that you do 

3 need to resort to building a coworker model 

4 you have the data to do it for the Work Group, 

5 the group of workers that appear to have the 

6 highest potential for exposure. So on that 

7 basis this issue was closed, recommended to be 

8 closed.

9 I went a little ahead of myself, 

10 the coworker data I just explained. This is 

11 all part of the first major issue. So we 

12 concluded that even though there isn't a 

13 coworker model, one can be developed if it 

14 turns out a case shows up where it might be 

15 needed.

16 Egress monitoring. This is a 

17 concern when a worker is leaving a location, 

18 you're not surveying him. He could have skin 

19 contamination. What are we going to do about 

20 that? That is, that he might, a person, for 

21 example, you have a case shows up with skin 

22 cancer and you want to reconstruct the doses, 
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1 the way in which it's normally done is to go 

2 with the film badge data for non-penetrating 

3 radiation. But as you know from in the past 

4 there are certain kinds of sites, and this is 

5 one of them, where there is the potential to 

6 have the skin contaminated with a particle. 

7 NIOSH's position is that well, if 

8 need be we could use VARSKIN, one of the 

9 computer programs, to calculate what the dose 

10 is to the skin right beneath the particle but 

11 that issue in general is more of an 

12 overarching program-wide issue. And therefore 

13 it's, at least it's been closed with respect 

14 to this matter here before us but I believe 

15 and certainly I could stand corrected, I 

16 believe it's being addressed as part of an 

17 overarching scientific issue on how do we go 

18 about dealing with reconstruction of doses to 

19 localized areas of the skin that might have 

20 become contaminated by a particle falling on 

21 the skin. So this is an issue that has been 

22 sort of transferred over to an overarching 
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1 scientific group within NIOSH. 

2 Recycled uranium. This is an 

3 issue that as you know came up extensively at 

4 Fernald. And what happened here is the Weldon 

5 Work Group worked very closely with the 

6 Fernald Work Group and sort of used the 

7 outcome of the work that was being done at 

8 Fernald to help make judgments regarding 

9 whether or not there was an SEC issue that was 

10 intractable here, a problem that was difficult 

11 to manage. It turns out that the outcome of 

12 this is that yes, there was recycled uranium. 

13 The approach that's going to be taken by NIOSH 

14 is that they will assume a conservative mix of 

15 plutonium at 100 parts per billion. This 

16 number turns out to be, in our judgment, in 

17 SC&A's judgment, the recommendation is as a 

18 reasonably bounding value based on the nature 

19 of the material that was handled at Weldon and 

20 in light of the knowledge we gained from what 

21 took place at Fernald. So we felt that this 

22 approach that's being adopted by NIOSH for 
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1 recycled uranium at Weldon is appropriate and 

2 reasonably bounding.

3 Neutron data. This was a struggle 

4 at first until we realized we were disagreeing 

5 for a very interesting reason. The way in 

6 which neutron doses are being reconstructed at 

7 Weldon is to use the neutron/photon ratio. 

8 NIOSH came up with the neutron/photon ratio of 

9 0.23 and we were asked to check that number. 

10 And it turns out that the way that number was, 

11 that ratio was developed was based on actual 

12 measurements taken of neutron field. Oh by 

13 the way, the way the neutron occurs is from 

14 alpha-N reactions. So it's amenable to 

15 modeling, MCNP modeling. But NIOSH did 

16 something better in theory. They had actual 

17 measurements of the neutron field, had actual 

18 measurements of the photon field and therefore 

19 came up with the neutron/photon ratio based on 

20 those measurements. And by the way, this I 

21 believe came from Fernald. Please confirm. 

22 Yes. Thanks, John. And however, we were 
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1 critical of that approach because they were 

2 not paired measurements. And it wasn't that 

3 they took the neutron/photon measurements from 

4 the same location at the same time, they were 

5 taken at different locations at different 

6 times. You just can't do that. 

7 So, we went ahead and said what we 

8 do. We went ahead and ran MCNP and came up 

9 with a neutron/photon ratio of 0.44 which was 

10 about twice as high as theirs. And we're 

11 saying, you know, what's the problem? Well, 

12 it turns out relatively recently we found out 

13 that when NIOSH came up with its 0.23 based on 

14 these empirical measurements which we were 

15 troubled by. We didn't say they were wrong, 

16 we just didn't like the method used. We came 

17 up with 0.44 but our 0.44 has built into it 

18 the ICRP correction factor of 1.91, that's 

19 built into -- that you have to use. In other 

20 words, once you get the neutron dose you want 

21 to convert it to an effective dose, you 

22 multiply it by 1.91. We multiplied by 1.91 to 
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1 get our 0.44. NIOSH didn't. They were going 

2 to do it, not that they weren't going to do 

3 it, but when they reported their 0.23 it was -

4 - so the reality is their intent is, and 

5 please correct me if I'm wrong, to take the 

6 0.23, multiply it by 1.91 and all of a sudden 

7 our numbers agree. So, from our perspective 

8 oh, okay, we didn't realize we were comparing 

9 apples and oranges until it dawned on us that 

10 we had the 1.91 built into our value while 

11 NIOSH didn't. And so as far as we're 

12 concerned notwithstanding the fact that we 

13 don't like the way the 0.23 came about we, 

14 once you multiply it by the 1.91 you get the 

15 same number almost that we get when we ran the 

16 MCNP calculations. So we recommended closing 

17 this item.

18 The next one is the quarry. 

19 Outdoors you had this raffinate as you 

20 probably know, they processed uranium ore, 

21 separated out the uranium. You have the 

22 raffinate tailings piled up outdoors and 
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1 there's certainly the potential for people to 

2 be exposed to airborne particulates associated 

3 with the raffinates outdoors. But there 

4 weren't measurements made at the time the 

5 raffinates were there from '57 to '67, but 

6 there were samples, airborne samples collected 

7 later. 

8 We discussed this at length and 

9 the judgment was that there's no reason to 

10 believe that the airborne dust loadings of 

11 particulates, radium, thorium after 1967 were 

12 any different before '67. So as a result we 

13 felt that yes, here's a case where in fact if 

14 anything you're going to have, you know, 

15 you've accumulated more and more material. 

16 You're going to get the highest potential for 

17 airborne exposure sort of at the back end of 

18 the process. So we concurred with NIOSH that 

19 using later data did not really result in an 

20 underestimate of the potential for airborne 

21 exposures from those raffinate pits.

22 Accidents and incidents. The fact 
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1 that they have virtually a fairly complete 

2 database for both external film badge data and 

3 internal data from urinalysis means that 

4 anyone that may have been involved in an 

5 accident or incident would likely, you know, 

6 we'll have the data and we can reconstruct the 

7 doses associated with those incidences. It's 

8 not that we need to go into and reconstruct 

9 the exposures from the accident. We have the 

10 actual data from every worker. If a worker 

11 has been involved or, this is the argument, 

12 been involved in an accident incident we 

13 always do have the data for this worker. And 

14 as a result there's confidence that the doses 

15 that are being reconstructed for all the 

16 workers, anyone that might have been involved 

17 in an accident or an incident we have the 

18 bioassay data in order to reconstruct their 

19 doses.

20 Finally, the geometry. A question 

21 was well, is it possible that a person's hands 

22 or extremities could be experiencing fairly 
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1 high doses but if you didn't monitor the 

2 extremities how do you know where those doses 

3 were. And the argument was made by NIOSH that 

4 we're going to use DCAS 13 which established a 

5 relationship between what you would read on a 

6 badge and what you might expect your hands to 

7 experience. And we review that approach and 

8 the, I guess you would call it the adjustment 

9 factors to back calculate what the extremity 

10 dose may be from the film badge reading you 

11 have that's on the lapel. And we concur that 

12 that approach works.

13 Now, I'm going to go back to an 

14 issue now, we're going to go back to the 

15 issues that are not closed and there are two 

16 of them. One is thorium. Weldon worked with 

17 thorium-232 and there's no thorium bioassay 

18 data but they do have extensive air sampling 

19 measurements, I believe over 200 of them, many 

20 of which are breathing zone samples. Again we 

21 benefit from the experience that we had at 

22 Fernald. When you have a very extensive data 
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1 set for breathing zone samples and air samples 

2 in general you could derive daily weighted 

3 exposures. And we, there's a lot of history 

4 to this but the bottom line is that there were 

5 a lot of problems with the approach being used 

6 originally by NIOSH for doing DWEs all of 

7 which was hashed out under Fernald and in the 

8 end NIOSH adopted a method that we refer to as 

9 Strom. Daniel Strom wrote a paper, how do you 

10 deal with, how do you derive bounding or 

11 conservative intakes using DWE approach. And 

12 he laid out a protocol that we reviewed very 

13 carefully, NIOSH reviewed it. NIOSH adopted a 

14 simplification of it but met the intent of it 

15 so that when you build a DWE and you assign an 

16 intake you could feel confident that if you 

17 have a fairly complete data set, you're 

18 placing a plausible upper bound on the intake. 

19 So this is the approach that was adopted at 

20 Fernald. It's also the approach that was

21 adopted here. And our review of it is that we 

22 fundamentally agree. Even though it does 
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1 deviate a bit from the Strom approach, we 

2 consider it fundamentally sound except for one 

3 issue and that has to do with a subject called 

4 blunders or errors. 

5 In Strom's original work, he found 

6 that there very often could be a problem with 

7 when people collect that original data, air 

8 sampling data. They may take a two-minute air 

9 sample from a breathing zone during one 

10 operation and another two-minute air sample 

11 from another operation and they collect all 

12 their data, the raw data you need to derive 

13 your DWEs. They found that there very often 

14 was a significant number of transcription 

15 errors, arithmetic errors which contributed to 

16 the uncertainty and the trust you could have 

17 in the ultimate intake rate that you're 

18 deriving using this approach. And so what 

19 NIOSH elected to do is say you're right, we 

20 have to address that issue. We can't just 

21 derive a DWE and say here it is. You know, 

22 they went through the mechanics that are laid 
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1 out by their protocol and they said here's our 

2 DWE. But now we're going to go through a 

3 process to work with the original numbers and 

4 see how many blunders were made. And then 

5 once we catch those blunders, because they had 

6 the original data, so they could actually go 

7 in and check on the number of blunders. So 

8 they went in and did it, did this analysis, 

9 and this is relatively recent all this 

10 happened. And they reported back to us last 

11 week that they checked the numbers and found 

12 that they caught the blunders, fixed them, 

13 reran the numbers and found that the -- by the 

14 way, they worked with the upper 95th 

15 percentile. They found the upper 95th 

16 percentile of the intake for the DWEs would go 

17 up by about 4 percent after the blunders are 

18 corrected. 

19 Now, on face value that sounds 

20 pretty good but we had one concern with it. 

21 That is the representativeness of the sample 

22 that they used to check for blunders. Think 
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1 of it like this. Let's say you've got 100,000 

2 or 10,000 measurements that were the original 

3 measurements used to derive your DWEs. But 

4 available to you is only a subset of the 

5 original data. The original data, the raw 

6 data that went into get the DWEs, only a small 

7 fraction of that. And it's that small 

8 fraction that was available to NIOSH to

9 actually go back and check how many blunders 

10 there were. Our question was how confident 

11 are we that they had a representative sample 

12 in order to evaluate the nature and extent of 

13 the blunders and how they would affect the 

14 outcome of this calculation. That 

15 conversation was held on the 29th I believe 

16 and SC&A's recommendation at the time was you 

17 know, until we feel confident, SC&A now just 

18 making a recommendation, until we feel 

19 confident that the sample that was used to 

20 evaluate the magnitude and the effect of the 

21 blunders, until we know that or feel confident 

22 that it is representative of the full data set 
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1 that was used to derive the DWEs we really 

2 can't say that the blunders have been, the 

3 issues related to blunders have been 

4 adequately addressed. 

5 So that's the technical issue 

6 that's still on the table. SC&A has an action 

7 item. We are moving on it as we speak. We do 

8 not, we have Harry Chmelynski and the crew and 

9 John Stiver working the problem, and we hope 

10 to get back soon. I'm not sure if we have set 

11 a date for when we're going to deliver. We 

12 have not yet set a date. That was just last 

13 week. But we'll get back to you soon, give 

14 you a date so we could plan around that. And 

15 now the, let's see. Well, I just covered all 

16 these slides in telling my story. Yes, 

17 there's nothing new here. Okay.

18 The last item is an item that SC&A 

19 has found acceptable but the Board certainly 

20 will want to deliberate on this. This has to 

21 do with radon and thoron. It's very similar 

22 to the problem and challenge we ran into at 
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1 Blockson with one exception, okay? There's a 

2 building, it is handling ore and material 

3 that's generating radon and thoron is entering 

4 the air such as if we were in this room. You 

5 can imagine you have a source of radon or 

6 uranium or ore in front of you, let's say it's 

7 in that table and radon is being produced 

8 continuously. Thoron is being produced 

9 continuously and becoming airborne. 

10 When we built the Blockson model 

11 we had that material coming up. We assumed a 

12 certain fraction had a certain emanation 

13 coefficient, a certain fraction was becoming 

14 airborne and then once it became airborne it 

15 was leaving the room with a certain air 

16 exchange rate, a relatively simple box model. 

