NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

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Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

145th Meeting

Thursday, April 28, 2022 

The Advisory Board convened via VideoTeleconference at 1:00 p.m. EDT, Henry A. 

Anderson, Chair, presiding.
2 

Present: 

Henry A. Anderson, Chair

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

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Also Present: 

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

Barrie, Terrie

Barton, Bob, SC&A

Behling, Kathy, SC&A

Buchanan, Ron, SC&A

Calhoun, Grady, DCAS

Degarmo, Denise

Fitzgerald, Joe, SC&A

Gogliotti, Rose, SC&A

Guido, Joe, ORAU Team

Nelson, Chuck, DCAS

Rafky, Michael, HHS

Rutherford, Lavon, DCAS

Taulbee, Tim, DCAS
3 

Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 145th Meeting 

Thursday, April 28, 2022 1

Welcome 6

SEC Petitions Status Update 6

Update on review of SEC-00188 Sandia 

Petition Addendum 2, January 1, 1997, to May 

21, 2011 18

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction 

Reviews Update & Discussion 60

Board Work Session 71

Adjourn 103
4 

Proceedings

(1:01 p.m.) 

Dr. Roberts: So it is 1:01 Eastern Time, and so I'll go 

ahead and officially open the meeting. 

So good afternoon and morning, depending on where 

you are, and welcome everybody.

I'm Rashaun Roberts. I'm the designated federal 

officer, DFO, for the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health, and this is the second and final halfday for Board Meeting 145.

Like yesterday, we do need to go over a few 

preliminaries before we get started. So if you're just 

participating in this meeting by telephone line, all of 

the materials for today, the agendas, presentations 

and other documents are posted on the NIOSH or 

DCAS website under Schedule of Meetings, and you 

can look under the April tab for calendar year 2022.

So you can go to the website and find and follow 

along with the presentations. Materials were provided 

to the Board and to staff prior to this meeting.

If you take a look at the agenda on the website, 

there's a Zoom link which will enable you to hear, 

speak and watch the presentations through Zoom.

If you are on Zoom, you do want to be muted at all 

times when you're not speaking, and the mute for 

Zoom is near the bottom left-hand corner of your 

screen.

If you are participating by phone, I ask each of you 

to please mute your phone unless, of course, you're 

speaking.

If you don't have a mute button, press *6. If you 

need to take yourself off, press it again -- *6 again.

And also as we are unable to see you if you're on the 

phone, please identify yourself before comments and 

questions.
5 

We do, as we get into the roll call, need to address 

conflict of interests for today. As you can see from 

the agenda, there will be a presentation and 

discussion of the Sandia SEC.

I do know that Loretta Valerio has a conflict of 

interest for that agenda item. So Loretta, when we 

come to that item on the agenda, please disconnect 

form Zoom and telephone line, if you're using that, 

and we'll contact you when we move on to the next 

item.

So let me go ahead and move into roll call now, and 

I'll start with the board members in alphabetical 

order, and please state any conflicts that you might 

have.

So starting with Anderson.

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Well thank you and welcome 

everybody. Again, so let's prepare to get started with 

the agenda. 

Please make sure that you're on mute on your phone, 

and also on Zoom, as we move forward.

So with that, I'll go ahead and turn the agenda over 

to Dr. Henry Anderson, who's our board chair.

Andy?

Member Richardson: David Richardson. I just wanted 

to --- 

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Great. David, any conflicts?

Member Richardson: No. No conflicts.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Thank you.

Now, we'll turn to you, Andy.
6 

Welcome

Chair Anderson: We're all here and thank you. Let's 

begin with Chuck Nelson doing an update on the 

petition's status report.

SEC Petitions Status Update

Mr. Nelson: Thank you, Doctor Anderson. I'm just 

going to try to share my screen. Let's see here. Can 

anybody see that?

Member Beach: Yes, it's up.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. All right. My name is Charles 

Nelson. I'll be doing the SEC status update. I am the 

DCAS SEC team lead. So we'll get into this. 

The purpose of this is we update this at every 

advisory board meeting to update the petitioners, 

general public and advisory board on petitions under 

qualification review at NIOSH and those being 

evaluated by the advisory board, as well as any 

potential NIOSH-initiated petitions, which are called 

"83.14 petitions," so that they can help the advisory 

board prepare for future work group meetings, as 

well as upcoming advisory board meetings.

To date, we have received 258 petition submittals. 

We currently have no petitions that are in the 

qualification process.

So far, we have had 153 petitions that qualified for 

evaluation. Currently, we have 12 petition Evaluation 

Reports that are under review with the advisory 

board.

Okay. A petition that we still have under review is 

Lawrence Livermore National Lab for the period 1990 

through 1995. The site is located in Livermore, 

California.

This is Petition No. SEC-0221. This was a reserve 

period, so this will be an addendum to the current 

Evaluation Report.
7 

This addendum will address the remaining years for 

all employees. You know, in the past, we have not 

been able to get to the site due to the COVID 

pandemic; however, travel for DCAS will be resuming 

soon.

And as soon as we have a date to where we're going 

to return to that site and look at some records, we'll 

provide an update to the work group members and 

that way they're welcome to join us, if they would 

like.

Okay. I mentioned previously there are 12 

evaluations under the Advisory Board review. 

They are Hanford, which is SEC-0057. All the SEC 

issues are closed except those related to ongoing coexposure efforts.

Then we have SEC-0103, which is Savannah River 

Site. As I'm sure most remember, there was a class 

designated by HHS and that was on August 18th, 

2021, and that became effective September 17th of 

2021. 

There are some remaining open issues with the work 

group. So I expect the work group chairs to discuss 

this site, and others, at our work group session later 

today.

Next up is Sandia National Lab in Albuquerque. That's 

SEC-0188. There was a Sandia National Lab Work 

Group meeting on 4/11, and we'll be moving into that 

presentation following this update.

Okay. Also under Advisory Board review is Los 

Alamos National Lab -- that's SEC-0109 -- and NIOSH 

is still working to resolve some issues raised by the 

Advisory Board contractor and the work group.

The LANL Work Group met on 3/23/22, and NIOSH 

presented a couple reports. And that was assessment 

of LANL plutonium bioassay programs for '96 to 

2001, as well as RPRT-0101, which was bounding 

intakes of exotic radionuclides at LANL.
8 

After the work group discussion, SC&A, the Board's 

contractor, was assigned to review both reports.

Okay. We have Idaho National Lab, SEC-0219. Again, 

we're still working the issues to resolve those raised 

by the SC&A and the work group. And that also is the 

same status of Argonne National Lab, which is SEC0224. 

Moving on to Area IV Santa Susanna, which is SEC0235, we're waiting on records to be released from 

the records center and the record center to open.

We do have a projected opening date for that record 

center and it's late 2022. So as soon as they are open 

and available to accommodate the -- we'll have a 

group go in there and start mining through those 

records.

Okay. Next up, Metals and Controls, SEC-0236. This 

one is also with the Metals and Controls Work Group.

SC&A completed a review of the NIOSH-proposed 

dose reconstruction report and NIOSH did respond to 

the issues in the SC&A review.

We have De Soto Avenue Facility, SEC-0246, and 

we're working on providing some clarification on 

some remaining issues and, just like SSFL, we still 

(audio interference) -- sounds like someone is not on 

mute there.

(Pause.)

Mr. Nelson: Okay. I think we got that.

So De Soto and, again, we'll be doing data captures 

at the local records center here in Cincinnati, and we 

expect that to hopefully ramp up as early as late 

June. So as soon as they can accommodate us, we're 

going to get right in there.

Okay. Next up is Y-12, SEC-0250. The addendum to 

the ER was presented in the August 2021 Advisory 

Board meeting, and again, SC&A was assigned to 

perform a review of that Evaluation Report.
9

Then finally, we have Reduction Pilot Plant, SEC0253. The work group met on 2/17/22, and those of 

you that attended yesterday, we went over that and 

so that there, apparently, is going to go onward from 

the Advisory Board and be sent forth.

Finally, we have SEC-0256, which is the Pinellas 

Plant. NIOSH discussed the Evaluation Report at the 

December 2021 Advisory Board meeting, and again, 

SC&A was assigned to perform a review of that 

Evaluation Report.

This is a slide that shows the periods of times for each 

of those Evaluation Reports awaiting action. So it has 

the assigned time period and you can look over 

those. 

So we have Hanford, Savannah River for both prime 

contractors and subcontractors. Los Alamos, Sandia 

and Idaho.

Then we have Argonne National Lab, Santa Susanna, 

Metals and Controls, DeSoto, Y-12, Reduction Pilot 

Plant and Pinellas.

Finally, a potential 83.14 SEC petition, that was West 

Valley Demonstration Project. 

A class was added for 1969 and '73. So our focus 

right now is the time period of '66 through '68.

We've got a large number of documents that are still 

under review, and we also have some documents 

that we're awaiting release from NRC pending the 

security review on some AEC reports.

Are there any questions?

Member Beach: Chuck, this is Josie.

You mentioned that on slide 7 you would be getting 

back into Santa Susanna area in, it says, late June. 

Is that scheduled yet, or are you still waiting for 

confirmation on that?

Mr. Nelson: We are communicating with the site, and 
10

I guess they're slowly ramping up and that is the best 

projected dates they've given us, but we are 

communicating with them. 

We have a team at ORAU that sets all this up for us 

and they are checking with them every week or two. 

So that's where that is.

Member Beach: Okay. Is that something that you'll 

do jointly with SC&A, or is that a NIOSH-only trip?

Mr. Nelson: We can certainly invite them or anybody 

else that wants to attend. So I will make a note of it 

right now to make sure that we extend that invite out 

to you all.

Member Beach: Okay. Are there any other sites that 

you're going to look for records? I didn't catch it when 

I was reviewing the slides.

Mr. Nelson: Lawrence Livermore National Lab is one 

of them.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Nelson: Let me see if there's anything else that I 

-- we had a meeting a couple weeks ago and we got 

with ORAU and we put everything in priorities.

And the top of the priority list are of course Santa 

Susanna, as well as De Soto, Lawrence Livermore 

and also Pinellas. 

There's going to be some data capture next week for 

Pinellas and we're going to go look at some records.

Member Beach: Okay. And has that been extended 

also to SC&A, the Pinellas --

Mr. Nelson: I'm not sure that it has, quite honestly.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Nelson: As soon as we've got the green light to 

start traveling, ORAU's started getting these going. 

In fact, the person we have on our side isn't going to 
11 

be able to go just due to the late notice of this.

Member Beach: Okay. And I don't know that SC&A 

needs to go or wants to go, but it's always good to 

combine those, if possible, and save the resources.

Mr. Nelson: I agree.

Member Beach: So thank you for that.

Mr. Nelson: Okay.

Member Schofield: Hey, Chuck, on Pinellas, is there 

going to be -- where are you going to go for the 

records?

My understanding is there are a couple of different 

facilities.

Mr. Nelson: Yeah, it's in Morgantown.

Member Schofield: LANL has some of theirs --

Mr. Nelson: Yeah, it's in Morgantown.

Member Schofield: -- and some may be at the 

records center.

Mr. Nelson: Sorry, Phil. I talked over you.

It's going to be in Morgantown. It's just some 

additional data that they wanted to capture.

Are you able to hear me, Phil?

Member Schofield: Yes, I am.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. All right.

Member Schofield: Thank you.

Mr. Nelson: You're welcome.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Any more questions for 

Chuck? Everybody seems to be on mute. 

So if you're trying to ask a question, take yourself off 

mute.
12

(Pause.)

Chair Anderson: Okay. Well then let's move on if 

there's no further questions.

The next issue will be SEC-00188, which is a Sandia 

petition addendum 2 covering the period January 1, 

'97, to May 21, 2011.

I believe Joe is going to --

Dr. Roberts: Andy, sorry to interrupt. I think this may 

be one where we have to maybe wait until 1:30 to 

start.

Chair Anderson: Oh, boy. So we've got -- okay.

Dr. Roberts: Yeah. So we just have a few minutes 

since we're --

Chair Anderson: Okay. We can take a quick 10-

minute break --

Dr. Roberts: Yeah.

Chair Anderson: -- and come back at 1:30.

Member Clawson: Andy, how about I -- I wanted to 

ask Chuck a question because I've been working with 

Chuck on -- it didn't have anything to do with his SEC, 

but I was working with him on Hanford and I kind of 

wanted to get an update on where we were at from 

Hanford --

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Member Clawson: -- if we need more data. If that's 

all right, it --

Chair Anderson: Sure.

Member Clawson: Everybody could go on break, but 

if I could just -- I just wanted to ask that question.

Mr. Nelson: Yeah, Brad. Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: I'm sorry, if it's possible for people to 
13

stay connected just so that I don't have to redo the 

attendance or whatnot, if that's possible, until 1:30?

Member Clawson: Okay.

Chair Anderson: Go ahead.

Mr. Nelson: Yeah, Brad. Does somebody else want to 

talk?

Member Clawson: No break.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. Yeah, Brad, we're working on the 

co-exposure evaluation. So that's an outstanding 

SEC issue that remains open that is progressing.

We got a new version of REX. So we have a -- I think 

the previous one was 2014. So we have a new one 

that's -- I think we're calling it "REX 2022." 

And so we're comparing that against all our data, that 

with NOCTS and all that and we actually -- ORAU 

owes us a big report here late next week, or the 

following week, and we're going to have a DCAS 

discussion on that.

So there's progression. They've been digging quite a 

bit, communicating with the site quite a bit, you 

know, trying to figure out where all the records are 

coming from, where they are in the system.

And I'd say the biggest issue we're having is some of 

the early years that are already SECs and, you know, 

with uranium, plutonium. 

They have a large quantity of records, but at this 

point in time they're missing a few from the '50s and 

'60s.

So you know, you get into the completeness issue, 

you know, how much is enough? Well if you make it 

an SEC, you know, you've already given -- hey, 

there's an SEC for that.

So we want to come up with a good estimation of 

dose for that period of time and still, you know, allow 
14

people to get an assignment of dose as claimantfavorable.

So that's part of the issues that are being worked and 

some of the difficulties they were having right now.

Member Clawson: Now, Chuck, are you still over 

Hanford, or is somebody else taking that over? Is that 

John or --

Mr. Nelson: No. I'd like for someone else, but --

(Laughter.)

Mr. Nelson: No, I'm still under Hanford. John 

Cardarelli has been helping with all the co-exposure. 

We used him as the lead for co-exposure because he 

is quite involved with it with Savannah River and for 

-- just to try to keep things as consistent as we can, 

John's been placed as one of the leads over that.

Member Clawson: Okay. I just was -- all I had was -

- I was wondering how this was going because I was 

getting some stuff from John, but kind of fill-in from 

you. So I just wanted to make sure I --

Mr. Nelson: Okay.

Member Clawson: I appreciate that.

Mr. Nelson: All right.

Member Beach: Hey, Chuck, can I ask you a 

question? Same frame as what Brad just asked you, 

but on Idaho.

Mr. Nelson: Idaho National Lab?

Member Beach: Are you the guy for Idaho or is that 

--

Mr. Nelson: I'm not the guy for Idaho. Currently, it's 

Megan Lobaugh. She's been on assignment, but she's 

returning on Monday for that --

Member Beach: Okay.
15

Mr. Nelson: -- but Tim looks like he'd like to talk.

(Laughter.)

Mr. Nelson: Come on, Tim. Jump in there.

