NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

130th Meeting

Wednesday, August 21, 2019 

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

Time, in the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Oak Ridge - 

Knoxville, 215 S. Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN, Ted 

Katz, Designated Federal Official, presiding.
2 

Members Present: 

Ted Katz, Designated Federal Official

Henry Anderson, Member*

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

R. William Field, Member*

David Kotelchuck, Member

James E. Lockey, Member*

David B. Richardson, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member*

Phillip Schofield, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer, Member

Registered and/or Public Comment Participants: 

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

Agee, John

Allen, David, DCAS

Barrie, Terrie

Barton, Bob, SC&A*

Blaze, D'Lanie

Brock, Denise, DCAS

Burgos, Zaida, NIOSH

Burnett, Mitchell

Buttram, Mylissa

Calhoun, Grady, DCAS

Corwin, Christine, DCAS

Crawford, Frank, DOL*

Domina, Kirk

Fitzgerald, Joe, SC&A

Frowiss, Sr., Al*

Frowiss, Jr., Al

Griego, Regina, Doe

Hicks, Stephen

Hughes, Lara, DCAS

Huotari, John

Jerison, Deborah

Kimpan, Kate, ORAU Team

Kinman, Josh, DCAS

Kitts, Thelma

Lamey, Tim

Mcfee, Matt, ORAU Team
3 

Newlan, James

Presley, Louise

Reynolds, Mary

Rutherford, Lavon, DCAS

Sorrels, Earl*

Stiver, John, SC&A

Taulbee, Tim, DCAS

Thompson, M.D.

Tipton, John

Vance, Arthur

Vance, Regina

Vinson, Kathleen

West, Jerry

Whitten, Dianne

Ziemer, Marilyn

*Participating via telephone
4 

Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 130th Meeting 

Wednesday, August 21, 2019 1

Roll Call/Welcome 5

NIOSH Program Update, by Mr. Grady 

Calhoun, NIOSH 7

DOL Program Update, by Mr. Frank (Chris) 

Crawford, DOL 11

DOE Program Update, by Ms. Regina Griego, 

DOE 16

West Valley Demonstration Project SEC 

Petition #252, by Ms. Christine Corwin 47

Santa Susana Area IV SEC Petition #235 74

By Mr. Bob Barton, SC&A 74

By Ms. D'Lanie Blaze 87

SEC Petitions Status Update, by Mr. LaVon 

Rutherford, NIOSH 107

Board Work Session 110

Y-12 SEC Petition #250, by Dr. Lara Hughes, 

NIOSH 133

Public Comment 157

Adjourn 171
5

Proceedings

(9:15 a.m.)

Roll Call/Welcome

Mr. Katz: So, let's see. Yes. Everyone's in their places 

in the room. So, we have Board Members in the 

room. Alright, now.

So, welcome, everyone. This is the Advisory Board 

on Radiation and Worker Health. It is our 130th 

meeting, including our teleconferences. And we're 

here in Oak Ridge, and happy to be here. It feels like 

a home for us.

A few preliminaries for folks in the room. Materials 

that are being presented and discussed today are on 

the back table. So, have at them, including the 

agenda.

For people that are on the telephone line, the 

materials, agenda, et cetera, are all posted on the 

NIOSH website. This program, if you go to schedule 

and meetings, and then today's date, you can get all 

of those, the presentations and the background 

materials, and follow along as you would.

You also will find on the agenda that's posted there a 

Skype connection. So, those of you that do that kind 

of thing, if you want to join by Skype, you don't join 

the audio, but you can see the presentation slides 

switched as they're switched here in the room, if you 

want to do that.

Either way, you can just open up the presentation, 

which you can download there, and view it. Or you 

can join Skype, and watch as we flip it here.

Also note, we have a public comments session at the 

end of the day. It starts at 6:00 p.m. So, any of you 

on the line who wish to make public comment, please 

be ready at 6:00 p.m. to do that.

If we get done earlier with what we have just prior to 

that, which is the Y-12 SEC petition, we'll go right 
6

into public comment. But we'll certainly continue on 

across that threshold of 6:00 p.m., to catch any of 

you. But don't be late for that, or you, when we're 

finished with our public comments we'll conclude the 

meeting. And you might miss that opportunity.

Let's see. So, let's, last thing, just for people on the 

line again, everyone should keep their phones muted 

except when they're addressing the group. And that 

mostly means just Board Members addressing the 

group, except for the public comment session. So, 

please keep your phones muted. If you don't have a 

mute function on your phone, just press *6. That will 

mute your phone and keep it that way. But press *6 

again, and it will take it off of mute.

And also, for Members of the public, please do not at 

any point put the call on hold. Because that, generally 

hold lines have background music. And that will be a 

problem for everyone else on the line trying to hear 

the meeting. So, just hang up and dial back in if you 

need to.

Okay. And I think that takes care of preliminaries. 

I'm going to do roll call now. And let me just note up 

front, with respect to conflict of interest, with our 

sessions today we only have one member who has a 

conflict of interest for one matter, and that is for the 

Y-12. Dr. Lockey, who is on the line, will recuse 

himself. But otherwise we don't have any Board 

Members with conflicts. So, Roll Call. And I think we 

have everyone here. But we're going to just do it 

formally.

(Roll call.)

Mr. Katz: So, we have a full slate. Everybody's here. 

We have our quorum and let's get started, starting 

with the NIOSH Program Update. Thank you, Grady.

Participant: Hello, Ted. This is a member of the 

public. There's an echo.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Not coincidentally, you echoed just 

now. We'll try to deal with that. Thank you.
7 

Mr. Calhoun: Is there an on button? Am I on. Okay, 

good. Can you hear me? Alright, everybody. As you 

can probably figure out, this is my first Board Meeting 

as the Director of DCAS. So, I'm excited to continue 

the good work of Stu. He left two months ago today. 

So --

Member Ziemer: You, you have your --

Mr. Katz: We still have the echo issue. I think, yes. I 

can --

Mr. Calhoun: I hear the echo too.

Mr. Katz: We need to get that sorted out. I don't 

know if it means just muting other mics while he's 

presenting. Maybe that will help. Are you ready for 

Grady to give it another whirl?

Mr. Calhoun: Okay. Let me turn -- How's that? Any 

better? No.

Participant: Is your mic on?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

NIOSH Program Update, by Mr. Grady Calhoun, 

NIOSH

Mr. Calhoun: Now, it's definitely getting -- Okay. I 

can sing a song, but I don't think you'd like that. No, 

no. See, someone called my bluff. That's not good.

Is it sounding okay? I still hear it a little bit. But shall 

I continue? Is that tolerable now, folks on the line? 

Excuse me? How's that? I don't hear any echos now. 

Okay, we good? Alright. Alright.

Well anyway, Stu and Jim Neton have left us. But I'm 

happy to report to you all that they're doing quite 

well, enjoying their time off. Stu is actually probably, 

(oh, mic got loud,) probably coming home from 

Cancun today. So, retirement is working out well for 

him. And who knows, we still may have access to 

their expertise. I think we will for future things.
8 

So, just getting into the update. I really don't 

anticipate changing anything that we've been doing. 

It's been going too well. So, I really just look forward 

to continuing the good work that we've established 

with the Board, the contractor, and members of the 

public. So --

Some of the things that we've been doing that are 

most important to me right now are contracts and 

staffing. It's always really a hard thing to get it 

through the system. But we finally awarded a dose 

reconstruction contract to Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities Team.

As most of you know, they've had the contract for 16, 

17 years. So, that's a good thing. And that just 

happened. It's a one year base, plus four years 

optional.

Also working on a worker outreach contract. 

Currently held by ATL. That one went out for bid. And 

we're working on awarding that. That is not complete 

yet. But that is in the works.

Also working on refilling three positions. As you 

know, Jim and Stu left, like I said. But we also lost 

one of our HPs. And so, we're working to refill those 

three positions. And that's in the process as well. 

Hopefully that will at least begin to happen in the next 

month or so.

Some of the workshops that we've been doing since 

we last met. There was an Ombudsman's outreach 

meeting, Fernald workers. And there was one up, 

that was in Cincinnati. And there was also one up in 

Columbus that we participated in.

There was an authorized rep meeting in Las Vegas. 

That was Stu's last hurrah. So, he said he was going 

to go to that one. So, he did. There was also a town 

hall meeting down here in April that we participated 

in.

As far as upcoming meetings go, there's a September 

5th outreach meeting in Bolingbrook, Illinois. 
9

Primarily the biggest site near that area is Argonne 

East, that we'll be participating in.

And we also have our Annual Dose Reconstruction 

Workshop in Cincinnati. And that's going to be in 

September. And that's usually well attended. It's a 

two day event. And we just provide some educational 

materials to people who are interested.

Case status report. This is one of the things I may 

change a little bit in upcoming meetings, just as far 

as how they're reported. But you can see this, 51,000 

cases reported.

We've got 1,000 or so that are actually at our shop 

for dose reconstruction. About 900 of those have 

been administratively closed for various reasons.

We submitted 49,000 to Department of Labor, 3,500 

of those pulled for SEC, and 1,600 of them pulled by 

DOL. That could be for various reasons, like lack of 

claimant, or things like that.

As far as making requests to the Department of 

Energy, we've got 146 requests out there. Only three 

of them have exceeded 60 days. So, that's pretty 

good.

Probability of Causation summary. We've sent about 

44,000 DRs for final adjudication. About 12,000 of 

those are greater than 50 percent, 31,000 are less 

than 50 percent.

Now, there was another slide on here that we 

typically reported. It was the first 20,000 claims. And 

I deleted that one, because it's not all that relevant 

anymore.

What we do now is, we keep track every week of the 

age of the cases that we have here in dose 

reconstruction. And we have them broken down by 

how much time they've been in our shop for dose 

reconstruction.

And rarely does the number of cases that have been 
10

here between nine months and over a year exceed 

three. So, of all the cases that we have, we're turning 

them around really quickly now.

And I'm going to start reporting on that for the next 

meeting. Because I think that's just a little bit more 

meaningful stat, you know.

When I looked at the 20,000 case it's like, well, 

they're all done. So, you know, there's really no 

reason to address that anymore. So, I think that 

might have been an artifact of the ten year review, 

and stuff.

So, alright. I said this one already. 1,000 cases here 

at NIOSH for dose reconstruction, 330 in a DR 

process, 207 out for the claimants to look at as the 

initial dose reconstruction. And then 533 we're 

looking at just getting prepared to do those, 

gathering information from the claimants and the 

Department of Energy.

And that may be it. Because it's not going any 

further. Any questions? Alright. Now I'm going to try 

to get to the next presentation.

Mr. Katz: Alright. And we have next DOL. And that 

would be Chris Crawford.

Mr. Calhoun: And I'm going to be doing the, I'm going 

to be changing --

Mr. Katz: While Grady's pulling it up, Chris, are you 

on the line?

Mr. Crawford: Yes, I'm here, Ted. Good morning.

Mr. Katz: You sound great. Thanks.

Mr. Calhoun: Let's see. I may need help, Nancy.

Mr. Crawford: Grady, your voice is breaking up a little 

for me. So, let me know when you're ready.

Mr. Calhoun: Okay.
11

(Off microphone comments)

Mr. Calhoun: Alright, Frank, I'm here.

Mr. Katz: Okay, Chris.

Mr. Calhoun: Ready to go.

DOL Program Update, by Mr. Frank (Chris) 

Crawford, DOL

Mr. Crawford: Great. Then I'll proceed. Thanks in 

advance for handling this for us, Grady. Let's proceed 

right to Slide 2.

Mr. Calhoun: There it is.

Mr. Crawford: This slide is compensation paid. And 

I'll go through it fairly quickly. But we've now paid 

out for the program $6.8 billion in Part B 

compensation, another $4.8 billion in Part E 

compensation, another $5.1 billion in medical bills, 

for a total of $16.7 billion in compensation and 

medical bills paid. And that was paid on the basis of 

209,084 cases filed.

Let's go to Slide 3. This is the NIOSH Referral Case 

Status. My numbers of course will vary a little bit 

from DCAS, due to timing, and likely different 

methods I think.

At any rate, we show 51,849 cases were referred to 

NIOSH for dose reconstruction so far, of which 

50,154 cases have been returned to DOL from 

NIOSH, 43,690 with dose reconstructions. And 6,464 

were withdrawn without dose reconstructions for 

various reasons.

Currently we show 1,735 cases at NIOSH, of which 

1,205 are initial referrals, and 530 are reworks, or 

returns. Next slide, please.

This is Part B cases with dose reconstruction and a 

final decision. In this category we have 300, sorry, 

we have 34,862 cases, with both a DR and a final 

decision, with final approvals of 12,046 cases, and 
12

final denials of 22,816 cases. Next slide, please.

Here we have Part B cases filed. We show that NIOSH 

has handled 35 percent of them for initial referrals. 

And also another 12 percent of the cases were sent 

to NIOSH, even though they were SEC qualified. 

Usually that involves one or more cancers that still 

need a PoC calculated. That's Probability of 

Causation.

We also show 16 percent of SEC cases were never 

sent to NIOSH. We have nine percent of our cases 

are RECA cases. And then the other category, 28 

percent, which is primarily silicosis, beryllium 

sensitivity, and chronic beryllium disease. Next slide, 

please.

Now, this chart, Part B Cases with Final Decision, also 

includes SEC approvals. That's why the large 

difference in the approvals versus denials.

Here we have 103,113 cases with a final decision 

under Part B, of which 54,460 were approved, and 

48,653 were denied. Next slide, please.

Our top four worksites right now are Nevada Test 

Site, Hanford, Savannah River Site, and the Y-12 

Plant. Next slide, please.

These are the SEC petition sites to be discussed 

today. And they vary quite a bit in size, but we'll start 

with the smallest, the West Valley Demonstration 

Project, in West Valley, New York.

We have a total of 443 claims. And we have 226 final 

decisions, of which we have 55 Part B approvals, and 

51 Part E approvals. There's probably some overlap 

there. And total compensation of medical bills paid, 

$4.9 million to date.

Then we have Area IV, Santa Susana Field Library in 

California. We have 1,098 claims, no cases filed. And 

we have 540 final decisions, of which 263 are Part B 

approvals, and 250 are Part E approvals. Total 

compensation to date is $73.6 million.
13

And finally, we have the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge. And 

we have 21,242 cases filed to date. Final decisions, 

9,376. Part B approvals, 5,581. Part E approvals, 

6,216. And total compensation of medical bills, $2 

billion. Next slide.

This is a standard slide we show every time. But it's 

a little bit of rehearsal that's useful perhaps. This is 

for outreach events. And we conduct town hall 

meetings, and traveling resource centers. And in the 

cases of small SECs, press releases are issued.

We also have quarterly medical conference calls, 

authorized representative workshops, and we host 

informational meetings regarding medical benefits 

provided under EEOICPA. Next slide, please.

These programs are under the control of the Joint 

Outreach Task Group, members of which are, of 

course, DEEOIC, the Department of Energy, the 

Department of Energy Former Worker Medical 

Screening Program, the National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health, Ombudsman to 

NIOSH for EEOICPA - Part B, Denise Brock, and 

Department of Labor's Office of the Ombudsman for 

EEOICPA, Malcolm Nelson.

And there are monthly conference calls. And they 

conduct town hall meetings. Next slide, please.

I have only one upcoming outreach event. And that's 

the town hall meeting, which Grady has already 

mentioned, to be held in Bolingbrook, Illinois, 

September 5th.

As usual, because the Fiscal Year is ending, we don't 

have much visibility yet to future meetings. And 

that's the end of the presentation. There are further 

slides. But they're all about eligibility requirements, 

and that sort of thing. Any questions?

Mr. Katz: I don't see any -- Paul.

Member Ziemer: Chris, could -- Is this on?
14

Mr. Crawford: Yes.

Member Ziemer: Could you just remind the Board, 

and maybe the general public, the nature of the 

reworks, or the categories of --

Mr. Crawford: Right. Reworks can occur for several 

reasons. A very common one is that either a new 

cancer develops, in which case it's added to the claim 

documents. And the case will be reworked if it hasn't 

already been adjudicated.

Also, sometimes as a result of claimant objections, 

and objections from the authorized representatives 

for the claimants, we ask NIOSH to do a rework, and 

answer those objections.

And other times errors are found in the file. A cancer 

was accepted that shouldn't have been, or there's a 

duplicate cancer, that sort of thing. I think those are 

the most common reasons for reworks.

Mr. Katz: Well, and also we rework, right, Chris, 

when we change NIOSH methodology for claims that 

were previously denied.

Mr. Crawford: I didn't quite hear that, Ted.

Mr. Katz: I'm sorry. We also do reworks when the 

methodology, NIOSH methodology for dose 

reconstruction is changed, for those claims that were 

denied. We rework those claims too, where they, 

where it might affect the eligibility, right?

Mr. Crawford: Right. Those are Program Evaluation 

Reports. And are done --

Mr. Katz: Right.

Mr. Crawford: -- in groups. That's quite true.

Mr. Katz: Right.

Member Ziemer: I just wanted to confirm that those 

were in that group. Sometimes NIOSH and Labor 

track things a little differently. So --
15

Mr. Crawford: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Mr. Katz: Do we have any questions from Board 

Members on the phone?

Member Anderson: No. No questions.

Mr. Katz: Okay then. Let's go on.

(Off microphone comment)

Mr. Katz: Oh, of course. David Richardson.

Member Richardson: One of the categories for a 

rework was when a new cancer develops. And by that 

you mean a new primary?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Member Richardson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Okay. So now we're up to DOE. And we 

have a surprise presenter.

(Off microphone comments)

Mr. Katz: Wait one second. I think we may have a 

mic issue. One second.

(Off microphone comment)

Mr. Katz: No. We would not do that ever.

Participant: It's an initiation, right?

Mr. Katz: Yes. This is called hazing, hazing, yes. Did 

Grady break it?

Ms. Griego: There it goes. There it goes.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Ms. Griego: Good morning, everybody. Again --

Mr. Katz: Wait. Hold on. It's still not coming through 

the audio system.

Participant: You need to talk into it.
16

(Off microphone comments)

Mr. Katz: No. It's off. The light's off too, right. Yes.

(Off microphone comments)

Mr. Katz: Hold on one second. It's okay.

Ms. Griego: Now it's going.

Mr. Katz: Light's on.

Ms. Griego: Now it's working.

(Audio interference)

Mr. Katz: Try it now.

DOE Program Update, by Ms. Regina Griego, DOE

Ms. Griego: Can you hear me now? Okay. Third time's 

the charm. Anyway, good morning. I'm Regina 

Griego. Greg Lewis was unable to make it. So, blast 

from the past. Hello. It's nice to be able to see folks. 

It's been a reunion. I have, Kate Kimpan's here. And 

it's nice to see Denise.

For those that don't know me, I'm Regina Griego. I 

was the Office Director for EEOICPA on the DOE side 

of the house about ten years ago. And I was fortunate 

enough as well to be part of the team that actually 

worked on the legislation.

So, it's nice to come back ten years later and see that 

we've paid out $16 billion dollars in compensation. It 

feels good. I know Kate probably feels the same way. 

Because our initial estimates were like $2 billion over 

ten years, right.

So, it's hard to believe, you know, at this juncture 

that it's $16 billion. But it's very rewarding. So, it's 

nice to see familiar faces. But in any case, I'm going 

to go through the slides. I should know this by now, 

I would hope. But maybe I just simply forgot it

But as everybody knows, DOE's main responsibility 

under EEOICPA is to provide records. Grady, what did 
17

you do?

Mr. Calhoun: Page down.

Ms. Griego: I did do page down. It's not working. 

Come here, look.

Mr. Calhoun: I believe you.

Ms. Griego: See?

(Off microphone comments)

Ms. Griego: You said page, you did literally mean 

page down. Okay. Okay. Sorry. So, as everybody 

knows, DOE's core mandate is to provide records to 

support the claimants, as well as the agencies. We 

support Department of Labor, NIOSH, and the 

Advisory Board, as well as the claimants. Page down.

We also, since I've left the organization they've 

developed SERT, which was nice. Because now it's an 

electronic records exchange information. Because 

that way the various agencies can provide 

information in a much more secure environment.

In the past it was paper based. And at times it was, 

it would drive us crazy. Because it would take time to 

submit those through the mail. In any case, it's a nice 

system to have.

And we also provide assistance to Labor and NIOSH 

on large scale records, research projects. That --

Participant: Can't hear you.

Ms. Griego: -- still continues. No? Do you want me to 

go, is this better? Geez, I usually, people tell me I 

have a loud voice.

Participant: Yes.

Ms. Griego: Okay. We also conduct research in 

coordination with Labor and NIOSH. We work on 

multiple sites. We provide records for workers.

And then, and oftentimes it takes various sources to 
18

pull records together for individual claims. As 

everyone knows, the sites still have somewhat 

challenges in providing records.

In FY18 Department of Energy responded to 16,432 

records requests from over 25 DOE locations. DOE 

responded in under 60 days to 16,432, about 98 

percent on time response rate.

Many of the sites have a near perfect record, which 

is tremendous for the sites. Because I know in the 

past they struggled quite a bit. So, it's nice to see 

Savannah River and Nevada Test Site improving their 

timeliness.

Large scale research projects still continue. 

Currently, with respect to large research projects we 

have Los Alamos, Savannah River, Idaho, Area IV, 

Santa Susana, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Nevada Test Site, 

and Hanford.

They're still going on. It's ten years later. And still 

some of the same sites.

We also, as part of our, one of our functions at the 

Department of Energy is to provide records review. 

We provide, we'll review the Board's reports from a 

classification standpoint, as well as the records 

gathered for the large scale record research.

Again, we have over 300 facilities covered in the 

database under EEOICPA. Right at the moment we're 

actually working on revising the DOE website.

So, at some point you'll be able to see a better DOE 

facility website database. We're turning that into a 

more functional application for claimants to access 

that database.

Again, one of the other, obviously one of the other 

functions is outreach. We work with the Department 

of Labor and NIOSH, as well as the DOE Former 

Worker Medical Screening Programs.

As many of you might be aware, Mary Fields retired 
19

within the last six months. So, Lokie is stepping up, 

and will be, is now the Program Manager for the 

Former Worker Medical Screening Programs.

We do have an outreach event coming up in Chicago. 

I think that's September the 5th. And again, as I 

mentioned the Former Worker Medical Screening 

Program now provides services to all former workers 

from all DOE sites, in locations close to their 

residence.

We've just recently published an annual report. If you 

haven't had a chance to review that report I suggest 

going to our website and looking at the data. Again, 

our website address. Former Worker Program 

brochures also on the website.

And I will answer any questions. Again, just so you're 

aware I have, will be probably assisting Greg Lewis 

quite a bit more. I've, for the last five years been 

working on a regulation.

I came back to Safety. I was working on Security. I 

came back to Safety. And I'm working directly for Pat 

Worthington. So, she's asked me to assist Greg Lewis 

on a number of research projects, facility research.

And so, you'll probably see more of me in the next 

few months, or the next year I would say. So, I'm 

happy to be back. It's nice to see familiar faces. And 

thank you again for all your work that you've been 

doing on behalf of the claimants.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, Gina. Glad to have you. Questions 

in the room for Gina? David.

Member Richardson: I apologize. I know this is 

something that's been described before. I wanted to 

go back to what you described as SERT, which you 

said had come in after you had transitioned out of the 

program.

But could you describe, is that a centralized service? 

I mean, does the information come, this is a transfer 

of information to DOL and NIOSH. And does that go 
20

through a central office? Or is that coming from each 

of the sites through the SERT system?

Ms. Griego: It's a hub basically that DOE actually 

maintains. So, the sites actually upload into a folder. 

And then, Department of Labor and NIOSH will go

into that folder and pull that data. So, it's basically 

maintained by Department of Energy. Does that 

answer your question?

Member Richardson: So, any of the different sites can 

load into that hub?

Ms. Griego: Correct.

Member Richardson: Okay.

Ms. Griego: Correct. Or the DOE facilities.

Member Richardson: Yes.

Ms. Griego: And those that we are responsible for.

Member Richardson: Okay.

Ms. Griego: Correct.

Member Richardson: And so, one related question. I 

was just trying to think about the process of how, 

what you described, as claimants may have worked 

at multiple sites.

Within a site there's multiple departments from which 

you're pulling records. That information's getting 

aggregated. And at this point 98 percent, or almost 

none of them appear to be reporting late, within a 60 

day goal, which is impressive, and somewhat 

incredible. And really should be applauded.

But it seemed to me that there were two issues there. 

One is timeliness. And the other one is completeness. 

So, when you've got that many sites, and that many 

departments streaming information into a centralized 

place, and then that's getting kicked to DOL and 

NIOSH, is there a way of auditing whether --
21

I mean, is it, do we say that it's near perfect record 

when at least one department has returned the 

records? Or what's the basis for determining that it's 

a complete record which has been assembled?

Ms. Griego: I don't --

Member Richardson: And then we stop the clock.

Ms. Griego: I don't think, you never say it's a perfect 

record. I mean, it would be nice if we could say we've 

got 100 percent of information on every claimant. 

Because as you know, it's challenging, the various 

sites.

But I'm not familiar with the audit system that NIOSH 

or Labor may perform. But my understanding is that 

there is a good two way communication mechanism.

So, Labor will input the various sites as a claim comes 

in. So, if there's multiple sites the claimant worked 

they'll put that request into those folders.

Member Richardson: Right. I guess --

Ms. Griego: And it all comes back. So --

Member Richardson: Yes.

Ms. Griego: I can't, I mean, I, again, it's working with 

the individual employee, and the claimant as well, to 

understand whether or not there's missing records. 

Or maybe the advocate. And then going back to the 

site and asking additional questions. I know that 

happens all the time.

Member Richardson: Yes. Because my experience is 

that some electronic records, let's say the electronic 

external dosimetry record, you can go to a computer 

file, pull it out, and kick.

But verification of other types of things which might 

come from medical records, for example, which 

historically were not archived as easily to pull. And 

other things which would help establish the basis for 

employment, those can be very difficult.
22

And that may drag on. And if we say within 60 days 

we bump the external dosimetry digital file, that's not 

that useful to the claimant. Really what they want is 

the complete assembly of all the information, which 

would be the basis for them being able to file a 

successful claim.

Ms. Griego: No. And you're right. I mean, I think the 

goal is 60 days. But again, if they are struggling with 

particular claimants they will take more time.

Because some of them are a lot more challenging, 

particularly the ones that worked in the earlier years. 

So again, it's a goal. And I agree with you. It's trying 

--

Member Richardson: Yes.

Ms. Griego: -- to get the completeness of the record.

Member Richardson: Right.

Ms. Griego: But again, there's, it is, we're looking at 

100 years worth of, now I guess records almost.

Member Richardson: Yes. Absolutely. It's just, this is 

--

Ms. Griego: Right.

Member Richardson: -- is where my skepticism --

Ms. Griego: Right.

Member Richardson: -- about saying a near perfect 

response rate within 60 days. I could imagine, you 

know, several functions there. One to the first piece 

of information entering into the SERT system.

And then, what's the time to the last piece of 

information? Or does that last piece of information 

actually ever arrive? And who's establishing what a 

complete record is?

Mr. Katz: Maybe I, can I get clarification? The 60 

days, is that for all the agencies, or just when you're 
23

dealing with a dose reconstruction, to get the 

materials from the site for the NIOSH dose 

reconstruction?

Ms. Griego: My understanding is it's for all the 

records.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Ms. Griego: That's the --

Mr. Katz: Right.

Ms. Griego: The goal is 60 days.

Mr. Katz: Got it. Thanks.

Ms. Griego: If I'm incorrect, somebody -- Okay.

Dr. Taulbee: Is this on? You are correct. But what 

they're grading against, from my understanding, is 

the reasonable search criteria that DOE set aside for 

each of the sites.

So, they go through their reasonable search criteria. 

And they've looked in each of those areas. And 

they've assembled that within 60 days.

There are times when we're doing dose 

reconstruction where there are other records that we 

say, hey, there could be something else out here that 

we didn't receive. And we'll make another request 

back to the site.

So that criteria that she's presenting today I believe 

is just based upon that reasonable search criteria 

that they have for each of the sites. That they will 

provide that within 60 days.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, Tim.

Ms. Griego: Yes, Tim, I'm glad you mentioned that. 

Because the reasonable search criteria, it varies from 

site to site. I mean, some sites it's if you, they might 

have to go to 40 or 50 different systems to search 

records. There's microfiche. I mean, so I understand 
24

your point.

Dr. Taulbee: Right. Yes.

Ms. Griego: I do understand your point. But again, 

you know, a lot of these folks have been working in 

this for such a long time that they do know where to 

go and look.

I mean, it's amazing what they can find. So, I give 

them credit for that. But it is a challenge. It's always 

been a challenge. And it will continue to be one.