17 As you recall SC&A came away favorably on 

18 that. We felt that it was a reasonable way to 

19 go. As you also know the Board said no, 

20 without any data we're not too comfortable 

21 with that. I just want to give you a little 

22 history. 
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1 Now, NIOSH has come up with a 

2 similar model but a lot more conservative. In 

3 this case the approach that NIOSH has elected 

4 to use is to assume that all of the radon and 

5 thoron that's being produced by the ore and 

6 other materials that are in the room. By the 

7 way, if I got it wrong let me know. My 

8 understanding is that what they're doing now 

9 is all of the radon and thoron that's being 

10 produced by the source material that's in the 

11 room, it's becoming airborne and it's staying 

12 there more, it's not leaving. A hundred 

13 percent produced is not, is becoming airborne 

14 and not leaving so it builds up so that it 

15 achieves an equilibrium that's based on the 

16 decay rate of the radionuclide, not based on 

17 the air turnover rate. In our opinion this is 

18 an extremely conservative assumption, 

19 certainly bounding because the reality is 

20 there is an air turnover rate, most rooms have 

21 air turnover rates. We talked about this a 

22 lot, but no credit is taken for that, so 
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1 they're allowing the radon to build up to what 

2 you recall to be the maximum value it could 

3 possibly be in that room. Now, from SC&A's 

4 perspective that's certainly bounding so we're 

5 not going to dispute that. Whether or not the 

6 Board finds that acceptable as a way to place 

7 a plausible upper bound on radon 

8 concentrations in the room, this idea of 

9 sufficient accuracy comes up, this 

10 uncertainty, it's in your hands. It certainly 

11 is bounding. 

12 I believe that's it, that's the 

13 story. I'd be happy to try to answer -- but 

14 before I close though. Ron, did I mess 

15 anything up?

16 DR. BUCHANAN: No, no, you covered 

17 it quite well, thank you.

18 DR. MAURO: Thanks a lot. Okay.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda, what site 

20 does this remind you of?

21 (Laughter.)

22 MEMBER MUNN: Deja vu really all 
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1 over again.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Maybe we'll 

3 postpone this. Kidding. Okay. Questions for 

4 John or Ron or comments? Yes, Dave.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I've got a 

6 couple questions. Starting with the 

7 completeness of the personal monitoring data, 

8 the bioassay data and the external film badge 

9 data, it was impressive that you went back and 

10 pulled records and went through. I found that 

11 very useful to work through the employment 

12 history and set it up side by side with the 

13 monitoring data. My first question, maybe 

14 NIOSH can answer this. Table 4.1 has the 

15 number of claimants from the site who met the 

16 definition as 244 and of those the number of 

17 claims for which external dosimetry records 

18 were obtained for the years in the Class 

19 definition is 192. So I take that as 79 

20 percent of the claimants. That seems to me a 

21 larger source of data than the 15 which were 

22 evaluated. I wonder if you could comment on 
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1 that.

2 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this is Mark 

3 Rolfes and you're referring to the Evaluation 

4 Report, Table 4.1, I believe. In that we've 

5 reported the total number of claimants that 

6 we've received from the Department of Labor 

7 that would require a dose reconstruction. That 

8 includes all employees that worked at the 

9 Weldon Spring plant, so it includes not only 

10 production workers but it includes 

11 administrative staff as well. So the analysis 

12 that SC&A had completed was to sample 15 

13 production workers who were believed to be in 

14 the category of the highest potentially 

15 exposed employees and in that category of 

16 workers they found a much higher rate of 

17 monitoring frequency.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, that was 

19 my interpretation of these two numbers as well 

20 which raised to me the question of, I mean it 

21 wasn't a random draw. It was intentionally a 

22 draw --
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1 DR. MAURO: Oh, yes.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: The highest 

3 potential exposure which would say that it was 

4 when you're looking for information on the 

5 completeness of the records you were sampling 

6 those for which a priori we would expect 

7 information to be most complete.

8 DR. MAURO: Yes, and also because 

9 if you do -- you want the information from 

10 that group to be complete because you may end 

11 up eventually having to build a coworker 

12 model, and when you're building a coworker 

13 model you will fail if there's any question 

14 that your data that you have is not -- in 

15 other words, if you feel that my goodness, 

16 we've got a data set but it doesn't capture 

17 the highest exposed individuals how can you

18 build a coworker model? That has, in the past 

19 that has been a reason to grant an SEC because 

20 if you can't build a coworker model because 

21 you have inadequate data from the highest 

22 exposed group it becomes a showstopper. So we 
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1 looked at what we believe to be the group with 

2 the highest potential for exposure just for 

3 that reason.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So in reading 

5 the NIOSH report maybe I left with the wrong 

6 message. Is the message that the data are 

7 sufficiently complete with which to derive in 

8 the future a coworker model, or is it that 

9 they're sufficiently complete to do individual 

10 dose reconstructions using the records in 

11 hand?

12 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes 

13 again and we had a discussion of this at the 

14 last teleconference meeting. For the cases 

15 that we've had to complete dose 

16 reconstructions for we haven't encountered a 

17 case where we needed a coworker model to 

18 complete that dose reconstruction. And for 

19 the examples for cases where bioassay data may 

20 not have been available for a production 

21 worker for example we may have used an 

22 overestimating approach early on in the 
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1 program such as OTIB-2 where we would assign a 

2 worst case scenario internal dose on the first 

3 day of employment, an approach that would tend 

4 to maximize the internal dose and result in an

5 internal dose much higher than one that would 

6 be reconstructed based upon bioassay data. So 

7 we have completed essentially all claims for 

8 the Weldon Spring plant claimants. We've 

9 issued dose reconstructions for all with the 

10 exception of one claim I believe at this time.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: The other 

12 thing that struck me going back to the 

13 completeness of the dosimetry information for 

14 the 15 workers, you had a very nice table 

15 where you picked it up year by year and that 

16 again kind of conformed to my expectation that 

17 in the first years of operation, '57-'58, even 

18 for these production workers that you sampled 

19 the frequency was maybe 50 percent and then it 

20 gets up to the 90-plus percent that was 

21 observed later on. But that there were, even 

22 in that over-sampling of those workers it 
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1 seemed to me a small amount of information 

2 could be drawn from a small sample. I guess 

3 just from my own personal experience working 

4 at kind of the contention that there's 95 

5 percent of the employment period is covered 

6 with personal monitoring data doesn't, you 

7 know, raises my eyebrows because I've really 

8 not been able to find that very often. And so 

9 this looks, I mean the pictures, when you dug 

10 into it, it looked more like we've seen in the 

11 early years. There's gaps in the records and 

12 where workers outside of some of the highest 

13 exposed areas there's gaps in the records.

14 DR. MAURO: You are now beyond 

15 what my knowledge of this is. The nuance that 

16 you're bringing up in terms of how things 

17 change with time and how that bears back on 

18 the statement regarding 95 percent is a good 

19 question I can't answer. Perhaps Ron could 

20 help and certainly of course Mark is here. But 

21 Ron, when you were looking at the data and the 

22 outcome that is a fairly complete set, 95 
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1 percent, could you help and get a deeper 

2 understanding of the issues and the questions 

3 that were just raised by Dr. Richardson?

4 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, this is Ron 

5 Buchanan with SC&A. Yes, in the Work Group 

6 meeting of May the 9th of 2011 SC&A was asked, 

7 we decided that there was an accuracy problem 

8 because they used copies of the original data. 

9 And then the completeness though, was it all 

10 there. And so we used an initial test to see 

11 if there was any indication that the most 

12 exposed workers were not monitored on a 

13 regular basis. And so this is the reason we 

14 chose the production workers of course because 

15 they should have been monitored and we would 

16 kind of expect that in the initial years. Now 

17 see for example, '57 and '58 we do not know if 

18 they were assigned. They were given the job 

19 production workers. We don't know exactly if 

20 they were working in production the first 

21 couple of years or not. But so that detail 

22 wasn't available. 
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1 But what we did was we wanted to 

2 look at the initial, do an initial test to see 

3 if there was an indication of a problem and 

4 this was the results we obtained and presented 

5 that to the Board then the 13th of September. 

6 And so from what we've seen at the 

7 first take of it is that the 15 production 

8 workers that we sampled were monitored except 

9 for the first two years there was a lower 

10 percent of monitoring both biological and 

11 bioassay and external monitoring than in later 

12 years. And so you know, we're not claiming 

13 that 90-plus percent of the whole work 

14 population was monitored. All we're saying is 

15 that for these 15 expected exposed workers 

16 that they did show monitoring as we put in the 

17 plots there.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, thank 

19 you.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: When you are 

22 talking about sampling are you using Fernald's 
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1 data for Weldon Spring?

2 DR. MAURO: What we just described 

3 was Fernald's data. 

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: What's that?

5 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. I just 

6 crossed wires on you. No, the workers that 

7 were reviewed were the Weldon workers, Weldon 

8 Spring workers and the completeness of the 

9 data for those workers both external and 

10 internal.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And just some of 

13 the same methods, statistical methods have 

14 been used we had discussed at Fernald also. 

15 Right? The Strom I believe it is.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes. We just crossed 

17 two different areas. When it comes to the 

18 completeness of the bioassay data and the film 

19 badge data for Weldon workers we study that as 

20 a problem in and of itself, is it complete, 

21 and the answer was well, we found out it was 

22 fairly complete for the group of workers we 
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1 looked at which were probably the high end 

2 exposures. Now, the Strom question has to do 

3 with okay, how are we going to reconstruct the 

4 dose from inhaling thorium-232 which is 

5 exactly the same problem that we had at 

6 Fernald. And the solution is the same 

7 solution at Weldon, namely we're going to use 

8 breathing zone data that was collected and 

9 estimate the upper end exposure using the 

10 breathing zone data for Weldon workers, but 

11 the methodology, the mechanics of how do you 

12 do it, what's the acceptable way to take 

13 breathing zone data and from that derive high14 end DWEs, daily weighted exposures. That 

15 methodology was basically the Strom 

16 methodology which was vetted fairly heavily 

17 and closely during the Fernald meeting. 

18 Now, I believe, now the way we and 

19 I point over to John, John Stiver did a lot of 

20 the heavy lifting on carefully looking at the 

21 degree to which Fernald mechanics reflected 

22 the Strom paper which is an excellent 
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1 approach. And there are some differences but 

2 our recommendation on Fernald is that we 

3 believe that the methodology is scientifically 

4 sound and does meet the intent of trying to 

5 assign a plausible upper end dose on DWE 

6 exposure from thorium and that same 

7 methodology is being used here at Weldon using 

8 Weldon data. 

9 Now, the degree to which that 

10 issue has been resolved, the breathing zone 

11 approach, the Strom approach as implemented at 

12 Fernald has been resolved quite frankly I'm 

13 not sure whether or not the Fernald Work Group 

14 has found that this, what I call quasi-Strom 

15 approach to deriving DWEs was, whether the 

16 Work Group on Fernald has found that 

17 acceptable or not. I know SC&A has 

18 recommended that yes, we find the approach 

19 acceptable. Whether or not the Work Group 

20 itself has decided one way or the other since 

21 the Work Group is still very active I really 

22 can't speak to that. Even though I do 
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1 participate in those meetings I do not recall 

2 whether or not the Work Group as a group has 

3 agreed that yes, that approach is sound.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: You also spoke, 

5 so the information that we're using from 

6 Fernald is the -- well, the process that was 

7 discussed at Fernald, we're not using any of 

8 the data for the thorium, right?

9 DR. MAURO: No. 

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: But also the 

11 neutron/photon ratio from Fernald.

12 DR. MAURO: The measurements --

13 good question. Ron, those measurements that 

14 were made that we had a problem with the 

15 neutron being measured at one location in time 

16 and the photon, I believe that might have been 

17 Fernald. Could you help me out a little bit?

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

19 Buchanan with SC&A. I'd like to state that as 

20 far as I recall now no Fernald data is being 

21 used, the actual data is being used for Weldon 

22 Spring. Some of the methodology that's been 
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1 developed are, but not the actual records of 

2 data except that NIOSH recommended the N/P 

3 ratio from neutron measurements at Fernald be 

4 used at Weldon Spring. We did an independent 

5 verification of a radioactive material such as 

6 was used at Weldon Spring using the Monte 

7 Carlo calculations which verified that it was 

8 the same number. And so in that case we 

9 independently verified the number from 

10 Fernald. But any of the other data is actual 

11 Weldon Spring data. 

12 Now, originally, in the original 

13 TBDs NIOSH did use a number of Fernald 

14 information. NIOSH, you know, had problems 

15 with that and they went back and redid a lot 

16 of that to where there was no use of Fernald 

17 data except for the N/P value which we 

18 verified through what would be possible at 

19 Weldon Spring. 

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: I thought there 

21 was a question on -- this is probably a 

22 question for Mark. The thorium, I thought 
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1 that there was a difference of opinion on when 

2 the years were.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What are you 

4 talking about, at Weldon Spring or at Fernald?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: At Weldon Spring. 