Member Beach: Hi, Tim.

Dr. Taulbee: Hello. Hi, Josie. I can answer this a little 

bit. 

What the current status is the INL co-exposure model 

is actually complete; however, what we're doing is 

we're taking that OTIB and converting it to a new 

Section 7 for the Site Profiles, you know.

If you look at each of the chapters of the Site Profile, 

you've got a facility description, you've got 

occupational medical x-rays, and then you've got the 

environmental doses and then internal dose, external 

dose, and then we're going to have an internal coexposure model section and an external co-exposure 

model section.

So this conversion started before the OTIB was 

finished at the end of -- before the end of January. 

And so that's progressing right now and our 

understanding is that, within the next month or so, it 

will be over to DCAS in this new format and we'll be 

able to review that and get that out.

So that co-exposure model is -- the mathematics of 

it is all done. It's the documentation part that's 

currently working its way through.

Member Beach: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Nelson: Not only that, Josie, I wanted to say that 

while Megan's been out, John Cardarelli has been 

standing in for her. So we don't just drop it.

Member Beach: Oh, no, I know that.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. I just wanted to make that clear.

Member Beach: Thanks.
16

Mr. Nelson: All right. Thank you.

Chair Anderson: Any other ancillary questions for 

Chuck, get his blood pressure up?

Member Beach: We've got five minutes, Andy. You 

can ask a question.

Chair Anderson: No, I have no questions.

Member Clawson: Hey, I do have something for you, 

though, Andy.

Did you realize that with Sandia that you're actually 

over Tonopah Test Site, too?

Chair Anderson: Over the what?

Member Clawson: Tonopah Test Site.

Chair Anderson: No.

Member Clawson: Yeah. Well, that falls under Sandia. 

I thought it was under Nevada Test Site and when --

we were looking at the dose reconstruction, the ones 

that we had not hit or anything else like that.

So I just wanted to make sure, Andy, that you 

realized that under Sandia is where the Tonopah Test 

Site falls.

So -- and thanks to Rose for helping me find that.

Chair Anderson: I don't know anything about that.

Member Clawson: Well, that's why I was just letting 

you know that because it -- well, Rose can help you 

look up the information she found for me because 

when they split that, Tonopah split off as part of 

Nevada Test site, and same as Area 51, but they took 

Nevada Test Site workers.

And so that actually falls under Sandia because 

Sandia was doing a lot of tests out there for objects 

they were dropping out of the airplanes and stuff.

So I just thought I'd give you a heads up on that 
17

especially like with dose reconstruction of -- where 

we're low in that area. So just some information for 

you, Andy.

Ms. Behling: This is Kathy Behling. I was wondering 

if I could ask Tim just a followup question out of 

curiosity.

Going forward with the TBDs when you make a 

change, are you going to be adding this Section 7, 

and perhaps 8, for the co-exposure models? 

Is that something you're going to be doing with the 

other Site Profiles as they change?

Dr. Taulbee: As they change, yes. 

We have a very lengthy schedule for getting this 

done, to be quite frank. It's going to take us years in 

order to do that to convert these.

As we revisit the co-exposure models to incorporate 

DCAS-IG-006, the new, you know, co-exposure 

implementation guide, as we go through all of those 

updates, the new ones coming out will all be either 

Chapter 7 or Chapter 8 of the Site Profiles. There 

won't be any more OTIBs that are part of coexposure.

Ms. Behling: Okay. Is this the first technical basis 

document that you've changed?

Dr. Taulbee: Yes. INL and SRS are the first two --

Ms. Behling: Okay.

Dr. Taulbee: -- that are coming out. The SRS is 

slightly further along, like maybe a week or two, than 

the INL one is, but --

Ms. Behling: Okay.

Dr. Taulbee: -- they're both going to be coming out 

real close together.

Ms. Behling: Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Okay. 
18 

Great. Thanks.

Member Clawson: So Tim, is that a COVID haircut?

Dr. Taulbee: This is, you know, just my normal hair.

(Laughter.)

Dr. Taulbee: It's been this way for, you know, since 

I was 25.

Mr. Nelson: Rashaun, I did want to say something. 

When we get into Sandia, you -- I think you 

mentioned for SC&A to start with their presentation; 

but, like our work group, if you don't mind, I think it 

might flow better if I do my presentation first because 

it gives a lot of the background and history of the 

SEC.

And if SC&A wouldn't object, I think that might work 

out better for everyone.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Mr. Fitzgerald: That would be -- yeah, that would be 

fine. I certainly think that introduction sets the 

ground for us.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. Thank you.

Chair Anderson: So we're at 1:30 now. You can just 

continue talking, Chuck.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. Well, again I'm going to make an 

attempt to pull up -- share our screen. We'll see if 

I'm successful.

Okay. If you could tell me if that pops up?

Member Beach: Yeah, it's there.

Update on review of SEC-00188 Sandia Petition

Addendum 2, January 1, 1997, to May 21, 2011

Mr. Nelson: Excellent. Okay. Well, then I'll get 

started. 
19 

This presentation is for Sandia National LabAlbuquerque, Tonopah, for SEC-00188 Addendum 2.

My name is Charles Nelson. I'm the DCAS SEC team 

lead, as well as the lead health physicist for Sandia 

National Lab.

I wanted to get into a little bit of the petition history 

of SEC-00188. Originally, it qualified as an 83.13 on 

October 21st, 2011, and the petitioners proposed a 

class definition.

You see it's pretty long. It basically involves all the 

security folks, and you can read each of those on that 

slide, that worked in the area of Sandia National LabAlbuquerque for the period of January 1, 1963, 

through May 21st, 2011.

We did an evaluation during that period and initial 

part of it a class was added as an SEC on February 

21st, 2012. 

And that was all personnel that worked in any area 

of Sandia National Lab-Albuquerque, New Mexico, for 

the period of January 1, 1949, through December 

31st, 1994.

So as you see, it didn't go the entire period. We -- I 

think Sam Glover was the lead at the time. He saw 

some infeasibilities and that was added from '49 to 

'94. 

The basis was insufficient monitoring data and 

information to reconstruct internal dose for that 

period of time.

It was due to lack of internal monitoring program 

documentation, lack of internal monitoring data and 

lack of process information.

The Evaluation Report was published on February 

21st, 2012, and it concluded that external doses, 

including medical x-rays, performed onsite as a 

condition of employment can be reconstructed for the 

duration of the evaluation period. So from 1949 all 
20

the way through May 21st, 2011.

Our continued evaluation, since the publication of the 

2012 Evaluation Report, has not identified any 

additional information that would contradict this 

conclusion that external doses can be reconstructed.

Now, there was an addendum to SEC-00188. And this 

would have been me, so I came in place for Sam 

when he left the NIOSH group. And the addendum to 

SEC-00188 covered the time period of 1995 to 1996. 

And in this addendum, NIOSH proposed the following 

class to be added on July 26, 2018, and that would 

have been all personnel that worked in any area at 

Sandia National Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for 

the period of January 1, 1995, through December 

31st, 1996. So we added two extra years.

The basis for this additional SEC was -- for '95 and 

'96 was that there were some internal monitoring 

program concerns, specifically air monitoring data 

deficiencies.

Our concerns were associated with the transitional 

and developmental nature of Sandia-Albuquerque's 

internal monitoring program.

We found some evidence that the site was making 

several improvements in the internal monitoring 

program, including an increase in the use of personal 

and area air monitoring; however, the program 

seemed to be lacking and we didn't find the adequate 

evidence that some key implementing procedures 

were fully in place until 1996 and 1997.

Our most current Evaluation Report is SEC-00188, 

that's Addendum 2, and is focused on the suitability 

of the radiological monitoring program and 

associated documentation in monitoring data 

sufficiency.

In addition, the Evaluation Report addressed security 

guard force monitoring concerns. 
21

So this is for 1997 through May 21st, 2011. So that's 

the remainder of the requested period -- evaluated 

period.

Following are some data sources of the NIOSH team 

reviewed for SEC-00188 Addendum 2:

We performed 21 interviews with 17 people. There 

was one site data capture trip since the last SEC 

designation. We had four written data capture 

requests.

There were over 900 relevant documents captured 

and reviewed since SEC-00188 was issued in 2012. 

So to date, we have over 5500 total documents in 

our database pertaining to Sandia National LabAlbuquerque, and they contain internal memos and 

procedures, 10 CFR Part 835 compliance and selfassessment reports and the memos associated with 

that, facility and process information, radiological 

work permits, incident reports, air monitoring data 

and internal and external radiological program audits 

and assessments.

Other sources we've reviewed include Sandia's 

WebDose database, which is what the site uses for 

bioassay monitoring results as well as it's a radiation 

dose reporting tool. So they'll use that to report to 

DOE total site for the dose -- total dose for the site.

We've also reviewed internal and external monitoring 

records, breathing zone monitoring and air sample 

records and derived air concentration, or DAC-hour 

tracking records.

This next slide shows the available urine bioassays 

down in WebDose. So if you look at the -- this is going 

to be from 1997 through 2011. 

And the first column is a non-tritium bioassay result. 

So this would be for uranium, plutonium, americium, 

thorium and fission and activation products. So they 

total 2,020. 
22

Then persons sampled is shown for each year with a 

total personnel and dose. If you add up that column, 

it's not going to add up to 317 because a lot of people 

were the same ones monitored for each year.

Finally, you have tritium sample results. There were 

7,209 and persons sampled was 362.

Okay. Available internal WebDose data which 

contains whole-body and thyroid count data. There 

were -- for 1997 through 2011 there were 1,115 

measurements and there were 207 persons 

monitored.

Additional available internal monitoring includes BZs 

monitoring, sometimes called "personal air sample 

monitoring" or "lapels."

These are usually what they would wear on their 

person. So it's representative of what's in their 

breathing zone.

So for the period of 1997 through 2011, we broke 

these down into alpha BZ results and beta/gamma 

BZ results and tritium BZ results.

So the most significant ones are the alpha BZ results 

because they usually drive the dose especially for 

Sandia National Lab.

So for each of those years you'll see a total for alpha. 

Collectively for the 15-year period there were 5,506 

alpha BZ results, beta/gamma BZ results total 6,497, 

and the tritium results that were used in the 

breathing zone were 570.

Now, we noticed in 1995 there were some changes 

into the internal monitoring program. This is being 

driven by 10 CFR 835.

So Sandia shifted their emphasis of the internal 

monitoring program for reliance on bioassays, the 

use of breathing zone sampling and workplace 

indicators.

So these workplace indicators would be things like 
23

radiological surveys and, you know, could be airborne 

smears and so forth.

And basically they were looking at the radiological 

conditions coupled along with these other sampling 

results to see if bioassays were really required.

It was SC&A -- sorry about that. It was Sandia 

National Lab-Albuquerque's position that no 

individual was likely to receive an exposure of 100 

millirem in a year.

This is stated in the Internal Technical Basis 

documentation, as well as the Radiation Protection 

Plan, and it was also stated in external assessments 

by internal dosimeters performed in '96 and '99.

The Radiation Protection Plan, if you're not familiar 

with those, those detail how a site implements 10 

CFR 835.

During our review of Sandia's radiological program, 

we found evidence of field implementation of 

Sandia's internal monitoring program. So here's a 

few excerpts to kind of give you an idea. 

There was February 3rd, 1998 summary documents 

from the Rad and Mixed Waste Management Facility 

Safety Committee regarding the routine bioassay.

They went on to say that the RCTs, or radiation 

control techs or radiological control techs -- and I 

guess a lot of people refer to that acronym as RMWMF 

-- are on routine bioassays. 

They went on to say if a trend develops indicating 

internal doses, then those personnel would be asked 

to submit special bioassays to determine the scope 

of the problem.

It went on to say, if trends developed indicating 

elevated air concentrations or increase in surface 

contamination, then again special bioassays would be 

requested from appropriate personnel.

Job-specific RWPs would also contain requirements 
24

for bioassays, if appropriate, for those workers with 

tasks where there were significant levels of 

radionuclides or where certain radionuclides such as 

tritium were handled.

So we saw that Sandia did perform some routine 

bioassay for some specific groups based on their 

work activity and job category.

And this is just for confirmation purposes that, you 

know, they were adequately monitoring people and 

they weren't seeing any, you know, large doses at 

the worksite.

Now, I did mention the Rad Waste Fixed Waste 

facility. Just so you know, it was completed being 

built in 1995 and that was for repackaging of waste, 

characterization, treatment and storage and 

shipment when they decided to ship some stuff 

offsite.

We did find some additional evidence of field 

implementation. There was a May 30th, 2001 memo 

documenting a routine bioassay program for RCTs in 

TA-V.

Now, the TA-V is where the SPR facility is, hot cell 

facility, and Annular Core Research Reactor is 

located.

It went on to say the current schedule calls for annual 

whole-body monitoring and semiannual urinalysis 

samples for uranium, thorium, americium, 

plutonium.

Then again said the Sandia bioassay program is 

confirmatory in nature, meaning that the bioassay 

program confirms the results of the effectiveness of 

the contamination control and other personnel 

protected activities.

Went on to say since RCTs must be present in all work 

activities where the possibility of meaningful intakes 

are credible, their bioassay serves as a good proxy 

indicator for potentially exposed line personnel.
25

Let's see what I've got here. Okay. So I'm on slide 

15. NIOSH team reviewed RWPs and work planning 

documents for indication of airborne radioactive 

materials, looked at the respiratory protection, 

assigned any personal area monitoring requirements 

and bioassay requirements, and what we found is 

where there were indications of surface and airborne 

radioactive materials, we also found the use of 

respiratory protection, including personal or area 

monitoring requirements, and bioassay requirements 

were sometimes specified.

Our review of RWPs supports that Sandia's Rad 

Program was adhering to the procedures that were in 

place at the time.

As I mentioned earlier, Sandia shifted their emphasis 

of an internal monitoring program for reliance on 

bioassays to the use of breathing zone sampling.

So what we did is we performed an analysis of the 

breathing zone sampling data that we had in our 

holdings.

As you might remember, there was a slide earlier 

showing all the BZs that we have in our holdings.

In order to perform an internal dose evaluation 

associated with the Bzs, we did the following steps:

We looked at the intake quantity associated with each 

BZ filter, then determined the committed dose 

associated with the intake quantities by calculating it 

based on the stochastic Annual Limit on Intake for 

the limiting nuclides for the analysis type and, as you 

saw earlier, we showed that we had gross alpha, beta 

and tritium results.

The calculated committed dose was analyzed to 

determine the distribution of the data grouped by 

event.

So an event would be considered a radiological work 

task at a given time on a given day or all radiological 

work tasks on a given day.
26

So when we analyzed these BZ data, the results was 

that the median quantity of radioactive material 

available for internal intake to individuals located 

alongside personnel performing radiological work 

would correspond to 0.5 millirem per work event or 

workday.

It's important to know that this quantity assumes 

that an individual is present inside of the work area 

and they have no respiratory protection. So these are 

very claimant-favorable assumptions.

The unmonitored worker to whom this dose is

assigned would not have been located in the 

radiological work area alongside a monitored work 

area.

They would actually have a significant reduction in 

intake potential due to the separation between the 

actual work area and the area that can be occupied 

without the same level of radiological controls.

It's also important to note that we didn't take into 

account any respiratory protection being worn during 

these events. 

So while respiratory protection was worn in many or 

most cases, we didn't include that in our calculations.