Member Ziemer: So, Tim, a follow-up request then is 

considered basically for timing a new request. And 

the clock starts on that one for 60 days?

Dr. Taulbee: I believe that's correct, yes.

Member Ziemer: Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Thanks. Do we have any other questions? 

Questions from Board Members on the line?

Member Anderson: No. No questions.

Ms. Griego: Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Alright then. Well, thank you, Gina.

Ms. Griego: No. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: We appreciate you coming. And we'll be 

glad to see you again. So, thanks. And we're at a 

break. At 10:15 a.m. we have the Board review of 42 

CFR Part 81. So, we're off until then.

Please, let's start that on time. Because following that 

we have an SEC, the West Valley, which we should 

start on time. So, on break. Thanks.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 9:57 a.m. and resumed at 10:18 a.m.)

Mr. Katz: Okay. Let me just check and see. Do I have 

my Board Members on the phone, back on the line?
25

Member Anderson: Henry Anderson.

Member Richardson: Yes.

Member Field: Bill Field.

Member Lockey: This is Jim Lockey here.

Mr. Katz: Super.

Member Roessler: Gen Roessler.

Mr. Katz: Bill, Andy?

Member Field: Bill Field.

Mr. Katz: Schofield.

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey.

Member Roessler: Gen Roessler.

Mr. Katz: That's all of you. Thank you. Thank you 

very much. And you're all very clear. Paul is not at 

his seat for the moment. But he'll be back shortly. 

And I think we can get started.

We have Dave Allen. And he's going to be presenting 

on the revision to 42 CFR Part 81, which is our 

Probability of Causation Rule, which had to be 

amended technically. And Dave will tell you all about 

it.

Mr. Allen: Thanks, Ted. As Ted said, my name is Dave 

Allen. I've been with DCAS pretty much from the 

start. I'm here to discuss --

(Audio interference)

Mr. Allen: Can you hear me?

(Audio interference)

Board Review of 42 CFR pt 81 Amendment to update 

ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes, by Mr. David Allen, NIOSH

Mr. Allen: How about now? Can you hear me? Okay. 

We'll try this again. I'm here to discuss, we are 
26

making a revision to Title 42, Part 81 of the Code of 

Federal Regulations, or 42 CFR 81.

We more commonly refer to that as our Probability of 

Causation Rule. The reason for the change is 

primarily to convert from ICD-9 to ICD-10 coding 

system. And I'll explain what that means here in a 

moment.

There is also a couple other cleanup revisions, I 

would say, to fix a couple of things that, essentially 

typos, or things, you know, artifacts that should have 

been cleaned up last time it was revised. And now 

they are.

As far as ICD, it stands for the International 

Classification of Disease. And it is a coding system 

put out by the World Health Organization, that 

classifies, or codifies each disease, not just cancers. 

Cancers are a portion of that. So, you can imagine, 

this is a very large coding system.

ICD-9, which is what we are currently using, stands 

for the ninth revision to that system. The World 

Health Organization put out a tenth revision. So, it is 

referred to as ICD-10. That's what we are trying to 

switch over to.

In the United States we don't actually use the ICD-9 

and ICD-10 systems. We actually use the CM version 

of it, which stands for Clinical Modification.

These are, this is a version that is put out by a joint 

effort of the National Center for Health Statistics, and 

the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It 

closely follows ICD-9 and ICD-10. But it allows these 

organizations to update them more frequently than 

the World Health Organization would. The ICD-10 CM 

version, the first one, because effective October 1st, 

2015. And then, those organizations tend to put out 

a new CM version effective every October 1st, every 

year. 

Sometimes there is no changes to any codes for 

cancers. But sometimes there's some minor changes.
27

Occasionally they will add a cancer. Or it looks like 

they'll add a cancer. Often it's one that is split into 

two different coding systems. And they specify two 

different codes for what used to be one cancer.

When they do that, or when they make any change 

actually, those two agencies and their Coordinating 

Committee put out what they call a crosswalk that 

describes the new code, and lists the previous code 

that was applicable to that cancer.

So, the question is, why do we care? In our program 

the claimants give the Department of Labor medical 

information to describe their cancer. Part of the 

Department of Labor's job is to verify those cancers. 

But also to classify those cancers.

And by classifying I mean they assign an ICD-9 code, 

or now an ICD-10 code to those cancers. We take 

those ICD-10 codes, the classification of those 

cancers, and we have our predetermined tool that will 

tell us what internal organ, and external organ, and 

cancer model we need to use for that cancer.

We designated all that in a document we call OTIB5. And it essentially, the current version of OTIB-5 

lists every ICD-9 code that is considered a cancer. 

And it lists an internal organ, an external organ, and 

the cancer model for that code.

And that document is being revised. And it essentially 

has been through a review cycle. It just has not been 

signed off yet. That does the same thing with ICD-10 

codes.

As far as the cancer models, the original list in OTIB5 came from the IREP technical documentation for 

NIOSH IREP. IREP stands for Interactive Radio 

Epidemiological Program. But essentially it is a 

computer program that we use to determine 

Probability of Causation.

When the, in our revision when the C inversion is 

updated, agencies that update that put out a 

crosswalk that lists the previous, lists the new code 
28

as well as the code that cancer would have previously 

been classified as. So, when this happens we will 

simply use the cancer model from that previous code 

for the new code, if that makes any sense.

Now, they did the same type of thing, but at a much 

wider scale, with the ICD-10 versus ICD-9. They 

didn't want to call it a crosswalk, because, you know, 

now you got one type of crosswalk for revision, and 

another type of crosswalk for the World Health 

Organization Revision. So, they called this a General 

Equivalency Mapping, or a GEM.

What this GEM does is, it takes every ICD-9 code and 

lists, every ICD-9 code, and lists an ICD-10 code that 

is equivalent. It also goes the other way, and lists 

every ICD-10 code, and gives an ICD-9 equivalent 

code for it.

Most important in this GEM is, it also has a flag, 

where it indicates whether that match is an exact 

match, or an approximate match. And approximately 

two-thirds of the codes were approximate matches, 

instead of exact matches, which made the job really 

tough, of translating these over.

I mentioned in here that Department of Labor has 

already been using the ICD-10 coding system. 

They've been using it for some time now. They've 

been using the GEM to also provide us with an ICD-9 

code. That way, we're still using the ICD-9 code.

They're essentially providing both for now. And we'll 

stop soon, because the organizations that put out the 

CM version have said the GEM that was effective 

October 1st, 2018 will be the last GEM they put out.

After that they're considering everything as ICD-10. 

And ICD-9 won't be supported anymore. That is why 

we are, that's why we have to go ahead and change 

over to this ICD-10 system.

So, what we have done is put together -- It took a 

little effort to look through all these codes. It is quite 

a few. I think with the ICD-10, I think we listed some 
29

1,300 codes.

We put together a RPRT-0098. And that describes our 

decision logic on what we considered a cancer code, 

and what the equivalent ICD-9 code was, so that we 

could then use our current organs and models for 

that ICD-9 code for the new ICD-10 code.

The logic end of that decision logic concentrated on 

those codes that were flagged as approximate. But 

like I said, that was quite a few of those. Anything 

that was flagged as an exact match, we just simply 

picked it up. It was indeed an exact match. But there 

was a lot that were flagged as approximates.

As it turned out, many of those approximates were 

very easy for us to deal with. I have an example up 

here on the screen. Most of them were simply the 

fact that the ICD-10 coding system just tends to be 

more specific than ICD-9 was.

The example I have up on the screen is cancer of the 

lower lobe of the lung. Under the ICD-9 system that 

was classified as a 162.5. But under the ICD-10 

system it's actually three separate codes.

One for the lower lobe of the left lung, one for the 

lower lobe of the right lung, and one for the lower 

lobe of the unspecified lung, which essentially means, 

don't know which lung it was.

That's obviously not going to be for a current patient. 

But for medical records in some study afterwards. 

That will have almost no effect for us. We're going to 

estimate the dose as a lung dose.

But it may have some effect for medical purposes, for 

research purposes. But for our dose reconstruction 

purposes we have a calculated lung dose. And that 

would be the dose we would assign. And we have a 

lung cancer model. And that would be the cancer 

model we use.

So, that, excuse me, that type of thing allowed us to 

eliminate the vast majority of those approximate 
30

codes, and got us down to a few hundred that we had 

to look at a little closer.

And I wanted to point out, one more thing was that 

when we were reviewing those approximate codes, 

like I said, it is, they may have some useful purpose, 

and probably do have some useful purpose for 

medicine, which is what these codes were designed 

for. And also medical research, epidemiological 

research, which is part of why these codes were 

designed.

But for what we use them for, we only have so many 

internal organs that we can calculate a dose for. We 

only have so many external organs that we have 

conversion factors, so we can calculate a dose. And 

we only have so many cancer models.

And so, everything that we do has to fall into one of 

those categories as a surrogate. Often in a favorable 

manner if necessary. But we will put every cancer 

into one of those categories.

And with that limitation we don't need the type of 

detail that we're getting with the ICD-10 system. So, 

you know, out of 1,300 codes we've got 30 some 

internal organs.

So, obviously a lot of repeat with all those. I think 

about that number of 20 some cancer models. I'm 

not sure. I don't have that exact number.

So, for our purposes, if the GEM, or crosswalk, or if 

we have multiple codings, new codes for one old 

code, if they were all using the same organs and the 

same models, we considered that a good match. And 

we just picked one of those codes and moved on.

The other important piece of information here is in 

the IREP technical documentation. There was a list 

created for likely primaries, for every secondary 

cancer.

And the way that was created was, epidemiologists 

going through a large amount of cancer claims that 
31

had primaries and secondary cancers.

And for every secondary they determined, they listed 

the primaries that that person had, and they came 

up with a list that would account for 75 percent of, 

I'm trying to figure out how to explain this. For every 

secondary they came up with a list of primaries that 

would account for 75 percent of those. So, we had 

this list of likely primary cancers. It was listed in the 

IREP technical documentation. And it was included in 

the original Code of Federal Regulations for 42 CFR 

81. That list was listed by ICD-9 code. Consequently, 

we had to convert that list into ICD-10 codes.

Once we had our approximation codes all sorted out, 

we got everything figured as far as what ICD-9 code 

would be what ICD-10 codes, we simply then were 

able to convert that list over.

It's not a one to one type of thing. Because under, 

for example, under ICD-9 lung cancer was a 162. 

Under ICD-10 it's a C-33 and a C-34, depending on 

what part of the lung. So, there is not a one to one 

comparison on the number of likely cancers.

We, this was also, that secondary listing was also 

included in RPRT-0098. Towards the end of that 

report we did that conversion. We made a list of likely 

primaries. And then, at that point we were able to 

consolidate it. Because you would have, such as C33 and C-34, both using the same organs, the same 

cancer models. And we were able to collapse some of 

those numbers into what was necessary to perform 

dose reconstruction for these claims.

So, the RPRT-0098 has a, RPRT-0098 and 42 CFR 81 

have a complete list for the likely primaries. And 

then, our procedures will be using a collapsed list, to 

where essentially there are, when you look at the 

organs and the cancer models, some of those codes 

are duplicates, is what it amounts to. And we 

eliminated some of those duplicates to get it down to 

a more manageable size.

I think that is all I had for you. I'm willing to entertain 
32

some questions on this. I know I've listed through it 

kind of quick there. But --

Mr. Katz: Paul.

Mr. Allen: Okay, Paul.

Member Ziemer: Dave, it sounds like you're good to 

go. Are we already doing this? Or are we waiting for 

the go ahead from the Board, which is on the agenda 

here? In other words, is IREP and everything set to 

do this? Or is there going to be a time, a turnover 

time, or what's going to happen?

Mr. Allen: IREP just has cancer models in it, and we're 

using, obviously, the same cancer models. Our main 

change was for OTIB-5, where we listed the ICD-10 

codes, and which organs and which models to use. 

Also, there's a similar type of thing in OTIB-6 for 

medical x-rays.

We have our codified, our interim final rule, out 

there. There is a 60 day public comment period. 

Department of Labor is ready to go. We just have to 

finalize OTIB-5, OTIB-6, and we can pretty much turn 

it on any time. But we did --

Member Ziemer: Okay. That's sort of what I'm 

asking. Is it like an instant turn on? Or is it going to 

take a period of time to move into it? Or is there --

Mr. Allen: No. It --

Member Ziemer: -- coding or --

Mr. Allen: It will not be a transition. It will be a turn 

switch.

Member Ziemer: Okay. Good. Okay, thank you.

(Off microphone comment)

Mr. Katz: Yes, go ahead.

Member Richardson: I'm sorry. Just a follow-up. So, 

since 2015 or so there have been codings to ICD-10. 
33

What have you, what's been happening? Right now 

you've been receiving ICD-9 codes that were 

crosswalked essentially by DOL. And this rule is just 

a language change?

Mr. Allen: The rule actually has that secondary cancer 

list in it by ICD-9 code. So, it's a change to change 

those numbers over to ICD-10 numbers. And there's 

a few pieces of the text that mention, like the Code 

162 in the text that now will say C-33 and C-34, for 

example. But --

Member Richardson: I guess the question is, 

something has been happening along these lines for 

years?

Mr. Allen: We have been using the ICD-9 since the 

beginning of the program. We're today still using 

ICD-9 codes.

Member Richardson: But the question is, where did 

you receive those ICD-9 codes? Because they, the 

information was not coded to ICD-9.

Mr. Allen: We get, well, it was. Some of it was 

originally. I mean, it's the Department of Labor 

Claims Examiners that classify the cancers. They had 

their medical experts they can rely on for unusual 

situations if they need help.

And they have started using the ICD-10 system, and 

then crosswalking it from the CM version that jumps 

back to an ICD-9, and giving us both versions for new 

cancers, new claims that they give us. They've been 

giving us both ICD-9 and ICD-10 classifications.

Member Richardson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Yes. So, just to be clear, it's, they've been 

operating, like you're suggesting, they've been 

operating in this world for two years, just the GEM 

system that's been doing this transition, this 

translation I should say.

Member Ziemer: But can you clarify? Does that affect 
34

the input of IREP at all, from what you were doing 

before?

Mr. Allen: No. Not really. I mean, the assumption is 

the coding is correct. No, it doesn't.

Mr. Katz: Josie.

Member Beach: Yes. I was just wondering. Do the 

new codes address any of the organs that were 

missed in the I-9 codes? I know there was some 

primary organs that sometimes you had to kind of 

guess which one they went to. Does that correct that?

Mr. Allen: I'm not sure I'm following the question, 

Josie. I'm sorry. There is, like I said, there was only 

so many internal and external organs that we have a 

means of estimating the dose for. And so, in OTIB-5 

we used surrogate internal organs for some organs 

that don't have a specific internal model under the 

ICRP system. Is that what you're --

Member Beach: Yes. That is what I was referring to.

Mr. Allen: Okay.

Member Beach: I was just curious if it corrected any 

of those, or captured any of those new organs.

Mr. Allen: No. The smallest of organs that we use for 

estimating dose comes from the ICRP, or the 

International Commission on Radiological Protection. 

That hasn't changed. This is all the World Health 

Organization classifying a particular cancer.

Member Beach: Okay. Thanks.

Mr. Katz: David, do you have another question? Or, 

oh, Phil, go ahead.

Member Schofield: Yes. I've got a question. First, 

concerning the factors. And that's that some of the 

more rural areas and stuff, they may not be able to, 

there's a, already there's confusion converting from 

the 9 to the 10 codes among some of the doctors.
35

But some of the doctors in more rural areas, or 

smaller facilities, they're, when you mentioned just 

the three codes just now for right lung, left lung, or 

unspecified, that they may not actually put in 

something that is the correct 10 code. But more as a 

generalized item. How's that going to affect things?

Mr. Allen: Believe it or not, very little. There is, DOL 

classifies the cancers. And they rely on the 

information they get. In some cases they will get an 

ICD-9, ICD-10 code.

But you've got to remember, many of these cancers 

were from back in the '60s, back in the '70s. There 

was no ICD-9 or ICD-10 code. They've been, for 

years, since the beginning of this program they've 

been taking the medical records, seeing what that 

cancer is, and then determining what the ICD-9 code, 

and now determining what the ICD-10 code is for that 

particular cancer. So, if the doctors have coded it, 

they will use that as a tremendous help, and maybe 

be able to pick it up. But they'll, they don't actually 

have to have that.

Mr. Katz: And I'll just add to it, Dave, saying where 

there is diagnostic issues, I mean, that would be dealt 

with between DOL and the claimant anyway. So, that 

would be resolved before it ever got to NIOSH for 

dose reconstructions. Yes. David.

Member Richardson: Thank you for this. And I'm 

largely following what's happening. But there's two 

things that happen with a conversion from one 

revision of the ICD to the next.

And one part of it is, the institution of new sets of 

numbers, and typically an expansion of the list of 

numbers or characters that classify the disease. So, 

that's a coding issue. And that can be dealt with 

through a crosswalk between what numbers are 

equivalent to what other numbers.

But there's a rule change that happens between 

revisions of ICDs as well. And that's a decision tree 

logic about how to select which cancer is going to be 
36

the primary, for example, and which is the 

secondary. And you got into some of that through 

this now recoding of the secondaries. But that's 

actually recoding of the secondaries according to the 

logic of ICD-9.

ICD-10 has a different logic about secondaries than 

ICD, ICD-10 has a different logic than ICD-9. 

Changes and assumptions about which, when you 

only know the secondary, which is the primary.But 

that also affects the coding. For example, if you've 

got a death certificate, and it was coded by a clinician 

in the 1970s, or 1980s under ICD-7 or ICD-8, that, 

there was a logic for choosing which cancer was 

primary and which was secondary, based on the 

ordering of the causes of death.

And under ICD-10 that's completely changed. Now 

you don't follow that logic anymore. You code them 

as multiple primaries unspecified organ system, for 

example. And that's not something which you can 

bridge code. This is why there's a profession called 

nosologists, who have to understand the rules for 

choosing the ordering, based on the information 

listed on a death certificate.

And recognizing that over time the basis for

interpretation of what a doctor in a rural area would 

have written on the first line of the death certificate, 

and the second line. And that there had to be a, they 

had to follow a set of rules to fill that information out.

And those rules are changing because of our thinking 

about people dying with multiple pathologies 

simultaneously. 

And that makes, this is partly where it gets difficult.

It's the crosswalk, particularly when you're working 

with death certificate information, is a difficult thing. 

And I just, I mean, all of that's just an observation. I 

don't know that it's going to be fixed.

And I don't believe, I've asked Department of Labor 

before, do they have nosologists involved as claims 

examiners? That's never been clear to me.
37

But the other and last issue, which I guess I'd like to 

get to is, I believe you have death certificates, as you 

said, coming in that are coded to ICD-9. What I'm 

just, what I understood from the presentation is that 

those were getting, now the information you're going 

to get, is that information translated into ICD-10, 

sent back to NIOSH as ICD-10, and ICD, and NIOSH 

is going to take the ICD-10 and transform it back into 

an equivalent ICD-9 code?

At that point it's as though you're playing telephone. 

And there's a coarsening of information. Because 

originally at least some of these deaths, or cases 

diagnosed, I'll say in four years prior were coded 

originally to ICD-9. And they're going to be 

crosswalked forward, and then coarsened and 

crosswalked backwards again if DOL is only going to 

send everything as ICD-10.

Mr. Allen: Well, to answer your first concern there, 

the lucky part is even though that may have 

changed, it doesn't matter to our program.

When you're talking about the primary and secondary 

on a death certificate you're talking about the 

primary cause of death, secondary cause of death. 

When we're talking primaries and secondaries we're 

talking about a primary cancer versus a metastatic 

cancer.

Member Richardson: I believe it does matter. So, you 

have a disease model and I think a dose model. For 

example, for the stomach and for the gall bladder 

there's a risk model I think in IREP for each of those.

Mr. Allen: Yes.

Member Richardson: If those were listed as Part 1, 

on Part 1 as one disease and a second disease, in 

ICD-9 you would have chosen the bottom one as the 

primary. It would have been, this arised because of 

this. And so --

Mr. Allen: Not for our program, no.
38

Member Richardson: It's going to matter what 

information you're getting. I mean, the code, the 

ICD-9 code would have been a single code. The ICD10 is going to collapse those as multiple diseases of 

the same broadly digestive system, which is a 

different risk model again in IREP. Digestive disease 

is unspecified. So, knowing, I don't, we, I mean, we 

can look at this. But --

Mr. Allen: We can look at this. But in our program we 

can have multiple cancers. We have had up to 200 

primary cancers --

Member Richardson: Right.

Mr. Allen: -- of skin cancers.

Member Richardson: But it's the rule of how, it's the 

logic of how there's a determination, given a death 

certificate, about what is the primary. That's what I'm 

getting at. Their, ICD-10 allows --

Mr. Allen: That's what I mean.

Member Richardson: -- there to be multiple 

primaries.

Mr. Allen: They're not the primary. It's multiple 

primaries in many cases.

Member Richardson: Right.

Mr. Allen: It's not the primary, like you would see on 

a death certificate.

Member Richardson: Yes. Well, this --

Mr. Allen: We --

Member Richardson: This is the question when we're 

working with claimants who present in the evidence 

establishing their diseases as the death certificate.

Mr. Allen: Yes. And they have presented that. And 

you get a primary cause of death. You get another 

cancer as the secondary cause of death. And they're
39

both classified as primary cancers in our system. And 

then we do two multiple primary cancers. That you 

might get one that's metastatic somewhere else, that 

is a secondary cancer from one of those original 

primaries, and we don't get that.

Member Richardson: Yes.

Mr. Allen: Or we get a secondary cancer with no 

known primary. And that's the table in the Code of 

Federal Regulations I was talking about, how we deal 

with those.

But as far as the order on the death certificate, no, it 

really has no effect on our program. They're classified 

as either a primary cancer or a metastatic cancer, 

which we often refer to as secondary.

Member Richardson: That's right. And how you make 

that determination is important.

Mr. Allen: Yes. I cannot think of a single time I've 

seen DOL make that determination by which line it is 

on a death certificate. In fact, I've seen very few 

death certificates actually that had an ICD-9 code on 

them, honestly.

Member Richardson: Well, this is a major issue in the 

coding of them. For example, is a lung cancer or brain 

cancer a secondary? Is it a metastatic cancer from a 

different primary or not? And when all, the only 

information you have is, this arose because of this, I 

believe the determination would typically be that it 

was a secondary. But you can say --

Mr. Allen: Normally --

Member Richardson: -- that's not what's being one.

Mr. Allen: I mean, most cases, I guess, in pathology 

or a doctor's thing is usually not just a death 

certificate. And honestly, when they have very little, 

from what I've seen.

And this is not us. This is Department of Labor that 

classify these. But from what I've seen, if it just lists 
40

two cancers, they're going to list them as two 

primaries.

Member Richardson: Oh, and I, absolutely I agree 

with you. It's Department of Labor. And it's the 

question about whether that information is going to 

continue to be captured or not, based on 

crosswalking back and forth across decision rule 

logics, as well as coding logics.

Mr. Allen: Yes. I can't ever remember a case where I 

saw two cancers classified on a death certificate, and 

they did not give us two primaries, with the exception 

of them saying metastatic cancer.

Mr. Katz: Do we have any questions from Board 

Members on the line?

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey. David, I just have one

question.

Mr. Katz: Jim, wait. Hold on until we get your audio 

right. Because we're having a hard time hearing you. 

Why don't you try again, Jim. Jim?

Member Lockey: Can you hear me, Ted?

Mr. Katz: No. You're super faint. Hold on. I don't 

know. This is like, we had this problem before we 

started the meeting. Hold on. Jim, okay. Try, keep 

talking. Because we can't know without hearing you.

Member Lockey: Alright. David, can you hear me 

now?

Mr. Katz: Okay. We can hear you.

Member Lockey: Okay. Just one question. Is there a 

mechanism set up to resolve potential conflicts in this 

transition between ICD-9 and ICD-10, if something 

comes up? How is that handled, if the decision tree is 

not able to arrive at a decision, or it can't arrive at a 

conclusion?

Mr. Allen: If I heard and understand that quite right, 

I'm not sure. But if I got that right, I wouldn't say 
41

there's a process in place. What we have is our 

crosswalk there and our, you know, our listing of 

ICD-10 codes. And everything in NOCTS now has 

been transitioned over to an ICD-10 code. DOL 

provides everything in ICD-10 codes that they 

provide us now. And, I mean, we don't, we're not 

going to be transitioning them back to nines. They're 

going to stay as tens. And we are, OTIB-5 is going to 

stay as ten.

If there is a question on a particular claim, as far as 

whether that is coded correctly, that's something that 

happens now. We will routinely, I wouldn't say 

routinely, but from time to time we have a 

questionable code, we will go back to the Department 

of Labor and ask them to reconsider, or to verify that 

this is what they intended for that particular claim.

And they're usually pretty fast, and pretty open, 

saying, no, that's wrong, sorry. Or they would say, 

yes, that's the correct thing.

So, it's, I think what you're asking is done on a case 

by case basis, when we see something that we don't 

think is correct, if I got your question right.

Member Lockey: You did get my question right. How 

often does that occur? Can you tell me that?

Mr. Allen: Not with any certainty, I couldn't, no. 

Gosh, I don't even have a good guess. It's not 

unusual for us to ask them to double check 

something. But, I mean, it's not something annually. 

I want to say once a week maybe. But I wouldn't 

even guarantee that's right.

Member Lockey: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Other questions on the line?

Member Roessler: Ted, this is Gen.

Member Field: Go ahead, Gen.

Member Roessler: Okay. Can you hear me?

Mr. Katz: Yes, Gen, we can hear you.
42

Member Roessler: Okay. First of all thanks for, is 

Dave speaking from the mic in the room?

Mr. Katz: He is.

Member Roessler: And that was very good. Our 

earlier presentations were hard to hear. But you fixed 

something there. And I appreciate that. There's a lot 

of clicking in the background. But we can hear.

My comment, it's not a question, but my comment is 

that when I first got the DCAS ORAU report I was 

quite overwhelmed. I was impressed with its detail. 

But really didn't understand what was going on.

So, I appreciate the presentation today, and the 

comments and questions. It makes it a lot clearer. 

And it seems to me that we ought to move forward, 

and get things as up to date as possible.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, Gen. Yes. I think the presentation 

was very good. Other questions?

Member Field: Ted, this is Bill.

Mr. Katz: Yes, go ahead.

Member Field: I had a question about, if someone 

could just clarify what's being done for chronic 

lymphocytic leukemia?

Mr. Katz: I can clarify that. Nothing is being done, 

per se.

Member Field: Okay.

Mr. Katz: If you mean, there were corrections made. 

Because, as you will recall, the Board commented on 

rulemaking we did a few years ago, to add CLL. And 

when we did that --

Member Field: Right.

Mr. Katz: -- there were just some artifacts that were 

left in the rule, relating to when the rule had excluded 

CLL. So, these are just cleaned up in the rule. But 
43

there's really no substance to it. It's just cleaning up 

an old mess that was left in there. Is that what you're 

--

Member Field: But in --

Mr. Katz: -- addressing?

Member Field: -- ICD 10 it's treated differently, isn't 

it?

Mr. Katz: Oh, I'm sorry. So, that's a --

Mr. Allen: And I don't have it off the top of my head. 

But I believe there is, in fact, I know there is still a 

code for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Member Field: I think it's a bit more complicated now. 

And have they ever decided on what the target organ 

was for CLL?

Mr. Allen: We ended up with a model for, a dosimetry 

model for CLL that ended up being a weighted 

average of a lot of different organs. I think --

Member Field: Okay.

Mr. Allen: -- Jim Neton presented that to the Board. 

And it --

Mr. Katz: He did.

Member Field: Right.

Mr. Allen: Yes.

Mr. Katz: He did. And the Board approved that back 

--

Member Field: Right.

Mr. Katz: -- when we did that rulemaking.

Member Field: And I would expect that the CLL in 

ICD-10, I think it's substantially different. I may be 

wrong. But I also agree with what David's been 

talking about as well. It would be nice to know what 
44

this decision tree is, and if there are trained 

nosologists with the Department of Labor.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Other questions from Board 

Members on the line? Or in the room? Brad, did you 

have a question?

Member Clawson: I was just wondering how this is 

going to affect when we do our blind reviews of this. 

Is this, were these codes used? Or do we review that? 

Or is that just --

Mr. Katz: No. I mean, the blind reviews don't get into 

any of these issues of diagnoses.

Member Clawson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, I mean --

Mr. Allen: SC&A has access to OTIB-5. And I think 

they have used that in the past. Based on the code 

they'll use the particular organs and models. And it's 

simply a revision to OTIB-5. We'll now have the ICD10 code instead of ICD-9 code. And then list the 

organs and models. So, it should be very seamless 

for them.

Mr. Katz: Right. So, SC&A will be doing it the same 

was as DCAS will be doing it.