6 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes 

7 from NIOSH. One of the things I think that 

8 you're asking about, Brad, in our original 

9 Site Profile for the Weldon Spring plant we 

10 had proposed to use surrogate data from 

11 Fernald to assign thorium-232 intakes. I 

12 believe we're assigning a 30 nanocurie 

13 thorium-232 intake and a 30 nanocurie thorium14 228 intake. Since that Site Profile had been 

15 published we received the SEC petition. In 

16 our SEC petition Evaluation Report we provided 

17 updated intakes based upon the daily weighted 

18 average values that were from Weldon Springs. 

19 So we have proposed an updated intake rate in 

20 our SEC evaluation. 

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: What years is 

22 covered in this? I was under the impression 
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1 that for thorium that NIOSH is saying it was 

2 done between '63 and '66.

3 MR. ROLFES: That's correct. 

4 Thorium operations at the Weldon Spring plant 

5 occurred from 1963 through 1966. We've broken 

6 down.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, I'd like 

8 to get to the petitioners so I'm trying to 

9 wrap this up. That's why I'm rushing you a 

10 little bit.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Ingle 

12 report, 1991, that states that it was there 

13 from 1958 to 1966. Why aren't we using that?

14 MR. ROLFES: I'm sorry, could you 

15 refer to that again, please?

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: The Ingle, I-N-G17 L-E, 1991 report. It stated that thorium was 

18 produced from 1958 to 1966.

19 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Was this 

20 specific to the Weldon Spring plant, or?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

22 MR. ROLFES: Was it also including 
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1 Mallinckrodt possibly as well?

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Both.

3 MR. ROLFES: Okay. It is possible 

4 that Mallinckrodt was conducting the operation 

5 earlier than the Weldon Spring plant. However, 

6 all records that we have available to us for 

7 the Weldon Spring plant indicate that thorium 

8 was only processed, thorium-232 was only 

9 processed from 1963 through 1966. 

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, okay.

11 DR. MAURO: If I may, Ron, to what 

12 degree did we --

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can we --

14 please?

15 DR. MAURO: Oh, sorry, my 

16 apologies.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can we refer 

18 this to the Work Group, Brad? Get it to them? 

19 I think unfortunately they're not here today 

20 so we can't tell what they've talked about or 

21 not talked about on this. But we do need to 

22 resolve these issues. 
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1 Are the Weldon Spring petitioners 

2 on the line and do they wish to comment? Are 

3 they, if you have your phone on mute. I 

4 believe they submitted some comments which the 

5 Board has received. If not we can then 

6 continue and Brad, you have the floor. So 

7 Josie?

8 MEMBER BEACH: I just have a quick 

9 general comment. I wonder if this Work Group 

10 would benefit from an additional Member being 

11 assigned to it?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We'll get to 

13 that tomorrow. There was a number of Work 

14 Groups that may --

15 MS. TRIPLETT: Hello?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, hi.

17 MS. TRIPLETT: Hi. This is Tina 

18 Triplett, one of the petitioners. We just got 

19 kicked off.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, sorry 

21 about that but glad you're back on. Go ahead 

22 if you'd like to make some comments.
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1 MS. TRIPLETT: Okay. We -- I am 

2 with the other petitioner Karen Johnson and we 

3 basically just want to -- and we're just a 

4 little bit disappointed that the Advisory 

5 Board Members couldn't be here. We were 

6 looking for some sort of resolution today but 

7 we understand there's more discussion 

8 apparently that needed to be done and we're 

9 hoping for that resolution at the next 

10 Advisory Board meeting.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I don't know 

12 if you were on earlier but that was also our 

13 intention if possible to resolve this at the 

14 next Advisory Board meeting.

15 MS. TRIPLETT: Okay. 

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

17 comments you wish to make at this point?

18 MS. TRIPLETT: Hold on a second.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You don't have 

20 to, I just want you to.

21 MS. TRIPLETT: I think that's all 

22 we have at this time.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you 

2 very much. Josie, then? Okay. Brad, you're 

3 done? Okay. Anybody else have questions or 

4 comments on this? Yes. Bill, go ahead.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, I just had a 

6 question about the radon model that you're 

7 using. You're assuming an equilibrium ratio 

8 of 1 then?

9 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes. 

10 Basically the assumption is there wasn't a lot 

11 of radon being produced at this site because 

12 it wasn't ore that was being processed, it was 

13 actually ore concentrates. And so the only 

14 clearance mechanism that's being used to 

15 remove radon from the building is radiological 

16 decay. There's no building ventilation that 

17 is being credited to reduce the radon 

18 concentration. 

19 MEMBER FIELD: The question was 

20 with progeny. So there's no ventilation and 

21 you assume there's no plate-out as well, I 

22 assume.
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1 MR. ROLFES: I'd have to take a 

2 look back at the model. I'm not prepared to 

3 answer that today.

4 MEMBER FIELD: I'm just trying to 

5 assess the equilibrium issue of 1. For me, I 

6 was just trying to clarify that. Okay.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think 

8 certainly I'm a little confused by in SC&A's 

9 review saying it's bounding but sort of leave 

10 open the issue of sufficient accuracy. And I 

11 haven't had a chance to read that report but I 

12 think certainly one of the questions we would 

13 have is a little bit better understanding of 

14 both the assumptions in the model as well as 

15 what were the activities within those 

16 buildings and how many workers would be 

17 exposed because I think that's usually the 

18 kind of facts we want to take into account in 

19 terms of determining, you know, evaluating 

20 sufficient accuracy and plausibility and so 

21 forth. Now, it may be in your report and I 

22 don't know, John, you're here.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, your question 

2 deals with a lot of aspects of the 

3 calculation. The part dealing with, given you 

4 know the quantity, and I'm not going to speak 

5 to -- Ron can certainly speak to it, but given 

6 you know the quantity of material, assuming 

7 100 percent of the radon that's produced by 

8 the source, and I apologize, I thought there 

9 was some ore there but the concentrates, the 

10 radium that's producing it, the thorium-232 

11 that's producing the thoron, by assuming 100 

12 percent of what's being produced becomes 

13 airborne and reaches full equilibrium without 

14 any removal by any mechanism in my opinion is 

15 too high. That circumstance really can't 

16 happen. So, but it's certainly bounding. The 

17 reality is that radon will be depleted by 

18 ventilation more so than the thoron. The 

19 thoron reaches equilibrium very quickly 

20 because it's relatively short half-life 

21 compared to the longer lived progeny, radon 

22 and progeny. So in our opinion it's certainly 
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1 a very high number that places an upper bound. 

2 Can you have plausible circumstances where 

3 that could occur? I would say no. I would 

4 be, you know, but at the same time it's 

5 bounding. To start to take air turnover rate 

6 into question which you certainly can do we're 

7 back at the Blockson model.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

9 you, that's helpful. Helpful but not 

10 necessarily resolving. Okay. If there are no 

11 further questions pending we will be probably 

12 back to Weldon Springs in our next meeting. So 

13 hopefully we'll be farther along in dealing 

14 with some of these issues but thank you, John 

15 and Mark also for your input and the 

16 petitioners. 

17 We will take a break now. We will 

18 reconvene at 4:30 and we'll have a 

19 presentation on Pinellas and then we will go 

20 directly into the public comment period. 

21 Again, for those of you that just arrived it's 

22 helpful if you wish to make public comments to 
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1 sign up at the desk as you came in. We 

2 usually go in order and that's helpful. We'll 

3 be back at 4:30, thanks.

4 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

5 matter went off the record at 4:12 p.m. and 

6 resumed at 4:31 p.m.)

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're going to 

8 start with an update on the Pinellas Site 

9 Profile and Pete Darnell from NIOSH will be 

10 first and then Phil Schofield who's chair of 

11 the Work Group will make some comments after 

12 that.

13 MR. DARNELL: Good afternoon. My 

14 name's Peter Darnell. I appreciate the time 

15 to go over the Pinellas Plant Site Profile.

16 DOE operations at Pinellas site 

17 began in 1957, ran through 1997. The plant 

18 was located in Clearwater, Florida and what 

19 their main job was to do was produce 

20 precisely-timed neutron generators that were 

21 used to initiate nuclear explosions. These 

22 were accelerator type generators. They also 
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1 fabricated other weapons components at the 

2 site including lightning-arrestor connectors, 

3 specialty capacitors, crystal resonators and 

4 so on. 

5 In September 1994 Pinellas stopped 

6 producing weapons-related components, began to 

7 change its mission to environmental 

8 management. The Department of Energy 

9 transferred much of the Pinellas production 

10 capability to Kansas City plant and Sandia 

11 National Laboratory. DOE continued the 

12 cleanup which was complete in December 1997. 

13 The two contractors at the site were the 

14 General Electric Company from 1957 to 1992 and 

15 Lockheed Martin Specialty Components, Inc., 

16 from '92 to 1997. 

17 And the history of the Site 

18 Profile, the first profile was complete for 

19 Pinellas in 2005. In 2006 we did some 

20 Technical Basis Document updates, page changes 

21 in the external TBD as well as site 

22 description and X-ray. In May of 2007 SC&A 
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1 completed their Pinellas profile review and 

2 they came up with 11 primary issues and 8 

3 secondary issues. And just to let you know, 

4 in this presentation I'll only be addressing 

5 the primary issues. June 2008, well actually 

6 June 2007 we had our first Work Group meeting 

7 where we discussed the issue. June 2008 we 

8 met again and basically came to agreement in 

9 principle how to address the issues that SC&A 

10 gave us.

11 In July 2011 we started completing 

12 the Pinellas Plant Site Profile updates. Rev. 

13 2 went into effect for the introduction site 

14 description, environmental and internal dose 

15 sections. In August we did the external. 

16 October we completed the medical dose. 

17 The 11 primary issues that were 

18 brought up by SC&A, the first one dealt with 

19 the reconstruction of doses in the absence of 

20 early health physics records. Basically SC&A 

21 and NIOSH has come to agree that we've done a

22 comprehensive records search and SC&A concurs 
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1 with the policy that NIOSH has which is we'll 

2 keep looking and when we find more we'll add 

3 it. We have done that several times over the 

4 course of the TBD updates with Pinellas, the 

5 last time being this summer where we found 

6 more documentation. It turned out that most 

7 of it was redundant to what we already had but 

8 what little we did have we incorporated.

9 The second issue, potential doses 

10 from insoluble middle tritides, were not 

11 sufficiently developed. Again, SC&A and NIOSH 

12 have come to at least an agreement in 

13 principle on how to address this. For the 

14 Pinellas site, the two workers that had 

15 occupational exposure monitoring for tritium, 

16 their dose will be assigned as the Class S 

17 tritide dose based on the bioassay. The 

18 remainder of the workers will get a tritium 

19 missed dose should they be in the position 

20 where they could have gotten exposed. 

21 The third issue is minimum 

22 detectable concentrations and uncertainties 
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1 for plutonium and bioassay measurements. This 

2 issue remains open although we do have a draft 

3 of Rev. 2 which is being updated again to fix 

4 this particular issue that SC&A and NIOSH have 

5 agreed upon. Basically it's a discussion of 

6 where and how plutonium was used on the site 

7 and the very low likelihood of any exposure. 

8 Plutonium on the Pinellas site was either in 

9 triple encapsulated sources or in radio 

10 checked sources for instrumentation. Very 

11 little possibility of leakage, very little 

12 possibility of contamination spread, very 

13 little possibility of plutonium internal 

14 contaminations.

15 Issues 4, 5 and 6, personnel 

16 badging, personnel dosimetry and D&D area 

17 again are all TBD updates that NIOSH and SC&A 

18 have redefined in principle. We are awaiting 

19 their review of the updated TBDs to iron out 

20 any final details before closing out these 

21 issues. Missing internal dose estimation 

22 methods was also added into the TBDs. And 
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1 again, we're just waiting for final reviews 

2 from SC&A. Potential missed doses for 

3 depleted uranium, adequately defined and 

4 assessed medical exposures, techniques and 

5 protocols for uncertainty and preconceived X6 ray exposure uncertainties again are all in 

7 the new Technical Basis Document updates. 

8 Our path forward. NIOSH has 

9 completed the -- basically this happened 

10 today. We completed revising the plutonium 

11 bioassay section. SC&A is moving ahead with 

12 several new reviews into the Technical Basis 

13 Documents. What has happened is when we 

14 started this effort it was a different crew of 

15 SC&A personnel supporting the Work Group. Now 

16 it's a new crew going back to look at the 

17 summary of data captures. They're going to 

18 revisit discussions about the White Paper on 

19 plutonium bioassay. Excuse me. They're going 

20 to review performance characteristics 

21 identified by NIOSH for dosimetry. They're 

22 going to be reviewing D&D monitoring 
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1 information for adequacy and review the 

2 revision to the TBD for any other SC&A 

3 concerns. That's basically where we are. 

4 NIOSH is ready to support SC&A in their 

5 reviews, get them whatever information they 

6 need. Questions?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Why don't we go 

8 right to Phil because I think looking at the 

9 presentations they're sort of complementary. 

10 We'll just get confused let alone you, if we 

11 try to start asking questions, but thank you, 

12 Pete. Don't venture far, stay up front so 

13 when we have questions.