And considering these conservative assumptions, we 

concluded that it's not likely that an individual would 

be able to receive 100 millirem per year of internal 

exposure under these conditions, meaning an 

individual would have to be present for 200 events. 

So remember, it was 0.5 millirem per work event. So 

multiply that by 200 to reach -- they'd have to be 

there for 200 events to receive an exposure in excess 

of 100 millirem a year.

Okay. We have a table here and it has the committed 

dose and -- let me make sure I say this right -- and 

rem for all workers by year.

And these values are the internal dose of record 
27

provided in WebDose for the 15-year period 1997 

through 2011.

So if you look in the first column, that's the year, '97 

through 2011. Following that is the tritium dose. So 

this would be a tritium dose of four millirem was 

assigned for the 15 years in this time period.

The next column is breathing zone sampling. And 

based on the breathing zone sampling that was 

performed and the dose of record for this 15 years, 

there was a total of 26 millirem. So 0.026 rem.

The next column is urine samples. There was a total 

of 42 millirem assigned to this 15-year period. Next 

column is thyroid and the total dose assigned was 

five millirem. 

So if you total all those columns together for the 15-

year period, 1997 through 2011, there was a total of 

77 millirem assigned to individuals total of the entire 

site.

NIOSH concluded the following regarding the 

feasibility of internal radiation dose reconstruction for 

this addendum, which was 1/1/1997 through 

5/21/2011:

Based on our review of the radioactive material use 

at Sandia-Albuquerque and the associated radiation 

protection programs, we feel the intakes for 

unmonitored workers with access to controlled areas 

were unlikely to have resulted in a committed 

effective dose equivalent in excess of 100 millirem 

per year.

Our conclusion is not based solely on the 

implementation of 10 CFR 835.402, but rather our 

review of exposure monitoring records for individuals 

involved in radiological activities with the highest 

risks at the site during the period under evaluation 

and the total assigned internal dose, committed 

effective dose equivalent for all employees for this 

15-year period from 1997 through 2011 is 77 

millirems. So the doses are really quite small for 
28

internal doses.

So regarding feasibility of dose reconstruction, a 

review of available breathing zone bioassay data 

indicates that the median quantity is essentially a 

summary of radioactive material available for internal 

uptake to individuals located alongside personnel 

performing high-risk radiological work would 

correspond to the internal dose of 0.5 millirem per 

work event or workday.

And, again, this assumes individuals are present 

within the work area alongside workers and that the 

individual is using no respiratory protection and 

breathing the same airborne radioactive 

concentration of air as workers.

In either case, consistent with the recorded internal 

dose of 77 millirem for the entire 15-year time 

period, it's not likely that an individual will receive 

100 millirem per year of internal exposure under 

these conditions.

The NIOSH assessment of potential internal dose 

concludes that individuals would have to be present 

for 200 events based on the median dose of 0.5 

millirem to receive an exposure in excess of 100 

millirem a year.

So in conclusion, we believe that the intakes of 

unmonitored workers with access to control areas are 

unlikely to have resulted in a committed effective 

dose equivalent of 100 millirem in a year.

As previously identified in SEC-00188 report in 2012, 

we continue to believe that it's feasible to reconstruct 

occupational medical doses and principal external 

radiation exposures, including beta, gamma and 

neutron radiation, for Sandia National LabAlbuquerque with sufficient accuracy.

Considering the potential exposure scenarios, 

program policies, procedures, available air 

monitoring and confirmation of low doses among 

monitored workers, we find it feasible to reconstruct 
29

internal doses with sufficient accuracy.

We found no part of the class under evaluation for 

which we cannot -- we feel we cannot estimate 

radiation doses with sufficient accuracy.

So this is just a standard slide. Feasibility findings 

essentially saying that we believe dose 

reconstruction is feasible for internal and external 

doses at Sandia National Lab-Albuquerque.

That concludes my presentation.

Chair Anderson: Thank you.

Should we go through Joe's presentation and then to 

questions or do people have questions specifically 

here for Chuck? 

Member Clawson: Let Joe go through his. This is 

Brad.

Chair Anderson: Okay. That's what I thought.

Okay, Joe.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Okay. Can everybody hear me alright?

Chair Anderson: Yes, and we can see the slides.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Great. I'm not going to go through the 

slides, I'm going to have Bob do that, but I wanted 

to give a short preamble before Bob dives in, if that's 

alright.

Chair Anderson: Okay. That's fine.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yeah. I've been the lead for SC&A on 

Sandia from the very beginning, which feels like 16 

or 17 years now since the Site Profile Review, and 

just want to acknowledge, you know, the help that 

Bob and Ron Buchanan have provided me since we're 

now at this stage.

As Chuck just outlined, you know, we're following a 

series of a number of 83.14 SEC determinations over 

probably some years now covering the 1949 to 1996.
30 

So when we were tasked in April 2019 to review this 

ER addendum, this was actually the first time we, 

meaning SC&A, have had the opportunity to review 

Sandia in terms of the ER.

So even though we're, you know, looking at the 

addendum in terms of the addendum years '97-2011, 

because this is really our first crack at Sandia, we're 

also -- we've also looked backwards at the 

conclusions in the ER for the 83.14 reviews on 

external.

So this is kind of a bit of a hybrid review by SC&A 

looking at those issues as well as looking forward on 

the remaining years of the SEC from the standpoint 

of feasibility of the internal.

And for this one in particular beyond the dosimetry 

issues, we clearly wanted to provide a particular 

focus on the question of the intakes by security 

personnel at Sandia.

And the focus there, too, as Chuck kind of focused 

on, is establishing whether there was a -- could there 

be a likelihood that they were, in fact -- would receive 

intakes that would have exceeded the 100-milliremper-year CEDE that Chuck was referring to. This 

would be the dose assigned to unmonitored workers.

So we spent, I think, a considerable amount of time

focused on that particular issue, including some 

onsite work and interviews with the security 

personnel to really shed some light on, you know, 

what the feasibility or likelihood of that would be an 

issue.

Overall -- and you probably have seen the report that 

we've issued now for about a year. 

Overall SC&A agrees with the conclusion in this ER 

Addendum 2 about the feasibility of dose 

reconstruction for Sandia for '97 to 2011. 

And, again, some of it is weighted evidence and 

looking at the conservatism of some of the 
31 

assumptions, but, in general, I think we feel pretty 

comfortable with that conclusion.

There are some specific issues that get into a 

particular characteristic of this program at Sandia. 

They actually transitioned to personal air sampling as 

opposed to bioassay in that time frame in the mid-

'90s. 

So that was a particular challenge to look at BZ 

sampling and looking at whether or not that was 

providing the records that would be able to 

substantiate this question of 100 millirem.

And so we did spend, I think, a lot of time -- I know 

Bob did -- focused on whether that case could be 

made.

So there are some questions on that which we have 

brought back to the work group and that's why the 

focus, as you will see on this presentation, is going 

beyond that to look at the question of whether that, 

you know, we could resolve that question of, you 

know, the values on the PASes.

Okay. With that, Bob, I guess I'll give that back to 

you.

Mr. Barton: All right. Very good, Joe. Thank you for 

that. And also thank you, Chuck, for really laying the 

groundwork. I think that's going to be very helpful as 

we sort of go through this.

And as Joe intimated, a large portion of this 

presentation is going to be talking about those 

personal air samplers, the breathing zone samplers 

because when we usually talk about these SEC 

reviews, it usually relates around a more traditional 

co-exposure model, which would be using the various 

bioassay data points.

In this case, it's a little bit different in that it's more 

of an exposure framework or method that goes with 

that singular value of 100 millirem that Chuck was 

discussing in his presentation.
32

And the review of the breathing zone samples is 

really there to see whether that assumption really 

stands up to the radiological conditions that these 

personal air samplers reflect and whether the case 

can be made, and even using some very conservative 

assumptions, to say that if you were not part of the 

actual bioassay program -- because I think that's 

important to understand -- they still did have a 

bioassay program.

And, in fact, you'll see a lot of our analysis was 

looking at the people who were wearing these 

breathing zone devices and were they also involved 

in that bioassay program.

Because it's important to remember that this whole

idea of 100 millirem per year of committed effective 

dose equivalent is really meant for the workers who 

were unmonitored completely or partially monitored.

If you have adequate monitoring, I mean, it's always 

been the practice that you would actually use the 

bioassay values.

And then if you were partially monitored, then 

obviously this 100-millirem assumption would come 

into play for some portion of your employment.

So please keep that in mind as we're going through 

this, that the whole analysis of the breathing zone 

data was really to convince ourselves that the 

assumption of 100 millirem, which really sort of 

comes out of 835, is appropriate and bounding for, 

again, those unmonitored or partially monitored 

workers.

So these first two slides I'm going to go through and 

sort of give the overview of the questions we were 

really asking when we initiated our review, sort of a 

summary of where we came out at, and then we'll 

get into some of the more specifics particularly 

regarding the breathing zone data.

We also have an observation, as you'll see, regarding 

the external monitoring, which is really sort of a 
33

carryover from a previous review.

And then we'll sort of sum it all up at the end and 

then we'll get into the discussion.

So moving along hopefully. Okay. All right. So we 

really framed this up on these first two slides as four 

major questions that we wanted answered to satisfy 

ourselves whether this is a valid method or not.

And so the first one was really when we talk about 

weight of evidence, is it sufficient to really justify the 

external and internal dose?

And our answer that we came up with was that, yes, 

but we did have a couple of Site Profile questions that 

were discussed in the last work group meeting.

One of them involved the Sandia Pulse Reactor. And 

essentially what that comes down to is a question of 

external geometry where you had workers when the 

reactor was shut down, that were physically 

underneath it, reaching up to do their work. So of 

course the placement of your external dosimeter is 

going to factor into that.

We'll talk about that a little bit, but, again, we feel 

that that is a Site Profile question rather than an SEC 

question.

And then there were some questions about the 

tabulation of the actual breathing zone data that 

NIOSH has captured, coded and analyzed just to 

make sure that that's accurate in the final record. So 

that was the first question.

The second question is equally important and that's 

was the 835 -- we have the documentation, the 

technical basis documents, but we want to convince 

ourselves was it implemented properly to, again, 

support this framework of assigning 100 millirem 

internal dose for, again, those who were unmonitored 

or partially monitored. And the answer that we came 

up with is, yes. 
34

We have documentation of the program 

implementation to reach the 835 requirements by the 

end of 1996, which is, of course, the end of the most 

recent SEC.

And so we're talking about, again, 1997 through 

2011 in this most recent assessment for Addendum 

2. 

We came to that conclusion -- there was numerous 

self-assessments. I think there might have been 20 

in all over the years in question that were done by 

the site themselves.

Obviously, there were also some oversight from DOE 

regarding the noncompliance tracking system.

And then also the ORPS database, which is the 

unusual occurrence reporting system, I believe.

So moving on to the next slide, the third question 

was do we see any limitations or significant 

uncertainties that would give us pause about using 

this framework of 100 millirem per year?

In other words, when we look into the data, this 

breathing zone data, do we see certain areas or 

indications, types of work in what are essentially 

RWPs that would specify these personal air samplers 

being used that would say, well, you know, on 

average, maybe, you know, very unlikely, on 

average, you get to 100 millirem, which is really the 

central premise of your proposed approach. Are there 

jobs out there or areas where that just simply doesn't 

hold true? 

And so when we went in and analyzed the same 

dataset that NIOSH had, we found that there is 

weight of evidence there, including a number of very 

conservative assumptions when converting these 

breathing zones into actual exposure potentials that 

when you put the entire puzzle together, we feel that 

this is a good method, in this case, for this site. And 

I hope that becomes clear as we really dig into that 

breathing zone data.
35

And then this fourth question, which is very specific 

to security guards, was it a potential for the security 

guards through their duties and walking through the 

site, going through various areas, that they would be 

in excess specifically of this 100-millirem framework 

for assigning internal dose to unmonitored workers?

And SC&A concluded again there that we found it 

unlikely that the security guards would have been in 

the situation consistently to exceed the dose that's 

being proposed to be assigned.

So this slide is specific to the security guards and part 

of that analysis was actual documented interviews 

which go back all the way to 2011. We had some in 

2014, 2018.

Also looking again, like I mentioned, just what kind 

of monitoring policies and procedures were in place? 

And of course the following question is always 

implementation on that one. 

All right. So looking at incident reports and seeing if 

there's something out there that gives us pause 

specific to the job category of security guards.

Also, SC&A with the work group and NIOSH did an 

onsite tour January 2020 and performed interviews 

with security guards who were employed during this 

period that we're talking about, '97 to 2011.

And our conclusion there was that certainly there 

were some incidents where contamination existed 

that the security guard population could have been 

exposed to, but, on the whole, we still don't feel that 

it rose to the level where it would have exceeded this 

proposed dose reconstruction approach of 100 

millirem per year.

So now we're going to get into the breathing zone 

data itself. And, again, this is not necessarily forming 

the basis of the proposed internal dose assignment 

approach, but really it's a test to see if there's 

evidence out there that there's a group of workers for 

which that type of exposure framework really just --
36

it doesn't work.

And so when we look at data, obviously we always 

talk about, you know, data completeness pretty 

much first and foremost.

And the best way to really make that completeness 

comparison is if you say, well, how many breathing 

zone data points do we have versus how many should 

we have?

And normally -- well, not normally, but what would 

be ideal is if you had sort of oversight documents 

from the health and safety staff usually on a monthly 

or quarterly basis or something like that that might 

document exactly how many of these breathing zone 

samplers were issued and measured, how many 

workers actually were monitored via this method.

In this case, you can compare the data we have 

against what we should have to establish 

completeness.

And this is really the essence of Finding 1 in that we 

couldn't find any of those secondary sources, the 

periodic health and safety reports or the health 

physics reports, to exactly know what might be 

missing from the breathing zone dataset that we 

have, which again was analyzed with conservative 

assumptions to form the basis that it would be highly 

unlikely that somebody would be exposed over 100 

millirem per year and also not be involved in the 

bioassay program at all.

So that was really Finding 1 that we couldn't make 

that direct comparison. So it makes it very difficult to 

really put a hard number on how complete the 

dataset we have. So that was Finding 1.

One thing we also did to try to get an idea of the level 

of completeness, or incompleteness, was just simply 

looking at the number of these personal air samplers 

that we had over time both on an annual basis and if 

you look in, I believe, one of the appendices has it 

even down to the month.
37

And what we found is, you know, you wouldn't expect 

it to be essentially a flat line over time as different 

projects start up, other ones complete, different 

RWPs, number of workers. You would expect some 

variation.

But when we looked at it over time, we said, well, 

you know, you have some gaps in there, you know. 

A few weeks, a month here and things like that that 

suggested to us that the dataset we have is likely not 

complete.

And of course we couldn't verify that from the 

secondary sources that I just talked about, which 

were the periodic reports.

I'm not sure if that's even something that they would 

have reported on a regular basis at Sandia.

They do at some other sites, but, again, that was not 

available to really get a grasp on how complete our 

dataset is and whether that's acceptable as enough 

evidence that, again, back to the 100 millirem, is that 

appropriate. So that was Observation 2.

We also compared with the available electronic data 

sources, which was WebDose. Chuck talked about 

that.

And our comparison was that, well, we actually have 

more data that was captured by NIOSH than is 

contained in WebDose when we simply compared the 

number of workers by year that were contained in 

WebDose to these personal air samplers with what 

we actually have in the dataset.