Member Clawson: But I just remember that we were 

using the OTIBs. And they were talking about 

changing that. And I just want to make sure that we 

keep the tools up to date. So, okay.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Good point. Other questions? If we 

don't have other questions, just explain this 

rulemaking. It's already, it will be effective, 

regardless of whether the Board acts. But we are in 

the public comment period for the rule. And we do 

need, by law we need the Board to comment on 

rulemaking affecting any of the three rules that 

NIOSH administers for this program. So, if we have 

a motion for the table. Paul?

Member Ziemer: Is my mic on? Yes. I will make a 
45

motion that could be inserted into the letter that you 

provided for us. My motion is simple. I move that the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health has 

reviewed the rulemaking on 42 CFR 81, and concurs 

with its content. That would be inserted into the letter 

that you proposed, Ted.

Mr. Katz: Right. And I'll read the letter once we get 

to that point. But do we have a, we need a second 

for that motion.

Member Valerio: Second.

Mr. Katz: Loretta seconds it. And now, do we have 

any discussion of that motion? Or from people on the

line? Yes? David.

Member Kotelchuck: I feel like I can, Dave 

Kotelchuck. It seems to me that issues were raised 

here today, particularly by Dr. Richardson, that --

Mr. Katz: Can't hear you. You need to get closer 

maybe.

Member Kotelchuck: Sorry. Do I need to push the 

button? I think it's on. Can you hear me?

Mr. Katz: Yes. You're closer.

Member Kotelchuck: I think issues were raised today 

that are not certainly resolved in my mind. And I 

think Dr. Richardson had made some very important 

points. I don't feel comfortable concurring if, when 

there are outstanding issues. I understand that 

whether we approve or not this will be in effect. I 

don't, certainly don't disapprove. But I don't feel like 

I really concur.

There are, to my mind, outstanding issues. How to 

deal with them, I don't know. I mean, it was not 

raised here. And there are even other questions of a 

broader nature that one might do. So, I don't see, I 

would rather leave it as we have reviewed it.

I'm not making a motion. But my sense is that to say 

that we have reviewed it, and understand it, and 
46

leave it at that. That is to say, I don't feel comfortable 

with concurrence.

Member Ziemer: May I respond?

Member Kotelchuck: I don't know what other --

Member Ziemer: Dave, I understand your concern 

there. The intent of the motion from my perspective 

is to help us implement simply moving to the new 

system from the old. There's implementation issues, 

some of which are handled, that Dave has described. 

How do you implement that, in terms of what we do 

in practice? And some of that falls on Department of 

Labor, I think, and not on us.

The idea of my motion, and perhaps you can help me 

get some better words, is simply to say that, yes, 

we're aware of the need to move on to the 10.0 from 

9.0 --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Member Ziemer: -- or whatever it is. And that we 

concur that that should be done.

Member Kotelchuck: I feel comfortable with that. 

That's, the spirit of that.

Mr. Allen: Dave Allen. I just wanted to point out that 

there's, in that conversation there is nothing in this 

Code of Federal Regulations that describes how you 

would go about classifying a particular cancer, other 

than using ICD-10.

That is, as Paul pointed out, is a function of 

Department of Labor. But this rule, you could still say 

this rule is okay. But there's another topic off to the 

side about how they take those medical records, and 

come up with the proper coding for it. But that's not 

discussed in a rule. It's not part of it.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Other comments, discussion. Josie?
47

Member Beach: Well, I think it's true. This is going to 

be up for public comment also, beyond the Board.

Mr. Katz: Absolutely.

Member Beach: So, if somebody has more specific 

questions they can go that avenue too, right?

Mr. Katz: Yes. NIOSH, once it gets whatever public 

comments we get, and the rule is still open for public 

comment, it will have to respond to all of those in the 

rulemaking to finalize this all.

So, it's effective. But it could be amended if we get 

public comments that suggest something that's 

necessary, or an improvement.

Any other discussion, including my Board Members 

on the line? Okay. So, we have a motion. It's been 

seconded. We've had our discussion. And I think it's 

time then to do a roll call vote.

(Roll call vote)

Mr. Katz: And all are in favor. And the motion passes. 

Thank you very much for getting this important work 

done.

And if we do receive public comments that are 

substantive, I think we'll have another session to 

discuss those with the Board. So, you can be apprised 

of what's come in, and whatever concerns you might 

have about whatever comes in that might be 

substantive. Who knows? Okay.

So, very good. And now, let's see. We're pretty much 

on time for West Valley. This is West Valley SEC. It's 

a new petition ER. It's an 83.14. And we have 

Christine Corwin to present for us. Thank you.

West Valley Demonstration Project SEC Petition

#252, by Ms. Christine Corwin

Ms. Corwin: Hopefully that works. Good morning. My 

name is Christine Corwin. And I am a health physicist 

with NIOSH. And I'm here to present information 
48

about the West Valley Demonstration Project, SEC 

252.

I would like to begin with some information about the 

West Valley site itself. The West Valley 

Demonstration Project is located in West Valley, New 

York, which is around 35 miles south of Buffalo, New 

York.

The site was originally purchased by the State of New 

York in 1959, and was leased from the state in 1962 

by Nuclear Fuel Services, Incorporated, more 

commonly known as NFS.

The site operated as a private spent nuclear fuel 

reprocessing center, using the Plutonium Uranium 

Extraction, or PUREX process.

The AWE covered period is from 1966 through 1973. 

The residual radiation period is from January 1st, 

1974 through February 25th, 1982. And there is a 

DOE covered period from February 26th, 1982 

through the present.

The West Valley Demonstration Project Site Profile 

was completed on August 17th, 2007. SC&A 

completed a review of the Site Profile on December 

5th, 2013, and found that the adequacy and accuracy 

of internal dose records was not fully addressed.

Specifically, they questioned whether the exposure 

records requested from NFS headquarters, as well as 

the records in the individuals' personnel folder were 

accurate and complete. In response, a review of 

claimant files was performed, as well as additional 

data capture efforts and research.

It was determined that for the claims with internal 

monitoring data, the vast majority of monitoring 

information was obtained from data capture efforts 

performed by ORAU and NIOSH, as opposed to being 

obtained from NFS directly. Additionally, it was 

determined that there was not sufficient workplace 

monitoring data available to estimate internal 

exposures. Therefore, NIOSH initiated an 83.14 SEC 
49

petition for the AWE covered period, 1966 through 

1973, due to the lack of adequate and accurate 

internal dose records, as well as workplace 

monitoring data with which to estimate dose.

Because the SEC petition was based on NIOSH 

determining that internal radiation doses could not 

be estimated, the feasibility of external dose 

estimations were not evaluated.

The proposed Class for SEC-00252 is all Atomic 

Weapons Employees who worked at the West Valley 

Demonstration Project in West Valley, New York 

during the AWE operational period from January 1st, 

1969 through December 31st, 1973.

The basis for the proposed Class was due to 

insufficient personal and workplace monitoring data 

to reconstruct dose. NIOSH is continuing to evaluate 

the years 1966 through 1968. There are significantly 

more internal dosimetry data available to assess 

intakes for those years. So, NIOSH is continuing to 

evaluate the quality and sufficiency of this data.

There are 150 total claims submitted for dose 

reconstruction for the site. There are 35 claims for 

energy employees who worked during the period 

under evaluation. Thirty-three of those claims have 

been completed. Twenty-four of the claims had 

internal dosimetry records that were obtained from 

either NFS or through data capture. Thirty-three 

claims had external dosimetry records.

Mr. Katz: Do we have a problem with -- One second.

(Off microphone comments)

Mr. Katz: Okay, wait. Hold on then. Let's hold on.

(Pause)

Mr. Katz: Maybe you need to hang up and dial back 

in. I don't know. Nancy, or someone, if you could just 

the people on the line know that we know they're 

disconnected. And we'll get to it. Okay. Thanks.
50

(Pause)

Mr. Katz: So, everyone in the room, the problem is 

with the phone line coming into the hotel. So, the 

audio people are going to bring in their own hub, so 

they can connect to the world's phone system 

without the hotel. But it's going to be about, at least 

20 minutes. So, we have a 20 minute break now, 

unexpected.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 11:23 a.m. and resumed at 11:44 a.m.)

Mr. Katz: So back to the table, please, everyone, and, 

Christine, sorry, this is a terrible technical glitch for 

you to have to deal with. We're going to have 

Christine carry on with her presentation with a cell 

phone assist. What's happened is the hotel phone 

system has crashed, so it's not the fault of our audio 

folks here, but they are in the meantime trying to set 

up an audio hub so they can circumvent the hotel 

system, but this should work for the presentation.

Just let us know on the phone if you can't hear 

Christine when we do it this way, otherwise we'll 

proceed and get the presentation in and then we'll 

worry about the interactive, hopefully we'll be back 

live again by the time we get to that. Okay, Christine.

Ms. Corwin: Okay. I will continue with the site 

description. In 1962, the State of New York's Atomic 

and Space Development Authority and NFS 

collaborated to build a privately owned nuclear fuel 

reprocessing plant.

Construction began in June of 1963 on land NFS 

leased from the ASDA and it took approximately 

three years to complete. The NFS reprocessing plant 

was built on 300 acres of land enclosed by a barbed 

wire fence and posted as a restricted area.

The reprocessing plant consisted of a complex of cells 

with the various supporting and operating areas 

grouped around them. The plant was arranged in the 

shape of a U with the fuel receiving and storage 
51

facility on one end and the product removal facilities 

on the other. The chemical and mechanical 

processing cells were in the middle. Chemical 

operations were directed from the control room while 

mechanical operations were directed from operating 

aisles adjacent to viewing windows.

NFS received its license to receive and store fuel on 

May 27, 1965, and its operating license on April 19, 

1966. Fuel reprocessing activities began a few days 

later on April 22nd.

From 1966 to 1972 the West Valley facility handled 

and reprocessed a total of 630 tons of fuel from nine 

different reactors during 28 campaigns while 

operating as a private spent nuclear fuel reprocessing 

center using the plutonium/uranium extraction 

process known as PUREX. One thorium extraction 

process campaign, known as THOREX, took place 

between November 15, 1968, and January 20, 1969.

West Valley processed fuels from light-water reactors 

from AEC-owned reactors, such as the Hanford N 

Reactor and a uranium/thorium fuel cycle core from 

the Indian Point 1 reactor.

Approximately 60 percent of the fuel processed came 

from the AEC and a majority of that fuel came from 

the Hanford N reactor.

West Valley recovered plutonium and uranium from 

irradiated fuels and delivered them as nitrates. The 

recovered AEC uranium was shipped to the Fernald 

plant and the plutonium was sent to Hanford.

Utility owned plutonium was either retained from the 

utility, or by the utilities, sold to industry, or sold to 

NFS for later resale for use in plutonium recycle.

Next I would like to describe the process operations 

that occurred at the site. Process operations began 

with the fuel arriving at the site in shipping casks.

The casks were unloaded under water and the fuel 

was stored in a storage pool. These operations took 
52

place in the fuel receiving and storage facility. Fuel 

inverted bundles passed through a transfer canal into 

the process mechanical cell where sheering and 

sawing equipment removed hardware and 

segmented the fuel into fixed lengths. The baskets 

then passed into the chemical process cell where the 

segmented fuel was dissolved in acid. This process, 

known as leaching, dissolved the fuel leaving behind 

the cladding and any structural components. The 

uranium and plutonium are then separated and 

purified from the fission products in a series of 

extraction cells. The purified products were then 

shipped to their owners as nitrate solutions and after 

May 1971 sometimes were sent to the plutonium 

storage facility, which was owned and operated by

the State of New York near the West Valley site. The 

high-level liquid waste generated in the process was 

stored in underground tanks and some of the acids 

used in the process were recycled for reuse.

The last fuel reprocessing campaign at West Valley 

was completed in November 1971. The last 

plutonium scrap recovery took place in March of 

1972. The reprocessing plant was then shut down to 

complete a series of improvements intended to 

increase capacity and meet new regulatory 

requirements. Operations were limited to fuel receipt 

and storage and decontamination activities. 

However, after a decision by the AEC that a 

completely new licensing process would be required 

and facing more stringent requirements on plant 

effluents, NFS concluded that reprocessing no longer 

made economic sense.

So in 1977 management of the facility was 

transferred to the New York State Energy Research 

and Development Authority. In 1980 Congress 

passed the West Valley Demonstration Act which 

directed DOE to solidify the high-level radioactive 

waste and to decontaminate and decommission the 

tanks and facilities at the site.

DOE assumed operational control of the site on 

February 26, 1982, with West Valley Nuclear Services 
53

as its contractor.

In accordance with our project internal dose 

reconstruction implementation guideline the primary 

data used for estimating internal doses are bioassay 

data, such as urinalysis, fecal samples, and whole 

body counting results. If these data are unavailable 

the air monitoring data from breathing zones and 

general area monitoring as well as surface 

contamination surveys are used to estimate the 

potential internal dose. If personal bioassay and 

workplace monitoring data are unavailable internal 

dose can sometimes be estimated using process 

information and data characterizing and quantifying 

the source term.

So if we begin with what bioassay data is available to 

us it is evident that DOE and NFS is unable to provide 

all internal monitoring data for claimants given the 

fact that NIOSH has found additional data beyond 

that provided by DOE and NFS for most of the 

claimants during the 1969 through 1973 timeframe.

For other claims DOE and NFS have provided data 

that NIOSH did not find in its data capture efforts. 

This leads NIOSH to conclude that neither set of data 

DOE and NFS provided or those obtained by NIOSH 

data capture includes all bioassay data.

Furthermore, NIOSH has no basis to conclude that 

the combination of both sets of data include all 

bioassay data. Given the potential for missing 

bioassay data NIOSH has concluded that the data are 

insufficient for estimating all internal exposures.

This table shows the available bioassay results for the 

entire operational period. These records were 

obtained through data capture efforts.

NIOSH's evaluation of the available bioassay data 

indicated a marked decrease in the number of 

plutonium and uranium bioassay samples starting in 

1969 with a significant sustained decrease in the 

uranium bioassays.
54

Due to the inadequate bioassay information for 

uranium from 1969 through 1973 coupled with the 

inadequate bioassay information for mixed fission 

products in 1972 and 1973, a coworker model for all 

radionuclides across the 1969 to 1973 time period is 

not feasible.

NIOSH is still evaluating the 1966 to 1968 time 

period. Considering the small workforce of 

approximately 200 to 300 workers the development 

of a coworker model for some radionuclides for some 

years may be feasible, particularly for 1967 and 1968 

due to the large quantity of data.

The next set of data we could use to estimate worker 

intakes would be workplace monitoring data, such as 

breathing zone air samples, general area air samples, 

and contamination surveys.

NIOSH was unable to locate any breathing zone air 

sample data for West Valley. The site utilized nasal 

smears as an indicator of possible intakes of 

plutonium and fission products, but the collection of 

the samples were incident driven. Additionally, a 

much higher action level was utilized than would 

currently be required for nasal contamination 

surveys. As a result there could have been 

unmonitored intakes for which the site did not take 

any action to follow up and assess the potential 

internal exposures.

NIOSH has only located air sample data sheets with 

results from March 1970 in a general purpose cell 

room and from 1973 in the analytical aisle, as well as 

copies of logbook pages with gross alpha and gross 

beta results from routine air monitoring from 1969 

through 1973.

Surface contamination results indicate that relatively 

high contamination levels were common in many 

areas throughout the operational period. The 

contamination levels, both alpha and beta, were 

quite variable depending upon location with 

smearable contamination ranging from virtually noncontaminated to several million dpm per 100 
55

centimeters squared.

Since the available data are gross alpha and gross 

beta NIOSH would need to make assumptions 

regarding the isotopic composition of these results in 

order to reconstruct doses.

In addition, the available documentation does not 

indicate any definite boundaries between radiological 

and non-radiological areas during the operational 

period. The site-specific and claimant-specific data 

available for the time period are insufficient to 

characterize employee movement across the site.

NIOSH is therefore unable to define individual 

employee exposure scenarios based on specific work 

locations.

Due to the large uncertainties regarding isotopic 

composition of the contamination as well as 

occupancy locations and time for workers NIOSH 

finds it is infeasible to estimate worker intakes with 

sufficient accuracy using these data.

The next set of data we could use to estimate worker 

intakes would be source term data.

While there is some source term information that is 

known, such as process and source descriptions, the 

identities and quantities of the radionuclides of 

concern and information on the processes through 

which the radiation exposures may have occurred, 

there is important information that is not known.

As mentioned previously the available documentation 

does not indicate that there were any definite 

boundaries between radiological and non-radiological 

areas. Therefore, we are unable to determine 

employee movement across the site and the time 

spent in the various different areas.

Because it is not reasonable to assume that workers 

spent all of their time in the most heavily 

contaminated area or in the highest airborne 

radioactivity area we have determined that it is not 

feasible to estimate worker intakes using source term 
56

data.

So to summarize, it has been determined for SEC252 that there is insufficient bioassay and workplace 

monitoring data to reconstruct internal dose from 

uranium and mixed fission products from January 1, 

1969, through December 31, 1973.

NIOSH intends to use any individual monitoring data 

that is available to conduct a partial dose 

reconstruction for individuals not part of the SEC.

The early operational period of January 1, 1966, 

through December 31, 1968, was not included in this 

evaluation because NIOSH has significantly more

internal dosimetry data available to assess intakes 

for this period.

NIOSH is continuing to evaluate the quality and 

sufficiency of the data for this time period.

For SEC-252 for the West Valley Demonstration 

Project NIOSH has determined that estimating 

internal exposures to uranium and mixed fission 

products for the time period January 1, 1969, 

through December 31, 1973, is not feasible. And that 

concludes my presentation.

Mr. Katz: Where are we with the audio system? Let 

me just ask that.

(Off microphone comment.)

Mr. Katz: Okay. So we are still relying on cell phone 

linkage. How is the audio for the people on the 

phone?

Participant: I heard from outside it's better than it 

was.

Mr. Katz: Okay. I'm not sure I like to hear that, but 

the truth is important. Sorry. So I think we will try to 

just continue doing this with cell phone links and let 

us know if we have trouble.

But let's go to questions in the room, and we may 
57

need the cell phone to move to Board Members when 

they are asking questions.

(Off microphone comment.)

Mr. Katz: Oh, okay. Alright, that's great. Okay, so 

Board Members, let's start in the room with questions 

for Christine. Josie, sorry.

Member Beach: Okay, now worries. Christine, I am 

just trying to understand why you excluded 1966. 

There is very limited analysis dated for that year also, 

and so that part of the question is and then when was 

the fuel received and when was the mechanical 

preparation done? Was that all done in '66? I'm going 

in and out.

Mr. Katz: Yes, I don't know --

Member Beach: I got the button pushed.

Mr. Katz: You were moving your mouth away from 

the mic. I don't know whether it's that, if you speak 

right into it.

Member Beach: Oh, you just got be right on it, okay. 

So were you able to get both of those?

Ms. Corwin: No, not really.

Member Beach: Okay. So what I am asking is why 

did you exclude 1966? There was very limited 

analysis data for 1966 and I understand the license 

for the work came in April of '66, but what started in 

'66, was there work done at that point?

On Slide 11 is -- I am mainly interested in the 

mechanical preparation. Did they do the cutting at 

that point? 

Ms. Corwin: We did not include '66 because we 

wanted to evaluate all the data further to see what 

we had and we knew what we had in the later years 

so we didn't want to hold up on the SEC what we 

knew we would include in the SEC portion to focus on 

the early years where we needed to do further 
58

analysis.

Member Beach: Well can you be a little more specific 

about '66 then because there is clearly no data then. 

I see in '67 and '68 there is, so --

Dr. Taulbee: May I give some input here?

Member Beach: Yes.

Dr. Taulbee: Josie, we are still looking at '66 through 

'68 right now. We want to get a timeline of the 

sequence of operations when they began to cut the 

fuel, dissolve it, separate it, and then correspond that 

with the bioassay that we see in '67 and '68.

We don't have that timeline developed yet and so 

we're further developing that.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Tim.

Member Beach: Thanks.

Mr. Katz: And Josie.

Member Richardson: Just for clarification is that so 

you can develop a coworker model?

Dr. Taulbee: That's so we can determine whether it's 

feasible to reconstruct the doses. So we haven't 

gotten to the coworker model yet from that 

standpoint.

Now we will be looking at that certainly for the '67 

and '68 time period but '66 we need to know a 

timeline of when that data begins to become 

available.

So we're still evaluating that time period, that's the 

critical thing. We didn't want to hold up this particular 

SEC while we are still evaluating this when we know 

we can't in these latter years, so that was why we cut 

it at this point.

Mr. Katz: Brad?
59

Member Clawson: So Tim, have we done data 

adequacy or is this what part of this is, this is what 

we're going through right now is the data adequacy 

and compliance.

Ms. Corwin: Correct.

Member Beach: So the '68 onward you guys have 

already come to the determination you can't do it and 

you're going to, this is why we're going it this route?

Ms. Corwin: That's correct.

Dr. Taulbee: Right.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Paul?

Member Ziemer: So for the 33 cases that have been 

already reconstructed does that imply that you had 

sufficient individual data for those people?

I mean the chart showed that there were 33 dose 

reconstructions completed.

Ms. Corwin: Go ahead.

Dr. Taulbee: At the time when those dose 

reconstructions were completed we thought we had 

complete records.

In the process of doing this evaluation and capturing 

more records is when we found the discrepancy from 

what DOE was providing and what we were able to 

capture, and so we will go back and look at all of the 

previous cases.

Member Ziemer: Thank you.

Mr. Katz: David?

Member Richardson: Thank you. My question is 

exactly along those lines. I was struck by, here the -

- the distinction here between -- Sometimes we have 

the lack of feasibility due to inadequacy of records, 

the inability to obtain information.
60

This distinction here is that DOE is unable to provide 

complete internal monitoring data for claimants and 

the evidence of that is that NIOSH is able to obtain 

additional information.

So it's not that the records do not exist, it's that when 

you requested them they weren't complete?

Ms. Corwin: Correct.

Member Richardson: Okay. Thank you. I just wanted 

to make that clear. And you have made that 

determination?

Ms. Corwin: Correct.

Member Richardson: So NIOSH has the ability to say 

that there is a problem with reconstruction based on 

the inability, I guess, of Department of Energy to 

provide to Department of Labor and Department of 

Labor to transfer the information to NIOSH to 

establish the worker's exposure history?

Ms. Corwin: Correct.

Member Richardson: Is this one of the DOE legacy 

management sites?

Ms. Corwin: I know some workers came from DOE 

and some came from NFS directly.

Member Richardson: Okay.

Ms. Corwin: And there is a problem getting it from 

either source in some cases.

Member Richardson: Okay. Because, again, and I am 

just tying this back into this question of for Fiscal Year 

18 DOE reports zero late out of 1309 requested 

records for claimants from the DOE legacy 

management sites.

So there was a response from DOE, you obtained 

information, NIOSH independently went to search for 

records and found more information than DOE had 

provided?
61

Ms. Corwin: We didn't go to specifically look for those 

records for those individuals. When we were at the 

site and did data capture efforts we captured records 

and when we evaluated the data we realized that we 

had some records that weren't provided to us and so 

that's how, you know, we discovered the issue.

Member Richardson: Right. Because for some years 

if you found -- I mean apparently you found one or 

two or three bioassay results --

Ms. Corwin: Correct.

Member Richardson: -- and you had been told there 

was zero or something, so it's clear that there was 

information.

Mr. Rutherford: I would like to add though that there 

is a significant decrease in uranium bioassay, it was 

actually driven by the site changing their process.

You know, they stopped doing a number of those 

bioassay samples, so, you know, that large drop is 

because of that.

Member Richardson: Yes. Oh, yes, and I understand 

there is different information available. I am just 

trying to wrap my head around this distinction here 

between there being the creation of an SEC because 

you can't obtain direct -- and is the legislative issue, 

is it like a chain of custody in order to do a dose 

reconstruction for a worker you need to, those 

dosimetry records need to have provided to NIOSH 

to do the dose reconstruction through DOE or why 

can't you use the records you --

Mr. Katz: No. I think I understand the 

misunderstanding here. What Christine is saying is 

that we have records that DOE has not provided 

showing that they don't have complete records.

Member Richardson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: They also provided information that we 

don't have showing that we don't have complete 

records, but there's no legislative matter. If we had 
62

all the records and DOE had none of them we'd be 

fine. So that's not a legislative problem, or what have 

you. There is no legislative matter here. The only 

issue is that it is clear from our set and their set that 

neither is complete.

Member Richardson: And the origin of "our set" is?

Mr. Katz: Is from the data capture at the site.

Member Richardson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So versus the regular process of these sites 

churning out records as they are requested for dose 

reconstructions.

Member Richardson: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Member Beach: I have one more question.

Mr. Katz: Josie, of course.

Member Beach: This is the million dollar question. 

What's the timeframe on those first few years?

Ms. Corwin: Well, we are continuing right now to put 

together a schedule to evaluate the data but we don't 

have a date as of yet.

Mr. Katz: So let's see if we can get, if this can work 

for people who are on the line. We may need to have 

someone on a cell phone repeat what they say so that 

everyone here can hear it.

Unless you can put it to a mic, I can see if that works.

(Off microphone comment.)

Mr. Katz: Yes, you could try that, if that works. 

Otherwise, we'll need a little relay, telephone relay. 

Go ahead. So any Board Members on the line have 

questions before we get to -- and the next point will 

be the petitioner's have a chance to comment, too, 

but Board Members right now.
63

You're going to have to tell me whether a Board 

member is trying to speak or not.

Participant: We need to be able to hear it.

Mr. Katz: No, I can't hear it. That mic may be not 

even operative.

Participant: Nobody has talked yet.

Mr. Katz: Oh. It sounds like someone is talking, but 

--

Participant: You and me.

Mr. Katz: Oh, I see.

(Laughter.)

Mr. Katz: Very confusing. Very confusing.

Participant: Can some of the Board Members speak 

up so we can see if this relay will work?

Member Beach: In the room or on the phone?

Participant: No, on the phone.

(Off the record comments.)

Member Anderson: Can you hear me?

Participant: So that's Dr. Anderson.

Member Anderson: Mr. Lockey, I can hear you.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Okay, so presumably we have no 

questions from people on the phone. Let's go back -

-

Member Anderson: I don't know if they can hear us 

in the room.

Member Clawson: Yes, we can.

Mr. Katz: Yes, we can hear you, or we can do better 

than what we are doing right now by bringing that to 

a mic, but --
64

(Off the record comments)

Mr. Katz: Okay, but -- so are we hearing that Board 

Members, is that --

Participant: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Okay, alright. So do we have any more 

questions in the room?

Member Beach: I do. I was thinking about thorium 

and I lost track of that, so how are you, can you 

reconstruct on the thorium?

Mr. Katz: So, Josie --

Member Beach: And I know that is between the two 

initial years but it also goes into the SEC timeframe 

you are looking at, the 83.14.

Dr. Taulbee: We really didn't address it from this 

standpoint. So we know we can't reconstruct the 

uranium and we know we can't reconstruct the fission 

products in those latter years, and so from the 

thorium standpoint it just really hasn't been 

evaluated from that standpoint. We will be looking at 

in that earlier time period of '66 to '68.

Member Beach: Earlier, okay.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Do we have other questions from 

Board Members?

(No response.)

Mr. Katz: Alright. Now, the petitioner, we have a 

petitioner in the room, we are grateful for that in this 

circumstance in particular.

Mr. Frowiss, Jr.: Microphone on.

Mr. Katz: So you want to identify yourself and then 

carry forward from there. Thanks.

Mr. Frowiss, Jr.: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and 

Members of the Advisory Board, Director Calhoun and 

NIOSH staff. Thanks for the opportunity to speak 
65

today.

My name is Al Frowiss, Jr. My company, the Atomic 

Workers Advocacy Group, has filed over 1000 cases 

under EEOICPA and represented about 1200 

individual claimants.

I have attended a few of these meetings, with this 

being the second petition I have directly participated 

in.

I appreciate the time and effort all of you put into 

these very important issues about worker safety, 

health, compensation, and benefit programs all 

current and former nuclear workers so richly deserve.

I am the petitioner on this SEC along with former 

West Valley employee, [identifying information 

redacted] could not attend due to his progressive 

and terminal illness which was caused by exposure to 

ionizing radiation.

First, I would like to acknowledge and thank the staff 

members from NIOSH and Christine Corwin for an 

excellent presentation despite all the video assisted 

replay issues. Thank you.

We are pleased that NIOSH recognized the need to 

initiate the 83.14 for this worksite and I expect and 

hope that the Board does move forward with a 

positive recommendation.

We do have a few questions for the record which we 

hope to be addressed by Members of the Advisory 

Board or NIOSH and, yes, you've already asked some 

of the questions, so I wrote this last night before 

things were talked about today.