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay, I 

15 appreciate it. First I want to compliment 

16 SC&A and NIOSH both on the work they've been 

17 doing on this. This is basically a complete 

18 rewrite of the Technical Basis Documents so 

19 they have been putting a lot of effort forth 

20 in this. Pete's already gone over quite a bit 

21 of the background about when we had the last 

22 meetings. On the 13th of October we had the 
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1 Work Group meeting and NIOSH presented their 

2 summary, their changes in relation to the 

3 context of the unresolved SC&A concerns. 

4 Most of what I'm going to be 

5 talking about is kind of concerns from the 

6 SC&A action items right here. They're going 

7 to review some of the documents in the table 

8 summary of data capture searches for Pinellas 

9 Plant and its relevance for dose 

10 reconstruction. Right now this is ongoing. 

11 Based on preliminary results additional 

12 information will be requested from NIOSH. 

13 We're going to review Mound tritides White 

14 Paper as it applies to Pinellas and this is 

15 something we've been bouncing around off poor 

16 Josie's group. So, but we figure if we can 

17 settle that issue there we can settle the 

18 issue here and we'll all come out a little 

19 better. So, and then there will be, SC&A will 

20 prepare a formal response on the overarching 

21 methodologies going on. That status of that 

22 is still going on. 
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1 Now, we're going to get into 

2 reduced worker interviews. We luckily just by 

3 pure luck ran into a couple of gentlemen out 

4 in Albuquerque who happened to be out of 

5 Pinellas involved in a lot of the work out 

6 there and so we were able to do a classified 

7 interview with them. I don't believe anything 

8 we had was -- correct me if I'm wrong, Josie 

9 or Brad, but I don't think anything was 

10 classified, was it?

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, it wasn't.

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I didn't 

13 remember anything being classified. Okay, so 

14 we're going to do worker interviews on the 

15 onsite destructive testing of neutron tube 

16 leaks incidents. Also unmonitored dose from 

17 depleted uranium/tritium beds. The glass 

18 tubes, there was a number of indications that 

19 they had some of these were dropped, broken, 

20 spilled so there was potential. There were 

21 uptakes probably there. 

22 The next thing is the, we're going 
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1 to look at the revision to TBD-5, Occupational 

2 Internal Dose. To remove guidance -- maybe 

3 you already did that. I'm sorry, you already 

4 did that, removed the plutonium bioassay 

5 there. We're going to revisit discussions 

6 resultant from the SC&A White Paper review of 

7 Pinellas plutonium bioassay data. This is 

8 dated December 9th, 2008. Review bioassay 

9 data for confirmation of comprehensive null 

10 results. We're going to conduct worker 

11 interviews to obtain more information on the 

12 types of RTGs. 

13 The use of asbestos gloves implies 

14 that Pu elements were in place during testing 

15 and that some of these may have been fairly 

16 large RTGs because of thermal energy being put 

17 out there. So, you know, you use gloves but 

18 I've been around those a little too much. 

19 And then worker recollections of 

20 their plutonium bioassay program, we want to 

21 find out frequency, who was monitored, what 

22 the criteria was for selection and resulting 
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1 results. Review badge data, confirm that most 

2 highly exposed or exposed versus non-exposed 

3 were badged. The strategy will likely involve 

4 matching job titles for badged versus unbadged 

5 personnel. This relates back to item number 

6 1. We plan on conducting worker interviews to 

7 obtain more information about why badges were 

8 worn, maximum exposed versus cohort sampling, 

9 and criteria selection which jobs were because 

10 not everyone at Pinellas was badged. You had 

11 a large group of people that were badged and 

12 some weren't. 

13 We want to review the performance 

14 characteristics of dosimeters used in the post 

15 June '74 time period as identified by NIOSH 

16 and tabulated in TBD-6. Occupational external 

17 dose, that status is still ongoing. Based on 

18 preliminary results one concern remains. 

19 Prepare a memo outlining deficiencies in the 

20 D&D discussion methods following NIOSH action 

21 to identify and provide monitoring survey 

22 results, activity descriptions to support the 
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1 position that D&D activities do not require 

2 additional dose assignment beyond what is 

3 already considered review for adequacy -- I 

4 can't speak today. Conduct worker interviews 

5 to obtain more information on activities and 

6 exposure potential during the D&D period. 

7 Also, availability of survey data compiled 

8 under 10 CFR 835 and associated DOE directives 

9 standards. That status is ongoing, waiting 

10 for NIOSH on their part. Then we'll have to 

11 respond. 

12 Their review of TBD-3 occupational 

13 medical dose, this is the last one that was 

14 updated. Confirm that information presented 

15 at the Work Group meeting is included and that 

16 the new information addresses SC&A concerns. I 

17 guess that's out now so we'll have to look at 

18 that and then. 

19 The path forward is SC&A expects 

20 that the reviews enhanced by interview results 

21 will likely extend to 2012. We were scheduled 

22 to do some interviews on Friday, because of 
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1 problems we had to cancel. So we will be 

2 rescheduling those in about the next month or 

3 two sometime hopefully. 

4 The process of conducting, 

5 documenting process and finalizing interview 

6 results will likely extend into 2012 which we 

7 already know how that's going. Then we have 

8 the dependence on the resolution of Mound 

9 tritides issue. Though an SC&A is not tasked, 

10 TBD revisions could benefit from formal review 

11 in some cases. TBD-3 medical doses. And we 

12 will be scheduling a fourth Work Group meeting 

13 with both NIOSH and SC&A have completed their 

14 assigned task. Any questions?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just so I 

16 understand this right, there's a little 

17 confusion here but so, if I understand, NIOSH 

18 has done major revisions in the last three 

19 years I believe it is on the Site Profile 

20 document. If I understood you right, Pete, 

21 today you finished the plutonium?

22 MR. DARNELL: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's 

2 timeliness, right?

3 MR. DARNELL: The Technical Basis 

4 Documents have all already been revised. They 

5 were completed last month.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay.

7 MR. DARNELL: The last one was 

8 completed. We then based on the Work Group 

9 meeting re-revised the plutonium section for 

10 that task.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And that was 

12 today.

13 MR. DARNELL: That was completed 

14 today.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, okay. And 

16 that's timely, right.

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, we have 

18 seen that yet.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, we 

20 understand. And just clarify me on the --

21 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, I 

22 apologize, I guess SC&A has seen it. I 
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1 haven't. 

2 MR. STIVER: Hi, everybody. I'm 

3 John Stiver and with Aris Papadopoulos the 

4 task manager for Pinellas. I've been fairly 

5 close to some of these developments and 

6 attended the last Work Group meeting. And I 

7 guess some of the disconnect we're seeing 

8 here, some of the apparent disconnect has to 

9 do with the fact as Peter mentioned that there 

10 was kind of a hiatus there from June of '09 

11 until we had the last Work Group meeting just 

12 in this last October during which some major 

13 sea changes in TBDs were instituted. And so 

14 when you look at the issue matrix in that 

15 snapshot in time from June of 2009 there are a 

16 lot of things that we kind of had agreed in 

17 principle to that we would have to see, you 

18 know, whether these TBDs really implemented 

19 what we had requested to the extent we felt 

20 would be adequate. One example being this 

21 issue number 1 was whether the references were 

22 adequate characterized by exposures pre-1980. 
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1 And NIOSH has provided in TBD-1 a table with 

2 about 400 different references. No, it's 

3 clearly not practical for us to go look at 

4 every single one of those and it's even more 

5 complex because some relate to internal dose, 

6 some relate to external, some to environmental 

7 at different time periods. And so it's kind 

8 of one of the reasons I put in that last 

9 bullet towards the end on the way forward that 

10 because there have been such comprehensive 

11 changes that, you know, even though we haven't 

12 been tasked some of these TBDs might benefit 

13 from review. 

14 We do believe and our first 

15 impressions are that they are good TBDs, there 

16 are certainly some major improvements there. 

17 It's kind of an ongoing process right now and 

18 it would be premature to make any final 

19 judgments.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And that's not 

21 what I was trying to imply nor I think what 

22 Phil was at all either. There clearly needs 
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1 to be additional review. I was just trying to 

2 get at what other, sort of the first revision 

3 going through what, if anything needed to be 

4 done now and I think Pete was saying you're 

5 complete. The only one I'm still a little 

6 confused on is the D&D period as to what is 

7 required there, being looked for there. 

8 MR. DARNELL: NIOSH has gone 

9 through the available documentation and 

10 actually addressed the D&D period specifically 

11 on page 13 of the site description.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

13 MR. DARNELL: Again, it's one of 

14 those --

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It has to be 

16 looked at. Okay, okay, I understand.

17 MR. DARNELL: Right.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks, 

19 everybody. Paul, then Gen. Okay, that's 

20 polite of you.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: Usually the 

22 occupational medical dose is pretty routine at 
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1 most sites. And it was kind of my impression 

2 it's claimant-friendly. What is it about this 

3 site that makes it one of the major issues 

4 that's identified?

5 MR. DARNELL: It's a holdover from 

6 the way the site started looking at medical 

7 doses. They weren't using the TIB for medical 

8 doses. Now they are, and the approach just 

9 hasn't been looked over by SC&A yet.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So a loose end 

11 more than a major issue I think, if that. 

12 Paul?

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know if 

14 this, which of you this is for but just a 

15 general question on external dosimetry. 

16 There's kind of an implication that we don't 

17 know the basis for which people were selected 

18 for dosimetry and therefore you're going to 

19 talk to some of the workers. But are there 

20 any records that give the official policy on 

21 who gets -- who wears the badge? I assume 

22 this, most of this focused on neutron 
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1 dosimetry, is that correct?

2 MR. DARNELL: Actually the 

3 dosimetry was a mixture. At the Pinellas site 

4 dose was reported as a whole body dose which 

5 included neutron, photon and tritium. So it's 

6 been very difficult to split the doses up. The 

7 badges that were used changed over different 

8 periods. We know what they were, we know what 

9 the responses were. What we didn't have was a 

10 record that showed us the individual doses to 

11 photon, the individual doses to neutron. We 

12 got the whole body dose for most of the time 

13 period.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: And they threw the 

15 tritium in there which has got to be internal.

16 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Well 

18 that's a little different.

19 MR. DARNELL: Yes, very different. 

20 That's why NIOSH has taken the approach into 

21 looking at the dosimetry. It's quite apparent 

22 in looking at the records and the history of 
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1 the records that they have that the Pinellas 

2 site focused on personnel that were performing 

3 the radiological operations. At the Pinellas 

4 site the radiological operations was an 

5 extremely small percentage of the overall work 

6 at the Pinellas site. As a matter of fact, 

7 the radiological hazard is extremely low 

8 compared to the chemical hazards that were at 

9 the Pinellas site. So we have the contractors 

10 focusing on the workers that were actually 

11 doing the hands-on radiological work. So what 

12 you have is a worker dosimetry set of data 

13 that has a whole bunch of people at zero, 95 

14 percent of them right around 100 millirem and 

15 then you tail off. I think the highest 

16 individual maximum exposure at the site at any 

17 time was 1.71 rem. The 95 percent and 100 or 

18 lower, excuse me.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: And one other, 

20 just a general question. I assume that this 

21 wouldn't violate any classification issues but 

22 if it does say so. But the neutron 
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1 generators, are they typically the 14 MeV 

2 deuterium, tritium?

3 MR. DARNELL: Because we're not 

4 sure we're not going to answer that.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

6 MR. DARNELL: About the 

7 classification issue, not the answer.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, thank you.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Just one other 

10 brief thing. I know there's been a long delay 

11 from the start of this to this point but 

12 Pinellas records seem to become orphans and 

13 they have literally been scattered throughout 

14 the complex. So you have to go all over the 

15 country to find their records and that has 

16 definitely slowed things down.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. No more 

18 questions? Thank you both.

19 MR. DARNELL: Could I add one more 

20 thing? I apologize. About the external 

21 dosimetry. This is a very different site than 

22 most DOE sites. Either the radiation was 
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1 turned on when they were doing the test or it 

2 was turned off. So in your dosimetry records 

3 what you were going to have is a person with 

4 10 millirem or whatever on this, on day X and 

5 then day Z way down the road three or four 

6 months later they may have another 10 

7 millirem. No exposure in between yet they 

8 were monitored. And this is repeated 

9 throughout the history of the site. So what 

10 you get is a truly skewed set of dosimetry 

11 towards the highest exposures. That's really 

12 important to understand because when you know, 

13 when you've captured the highs and you know 

14 the lows are at zero because you have 

15 dosimetry records at zero, you've got 

16 dosimetry records up to 1.71 rem, it became 

17 quite apparent quickly that there was a lot of 

18 work that was done at the site that didn't 

19 involve radioactive materials, didn't involve 

20 an exposure which gave us the ability to use 

21 the 95th percentile right at 100 millirem to 

22 provide the unmonitored worker. So dosimetry 
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1 while it's weird and different than most sites 

2 it's actually a little bit easier to assign 

3 the dose to the workers. Yes, sir.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, go ahead, 

5 Dave.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Just a 

7 question because it's sort of counterintuitive 

8 to me. I mean, often when I talk to people 

9 about neutron dosimetry in the years before 

10 TLD approaches -- some health physicists are 

11 really skeptical that you can do very much in 

12 reconstructing the neutron dose reliably from 

13 the NTA films. And they sort of caution you 

14 about that. And here the sort of spin is that 

15 the dosimetry is easier here but because we, 

16 we're turning on and off the source but it's a 

17 neutron source I guess is the paradox.