So in some ways, the dataset that was captured by 

NIOSH would be considered more complete than 

what is contained in WebDose, which is not all that 

surprising because, as Chuck mentioned, WebDose 

was essentially designed as a database to track 

workers for compliance purposes.

So it really would only involve those workers in the 

higher exposure potentials to make sure that none of 
38

the annual limits were exceeded and that sort of 

thing.

So essentially we were not really able to quantify the 

level of completeness or incompleteness here for 

those reasons, but the real question is what 

implications did it have for dose reconstruction.

What can we say about the data that we're potentially 

missing? What can we inform ourselves on what that 

exposure potential might have been? 

Could that missing data represent a group of workers 

that are different from the group of workers we have 

the data for that would really sort of invalidate the 

use of this breathing zone data as the basis for the 

100 millirem?

So NIOSH's response on the data completeness 

issues was they agreed that the raw field monitoring, 

these RWPs, with breathing zone data that were 

captured is incomplete and we really don't know 

necessarily how incomplete it is.

You could obviously put a cap on it somehow by 

making comparisons perhaps to the number of 

externally monitored workers or just the size of the 

workforce, but even then we don't know how many 

of that workforce really wore the breathing zone data 

or how many were supposed to wear the breathing 

zone data.

So in this way, completeness is very difficult to 

quantify. So we have to start looking at some other 

things to, again, inform ourselves, what could that 

potentially missing data represent and what would be 

the implications as far as this 100-millirem internal 

dose assignment.

So one of the things NIOSH brought back in their 

response was a comparison to what's known as the 

DAC-hr -- it's derived air contraction -- tracking logs. 

And, like WebDose, these were designed to track 

workers who essentially had measurable exposures 
39

on their breathing zone devices.

So if they wore the breathing zone, it measured and 

it came up positive, you would be included in these 

DAC-hr tracking logs which really went down to 

almost very low levels of exposure, but they also 

represented those workers who Health and Safety 

was most interested in tracking again for compliance 

and reporting purposes.

So comparing those DAC-hr logs, which should 

contain all the most highly exposed workers who 

wore these breathing zones, it was almost 100 

percent were actually included in the capture data 

that NIOSH has that informs the basis for this 100 

millirem.

So if anything, you could say, well, if the missing 

people are in these DAC-hr logs, you would say that 

it's either representative or potentially bias data 

towards higher exposures because we have 99 

percent of those that made it into this health physics 

tracking system.

One caveat here is that we can only make that 

comparison for a portion of the SEC period simply 

based on the DAC-hr logs that we had in-house and

that was a little over a third of the time period on the 

SEC.

Like I talked about with WebDose, when we 

compared it to that, we found that WebDose also 

didn't appear to be a complete dataset.

In fact, it looked less complete than what we had 

since the NIOSH capture data had many more results 

in every year that we looked at.

But again since WebDose was designed to really track 

the highest exposed workers and not all of the 

workers, it's really only important to say that the 

WebDose matched what we saw in the DAC-hr, and 

the DAC-hr matched very well what we had already 

in hand.
40

So the work group discussed this on April 11th. So 

just about a little over two weeks ago.

SC&A had agreed with NIOSH's response in the 

assessment in the fact that, if anything, it looks to us 

that what we would be missing as far as 

completeness of the dataset would not be the highest 

exposed workers.

Because if that was the case, we'd expect to see them 

in the DAC-hr logs or in WebDose and we wouldn't 

have their data in the NIOSH dataset, and that just 

simply wasn't the case.

So based on that, the work group at that meeting in 

April, again, a little over two weeks ago, closed 

Finding 1 and Observations 2 and 3, which were the 

three items specific to completeness.

However, based on that discussion, the work group 

recommended that some followup activities should 

be taken up specifically by the SEC Issues Work 

Group specific to how we do these completeness 

analyses because they're important, really, for every 

site that we look at in these SEC discussions, and is 

there a way to develop some sort of uniform 

approach so that we're being consistent programwide when we evaluate completeness.

So while they did close the single finding and those 

two observations, the followup recommendation was 

to potentially have the SEC Issues Work Group try to 

take a look at are there methods out there so that we 

can standardize the data completeness assessments, 

again, for consistency across the program.

Moving on. This one, Observation 1, really deals with 

the -- sort of the quality assurance aspects and how 

the amount of breathing zone data, frankly, was 

reported in the ER.

One thing we had found was that there were a few 

duplicate samples in the dataset. And how this 

happened is that two separate documents had been 

captured.
41

They didn't necessarily look identical, but upon really 

close inspection we found that they represented the 

exact same person, exact same exposure event and 

exact same results so that essentially they were 

being double-counted in there and, you know, sort of 

weighting the exposure analysis that followed by 

appearing as two separate worker exposure events 

when really they were, you know, only one. So that 

was sort of the first part of that observation. 

And also just the way they were reported in one of 

the tables of the ER, we believe there was some 

double-counting just in the total amount of available 

breathing zone samples.

And it really came down to something as simple as, 

you know, in some cases you'd have a single 

breathing zone event, a single worker wearing a 

breathing zone, and it would be counted for alpha, 

beta -- beta/gamma and tritium, as Chuck indicated.

And, in some cases, that was counted as one 

breathing zone result. And, in some cases, it was 

counted as essentially three, one each for alpha, 

beta/gamma and tritium, even though they were the 

same exact exposure event.

And it was a little inconsistent there, so all we were 

suggesting was that those totals should really be 

corrected so that they accurately reflect the amount 

of data that we have.

So in Part 1 where some samples were actually 

copied twice, and, so, analyzed twice, NIOSH went 

in, they agreed and they removed those duplicates, 

reran the results, and essentially there was no 

change in the idea that you're at about 0.5 millirem 

per event.

So even though those duplicate samples included 

originally, they did not make any appreciable 

difference.

And so removing them was the correct thing to do 

just to see if it did bias the results in any way, and 
42

they did not.

The second part of it was just how these -- the total 

number of BZs were reported. NIOSH has essentially 

said that when they essentially port all this 

documentation over to the Sandia TBD, those totals 

will be updated to more accurately reflect what we 

actually have in-house rather than a little 

inconsistency in the reporting of those totals.

So based on that, the work group discussed this issue 

again earlier this month. They elected to close Part 1 

of the observation and Part 2 is being held in 

abeyance, again, as a Site Profile, not an SEC issue, 

because NIOSH had committed to updating those 

totals when they port this methodology over to the 

TBD.

Now, this is where we kind of took a look at some of 

the characteristics within the breathing zone data, 

you know.

When we see some individuals, how often were they 

actually wearing these things? Which is an important 

question, again, when we sort of circle back to is 100 

millirem per year a good number if we can accept 

that a maximizing exposure, on average, would be 

1/2 a millirem.

Thus, as Chuck mentioned, 200 events per year to 

reach 100 millirem, well, how many events are we 

seeing for these individuals and actually how are they 

spread out?

So Observation 4 essentially said, you know, when 

we looked at those breathing zone samples, we found 

that you actually had a small group of people that 

constituted most of the samples that we have inhouse.

And for, I think, something like 4/5ths of the 

population within that breathing zone dataset had 

about 20 samples per year or less.

Now, of course that does come with the caveat that 
43

we really don't know what level of incompleteness is 

there, but it was just one way to look at it again to 

see if there's a problem.

I think the worker with the most breathing zones per 

year was just over 100. And so if you compare that 

with the 200 events needed to even reach 100 

millirem, we're, again, far below that.

We also found that the workers who most frequently 

were contained in this dataset actually also 

participated in the non-tritium bioassay program.

So they would have been submitting samples for the 

plutoniums and things of that nature.

So that was another thing to think about, again, 

when we're talking about weight of evidence here, 

because these workers who are actually in the in vivo 

monitoring program, in the bioassay program, really 

wouldn't even have this method of 100 millirem used 

unless there were periods of partial monitoring which 

could not be covered by their own internal monitoring 

results. So that was Observation 5.

NIOSH concurred and believed that it did not affect 

feasibility here or the method of 100 millirem.

The work group delved into these things again earlier 

this month and elected to close both Observations 4 

and 5.

Now, the actual exposure potential that we get from 

looking at these breathing zone samples -- and this 

again goes back to the, you know, half a millirem per 

exposure event, 200 events per year to reach 100 

millirem -- how does that stand up?

Do we agree with the half a millirem per event and 

also how does that change if we start looking at these 

exposure estimates, again, on a per event basis?

And when I say, per event, I mean a worker was 

assigned to an RWP, they were given specific 

breathing zone requirements, they wore their 
44 

breathing zone, the time it was worn was recorded 

and then it was measured. That's what we refer to 

when we say "event" in this case. 

We said, well, you know, again, are there individual 

areas and years where it just seems like the exposure 

was much higher because, of course, the 100 

millirem is really based on aggregate of all these 

breathing zones over this period from 1997 to 2011.

So are there years in there where it doesn't all -- or 

specific areas that really give us pause?

And we found that, yeah, sure, there's obviously 

going to be fluctuations where there's some areas in 

some years that are higher than a half a millirem.

However, looking -- again looking at the big picture 

as a whole, there were several mitigating factors that 

I'm going to get into to arrive at that half a millirem 

per event.

These were when NIOSH went in and did their 

analysis and when SC&A did the separate one. They 

used essentially the same assumptions, just 

remained consistent, and the contaminant was 

always assumed to be -- or nearly always assumed 

to be plutonium even though often the RWP would 

specify that, no, they're working with fission products 

or, no, they're working with depleted uranium.

So when you do your exposure calculation, by 

assuming plutonium you're already coming up with a 

higher result than is actually reflected by that RWP.

As Chuck mentioned, doing these, again, exposure 

assessments of what is the dose per event or job, if 

you want to think about it that way, never was 

respiratory protection considered even though it was 

worn quite often, I think, somewhere between 40 to 

90 percent of the time based on the year and job that 

we were looking at.

So by not considering respiratory protection, which, 

you know, can lower the actual exposure by orders 
45 

of magnitude compared to what's actually measured 

on the breathing zone results, again, it's another 

layer of very conservative assumptions to convince 

ourselves that this 100-millirem-per-year approach is 

going to be bounding to unmonitored workers.

And then the final sort of mitigating factor here was 

whether or not it was likely that a single worker, 

again, not wearing respiratory protection, maybe not 

even exposed to plutonium, would be exposed to 200 

such events that would be necessary to exceed sort 

of this bounding number of 100 millirem again based 

on the breathing zones.

So the work group discussed this again at the April 

meeting and agreed that while there are fluctuations, 

as you would expect, there's going to be some above, 

some below because it's an aggregate of the data 

over the entire period, that it would not actually 

affect the feasibility and elected to close Observation 

6, which essentially said, yes, you're going to see 

fluctuations based on year and area, but when you 

take sort of those three mitigating factors into 

account, is that really concerning?

And we were all in agreement, again, on April 11th 

that it would not necessarily affect the feasibility 

conclusion.

Moving on from breathing zone very briefly, I had 

mentioned this at the outset, there was one 

observation related to external dose and the Sandia 

Pulse Reactor.

And again, it's a geometric issue where you had 

workers essentially underneath the source.

And so of course any sort of exposure, external 

exposure, you know, to the hands or the head or any 

organ or tissue that's higher than where the badge 

was, is going to need to be corrected to actually 

capture that exposure.

NIOSH's response was that there is actually 

extremity monitoring for these activities that are 
46

going on underneath the pulse reactor. They have 

wrist and even head dosimeters. 

So they have the data to create appropriate 

geometric correction factors to get from 

premeasured external exposure to what the exposure 

would have been to some of those organs and tissues 

that were closer to the source.

NIOSH indicated earlier this month that the work is 

already underway in developing those correction 

factors. So the work group, during that discussion, 

accepted that as a viable path forward.

And so this observation was really put in progress, 

but also in progress as a Site Profile issue because 

it's believed that we have the data to develop an 

appropriate correction.

We just -- the work needs to be finished up on that. 

So it sort of remains in progress until it's seen by the 

work group

All right. So to summarize all this, Finding 1 and 

Observations 2 and 3 were again related to the data 

completeness issue.

Again, we weren't able to necessarily quantify how -

- what level of incompleteness, but I hope as we went 

through some of the facets of the breathing zone 

data, it's determined that there is a reasonable 

weight of evidence argument that while we don't 

know necessarily what's missing, what we have likely 

represents the higher exposed workers who were 

monitored via breathing zones and the dose 

estimates that were done were sufficiently 

conservative, that the lack of full completeness 

analysis, or even knowing what level of completeness 

we have, was really not as much of an issue to 

actually obviate the feasibility of doing internal dose 

reconstruction.

Observation 1 was really about documenting the total 

number of data points. And also the other part of that 

was the duplicate samples that we had identified, but 
47

NIOSH went back, pulled them out, we ran the data 

and it did not make any discernible difference on the 

conclusions.

4 and 5, again we're looking at the characteristics, 

were there areas, jobs, you know, which areas had 

respiratory protection and -- well, when you see 

some fluctuations, but did not feel that that affected 

the feasibility of this proposed approach of 100 

millirem.

Observation 6 is when we actually looked at these 

breathing zone measurements and applying those 

very conservative assumptions, you know, does this 

100 millirem make sense as a bounding approach. 

And again, that one was closed and is not affecting 

feasibility.

Finally, you have Observation 7, which we just 

discussed, which is really a Site Profile issue to 

develop correction factors for external dosimetry 

when you have sort of abnormal source 

configurations such as underneath the SPR.

And so the work group agreed earlier in April with a 

NIOSH determination the DR is feasible for this SEC00188 Addendum 2 period, which again is from 

January 1st, 1997, through the -- mostly the end of 

May 2011 and all workers were considered.

So that's the summary. We have a reference slide 

here so you can get to some of the underlying 

documentation which certainly delves into more of 

the specifics of each of these things, but we wanted 

to keep it a little bit more higher level since this is 

considered -- or at least at the end of the meeting 

was considered an update for you all to start 

considering these things.

I certainly don't want to speak for Dr. Anderson or 

anything, but I think the sentiment was that, you 

know, this simply wouldn't be enough time 

necessarily for you all to delve into extensive 

documentation and the back-and-forth to really 

necessarily render a decision at this meeting, but that 
48

you all should be updated on the activities that are 

going on in that current status.

So with that, I can certainly open it up for any 

questions or, Joe or Ron, if you have any additional 

comments before we take questions?

Chair Anderson: I want to thank the three of you. 

Even as somebody who's gone through all this now 

several times, it is a wealth of analysis and 

presentation here.

And I think the key underlying thing here is that using 

the 10 CFR 835 100 millirem as a bounding dose 

rather than going to the, perhaps, more complicated 

version of trying to do coworker models and dose 

reconstruction that way.

So I think we have gone over it very extensively as a 

subcommittee and I'd like to open it up to the rest of 

the Board to look at.

We did, in fact, take a vote to recommend to the 

Board that we accept the NIOSH assessment that for 

this group, this time period, that dose reconstruction 

is feasible.

Member Clawson: Andy, I do have a question -- this 

is Brad -- for Bob or Chuck, whoever. 

One of the problems I have with this breathing zone, 

as you guys said earlier in this, they were trying to 

use this 100 millirem to get away from the bioassay 

program and so forth. So they get under this 100 

millirem era.

What were their requirements of who would wear the 

BZ? Did they have something? Was everybody to 

wear it or were they 1 out of 10 people or what?