Question 1. The Evaluation Report characterizes 

general work processes, specific work processes, and 

specific timeframes, what is known about work areas 

and so forth.

However, we are curious as to why now, why this 

claimant and this claim have they triggered an 
66

83.14?

From the ER there 35 or 34 prior cases that fit into 

the '69 to '73 timeframe. How is it that at this time 

NIOSH has determined that an 83.14 was warranted 

when the research was done ostensibly by 2007?

The next question, Number 2. DEEOIC/NIOSH stats 

indicate there were 150 claims for West Valley to date 

over all time periods, including AWE, DOE operations, 

and remediation period.

A question that's already been asked, and I'll say it 

again, why not break out the number of claims in the 

'66 to '68? We know there is 150 total, how many 

claims were affected in the '66, '67, '68 that we are 

talking about?

Is it 20 claims, is it 100 claims? It would be good to 

know. I think it is especially relevant to know those 

numbers so we can decide what we are actually 

deferring.

Point 3. The ER makes specific reference to poor 

quality of service by the vendor performing bioassays 

in mid-1968 (presumably for the work prior to that 

time) and also changes in operations for THOREX 

processes, but the lack of bioassay data is identified 

as a primary basis for the 83.14.

If I have that wrong, I apologize. That is my 

interpretation. The original petition that we received 

as petitioners was stated that this was going to be for 

'66 to '73.

The reference table showing monitoring data appears 

to show plenty of counts for '67 to '68. What else is 

it that we don't know or should know about this 

timeframe given that there has already been a 

statement in the ER that the company providing 

bioassay work was deficient?

Further, we contend that this was a high profile 

operation that does not fit the old AWE work profile 

or Site Profile. In our opinion standard AWE coworker 
67

modeling is not appropriate for this facility. It was a 

modern facility in the State of New York in the late 

1960s post-Love Canal and everything else. There 

are likely AEC, State, and DOE audits, inspection 

reports and licensing documents to substantiate that 

this is a significantly different site than the classic 

AWE sites found in Ohio and upstate New York and 

everywhere else.

Point 4. This really goes to NIOSH and a couple of 

procedural issues. In this matter the claimant was 

contacted three months after the ORAU interview and 

the petition process initiated without the authorized 

representative's knowledge of the process. I found 

out a week later. I reached out to the designated 

NIOSH contact via email and phone. The phone 

numbers didn't work as listed on the NIOSH site and 

the email did not get responded to for a couple of 

days. I sent an email to the DCAS general email site 

and Dr. Hughes, thank you very much, did respond 

right away and got things back on track.

Subsequently, NIOSH's next communication to 

petitioners was that the SEC would be from '66 to '73 

and it was only after receipt of the ER on August 12, 

ten days before this meeting, nine days before, that 

we were informed of the changes in dates.Yesterday 

I received a copy of the presentation delivered today 

at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I suggest that there is 

operational issues with the communication to 

petitioners, not just on this case but on other 

petitions that needs to be looked at.

The last thing I want to say, or do, is submit a copy 

of the co-petitioner's summary of his work into the 

record and his radiation exposure into the record for, 

you know, history on this, and I'll do that via email 

to Ted, to Mr. Katz after this meeting. [identifying 

information redacted], the co-petitioner, suffers 

from glioblastoma multiforme. He was placed in 

hospice on Monday, August 19th. He probably won't 

be around to see the end of this or the approval of 

this once it goes through the entire process.

I hope for a positive decision on the SEC that is 
68

before you and I hope for a quick action on the other 

years. Thank you for your time.

Mr. Katz: Thank you. Let me just note one thing for 

what you were planning to submit.

Mr. Frowiss, Jr.: Yes?

Mr. Katz: It sounds like you are planning to submit 

some quite personal information and for that it won't 

be good enough for you to submit it. I will need to 

have confirmation from the claimant that they want 

this on public record.

Mr. Frowiss, Jr.: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Mr. Frowiss, Jr.: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Thanks. So let's go back now if we have --

Do we have more questions from Board Members? 

Yes, we do. David Richardson we'll start with.

Member Richardson: Could I -- I'm looking through 

these supplementary tables here to see where the in 

vivo records that NIOSH received came from versus 

what's been returned by DOE and it appears that this 

was in 2016 a search of the Federal Records Center, 

Lee's Summit, in vivo monitoring results. So it wasn't 

as though NIOSH went to the site and went through 

boxes or something, you made a search or a request 

from the Federal Records Center, is that correct?

Ms. Corwin: That is correct, but we also made a site 

visit and did data capture efforts and whatever we 

collect within that effort we also have that 

information available to us.

Member Richardson: Yes, and I mean it looks like 

there is other sorts of environmental reporting and 

some shipping information.

Ms. Corwin: Right.

Member Richardson: But the in vivo records which 
69

are the subject of the definition of the problem with 

data capture and the basis for the SEC you obtained 

by going to the Federal Records Center and then you 

couldn't obtain comparable copies of the information 

from DOE?

Ms. Corwin: I don't know specifically on the in vivo. 

I'd have to -- I can't remember that information.

Member Richardson: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Other questions from Board Members in the 

room? Loretta.

Member Valerio: Can you hear me alright?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Member Valerio: So I understand the '66 through '68 

timeframe is still under review by NIOSH, but my 

question is what about after the 1973 timeframe from 

when they --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Katz: Wait, hold on one moment. I am getting a 

--

Participant: She's not close enough.

Mr. Katz: You're not speaking close to the mic for 

people on the line to hear you.

Member Valerio: Is that better?

Mr. Katz: Yes, better.

Member Valerio: Alright. So my question is from '73 

to I guess 1980 when DOE was directed to 

decontaminate and decommission the site at what 

point will that timeframe be reviewed?

Dr. Taulbee: That is another area that we will be 

reviewing in the future. This is a residual 

contamination time period. What really complicates 

this particular instance is that there is bioassay data 

in that time period of a residual contamination period 
70

when there isn't active DOE work. So how we sort 

that out is complicated from that standpoint and we 

haven't begun that evaluation yet.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, Tim. Other questions in the room 

from Board Members?

(No response.)

Mr. Katz: How about from my Board Members on the 

phone, do we have any further questions?

(No response.)

Mr. Katz: Someone needs to give me a head's --

Okay, it sounds like no questions from the Board 

Members on the phone. Tim, you wanted to address 

something?

Dr. Taulbee: Yes, I can address one particular 

question from the petitioner about the number of 

claims in that earlier time period. We had looked at 

that and it is between ten to 20 additional claims that 

would be in that early time period of '66 to '68.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Tim. Okay, so we've had our 

questions. We have a proposal from NIOSH to add 

this Class for which they have completed their 

research, it's an 83.14, so we need a motion from the 

Board. Josie?

Member Beach: I am going to go ahead make the 

motion to accept the 83.14.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Josie.

Member Clawson: I'll second.

Mr. Katz: And Brad Clawson has seconded it, so that 

means it's now on the table for discussion. Do we 

have any more discussion of adding this Class before 

we go to votes?

(No response.)

Mr. Katz: And I'll need someone with a cell phone to 
71

help me with the votes because I can't hear them.

Member Beach: I only have one discussion point. I 

don't believe we have a Work Group for this. Would 

this fit in any of our current Work Groups or would 

we --

Mr. Katz: No, I think it will probably end up deserving 

its own Work Group --

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: -- but until NIOSH finishes its work we 

won't need it.

Member Beach: Right, right, right.

Mr. Katz: But we will keep that in mind. Alright, so 

we're going to votes. And let's make this clear what 

we have. We have a motion to add the following Class 

based on NIOSH's recommendation.

All Atomic Weapons employees who worked at the 

West Valley Demonstration Project in West Valley, 

New York, during the period from January 1, 1969, 

through December 31, 1973, for a number of work 

days aggregating at least 250 work days occurring 

either solely under this employment or in 

combination with work days within the parameters 

established for one or more other Classes of 

employees in a Special Exposure Cohort.

So that's the Class we have a motion to add. So, let's 

go alphabetically. Anderson?

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Okay. I think I heard yes.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Okay, thank you. Josie?

Member Beach: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Brad?
72

Member Clawson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Field?

Member Field: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Kotelchuck?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Lockey?

Member Lockey: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Richardson?

Member Richardson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Roessler?

Member Roessler: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Schofield?

Member Schofield: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Valerio?

Member Valerio: Yes.

Mr. Katz: And Ziemer?

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Okay, it's unanimous, he motion passes. 

The Class will be recommended to the Secretary. 

Thank you.

And with that we somehow managed to get through 

to lunch. I hope we have less provisional 

arrangements after lunch, but we are off now and 

back I believe at 2 o'clock. Is that correct? Yes, we're 

back at 2:00. And at 2 o'clock we have another 

petition, so please try to be timely in rejoining us. 

Thank you very much and thanks for everyone's 

forbearance. Bye-bye.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 
73

record at 12:25 p.m. and resumed at 2:01 p.m.)

Mr. Katz: So everyone who is just joining us newly 

now, I'll just note we had phone problems with the 

whole hotel phone system actually, it basically went 

down and so we had to bring in our own phone to 

make this work for this afternoon. We were playing 

cell phone, microphone tag earlier.

Let me mention a few things and then we'll get 

started. But for people who are just joining us now, 

the agenda and the materials for today's meeting are 

on the Board's website, the NIOSH's website under 

scheduled meetings, today's date. So you can find 

those materials, follow along. The agenda is there. 

The agenda has a Skype link for those of you that 

deal with that kind of thing and want to watch the 

slides online, you can do that. But you also have the 

presentations as a PDF. And you can pull them up on 

the website or download them and follow along 

yourselves if you want.

And let me just mention again, and I'll mention it one 

more time later, but we do have a public comment 

session, which begins at 6:00 p.m. But it could begin 

earlier because we have a Y-12 SEC petition. I don't 

know how long that will actually take for the 

discussion and so on, but we'll start the public 

comment immediately after that. So please be here 

at 6:00. We'll definitely keep the public comment 

session going at least through the beginning. But 

when we run out of public comments we end that 

session. So please be here at the beginning of that.

And now I think, yes, we're all set, we have all our 

Board Members here. I want to check on the line.

(Roll Call.)

Mr. Katz: Okay, great. So we have our whole Board 

with us and off we go. Santa Susana, and the first 

present is Bob Barton from SC&A.

He had been, just to remind people, we addressed 

the Santa Susana petition at our last Board meeting 
74

in April. And SC&A had been tasked with some followup items. And we had tabled a motion that was left 

by the Work Group to deal with the SEC petition.

So, Paul, you are better than me at certain 

procedures. Do we un-table it before we have the 

presentations or just only --

Member Ziemer: If it was tabled you have to --

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Member Ziemer: -- have a motion to un-table it.

Mr. Katz: So, we need a motion to un-table this to 

begin with presentations and discussions.

Member Clawson: Un-table the motion.

Mr. Katz: Okay, thank you. And then we need a 

second.

Member Ziemer: Second.

Mr. Katz: Second, okay. All in favor?

(Chorus of ayes.)

Mr. Katz: Any opposed? Okay, so it's un-tabled and 

with us. And, Bob, we're ready for you.

Santa Susana Area IV SEC Petition #235

By Mr. Bob Barton, SC&A

Mr. Barton: Okay, thank you, Ted. As Ted mentioned, 

my name is Bob Barton and I'm with SC&A and we're 

talking about SEC Petition 235.

And as Ted mentioned, SC&A had presented its 

findings at the last Board meeting in Pittsburgh, but 

there were a couple of follow-up items specifically 

brought up by the petitioner, CORE Advocacy. And 

are simply of interest of the Board. We had discussed 

them a little bit at that meeting, but frankly they 

hadn't been fully documented at that time. So this is 

really the follow-up to that discussion. So hopefully 
75

it's beneficial to you all.

So, the remaining petitioner concerns were basically 

two items. That the Board had requested that SC&A 

go back and formally document, investigate and 

come to some recommendations on.

The first item is called the Historical Site Assessments 

that were developed through the EPA in terms of the 

program relatively recently in 2012. And what those 

did is they indicated numerous areas at Santa Susana 

where americium and thorium had been listed as 

radionuclides of concern. And we'll get into that a 

little bit, what that term actually means.

That's really sort of the first item. And then as a 

follow-on item to that, specific part of those Historical 

Site Assessments was related to building 4023, which 

evidence had suggested they had been involved in 

what's known as the TRUMP-S program or TRUMP-S 

activities, experiments that might have occurred 

after 1988. Which is the current cutoff date for SEC234.

And again, a little footnote here on the slide, TRUMPS stands for Transuranic Management by 

Pyropartitioning-Separation.

So for the first --

Mr. Katz: Bob --

Mr. Barton: -- Historical Site Assessments --

Mr. Katz: Bob? You can't hear me.

Mr. Barton: -- I'd like to just basically read --

Mr. Katz: Bob? Bob?

Mr. Barton: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Just let me interrupt a second. I failed to 

say, but I should have because I can hear 

background sound from the phone. Folks on the 

phone, everyone should have their phones muted. 
76

Only one person, Bob Barton, should have their 

phone open. If you don't have a mute button, press 

*6 to mute your phone. But please all mute your 

phone because we're hearing background sound 

which makes it hard for everyone to hear. Thank you. 

And, Bob, go ahead. Sorry.

Mr. Barton: Okay, thank you. Basically the purpose 

of these Historical Site Assessments is stated really 

right in the executive summary. In these Historical 

Site Assessments with several volumes based on 

what area of Area IV they were specifically looking 

at.

But the stated purpose of these documents, and I'll 

just read this into the record, the objective of the HSA 

component of the radiological study was to provide a 

comprehensive investigation that identifies, collects, 

organizes and evaluates historical information 

relevant to nuclear research operations as it pertains 

to radiological contamination in the Area IV Study 

Area. Once these areas were identified, potential 

areas where radiological contamination may exist at 

the site were identified for sampling.

So really it is, in a sense, is very similar to what's 

done under this program. It's going back and trying 

to put together a timeline of operations and source 

terms to try to figure out in 2012 what could still be 

there in soils and building materials for remediation 

purposes.

So we examined those 2012 site assessments and we 

specifically looked for operational work that might 

have involved thorium and americium. Recall that 

SEC-234, which ran up through 1988, the basis of

which was inability to reconstruct internal dose to 

those two containments, thorium and americium. So 

we did specifically look for that. But we also looked 

in general for any sort of information that might be 

relevant to SEC-235, which is, again, post-1988.

Also, we specifically looked at each of the areas that 

had been identified by CORE Advocacy in their 2017 

report which was titled, Locations of 
77

Americium/Thorium/ Associated Progeny and 

Approximate Dates of Building Demolition.

So, we looked at all of those reports in general for 

the SEC, but also specifically addressed the areas of 

a site that had been pointed out by the petitioner. 

And all of those, the results of that investigation, 

however, provided in a memo distributed last month 

titled, Evaluation of petitioner Specific Concerns 

Regarding SEC-235.

We didn't find any evidence of operational activities 

that involve americium or thorium, again, occurring 

after 1988. Because, again, that's the cutoff for SEC234, which is in place.

And also, again, I said we looked specifically at those 

areas that had been identified by CORE Advocacy 

where americium and thorium were listed as 

radionuclide of concern. And this is sort of a rough 

breakdown of all those area. I tried to categorized 

them into general terms here. But about a third of 

them, those areas identified, had actually already 

undergone, undergone D&D prior to 1989. So they 

had already been decontaminated and 

decommissioned prior to the period we're really 

interested in.

But one-fifth of the, ten of the areas, were really only 

included in the Historical Site Assessment and 

indicated that americium and thorium might be of 

materials of concern, because they were in close 

proximity to other buildings, such as the hot 

laboratory, the radioactive material handling facility, 

and a few others. So the determination was made, I 

guess, to spread a wide net and say, well, these 

buildings weren't really used for any radiological 

research or activities, but because they're so close to 

these other buildings it's possible that contamination 

might have migrated over to the soils or the outside 

of the building or even inside the building. Another 

20 percent were the actual facilities that definitely 

historically handled transuranic material and 

thorium, which is obviously of concern. But again, 
78

those were all prior to 1989 and that period is already 

covered by SEC-234.

Six of the identified areas, 12 percent of the total 

identified by CORE Advocacy, were storage facilities 

only. So, they might have stored the material but 

there was no real processing of the material or any 

operational activities.

Another five areas, so roughly ten percent of the 

total, had already been demolished by 1989. So, they 

had been taken down all the way. Sometimes all the 

way completely out or sometimes just down to the 

concrete slab.

One area handled fuel sources, which could have 

included americium, because that was used as a 

calibrating source. And that one area was basically a 

health physics counting laboratory that supported the 

radioactive material handling facility which purpose 

at that time was to essentially handles waste 

associated specifically with D&D activities. Not 

operations, but D&D.

And one of the facilities actually didn't handle thorium 

or americium, though thorium 234 had been listed as 

a containment of interest. And thorium 234 is 

actually part of the uranium, the K-chain. So it's not 

the type of thorium that we typically associated with 

the sort of feasibilities.

So that's part of the uranium source term. And of 

course, uranium was monitored via bioassay during 

the operational period. And then also during this 

remediation period.

So that's the general on the Historical Site 

Assessment.

Moving on specifically to Building 4023, which was a 

topic of some discussion at the meeting in Pittsburgh. 

And the reason this whole thing came about again, in 

this Historical Site Assessment specific to this 

building it says, in 1989 reports appear to indicate 

that Building 4023 served as a support facility for the 
79

Transuranic Management by Pyropartitioning--

Separation operations in Building 4020. Building 

4020 is the hot lab by the way. Which is located in 

the area HSA-5D.

Atomic's International requested DOE's approval to 

utilize the facilities for a two-year period beginning 

July 1988 for the Kawasaki Heavy Industries and the 

Central Research Institute of the Electric Power 

Industry of Japan. That's who it was sponsored by.

The material used in this experiment was listed as 

including uranium, neptunium, plutonium, and 

americium.

So, obviously when you see this it certainly is an 

issue that needs to be thoroughly investigated 

because that is an operational activity that involves 

transuranic material. And that sort of activity needs 

to be sufficiently addressed in the dose 

reconstruction process.

So that's sort of where it all started out. So we 

basically took that and went to the underlying 

references and kept digging.

What I'm basically going to go through is a number 

of documents that sort of describing the planning 

steps in various activities related specifically to this 

proposed TRUMP-S projects. And one of the things 

that you really have to sort of pay attention to is the 

language that they use. Most of these quotes that I'm 

going to pull out are in future tests. In other words, 

they're talking about things that are about to happen 

or will happen in the future. And you'll see that as we 

go along.

So, starting all the way at the beginning, we're in 

October 1988, again, this is technically part of the 

SEC-234 period, but we felt this is sort of the 

beginning of the story. There is an internal letter that 

identified deficiencies and uses that location for this 

TRUMP-S project that the lab was trying to basically 

setup and run at Santa Susana.
80

Fast forward to July of 1989, you have another 

internal letter that documents a planning meeting. 

And it was related to the glove box that was proposed 

for use in this TRUMP-S project. And again, it's a 

planning meeting.

And we have an undated report. We believe it's 

probably from mid-1989. Specifically, probably 

August of 1989 based on handwritten note on the 

document which appears to be a date. And that 

document says, a meeting was held to discuss the 

disposition of the waste to be generated from the TRU 

partitioning tests. Since the waste will contain 

transuranics and cadmium, the waste generated in 

late-1989, early-1990 will be TRU mixed waste. And 

then it talks about who will be in contact with who to 

determine what steps are going to be needed to plan 

for this experiment that will be generating waste. 

Again, we're talking about future tense.

A little later in October of 1989, they had a test 

readiness review, which is basically they get all the 

parties involved. And this is, again, specific to the 

glove box; is this glove box going to be sufficient? Is 

the instrumentation sufficient? Is the, has it been 

properly leak tested? Are the atmospheric levels 

within the glove box appropriate? That sort of thing.

Also in that month, again, October 1989, there is 

some internal evidence to describe the meeting 

minutes. That says, the following action items 

resulted at the meeting. These action items must be 

completed prior to beginning the radioactive portion 

of TRUMP-S. So once again, this indicates that 

actually running the experiment with the transuranic 

materials had not yet started.

Fast forward to February of 1990, there's a letter 

from Rockwell International to the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission that says, this is in reply to 

your letter regarding recent transmittal wherein we 

provided additional information regarding the 

TRUMP-S program to be conducted in the Rockwell 

International hot lab. Again, to be conducted.
81

Also in February 1990 there's a technical progress 

report. These would be periodic reports that come 

out. And it says, while Rockwell was awaiting DOE 

permission to start up the tests pending DOE review 

of all the NEPA action description memorandum, 

Rockwell management concluded it would be 

impractical to continue the TRUMP-S project beyond 

Stage 1 activities at the Santa Susana field 

laboratories. As a result, an effort was undertaken to 

locate a facility where the TRUMP-S actinide tests 

could be conducted for both Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Again, in February 1990, this is actually a newspaper 

article from a local periodical, and it talks about 

private citizens' opponents to this proposed TRUMPS program. The newspaper article stated, the case 

has challenged Rocketdyne's record of credibility in 

monitoring itself, the company's described worst case 

scenario for its planned TRUMP-S project, the 

emergency contingency plan and several other 

aspects of the company's application. Rocketdyne is 

seeking permission to keep the lab open through 

October 30th to complete one last experiment called 

TRUMP-S, or Transuranic Management by 

Pyropartitioning-Separation. And has announced 

plans to shut it down afterwards. Originally 

Rocketdyne was seeking a ten year license extension 

but cut its request to one year left last October.

As a follow-on newspaper article, this one is from May 

of 1990, so about three months after that previous 

article, Rocketdyne announced in April that the hot 

lab days were over. One last experiment, called 

TRUMP-S, originally scheduled to take place in the 

hot lab, was relocated to the University of Missouri at 

Columbia in the heed of public challenges for the 

company's request to get the project licensed by the 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And it goes on 

to say, about the experiment would have been in the 

glove box. And in fact, they were still facing 

resistance in Missouri as well to get the project 

underway.

So, SC&A's conclusions remain unchanged from what 
82

we talked about back in Pittsburgh in April. And those 

conclusions are that those 2012 Historical Site 

Assessments, while they indicate numerous areas 

where you would expect to find residual 

contamination, there actually, we did not find any 

evidence that there was operations going on besides 

D&D activities.

So, while we agree that there is residual 

contamination from historical activities that occurred 

prior to 1989, any exposure to that would be really -

-

(Audio interference)

Mr. Barton: Did anyone else hear that? Okay, it 

seems to have gone.

Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the 

radiological portion, at least, that the TRUMP-S 

experiment never actually occurred at Santa Susana. 

Though it's clear there was significant planning and 

licensing steps. And they designed the glove box, 

they had it ready to go but they just could not get 

the proper authorization and licensing to conduct that 

radiological portion.

And finally, really most importantly, I think it's 

important to say that we're not suggesting that 

residual levels of americium and thorium didn't exist 

and that there was no exposure potentials to these 

materials. We're saying that the exposure potential 

was related to remediation activities and therefore it 

still needs to be considered in the dose reconstruction 

process. And NIOSH agreed with that. And at the last 

meeting, steps were being undertaken to develop 

sort of exposure models to account for exposure to 

those radiological workers who were performing the 

D&D activities so that that can be accounted for. But 

we did not find any evidence of operations occurring 

with those contaminants. So, that exposure model, I 

believe, might be still under development by NIOSH 

or I'm sure they can provide an update on that.

And that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to 
83

answer any questions.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Bob. I'll give everybody a 

moment.

Mr. Barton: I can't hear anybody, am I still on the 

line?

Mr. Katz: No, no. Yes, I hope you can hear me. I'm 

just giving everybody a moment. Okay.

Mr. Barton: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, Board Members in the room first, do 

you have questions for Bob? Phil.

Member Schofield: The time frame for this SEC that's 

been proposed is when we had Controls for 

Environmental Pollution as the primary company 

doing the bioassay, as we know all their data was 

falsified so it's unreliable. And that's one thing that 

needs to be aware of, the fact that there was, are 

areas of contamination in some of these buildings, 

even though TRUMP-S did not go forward. It would 

still have the potentials of people getting exposed.

Mr. Barton: I'm not sure if I heard what the exact 

question.

I can speak to the, SEC-235 qualified for evaluation 

because of that Controls for Environmental Pollution 

data falsification essentially. And that was for a two 

year period from mid-1991 through mid-1993. I 

guess the current, the proposed resolution to that is 

that, and again, those bioassay, they weren't for 

americium or thorium, which you really can't 

bioassay for, but they did cover plutonium, uranium 

and mixed-fission products. For that specific twoyear period, it's been proposed, and I believe the 

Work Group agreed, that what would happen is the 

operational derived co-worker values would be used 

for that period and perhaps the surrounding periods.

So, essentially you would be applying operational 

plutonium and uranium exposure data to the residual 

period as a means to cover that, again, two year gap 
84

where the bioassay is not to be trusted. I don't know 

if that answers the question.

Member Schofield: Who did the in vivo monitoring?

Mr. Barton: Yes, there was also an in vivo monitoring 

program in place at the time.

Member Schofield: That was not the same contractor, 

correct?

Mr. Katz: Tim.

Dr. Taulbee: That's correct. It was Helgeson and 

Company that came in and did the whole body 

counting. So it was not CEP that did the whole body 

counting during that time period.

Mr. Katz: Could you hear that on the line? Could you 

hear it, Tim?

Mr. Barton: Was the question, if the in vivo was 

contracted out? I'm not --

Mr. Katz: Yes. So, Tim --

Mr. Barton: -- sure on that.

Mr. Katz: Tim answered.

Dr. Taulbee: Yes.

Mr. Katz: It was not the same contractor that was, 

who's data was --

Dr. Taulbee: Correct. It was Helgeson that did the 

whole body counting. They brought the mobile whole 

body counter in and did the whole body counting 

during that time period.

One other thing, if I could, to just follow on with what 

you were saying there, Phil, during that time period, 

because that is the period in question, from '91 to 

'93, there was several things that were done.

We looked at in the SEC, a comparison of the 

bioassay before and after that time period of '91 to 
85

'93, where the bioassay's in question. And what we 

found was that there is virtually no difference 

between those two in the operational period. The 

bioassay were much higher. So we feel that that is 

bounding.

That was the basis for us saying that we could do 

dose reconstruction. The operational period was a 

bounding era for this particular co-worker group that 

was doing remediation.

The in vivo counts are available. That's from a 

different count, or a different company. They didn't 

show any intakes.

Rocketdyne itself did additional follow-up of bioassay 

after the CEP issue was identified in 1994 of workers 

who worked there at that time period. And they didn't 

see any intakes when they did the follow-up 

bioassay.

And so, we looked at the operations of what were 

they doing during that time period, the before, during 

and after. Did any of the operation procedures 

change, nothing changed during that time period.

So we feel that the bioassay during the operational 

period, where a co-worker from the '88 to '91 time 

period and then post-1993, '94 and forward to '96, I 

think it is, can be used to bound and estimate the 

doses for these workers with sufficient accuracy.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Tim.

Member Schofield: Do the health physics have a 

record of people who came up from like De Soto and 

stuff who worked on some of these --

Mr. Katz: Phil, can you talk into the mic? Phil, please 

talk into the mic please.

Member Schofield: Okay. Are there any records of 

personnel from like Canoga, De Soto, coming up to 

the facility and helping out in like a daily logbook or 

something from the health physics personnel?
86

Mr. Barton: I'm not sure if that one is for me. I think 

--

Mr. Katz: Lara did --

Mr. Barton: -- it's recognized that personnel between 

the various facilities, including De Soto, did sort of 

rotate in and out. Now, whether there is logs 

available to say when that happened, I don't believe 

we currently have that information. It is -- it has been 

found through interviews that people often did 

rotate. Especially health physicists between De Soto 

and areas and Area IV. Depending on what the need 

was.

Mr. Katz: Lara, did you want to add something?

Dr. Hughes: No, not really. I think Bob covered it.

Mr. Katz: Okay, good. Do we have other questions 

from Board Members in the room? David.

Member Richardson: In the quotes that you provided 

on the technical progress report, there is a reference 

to Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the project. Could you 

define what those are?

Mr. Barton: I was not able to find a strict definition 

for what that meant. I can speculate that Stage 1 

would have been all those planning activities, 

including setting up the glove box, getting it leak 

tested, planning what to do with the waste once that 

experiment started.

As for specific definitions I don't know, but I would 

also point to one of the reports where it says, before 

you can even start up the radiological portion of this 

test, these specific actions need to be taken.

So I guess that leads me to believe that Stage 1 

would have been non-radiological activities and that 

the radiological portion, which is really what we're 

interested in, doesn't appear to have actually happen 

at Santa Susana.