18 MR. DARNELL: Well, it's partially 

19 a neutron source and photons were also 

20 emitted. It is, to me it appears easier 

21 because it is so discrete. You have one 

22 action, it's done, it's over, there is no 
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1 exposure, there's no real --

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But we don't 

3 have a level of information which necessarily 

4 reliably even allows us to place workers in 

5 the plant. If I'm understanding the site 

6 history correctly some of them were moving 

7 from Wisconsin to Pinellas and so we're at a 

8 scale of resolution which is far away from 

9 determined when they were in front of a source 

10 and the switch was turned on and off.

11 MR. DARNELL: Actually, we have 

12 that. 

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You have time 

14 information?

15 MR. DARNELL: Well, we have the 

16 day that the tests were complete and the 

17 dosimetry match-up. So the person with, like 

18 I told you that has that exposure, it's coming 

19 on a day they were doing testing and we can 

20 see that in the records.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

22 MR. DARNELL: That's how discrete 
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1 the exposures were to the externals. Now the 

2 internal is something different, but the 

3 external was pretty discrete.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thanks.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I think 

6 we need to move into public comment period. 

7 Thank you, Pete and Phil. I have a list of 

8 about a dozen people that have signed up here 

9 for public comment. I'm going to go in order 

10 but I'm going to start with the people at 

11 least I believe are associated with the 

12 Pinellas facility first, and then do other 

13 people here. And then later on we'll, if 

14 there are people on the line that would like 

15 to make public comment we will get to them. 

16 Before we start Ted has some 

17 information.

18 MR. KATZ: Yes, just to advise 

19 everyone who's participating in public comment 

20 that you may have noticed there's a court 

21 reporter here. All these Board meetings are 

22 fully transcribed verbatim meaning word for 
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1 word. So your comments will be captured that 

2 way as well and all of the Board transcripts 

3 from all of the Board meetings get posted on 

4 the NIOSH website. So whatever comments you 

5 make will end up on the NIOSH website 

6 available to everyone in the public. So 

7 anything you say personal about yourself, 

8 that'll be available to the public. We don't 

9 redact that personal information. We do, 

10 however, just note, redact personal 

11 information you give about other people to 

12 protect their privacy because it's not them 

13 speaking here. So if you talk about another 

14 person we will redact enough information so 

15 that the public doesn't know who you're 

16 talking about. It doesn't mean that people 

17 will, the public will know what you've said 

18 about the person but not who that person is. 

19 So just want you to understand that and the 

20 full policy should be on a piece of paper in 

21 the back table there if you really want to 

22 read it. And also for people on the phone 
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1 it's also on the NIOSH website under the Board 

2 section of the website. Under the meeting 

3 section there's a policy called Redaction 

4 Policy I believe and that's where you can see 

5 the policy in all its glory. But that's 

6 essentially what it is, what I just told you.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We will 

8 get started and the first person that is 

9 signed up is Donna Hand. 

10 MS. HAND: I yield that to the 

11 workers because you all hear from me all the 

12 time. I prefer that you hear from workers.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, well we'll 

14 right down to the next person I have signed up 

15 is Steve Smith. Is Mr. Smith in the? You can 

16 either use that microphone there if you prefer 

17 that one. Okay, that's fine. And if you have 

18 something you'd like to hand in written you 

19 can give it to us and we'll also make copies 

20 and distribute it.

21 MR. SMITH: I'm Steve Smith of St. 

22 Petersburg. I started my career with General 
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1 Electric in 1979. I began my tenure in the 

2 metalized department where I worked around 

3 cyanide baths and acetone. I would paint 

4 ceramic parts from the lathe machine with a 

5 lead-based slurry. Once the parts were 

6 painted I would place the ceramic parts in a 

7 hot furnace. No protective equipment was 

8 required. 

9 The first introduction to that 

10 area was the strong smell of acetone. Over 

11 time I became acclimated to the smell. After 

12 three years I took a position in final test 

13 where I performed radioactive testing on the 

14 final product before it was sent to Quality 

15 Assurance. Every day I had my hands in a 

16 clear liquid that would dry my hands out and 

17 turn them white. I worked inside the taped 

18 magenta area while the tests were being 

19 performed. I operated the radiography 

20 machines and would go to tube exhaust and 

21 other departments nearly on a daily basis. I 

22 wore a film badge and gave a monthly urine 
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1 sample as well. Again, I was not required to 

2 wear protective equipment.

3 The next six years I worked in 

4 shipping and receiving where my duties 

5 included unloading trucks, X-raying every 

6 parcel that came through the Pinellas Plant. 

7 My deliveries took me to every department at 

8 the Pinellas Plant. Once a month I would load 

9 55 gallon drums. I would assist the shipping 

10 department and there was three of us that 

11 would take the government truck and we would 

12 transport these 55 gallon drums to MacDill Air 

13 Force Base where we would meet a government 

14 plane that was waiting on the tarmac and 

15 transfer the drums onto the plane. The drums 

16 were hot to the touch and I was wearing 

17 asbestos gloves. They were still hot.

18 Once I was unloading a truck 

19 removing a crate that was clearly marked 

20 radioactive. As I was unloading the crate it 

21 broke open, spilling out the contents onto my 

22 shoes and onto the floor. I immediately 
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1 contacted my supervisor as well as the hazmat 

2 personnel. Looking back, the hazmat team 

3 never washed me down. My supervisor allowed 

4 me to receive new work shoes. 

5 After 13 years of service at the 

6 Pinellas Plant I was laid off. During my 

7 years at the plant I developed severe 

8 allergies which I still suffer from today. In 

9 1986 I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue 

10 syndrome. In 1984 I developed a cancerous 

11 mole underneath my right eye. In 1982, this 

12 is going to go into public record, my 

13 physician performed a chest X-ray. It showed 

14 that I had scarring on the lungs. My sister 

15 who was also employed at the Pinellas Plant 

16 had the same findings in her chest X-rays. She 

17 had the same physician that I had. The 

18 physician gave me a signed affidavit which I 

19 included in my packet that I submitted to 

20 NIOSH. 

21 In 1998 my sister Kathy Sanders 

22 was diagnosed with lymphoma-melanoma. She 
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1 died July 10th, 2000. That same year I too 

2 was diagnosed with melanoma. In 2001 it 

3 recurred, and in 2005 it recurred again. In 

4 2004 I was diagnosed with beryllium disease by 

5 a doctor in St. Petersburg. 

6 I attended the initial meeting for 

7 the Pinellas workers in 2004. At that meeting 

8 Larry Haas who represented the Department of 

9 Labor divulged to us, and this is to the best 

10 of my recollection, that the government had 

11 knowingly exposed the employees to high levels 

12 of radiation. In the same sentence he said 

13 that the government was ready to write checks 

14 out to employees who had been affected. I 

15 stood up and challenged him that the burden of 

16 proof would be placed on the employees. He 

17 assured everyone that would not be the case, 

18 but it has been the case. I have jumped 

19 through many hoops in order to provide 

20 information from my dose reconstruction only 

21 to be turned down every single time. He also 

22 shared at that same meeting that the records 
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1 of the employees had been lost. 

2 I am proud of the part I played in 

3 helping to end the Cold War. Like the first 

4 responders on 9/11 the Pinellas workers have 

5 also been neglected. In conclusion, my family 

6 had never had a history of cancer until my 

7 sister and I were diagnosed with melanoma. I 

8 find it strange that her and I worked at the 

9 same plant and we both shared the lung 

10 scarring as well as cancer. I find it strange 

11 that the employees spotted an alligator with 

12 three eyes and a frog with two heads. If the 

13 soil was such to where it changed the mutation 

14 of the wildlife imagine what the radiation was 

15 doing to us. 

16 I believe it would be advantageous 

17 as well as cost-effective to give every 

18 claimant a set settlement along with a medical 

19 card. This to me would seem to be a lot 

20 simpler rather than the countless studies, 

21 meetings, that we're conducting here today and 

22 have been conducted. Unfortunately I'm afraid 
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1 that as more and more of us die off and as 

2 time goes on the liability aspect just goes 

3 away. Thank you for allowing me to have this 

4 opportunity to share what's on my heart.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Mr. 

6 Smith. The next person signed up is Russell 

7 Sherk. Okay.

8 MR. SHERK: Yes, my name's Russell 

9 Sherk and I'm here on behalf of my wife Mary 

10 Davidson Sherk. She worked at the Pinellas 

11 Plant from 1993 to '96 and in 1998 she passed 

12 away from acute appendicitis eight days after 

13 our second child was born. And I don't know a 

14 lot about what she did. 

15 I know also, I have some 

16 information on my father-in-law, David R. 

17 Davidson. He worked at the Pinellas Plant 

18 from 1956 to 1994. And basically my mother19 in-law, Judy Davidson, couldn't be here and I 

20 was wanting to just give a little information 

21 about him because she filed a claim. Well, 

22 originally he filed a claim in 2004 for lung 
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1 scarring and he went to some of the same 

2 meetings that Mr. Smith mentioned earlier and 

3 filed the claim. And then in 2005 he also was 

4 diagnosed with a rare carcinoid cancer and 

5 later died on June 1st, 2006. 

6 And I just wish that the Board 

7 would do the best they can for the employees 

8 that worked there at the plant, that they 

9 would follow through with what they were 

10 intending to follow through when this program 

11 was first started. And I just appreciate the 

12 time that you've given me. Thank you. 

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. The 

14 next person who is signed up is Doris Ensor I 

15 believe. Okay, that's fine. And if you could 

16 introduce yourself for the record so we have.

17 MR. MILLER: My name is Josh 

18 Miller. My grandmother is Doris Ensor and my 

19 grandfather is Stafford Hutchinson. I'm a 

20 radiation worker here in Florida. I do have 

21 some experience. I work with radionuclides, 

22 gamma-emitting, but I do have prior knowledge 
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1 of alpha and beta gamma index rate emissions 

2 and dosimetry reporting. I work closely with 

3 the radiation safety officer. 

4 My main concern is when I heard 

5 about these glass tubes, the tritium. Now, 

6 whenever they were dropped the employees 

7 immediately affected by that would have 

8 inhaled it. It would have been absorbed into 

9 their bloodstream and into their capillary 

10 vessels inside their lungs, and upon that 

11 point is when it does the real damage. It 

12 seems as though without proper reporting was 

13 there an acting radiation safety officer or a 

14 person acting as such that there was a prior 

15 reporting of these and the people affected 

16 directly. 

17 Knowing that, there was talk about 

18 the film dosimetry badges. That's not going 

19 to pick up alpha emissions. You're going to 

20 have to have air monitoring which I heard 

21 referenced but to what point. Was it near the 

22 point of origin, or was it across the 
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1 building? Because that point is going to be 

2 dissipated into the air. Your parts per 

3 million are going to be lower and the 

4 concentrations are going to show different 

5 than what I've seen. I saw my grandmother's 

6 dosimetry report and it seems 100 millirem is 

7 extremely low for a person working within an 

8 environment that there is gamma and neutron 

9 and photon. Or sorry, X-ray, neutron and 

10 photon emissions. And then of course without 

11 having volume studies for the alpha emissions 

12 there is no comprehensive data for that. I 

13 haven't seen it. 

14 Now, my grandfather had COPD is 

15 what it was diagnosed by medical 

16 professionals. But it directly correlates 

17 with lung scarring, the X-rays. It states it 

18 throughout his entire medical records. It 

19 directly correlates with the diagnosis and the 

20 treatment for beryllium poisoning, or 

21 beryllium disease. Immunosuppressive, oxygen 

22 exchange. He was on oxygen. He was 
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1 constantly on steroids and so forth and so on. 

2 It seems as though, that seems to be a pretty 

3 prevalent issue that at some point or another 

4 it seems that all have been exposed to some 

5 form or another of inhalant whether it be 

6 beryllium or heavy metal contamination. 

7 Nowhere in his medical records does it say 

8 that he was ever submitted for any kind of 

9 control. There was no process control for 

10 seeing what his contamination level was for 

11 heavy metal and tritides and beryllium until 

12 it was too late. He died of obstructive 

13 disease in his lungs which is kind of a 

14 general term which I would assume looking back 

15 the doctor should have checked for beryllium 

16 poisoning. That being said it seems as though 

17 the records weren't clearly kept, that a lot 

18 of the things aren't taken into consideration. 

19 It doesn't seem as though it is being treated 

20 fairly. And that's as far as my knowledge of 

21 it.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 
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1 Pete Darnell is still here if you'd like to 

2 talk to him or I think John Stiver is here 

3 also about -- give you a little bit more 

4 information on the sampling and what was done 

5 in terms of monitoring because it is 

6 complicated there. As I said, we're still --

7 the Advisory Board and our contractor are 

8 still in the process of reviewing that and one 

9 of the other things we look into are, you 

10 know, spills, accidents and so forth, and try 

11 to look at what sort of documentation, what 

12 might have occurred and were exposures missed 

13 in the dose records from those kinds of 

14 incidents. It's one thing and it's very 

15 important that, you know, people have 

16 knowledge of that or you know, recollection 

17 can inform us because it's not always, at 

18 least at many sites those are not always 

19 recorded well.