Because from my past experience, one of the issues 

I have with these BZs is because the people were in 

contaminated areas, they would give it to the 

foreman that was out of the area, but within the area, 

to wear because they didn't want to contaminate 
49

them.

And so I was wondering what kind of requirements 

did they have on who would wear it and how many 

people would wear a BZ.

Because we run into this at all these sites and I have 

a lot of heartache with breathing zone methodology.

Did they have something -- a standard -- so much --

so many people or anything like that?

Mr. Nelson: Brad, this is Chuck Nelson. We looked at 

the radiation work permits and generally what we 

saw when BZ samples were assigned, it didn't say 

were assigned for just certain people. They were 

assigned for the workers performing the radiological 

task.

And the use of the BZs are a more sensitive 

mechanism to see in these hard-to-see radionuclides. 

So that's why they were implemented rather than 

just sticking with bioassays all the time.

Member Clawson: Well, Chuck, I understand that and 

-- but also what came into this, too, was that 

processing these rating area zones, these BZs, got 

costly, too.

And so I know that on several RWPs that we worked 

to, one out of maybe five us would have a BZ and 

they classified it as all of us, because they said this 

is taking a representative sample for all of you guys.

Which anybody that's worked in the industry knows 

that everybody can go into the same place and 

people are going to come out -- I just -- there's -- to 

me, there's not a clear, defined process for these 

breathing area zone monitoring and I have not been 

able to see it yet.

Everybody says what they felt it should be, but what 

it actually turned out was not. So that's why I was 

wondering if they have the requirements for that.

Mr. Barton: This is Bob.
50

I can say that we didn't see any evidence of cohort 

sampling or anything of that nature.

As Chuck sort of described, we get -- we look at an 

RWP. It would usually have a description of the work, 

what the contaminants of interest were and then the 

people involved.

Now, what I can't say for certain is that there weren't 

other people who did work around that area 

essentially under that RWP who weren't listed, but we 

certainly didn't see any evidence of that.

Member Clawson: Okay.

Mr. Barton: In other words, there weren't people on 

the same RWP who didn't have a breathing zone 

result.

Member Clawson: So when you took those -- say 

there was five people on it. There were five different 

BZ samples or were they all the same?

Mr. Barton: Five distinct measurements.

Member Clawson: Okay. That's what I wanted to see 

because with us they would take and they would put 

one on us, and then they'd give us -- all that was on 

there, they'd give us the same dose of that one 

sample because that was more cost-efficient.

And so I was just -- I just wanted to see this and I 

know this is in the earlier years and stuff that they 

started with BZs also. I just wanted to get a 

clarification if it had something. Thank you both.

Chair Anderson: Any other questions?

To me, this may be a question here, but is -- I mean, 

part of the issue is the 100 millirem as a bounding 

dose, and the other is the per-event assessment of 

assigning 0.5 millirem.

And repeatedly through this that's 0.5 millirems as a 

medium dose, so one has to wonder what is the 

variability there.
51

And Chuck maybe can go through how the 0.5 is 

chosen as a value to then say, well, you would have 

to have 200 of these events per year to get close to 

the 100 millirem.

Mr. Nelson: Dr. Anderson, so we took the most 

conservative number using the alpha results and we 

used the median dose of 0.5 millirem.

And as we discussed at my presentation and Bob 

Barton also mentioned in his, we worked in a lot of 

conservative assumptions, you know.

We didn't assume any respiratory protection even 

though it was most likely always used. We used a 

very conservative radionuclide of concern, 

plutonium-239, in most cases.

So all those conservatisms, you know, coupled with 

the number of events that were even likely, which 

are well less than 200 -- I think what Bob mentioned 

was maybe one person had a hundred -- but the 

majority, the amount of times they were monitored 

was close to 20.

So we feel like this number is very conservative, I 

mean, especially given the total assigned dose of 

record of 77 millirem over 14 years. And that's from 

bioassays, whole-body counts, breathing zone 

sampling, you know.

Whenever there was an upset condition, we found 

indications of elevated contamination levels, elevated 

BZs.

Obviously, they would recount those and oftentimes 

those numbers would go down, but they would 

implement bioassay for the people and they would 

check to see is there really an issue going on.

So there was backstops in the program and 

ultimately, you know, when they first started out 

using BZs, they were using them quite a bit.

Everything was going to an internal dosimetry. So 
52

then as time went on, you know, they just weren't 

seeing much intakes. We had a lot of zeroes. 

So they just weren't seeing a whole lot of those. So 

we feel that the 100 millirem is very conservative.

Chair Anderson: No, I agree with that, but my 

question really was on other times when you're doing 

your modeling, you use a 95 upper limit rather than 

the median number or a 99 percent of the -- in the 

distribution. So that was my only issue.

Here, you chose a median number and I agree there's 

all sorts of conservatism, and we discussed that at 

length of are we really generating a dose or just 

coming up with a method to try to document that the 

100 is certainly adequately conservative.

Member Clawson: Andy, this is Brad.

So if I'm understanding this right, when we said that 

it was feasible to redo this, we were actually -- these 

people that were involved in this were -- they are 

going to get 100 millirem per year or what are we --

Chuck, what are we saying that we're going to give 

these people?

Mr. Nelson: For an individual that has access to the 

controlled area or radiological area -- I hear 

somebody is not muted. Sorry.

Those people will be assigned -- there will be a -- we 

will update the Site Profile to analyze this and 

document a methodology, but the bottom line is if 

you don't have adequate internal dosimetry records 

or you don't have internal dosimetry records, we're 

going to make the assumption that you got 100 

millirem and that will be analyzed for each organ of 

interest and that would be assigned.

So it's super conservative especially considering 77 

millirem was assigned to all people for a 15-year 

period.

Member Clawson: Okay. That's what I thought I 
53

understood and I do think that's very conservative. 

I agree with Andy on that, but I just wanted to make 

sure that I was reading this right when I did, because 

there was a little bounce back and forth there. So 

thank you.

Mr. Nelson: Yeah, it's not necessarily a cut-and-dried 

approach. An internal dosimetrist really has to dive 

into this and get it documented in the Site Profile.

That will all be ran through SC&A and the work group.

Member Clawson: Okay. Thank you very much.

Chair Anderson: I think what -- and I'll ask if there's 

other questions, but what the work group did is --

there's still a lot of work to be done, but we concluded 

that once that's all completed, it will be feasible to do 

the dose reconstruction.

So from the SEC standpoint, we voted to accept 

NIOSH's determination that dose reconstruction is 

feasible for the group.

So that would be our -- are there other questions?

Member Beach: No. I was going to say, Andy -- this 

is Josie -- that was a unanimous vote also; wasn't it?

Chair Anderson: Yes.

Member Roessler: Yes, it was.

Member Beach: Yeah.

Chair Anderson: I mean, that's partially what Bob 

was saying is that we just threw a whole lot of all of 

you, many of who haven't had a -- too much time to 

delve into it and go with it.

So an option if there are people who want to take 

some more time and have us bring it back, we could 

table our motion, but right now we really have, as a 

group, worked it over and SC&A, as you can see, did 

a very exhaustive review as well.
54

It is a new approach using this 100 millirem, but it 

does seem, in this case, to be eminently appropriate.

So we would recommend, and I do have a letter if we 

go that route or somebody makes a motion to accept 

our recommendation.

Member Field: Andy, this is Bill. My camera is not 

working today. I apologize for that.

Is there a petitioner that -- would it be appropriate 

to see if there's any petitioners who want to make 

any statements?

Chair Anderson: Yes. Yes.

Rashaun, I know we put a --

Dr. Roberts: I think you just asked if there are any 

petitioners on the line that would like to make a 

presentation.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Any of the petitioners for the 

Sandia site wish to make a comment or presentation?

Member Lockey: Hey, Henry?

Chair Anderson: Yes.

Member Lockey: Dr. Lockey. Jim Lockey. Can I ask 

you a question, Henry? You were on this committee.

When Bob -- Bob made a very clear -- the 

presentations were very clear to me. I think the data 

was, too, but Bob had mentioned that the group is 

going to recommend -- or they're going to pursue a 

uniform objective methodology to look at data 

completeness.

Did I hear that correctly and who's going to pursue 

that?

Chair Anderson: The Sandia group felt that really 

wasn't something for us to do, but that an option --

and that, again, would be another issue for the Board 
55

if we wanted to move forward, would be where is the 

group, which group, and it was felt that the SC&A or 

the methodology group would be the appropriate one 

to send it to.

On the other hand, we basically said that really is not 

just for Sandia to do because it is potentially an area 

that's used in a lot of its sites.

And so separately the Board can make a decision, do 

we want to move it to a specific group to start to 

delve into that?

Member Roessler: So Henry, to make it clear, there 

are really two decisions. One, is -- and I'll agree that 

the work group did vote unanimously.

They agreed that dose reconstruction is feasible. 

After all this detailed work by SC&A and our work 

group evaluation, it is feasible for this SEC; however, 

because we often, in work groups, get this question 

of data completeness that -- and we wanted to make 

sure that we develop a uniform approach to this 

concept, that another work group -- and it seemed it 

would be appropriate for the SEC Issues Work Group 

to take a look at that to make sure that we are 

developing an evaluation approach that's uniform for 

this type of question. So there are two separate --

Chair Anderson: Yes.

Member Roessler: -- questions.

Chair Anderson: That is correct.

And the other is to take a look at it to see it may be 

that each site has enough unusualness to it that there 

isn't really a standard approach that can be used, but 

we did feel it was worth having a smaller group put 

together, discuss and have SC&A take a look at it and 

see whether there's commonalities that we could 

then put together and say here's an approach that 

when you're looking at data completeness, go 

through these.
56

It's just like when -- whether we can do that or not 

I'm not convinced, but it's sort of like when we went 

through and developed a checklist for utilization of 

coworker models.

Member Beach: Yeah. And, Andy, this is Josie again. 

I believe NIOSH was going to take the first stab at 

putting that together for the SEC's work group.

Chair Anderson: Yes, that was --

Member Beach: That's what we decided, yeah.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Kotelchuck: Henry, Dave Kotelchuck. 

I -- did I miss something? Because I did not see Bob 

Barton's presentation in preparing for the meeting.

I certainly saw Charles' and I read it, of course, as I 

read them all, but I would love to reasonably 

persuade about what Bob said, but I would love to 

look it over more carefully myself.

First, was it sent out?

Member Roessler: Yes. It was on the website.

Member Kotelchuck: It was on the website, oh.

Member Roessler: It was under the meeting 

announcement. It was included as one of the 

presentations. That's how I found it.

Member Beach: It was sent on the first installment, I 

believe.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, I looked in the first 

installment. I even checked it recently. It has 

Charles' presentation, but it doesn't have this.

Member Roessler: Yeah, it does.

Member Lockey: That's where I saw it.
57

Member Kotelchuck: On the website?

Chair Anderson: You didn't scroll down far enough.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. All right. Okay. I --

Mr. Nelson: Dr. Kotelchuck, this is Chuck Nelson. 

Yeah, it was located there in presentations. And also 

underneath it there's, like, supporting 

documentation. So that would have also included 

presentations from our work group meeting.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. All right.

Mr. Nelson: And if you look there -- actually, SC&A 

did a lot longer presentation. So it gives you a lot 

more detail on that as well.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. Well, okay. Then I will 

accept that I overlooked something although I'm 

honestly surprised, but alright.

Chair Anderson: Again, the time line was pretty short 

between when our group met and this meeting.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Chair Anderson: There was a lot to go through, which 

is why, at this point, the recommendation from us is 

that we would -- that a class not be added to the SEC.

We certainly could have further discussion about 

that, but if you wanted to propose tabling it for the 

time being, NIOSH will continue apace doing their 

dose reconstructions now.

So I just want everybody to be comfortable with this 

somewhat unique approach to using the 100 

millirem.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Right. Of course.

Chair Anderson: And that's something that will 

potentially be looked at for later years in projects at 

other sites potentially.
58

So that is a change from the traditional method that 

we've used. So we need to think about that carefully.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. I must say I went back 

on my CDC computer and looked at the first 

distribution material. It is not there.

It's not there on mine and I'll ask for it; however, so 

I obviously would like to look at it further, which 

would suggest tabling, but it is I who am the only one 

holding everything back and I'm reasonably 

convinced by the presentation I could vote, but I 

don't want to just delay it if other people feel ready 

to vote. I leave that up to others.

Chair Anderson: So are there other questions, 

comments people have?

Member Beach: I was going to say, Andy, that I don't 

think, listening to Dave, there's any rush.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Member Beach: And if even one member of the Board 

is not ready, then I think we should postpone the 

vote and table it.

Member Kotelchuck: I would really appreciate that.

Member Roessler: The other thing that might help is 

-- I don't know when the transcript would be 

available, but I think if board members wanted to 

look at that and understand the detail that we went 

into as a work group to look at that and what our 

comments were at the time, that might be helpful.

Chair Anderson: That's kind of where I was saying we 

wanted to be very sure that people are comfortable 

with this.

And since the recommendation is to not add it to an 

SEC, it won't, you know, the activities will continue 

apace so that we certainly could -- if we want to make 

a motion to table, the committee --

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah, I would like to just table 
59

it until the next meeting.

Member Clawson: I'll second that.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Any discussion?

Member Ziemer: You can't discuss a table to motion. 

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Member Ziemer: Per Robert's Rules, you have to vote 

immediately.

Chair Anderson: Okay. So now, that makes it easy. 

Thanks, Paul.

So we have a motion and a second to table the 

decision in the recommendation by the work group to 

agree with NIOSH and not recommend adding this to 

the SEC.

So I think we need to take a --

Member Kotelchuck: A recorded vote?

Chair Anderson: Individual votes.

Rashaun?

Member Ziemer: Just for clarity, we're voting to 

table. We're not voting whether or not to add it to the 

SEC.

Chair Anderson: That's correct.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Chair Anderson: The motion that we were discussing 

was to add it to the SEC or not, and our motion was 

not to add it. That's what the subcommittee 

recommended.

Member Ziemer: That motion remains unresolved 

and --

Chair Anderson: Right. And that's what's being 

tabled.
60

Member Kotelchuck: Correct.

Chair Anderson: So Rashaun, I think we have to do -

-

Dr. Roberts: Let me ask Dr. Ziemer -- so, do we need 

to do a one-by-one, Dr. Ziemer?

Member Ziemer: There's not a rule on this. It's the 

call of the chairman on this kind of thing, but it does 

require a majority vote.

Dr. Roberts: Can that just be "all in favor" or do I 

need to --

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Ziemer: Yeah, you can do that. 

Chair Anderson: Okay. Well, let's do all in favor say 

aye and --

(Chorus of ayes.)

Chair Anderson: Do we have any nays?

If there are no nays, then the motion has been 

tabled.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Good. Thank you, folks.

Chair Anderson: Good. So I think -- I want to be sure 

everybody's got all the materials that were sent.

And if you have questions, bring them up and we'll 

bring this up again for discussion at the next meeting.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Good.

Chair Anderson: Okay. So with that, if there's no 

more questions on that, we'll move on, Dave, to your 

subcommittee on dose reconstruction reviews.

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction Reviews

Update & Discussion

Member Kotelchuck: Sure. Okay. Good. Maybe I'll 
61

make a few background remarks before we begin our 

slides.