Mr. Katz: Well, and that would be consistent with, I 
87

think, Bob, what you reported at the last meeting, 

which was, the licensure was never received for doing 

the radiological work.

Mr. Barton: That's correct. And I think it's really kind 

of reinforced with those newspaper articles at the 

very end where they talk about the TRUMP-S activity 

that was planned to occur in the hot lab. But again, 

under the intense public scrutiny, legal fillings were 

made and they were having trouble getting the 

proper authorizations from the NRC, and from DOE, 

to really start up the tests. It just appears like they 

wanted to get that last experiment in and it just didn't 

seem like it was going to happen at Area IV, and so 

that's why they eventually moved it to the University 

of Missouri. And that was also our conclusion in last 

April in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Katz: Do I have any questions for Board Members 

on the phone?

Member Anderson: No.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Let's go then, we have now the SEC 

petitioner is here. I don't know if she is planning to 

comment or not, but she is welcome to. Of course 

she is she says. Welcome, D'Lanie.

By Ms. D'Lanie Blaze

Ms. Blaze: Thank you. I'm D'Lanie Blaze, the SEC 

petitioner. As always, it's a privilege to address the 

Board.

CORE Advocacy has obtained information that 

confirms operations with americium and thorium at 

Area IV until 2008. But we did run across another 

document today that potentially puts processes with 

these materials at the site until 2010. So I'm going 

to have to get that document to you later.

But in addition, we've obtained some documents 

under the Freedom of Information Act that illustrate 

insufficient radiation monitoring practices for site 

remediation workers after 1988. So, I'd like to talk 
88

about both of those things today.

But first I'm concerned that NIOSH's limited scope of 

this SEC has diverted attention away from important 

key points that supported the original Class. Which 

was written to include all workers, 1955 to the 

present, regardless of administrative affiliation or 

time clock location.

The original Class Definition was based on evidence 

that NIOSH has already confirmed. For example, we 

cannot determine worker access to Area IV, we 

cannot track worker rotation between areas of Santa 

Susana or between Santa Susana, Canoga, and De 

Soto.

We've established that job titles are inconsistent with 

job duties and work locations, which prevents 

relevant exposure scenarios from being developed. 

The Site Profile remains totally defective and cannot 

be used in dose reconstruction.

And it certainly should not be used to develop new 

models for current site remediation workers who risk 

americium and thorium exposure at those 50 

locations that are still missing from the Site Profile. 

Along with all of their corresponding environmental 

data for these locations.

And it's my understanding that the Site Profile does 

not reference transuranic waste combustion 

practices, which is a process that began at the site in 

1974. And documentation suggests that it continued 

until 1998.

There are established Department of Energy facilities 

that were located in Area I. These were 

acknowledged by SC&A and NIOSH and have been 

completely ignored by the Department of Labor, 

although they have been give copies of the contracts 

for these locations.

But the workers who participated in these DOE 

operations are similarly disqualified from the 

program.
89

SC&A has already acknowledged that there were 

americium separation processes at the site until 

1993. In their own document.

And NIOSH has already acknowledged DAC emissions 

data in 1995 that were positive for americium and 

thorium, which suggests an operational use for those 

materials.

And then moving into today, the situation that 

workers are facing right now is that Boeing is 

systematically withholding all employment records.

This is preventing workers from establishing that 

they were ever even onsite. We are all familiar with 

the detailed and extensive nature of Boeing's 

employment databases. And clearly this is 

obstruction.

Personnel, medical and radiation records are 

incomplete. They cannot be obtained. They can't be 

used to identify job duties, work locations, or 

exposure. So, we can't tell where these workers 

were. We can't reliably rule out their access to Area 

IV.

So, NIOSH was presented with this SEC and 

supportive documentation that was relevant to the 

original Class Definition. But rather than focus on the 

issues that were raised, which are clearly relevant 

because we just heard about some of those same 

issues at West Valley, they limited the scope of this 

petition to 1991 to '93 and the deeds of a past 

contractor.

And we've just been talking about whole body count 

data, but I've already supplied the documentation 

showing that they didn't report whole body counting 

from Helgeson.

So, cutting to the chase here, I'm grateful that the 

Advisory Board has recognized the need to learn 

more about americium and thorium at the site after 

1988. And I think that the information that we've 

located establishes operations to at least 2008, 
90

potentially 2010, along with the new evidence that 

suggest site remediation workers were, and currently 

are, insufficiently monitored.

So, the documentation that I'll be submitting today 

is a Boeing technical progress report that details 

TRUMP-S operations Area IV from 1993 until 1998.

And apparently what it looks like is that after the 

public scrutiny died down and things weren't so 

heated, they brought the program back. That 

document provides a DOE contract number. And 

indicates that Boeing participated in Steps 4, 5 and 6 

of the TRUMP-S transuranic separation processes.

Which involve the reductive extraction and removal 

of metals from the molten salt phase of the process, 

the reductive extraction to remove actinides and rare 

earths from the active metals, followed by electrorefining, and the reductive extraction followed by 

electrode disposition to separate remaining 

transuranics from rare earths. So it doesn't look like 

their activities were just confined to non-radioactive 

processes.

We'll also be submitting several accepted --

acceptable knowledge summaries that describe 

transuranic waste generation and processes between 

2002 to 2008, and the storage of transuranics for up 

to 20 years, prior to the repacking operations that 

happened at Area IV. Which constituted an entire 

program that they started to deal with the site 

closure demands.

While the waste was sitting at Santa Susana during 

waste shipping moratoriums, the plutonium content 

was quickly decaying to rising levels of americium. 

And that's expressed in this report.

We have a 2003 photograph of large transuranic cask 

in the site closure team at the Area IV radioactive 

materials handling facility and a 2003 employment 

performance development summary which 

acknowledges workers participation in waste 

management and repacking processes.

So those documents will be supplied to the Work 
91

Group, NIOSH, and SC&A. And that shows the 

presence of americium and thorium onsite well into 

the 2000s. And processes that involve those 

materials.

And then just to touch on the site remediation 

workers, under the FOIA we obtained several of the 

requests from Boeing to be exempted from 

Department of Energy's requirements to monitor site 

remediation workers.

Those are dated between 1991 into the 2000s. So 

they coincide with the site remediation processes and 

the transuranic work that we're talking about.

The Department of Energy expected compliance from 

the contractor, but they gave Boeing a loophole to 

exemption by basically letting them know, if an 

employee is affiliated with a non-radiological 

location, like Area I, II or III, or has a job title that is 

inconsistent with radiation work, then that employee 

is not required to be monitored.

Site remediation subcontractor employees are 

currently administratively affiliated with an Area II 

dispatch location. They're routinely performing Area 

IV site remediation duties at radiological locations 

where historically radiation monitoring was required.

They are not currently being monitored for radiation. 

But the waste that is being generated from their 

activities, is surveyed for radioactivity.

DOE and Boeing have abandoned these 

subcontractor employees. They refuse to 

acknowledge that this subcontractor is even present 

at the work site. And these workers are summarily 

disqualified from EEOICPA today.

Even when they submit photos showing that they're 

performing site remediation at Area IV radiological 

locations. One of them was transitioned to 

subcontractor status, sent in to Area II to be 

administratively affiliated with that. And his radiation 

protection ended within a few weeks of filing his initial 
92

EEOICPA claim.

Right now today, while we're having this meeting, 

he's doing site remediation at Area IV.

In conclusion, we believe that the new 

documentation shows that americium and thorium 

were used in an operational capacity to at least 2008. 

And that this information even more firmly supports 

the original Class Definition that was intended to 

acknowledge all Department of Energy contractor 

and subcontractor employees at the site, based on 

issues that have already been verified.

As always, it's a privilege to represent the workers 

and address the Board. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, D'Lanie. I'm going to make, do I 

have mic power here? I'm going to make a 

suggestion here because it's a process issue.

On our SEC petitions, we address SEC petitions based 

on current information. And we do the best we can 

with our current information. We've had this petition 

on the agenda multiple times at this point with a 

promise of information that hasn't borne out to be 

what we thought it would be. And you are now 

indicating that you have new information for us to 

consider. And new information is great, but new 

information is normally the basis for a new petition.

Ms. Blaze: Would that be Bob Barton's new 

information that he quoted from technical progress 

reports or my new information?

Mr. Katz: It would be new information presented to 

NIOSH and the Board, at the point that it's doing its 

work. And we didn't even have a day to look at 

anything. We are being promised information now we 

haven't seen. That's new information as far as the 

Board is concerned.

And I would just, my opinion on this is that this is 

appropriate for reopening, for establishing a new 

petition but is not appropriate, really, for the Board 
93

to be making, putting this off for another meeting.

We have a lot, the Board has a lot of work to do on a 

lot of petitions and --

Ms. Blaze: I understand.

Mr. Katz: -- holding this as an agenda item, again, 

and re-raising it, say, in December, which is our next 

meeting, means that something else doesn't have 

room perhaps or what have you. So, I mean, that's 

my strong suggestion. The Board can decide how it 

will.s

Ms. Blaze: I have a question, Ted?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Ms. Blaze: If the original Class Definition is defined 

clearly and submitted with supportive 

documentation, can the Board recommend that 

NIOSH adhere to the original Class Definition?

Mr. Katz: No. The Class Definition is a work in 

progress. I mean, that's just the way it has been for 

every single petition we've dealt with for now going 

on almost 20 years. Petitioners are in the position of 

proposing a class definition, but it's really up to 

NIOSH. And then there's involvement of the Board, 

when there needs to be, on working out what the 

proper end class definition is --

Ms. Blaze: Yes.

Mr. Katz: -- that has gone on. So, again, in my view, 

this new information is fine and good, and we'll 

welcome new information, but it really ought to be a 

new petition, not this petition which we've struggled 

through --

Ms. Blaze: That happens when it gets --

Mr. Katz: -- and investigated pretty deeply.

Ms. Blaze: -- kicked down the road and the Class 

Definition is changed. I totally understand. I'm 

prepared to resubmit.
94

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Ms. Blaze: Does anyone else have any questions for 

me?

Mr. Katz: Yes, let's go to questions for D'Lanie. In the 

room or on the line?

(Off microphone comments.)

Member Beach: D'Lanie, can you just tell me again 

what years it covers?

Member Anderson: I would say, I thought the 

presentation was very helpful and it did close the loop 

on some of the issues that we had raised at the last 

Board meeting. So, be interested in, I mean, we 

tabled the previous recommendation from our group 

and I would assume that that recommendation is still 

open. And given your current comment, that the new 

data presented, that it's probably best used as a new 

proposal.

I'm not sure, I'd be interested in hearing from the 

other Members of the committee and the Board after 

we want to keep the current one open and look for 

continuing review of new information or should we 

close that part of it out and then we can more, in a 

more focused fashion, address new information 

through the process.

Ms. Blaze: Josie --

Mr. Katz: And that's Dr. Anderson by the way. Just 

for the record.

Ms. Blaze: -- 1993 to 2008. Some of that is not new 

information, it came from SC&A's review of the 

internal co-worker dosimetry data in 2014.

(Off microphone comments.)

Ms. Blaze: Yes.

Member Schofield: One quick question for you. You 

indicated that there was data showing that they did 
95

do the prior separations. What was the dates for 

that?

Ms. Blaze: That document talks about the processes, 

1993 to 1998. It's a technical progress report. Similar 

to what Bob Barton quoted from.

Mr. Katz: Do I have other comments or questions 

from Board Members? David.

Member Richardson: I was struck at the meeting, 

which I believe was in Pittsburgh in April. We were 

presented with three pieces of evidence regarding 

the activities at the site during this period.

And at that point I found it, I mean, I'll say frankly, I 

found it shockingly insufficient. There were two 

unattributed quotes, if I'm going back to this, two 

experts who were unnamed but spoke in their opinion 

about the activities.

There were ten incident reports. One of which had a 

positive finding and the others were inconclusive.

And my recollection in the past, we have not drawn 

heavily upon incident reports as the basis for 

understanding the nature of activities. And then there 

was general air sampling results, which would be in 

the hierarchy of information, some of the weakest 

type.

Because it would depend upon where the sampling 

occurred and what. And we were, I believe we were 

presented with mean results of general air sampling. 

And that was the scope of the evidence that was 

raised.

And then petitioner came forward with what I would 

say calling, in some cases, anecdotal or reference to 

reports of information about specific activities. And 

now today we have a rebuttal about what the 

petitioner has put forward, but I am still left with 

these pieces of information. Two unattributed quotes, 

some incident reports and general air sampling as 

sort of the basis of forming a conclusion about the 
96

nature of the activities that happen. And possible 

references, still to kind of a lack of clear 

understanding of what the nature of the activities 

was over this period of time. So I don't feel like the 

ball has moved very far.

Mr. Katz: Let me, to suggest a couple of those points

that you made, which I think need a little bit of 

editorial work.

The unattributed I think is a little bit unfair. It's we 

protect people's privacy. These aren't unattributed 

discussions, they're not, they're attributed but we 

don't release their names to the public --

Member Richardson: I --

Mr. Katz: -- this is the normal course. And it's 

workers who were there, who we normally respect 

their information as experts.

Member Richardson: I'm not saying that, but again, 

I have, I'm not disrespecting them but I'm saying, to 

understand the nature of the process, I don't believe 

we were characterized kind of, is this management 

speaking, were the people there during the periods. 

Maybe we had some of that addressed but, again, 

that's --

Mr. Katz: Right.

Member Richardson: -- not to say, but I'm saying in 

the hierarchy of types of information, which we would 

like to see as a characterization of the process, and I 

don't want to get into a debate with you, Ted --

Mr. Katz: No, I --

Member Richardson: -- about the nature of this, but 

I'm describing the situation of my level of comfort in 

April.

And there's been a sort of a response to the, some 

investigation of the activity in one building, but I 

don't feel like it's substantially changed --
97

Mr. Katz: Right.

Member Richardson: -- the presentation of a 

coherent report about what happened.

Mr. Katz: And the other --

Member Richardson: And you're asking this sort of 

procedurally. Like, okay, it's enough, we've had this 

discussion, let's just make a decision.

Mr. Katz: Well, it's, current information is how we do 

operate.

Member Richardson: I'm not talking about --

Mr. Katz: So that --

Member Richardson: -- in Pittsburgh I felt like the 

current information was insufficient. And I still feel 

like I don't know. I haven't learned that much.

Mr. Katz: And the other thing that, the mean 

information, it was not only mean, I believe it was 

the mean, like 95 percent or, it was a mean high 

value. But someone from the program can speak to 

that, as to what those values were. Tim or Lara can 

--

Mr. Barton: Yes, this Bob Barton. Yes, I put that 

together based on what data we had for air sampling 

at the time. But I'd like to say that that is not, it 

wasn't necessarily meant to -- basically it was a way 

to compare the operational period to this residual 

period where we don't have appropriate or 

acceptable bioassay data. And we pointed out a 

number of valid concerns and limitations with that 

analysis. But again, it was supposed to be sort of 

weight of evidence argument.

And I believe those numbers were, in some cases, 

three orders of magnitude lower during the 

remediation period then what was done during the 

operational period. Which is being proposed as a sort 

of surrogate, (I know that's a loaded word for this 

program,) but using that operational co-worker data 
98

to apply to remediation workers. That was really the 

purpose of that comparison.

And yes, it was looking at the high end assays, 

looking at the average of the maxes. And there might 

have been an average of the averages in there.

Again, we were working with what information that 

we have. Whether that information was obviously a 

question for you all.

Ms. Blaze: May I respond?

Mr. Katz: Well, I mean, really, this isn't the time for, 

this is the experts talking. But, Tim, did you have 

something to add?

Dr. Taulbee: Just to follow on what Bob was saying. 

I mean, he's exactly right, the purpose of those air 

sample data was just to compare the operational to 

the remediation time period. So, if you're looking for 

a more detailed analysis of that because you're 

uncomfortable with the situation from that 

standpoint, then perhaps something can be done 

along those lines. But it was just a look to see, hey, 

does this bioassay that we have in the remediation 

time period after the CEP data from '91 to '93, does 

it match or was there a huge spike in air sample data 

during that time period, and there wasn't. That's 

observable. So if you're looking for something more 

robust, that could possibly be arranged. But I really 

don't think that that's necessary at this point. From 

what we saw and Bob's analysis is demonstrating, 

there is nothing indicating that there would be any 

reason to invalidate a co-worker model in that time 

period.

(Off microphone comments.)

Mr. Katz: Phil.

Member Schofield: There is not --

Mr. Katz: Phil, talk in your mic please.

Member Schofield: Okay.
99

Mr. Katz: Thanks.

Member Schofield: I've got a quick comment to make 

is, this would be if the data she is quoting is correct, 

that they did some of this work after '93. 

Pyroseparation done with light elements, you would 

be concentrating the americium. And you now also 

have the light elements, you have the americium, the 

plutonium in there. So now you all have a higher rate 

of gamma exposure and a higher rate of neutron 

exposure due to the alpha reactions.

Dr. Taulbee: Right. But if I can bring you back to what 

Ted was saying earlier, the new information, if it was 

filed as a new petition, we would certainly evaluate 

all of that information.

In this particular evaluation, we qualified the petition 

because we knew that CEP was providing the 

bioassay between '91 and '93. And that was what we 

were looking at for this particular petition.

Now, I understand that the petitioner filed for a 

longer time period, but in our qualification process, 

we looked at that time period because we knew there 

was a potential issue there. If there's new 

information that comes in under a new petition, we 

will look at all of that new information.

Mr. Katz: Brad.

Member Clawson: Well, I just, I'm going to tell you 

one thing right now. You know that this will just be a 

Bradism. Santa Susana is a total mess.

How come is it that it's a DOE contract and the 

information is held by Boeing and we don't really 

even know what we've even got there?

Now, as far as giving the petitioner the opportunity, 

I think I've been spending eight or nine years of, yes, 

we just found 300 more boxes here, yes, we just 

found that. And we have given NIOSH the 

opportunity, I think, that we ought to give the 

petitioner the same thing.
100

I understand that there comes a time when it comes, 

but Santa Susana, out of all of the sites that I have 

dealt with is the biggest mess I have ever seen in all 

the sites.

Member Anderson: Hello.

Mr. Katz: Go ahead. Is that Andy? So, do I have a 

Board member on the phone who has any more 

comments or questions?

Alright. Do I have a Board member in the room with 

any more comments or questions?

So, we have a motion, it's still on the table. It was 

resurrected at the beginning of this session to concur 

with NIOSH. And it sounds like we don't have any 

more discussion at this point or a proposed path 

forward or a proposal to re-table it. Paul, do I? Where 

do you want it?

Member Ziemer: I just wondered, we took the motion 

off the table before and we brought it back. You need 

to remind us what the motion is?

Mr. Katz: So --

Member Ziemer: It's not been expressed today.

Mr. Katz: Okay. So, let me remind you what the 

motion is. One second. It's, in affect it's to agree with 

NIOSH but let me read it to you.

Okay. Well, I mean, the motion is that NIOSH has 

concluded that all employees of the DOE, its 

predecessor agencies and its contractors and 

subcontractors who worked at Area IV of the Santa 

Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, 

California, during the period from August 1, 1991 

through June 30th of 1993, for that Class, NIOSH 

found it has access in affect.

And I'm just going to -- it's a long discussion for 

which you would have to approve the specifics, but 

NIOSH has found that it has adequate information for 

dose reconstruction, that is the summary of it.
101

And that's what you would be voting on. That NIOSH 

can do dose reconstruction for this three year period. 

That is what you would be considering.

Member Anderson: And it's part of the residual 

period, right?

Mr. Katz: Well, I don't know how residual is defined 

at this site because this is not an AWE. Go ahead, 

Lara.

Dr. Hughes: No, it's a DOE facility and it's called 

remediation period.

Mr. Katz: Yes, remediation, sorry. Thank you, Lara. 

Remediation period. So, similar in effect, I guess.

Dr. Taulbee: Yes.

Member Anderson: Ted, what were the dates again?

Mr. Katz: I'm sorry. The dates are from August 1st, 

1991 through June 30th, 1993. So it's really a couple 

of years, a little less.

Member Richardson: So, Ted, you've put forward one 

motion, procedurally, can a counter motion be put 

forward?

Mr. Katz: A counter motion? Well, we can --

Member Richardson: How would one, if one were to 

propose to table the motion again?

Mr. Katz: Tabling it, we can propose to table the 

motion, but then you need also the proposed path 

forward. But go ahead, Paul? Were you going to add 

more to that, what I just said?

Member Ziemer: No. You can table a motion at any 

time, I'm not sure what you mean by a counter 

motion. But --

Member Richardson: Well, I just, it was a proposal 

to, I mean, another option is to consider this and I 

was tabling it.
102

Member Ziemer: A motion on the floor can be 

amended, if that's what you're asking. If it's a 

counter motion, that becomes a different motion and 

it wouldn't --

Member Richardson: Okay. And tabling is not a 

motion, tabling is just --

Mr. Katz: Tabling is to put it back on the table.

Member Ziemer: Tabling takes preference.

Member Richardson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

(Off microphone comment.)

Member Beach: In essence, what we did last 

meeting.

Mr. Katz: Exactly.

Member Beach: Which I'm in favor of.

Member Ziemer: I didn't hear what she --

Mr. Katz: She's in favor of tabling it.

Member Ziemer: Now, motions to table are not 

debatable.

Mr. Katz: Right.

Member Ziemer: So, you can't speak to whether 

you're for it or against it, you just have to act.

Mr. Katz: Okay. So then I need a vote for whether we 

table this or not. So I'll run down the list --

Member Ziemer: And I'll add one other thing.

Mr. Katz: Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you.

Member Ziemer: You can include in the motion to 

table a time to remove it or you can just table it and 

remove it later at your leisure as it were.
103

Mr. Katz: But also, be thinking about what your path 

forward is if we do table it because if we don't have 

a path forward and we're tabling it, we're not doing 

justice to procedure at all here.

So, Anderson?

Member Anderson: No.

Mr. Katz: Beach?

Member Beach: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Clawson?

Member Clawson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Field?

Member Field: No.

Mr. Katz: Kotelchuck?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Lockey?

Member Lockey: No.

Mr. Katz: Richardson?

Member Richardson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Roessler? Gen Roessler?

Member Roessler: Okay, this is Gene. No.

Mr. Katz: Yes. No. Schofield?

Member Schofield: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Valerio?

Member Valerio: Yes.

Mr. Katz: And Ziemer?

Member Ziemer: Yes.
104

Mr. Katz: Okay. The motion passes. So it's tabled. 

Now that it's tabled, I need a discussion about what 

is the path forward because we need one.

Member Schofield: One thing is, we need a chance 

for NIOSH to look -- and the Work Group to look at 

some of the new data that has been brought forward 

to this meeting. I mean, at least the wording of it. 

We need to actually look at some of those 

documents.

Mr. Katz: So, go ahead, before we --

Dr. Taulbee: I have a procedural question, I guess, 

for Ted then.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Dr. Taulbee: Because the qualification period for this 

was 1991 to 1993. Information that comes from the 

outside of that time period is, I mean, do we expand 

that time period within this petition?

Participant: We can't hear on the phone.

Mr. Katz: So, Tim is just asking, it's an 

understandable question. The period for which this 

petition was qualified was '91 to '93. So, new 

information about years outside that he's saying, 

what do we do with it? With respect to this petition.

And I guess my question back to you is, and maybe 

it's Grady, but I believe the program, and maybe it's 

our lawyers if not, but I believe the program has 

some flexibility, if there is new information, with 

respect to Definition of the Class, whether you can go 

back and redefine the Class being considered at some 

point or not. I don't know, we haven't really had this 

experience before.

Mr. Rutherford: Actually, we've expanded Classes 

beyond qualification date if we determined there's an 

infeasibility --

Mr. Katz: Right.
105

Mr. Rutherford: -- that expands the class.

Mr. Katz: Right.

Mr. Rutherford: If we look at this new information 

and we recognize that maybe the end of the qualified 

period should actually be included, then we would 

have to come up with a new date. And so, we would 

look at that new date.

Mr. Katz: Right. Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: So, I think that's fine.

Mr. Katz: So I guess that's my question was, do we 

have the flexibility, and we do. So then that's okay. I 

think we're okay there. Paul.

Member Ziemer: Let me add to that if I might. At the 

point at which this is brought back from the table, 

you would be addressing the original motion. At 

which point it could be amended.

Mr. Katz: Right. Right. Thank you, Paul.

So, anyway, we have that clarification. And I heard 

mentioned, I don't remember who said it, but about 

NIOSH evaluating the new information.

And I would just, of course, note that I think SC&A 

and NIOSH will look at that at the same time for 

efficiency purposes so that we have all eyes on this 

new information and get it done as quickly as we can.

Is there anything else anyone wants done, beyond 

evaluating this new information, to satisfy concerns? 

And I am pointedly asking David Richardson because 

he's the one who has some concerns that may be 

outside of that scope.

Member Richardson: I attempted to make notes 

during the petitioner's comments. It seemed to me 

that there were two categories of comments.

There were comments which were, I mean, here I am 

following our training from this morning on ethics 
106

training. Issues that were specific, and there were 

issues which were general.

The specific ones concerned americium and thorium 

activities, continuing through into more recent 

periods. The general ones concerned, for example, 

drawing the parallel to this morning's discussions, the 

difficulty of obtaining any sorts of records which are 

going to establish that the worker was onsite or 

involved in these activities. I mean, those, there were 

concerns about sufficiency of the Site Profile, job 

titles. There were a number of issues raised.

And we can either propose a path forward, which is 

extremely narrow, or we can at least, in some way, 

we responsive to the enumeration of some broader 

concerns, which I believe are being raised because of 

the difficulty perhaps, with a narrowed definition.

Mr. Katz: Well, I believe those, actually, those issues 

have been addressed before on multiple occasions. 

But certainly we can be certain that those are

addressed or have been addressed. I know that DOL 

matters have been addressed on multiple occasions, 

and that's a general issue, but it's not a general issue 

for us. So I understand that one.

But anyway, we can go through the transcript and 

see those issues and see whether they've been 

addressed before and if they haven't and there is 

something novel about it, we can, absolutely. That's 

another thing that can be prepared is to suggest 

specifically a response to the comment, whatever 

that might be, that general comment. Thank you.

Alright. Alright, so, we have someone on the line that 

is not muted by the way and is struggling with their 

phone or something. Can people on the phone press 

*6 to mute your phone? I don't think the person can 

hear me.

How are we doing on time here? We're right on 

schedule. So we have a little, we're a little bit over 

schedule, but we have a SEC petition status update 

for LaVon.
107

Member Anderson: Ted, we don't hear anything now?

Mr. Katz: Yes, no one is speaking, that's why.

Member Anderson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Yes, Bomber -- LaVon, is just getting ready.

SEC Petitions Status Update, by Mr. LaVon 

Rutherford, NIOSH

Mr. Rutherford: Alright, I'm LaVon Rutherford, I'm 

the Special Exposure Cohort health physics team 

leader for NIOSH and I'm going to give the SEC 

update. We give this update at every Advisory Board 

meeting. It gives the Advisory Board indicates of 

petitions and qualification under evaluation currently 

under Board review and potential 83.14's we may be 

working on.

A little summary. Believe it or not, we're up to 253 

petitions. It's a little bit more than then 20 Jim Neton 

anticipated when we first --

Member Anderson: Can't hear you.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, is that a little better?

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, we're up to 253 petitions. We 

have one petition in the qualification process, one 

petition in the evaluation process and 12 petitions 

with the Advisory Board.

Our one petition that's in the qualification is the 

reduction pilot plan. This is petition for 1976 to 1978. 

It's at Huntington, West Virginia. And it's for all 

security guards. Currently that petition is on hold. We 

have sent some information that was provided with 

the petition, and some information that we had 

uncovered ourselves to the Department of Labor, for 

them to evaluate the covered period. We believe 

that, well, if the covered period is not extended, this 

petition is likely not to qualify.
108

Alright, petitions under evaluation, we have 

Lawrence Livermore National Lab. This is actually a 

continuation of an existing petition. It addresses the 

remaining years of 1990 to 2014. And we do expect 

to have that addendum complete in February of next 

year.

Y-12 Plant, 1977 to 1994. That petition evaluation is 

complete and will be presented by Dr. Hughes 

shortly.

West Valley Demonstration Project, we presented 

that one earlier. We got some additional work to do 

but the Board did concur with our recommendation 

for that addition of the Class.

Okay, these are petitions that have evaluation 

periods still under review. Hanford SEC-57.

We have been reviewing, NIOSH has been reviewing 

documentation to determine whether prime 

contractors, Radiological Control Programs, were 

meeting internal monitoring requirements. We 

anticipate having the, our answers to the Work Group 

in November of this year.

Savannah River Site. Savannah River Site, the Work 

Group, and SC&A are reviewing our co-worker 

models and our subcontractor monitoring.