20 MR. MILLER: That's another 

21 question I forgot to ask.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's okay.
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1 MR. MILLER: Is there a current 

2 survey or a background of the facility now? 

3 Because I think that would be easy enough to 

4 reverse decay because it's essentially a 

5 proven theory, or a science.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Again, I think 

7 Mr. Darnell could probably, somebody more 

8 familiar with the facility than I am could

9 probably help you with that and answer that 

10 question also.

11 MR. MILLER: All right, thank you.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, thank you. 

13 The next person I have signed up is David 

14 Vaughn.

15 MR. VAUGHN: My name is David 

16 Vaughn, Pinellas Plant. I started work there 

17 on July 3rd, 1967, and I left on August 1st, 

18 1997. That's a little over 30 years. For the 

19 first 12 years I worked in the plant I worked 

20 in the laboratory. In the lab my job was to 

21 do tritium analysis. Now, these broken flasks 

22 you're talking about, they happened. In fact, 
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1 in the part of the plant where it was 

2 considered to be the hot area and you had to 

3 wear shoe covers and lab coats and things to 

4 get in there, so those things did happen. 

5 After working there about 10 or I 

6 guess about 12 years I developed basal cell 

7 carcinoma on the side of my head. I had a 

8 habit when talking to people of rubbing the 

9 side of my head right here. Now in the early 

10 days we didn't have the same kinds of safety 

11 procedures in place in the beginning that we 

12 had later on so I didn't wear gloves. I 

13 handled all these things with my bare hands. 

14 So there's no doubt in my mind that basal cell 

15 carcinoma was caused by the tritium contact 

16 with the skin on the side of my head. 

17 Well, that was the first time I 

18 had surgery. About four years later I had to 

19 have surgery again in a similar location. This 

20 time they told me I was getting, in addition 

21 to having a basal cell removed I was getting a 

22 face lift on one side. What they did, they 
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1 peeled the skin back from the front of my ear 

2 all the way back to about here, about the 

3 middle of my head, and then they removed a lot 

4 of nerves, a lot of tissue under -- from the 

5 side of my head. Now, I've been told that 

6 tritium can't penetrate the skin. Well, I'm 

7 telling you that's not true. I know for a 

8 fact that it can and for about two years my 

9 head was numb from the top to the chin, all on 

10 the right-hand side. Well, fortunately it's 

11 never come back. It was removed.

12 I also developed squamous cell a 

13 little later on the side of my shoulder here. 

14 And then about 10 years ago I had surgery for 

15 adenocarcinoma which was colon cancer. In 

16 each case I've been very lucky it was caught 

17 early.

18 Now, in addition to doing tritium 

19 analysis for about 10 or 12 years in that part 

20 of the plant I also operated the linear 

21 accelerator. This accelerator was inside the 

22 main building. That was a 200 kV accelerator 
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1 and basically the purpose of this accelerator 

2 was to produce neutrons. 

3 Now, subsequent to my operating 

4 the accelerator after a couple of years they 

5 moved it out of the main building into another 

6 building which was specially constructed and 

7 modified to house this accelerator. The walls 

8 were 4 feet thick, the ceiling had 21 inches 

9 of poured concrete. Now, the reason why the 

10 poured concrete and this to me seems a little 

11 strange but I was told this was the reason was 

12 because of something called skyshine. I guess 

13 some of you are probably familiar what that 

14 is, I'm not. But I think it had to do with 

15 airplanes flying over the building when 

16 they're doing testing. The reason that I feel 

17 this should be a concern was because for the 

18 first two years it wasn't in that building, it 

19 was operated in the main building and the only 

20 thing that surrounded this accelerator were 

21 chipboard walls, about 3/8 inch thick or 

22 something like that. So, that's something 
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1 that led -- I haven't seen this reflected in 

2 any of the reports that I've read, in any of 

3 the documentation. 

4 Now, the accelerator, someone said 

5 something about 14 MeV neutrons. This 

6 accelerator produced both high and low energy 

7 neutrons, not just high energy neutrons but 

8 also produced neutrons that were low and as I 

9 understand in the two to three range. So that 

10 was the first 12 years I worked in the 

11 building, at the plant.

12 The last 18 years I worked in 

13 security where I basically handled technical 

14 security and as part of my job there I was in 

15 all areas of the plant at all times of the day 

16 and night. One of the places where I spent 

17 time was in the building where the RTGs were 

18 built. One of the reasons why I was there is 

19 because we put in portable monitoring 

20 equipment to detect the presence of weapons or 

21 maybe the possibility of someone taking one of 

22 these RTGs out of the building. 
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1 Something that I noticed about 

2 this portable monitor, there was a vault, I 

3 say a vault, a room where this, the RTGs were 

4 stored. You walked between the monitor in 

5 that room, the monitor would actually detect 

6 the fact that you had walked between it and 

7 the source of these RTGs. Now, someone says 

8 they were triple encapsulated. I think there 

9 was something besides alpha being produced by 

10 these RTGs, that's what the monitor was 

11 picking up.

12 In addition to working in all 

13 areas and working with a portable monitor and 

14 working around the RTGs I also visited most of 

15 the other sites in the weapons complex during 

16 the last 18 years as part of my job. I don't 

17 remember ever being badged anyplace I ever 

18 went. I don't remember ever wearing a 

19 dosimeter when I was at the Pinellas Plant. I 

20 was in the bioassay program when I did the 

21 tritium analysis but I never wore a dosimeter 

22 at any time. 
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1 It's my feeling that maybe not 

2 everything is being properly and accurately 

3 reflected in the Site Profile. I haven't 

4 looked at the latest revision of it so I don't 

5 know what's been changed but I know the

6 earlier versions that I looked at were 

7 inaccurate. I guess that's all I have.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Paul, 

9 do you want to answer the linear accelerator 

10 question?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Dr. Melius asked 

12 me to make a comment about skyshine. That's 

13 fairly common in radiographic facilities. In 

14 fact, it's one of the issues we have at 

15 General Steel Industries currently. Skyshine 

16 has to do with radiation scattered over the 

17 top of shields where there is not a shielding 

18 ceiling as it were, and that scattered

19 radiation that comes over the top and reaches 

20 occupied areas outside is referred to as 

21 skyshine. So it appears from what you've said 

22 that the shielded ceiling that was added in 
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1 your later facility was to eliminate that 

2 radiation which otherwise would scatter to the 

3 occupied areas over the top of the shield.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you for 

5 those comments. The next person I have signed 

6 up I believe is Josh Miller. 

7 MR. MILLER: I've already gone.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, I thought 

9 it looked familiar. Thanks. The person next 

10 is Bill Sunderbruch. And Mr. Sunderbruch, if 

11 it would be easier for you to sit down we can 

12 bring the microphone down. Okay, fine.

13 MR. SUNDERBRUCH: I'll just sit 

14 down if you can hear me.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, thank you.

16 MR. SUNDERBRUCH: My name is Bill 

17 Sunderbruch. I started, you said it was 1957, 

18 it was actually 1956, the temporary plant in 

19 St. Petersburg and worked there till -- for 37 

20 and a half years. During that time I started 

21 out as a early employee working at the 

22 temporary plant, 34 employees. And we built 
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1 generators there. 

2 In May we moved to the main plant. 

3 I was one of the last ones to leave the 

4 temporary plant. And a couple of years later 

5 I became a supervisor for 25 years. During 

6 that time I built generators, quite a bit of 

7 different products. My last assignment in 

8 manufacturing was in the RTG for five years. 

9 Department of Energy required a physical 

10 inventory of heat sources every day. You 

11 talked about asbestos gloves. I had to go in 

12 with my bare fingers, run it across the heat 

13 sources every morning, count 200 to 300 heat 

14 sources then report to DOE about that they 

15 were all there.

16 Mr. Darnell is, not to take 

17 anything away from him but he does not have 

18 all the information that he should have had. 

19 And it's not his fault. I was in the tube 

20 exhaust area for supervisor for 15 years. I'd 

21 get a call on the phone and they say your 

22 urine sample is a little high, better have a 
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1 little beer on the weekend, get rid of the gas 

2 I inhaled. So you come in Monday morning 

3 leave a sample. They call up, say okay, 

4 you're fine now. Well, if you were fine on 

5 Monday then Friday's point report went in the 

6 garbage. It was never recorded.

7 When I first filed for my claim I 

8 got, through the Freedom of Information Act I 

9 got my medical records. During the 25 years 

10 that I was a supervisor every year they'd give 

11 you a physical. That physical gave you a 

12 blood test, X-ray, the whole smear. Even DOE 

13 managers came in to get their physical at the 

14 plant because it was so thorough yet in my 

15 report there was not one of my tests showed 

16 up, or not one of my physical exams showed up. 

17 I'd looked at my radiation dosage that I 

18 received over the years. Peter's probably got 

19 it. The amount of phone calls I got, the 

20 amount of exposure I had doesn't show up on 

21 that report. 

22 Now whether some of you worked at 
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1 other plants or not we had what they called 

2 the CIP program, cost improvement program. I 

3 think it was sponsored by the government and 

4 what it was, that each section of the plant 

5 was given a target area to save so much money 

6 a year. Well, if you reported, health physics 

7 for example had a bad year, a lot of radiation 

8 exposure, they didn't get as much incentive if 

9 you will. So the plant's cost improvement 

10 program would drop. So there was a lot of 

11 things that weren't reported that happened.

12 I wished I could help Peter with 

13 some of the information that may have been 

14 destroyed or not recorded. I don't know how 

15 he's going to recover it but there's a lot of 

16 sick people at the plant. I've had, you 

17 talked about an investigation going to come 

18 up, you're going to get more people together. 

19 Please hurry up. I'm 79. I started at 26 and 

20 I was one of the young ones. Most of them are 

21 gone now.

22 I would be more than happy -- I 
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1 was supposed to be at MacDill on Friday. It 

2 got canceled. I have friends that I met with 

3 the other night at the GE Quarter Century 

4 Club. Some of the engineers, the technicians, 

5 section managers said they'd be more than 

6 happy to discuss classified information with 

7 you if it got on notice. Some things came up, 

8 some programs that we had at the plant that 

9 people got -- I don't want to say radiated. 

10 That's a good point, they might have been. And 

11 that should be brought up. I don't know how 

12 you're going to do it, you can't do it here. 

13 As a matter of fact I've been retired now 19 

14 years and I don't know what's classified 

15 anymore and what's not. But I'd be more than 

16 happy to volunteer my services to help you out 

17 any way I can. And I can get you a list of 

18 people that would be more than happy to help. 

19 Do you have any questions for me?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, but 

21 we certainly I think do want to take you up on 

22 your offer to help. I think that was either 
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1 through NIOSH or through the Board has our own 

2 contractor that helps us review these sites 

3 and that's one of the paths they wanted to do 

4 was to interview a number of people. So John 

5 Stiver and John Mauro are there and I think 

6 they'll follow up and get in contact when we 

7 coordinate that. And we also have ways of 

8 handling the classified information procedures 

9 and so forth that protect everybody with DOE's 

10 assistance on that and cooperation. 

11 We appreciate it, and we 

12 appreciate you coming here. And again, just 

13 to reiterate, we assume we don't have all the 

14 information, so the information that's 

15 provided in these meetings and other outreach 

16 efforts are really important to us. We try to 

17 do everything we can to take them into account 

18 in our review. So thank you again. 

19 The next person signed up is 

20 Robert Bossard I believe. I apologize if I 

21 mispronounce.

22 MR. BOSSARD: I've been called 
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1 worse.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, with a 

3 name like Melius --

4 MR. BOSSARD: It's Bossard, but 

5 that's okay. I started in 1963, I was an 

6 hourly employee like Bill said he was and then 

7 I worked my way up. I worked as a lathe 

8 operator and right across the hallway they 

9 machined beryllium. And of course, I've got 

10 beryllium in my lungs as we speak, but I was a 

11 supervisor of separators, capacitors, thermal 

12 battery, LAC connectors, classified area that 

13 Bill said we're not allowed to talk about, but 

14 two of my employees that worked in that area, 

15 they died. Another one worked with 

16 radioactive parts, '56, he died. 

17 We offloaded those heat sources 

18 when the SST trucks came in, our job was to 

19 get them unloaded as fast as possible which we 

20 did. We got a lot of commendations for the 

21 job we did on that. We had to put them in the 

22 vault and like Bill said they were brought 
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1 out. They had to be inventoried and 

2 inspected. So a lot of people were involved 

3 in that also. The thing that concerns me, 

4 I've really been to so many meetings, I worked 

5 there 34 years and nobody's ever told me how 

6 they came up with the 50 percent, that number. 

7 I'm still confused. How do you come up with 

8 it? Do you just reach up in the air and grab 

9 that 50 percent? How do they do that? Can 

10 somebody explain that to me? Nobody, right? 