As board members, you know from our last two 

reports to the Secretary of DHHS in 2016 and '19, 

that the subcommittee is always trying to make sure 

that the one percent of samples we select for reviews 

from the 50-plus thousand NIOSH dose 

reconstructions are representative of the body of the 

claims.

Based on these reports, I think we've done a pretty 

good job so far, but we're always trying to improve.

So recently the subcommittee asked the consultants, 

SC&A, to review the first step in our process, the 

selection of claims to be reviewed by the 

subcommittee.

SC&A completed this report and last Wednesday the 

subcommittee met to review the report.

The lead author of the report was Rose Gogliotti, who 

is with us today. After discussion, the subcommittee 

members present unanimously adopted, with our 

thanks, all of the recommendations of the SC&A 

report and I'd like to present a summary of the report 

and the recommendations to you today for review 

and comment.

So let's begin. You have the first slide up. Let's go to 

the next slide. Okay. The criteria we currently 

consider when selecting cases, are we look at cases 

with 45 to 52 percent probability of causation, the 

best estimate dose reconstructions.

And somewhat, in order, we look for representation 

of DOE and AWE facilities, we look at employment 

dates, career duration, occupation, gender now more 

recently, and also cancer diagnoses to a limited 

extent.

Okay. Next slide. Let's take a look at the comparison 

of the probability of causation distribution selected by 

the subcommittee with the population of claims 
62

reviewed by NIOSH.

And the crosshatched area are the subcommittee 

reviewed cases, and the dark line is the NIOSH 

evaluated cases.

And as you see, since we're selecting typically 45 to 

52 percent, the 45 to 49 percent, all of which are, 

you know, select toward that, they represent -- their 

27 percent of the cases the subcommittee reviewed, 

they represent only one percent of all of the claims 

reviewed by NIOSH.

And there is a little bit of the selected -- the preferred 

selections in the greater than 50 percent although I 

should note that when you go way above 50 percent, 

oftentimes underestimates are made and the reviews 

are truncated, if you will.

So -- and also, by the way, you'll note for less than 

20 percent that about half of what NIOSH reviews are 

-- have a PoC less than 20 percent.

And of course they represent only eight percent of 

what we looked at by the subcommittee, but of 

course for us in the reviews for the subcommittee if 

there's an error, it would take an egregious error for 

something that was initially considered less than 20 

percent to be -- to have its, if you will, compensation 

changed.

So basically we're looking at a little bit more than one 

percent of all the NIOSH claims, yet we want to cover 

the claims of females, we want to cover adequately 

the large and small facilities.

So the SC&A made the following recommendation 

which is on the next slide. The subcommittee should 

continue selecting cases with PoC near 50 percent; 

however, due to the small number of claims in the 

window, SC&A recommends the subcommittee 

expand the targeted PoC range from 45 to 52 percent 

to 40 percent to 55 percent.

If we could go back to the previous slide just a 
63

moment, we'll take a look. We have one percent of 

roughly one percent of all NIOSH claims that we are 

going to review. 

If we add 40 percent to 44.9, then we have another 

five percent. So we have six percent of all the claims 

that we're going to look at, plus the small number in 

the PoCs that are compensated.

So that's what -- let's go back now to the next slide. 

So we've decided to try and expand the 

subcommittee's reach by looking from 40 to 55 

percent, which gives us a better selection.

Now, let's go on to the next slide, the next chart, 

comparison of decade of first employment evaluated 

by the subcommittee with the population of claims 

reviewed by NIOSH.

As you see and as you might not be surprised, when 

we are looking at -- when we started looking at the -

- when the subcommittee was looking at the cases 

that we wish to review, we tended to look at people 

first who had been, for many years, for decades in 

the industry.

And so we are -- we are -- we looked, for example, 

at more people -- the larger percentage from the 

1950s than we did -- than NIOSH did, and that was 

the same for the 1940s.

In other words, we looked at the old-timers' long 

record, lots of data and the potential for a large 

exposure.

But in the course of doing that, we now started -- if 

you start to look at the 1970s, the percent we are 

looking at is smaller than the percentage that NIOSH 

looked at. And that's true in the '80s, in the '90s.

So as you might guess for the next slide, the SC&A 

recommended that the subcommittee increase 

sampling of claims with an initial decade of 

employment beginning in the '70s. 
64

And these are represented in the cases reviewed by 

the subcommittee to date so -- and we accepted that.

And the next slide, the next chart, we looked at the 

comparison of employment duration percentages in 

cases reviewed by the subcommittee and the 

population of claims from NIOSH.

And as you see, it's somewhat linked to what we just 

-- the previous slide we saw for folks who are, you 

know, 20, 30, 40 years, we are selecting a larger 

percentage than NIOSH has by now.

And that if we start looking at people who have five 

to ten years, or even 10 to 20 years, they -- and 

NIOSH looked at a large -- NIOSH has a larger 

percentage of cases than we have reviewed on the 

subcommittee.

So again we have a recommendation -- or SC&A has 

a recommendation, which we accept, that the 

subcommittee make a concerted effort to select some 

cases to evaluate shorter employment periods to 

ensure shorter employment periods are adequately 

represented.

Next slide, next chart. This is interesting and 

important, I believe, the historical breakdown of 

female claims by file year.

Now, these are the NIOSH -- these are the claims 

from female -- these are from female claimants since 

we had -- since the Advisory Board was set up.

Initially, roughly 10 percent, 11 percent of the claims 

were female, but over time, as you might expect in 

this, the percentage has increased so that most 

recently we're at -- roughly a little over a quarter of 

the claims are from female claimants if we look at the 

average.

So on average, if we go over the entire range of years 

in the -- of our board, the average is 14.3 percent.

So the recommendation on that -- well, no. The next 
65

slide is -- the next slide will say what have we 

reviewed?

Well, I'm -- I regret to say that we have only -- the 

subcommittee has only looked at 10 percent -- only 

10 percent of the cases that it reviewed were from 

female claimants.

And that is -- if you go back to the previous slide, 

that 10 percent is less than the average over the 

lifetime of our board and clearly we need to make up 

for that.

I recall, and maybe some of you also remember, 

board members, that in the early years we weren't 

making a concerted effort to make sure that we 

covered female claimants.

We only started a little over a decade ago focusing 

on that as a criterion -- as an important element of 

the cases that we selected.

So if we go down to the recommendation, we clearly 

have work to do. SC&A suggests that we select a 

minimum of eight female claims per set of 30 cases 

to increase female representation going forward.

Now, I note, please, we said a minimum of eight 

female claims. We normally have sets of 30 cases 

that we look at and eight out of 30, right, is a little 

over 25 percent.

Well, we are currently getting claims from females of 

greater than 25 percent. So we -- this is really a 

minimum of eight and actually would be often -- we 

will select 9 or 10 to try to get ahead.

Whether the percentage of females who are 

claimants is growing, I mean, it may not stop at 26 

percent. It might stop at 50 percent and -- or it might 

go up to 50 percent or more.

So we have got to look at a minimum of eight and I 

think the subcommittee certainly was thinking that 

we're really going to try to go for 9 or 10 or more to 
66

try, if you will, to catch up to where we are today; 

but this is an important change and, we believe, a 

good one.

Next chart. Yeah, here's a problem and I really 

appreciate Rose pointing this out and I hadn't quite 

thought of it that way.

These are the NIOSH cases completed to date for sets

27 and 29. Those are each sets of 30 cases that we're 

reviewing.

The 27th set was completed in 2018, and the 29th 

set was completed in 2019. So take a look on the 

chart, 2018 and 2019.

In 2018, we were still reviewing charts from 2010, 

right, a decade previous. And of course our protocols 

change, our procedures changed, they're modified 

and improved, but, nevertheless, we're looking at old 

ways that -- we're trying to look at older ways that 

people evaluated dose reconstructions and are not 

current.

And so the recommendation was -- it is the next slide 

in the case -- that the subcommittee focused -- SC&A 

recommends the subcommittee focus on evaluating 

cases completed by NIOSH within several years of 

the review date to ensure that the Advisory Board is 

encountering and reviewing cases that use the most 

recent revisions and guidance documents. That 

makes good sense, we agree, and we adopted this.

Next slide. Now, this is an interesting -- I think an 

interesting one about the representation of smaller 

and larger sites.

What we first looked at and -- SC&A first looked at 

the large sites underrepresented among the 

subcommittee case reviews.

The criterion for a large site is that the sites -- a large 

site would have at least 100 claims. And 

underrepresentation, in this case, means that at least 

one or more subcommittee review cases were 
67

needed to reach one percent of all dose 

reconstructions from that facility review.

Now, please remember that the commitment of the 

Board has been that 1 percent of all dose 

reconstructions will be reviewed by the committee.

There are some that may require us -- which are 

complicated facilities, may require us to do more than 

one percent. But obviously if we want to get one 

percent overall, we would like to have as much as 

possible, all of the individual plants at one percent or 

very near.

We identified six facilities where we need at least one 

additional case review to get to one percent and 

mentioning Tonopah Test Range, of course, earlier in 

this meeting.

The numbers of cases that we need to review from 

among these six are -- vary from two to six or seven, 

I believe. I'm not actually sure if it's six or seven. I 

didn't check.

The Kansas City and Portsmouth plants have six, I 

believe. And the ones -- the Wah Chang, Iowa and 

Tonopah need two more cases to be reviewed. So 

we're doing pretty well, but those are ones that we 

need to talk more about.

And the next slide. We've identified six locations with 

100 or more claims that are underrepresented by at 

least one subcommittee-reviewed case. SC&A 

recommends additional cases from these sites be 

targeted when possible.

And by expanding the scope of the sites by looking at 

PoCs within 40 to 55 percent, I will hope that that will 

help us select this.

The last slide. I do want to mention to the Board, 

what about the smaller sites? I mean, obviously we're 

looking at the larger sites. We're a little short on six 

of them.
68

So the subcommittee is always trying to make sure 

the facilities with less than 100 claims are not 

overlooked, they're in the selection of cases for 

review and it has, as you note from the earlier 

reports, we have been successful, the reports to the 

Secretary.

But for this review, the subcommittee has so far 

reviewed 72 from among the approximately 3,150 

claims filed by covered facilities with less than 100 

claims processed by NIOSH. So that gives us a 2.3 

percent rate of review for these often smaller 

facilities. 

So I'm making this point for the Board to just say 

that we're, I think, doing a reasonable job on the 

large facilities, but very importantly we are not 

ignoring the smaller facilities. And that's been true 

for some years in the subcommittee.

So with that, I think there were -- are there questions 

-- oh, pardon me. No, no. The summary -- okay -- of 

what we've done:

Expand the PoC targeted range from 45 to 52 to 40 

to 55 percent. That's probably the most important.

Increase sampling of claims beginning in the 1970s 

and laters.

We will try to increase sampling of cases with shorter 

employment less than 20 years.

And also very important to select at least eight 

female claims per 30 case set.

Next to the last, select cases completed within 

several years of NIOSH review and, when possible, 

target underrepresented sites.

With that, I think we're open for question -- actually, 

maybe -- I don't know, Rose, if you would like, since 

you were the lead author on this report -- this fine 

report, if you would like to say something and then 

we go open for questions.
69

I don't know if you would, but perhaps you would.

Ms. Gogliotti: That was a good summary, Dave. I 

want to point out that I don't think we're 

recommending not reviewing cases that fall outside 

of these boundaries.

I think it's important that we continue to review cases 

that don't meet these criteria also.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: These were things that the 

subcommittee recommended to focus on.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Okay. Good. Good. 

Are there questions?

(Pause.)

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Actually, Henry, I think 

you actually take the questions and --

Chair Anderson: Yeah, that's okay. Any questions 

people have is --

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Anderson: This is a very good report and I'm 

glad to see that you're continuing to track these kind 

of things. 

It's easy just to select the cases and not pay attention 

to their representation. So I think actually you've 

done quite well on representation and this is really 

somewhat of a minor tweak to the approach you've 

used.

Member Kotelchuck: We can always do better and we 

always try.

Member Clawson: And, Andy, that's, you know, I'd 

like to thank Rose for this, too, because SC&A and 

Rose are very good --

Ms. Gogliotti: Thank you.
70

Member Clawson: -- about looking at what we're 

doing. And if we're -- we brought up a little while ago 

in our board meeting and -- world work group 

meeting, and it is -- we're trying to get the best 

representation for everyone that we can, you know. 

We're always striving to become -- to refine it a little 

bit better and go from there. 

So I think that -- I think it's a good move that we're 

going forward and I think Dave's done a great job of 

chairing this.

Member Kotelchuck: Thank you.

Member Beach: Dave, this is Josie.

Are we actually asking the Board to approve this or 

are we just explaining what the subcommittee 

adopted?

Member Kotelchuck: We talked about this at the 

subcommittee meeting. I don't think it is -- my 

understanding is we're not really bringing it for 

approval. 

We're bringing it to inform and of course any 

comment from board members that can suggest 

improvements or things that we're not doing, that 

would be wonderful and we will consider it at the next 

board meeting, but I think it's more informational 

and also for comment if people wish to comment.

Member Beach: Thank you.

Member Kotelchuck: Or if they wish to criticize.

Chair Anderson: It's also helpful for the public to get 

a -- I mean, now we have a record of this where 

previously we would not.

I think it's important to see it and if anybody 

questions this, now we have a core document we can 

go back to and say, well, here's how we can answer 

your questions.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.
71

Chair Anderson: It's valuable to do and, I mean, the 

other would be when you report on the findings of 

the individual cases, that's important to know that, in 

fact, these have really been done quite well. You have 

not found any systematic problems in the --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Chair Anderson: -- dose reconstruction process.

Member Clawson: And the other thing, too, is each 

one of us sit on several work groups and it's always 

good for us to be able to look at and see that all of 

these cases are being evaluated.

And, like you said for the petitioners, Andy, that you 

can look at -- and this is what we are looking for, this 

is what we're trying to cover.

And as Dave said, we just wanted to bring this to the 

Board's attention, let them know that we are looking 

at this very systematically and that we're giving it the 

best coverage that we can.

Chair Anderson: Okay. We're running a little bit over 

into our break here. We have a -- the only thing 

remaining is our board work session.

So everyone want to take about a 15-minute break 

and, say, come back at 3:35 or do you want to just 

keep going?

Member Ziemer: Maybe a comfort break would be 

good.

Chair Anderson: I think we need a comfort break.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Very good.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 3:19 p.m. and resumed at 3:36 p.m.) 

Board Work Session

Chair Anderson: Okay. So we have the board work 
72

session now and want to start with a little update. 

I'm sure you all want to know what's happening with 

new board members and we have no work.

(Laughter.)

Chair Anderson: So we'll let you know as soon as we 

hear, but the one important thing, probably more 

important than new board members, is that Rashaun 

has done a marvelous job as reupping our charter 

which was set to expire last March.

So we now have been extended to September 30, 

2023. So we're good to go. There will actually be a 

place -- when the new members come on, we will 

have a charter for them to operate with us on.

So those are activities -- I have one kind of 

procedures issue to -- and I think it kind of came up 

at this meeting and it's -- I can blame it on COVID. 

The cybersecurity issue is -- we need to be sure that 

we have plenty of time for people to look at the 

materials prior to the board meeting as well as those 

presenting to have time to put together slideshows.

We tend to rely on SC&A to say, oh -- like they did 

with the Sandia as well as the reduction plant and 

others, they put together the presentation.

But when you have all of the various committees 

asking them to do something, it can be quite 

overloading. So we want to be cognizant of time.