Los Alamos National Lab, we have two big issues we 

are working on at the Work Group meeting in July. 

We presented a proposed path forward and a 

schedule for completing that. So we're working those 

issues.

Sandia National Lab, we presented an addendum, 

that that addendum is being reviewed by the Work 

Group and SC&A.

Idaho National Lab, NIOSH is working to resolve 

issues raised by SC&A and the Work Group. Same 

thing with Argonne National Lab West.

Area IV, Santa Susana, sounds like we have a little 
109

additional work to do after today's meeting. And we'll 

get together that information and put together a 

schedule and make sure the Work Group is aware of 

it.

Metals and Controls, the Advisory Board Work Group 

and SC&A are reviewing a couple White Papers.

De Soto Avenue Facility, NIOSH is working to resolve 

issues raised by SC&A in the Work Group. And there 

are some, NIOSH has been working with SC&A on 

some additional interviews that were conducted.

Superior Steel Company. Again, we are working to 

resolve issues raised by SC&A and the Work Group.

So, these are those same years. These are the years, 

I mean, these are the same petitions in the remaining 

years that are still to be addressed by those petitions.

I'm not going to go through each one of them. 

Okay, potential 83.14s, as we had that discussion 

this morning with West Valley. We are continuing to 

evaluate the 1966 to '68 period. If we determine the 

data does not support a feasible dose reconstruction 

we will move forward with an 83.14 to cover that 

period.

And that's all I got. Questions? Questions?

Mr. Katz: No questions? No questions on the line 

either, right?

Member Richardson: Can I --

Mr. Katz: Oh.

Member Richardson: -- just ask for a clarification 

quickly?

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Member Richardson: The only thing that I flagged 

and I just, I mean, I'm sure we'll hear more about it, 

the "Hanford reviewing documentation to determine 

whether prime contractors, radiological control 
110

programs were meeting internal monitoring 

requirements," could you just clarify what that 

means?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. At that time period we added a 

Class 1983 to 1990 at Hanford. And it was because 

we noticed that some subcontractor monitoring 

programs, at that time period, Hanford was broken 

up into, each of the contractors were responsible for 

their own monitoring program.

So they were responsible for implementing the actual 

internal monitoring requirements. Well, as you can 

expect, that didn't work out very well.

So the subcontractors, we added a Class, because we 

recognized the subcontractors were not doing, we 

had documentation that supported that. But the 

question came up, okay, do we really feel good about 

all of the prime contractors because there wasn't just 

one prime contractor at the time.

So we had been continuing that evaluation. We're 

working a closure. We should have that report to the 

Work Group by November of this year.

Board Work Session

Mr. Katz: Any other questions? Alright, we are off 

now to -- we're not off, we're on to the Board work 

session. And as Bomber promised, right on time. 

LaVon, thank you.

Member Beach: Ted, before you get started, can I 

ask about the October Board call on -- scheduled for 

the 16th?

Mr. Katz: Yes. What's the question?

Member Beach: Is it possible to move that a day 

later? Or is it set in stone?

Mr. Katz: We can try to do that here.

Member Beach: Right now it's set for the 16th.
111

Mr. Katz: So, yes, it may be possible. People will have 

to pull up their calendars, and we can do that first 

actually, why not.

Member Clawson: It's all about Josie.

Member Beach: Why not.

Mr. Katz: So right now, let me just find my dates.

Member Richardson: Right now it's proposed for the 

Wednesday, the 16th of October--

Mr. Katz: Exactly.

Member Richardson: -- and the proposal was to shift 

it to Tuesday the 15th of October.

Member Beach: 15th or the 17th. No, the 17th, sorry.

Member Richardson: Oh, the 17th.

Member Beach: A day later, yes.

Mr. Katz: Oh, she's very specific. So the 17th. How is 

the 17th for people on their calendars? And on the 

line, Board Members too.

Member Anderson: Just a second, Ted, I have to look.

Mr. Katz: Sure, sure. No rush.

Member Anderson: I have a lecture that day.

Mr. Katz: Okay, so that's --

Member Anderson: I can try to move it.

Mr. Katz: Did you say something about moving your 

lecture or no?

Member Anderson: I mean, I can do it, but I have a 

-- Thursday is a course that I lecture in.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Member Anderson: What time, my lecture is at 1:00 

in the afternoon. So if we met in the morning it would 
112

be okay.

Mr. Katz: Oh, we'll be finished. I mean, generally 

speaking these have gone well less than an hour. So 

I think you should be okay.

Member Anderson: Oh.

Mr. Katz: Any other Members have a problem with 

changing it to the 17th?

Member Lockey: This is Jim Lockey. Either way, I'm 

not going to be in town so it doesn't make any 

difference for me.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Okay, we'll miss you either way, Jim. 

All okay? Okay. So --

Member Anderson: So, what time would it start?

Mr. Katz: So, October 17 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time.

Member Anderson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, Eastern time involves you too, Andy.

Member Anderson: 10 o'clock my time.

Mr. Katz: Yes, exactly.

Member Anderson: Got it.

Member Beach: Thank you.

Participant: Sure.

Mr. Katz: Okay, you owe all of us, Josie.

Member Beach: I do. I'll pay up somehow.

Mr. Katz: A pound of flesh, pound of flesh.

Okay, now, as long as we're in scheduling mode, 

everyone has their calendars, let's go on with some 

more scheduling. The next teleconference, so let me, 

just to bring you all up to date, because I know you 

often like to know what comes after anyway, we have 

a December Board meeting, provisionally the 11th 
113

and 12th, whether we have enough material for that 

is at question.

But this December 11 and 12. And we will be sorting 

out the location for that shortly. After we do the 

scheduling.

Then we have a February 19th teleconference. 

February 19th. And then we have an April 22nd and 

23rd full Board meeting.

So that brings you up to what we've scheduled 

already. And moving from there, we need a 

teleconference around the week of June 22nd.

So, I usually, I'm hoping the 22nd is a Monday, so 

we're talking about that week.

Member Beach: Can you tell us the April dates again, 

I thought I had it but --

Mr. Katz: The April date is 22nd to the 23rd.

Member Beach: Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Okay, so then --

(Off microphone comments.)

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Member Anderson: Ted, you're into June, right?

Mr. Katz: Let me move on with this. I'll get to those 

dates. But anyway, so, teleconference the week of 

June 22nd, that's a Monday I believe. If that's a 

Monday, then the 24th is our standard thing, but we 

can do other days.

Anybody have a problem with June 24th?

Member Beach: No.

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey, that's good.

Member Beach: Good.
114

Mr. Katz: David, is that okay with you? Kotelchuck.

Member Kotelchuck: It is.

Member Anderson: April 22 and 23?

Mr. Katz: So --

Member Beach: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes, there's a April --

Member Beach: Sorry. Sorry, Ted.

Mr. Katz: Yes, that's okay.

Member Anderson: Oh. So, April 22, 23 full Board 

meeting. And now we're setting a June --

Member Anderson: Yes, I got it.

Mr. Katz: -- a June 24th teleconference. 11:00 a.m. 

Eastern time. Okay? That sounds good then.

And then for a meeting around the week of August 

24th.

Member Anderson: The week of the 24th is okay for 

me. Which days?

Mr. Katz: So, the preference would be the 26th and 

27th. The middle of the week.

Member Anderson: Okay.

Member Lockey: It's good for me.

Mr. Katz: August 2020, 26th and 27th.

Okay, I'm not hearing anyone on the line having 

trouble with those dates?

Member Roessler: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Okay, so August 26th --

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey, good for me.
115

Mr. Katz: Super. August 26th through 27th. Alright, 

that settles dates. Schedules us out for a year. Where 

we like to be.

And now let's talk about locations for December. And 

again, I don't know whether this is two days or one 

day, but right now, given all that has happened 

before, we can bring things to the Board. It's looking 

pretty skimpy for December I would say.

But let me find my notes to get you started. Okay, 

so, for December. So, I'm going to start with the one 

that seems most intriguing to me and practical.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Work Group has 

been working on its review, the Site Profile. And there 

are a lot of matters that they have dug into and some 

that are getting responded to.

There is work that hasn't come out yet from NIOSH 

about dealing with air monitoring there. And it 

sounds like it would be not bad timing to sort of go 

with that report to be able to possibly get more 

information locally about matters related to that as 

to how that data could be used and so on.

So, that is sort of the argument for doing, having an 

Oakland trip for December. To help out with that Site 

Profile review.

And I think I would ask then, certainly that we do a 

job of reaching out to people at the site so we can 

hopefully generate some information from them 

during that meeting.

Member Anderson: Where is that?

Mr. Katz: So, if that, Lawrence Berkeley, that would 

be, we've, I think, almost every time in Oakland for 

that. That's pretty easy. It's a pretty easy setup for 

us.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: So, other possibilities that I went through 

before. Hanford still has open SEC issues, so that's 
116

another possibility. We'll talking about December, but 

I don't think Hanford is that frightening winter 

location for, not like Idaho.

Member Beach: It varies.

Mr. Katz: It varies.

(Laughter.)

Mr. Katz: So, Hanford is another possibility. And I 

don't know, Joe, I don't know how ripe that might be 

but --

Mr. Rutherford: It's actually NIOSH.

Mr. Katz: Ah, okay.

Mr. Rutherford: As I mentioned, Ted, we're on 

schedule to provide a document to the Work Group 

in November that should address the remaining 

issues. How those are accepted by the Work Group, 

I don't know.

Mr. Katz: Of course. Okay. So, now you know as 

much as can be known about that. Okay.

SRS. SRS will not be ready for December. It's become 

pretty clear. There is going to be a mountain of work 

to do by the Work Group. And that's going to be 

coming pretty late this fall. Which means bringing it 

to the Board lickety split like that is just not likely to 

happen. So, what I am hoping for is that this late fall 

we have a, probably a couple-day work group 

meeting in Cincinnati with as many Board Members 

as we can get there.

We don't, we're not talking about just the SRS Work 

Group, that and the SEC Issues Work Group, which 

has sort of owned some of the matters with coworker modeling, but having a couple day meeting 

late fall.

So, I don't think that's ready for, definitely it's not 

going to be ready for Board action. The one possibility 

is if you want to give a major update to the SRS 
117

community about what's going on, because at that 

point you have a lot of material on your plate, that 

would be an option. That would be a reason why you 

would go to Augusta then.

So that was another thought. INL, I was thinking, it 

was suggested that this summer might be a good 

time to go to INL, because the burial ground material 

will be ready then for discussion. And mixed fission 

produce and various reactor should have been 

discussed by the Work Group by then, so that might 

be nice timing for INL.

We love it there. we miss it Brad, by all means.

Member Clawson: You know, you guys won't melt if 

you get a little snow on you. It's all good.

Mr. Katz: I know it's possible.

Member Beach: It's not the melting, it's the driving.

Mr. Katz: No, that's possible.

Member Beach: It's the driving, not the melting.

Mr. Katz: Okay. And the last place that I gave 

thought to also was De Soto, because at that I don't, 

timing I'm not sure whether that's ready for 

December. The question is though, I mean, really, if 

it was it would just be there for relevance because at 

this point it wouldn't be a public input opportunity, 

we would have done most of all the work at that 

point.

So those are all the options I considered. Paul, you 

are the Lawrence Berkeley Chair so I don't know if 

you have thoughts about, about doing this in 

Oakland?

Member Ziemer: Well, I think it would be good, it 

wouldn't be, mainly focused on presenting what we 

have and what's still needed. I don't see it being one 

where we would take any actions, in terms of votes, 

at that point.
118

Mr. Katz: Right.

Member Ziemer: There is still much to do.

Mr. Katz: Absolutely.

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Katz: There is no question the Site Profile review 

wouldn't be done. In fact, the point would be to be 

able to collect some more information.

Member Ziemer: Collect more information and 

perhaps give the Board an update on what we've 

done so far in terms of closing out some parts of the 

Site Profile.

Mr. Katz: Got it. David.

Member Richardson: And would there be an option 

for a site visit at that time?

Member Ziemer: I think that would be great if we 

could arrange it.

Mr. Katz: We can try to arrange that. I know that we 

have plenty of time out to do that, so, yes. People 

interested in a site visit?

Member Clawson: Yes.

Member Beach: Yes.

Member Ziemer: Yes. Dr. Hughes was the person on 

that, but I think Megan has taken that over, but 

maybe she can arrange something.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Okay. So we'll, that would be another 

reason, I guess, to go to Oakland. But let me hear if 

Board Members have any other thoughts or different 

preferences, by all means, let me know.

Member Beach: I would have said Metals and 

Controls, but --

Member Anderson: I like Oakland.
119

Member Beach: -- it's clear we're not going to be 

ready now with that setback.

Mr. Katz: Okay. So, yes. Yes, Metals and Controls is 

going to be a little longer. Unfortunately, the work 

will be done, a lot of the work will be done, but we 

just have scheduling issues with pulling together all 

the Board Members and staff members that have to 

be together to work out the remaining issues.

And I heard Andy say he loves Oakland. Any others? 

Any other thoughts? Going, going, gone.

Alright. So that's December, Oakland. And is 20th, 

21st. Depending on how much we have for the Board 

meeting itself, we could use those two days, one of 

those days, for a site visit.

(Off record comments.)

Mr. Katz: Andy already said he's good.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes, I hear someone very faintly. Is 

someone trying to speak to us? No. Okay.

Alright. Whatever, I think I messed it up. 11th and 

12th, sorry.

Member Kotelchuck: Which is a Monday, Tuesday, 

right?

Member Anderson: Go ahead.

Mr. Katz: No, that should be the middle of the week.

Member Beach: Wednesday, Thursday.

Mr. Katz: Right. So we'll try to keep to those two days 

for your calendars, but working with the site about a 

visit is another matter. So, December 11, 12. So, just 

consider on your calendars a day before and day 

after, possibly, for the site visit.

And it would be great to hear from all Board 

Members. Just send me an email if you think at this 
120

point you'd like to be part of that site visit so I have 

a headcount. Alright? Okay, super.

Alright, let's go to, I know David Kotelchuck has a

pressing flight he needs to catch. So let's get to our, 

I'll get to comments afterwards.

Let's go to, right to the Work Group and 

Subcommittee reports. And then I'll do comments 

last, but that's fine.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Go ahead --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: -- David. And Dave would like to go first. 

Please.

Member Kotelchuck: The Dose Reconstruction 

Reviews Subcommittee. I think basically the 

Subcommittee, things are moving along fine and 

we're meeting on September 12th.

The one major piece of information is that now that 

the surrogate Work Group has met, we have resolved 

the last piece of data or we're at the -- we've resolved 

the last issue for the Secretary's Report. That that 

has been awaited the surrogate meeting. So, I expect 

to have that finished --

Member Anderson: If you could mail me something -

-

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Anderson: -- whether --

Mr. Katz: I'm sorry, there's someone on the --

Member Kotelchuck: Henry, have you heard me? Is 

that a problem?

Mr. Katz: Is that Andy?

Member Kotelchuck: That's Andy.
121

Mr. Katz: I think that's someone else speaking.

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, okay.

Mr. Katz: Someone on the line? Everyone on the line 

should have their phones muted. If you don't have a 

mute button, press *6 to mute your phone. But we're 

hearing somebody that we shouldn't be.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Thanks.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Basically the new 

information is that I expect to have the Secretary's 

Report and I give it to Ted, and it will be given to the 

Subcommittee on, for our meeting on September 

12th. And so we're online to move ahead.

And I hope, consider and I hope approve the report 

in December. At our December meeting. So that's 

important then. I'll look forward to it. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Sure thing. Okay, and Procedures, I think 

there is no report for now. Is that correct? Right.

And so, let's go then down the list of Work Groups 

where, I can skip some of these because I know there 

is no report. And I'll do that.

Okay, I'm a little unclear. I don't believe there is a 

report for Argonne East, but I could be wrong. Brad?

Member Clawson: Argonne East, no, we're just 

finishing up into that. Just finishing up some parts.

Mr. Katz: Okay. And Blockson, I don't believe there 

is a report. Brookhaven, I don't believe there is a 

report. Correct, Josie?

Member Beach: Which, on Blockson, no.

Mr. Katz: Brookhaven. Brookhaven?

Member Beach: Brookhaven, no.

Mr. Katz: Right.
122

Member Beach: There is nothing new.

Mr. Katz: Okay. And Carborundum. Gen, do you want 

to report on Carborundum? You might be on mute, 

Gen.

Member Roessler: Okay, I think I have the mute off 

now.

Mr. Katz: There you are. There you are. You're very 

clear, thanks.

Member Roessler: Yes. I don't have anything to say 

on Carborundum.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Then Dose Reconstruction Review 

Methods is, there is no report for that. Hanford.

Member Clawson: It's in NIOSH's hands. We're 

waiting for the data captures.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Brad. And INL. Phil, do you have 

anything you want to report about that? I know 

Argonne National --

Member Schofield: We're still waiting for some --

(Off microphone comments.)

Mr. Katz: Right. We heard, we heard a little bit 

already from Tim about that. About work ongoing.

Okay. And Berkeley we just discussed. LANL, Josie.

Member Beach: LANL you just heard from LaVon that 

we had a Work Group meeting in July to talk about 

the path forward on the two SEC issues. The Work 

Group should get a sample plan back. I believe it's in 

September.

And once that comes forward, the Work Group will 

look at that sampling plan and then determine if 

we're going to move forward with the other items 

NIOSH's list. The review of RWPs I think was one of 

them.

So anyway, our first step is actually to review the 
123

sampling plan. And no date is scheduled for that yet, 

until we see the plan.

Are we still on track, LaVon, for September?

Mr. Rutherford: As of this time, yes.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Josie and LaVon. Okay, Metals 

and Controls. We spoke about that briefly --

Member Beach: Yes.

Mr. Katz: -- but do you want to say anything more, 

Josie?

Member Beach: I think we're waiting for one more 

item. I was just trying to look that up from Christine.

Mr. Katz: I can tell you --

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: I can tell you where we stand with the 

items. So, we have reports from NIOSH, from DCAS, 

on both the welding --

Member Beach: The thorium. 

Mr. Katz: -- thorium work and on the petitioner's 

concerns, which were addressed in detail. And we 

also have SC&A's report back, having reviewed the 

thorium and welding matters.

And they're in the middle of --

Member Beach: That's right.

Mr. Katz: -- reviewing the petitioner's concerns, 

responses from NIOSH. And once we have that, we'll 

go forward, we'll have a meeting.

But like I said, we've attempted to schedule a 

meeting for this fall and fallen on our faces on that, 

there is just too many conflicts unfortunately. So we 

will get that scheduled and notify people when we 
124

have a data. But it won't be this fall.

Okay. And then Mound, I don't believe we, Josie, 

Mound?

Member Beach: Mound. We are still waiting for the 

external TBD.

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Member Beach: And there's no data actually even 

now. They kept pushing it out so I don't know when 

that's scheduled for. It's on NIOSH's plate.

Mr. Katz: Tim?

Dr. Taulbee: I don't have a date for that, but I can 

tell you that it is, the neutron issue is actively being 

worked at this time.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Super. Thanks, Tim.

Dr. Taulbee: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Okay, NTS. We haven't seen anything in 

quite some time on NTS.

Member Clawson: Pretty well finished.

Mr. Katz: Well, we have an outstanding item that's 

been --

Member Clawson: Outstanding Site Profile issues.

Mr. Katz: Right. I don't believe we have any report, 

Gen, right, on X-10 Oak Ridge National Laboratory?

Member Beach: No.

Member Roessler: I have heard nothing, but Lara is 

probably on the line or there. She could update us.

Mr. Katz: Yes, she's right here.

Dr. Hughes: Yes. There is continuing data capture 

efforts going on to address the SC&A review of Report 
125

90. So, it's an ongoing effort.

Mr. Katz: Yes, thanks for reminding us, I appreciate 

that.

Okay, Portsmouth, Paducah, K-25, there is still an 

item waiting to be put to bed maybe, Phil, correct?

Member Schofield: Yes.

(Off microphone comment.)

Mr. Katz: Yes.

(Off microphone comment.)

Mr. Katz: Yes, right. LaVon.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. The White Paper has been 

provided to the Work Group. And so, SC&A has --

Mr. Katz: SC&A, oh, SC&A has it.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Thanks. Rocky Flats? David is gone, 

he's the Chair of that. LaVon, do you want to just do 

the honors there?

Mr. Rutherford: Sure. Yes, there were some 

questions on five remaining boxes that the petitioner 

had identified. We did go out to Los Alamos and 

looked at those boxes. We identified two documents 

that we've captured, they're in classification review.

We also ended up picking up some information that 

we're doing some additional interviews with a few 

individuals on potential neptunium operations after 

1983. We've completed two of those interviews.

We've been trying to get clearances reinstated to 

complete the other two interviews. We anticipate that 

happening in September.

Mr. Katz: Thank you very much. Okay, Sandia. 

Sandia?
126

Member Beach: Is that Henry?

Mr. Katz: Henry, yes, it is.

Member Anderson: Yes, I was trying to find my notes 

here. I think we have a few outstanding issues still. 

We're waiting for, I think, scheduling another Work 

Group meeting.

Mr. Katz: Okay. But I think we're not ready to 

schedule a Work Group meeting.

Member Beach: We're also --

Member Anderson: No, we're not ready we're just 

waiting. But that's what's on the horizon.

Member Beach: We're also planning a site visit, right? 

For interviews.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Member Anderson: Pending on some interviews.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. NIOSH is working with SC&A --

Member Anderson: That's going to happen, it sounds 

like that's being put off now until December is it, or 

January?

Member Beach: No.

Mr. Katz: No, I think that's in November. Early 

November I think, right?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, that's correct. Yes, we're 

working with SC&A to schedule interviews with the 

security guards, as well as conducting a site tour at 

the same time.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: And the addendum is in with SC&A 
127

under review.

Mr. Katz: Right. Okay. So that's --

Member Anderson: Right.

Mr. Katz: -- what's left. Thanks so much.

(Off microphone comments.)

Mr. Katz: Okay. We have spoken about Santa Susana 

today. And SRS is, Brad, did you want to have more 

you want to say about SRS?

Member Clawson: Yes, actually I do. Because we got 

two fundamental issues that we're dealing with right 

now. They're before OTIB-0081, Rev 4 is the internal. 

And that has been given to SC&A.

And we've got RPRT-0092, which is a subcontractor 

data completeness, which we're still waiting on, 

correct? Or has it been issued?

Mr. Katz: They're both issued.

Dr. Taulbee: They've both been issued yes.

Member Clawson: Okay. And we're pushing on 

through with that. They've got them with SC&A so 

we'll go from there.

Mr. Katz: Right. And just to remind everyone, I 

mentioned earlier we're looking at having a long 

Work Group meeting, joint Work Group meeting, on 

SRS later this fall.

Member Clawson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Science Issues.

Member Anderson: Ted, I'm going to have to run. So, 

for Uranium Refining AWE Group, we're getting near 

heard of scheduling a meeting to deal with General 

Atomics, some of the active findings there. 

Discussion.

And W.R. Grace, finishing up. And then there is 
128

NUMEC revisions as well. But we've got a number of 

issues to wrap up for that group.

Mr. Katz: Right. Thank you, Andy. So that's, just in 

case you couldn't hear clearly, that's the Uranium 

Refining AWE's Work Group. And it has a number of 

items on its plate.

Okay. So, Henry will be leaving us. Let me back up 

here and see who I've missed.

Science Issues, I know we don't have anything on the 

table, but, Dave.

Member Richardson: Yes, so we wrapped up this 

issue with a conclusion about the dose and dose rate 

effectiveness factor where NIOSH had recommended 

postponing implementation of anything until 

additional information that will allow concurrent 

update of the IREP risk models and assumptions.

Quite a while ago we had made a sort of a list of 

topics, which were out there, that we had on the table 

to consider.

I have gone back and reviewed and I would suggest, 

as a proposal to the next topic, we review and look 

into would be going back to assumptions within IREP 

about multiplicativity or sub-multiplicativity of the 

smoking-radiation association for the lung cancer risk 

model. That was one of the open issues.

And I think the time may be right. There has been a 

number of studies that have come out that could be 

useful for a review, at least of that topic.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Member Richardson: So that would be my proposal.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Okay, I think, so we should get some 

communications going to get our heads around what 

kind of organization needs to be done to prepare for 

that. Thank you.

Okay, SEC Issues Work Group. That's lead by, also 
129

by Andy, Dr. Anderson, who I think is gone now. But 

as I mentioned, they will be meeting with the SRS 

Work Group meeting to take up the co-worker models 

being proposed for SRS.

Okay. And we have the Subcommittees done. And 

then we get to TBD-6000. Paul.

Member Ziemer: I don't have anything on TBD-6000 

per se, today.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Member Ziemer: Did we skip Surrogate Data?

Mr. Katz: Nope. We haven't gotten there. We haven't 

covered that yet. We haven't covered that yet but 

you can cover that now.

Member Ziemer: Well, you were going alphabetically. 

We went from the S's to the T's, so I thought --

Mr. Katz: Because I have it as Use of Surrogate Data.

Member Ziemer: Oh, it's Use of Surrogate Data.

Mr. Katz: So it's a U.

Member Ziemer: Okay. It's under U, okay.

(Laughter.)

Mr. Katz: So, go ahead, Paul --

Member Ziemer: Okay.

Mr. Katz: -- hurry up and take it while you have it.

Member Ziemer: Take it while I have it. Surrogate 

Data Work Group actually met last week.

The focus of the meeting was on a blind review that 

SC&A had done for the Subcommittee on dose 

reconstruction. And the issue that had been raised by 

SC&A was the fact that NIOSH had used surrogate 

data to bound the dose for a particular individual. And 

SC&A had raised the issue as to whether the 
130

surrogate data criteria had been met.

So, the Subcommittee referred that particular blind 

data reconstruction to the Surrogate Data Work 

Group to look at, and we did that. The dose 

reconstruction was for an individual at Allied 

Chemical and Dye. And after reviewing that, it was 

finally determined that the surrogate data criteria 

issue had been resolved. And we subsequently 

transferred it back to Dave. And he mentioned that 

he had the final piece of information, that was it. And 

he now can finish that report to the Secretary.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Paul. Okay, that's it. That's it 

for the Work Group's reports. Okay.

So now --

Member Ziemer: Did we do Lawrence Berkeley?

Mr. Katz: Well, we talked about Lawrence Berkeley. 

Did you, I don't think --

Member Ziemer: Well --

Mr. Katz: -- did you want to report more on it?

Member Ziemer: Well, I just wanted to say the 

Lawrence Berkeley Work Group did meet in April. 

Well, it was teleconference.

And we're focusing on the Site Profile, and that Site 

Profile had, I believe it's 13 findings and some 

observations. And to date, only five of those findings 

have been closed, so we're still working on a number 

of them. And that's why I say, we're not in a position 

to take votes on anything in December, but hopefully 

we'll have some more resolved before the meeting.

And also, some additional information is being 

gathered that we asked NIOSH to gather. So, that's 

being done. Megan is handling that. So, certainly be 

ready for a report to the folks in that area.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Paul. Okay. And then the last 

item we have, we don't have any correspondence to 

address, but we have to run through the April public 
131

comments.

I think quite a number of these are actually not really 

the public comments but they're petitioner 

comments. But in any event, we can run through 

them just the same.

So, the first group of comments are related to 

Sandia. And, you know, there were comments about 

needing more time to review the report by the 

workers and so on, and those were all addressed in 

real time at the meeting. Which, absolutely, they had 

more time to review these. And the Board's 

contractor for that matter is involved in reviewing 

those, as well. Same time as the petitioners.

The security guards, as I mentioned, also wanted 

people to see their circumstances. And we've heard 

talk just now about how we're setting up a site visit 

and interviews with some of those security guards.

So that's all good. And that will all happen this fall.

Let's see. Alright, we had -- so far I'm seeing 

everything has been, everything was pretty much 

addressed in the meeting.

We also heard, just to remind you all, we heard from 

the Senator's Office. That's Senator Udall by the way.

And on behalf of the Senator, Michelle Ortiz, JacquezOrtiz, had mentioned a number of things, including a 

2005 report from DOE that identified deficiencies at 

SNL and the Board's contractor is reviewing that 

addendum. So that's responsive to that matter. And 

SC&A is reviewing everything. So, let's see, 

petitioner is -- okay, that really takes, I'm just 

summarizing, what little I've said is really, covers the 

waterfront for what we heard on Sandia.

And then we heard from D'Lanie on Santa Susana 

about the Site Profile deficiencies in her view and 

about TRUMP-S. We've addressed all these things 

about Boeing's practices and personnel records. 

About, yes, more about Site Profile being, in her 

view, deficient.
132

Okay, Superior Steel. We heard about how the 

petitioner had issues about using data from a much 

larger facility to reconstruct dose for Superior when 

work was done in a very confined area. And NIOSH 

has responded to that, we're using site-specific air 

monitoring data and TBD-6000 is covering some 

matters. So that's surrogate data in effect coming 

from many sites regarding the certain practices.