11 I'm back to square one.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it's a 

13 calculation based on what the probability is 

14 that a particular cancer will be related to 

15 the dose that you received. It's not simple 

16 to do because it also takes into account that 

17 there may be some error in making that 

18 assessment. And so 50 percent was taken as 

19 essentially the doubling of the risk so there 

20 would be 1 chance in 2 that that was due to 

21 your exposure, whatever that exposure might 

22 be. And then there's an error, a correction 
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1 put into it to take into account what error 

2 there might be in that. So there's some prior 

3 use of that not in this -- well, in 

4 legislation but also in other compensation 

5 programs, that's where it came from. But it's 

6 not an everyday thing, that's for sure.

7 MR. BOSSARD: Okay, another 

8 concern is where the people were going in and 

9 out of area, where they built the tubes that 

10 people was required to wear film badges. I 

11 myself at that point was an expediter. I went 

12 in there every day and counted the parts to 

13 make sure they were going at the right speed 

14 to get to their final product. There was 

15 workers in there that I know, in fact there's 

16 one here right now working the glove box. She 

17 was not required to wear a film badge and 

18 another thing is I don't think they're 

19 accurate because of the simple reason they 

20 just put them on a lab coat and they just 

21 flopped. They weren't pressed against your 

22 body which I was told that's the way they're 
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1 supposed to be to get an accurate reading. 

2 Does anybody dispute that? I was told from 

3 Oak Ridge that's the way you're supposed to do 

4 it to get an accurate reading.

5 Let's see, I guess that pretty 

6 much covers it. I probably had some other 

7 stuff here but. These folks, I think, I got 

8 tired of going to funerals. People dying in 

9 their fifties and we buried radioactive parts 

10 in the North 40. People dug them up. The 55 

11 gallon drums were leaking. They had to put 

12 them in other new drums and those people, once 

13 again in their fifties, 54, 56, are no longer 

14 with us. The drums were sent back to Savannah 

15 River. They did their job but they're no 

16 longer with us. So that, Peter Darnell, I 

17 don't know what he thinks about the Pinellas 

18 Plant, but it was a dangerous plant. Thank 

19 you very much.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, sir. 

21 The next person I have is Robert Hill. Again, 

22 Mr. Hill, if you'd prefer to sit down while 
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1 you make your comments we can bring the 

2 microphone down to you if that's easier.

3 MR. HILL: No, I want to be seen.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

5 MR. HILL: I've got a lot to talk 

6 about.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you.

8 MR. HILL: All right. I started 

9 with the Pinellas Plant December the 3rd, 

10 1979, and I retired April 21st, 1997. Okay, 

11 when I first started working there in 1979, 

12 1980 it was so primitive. Pinellas Plant was 

13 primitive. I mean, I want to talk about 

14 neglect, negligence, a lot of negligence at 

15 that plant at that time it was so primitive. 

16 And there was a man down there 

17 named Mr. [Identifying information redacted]. 

18 I used to call him Doc [Identifying 

19 information redacted]. He was in charge of 

20 the radioactivity program. And they used to, 

21 right in front of the building they used to 

22 build, take their backhoe and dig out a big 
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1 hole. Then they would take all those pipes 

2 and ducts that came from the stack, and you 

3 know the stack was the most dangerous place at 

4 the plant. That's where all your 

5 radioactivity went up through the stack. So 

6 they would take those ducts and throw them out 

7 there in the hole. And so Doc [Identifying 

8 information redacted] would say, "Any of you 

9 guys want to make some overtime?" 

10 "Yes, I'll make some overtime."

11 "I want you to go out there and 

12 hose those ducts down." These are aluminum 

13 ducts, pipes, you know, full of radioactive. 

14 No badge, no nothing. The only thing you had 

15 was just some coveralls and just regular 

16 little plastic gloves and a little old mask. 

17 And all that radioactivity. Go out there and 

18 hose it down. They gave you something like 

19 foam to hose it down. And that came directly 

20 from the stack. And so Doc [Identifying 

21 information redacted] died. I would assume he 

22 died from radiation, I'm assuming, me. Doc 
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1 died. 

2 So then they tried to find another 

3 way I guess to get rid of that stuff. And so 

4 I got another job hauling chemicals. I had 

5 this ca, I used to haul around some tritium, 

6 krypton and argon, nitrogen, hydrogen. That 

7 was some dangerous stuff. I didn't know then, 

8 I was young. And I was hauling it to 

9 different areas. And I went to Area 109, was 

10 one of the areas that I serviced which was the 

11 dangerous area at Pinellas Plant. And I would 

12 take tritium there, different chemicals, and 

13 finally they got dosimeters. And I remember 

14 one time, I think mine registered 5 one time. 

15 And then they'd tell you, "Go home, drink some 

16 beer and come back." 

17 So, now, another job I had I 

18 worked directly with the stack. That's where 

19 they used to cut up all this small material. 

20 They would put it in the drum and haul it off 

21 to Savannah River. So the only thing they 

22 gave me was some coveralls and the little mask 
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1 that you wear and some goggles and a suit, you 

2 know. And then all this stuff is coming 

3 directly from the stack. Now I have to cut it 

4 up, put it in the barrel, cap it and send it 

5 to Savannah River.

6 So out of all of that there was 

7 some neglect. They didn't give you the right 

8 equipment, they didn't give you the right 

9 dosimeters, they didn't give you nothing that 

10 was, that would protect you like it was 

11 supposed to. 

12 Now, I used to go down to Dr. 

13 [Identifying information redacted], that was 

14 our plant doctor. I used to say, "Doc, look 

15 man, I'm breaking out with these different 

16 allergies. I'm breaking out with these 

17 different rashes, man." He said, "Well, I'll 

18 give you some cream to put on that." I said, 

19 "You think that's going to do any good?" He 

20 said, "Well, try." These rashes and 

21 allergies, and not only that I broke out with 

22 a severe case of arthritis which I still have 
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1 that comes from those big fans. They built 

2 some generators and the buildings used to be 

3 so cold in the wintertime and I contracted 

4 arthritis in my spine, arms, by going to 

5 different areas inside and outside. 

6 And so finally, comes down the 

7 plant's going to close. And so they said 

8 anybody want to make overtime? Yes. So we 

9 started to decontaminate the building, and 

10 during the day I was working with hazmat and 

11 they would have spills all over the place, you 

12 know. That was dangerous. 

13 You'd go down to the lab ain't no 

14 telling what those guys were using at the lab 

15 and they would say smoke, lab, so on and so on 

16 and so on. Now we've got to go down there and 

17 put this stuff out. And so I did that for 

18 about four years, worked with the hazardous 

19 waste, hazardous material. We used to put on 

20 these suits that made us look like spacemen.

21 And so now, coming down to close 

22 the place up we were using decontamination, 
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1 down in the lab here, there, all over the 

2 plant. And so I got out of there with 

3 arthritis, I got out of there with -- this is 

4 extreme arthritis. I got out of there with 

5 allergy, I got out of there with respiratory 

6 problems. 

7 Now, I just want to say this. God 

8 has been good to me because I saw all these 

9 people die the whole time I was there. A lot 

10 of people died while I was there, and then 

11 when the plant closed down a lot of people 

12 died after the plant closed down from cancer 

13 and different infirmities. So, now, you could 

14 call it luck, a blessing, fortunate, whatever. 

15 I got out of there and I'm still around, 

16 working around all that dangerous tritium. I 

17 didn't even know nothing about krypton, what 

18 krypton meant at all. And I used to haul that 

19 stuff. So I've been blessed, fortunate, 

20 lucky. 

21 As I close this out I just want to 

22 say this. If we get anything, it's a small 
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1 price for so many people who have gave so 

2 much. 

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you, 

4 Mr. Hill. Is there anybody else here from 

5 Pinellas Plant who would like to speak, didn't 

6 sign up? Because we're going to start talking 

7 about some of the other sites.

8 MS. COPE: Are we allowed to speak 

9 from the phone?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, you may. Go 

11 ahead. If you'd identify yourself, please.

12 MS. COPE: I'm Donna Cope, wife of 

13 Al Cope that worked at GE for -- 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: GE or --

15 MS. COPE: -- from 1958 to '94.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay.

17 MS. COPE: He passed away in 

18 2003. We worked seven years on trying to get 

19 some help from DOL and NIOSH. I just want to 

20 encourage these workers that worked at that 

21 plant to please not give up. Don't give it 

22 up, keep working at it. It's sinful that they 
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1 have to get up here and bare their souls and 

2 beg for help. I'm really sorry. If I can do 

3 anything for you guys please let me know. I'm 

4 up here in Alabama right now, but several of 

5 you have my address and my phone number. Just 

6 don't give up. Thank you.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

8 Anybody else from Pinellas that wishes to 

9 speak? Okay. The next person we have signed 

10 up related to the -- is Knut Ringen. Dr. 

11 Ringen. 

12 DR. RINGEN: Thank you very much. 

13 This I think is the sixth time that I've come 

14 before you, and you have my disclosures from 

15 before. My name is Knut Ringen, and I 

16 represent CPWR which is part of the building 

17 trades, in this case also the Augusta Building 

18 Trades Council that represents the workers at 

19 Savannah River and also the petitioners who 

20 are involved in the Savannah River SEC. 

21 You'll recall that when you met in 

22 Richland in August that Dr. Taulbee presented 
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1 a proposal for a limited SEC for Savannah 

2 River for some thorium areas. And the way 

3 that he proposed to define that Class was to 

4 use the dosimeter codes that workers had 

5 because he said that the dosimeter code would 

6 correspond to the very specific work area 

7 where thorium had been used and therefore you 

8 could use that code to identify the worker. I 

9 congratulated him on his hard work after that 

10 and I said, because we had just gotten this 

11 the night before we had not had a chance to 

12 evaluate it. And I said we were going to do 

13 so. And in the interim period together with 

14 Bob Warren who's a lawyer who represents many 

15 of the workers down there we have done 

16 considerable work evaluating this that we'll 

17 talk about more tomorrow I believe. And David 

18 Anderson from Bob Warren's office is here and 

19 will speak a little bit about that as well.

20 What we concluded from our 

21 evaluation is that in some cases, in many 

22 cases the approach that Dr. Taulbee presented 
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1 can be used to assign a worker to those areas. 

2 But you cannot use that approach to separate 

3 or to deny a person that could have worked 

4 there. In other words, you can use it to 

5 include but not to exclude, and that's a very 

6 important distinction. 

7 There are two issues that I would 

8 like to go through in terms of what we did in 

9 our evaluation. First is for construction 

10 workers which NIOSH has acknowledged is very 

11 difficult. They propose to define as I 

12 understand it construction workers by using 

13 the codes that are issued for the central 

14 shops which is a special area where most of 

15 the construction workers signed into the site 

16 anyway. However, in looking, reviewing the 

17 records from the construction workers at 

18 Savannah River it turns out that while they 

19 got their security badges in the central shops 

20 in most cases those badges are not specific to 

21 any work area. But they did not get their 

22 radiation badges there in most cases. They'd 
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1 get their radiation badges wherever they went 

2 out to work in the first time they were there. 

3 And they might use the same badge wherever 

4 they worked in the facility. So this poses a 

5 very specific problem. We don't see how you 

6 can use that approach for construction

7 workers. And that's a big issue because we 

8 believe that construction workers represent 

9 about 30 percent of the total claimants at 

10 Savannah River. 

11 Jeff Kotsch earlier today talked a 

12 little bit about how they go about their work 

13 in terms of establishing whether a claimant is 

14 a legitimate claimant under the Act. And we 

15 have a contract at CPWR that I'm the PI on 

16 that does employment verification for the most 

17 difficult cases that they cannot get 

18 information from either DOE or the corporate, 

19 that is the large contractors they use to 

20 verify employment and to get records and so 

21 on. And about 20 percent of the claimants who 

22 are construction workers mostly who have been 
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1 employed by subcontractors are sent to us for 

2 verification. And we have looked so far at a

3 total I think of 532 workers at Savannah River 

4 that we have been asked to verify employment 

5 just to confirm that they've worked on the 

6 site as a whole. In about two-thirds of those 

7 cases we've been able to find evidence using 

8 union dispatch records, pension records and 

9 that kind of thing that we have access to. 

10 But to try to establish for us 

11 employment within a particular area inside the 

12 Savannah River Site would be absolutely 

13 impossible. The likelihood of that is lower 

14 than slim in the very, very majority of cases. 

15 So with regard to construction workers the 

16 approach in general is not going to work. It 

17 would exclude too many workers, and it would 

18 not be claimant-favorable, at least that is 

19 our conclusion.

20 Now the second way that we 

21 evaluated what Dr. Taulbee had done was that 

22 Mr. Warren, who represents claimants and 
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1 therefore can get access to records, submitted 

2 FOIA requests for radiation records for a 

3 number of workers and put together a file on 

4 six individual workers based on five of them 

5 had radiation records and one had -- he used 

6 the determination letter that had been sent to 

7 a worker from NIOSH based on the dose 

8 reconstruction. After he had gotten all of 

9 the records he coded them with the NIOSH 

10 tracking office and sent -- with a NIOSH 

11 tracking number and sent them to SC&A to 

12 authenticate, have them authenticated that 

13 these were real and accurate and valid 

14 records. 