And I think we'll try very hard to not schedule 

committee meetings that will have things to be 

brought to the board for discussion or approval.

At least we ought to be meeting two to four weeks 

before. So that isn't to say your committees can't 

meet closer in to a board meeting, but just be aware 

that you'll be left with giving verbal updates, like 

Dave did, of what's going on and not have to rely 

quite so much on SC&A support who are busy getting 

their presentations and reports ready for us as well.
73

So Rashaun and I will try very hard to not schedule 

committee meetings too far before the board unless 

it's really critical.

Our Sandia group got postponed because of 

unexpected illnesses related to the committee. So we 

should have been meeting in the early start of March 

and ended up with April 11th.

So that had to be -- we have to congregate those 

kind of things. So just keep that in mind when you're 

planning to put your committees together. Look at 

when we have the next meeting scheduled and try 

to, if you possibly can, get everybody together in 

sufficient time to get the repots in and, again, get --

transcripts often take at least two weeks to get put 

together.

So with that, we got a number of other things. We 

have -- I'm sure you've looked at the spreadsheets 

with comments and NIOSH's response to the public 

comments.

I don't know, Rashaun, if you want to go through 

those quickly.

Member Beach: Can I ask, Andy, are we going to do 

work group updates? I actually don't see that on 

there.

Chair Anderson: Yes. That was going to be next.

Member Beach: Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: So the board members did receive the 

log for public comments that were submitted in our 

December -- or the Board's December 8th and 9th 

2021 meeting.

And many of the comments, if you all have had a 

chance to take a look at them, were about the 

Pinellas SEC.

There was of course a recommendation to establish 

a Pinellas work group and there were a number of 

questions raised about the Pinellas SEC Evaluation 
74

Report.

However, I did want to note that the work group --

the Pinellas Work Group had already been 

reestablished back in December of 2020 and was just 

awaiting the ER and also SC&A's review of the ER. 

Once SC&A has completed that review, then the work 

group can meet.

During the public comment session in December also, 

there were a number of Pinellas workers who 

addressed the Board with their individual 

experiences.

And then finally, there were some comments about 

making various documents available to the public 

more quickly, or making them more accessible, and 

a FOIA request was mentioned in the comments.

And some of the documents requires, as NIOSH 

noted, requires use of the FOIA process. And also 

NIOSH noted that some of these documents are 

under DOE versus NIOSH.

So that's just kind of a summary of the public 

comments.

Chair Anderson: Anyone have any questions about 

the responses and the summary of the comments? 

It's pretty standard of what we've done in the past. 

So if you do, feel free to comment and especially in 

advance.

If you see something that we have there that you 

don't think was adequately addressed, we can of 

course ask for additional information from NIOSH on 

it.

Member Clawson: Andy and Rashaun, I just have a 

question on these public comments. 

I know that we see these, but is there any way that 

the petitioners and so forth see these? Are these 

documented on the website -- the NIOSH website?
75

I'm just wondering because it seemed like, to me, 

several of the questions that were raised by Pinellas 

and stuff were addressed somewhat in these and I 

was just wondering if --

Member Beach: Well, Brad, I think we used to read 

those during the meeting and then whatever action 

was stated at that time -- at this next meeting. I 

believe that's how it was done in the past.

Member Clawson: Okay. I just -- yeah, I was looking 

kind of -- Josie, I was looking kind of more that the 

petitioners where they've got access to if they would 

be able to read those and be able to see the actions 

that were come back.

I know that we read them in, but I just -- somewhere 

where they could look at them and evaluate them.

Dr. Roberts: As far as I know, what is disseminated 

to the Board, what you see, is not something that I 

think is cleared for public posting.

Member Clawson: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: And I'm not sure that I know of 

something where they're actually posting these 

comments.

Member Beach: Yeah. Rashaun, I don't think we ever 

posted them. I think that if there was an action that 

was being handled by NIOSH or somebody else, it 

was just, in an abbreviated manner, it was stated and 

who had the action on it so that the public, when they 

made their comments, they knew that somebody was 

actually looking at what was said and what they 

brought up.

I believe that's how it was done in the past.

Chair Anderson: We can do that in the future. I don't 

have it here to pull it up to read, so --

Dr. Roberts: Yeah. I think in this case there are a 

number of items that appear to be in the public 

comments that are really pending the review of 
76

SC&A.

And I think those responses are noted in the log, you 

know. So a lot of that revolved around it.

A lot of the other comments, again, spoke to 

individual experiences. So I'm not sure that there 

were particular questions, you know, from those, 

quote/unquote, testimonies that, you know, would be 

something, you know, that we would respond to.

Member Beach: Yeah. And I don't think all of them 

were responded to just if there was somebody that 

had an action associated with a comment.

Member Ziemer: Actually, some of the comments 

were handled by the appropriate work groups. 

Some were handled by the -- if they were SECrelated, I think our SEC Washington person often 

followed up with them.

Typically, the main ones we want to follow up are the 

ones who are -- the people who want to hear the 

responses are the people who ask the questions.

So the key thing was to make sure that whoever 

raised the question, there was a response in some 

form.

Typically, it was the work group if there was some 

technical question, or sometimes NIOSH answered 

the question directly such as the one that Pinellas 

raised that -- no, it wasn't Pinellas.

Someone raised questions about the original Gaseous 

Diffusion Plant and so on, and some of those 

questions are questions that would either have to be 

answered by NIOSH or by Department of Labor, 

actually.

So the main thing is to make sure that the 

appropriate people were addressing the questions.

Chair Anderson: Okay. So next let's do work group 

reports.
77

Member Beach: Andy, I have two of them to do.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Beach: Do you mind if I start?

Chair Anderson: Go ahead.

Member Beach: I wanted to start with Metals and 

Control. We last met on September 2nd of 2020.

We do have reports in from NIOSH and from SC&A; 

however, I was kind of holding off scheduling a work 

group meeting waiting for the cybersecurity to be 

over with, but I'm seeing that that's probably not 

going to happen for some time.

I did ask NIOSH to post several documents into the 

virtual web folder. So those are available.

I asked SC&A to put together the past meetings, past 

discussions, papers, kind of bring them all together 

so that we're sure, as a work group, we're not 

missing anything.

Once I hear from Bob that that is ready, then I think 

I'll get with Rashaun and hopefully we'll get a 

schedule -- schedule a work group call probably in 

early summer, maybe end of June, 1st of July. So 

that's Metals and Control.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Member Beach: And then I wanted to move on to 

LANL, if you're okay with that, Andy.

Chair Anderson: Yes, go ahead.

Member Beach: I want to start -- we had a work 

group meeting. You heard from Chuck on March 23rd 

and I want to start this with an apology to NIOSH, 

LaVon and the working group.

I missed a communication that was from LaVon --

excuse me. It was dated January 30th, 2020, where 

in the middle of that email LaVon noted that the 
78

number of RWPs and the number of people citing 

them, that NIOSH felt that they could go ahead and 

code the entire set allowing them to analyze the set 

negating the need for a sampling plan.

And I have to say I'm sorry that I set the tone for 

that meeting because of that missed communication, 

and I jumped to the conclusion that the work group 

was not informed when, indeed, we were.

So NIOSH did present the two documents, as Chuck 

pointed out, the 102 and the 101.

We did task SC&A with the review of both of those 

reports, and we also tasked them with looking at all 

the captured RWPs to develop a sampling plan for the 

work group.

So I do apologize for that and hopefully I won't miss 

those in the future.

Chair Anderson: Other work group updates?

Member Clawson: Well, I don't have an update, but I 

do have an apology to LaVon. And I -- after this came 

forth to us, I did apologize, but also, as you said 

earlier, it's very important to be able to get these 

documents to us at least a week before.

Because if we would have been able to get this, I 

think that this missed communication would have 

been taken care of because I first started looking at 

this on Friday afternoon and our work group meeting 

was on Monday.

So it comes back to what you said earlier, Andy, 

about being able to give sufficient time for everybody 

to evaluate and be able to bring into it what was put 

in there, but I do owe an apology to LaVon and also 

to NIOSH.

Chair Anderson: So how about updates on your work 

groups?

Member Clawson: We're sitting in the same place we 

have been.
79

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Clawson: We're still waiting for the Hanford 

for the co-exposure model, which we really don't 

have anything there. Everything else has been pretty 

well dormant. 

Fernald, Pantex, all of these, we haven't got too much 

going on at either of those -- any of those. So I'm 

kind of still sitting in the middle. 

I do -- when we get a chance, though, I would like to 

-- if the opportunity arises, when we would be able 

to -- I hear that the travel restrictions are possibly 

dropping and I'm wondering if we will be able to meet 

in person here in the future. That's about it for me.

Chair Anderson: A question for everybody since this 

is something I'm dealing with now, have you looked 

at your Smart Cards and are they all current and 

when will they become noncurrent?

Mine runs out in June. When you say "travel," let me 

tell you trying to arrange travel is --

Member Ziemer: Mine just ran out.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Beach: Mine's in June and I already sent the 

email to Rashaun. It was early, but she's on it.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Clawson: I'm glad you brought that up 

because I just noticed mine here a while back, too, 

and I -- Rashaun is taking care of that and mine's set 

up for in July.

Dr. Roberts: Let me just tell you guys there have 

been some administrative changes in various 

processes.

I used to be the person to go submit a form for the 

Smart Card renewals, but now someone else is doing 

that.
80

So you know, things are not quite as streamlined as 

they used to be. So please bear with -- as we are 

trying to accommodate these changes that have 

taken place, appreciate your patience.

Chair Anderson: But it does mean if you're using your 

computer, if it isn't good, you've got to get some 

special dispensation to be able to get into the CDC 

data system that we want to use.

Member Beach: Well, you can't.

Chair Anderson: No, I know -- well, you can get a 

temporary extension, but that's not an easy task 

either.

Member Beach: What about laptop updates? I know 

mine's fairly new, but I know there's several people 

that are having issues with them. Is that something 

that's being worked also?

Chair Anderson: There -- yeah -- well, I don't know 

if it's being worked on. I know at CDC they're looking 

at replacing a lot of those because there are new 

software and things that don't work on them.

That was the problem with mine. All of a sudden the 

computer would not recognize my network at home.

And of course CDC said, oh, you got a problem with 

your network, but it had been working just fine.

And then they looked, oh, you got a real old 

computer. That's why it hasn't been able to update 

anything either and the Zscaler doesn't work on it.

So if you have an old computer, you ought to check 

in with CITGO because they are replacing them and 

most of the people in Atlanta have gotten the new 

computers.

And, as I said, I just got mine and it really makes a 

difference. So --

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, it does.
81

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Kotelchuck: It really does. I got a new 

computer. Mine ran out and ran down, but the new 

one really works fine.

By the way, I still yesterday found out that the only 

thing that doesn't work on my new computer is my 

picture on Zoom. I get Zoom and I couldn't get a 

picture. 

I got a picture yesterday and today at our meetings 

because I'm going on my home computer since this 

is open to the public.

So -- but I'll get that fixed. I'm going to call it pretty 

soon, and I'm sure it's just a little glitch.

Chair Anderson: Well, I learned with my new one 

here -- of course you don't get any instruction or 

anything with it.

Member Kotelchuck: Absolutely.

Chair Anderson: It came with the -- it now has a 

camera cover, a little switch that covers the camera. 

So when I first started, I had no picture.

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Chair Anderson: I could see --

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Chair Anderson: -- and then at the top there's a little 

slide thing and it covers it up.

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, I'll find that. Thank you. 

You've solved my problem already. Thank you.

I had one other issue on the Ames Working Group. 

Tom has retired, Tom Tomes, and I don't know who's 

the staff person on that.

I'm supposed to get information to do -- update the 

Evaluation Report.
82

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Kotelchuck, this is LaVon 

Rutherford. 

I have temporarily, at least, taken over as the site 

lead for Ames --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: -- because I couldn't find anyone else 

to pass it off onto.

Member Kotelchuck: All right.

Mr. Rutherford: So I will give you a quick update if -

-

Member Kotelchuck: Would you?

Mr. Rutherford: -- you'd like.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, I'd love to hear it.

Mr. Rutherford: We are working on -- we are still 

getting some additional -- going through some 

additional data that we have received.

We've also been working through the 835 era at 

Ames and trying to -- the 10 CFR 835 era and figuring 

our path forward with that.

We're working on a TBD revision that will -- we are 

going to ensure that all the SECs are incorporated 

appropriately.

And I will make sure that as things progress, I will 

get updates to you and the rest of the work groups.

Member Kotelchuck: Thank you very much. Okay. 

Very good. 

I'm always embarrassed by the line at the end of the 

report that says, this committee has never met, and 

it is a strange thing. 

It's an accident of nature that the staff in reporting 

back to us said, hey, there's no chance in the world 

that we're going to be able to do a -- that we're going 
83

to be able to do a regular -- or that we -- put it this 

way: We can't do an SEC.

So the Board listened and agreed we couldn't do an 

SEC. And so we didn't meet and we're just waiting 

for updating the Evaluation Report, but it's an 

accident of nature that we actually have not met 

once, but things have been taken care of and are 

being taken care of now by LaVon, and I'm there to 

help and work with him.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Are there any other updates 

from --

Member Clawson: I just want to make a comment 

because Dave brought up something that -- a lot of 

us, as work group chairs, are uncertain of the 

changes within NIOSH.

And when these changes happen from NIOSH and 

other people take over these work groups and stuff, 

it would be nice if they would notify us of this so we 

kind of have a point of contact to go to to discuss 

some of these issues.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, Brad. I agree. We need to do 

probably a little better job with that.

We are -- we have been providing updates to 

Rashaun as different things change, but we do need 

to probably give a little more updates to the work 

groups on that.

Member Roessler: I second --

Mr. Rutherford: We'll work on that.

Member Roessler: I second that, Brad.

Member Clawson: Thank you.

Chair Anderson: Rashaun earlier right after she took 

over, did put together a Word document with each of 

the groups that we had, as well as those that had 
84

been closed, which is an impressive list.

And I think that's probably a good way that if NIOSH 

is going to change or SC&A is going to change, who's 

going to be working on something.

I think the lead to organize that is probably best with 

Rashaun and she can just update that list to us 

periodically.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. Good.

Dr. Roberts: I'm not sure if the Ames contact was 

updated. There were a bunch of them, LaVon, where 

you said it was pending because I know you were 

trying to find replacements for the retirees, but I'll 

make a note of that in the master list and I can 

certainly recirculate it.

And if there are any other ones, how about if I give 

it to you first. You can look it over and then I can 

send it out.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, that would be great. 

Yes, I did not update you on the Ames one because 

it just kind of came to me as default in the end, but 

--

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: -- yeah, I will -- yes, pass that back 

to me and I'll update it again. And as we move 

forward, I'll make sure I keep you updated as well.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you.

Chair Anderson: So Brad, how is Argonne-East?

Member Clawson: Well, you know, we're sitting right 

about there and I was going to get with Lori about 

that because I have nothing in the virtual area for 

Argonne-East.

And I was trying to find some documentation, but I'll 

get with her and see what we can put in there.
85

Chair Anderson: And then I'm just going through the 

list here. Then we got Blockson Chemical.

Member Roessler: Yes, Henry.

Chair Anderson: That's you.

Member Roessler: Yes. I was wanting to bring that 

up because I went to the website to look at the status 

on the various sites and I looked at some that I know 

I had been chair on. Blockson is listed, but it doesn't 

say it's closed and I don't know why.