Okay, also questions about use of Simonds Saw and 

Steel data, but going forward we're using TBD-6000. 

And there were other comments that didn't really 

require a response.

Okay, that covered the public comments. You have 

them all. Do you have any questions about any of the 

responses to the comments?

Alright. We are then at the point of a break. We have 

a Y-12 SEC petition that should start promptly at 

4:30. So you have about a half an hour break now. 

Thank you very much.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 3:52 p.m. and resumed at 4:32 p.m.)

Mr. Katz: Thank you. Okay, we're back from break. 

Welcome, everyone. I think there are few new faces 

in here, which is great, I expect from people here 

locally.

So we have just about, Lara will get started in a 

second. We have a Y-12 SEC petition that's going to 

be discussed and potentially acted upon at this 

meeting, say in real time.

And after that, at 6 o'clock, we have a public 

comment session. So just to tell you how this will 

work, we will, depending on how things go, we might 

go straight into the public comment session. I'll have 

a few things to say before we start that public 

comment session, but more or less straight into it.

So if we finish this SEC petition discussion earlier 

than the scheduled says, we'll start the public 
133

comment session earlier as well. So I just encourage 

you folks who are here in the room who just joined 

us, as well as anyone who may have just joined us 

on the phone, to hang in with us so that you don't 

miss the public comment session if we start early.

And otherwise, we're ready. So Lara Hughes, thank 

you, presenting for NIOSH.

Y-12 SEC Petition #250, by Dr. Lara Hughes, NIOSH

Dr. Hughes: Thank you, Ted. Can you hear me okay? 

Are things loud?

So good afternoon, everybody. This is the NIOSH 

presentation for the SEC-00250, SEC petition 

evaluation for Y-12.

At this point, I'd like to thank our contractor, the 

support of our contractors from the ORAU Team, Paul 

Demopoulos and Joe Guido, who did the heavy lifting 

on the research and collection of data on this petition.

Member Lockey: Hey, Ted?

Mr. Katz: Yes?

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey. I think I don't 

participate in the Y-12, right?

Mr. Katz: That's correct. You're recused from this.

Member Lockey: Right, so I'll just drop off then.

Mr. Katz: Yes, you can listen, but you just can't 

participate. Thanks.

Member Lockey: Got you, okay. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Okay, take care.

Dr. Hughes: Okay.

Member Roessler: Ted, this is Gen.

Mr. Katz: Yes, Gen? Yes?
134

Member Roessler: Can she get closer to the mic? It's 

hard to hear her.

Mr. Katz: Okay, thanks. Yes, Lara is a quieter one.

Dr. Hughes: Okay. So is this any better?

Member Roessler: Yes, that's better.

Dr. Hughes: Okay. Let's see if I can keep this up. So 

as there are several SEC petitions or SEC Classes for 

Y-12 already, this is actually Petition Number 6.

There were some petitions or Classes that were 

added early in the program, SEC-18 and 28, covering 

the period from the beginning of operation in 1943 

through 1957. Those Classes at the time were 

worded in a way that was difficult for DOL to 

administer the Classes.

So NIOSH went back and kind of re-did the 

evaluation to make the Class Definition more usable, 

those were SEC-98 and 186, bringing the SEC 

Classes up to 1957. And then last year there was a 

Class added, up to 1976 based on an infeasibility of 

internal thorium dose reconstruction as well as 

plutonium-241.

And now we're looking at SEC-250, which is the 

current petition, which I'm presenting today. This 

petition was received on November 1st, 2018, with a 

proposed Class of all workers who worked in any area 

of Y-12 where uranium of was fabricated or 

processed from January 1st, 1980, to December 

31st, 2000.

This petition was submitted with a number of 

documents to provide evidence that this petition 

should qualify. And NIOSH had extensive discussion 

with the petitioner about the evidence and what kind 

of evidence was needed. And in the end, what 

qualified was all employees who worked at the Y-12 

plant that may have incurred thorium exposures 

during the period from January 1st, 1977, through 

December 31st, 1994.
135

And if you recall, this is actually based on the 

conclusion that was presented in the previous SEC 

petition for thorium. There was the period after 1976 

was kind of reserved, and NIOSH had determined 

that this needed to be evaluated which was, in the 

end, what qualified this petition as well.

The reason the qualified period was cut off in 1994 

was that the Y-12 plant was placed in stand-down 

mode in September of 1994 which ended routine 

processing operation and thus was a suitable end 

point for the qualification.

So the conclusion from this evaluation is threefold. 

Part of this period is not recommended by NIOSH to 

be added to the SEC. That is August 1st, 1979, 

through December 31st, 1986. During those years, 

thorium doses can be reconstructed with the 

available data. And I will talk about that a little more. 

There's also a reserve period, January 1st, 1987, 

through December 31st, 1994. We're still working 

with Y-12 to gain access to all of the available 

thorium data. And before we don't have access to all 

this data, we can't do a thorough evaluation on the 

feasibility. So therefore, this period is reserved.

The reason we did not hold up this petition any 

longer, until the data was received, is that we also 

propose to add several years to the current SEC or to 

a new SEC Class. And this is also due to the thorium 

unavailability for certain years.

So the proposed Class definition is all employees of 

the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, 

and their contractors, and subcontractors who 

worked at the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 

during the period from January 1st, 1977, through 

July 31st, 1979. And I'm not going to read the rest of 

the wording, since it's always the same. So this is the 

Class that we're proposing to be added to the SEC.

Just brief background on the Y-12 claim numbers. We 

have 6,525 total claim numbers for Y-12 submitted 

for dose reconstruction at NIOSH. For the period 

currently under evaluation, we're looking at 3,615 
136

workers.

Over 3,200 had dose reconstructions completed 

during this period. But 1,688 had internal dosimetry 

during this period. So that's about 47 percent. And 

3,267 had external dosimetry records available for 

this period which is about 90 percent.

The standard sources of available information that we 

look at, we look that the Site Profile, technical 

information, bulletins and procedures that are 

available at NIOSH. We look at the NIOSH Site 

Research Database which is the database where all 

the documents are deposited once they've been 

collected from searches at the site, at federal record 

centers, various sources. We have currently over 

10,000 documents related to Y-12 in this database.

We look at existing claimant files, co-worker study, 

electronic databases, interviews with former Y-12 

employees, or current employees for that matter, 

and scientific publications.

Y-12 history, the site that's located here in Oak 

Ridge, it's 811 acres, 0.6 by 3.2 miles in dimension. 

Its peak employment was about 22,000 workers. I 

think that was in the late '40s, mid to late 40s. It's 

down to 5,700 by 1998. The covered period under 

EEOICPA is 1942 to the present.

The site history is long and complex. And I don't do 

it justice by giving it one slide, but that's all we've 

got here. We roughly, for our purposes, our Technical 

Basis Document, roughly divides the site history into 

three eras.

The first era was up until 1946 the uranium isotope 

separation using calutrons. The second era, until 

about 1994, was Cold War nuclear weapon 

component manufacturing, the production and 

testing of key components for nuclear weapons, 

stockpiling highly enriched uranium, and technology 

development for new weapons designs.

There is a third era after 1994 consisting of multiple 

new missions, continued storing of highly enriched 
137

uranium, continued weapons part production on a 

smaller scale, also some D&D operation, as well as 

environmental and waste management.

A large focus of this evaluation was the thorium 

operations. The thorium parts production at Y-12 

started with the pilot program in 1959. It consisted 

of thorium pellets that were pressed into electrodes 

and were arc melted into ingots. These ingots from 

the melting were pressed, rolled, and machined. The 

scrap from this process was recycled and fed back 

into the process.

During this process, what happens is that radium and 

other thorium progeny are volatilized, brought into 

the air, and are available for inhalation by workers. 

The major part of the thorium processing ended in 

the mid-1970s, and all thorium arc melting ended in 

1994. There was continued thorium operations on a 

smaller scale that consisted of parts refurbishment, 

and that went on until 1999. From 1994 through 

1998, the entire Y-12 plant was in a stand-down, so 

during that time, there would not have been any of 

this going on.

And all special projects ended in 1999 after an 

incident. This was not a thorium-specific incident, but 

it affected the thorium operations as well. The 

process buildings are listed on the slide, those were 

the main buildings where thorium was handled, and 

also some storage buildings.

So the uranium processes, just for completion, 

uranium processes, uranium was processed to 

produce weapon components using a variety of 

compounds and enrichments. Compared to the 

thorium operation that we spent so much time 

looking at, the uranium was a much larger scale 

process.

The uranium enrichment started in 1943. After World 

War II, uranium operation shifted to recovery and 

recycling, mostly normal and depleted uranium. The 

uranium production processes also included the arc 

melting process that was a similar process for the 
138

thorium.

Machine components were sent to finishing 

operations that included drilling, welding, brazing, 

polishing, and final specification checks.

A third larger scale or main operation of the Y-12 

plant was the isotopes production group. This was 

actually a group that was coming out of Oak Ridge 

National Laboratory. It was staffed by workers from 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but it was done at the 

Y-12 site.

The ORNL used the Y-12 facilities for isotope 

production, separation, and purification. They have 

produced a variety of radioactive and stable 

materials. And the operation, and the nuclides, and 

the feasibility, or the available monitoring for these 

were addressed in the previous NIOSH report, RPRT90, that was to address exotic radionuclides at ORNL.

This group used the calutrons. Those were the 

calutrons that were initially used for the uranium 

enrichment. They have been re-purposed, moved to 

a different building, and were used to produce 

uranium and plutonium isotopes.

They ran the 86-inch cyclotron for medical isotope

production that operated from 1950 to 1983. And 

there was also a facility called the conversion lab 

which was a radio chemistry facility that handled the 

radioisotopes from the calutron and cyclotron 

operations.

So now to the exposure potential, first for uranium, 

and exotics, or other isotopes, inhalation of airborne 

particulate radioisotopes was the main concern for 

internal exposure to these isotopes. But this 

radionuclide uranium was the principle source of 

internal exposure at Y-12 due to the large scale of 

the operations.

There were trace quantities of plutonium, neptunium, 

and technetium from recycling uranium. The 

radionuclides handled by the isotopes group at Y-12 
139

included up to 213 different isotopes, give or take a 

few. Again, these materials are detailed in ORAURPRT-90 which is currently being reviewed and 

discussed under the NIOSH/ORNL efforts. That's 

currently also being looked at with Work Group, so 

that's a separate, ongoing effort. There are available 

data for uranium and those other isotopes that are 

sufficient to bond doses to these nuclides.

As for the thorium exposure potential, thorium is part 

of a decay chain. The number of separations of the 

thorium affects the dose. The nuclides of particular 

dosimetric concern are thorium-232, thorium-228, 

and radium-228.

Arc melting is the thorium process of most concern 

to the significant release potential of airborne 

contamination. What happens during arc melting is 

that it disrupts the thorium decay chain, and large 

quantities of the radium contained in the metal is 

vaporized and released into the air.

Also, the ingot that is produced from the arc melting 

has a more radium enriched outer layer which is a 

concern when this material is used, or it's later on 

machined, or forged, or shaped in any way. The 

radium-224 and its sub-series in the material quickly 

return to equilibrium because of the short half-life of 

radium-224.

So we took a look at the internal dose data that is 

available for thorium. So we found that we have lung 

counts in vivo data for thorium for 1977 through 

1994. There was a change in recording procedure in 

August 1979 for the 1977 through July 31st, 1979, 

period. Thorium results are recorded in units of 

milligrams. This was the same issue that was 

presented in the previous SEC petition, SEC-251 for 

Y-12, when the in vivo counts are presented in units 

of milligrams. But we don't have any information 

available on how this calculation was arrived at. We 

cannot use this to reconstruct doses.

After July 31st, 1979, due to the change in recording 

procedure, NIOSH has usable thorium lung count 
140

data up until 1986. The data can be used to 

reconstruct doses.

After 1987 data is available, according to Y-12, and 

we believe that this data can be used to reconstruct 

doses. However, there are currently accessibility 

issues. We're working with Y-12 to receive this data. 

And whereas we believe that this data might be 

usable, we still have to evaluate it.

The Y-12 in vivo data is from the in-house whole body 

count facility using sodium iodide or a germanium 

detector system. And for NIOSH to use these results 

in dose reconstruction, the results have to be 

associated with the actinium-228 and lead-212 

measurements.

And for the period from August 1979 to December 

31st, 1986, lung counts in these data are available to 

assign doses to thorium chain disequilibrium is an 

issue that needs to be considered. There's no 

measurement data for radium-228 available, but we 

can assign the radium-228 based on the actinium228 measurement.

This is what the current available thorium records 

look like from 1979 through 1986. There's a number 

of individuals that were monitored, a total of 808, and 

the measurements are just a bit over 1,000 separate 

measurements that are available and that are 

currently usable.

To do the dose reconstruction for thorium, we have a 

method in place. It's outlined in OTIB-76, guiding 

reconstruction of intakes of thorium resulting from 

nuclear weapons programs. It describes in detail how 

we would go about assigning doses. The thorium 

results have to be associated with in vivo results for 

actinium-228 and lead-212. And the separation 

history of the material has to be known or assumed. 

For the Y-12 proposed approach for thorium, we 

assume the triple separated because that's the most 

claimant favorable.

So we can use the lead-212 results to estimate 
141

intakes for thorium-232 and 228. And we can use the 

actinium-228 results to estimate intakes of radium228. And once we have the estimated intakes, we use 

those to assign organ doses.

So in summary, for the internal dose, we have 

determined that internal dose reconstruction is 

infeasible from January 1st, 1977, through July 31st, 

1979. This is the SEC cost recommendation.

From August 1979 through December 1986, we 

analyzed the actinium and lead data for the internal 

data that is available for thorium lung counts. And to 

say that can be used to bound exposures to all 

thorium workers from January 1987 through 

December 1994, we have reserved the section of the 

Evaluation Report. This data is expected to be 

obtained from Y-12, but it needs to be evaluated for 

suitability to be used in thorium dose reconstructions.

Internal doses to uranium and exotic isotopes can be 

bounded using available methods as discussed in the 

Technical Basis Document and RPRT-90.

A little bit on external dose, there was a dosimetry 

film badge system that was adopted for use for all Y12 facilities in the pre-SEC-250 time period before 

1977. It was issued to all personnel at Y-12. It was 

part of their security badge. These badges provide 

routine and accident related monitoring.

In 1980, they switched from film badges to TLDs, 

thermoluminescent dosimeters. We also have an 

external co-worker model, in percent is an OTIB-64, 

that has data from 1952 to 1979. That's the film 

badge period. And then external doses can be 

assigned based on available data and methods.

This is the summary slide for feasibility findings for 

thorium internal dose. Dose reconstruction not 

feasible, January 1st, 1977 to July 31st, 1979. 

Thorium dose reconstruction is feasible from August 

1st, 1979, through December 31st, 1986. The period 

January 1st, 1987, through December 31st, 1994, is 

reserved.
142

And for internal uranium and exotics, dose 

reconstruction is feasible during the evaluated 

period, and it is also feasible for external dose, beta 

gamma neutron, and occupational medical X-ray.

Again, the recommended Class definition is all 

employees who worked at Y-12 from January 1st, 

1977, through July 31st, 1979. And that's the end of 

the presentation.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Lara. So let's first go to 

questions from Board Members in the room. Josie, 

you have yours up.

Member Beach: Yes. I guess my question pertains 

with the cut-off period of '94. I know on the earlier 

slide 3, it talks about it was put into a safe mode or 

whatever the term was. But then it goes on to your 

site history. And there were obviously activities going 

on past '94. So anyway, that cut-off point is of 

interest to me of why that date?

Dr. Hughes: Yes. The production was put in standdown mode in that time. I mean, there was probably, 

the main issue here is the thorium processing. And 

that would not have taken place during that time.

Member Beach: Well, that arc welding you talked 

about, the incident in 1999, but you said it was not 

thorium, it was uranium. And you're 100 percent sure 

on that ---

Dr. Hughes: Well, based on the information --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Hughes: -- that was in the incident report, yes.

Mr. Katz: Brad?

Member Beach: Thank you.

Member Clawson: Yes. This petition has been in 

NIOSH hands now. I guess my question is for our 

contractor. Have we reviewed this information yet? 

Do we even, do we have a Work Group for this?
143

Member Richardson: Can't hear online.

Mr. Katz: Brad, you have to speak to your mic. But 

Brad asked if our contractor, we're getting ahead of 

ourselves, but whether our contractor has reviewed 

this Evaluation Report. They have not yet.

Member Clawson: Okay.

Mr. Katz: It was just produced recently. So that's 

something we'll get around to later if we need --- and 

was there a second part to your question, Brad?

Member Clawson: No, I was just wondering if we had 

evaluated it yet. I'm getting familiar with Oak Ridge.

Mr. Katz: Yes, no worries. And we do not presently 

have a Work Group, but that's something that can be 

done.

Other Members in the room who might have 

questions, any? David?

Member Richardson: You started off by describing the 

number of workers at the Y-12 facility who had been 

employed at different periods. And it went from 

something like 22,000 to maybe 5,000 in more 

recent periods. For this period '77 to '79, do you know 

how many workers were onsite per year?

Dr. Hughes: I don't have this information with me at 

this moment, no. I can certainly find it out for you.

Member Richardson: But it's somewhere in the 

1,000s?

Dr. Hughes: Absolutely, yes.

Member Richardson: And do you have the ability to 

place workers into departments and areas in a given 

year with high versus no potential for exposure to 

thorium?

Dr. Hughes: It would depend on the information 

that's available in the particular claim file.
144

Member Richardson: I ask because it looked like the 

availability of in vivo thorium measurements year by 

year was in the double digits between '95 and '87 in 

any given year, out of 5,000 to 7,000 workers in a 

given year. It's a small fraction of the percentage of 

the employed workers onsite who would have been 

monitored.

Dr. Hughes: That's correct, but it's reflecting the size 

of the operation compared to the uranium operation. 

So it was a much smaller scale operation than it was 

--

Member Richardson: I understand that. Under the 

presumption that those who were monitored in 1979, 

those 46 with measurements, that constituted a 

complete enumeration of the workers with potential 

or if I look, I mean, I did some work with the Y-12 

bioassay and in vivo monitoring program.

I remember in the mid-70s there being about maybe 

40 percent of the workers had any in vivo monitoring 

per year. And then when you get to this period, 

you're right, there's an abrupt transition in '79. And 

it drops down to about 25 to 30 percent of the 

workers has any in vivo monitoring. And now a very 

small fraction of them have any thorium monitoring. 

And it's always been a question about what fraction 

of the workers with exposure potential do we have 

information for, so 46 out of what? That becomes an 

important question when we start to access the 

usefulness of 46 records in 1979 for reconstructing 

their exposures.

Dr. Taulbee: If I could try to answer your question a 

little bit, David, I understand what you're saying, but 

as Lara pointed out, this is a small operation, very 

small compared to the uranium operation. And so 

there would be a smaller number of workers that 

would have that potential for thorium exposure.

How many workers that is, I don't know off the top 

of my head. That's something that we could 

investigate a little bit more and probably will come 

up then under this review of this time period.
145

So, you know, in '46, if you look at those numbers, it 

does stand out. But that's also for a partial year.

Because that change happened July 31st of 1979. So 

you've only got the thorium campaigns or the 

thorium arc meltings that happened in the latter half 

of that year. Those workers are the ones that we're 

looking at.

There were more thorium measurements in that 

year, other than just the 46. The problem is that they 

did not have the actinium-228 and the lead-212. 

These are just the ones that had the actinium-228 

and the lead-212.

Member Richardson: Right. So if we assume that it's 

two or three times that, and we've got 130 

measurements, as we do for 1980, the next year, it's 

still a question of what information would allow us to 

know how many workers were potentially exposed for 

which we have the measurements. Because in 

different periods in the Oak Ridge complex, different 

factors have driven the determination about who gets 

an in vivo monitoring result and who doesn't. And 

some of it's technical, or technical considerations, 

and other ones are professional and status 

considerations.

Mr. Katz: Other questions, Board Members in the 

room? On the phone? Any Board Members on the 

phone have questions?

Okay then. Well, I have a suggestion for how to work 

this going forward. We sort of have multiple parts 

here. We have a proposal for adding a Class now, sort 

of like you think of with the 83.14s. We have a Class 

that's ready to be added if you want to take up that 

consideration.

Sorry, oh yes. Oh, sorry, I do need to hear from the 

petitioner. Thank you. So just hold that thought. 

Excuse me, and let's go to the petitioner. I think I'm 

pretty sure we have at least one petitioner who does 

want to comment.

Mr. Hicks: Good evening, Board. My name is Stephen 
146

Hicks. I'm the SEC petitioner to expand the years of 

the Y-12 Special Exposure Cohort. Thank you for 

allowing me to address the Board.

I worked at Y-12 for 32 years from 1980 to 1985. I 

machined enriched uranium, depleted uranium, and 

alloys in both materials. I worked with radioactive 

materials on a daily basis for five years. I submitted 

samples for bioassay, but they were never recorded.

I submitted this petition because I have evidence that 

my bioassays were missing from my dosimetry 

records prior to 1990 even though I worked with 

uranium every day for five years.

It was a slap in the face when I read the NIOSH 

response, found on Page 49. The statement and 

reference document indicated that the worker in 

question, that is me, was not required to be 

monitored for specified periods of work at Y-12.

A machinist who worked with uranium compounds 

was not required to be monitored? Really? Then 

exactly who should have been monitored? Who was 

monitored? I can't believe that NIOSH agrees that I 

and other Y-12 machinists didn't need to have 

bioassays simply because Y-12 said so.

Instead of qualifying the petition for internal uranium 

exposure, NIOSH qualified it for thorium. They 

completely ignored or dismissed my evidence and 

arguments that the dose cannot be reconstructed for 

internal uranium exposure.

For example, I submitted a copy of the 1999 Oak 

Ridge National Lab Y-12 uranium exposure study. 

NIOSH said, on Page 50 of the Evaluation Report, the 

report is authorized by Oak Ridge National Lab which 

is not a government agency of the Executive Branch 

of the government or the General Accounting Office.

Does NIOSH not know that the Department of 

Energy, a member of the Executive Branch of the 

government, owns Oak Ridge National Lab? Does 

NIOSH not realize that Oak Ridge National Lab's 
147

history began during the Manhattan Project and was 

previously known as Clinton Lab and X-10? All three 

names are accepted as covered DOE facilities under 

the program.

It appears that they dismissed everything in this Oak 

Ridge National Lab report. NIOSH says that if a 

worker had a fecal sample in his record, it was a 

strong indication that he was exposed to insoluble 

uranium. However, Y-12 did not have routine fecal 

sampling prior to 1999.

In 1999, Oak Ridge National Lab Y-12 uranium 

exposure study states these observations necessitate 

change in the bioassay program, particularly the 

need for routine fecal sampling.

I've got to pull a Trump here.

(Laughter.)

I sort of lost where I was at. I'll start, let's see, okay. 

It appears that they dismissed everything in the Oak 

Ridge National Lab report. NIOSH says if a worker 

had a fecal sample, okay, I've done read that.

Let's see, yet the Oak Ridge National Lab report 

determined that the only way to monitor workers for 

insoluble was through routine fecal sampling. They 

acknowledged that that was not done prior to 1999.

NIOSH's presumption that workers with fecal 

bioassays would be only the ones exposed to 

insoluble uranium is wrong. NIOSH says they have 

enough urinalysis to reconstruct dose for insoluble 

uranium. My position is that they do not.

If Y-12 did not have a routine fecal sampling 

monitoring program to determine whether workers 

were exposed to insoluble uranium, then the number 

of urinalysis NIOSH shows on Page 33 is woefully 

inadequate. Because apparently, this table only 

shows the number of workers who had a fecal 

bioassay.
148

I was exposed at Y-12. I machined uranium. I 

actually had to carry highly enriched uranium part on 

my chest for one machining process. I have no 

monitoring records in my file. Where did NIOSH come 

up with that 30 percent employees had urinalysis?

I'm not a math whiz, but I know enough to average 

statistics. If the lowest percentage of workers with 

urinalysis in one year was 12 percent, and the 

highest was 19, the average is 15.5 percent, not 30 

percent as NIOSH claims.

The co-petitioner and I consulted with a prominent 

and expert statistician professor, Dr. Chris Baker. Dr. 

Baker could not reproduce any of the calculations 

that the NIOSH prepared. I would appreciate if 

NIOSH would explain how they arrived at these 

percentages.

I also submitted the July 15th, 1999, DOE memo 

concerning the complex-wide programs with the 

bioassay programs. This memo is not cited in the 

Evaluation Report. You would never know I submitted 

it. You wouldn't find it on Page 19 and 20 of the ER. 

It can only be found and read in the letter I submitted 

with the petition. Why did NIOSH hide this from the 

Board?

I know the Board has viewed this memo as it applies 

to Los Alamos SEC. I want to realize that this is 

relevant to this petition too. I am thankful that 

NIOSH reported that they cannot reconstruct dose for 

thorium first with the SEC Petition 251 that is now 

recommending additional Class be added, July 31st, 

1979. I hope the Board will accept this 

recommendation today.

NIOSH says it's working the Y-12 site to get the 

information on thorium data for 1987 through 1994. 

I have never heard such a thing. That is not how the 

SEC process worked in the past.

If they don't have the data when drafting the ER, the 

recommended ER status for the site, I've never heard 

of them telling the Board that they're going to see 
149

what they can find and get back to you later. How 

long will they expect this to wait?

And there's no guarantee that Y-12 will have the data 

they are seeking. NIOSH says the data may allow 

NIOSH to estimate the maximum internal potential 

exposure. This isn't fair to claimants.

In fact, NIOSH's own regulations state that it is only 

feasible to reconstruct dose if NIOSH has established 

that it has access to sufficient information to estimate 

dose. They don't have the records, they may not ever 

get the records. Our claimants will die before NIOSH 

admits that they don't have the records necessary to 

reconstruct dose.

I ask the Board to reject the idea of waiting to see if 

NIOSH gets the information from Y-12 and vote to 

also include workers employed between 1987 and 

1994. I thank you for allowing me address the Board. 

Are there any questions?

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Mr. Hicks.

Mr. Hicks: Okay.

Mr. Katz: And do we have the other petitioner? Do 

you want to comment too?

Ms. Barrie: Thank you for allowing me these brief 

moments. Actually, what I'd like to do is just tell you 

a story. My husband, as you know, worked at Rocky 

Flats plant. And he loves reminiscing about the things 

that he did as a machinist at Rocky Flats.

And one night a couple of weeks ago, he was telling 

me about how this one part was so difficult to 

machine, because it was almost impossible for the 

machine to grab onto it. And he told me that the only 

way we could do it, or they could do it, was to use a 

vacuum clamp, okay.

So I'm thinking that's pretty cool. You know, I have 

a little bit of background in, you know, machining, 

being married to a machinist. So I understood that 
150

policy or that technique. But then let him go ramble 

on while I read my book.

Well, I had to, I consulted with Steve Hicks a couple 

of days later about the SEC petition. And he started 

telling me about his machining experience. And he 

says, you know, Terrie, we had this one part. It was 

shaped like half a globe, and it was so difficult to 

machine we had to use a vacuum clamp to hold onto 

it.

And I was just, like, blown away. George and Steve 

have never, ever spoken to each other. They're both 

machinists during the same time period. But yet, my 

husband has some bioassay records from Rocky 

Flats, not many, because I think there's four of them, 

whereas Steve Hicks has none before 1989, doing the 

same job at two different facilities.

One facility thought one worker should have been 

monitored, at least minimally, whereas another one 

said no, machinists don't need to be covered or 

monitored. So that didn't make a whole lot of sense 

to me.

So I want you to realize that, while we're both 

thankful that you are extending thorium for a couple 

of years, and are looking -- well, we don't think you 

should have an open-ended waiting for Y-12 to 

supply the documents, but the Board really needs to 

take a look at the uranium issue and the people who 

were not monitored.

Like Mr. Hicks said, if he wasn't monitored, who was 

monitored and why wasn't he monitored? And that's 

what I have for the Y-12 plant. Thank you very much.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Terrie. So Board Members, do 

we have questions about the petitioners' comments? 

Alright, David?

Member Richardson: Just a question at the start, did 

NIOSH work with the petitioners to expand and then 

contract the Class Definition? Because it appears now 

that it doesn't cover all the original period that it was 
151

for.

Dr. Hughes: NIOSH works with the petitioner to 

qualify an SEC petition when it is submitted. There's 

certain criteria that needs to show, to support any of 

the petition basis, therefore different petition basis. 