15 Each of these records shows that 

16 you cannot rely at least in these cases on the 

17 dose records to either determine radiation 

18 dose, place of employment or duration of 

19 employment. So we think that there is very 

20 considerable problems in this regard also with 

21 the approach that Dr. Taulbee has presented. 

22 We -- I met with Mr. Griffon and with Arjun in 
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1 Washington, D.C. and we went over our findings 

2 and SC&A has also done some additional 

3 validation work and has found many similar 

4 problems with this approach. 

5 Based on our findings, we 

6 basically suggested two changes to what Dr. 

7 Taulbee had recommended to you. And I just 

8 want to present this to you tonight so you can 

9 think about it. The first is that since we 

10 don't see any way that you can use dose 

11 records to exclude somebody, to say that they 

12 couldn't possibly have worked in a designated 

13 area. We don't see how you can exclude any 

14 workers here. Therefore we think that for the 

15 time period proposed by Dr. Taulbee you have 

16 to include all workers on the site. 

17 The second finding that we have is 

18 that Dr. Taulbee has presented that he's 

19 looking at a lot of other radionuclides also, 

20 many additional thorium areas and so-called 

21 exotic nuclides there and that he wanted to 

22 look at those in more detail. And we would 
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1 hope that the Board would support us in saying 

2 that that should be done on an expedited basis 

3 at this point. If you have so much trouble 

4 placing somebody in the areas where there is 

5 thorium you're going to have trouble doing the 

6 same thing with all of these other 

7 radionuclides if you find that there are the 

8 same problems in terms of establishing the 

9 radiation dose. But that, you ought to be 

10 able to now that he has created a model to 

11 complete that work much faster and to make the 

12 determination about how the Class should go. 

13 Yesterday -- so those are our two 

14 recommendations for you to think about. 

15 Yesterday I was in Augusta, and I 

16 presented our findings and our recommendations 

17 to the building trades that have represented 

18 the workers at Savannah River. And I told 

19 them that I was going to be here today, and 

20 they asked me to say a couple of things. The 

21 first is that we need -- it would be very nice 

22 if we could have more time to review what 
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1 NIOSH recommends before it is suddenly 

2 presented. In the -- when this was presented 

3 at Hanford we had, the petitioners had not 

4 heard about it until the night before. When 

5 the Working Group reviewed this issue on 

6 December 2nd, during a call Dr. Taulbee 

7 proposed an amended Class Definition that 

8 nobody had had a chance to deal with either. 

9 And whether or not that is what's going to be 

10 presented here tomorrow I don't know, maybe 

11 there's another change to it also. We have no 

12 idea. We got something in the mail that said 

13 this may or may not be the final thing that's 

14 going to be proposed. And we can't have these 

15 things presented at the last minute and then 

16 say well, we have not had enough time to 

17 review this so therefore we have to defer this 

18 to yet another time period.

19 The second thing that they asked 

20 me to say is that they invited NIOSH down 

21 there in 2003 first to talk about their 

22 concerns about the dose records and the 
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1 problems with them. And they have felt 

2 consistently that since that time NIOSH has 

3 spent an overly large amount of time trying to 

4 show the excellence of the Savannah River 

5 radiation monitoring program and its records, 

6 and that it has taken the word of the health 

7 physics professionals at the Savannah River 

8 Site much, much stronger than it's taken the 

9 word of or the evidence presented by workers. 

10 So I hope you will also consider 

11 those issues. I don't think that they're 

12 unreasonable, and I will stop with that. I 

13 have a longer written statement that I will 

14 give you that you can have. It's mainly for 

15 the Working Group. Thank you.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Dr. 

17 Ringen. Mr. Anderson, do you wish to? I 

18 thought you did. 

19 MR. ANDERSON: Do we have time?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You certainly 

21 do.

22 MR. ANDERSON: Is it okay if I 
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1 stand?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

3 MR. ANDERSON: It's been a long 

4 day for everybody. My name is David Anderson. 

5 I'm the administrative manager for the Law 

6 Offices of Bob Warren in beautiful Black 

7 Mountain, North Carolina. Mr. Warren would 

8 love to have been here for this. This is a 

9 very special meeting for him, but his health 

10 has not been so great lately, so he asked me 

11 if I would come down and talk to you all. I'd 

12 like to just read a prepared statement if 

13 that's okay and then maybe tomorrow we can go 

14 further.

15 The SEC Petition Evaluation Report 

16 addendum submitted to the SRS Work Group on 

17 August 11 of this year illustrates many of the 

18 problems associated with NIOSH's continued 

19 insistence that it can accurately reconstruct 

20 dose for the tens of thousands of workers in 

21 different jobs at the Savannah River Site. By 

22 its own admission NIOSH thought it had covered 
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1 the thorium issue earlier until new 

2 information surfaced about thorium being 

3 stockpiled in the order of tons in parts of 

4 the site where NIOSH had not looked. Even 

5 with new records and documentation in hand 

6 NIOSH finds big gaps in its understanding of 

7 how the thorium actually moved through the 

8 plant. 

9 The petitioner, [Identifying 

10 information redacted], who our law firm 

11 represents, submits that these same gaps exist 

12 in NIOSH's understanding of how workers were 

13 exposed to radiation in general at the site 

14 and how record-keeping varied in different 

15 onsite locations during different time periods 

16 and with many different subcontractors. Just 

17 as the original assumptions about thorium were 

18 wrong, we contend that NIOSH's assumptions 

19 about having accurate records are also not 

20 based in fact. Over the years this 

21 law firm has represented scores of workers 

22 whose radiation records appear fractured at 
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1 best or completely absent at worst. SC&A and 

2 NIOSH as well as this law firm have in our 

3 files dozens of interviews and statements from 

4 former workers who vividly recall incidents, 

5 accidents, spills, off-normal work practices, 

6 radiation control lapses, and less-than-formal 

7 conduct of operations, yet NIOSH has glossed 

8 over these worker and claimant statements 

9 citing lack of documentation.

10 Now we learn through this ER 

11 addendum that NIOSH has actually found 

12 quantities of documentation of just such 

13 events in lab notes, not in official DuPont 

14 incident records or special hazard 

15 investigations. Claimants have consistently 

16 been asked or been tasked with documenting 

17 incidents they believe would affect their dose 

18 reconstruction, yet even NIOSH should 

19 acknowledge that these types of lab notes will 

20 never be available to the average claimant.

21 Accurate record-keeping is at the 

22 core of this SEC and while NIOSH has often 
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1 expressed great admiration for SRS monitoring 

2 standards the lab notes identified in the 

3 Petition Evaluation Report Addendum 2 provide 

4 a detailed revelation of sloppy conduct, 

5 control lapses, and other significant problems 

6 even at the very heart of the facility, the 

7 773 inner laboratories. Why would this area 

8 be any different from every other area at the 

9 site when it came to work practices? 

10 Similarly, NIOSH states that, and 

11 this is a quote, "Maintenance and construction 

12 workers were consulted by Health Physics 

13 before and during operations involving 

14 contaminated areas or equipment," yet many 

15 workers, including the petitioner [Identifying 

16 information redacted], report that it was a 

17 common occurrence that no HP staff were around 

18 on weekends, and several workers report being 

19 in areas that were originally thought to be 

20 safe, then being evacuated later when someone 

21 realized it was still hot and HP arrived late 

22 to the scene. NIOSH paints a rosy picture of 
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1 operations at Savannah River Site, but 

2 countless former workers consistently maintain 

3 a different viewpoint.

4 NIOSH contends that its proposed 

5 Class will be easily identifiable by 

6 consistent use of badge codes and remarks 

7 that, and I quote, "One technician stated that 

8 all workers who worked in regulated areas had 

9 to wear film badges," and this is a continuing 

10 quote. "The technician indicated that there 

11 were no exceptions to workers having to wear 

12 dosimeters in regulated areas." 

13 According to the current ER, 

14 quote, "The proposed Class will be based on 

15 the SRS requirement that all workers entering 

16 a regulated area wear a dosimeter badge," yet 

17 many interviewees in operations, production, 

18 and construction consistently offer a 

19 different story. Why is it that NIOSH chooses 

20 one technician's statement on which to base 

21 its wide-ranging contention that badges were 

22 always worn, yet ignores the many statements 
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1 to the contrary that it already has on file 

2 from other workers? It's as if the entire 

3 proposed Class appears to rest on this one 

4 technician's statement.

5 Using NIOSH's standard for this 

6 proposed thorium-related Class will miss many 

7 thousands of workers simply because their 

8 records no longer exist. There's no way to 

9 determine how many workers, through no fault 

10 of their own, will be left out of the SEC 

11 because of faulty record-keeping or non12 disclosure of records by the DOE and various 

13 contractors and subcontractors. 

14 There are many examples in our 

15 files of workers who may fall into this gap of 

16 documentation, and a few descriptions follow. 

17 The woman with breast cancer who is documented 

18 in 773-A but has no exposure records. The 

19 carpenter with bladder cancer known to be at 

20 Savannah River Site but whose whereabouts in 

21 1967 and 1968 are undocumented. The 

22 construction worker with leukemia who was sent 
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1 home in a raincoat and rubber boots after his 

2 clothes were confiscated for excessive 

3 contamination but for which event there is no 

4 incident report. The many employees who 

5 started out in construction then, like many 

6 others, were hired into positions but have no 

7 early dosimetry records. The many clerks and 

8 office workers who were not issued TLD badges 

9 but who regularly delivered mail, urine 

10 samples, materials, and supplies to and from 

11 hot areas but whose visitor badge data is 

12 missing. The Forest Service workers without 

13 badges who went into all areas of the Savannah 

14 River Site's almost 200,000 acres, wading in 

15 contaminated ponds, digging out contaminated 

16 and radioactive railroad ties before burning 

17 them in some cases or taking them to burial 

18 grounds and doing other jobs usually 

19 associated with construction. The security 

20 guards whose health was in danger when they 

21 checked buildings, vehicles, or railroad cars 

22 for leaks and exposures before health 
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1 physicists came on the scene to measure off2 scale radiation levels. The escorts who 

3 accompanied construction workers into thorium 

4 areas and could not leave the area until the 

5 worker finished the job and whose records have 

6 not yet been found. And the laundry workers 

7 who washed contaminated clothing including 

8 masks coming out of 773-A, CMX, and TNX. 

9 We applaud NIOSH for admitting 

10 that the site information is inadequate 

11 concerning thorium. We hope that the Advisory 

12 Board will recognize this admission for what 

13 it is, the proverbial tip of the iceberg, 

14 because we believe other record-keeping for 

15 all workers in other time periods are 

16 defective as well. We contend that the 

17 original proposed Class is reasonable though 

18 we accept and appreciate that NIOSH has made 

19 small steps to advance the process. 

20 Finally, I want to follow up on 

21 what Knut said, too. We have seen that 

22 thorium did continue, at least in the NIOSH 
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1 inventory list, until 1977 and even though we 

2 don't want to see this SEC held up while we 

3 wait to learn more about what happened with I 

4 think there were 2,000 kg of thorium there in 

5 1977, we do think we would like to ask you all 

6 to consider that in an expedited way for 

7 further inclusion in the Class. So, thank you 

8 very much.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

10 Gordon Rowe, is he on the line? Are you on 

11 the line? Mr. Rowe? Yes, go ahead.

12 MR. ROWE: This is Gordon Rowe. 

13 Can you hear me? 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can, 

15 sir.

16 MR. ROWE: I'm one of the signers 

17 of the petition for Savannah River Site, and 

18 I'd just like to point out that there's been a 

19 very long, drawn-out process that NIOSH seems 

20 to come up with all kinds of excuses to drag 

21 it out, to not -- to need to find, implement 

22 and gather more information. And I think it's 
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1 quite unfair that this petition has been drawn 

2 out, drug out for so long a time, for several 

3 years now. 

4 And there's been any number of 

5 meetings that NIOSH has had and they have been 

6 told by the construction workers that we 

7 haven't been to monitoring. There's been a 

8 situation and the records have not been 

9 accurate. And the construction workers have 

10 worked for any number of areas and places 

11 where they haven't been monitored properly. 

12 And it seems to me that they don't listen to 

13 what the construction workers have told them. 

14 We are second class citizens it seems. They 

15 seem to listen to what the production workers 

16 say and the people they had talked to on the 

17 plant site more so than they listen to 

18 construction workers. 

19 I just think that it's been a 

20 long, drawn-out affair, and it's quite unfair 

21 to construction workers and to people as a 

22 whole, to all the people that filed claims and 
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1 whatnot that -- they seem to not seem to want 

2 to find any excuse to drag this thing out, to 

3 not make a decision on this petition. And I 

4 appreciate the opportunity of you letting me 

5 talk and bring up my position in this matter. 

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

7 much, Mr. Rowe. Is there anybody else on the 

8 phone who would like to make public comments? 

9 Okay. If not then we'll close the meeting for 

10 today. We will reconvene at 8:15 tomorrow 

11 morning.

12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

13 matter went off the record at 6:10 p.m.)

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 
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2 

3