And the petitioner has to submit evidence that would 

support an evaluation. And so we worked with the 

petitioner on that. Yes, that's correct.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, I'd like to add to that too. We 

take every one of the petitioner documents and the 

basis provided by the petitioner, and we respond to 

each one of those. And in our process, we basically 

identify why the basis they provided does or does not 

respond or does not qualify the petition. So each of 

those items were responded to.

In this case, we recognize we had the open issue with 

thorium that we still haven't resolved. And we 

recognize that this would be a good method to move 

that petition forward and get it out in front of the 

Board.

Mr. Katz: Thanks, LaVon. Other questions on these 

petitioner comments or what was said before from 

Board Members, or on the phone, Board Members on 

the phone?

Okay, so earlier I jumped ahead of myself. But let's 

see what we can do with this, what we have here. So 

we have, oh, Josie are waiting to comment?

Member Beach: No. I was actually going to make a 

motion. But I'll wait until you're finished.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Yes. So we have multiple parts here. 

We have a finding of infeasibility and an opportunity 

to add a Class to Y-12 today. And I think we should 

take that up.

We also have a period where, because it's found 

feasible, it's feasible to do dose reconstruction, and 

we probably want a discussion about that period, and 

the period that's reserved is basically, it hasn't been 
152

delivered to you yet. So I don't think that requires a 

whole lot of discussion. But you're welcome to have 

that back piece too.

But why don't we, if it suits you, why don't we start 

with the petition that we have at hand and see, just 

a little bit of discussion. Does someone want to put 

forward a motion to move forward with what we 

have?

Member Beach: I would like to make a motion that 

we move forward with the time period of January 1st, 

1977, through July 31st, 1979, NIOSH's 

recommendation to add that as an SEC.

Mr. Katz: Do we have a second?

Member Clawson: I second it.

Mr. Katz: We have Brad for a second. Okay, it's on 

the table. Do we want some discussion of that, do we 

have some discussion of that?

Or on the line, anyone have any comments, 

questions about that?

Okay, let me read the motion before we then go. 

Because the next step then is to go to a vote on that 

portion.

So just so it's clear for the record, let me read what 

we would have. We would have the Board 

respectfully recommends that SEC status be 

accorded to, quote, all employees of the Department 

of Energy, its predecessor agencies, and their 

contractors and subcontractors, who worked at the 

Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during the 

period January 1, 1977, through July 31st, 1979, for 

a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work 

days, occurring either solely under this employment 

or in combination with work days within the 

parameters established for one or more other classes 

of employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

That is the motion on the table for the vote. And we 
153

have a couple of Board Members on who've left the 

meeting. So we will have absentee votes too. But let 

me go down the list. And I believe, but I'll just check, 

I believe Dr. Anderson has left us. So that would be 

an absentee vote to collect.

Ms. Beach?

Member Beach: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Mr. Clawson?

Member Clawson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Dr. Field?

Member Field: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Dr. Kotelchuck has also left. And Dr. Lockey 

is recused from this action.

Dr. Richardson?

Member Richardson: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Dr. Roessler? Gen, you may be on mute.

Member Roessler: Ted, this is Gen. I had my mute 

on.

Mr. Katz: There you go. Your vote?

Member Roessler: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes, thank you.

Mr. Schofield?

Member Schofield: Yes.

Mr. Katz: Ms. Valerio?

Member Valerio: Yes.

Mr. Katz: And Dr. Ziemer?

Member Ziemer: Yes.
154

Mr. Katz: So among the Members present, it's 

unanimous. And there's a sufficient number for the 

motion to pass. And for folks in the room, just the 

process from here forward is we will collect absentee 

votes, and then that will complete the vote for this.

And then it will get put forward to the Secretary 

within a certain amount of time. And as well, NIOSH 

will make a recommendation to the Secretary, and 

then the Secretary will take action.

So there are several months ahead before you'll 

actually see this going forward. And it has to be sent 

to Congress. And Congress also has 30 days to 

consider, not that Congress has ever acted on any of 

these, but they have the opportunity to act on one of 

these. But they have the opportunity consider before 

it takes effect.

And then DOL will implement it. And we will put out 

a notice saying it's taken effect. So anyway, just to 

let you know there's a few months path ahead of us 

before it's actually effectuated. And members can 

then be, who have claims in, can be added to this 

Class.

Alright, so then we have a period of time from 1979 

to '86 where NIOSH has recommended or it has 

found that dose reconstruction is feasible related to 

the thorium question. And so let's have some Board 

discussion about that and how you want to proceed. 

Paul?

Member Ziemer: We don't have a Work Group that -

-

Mr. Katz: Correct, we don't have a Work Group.

Member Ziemer: So I think it's clear the Board would 

like to consider this in some manner. Normally that 

would take a Work Group. So I recommend, I don't 

think we need to vote on it, I recommend that we 

have a Work Group to do this.

Mr. Katz: Right. I will assemble a Work Group for 
155

that. And so I'll be getting in touch with you after the 

meeting with respect to that.

Member Beach: Well, and I was curious if this 

wouldn't fit into Oak Ridge's Work Group. Or is it not 

--

Mr. Katz: No, because it's a different facility -- this 

needs a Work Group, I think --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: It's different. For example, I'm 

recused from X-10, but not from Y-12.

Member Beach: Oh, got you. Okay, then let's not do 

that.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Member Beach: Can we assign it to SC&A at this 

meeting for review?

Mr. Katz: Of course we can. And I think we should. 

But that's up to you.

So other discussion points, thoughts in any areas of 

focus that you want to have SC&A address when they 

do their evaluation? I mean, they can do it generally, 

they can also add some particular focus. It's up to

you.

Member Richardson: I would certainly encourage 

them to have their evaluation consideration be broad 

enough to not only encompass thorium but also 

uranium.

Mr. Katz: Okay.

Member Richardson: That seemed to be the major 

point raised by the Claimant, and certainly logical, 

and matches with my perceptions of it.

Mr. Katz: Right. And they'll have the comments from 

this meeting to consider as part of that, SC&A will. 

Other thoughts, including my Board Members on the 
156

line?

Okay, then.

Member Beach: Oh, I have one.

Mr. Katz: Oh, go.

Member Beach: I don't think SC&A was involved in 

any worker interviews. And I'm not sure when NIOSH 

did their worker interviews. But I'd like to see a focus 

being placed on interviewing some of the workers.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Normally that's ---

Member Beach: For this time period.

Mr. Katz: I mean, first the SC&A needs to look at 

what informational needs there are before deciding 

whether you're going to do interviews and ---

Member Beach: You asked for focus, so that's what -

--

Mr. Katz: Yes. No, no, that's helpful. But, I mean, I 

think they need to judge what evidence is in-house 

already.

Member Beach: Sure.

Mr. Katz: Yes. And that's really been coordinated 

between NIOSH and SC&A. They'll both be involved. 

Anything else? Alright, then.

And then, so I'll be putting together a Y-12 Work 

Group. And several of you, I think, in anticipation had 

already let me know that you were interested in Y12. But not many people have responded. And here's 

another chance, just if you're interested. And I'll 

reach out to the two Members who are not with us 

right now. If you're interested in being on the Y-12 

Work Group, please, pop me an email so I know that.

Member Beach: You don't need another one from the 

ones --

Mr. Katz: I don't need another one from the --
157

Member Beach: -- those of us that already said?

Mr. Katz: -- the early volunteers, I have you, I think.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Katz: Yes. But thank you. Okay, and there was a 

final piece that's reserved, I think, unless someone 

has a concern about that at this point. You know, 

they haven't done their work yet. So there's really 

nothing to chew on.

Okay, but now we'll have a Work Group, so you're all 

set. Alright.

Member Beach: Is there any timeframe. I know that's 

the big question. Is there any timeframe in the works 

in-house? I know we have West Valley and that one.

Dr. Hughes: So your question is for the Y-12, the 

data? I'm not sure. I don't expect it to take extremely 

long. I assume that we're going receive data within 

the next few months. But then it needs an evaluation.

And one part that we looked at for the data that we 

presented here, there are 1,000 data points. This was 

data that was already digitized by Y-12. So it was 

easily available.

As I understand, the data that is available past 1986 

consists mostly of scans of the raw data. So there 

would be a significant coding effort involved if it was 

to be used for anything like a co-worker model or so.

But I might be getting ahead of myself. The 

evaluation, I'm not sure exactly, but I don't expect it 

to take extremely long. I'm sorry, it's not a very good 

answer, I know –

Public Comment

Mr. Katz: That's okay, I'm hearing not less than six 

months at least.

Alright. So now, I think we can move right into, I 

don't know --- so we're a little late, but I think we 
158

can move into public comments. So let me just prep 

you all for that. We've gone through all of our 

substantive items today.

Public comments, you're all welcome to speak. We'll 

start with people in the room, and then we'll go to 

people on the phone. And we'll start with public 

comments related to Y-12, because we like to do the 

local issues first.

And whatever you say, you're welcome to say 

whatever you wish. But if you give private 

information about other people, other than yourself 

in other words, no matter relatives or other, that 

private information we'll protect. Because we don't 

know for certain that that person wants that 

information in the public sphere, although it's in the 

public sphere for the meeting.

So because everything's transcribed and published, 

in effect, on the NIOSH website from what we -- we 

have a verbatim recording. So that information that 

is private, we'll redact that information enough to 

protect that person's identity for information you give 

on other people, so just understand that.

But otherwise, you're welcome to tell us whatever it 

is that you have related to the Y-12 plant to start 

with, or other matters.

Member Ziemer: Do you have Zaida's sheet?

Mr. Katz: And no, we need to get Zaida's sheet. 

Right, Nancy's right there. Thanks. But if there's 

someone in the room who wants to step up now while 

we're waiting for the sheet, we can do that too.

Okay, and please identify yourself, and let me know 

if you're already on the sheet. Because then -- you 

are?

Ms. Vinson: Yes, I am. I'm Number 1 on the sheet.

Mr. Katz: But come right along.

Ms. Vinson: Thank you. My name is Kathleen Vinson. 
159

My mother was Elise Meadows. Here's her 

photograph standing in front of Alpha 3 at Y-12. She 

worked as an outside laborer at Y-12 from 1981 

through 1994 and died in 2016 of pancreatic cancer.

She stated in a NIOSH interview on September 5th, 

2003, as part of her skin cancer claim, the following. 

I worked as a laborer doing every job inside and 

outside of every building. I was involved in accidents 

that involved radiation exposure and contamination 

at various locations and doing various activities. I 

worked in areas where all processes involving 

radionuclides and other materials were conducted.

I was not trained how to handle the contaminants I 

came in contact with. I was not given personal 

protection until the last two to three years I was 

there. My supervisor did not inform us as to the 

nature of the material we would handle, even when 

asked. My dosimeter was sometimes changed once 

per year.

The activities performed included cleaning of all 

kinds, mowing grass, cleaning sludge tanks and 

cooling towers, moving furniture, weed-eating, 

decontaminating the 3rd Street rolling mill, and 

asbestos work, among other things.

I worked as much overtime as I could which was 

always in the protected area, and I was not given 

additional protective gear to work there. I did not 

receive biological monitoring at any time while at Y12.

In a statement submitted with her DOL claim on 

August 19th, 2015, it said she reported to Building 

9201-3, or Alpha 3, and was assigned to go to any 

building or area of Y-12 where labor work was 

needed, including the protected area where 

contamination was highest.

She stated, I cleaned cooling towers several times 

per year for two to three weeks each time. I had to 

stand in the cooling tower pit and shovel accumulated 

sludge into 55 gallon drums and take them to the 
160

West End Dump.

I was never given a respirator or protective gear. The 

sludge came into my boots and in contact with my 

skin and face. I cleaned sediment from the East Fork 

Pond using shovels and buckets, coming in direct 

contact with the mud which was taken to the West 

End Dump.

I worked on various rooftops sealing leaks with tar 

with no protection. I often cleaned machines in 9204-

4 and 5 where work with radioactive material was 

conducted with cloths and Formula 409 cleaner.

As a survivor claimant in this case, I conducted 

additional interviews and research in order to 

understand the nature of my mother's work and 

working conditions. I obtained sworn affidavits from 

her co-workers stating she was working in 

contaminated conditions without protection.

I also interviewed dozens of co-workers who were 

afraid to swear statements but spoke to me frankly 

off the record. I was told the laborers were sent into 

dirty, contaminated conditions without protection 

because it was easier to clean up contamination that 

way than to have an incident report.

They were told to clean water, dust, sludge, dirt, 

smoke, vapor, mud, and many other unidentified 

substances without protection. They disturbed dirt 

out of the ground and off rooftops, they vacuumed 

and mopped water from spills, they cleaned known 

contamination ahead of other skilled trades, they 

hydroseeded the West End Dump disturbing the 

settled contaminants in the process.

Because she was performing support work, and had 

access to all areas of Y-12, it is known she came in 

contact with the most dangerous of radionuclides. 

While there are no records of where she went across 

the plant, it is known that support workers went 

everywhere.

It is highly likely, if not certain, that a person 
161

performing labor of this kind would ingest, through a 

number of ingestion pathways, breathing into the 

lungs or swallowing into the mouth and digestive 

tract any of these radioactive substances.

Elise Meadows, as well as her co-workers 

interviewed, were not bioassayed at any time while 

performing labor work which brought them into direct 

external and internal contact with identified and 

unidentified contaminants while working at Y-12.

There are no records of this work, the nature of the 

work, the location or timing of the work, the 

materials involved, and the contamination received. 

Therefore, it is impossible to know with any certainty 

what radionuclides she was contaminated with and, 

as a result, an accurate dose reconstruction is 

impossible.

It has been known by NIOSH, DOE, Y-12, and any 

other relevant party that these workers were not 

given protective gear nor monitored adequately. Yet 

there is little credit given in the dose reconstruction 

process for this unique situation.

Building locations and presence of specific 

radionuclides in those buildings, ingestion pathways, 

specific clean-up assignments of unidentified 

material, lack of gear, missed dosimeter doses, are 

all misrepresented in the dose reconstruction 

methodology for these support workers.

The dose assumptions made by NIOSH in her dose 

reconstruction are inadequate and inaccurate from 

the standpoint of external dose, radiation type, 

dosimeter dose, unmonitored dose, missed dose, 

ambient dose, and unmonitored co-worker intake to 

accurately determine if Elise Meadows, or any other 

support worker, was contaminated while on the job, 

and if her skin and pancreatic cancer was at least 

likely as not to have been caused during her work 

there.

There was a review of the NIOSH Site Profile for the 

Y-12 National Security Complex by SC&A on 
162

September 19th, 2005, in which every one of the 

points I have made here today are included.

It would be a profound disservice if NIOSH and the 

Board would fail to approve this petition for the 

workers at Y-12 in light of the known worker 

exposures that are not being addressed in the current 

dose reconstruction. Because an accurate dose 

reconstruction is not possible for the Class of workers 

in this support role due to inadequate external 

monitoring, no biological monitoring of any kind, and 

an egregious lack of records, it is essential these 

workers be included in the SEC Class through 1994. 

Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Kathy. I have, let's see, so I've 

already heard from Stephen Hicks. I know they're 

here. And I've already heard from Terrie Barrie. So is 

this a separate comment, Terrie? Okay.

Ms. Barrie: Thank you again, Board Members. I just 

want to, this is a continuation of my comment, but it 

applies more to Rocky Flats. I was talking about my 

husband's work at Rocky Flats.

And I just wanted to mention, after reviewing them 

again over, you know, recently, that his termination 

records show that he has a systemic burden of 

uranium 235 in his kidneys. That radiation record was 

dated 1989.

And I found it strange since there wasn't supposed to 

be any HEU at Rocky Flats after 1963. And he worked 

there between '82 and '89. So I'm wondering how he 

got exposed to HEU when it wasn't supposed to be 

there. And I think that's important for the Rocky 

Flats, at least for the Site Profile.

And before closing, I just want to take a moment to 

remember Charles Saunders. He was the Rocky Flats 

SEC petitioner for SEC-192. He passed away on July 

20th. And I just wanted to let everybody know that I 

was honored and proud to work with Charles, and 

that I will miss him, and miss his humor, counsel, and 

guidance in the attempt to still expand the Rocky 
163

Flats SEC petition.

Thank you again for letting me submit these 

comments and to Louise Presley for making the 

popcorn. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: And thank you, Terrie, for that notice about 

Charles Saunders, appreciate that.

I have no one else listed, but if there's anyone else 

in the room who would like to comment, now is the 

time, or we'll go to folks on the phone. Yes, come 

right up. You're welcome. Just please identify 

yourself at the start.

Mr. Agee: My name is John Agee.

Mr. Katz: Come right up to the mic please.

Mr. Agee: Oh, okay. Is that better?

Mr. Katz: Yes, it is better.

Mr. Agee: Yes. My name is John Agee. I'm from Oak 

Ridge, Tennessee. And over the last 30 years, I've 

worked with plant workers. The last probably 10 to 

15 years I've helped a number of them on the 

EEOICPA claims. And part of that, of course, involves 

NIOSH dose reconstruction.

I've also been familiar, just being a local attorney, I 

try to help whoever I can with the non-DOE 

workforce. And I can tell you that there are some 

distinct differences in terms of disease processes 

between DOE plant workers and non-DOE plant 

workers.

One area that is distinctly different is in the area of 

cancers. There is, just based on my personal 

observation as somebody with boots on the ground, 

talking with people on a daily basis over a 30-year 

period, much higher incidence of cancer among DOE 

plant workers than non-DOE plant workers.

Now, the significance of that is several-fold. One 

being that with the NIOSH dose reconstruction, folks 
164

who go through that don't understand much at all 

about it. And I'll admit there's a lot that I don't 

understand, and I try to read as much as I can about 

it. It is beyond most people's comprehension.

And I personally have issues with the methodology. 

But under the program requirements, we can't

question NIOSH dose reconstruction methodology. 

And that's the law, that's the rules. We, in Oak Ridge, 

try to follow the rules, and we expect the program to 

follow them.

This program is an excellent program. It's done 

wonders for people in the area, families. It's relieved 

a lot of burdens, it's helped a lot of people. But in the 

area of cancer, in reconstructing dose, I'll have to say 

that there is serious doubts among people in the area 

as to whether that is a fair process.

And some advances have been made, for example, 

treating the Y-12 folks more equally. It started out, I 

think, K-25 had the SEC status. It's been expanded 

to help the Y-12 people. I listened to Mr. Hicks. And 

Mr. Hicks is just a champion, an advocate, for people 

who have worked at Y-12.

And I find myself in agreement with him that -- and 

it's great what you've done here today to expand the 

Class up through 1979. But I think that we really 

need to keep an open mind to expand it further, 

because people who are afflicted with cancer, their

life expectancy is much shorter. And it's a lot harder 

for survivors. Children of plant workers who've 

passed from cancer or at a disadvantage when it 

comes to filing claims under what's called Part E.

So this concept of awarding, making awards for 

radiogenic cancer are very, very important to the 

worker, to spouses, and to children.

And I think that when one looks at the reality of what 

is happening in Oak Ridge, that we need to try 

everything that we can to expand the SEC status so 

that claimants and their families are not put in a 

situation where they're blinded by the science of it, 
165

and they don't understand denials, and that, you 

know, we as a community in the program recognizes 

the fact that there's no safe level of radiation 

exposure.

So, you know, my comments generally are that 

anything we can do to expand the SEC Class, I think 

that would bring great credibility to the program, not 

only to the radiation aspect of it, radiogenic cancer, 

but to the program as a whole.

And the purpose of Congress in enacting the 

legislation for the plant workers, the sick workers, it's 

remedial in nature. And it's a program where I think 

it behooves people to give the benefit of the doubt to 

the workers.

And when these folks say that their particular 

circumstances have not been taken into 

consideration, I think they're entitled to be believed 

on that. I hear that so many times.

So just in summary, it's a great program. You all do 

great work. Your minds are great big brains that, you 

know, I can't understand some of the concepts. But 

I know that people in Oak Ridge suffer greatly from 

cancer and other illnesses. And there are many.

And I want to thank you, and I want to encourage 

you to do everything you can to help these folks by 

expanding the SEC status to the limits that you're 

able to. And thank you, Mr. Hicks, for your advocacy.

Mr. Katz: Thanks for those comments. Anyone else 

in the room who wants to comment?

Okay, let's go to the phone line. And it's open season 

on any facility, not just Y-12. People on the phone?

Mr. Frowiss, Sr: Ted?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Mr. Frowiss, Sr: Al Frowiss.

Mr. Katz: That's Al Frowiss, Sr., yes?
166

Mr. Frowiss, Sr: Al Frowiss, Sr. Ted, the sound is 

almost non-existent; it's almost not worth listening. 

But I did want to comment. Dr. Hughes who 

presented the Y-12, I think, in Newport -- or I mean 

in Los Angeles, she talked about a bunch of people or 

a contingent of people that worked at X-10 who were 

actually assigned to Y-12.

And I've noted that it's awfully difficult to find 

evidence when I file claims for these people that 

worked in the biology division, you know, located at 

Y-12. Because their personnel records show that they 

were at X-10.

And if there's anything that can be done in your, you 

know, staff research, it would be very helpful to kind 

of identify all those people somehow into the record 

so that when they file claims they get credit for being 

at Y-12. And that's all I have to say today. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Thank you, Mr. Frowiss, for that comment. 

And I'm not sure what can be done, but I think the 

program, if it has helpful information to give to DOL 

on that count, that's a great idea.

Member Richardson: It's ringing a real bell with me 

that we ran into this issue of there being a lack of 

clarity and a records gap. I can go back and look at 

that, but that's a true issue for sure.

Mr. Katz: Okay, thanks, David. Okay, thank you. And 

next, do we have someone else on the phone who 

would like to comment?

Mr. Sorrels: Sure. Earl Sorrels, here.

Mr. Katz: Earl, can you spell out your last name, 

please?

Mr. Sorrels: Yes, S-O-R-R-E-L-S.

Mr. Katz: Thanks. Earl, go right ahead.

Mr. Sorrels: And I'm currently the Radiation Safety 

Officer out here at Santa Susana. I've been working 

out here for about eight and a half years now. So I 
167

want to offer up myself for information about the 

current condition of operations out here.

And historically, I'm getting a better feel for it, but 

I'm also in the supplemental monitoring program. So 

you guys are important to me as well.

I've got about a 40-year career, and the person that 

was speaking about Rocky Flats and highly enriched 

uranyl nitrate, hey, I knew that stuff was there 

through the end of the 90s. I worked as a radiation 

safety supervisor out there when I was working on 

getting rid of the Critical Test Facility, writing up the 

health and safety plan for that.

So I know I've had it out there at that point in time, 

through the end of the decade, if there's any help in 

that. But I offer myself up for any information you 

guys might need about stuff, because I've been just 

about everywhere out in the complex.

Mr. Katz: Earl, thanks. Can I ask, have you already 

ever spoken to anyone at NIOSH, at the program?

Mr. Sorrels: No, I have not. Well, not pertaining to 

this, no.

Mr. Katz: Well, the only reason I'm asking is because 

if you haven't, and you want to send your contact 

information, it might be very useful to our Board 

contractor as well as NIOSH. And we could learn a 

little bit more about what your history at different 

facilities has been and how that might be useful.

So are you familiar with the NIOSH webpage of this 

program?

Mr. Sorrels: Yes, I am.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Well, there should be contact, there's 

contact information on there where you can submit 

whatever information you might have, or a question, 

or what have you. If you would just submit your 

contact information and a reminder that you'd 

spoken at this meeting, then someone would have 
168

your contact information and could follow-up on that.

Mr. Sorrels: You bet.

Mr. Katz: That way you don't have to do it on the 

phone here for the whole public. Thank you.

Mr. Sorrels: Yes.

Mr. Katz: I appreciate that.

Mr. Sorrels: I don't have anything else.

Mr. Katz: Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. 

Other members of the public?

Okay, it is 5:50, so we are still a little early. And I 

promised on the phone that the public comment 

session would at least go until 6:00. So we'll keep the 

lines open. And I'll ask again when it comes to 6:00.

But otherwise, I think folks in the room can mill about 

or whatever. And I'll check in on the line at 6:00. So, 

I mean, it's ten minutes away.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 5:50 p.m. and resumed at 6:04 p.m.)

Mr. Katz: Hello, can everyone in the room please be 

silent for a bit. I just need to check in. Thank you, 

my gavel.

Okay. So we have had quite a bit of public comment 

in the room and on the phone earlier. But we finished 

before 6 o'clock. So I just want to check in with 

people on the line now that's past 6 o'clock. It's 6:05. 

Is there anyone new to the line, member of the 

public, whatever, who would like to comment, who 

hasn't commented yet, hasn't had the opportunity?

There's someone in the room that want's to 

comment. And that's fine too. Okay, come right up 

and please identify yourself.

Ms. Buttram: I didn't bring any prepared comments, 

but I've been prompted by what I've heard today. My 
169

name is Mylissa Buttram. I worked at Y-12 from 1984 

to 1994. And I worked in the protected area nine out 

of those ten years.

And similar to the person that was referring to their 

mother who was a laborer, the job I had was, you 

could probably only be this at Y-12 and a couple of 

other places, a Weapon Material Controller. And I 

supported the production, engineering, and 

scheduling by making sure parts got where they were 

supposed to be in their respective schedules.

And I did a lot of other assignments. And I believe 

that there is a concern that I want to amplify about, 

like, my employment history at Y-12, I believe, is 

reflective of my pay points. Like, I was assigned to 

Building 9201-5. I mean, my pay point was that, but 

I did assignments all over the west end of Y-12.

So I don't think there's an accurate account of where 

I actually worked. And I did get denied when I applied 

several years ago. My dose reconstruction came back 

at 32 percent, and I was really hopeful.

Now that I've had cancer, breast cancer, in 1995 is 

when I was diagnosed. I was 34 years old, working 

at Y-12 for ten years at that time, which there is a 

gestation period. So I was denied back then.

I've recently filed to reopen my claim. But with this 

petition, I was very hopeful that the time up to '94 

would be covered. And frankly, yes, a chunk of 

change would be helpful, but I've had a recurrence. 

I've had three recurrences, just had radiation on my 

jawbone, lost my taste buds and all that, last 

Christmas period.

And the cancer morphed to being estrogen receptive. 

And there's a lot of technicality to the diagnosis. But 

the point I'm making is that the longer I go, the more 

likely it is I'm going to die from this.

And the more peace of mind, you know, it's not just, 

oh, it's a program out there, I'd like to have it but, 

you know, I want the coverage that I could get, you 
170

know, yes, I want the compensation.

But more important, the older I get, the more down 

this path I go, and the more times, I'm told, you 

know, you're probably going to die from this. I'm 58 

now.

My father received the compensation, well, we did 

after he died of lung cancer from working at Y-12 in 

the press area.

And just a couple of more things I want to say that I 

don't think are reflective, but I keep running up 

against a brick wall. One of the assignments, a 

special assignment I got as an up and coming career, 

I grew up at Y-12, basically, then I went to ORNL for 

15 years.

But I was assigned to clean up a hold for future use 

warehouse. Now, I had material handlers that, you 

know, worked under my directive. But I was crawling 

around on skids of parts, machine, all kinds of things 

were sent to this warehouse, because either they'd 

been ordered, and they were no longer useful, they 

might not have even worked to begin with, machines, 

equipment, parts, materials, supplies, chemicals, 

freezers, locked up freezers that contained thorium, 

thallium, all kinds of stuff. And that was just a big 

dumping ground. And so my year that I spent there 

in, like, 1989, I feel was very relevant to my cancer 

diagnosis.

Also, just a point that I don't believe gets captured, 

in 1987 there was a strike at Y-12. I was a salaried 

employee. And I accepted a position during the strike 

to be a utility operator. Guess who didn't get any 

training to be a utility operator, somebody that went 

around checking the steam pipes in Beta 4, all kind 

of buildings all over the west end.

So, I mean, the longer this goes, I just don't think 

anything can be, I don't believe my reconstruction 

was adequate that was done, that arrived at 32 

percent. And now that there's a lot more uncertainly 

being unveiled, I mean, there's more and more. It's 
171

like, well, we really can't do that, we're trying, you 

know, accepting things.

And I do agree with the comment about K-25. I know 

people that just blew through K-25 for a few months, 

and they received the compensation and Y-12 has 

been treated like stepchildren around this.

So I have strong feelings about my own case. And 

I'm only speaking to myself. And I hope that some 

other consideration will be made to move quickly on 

expanding this, you know, even reconsideration to do 

this SEC as it was proposed to '94.

Because that's when they closed down operations. 

And I was working in A Wing at that time, in 9212, 

observing people in the glove box developing training 

material. So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Adjourn

Mr. Katz: Thanks for your comments.

Okay, last chance, anyone on the phone? More 

comments? Going, going, gone. Okay, we are 

adjourned for the day. Thank you, everyone for 

participating, Board Members, staff, members of the 

public.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 6:11 p.m.)