And the other one that fits in the same category is 

Linde and that's not listed as closed.

And it seems to me those two should have been and 

we need to check on that.

Chair Anderson: And then there's Carborundum.

Member Roessler: Yes. Okay. Carborundum is not 

closed and this is probably -- NIOSH can probably 

explain this. I think there's been a change in the 

NIOSH people on that one.

My understanding is that we're waiting for NIOSH's 

review of a report that Dr. Anigstein was going to 

have prepared that was going to wrap things up on 

Carborundum. So I think we need an update on that 

one from NIOSH.

Mr. Rutherford: Actually, Dr. Roessler, if you look at 

the work group coordination spreadsheet that I sent 

out -- or actually Rashaun probably sent out, it --

what we're working on -- NIOSH is working with 

ORAU to draft a white paper.

If you go through that, it will say -- it talks about the 

MCNP analysis and --

Member Roessler: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: -- the paper will be expanded with 

results and issued to the work group for resolution.
86

So we are working on some additional analysis that 

once that paper is completed and updated, we will 

get that to the work group.

Member Roessler: And who with NIOSH now is the 

one assigned to Carborundum?

Mr. Rutherford: She -- Madeline Cook. She is one of 

our newer HPs and I may have not gotten that to 

Rashaun as well. I don't know. I can't remember.

Member Roessler: I didn't know that.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. I'm going to get the list and 

update it and make sure that all the board members 

have that as soon as possible.

How's that?

Member Roessler: Good. Good. And then as long as 

I've got the floor, I might as well finish. The one 

remaining question I have is on ORNL.

I think there's probably been a change there, too, at 

NIOSH. I think we're waiting for a NIOSH response 

to an SC&A evaluation from January of 2021 on 

exotic radionuclides, but I don't really know who to 

contact at NIOSH anymore on ORNL.

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Roessler, I believe that Dr. 

Hughes sent out an update and I actually have that 

update up.

She sent that to you and the members of the work 

group on, let's see, looks like April 14th. 

Did you not get that?

Member Roessler: Okay. That's another problem, I 

think, that we've been discussing and that's 

computers.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah.

Member Roessler: She sends things to my CDC 

address because my Smart Card doesn't work and we 
87

--

Mr. Rutherford: Oh.

Member Roessler: -- haven't been able to work 

around it yet. I've been closed out on CDC emails.

So anybody who needs to communicate with me will 

need to do it with my personal email address until we 

get this resolved.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. I can read you what that 

update was.

Member Roessler: Good.

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Roessler, members of the ORNL 

Work Group, this is a brief update on the status of 

the work NIOSH is doing to respond to issues related 

to ORNL. The last work group meeting was held in 

June of 2021. Three of seven findings remain open 

for NIOSH to address. Of six observations, four were 

closed and two remain for NIOSH to address. NIOSH 

is working on addressing the remaining issues by 

developing a co-exposure approach for exotic 

radionuclides and advising the dose reconstruction 

approach presented for iodine at ORNL. The iodine 

approach has been removed from RPRT-0090 and will 

be moved to the co-exposure effort. ORAU-RPRT0090 is currently in the final stages of being revised 

for clarification of various issues raised by SC&A.

So I think that's covered. So we are working on a 

revision to RPRT-0090 that is very close to being 

finished that will come back to the work group.

Member Roessler: And I assume you'll send me that. 

You've got my other email address?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, I do have that, Dr. Roessler --

Member Roessler: Okay. Good.

Mr. Rutherford: -- and I will get that to you.

Member Roessler: Thank you, LaVon.
88

Mr. Rutherford: Um-hm.

Member Clawson: Hey, this is Brad again. 

LaVon, when you do this update, could you put in the 

person's name and their CDC address and possibly 

even a work phone number that we could contact 

them and be able to talk to them?

Because with this security issue and this new virtual 

reality or virtual workspace that we have, it's very 

hard to be able to -- they say, well, if you know what 

you want, give us a call, but I would really like to be 

able to speak with the people and see what the 

updates have been and -- so I can -- so I even know 

what to ask for --

Mr. Rutherford: Sure.

Member Clawson: -- what is going on. So just so 

we've got, like, a point of contact and we can actually 

talk to them in person.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. We'll get that information to 

you.

Member Clawson: Okay. Sounds good. Thanks.

Dr. Roberts: Can I just say something really quickly? 

Just in terms of the use of personal emails, we really 

want to do that, you know, sort of move away from 

having to do -- conduct business with personal 

emails.

They may be temporarily, you know, if you do need 

to get some information in, but we really need to be 

doing more business on the CDC accounts. 

Member Roessler: Rashaun, I'll need to talk to you 

about my Smart Card and I'll do that. I'll give you a 

call on that.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Member Valerio: Rashaun, this is Loretta. 
89

Chair Anderson: Go ahead.

Member Valerio: So Rashaun, I have a question for 

you. 

When I went to Denver, I think it was in '19, for my 

Smart Card, I -- she -- the date on the card shows it 

expires in March of 2024, but -- I believe her name 

was Cheryl Lynn that helped me with the card when 

I was up there, had mentioned I would have to go 

back in two years.

So when I brought that up last fall, I believe it was, 

Zaida was great, you know, she responded right 

away and she said maybe it's just a certificate and 

not the card itself.

So the card works. I am getting emails and, you 

know, I am able to access my emails.

But when I go into virtual volumes when I'm going in 

to review the documents to prepare for a meeting, it 

won't accept my Smart Card. It says there's 

something wrong with the certificate.

So I'm not sure if it's the card itself or -- and I think 

I spoke -- I think I brought it up to Rose. 

I can still get into virtual volumes if I use my user ID 

and my password, so I'm still able to access that way, 

but I -- I'll follow up with you as well later on about, 

you know, when my Smart Card actually expires.

So it's just, you know, being able to access one 

application, but not the other with the Smart Card. 

So just giving you a heads up on that. 

Dr. Roberts: Yeah. I mean, I don't have an 

explanation for why those things are happening, but, 

yeah, do reach out and maybe we can engage some 

of the people who can have some sort of an answer 

to that.

Member Beach: Rashaun, I have one. Sorry, Andy.

Chair Anderson: Okay.
90

Member Beach: Is there somebody at ITSO or -- that 

understands the work that we do with our Smart 

Cards, our certificates, that -- we used to have a 

contact, someone that would actually come to the 

Board meetings and we could call him.

Is there not anybody familiar with --

Dr. Roberts: I don't know of anybody.

Member Beach: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Zaida, do you know anyone that does 

that? As far as I know, everybody's just like --

Member Clawson: Rashaun, to help you out a little 

bit, so we used to have somebody when we were fist 

getting computers, to come set up with us.

We've got a -- I don't want to say his name over the 

phone and stuff like that, but he's a remote user 

specialist and he's been dealing a lot especially with 

us because we never tie into the actual system, you 

know, hardwire into it.

He understands a lot of the problems that we get into 

and he's always been my point of contact.

I actually bypass -- if they start the card and -- I go 

directly to him to be able to get things to help 

because he's been the only one that's been able to 

address our issues because ITSO looks at us that we 

are just an employee that are able to get in all the 

time and plug in, and we're not.

And so he's been really good for us and I can give 

you his name and stuff, but I don't want --

Dr. Roberts: Sure. If you could send that name, that 

would be great. But as far as someone officially just 

assigned to this program, I don't think there is 

anyone like that. But, yeah, the name would be 

helpful.

Member Clawson: Okay.
91

Chair Anderson: I would say maybe wait until we get 

new board members, but at some point we ought to 

have a meeting in Cincinnati because they have a 

capacity there to make the cards and do the 

fingerprinting and get your photograph.

And those people who need card replacements or --

we could probably schedule that through there. Same 

as Atlanta. 

Otherwise for me to get a new card, they said, oh, 

you can go down to Chicago and then, oh, I can go 

to Chicago to have my photograph taken, 

fingerprints, but the card has to be printed in 

Cincinnati or in Atlanta and then mailed back to 

Chicago and I have to come down a second time.

So the best thing is to go directly to where they not 

only can gather all the information, but also print the 

cards, put it in your computer and link you so it 

synchs with the CDC site.

Member Clawson: Right. Well, Andy, that's one of the 

things -- and I go to Spokane and the individual up 

there that I work with, they actually send the card to 

them before I ever get there.

Chair Anderson: Yes.

Member Clawson: And when I come in, they -- we set 

up my computer, we authenticate everything and I 

actually get plugged into the system.

And it's a relatively short process and they've been 

very good with me in Spokane, and that's why I've 

been going there.

Chair Anderson: Well, it looked to me like the place I 

needed to go was Anchorage.

(Laughter.)

Member Kotelchuck: You should have stayed in New 

York, Andy.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.
92

Member Kotelchuck: All you need --

Chair Anderson: But I'm all good. I'm all good now. 

We're going to work it out.

Member Kotelchuck: -- is just $2.75 for a subway 

ticket down to the main office and they do 

everything.

Chair Anderson: But now to travel you have to get -

- there's a risk assessment that's done --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Chair Anderson: -- on whether you really need to do 

the travel.

Member Kotelchuck: By the way, that's true. Well, for 

my Smart Card I take the risk, I'll tell you. Can't live 

without it.

Chair Anderson: Okay. So we're kind of --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Chair Anderson: -- going through here with personal 

-- let's move on to the scheduling of our meetings.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Chair Anderson: So Rashaun, take it away.

Dr. Roberts: Well, let me check in. 

So did we end the work group and subcommittee 

reports? Was there anything else on that? Any other 

report-outs?

Chair Anderson: I don't think anybody else --

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Then, yes, by all means, let's go 

ahead and talk about scheduling.

So so far on the books we have a telephone 

conference already scheduled for June 15th. And all 

of these, except for the two-day deals, start at 11:00 

a.m. Eastern.
93

Then after that, we have --

Member Ziemer: Sorry, can you repeat that date? 

Rashaun, could you repeat that date, please.

Dr. Roberts: Sure. That -- I have it for June 15th. 

Then we have a full board meeting in person, and I'm 

hopeful that we will actually be able to do the inperson, for August 17th through 18th.

Last time we met, we entertained a couple of 

locations for the in-person meeting. I know that one 

proposal was for Savannah, you know. I don't know 

if other people have had time to think about different 

options for that. 

I know that hasn't Idaho been a meeting point in the 

past, but we do need to have some discussion about 

where so that Zaida can start getting the 

arrangements in place for that. So thoughts on 

location?

Member Beach: Do we know what will be presented 

at the August meeting? I know it's pretty early, but 

SC&A maybe have an idea -- or not SC&A, excuse 

me, NIOSH.

Mr. Rutherford: Well, this is LaVon Rutherford. 

I don't -- I don't -- I know there's no SEC new 

evaluations that are planned to be presented and Tim 

may know of additional technical documents or things 

that may be discussed. I don't know.

Dr. Taulbee: There will be a report coming out -- this 

is Tim -- a report coming out about our dose 

reconstruction methods for Argonne National 

Laboratory-West.

This is in followup to an Advisory Board question on 

INL -- or ANL-West, rather. And so that report will be 

coming out within the next month.

And so I don't think SC&A would have time to 

necessarily respond to that before that meeting; 
94

however, it could be something that you might be 

wanting to get site or local input on this to what their 

thoughts are as part of SC&A's review.

Member Beach: And I don't think we've been up there 

before, have we, Tim? Do you remember?

Dr. Taulbee: No, this is Argonne-West. So this is out 

at INL.

Member Beach: Oh, it is INL.

Dr. Taulbee: Yes, this is --

Member Beach: I was thinking East, okay.

Dr. Taulbee: Yeah.

Member Beach: Yes.

Dr. Taulbee: So from that standpoint, I think the INL 

site might be more suited, but --

Member Beach: Henry's probably got his hand up 

over there for INL.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Beach: And Jim Lockey, okay. So that's one 

idea. And I don't remember why we thought we were 

going to -- wanted to go to Savannah River the last 

meeting.

Member Kotelchuck: Because it's warm in December.

Member Beach: Yeah, and we haven't been there for 

a while.

Member Clawson: Well, and I'll tell you, too, the SEC 

that we just put in there needs final reports that are 

coming up.

Member Beach: Oh, correct.

Member Clawson: There's Pinellas, too, so --

Member Beach: Yeah. Pinellas would not be a bad 
95

idea.

Member Lockey: (Audio interference) -- holding it in 

Cincinnati and then you could have Smart Card 

certifications and maybe a computer training session 

at the same time to try to eliminate some of the 

travel issues.

Chair Anderson: Yeah, I -- that's what I was thinking 

if we get -- if we have new members coming on, 

they're going to have to have that as well.

So we could then have a whole session there for the 

Board and to go through what all the various 

procedures are for them as well, but I'm not sure 

when we'll hear about that, but otherwise Cincinnati 

would be fine.

Member Lockey: They could have the Board meeting 

and the computer training as an extra day.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Lockey: That would cut down the airline 

travel for most people to one trip rather than two.

Member Kotelchuck: That's a good idea.

Member Beach: Well, depending on how many people 

-- my Smart Card expires in July. So that wouldn't 

help me, but I don't know what other people are --

and I like the idea of Pinellas simply because there's 

a lot of --

Chair Anderson: Yes.

Member Beach: -- public comments on Pinellas. I 

don't think we've been there for a while either. It's 

been years, if ever.

Member Lockey: Josie, I was thinking that a 

computer training session for some of the board 

members would be very, very useful.

I know you're pretty attune to it and I am too now 

because I sit here in Cincinnati, but that's one of my 
96

concerns.

Member Kotelchuck: That would be good.

Member Clawson: I understand what you're saying 

there, Jim. But if you remember right, we've had --

wherever we've traveled to, we've actually had --

ITSO will send a person out to us to be able to help 

us with any of these issues, you know. That's an 

option, too.

Member Lockey: That's a good idea. That's a great 

substitute. In other words, if they can send 

somebody to wherever we're going and add a session 

to it, that would be great.

Member Beach: Yeah, the day before our meeting 

would be excellent.

Member Lockey: Yeah. I'm trying to eliminate an 

extra travel date.

Member Beach: I understand that.

Member Schofield: It's been a long time since ITSO 

actually sent someone out to one of our board 

meetings. 

I don't know what it would take to get that done 

again, but that is a good idea, Brad.

Mr. Calhoun: This is Grady and I don't want to be 

negative here, but I just have a hard time thinking 

that's going to happen.

I'll certainly ask, but I can't see somebody sending 

somebody out there. Just honestly, I just can't.

They're very responsive to us when we send them an 

email or make a phone call, but I don't see them 

sending anybody out there.

Member Lockey: How about to Cincinnati? Would 

they do that?

Mr. Calhoun: They're not from Cincinnati either, are 
97 

they, but there's probably some people that would 

help.

I mean, I'll ask, you know. What exactly are you 

looking for, you know, because it may not be ITSO 

that helps you navigate the virtual volume. It may be 

Lori. 

It may be somebody in ITSO that helps you get into 

the virtual volume because there's an issue. So I 

would need to describe the issues, I think.

Member Clawson: Grady, that's one of the big issues. 

We can learn the virtual workplace and everything 

else like that. Rose has been very good about that 

same as Lori, but the issue is especially with remote 

users like what we are, and this is why I am dealing 

with ITSO. 

They actually -- I request the individual, which is a 

total -- he's in Atlanta and he's completely remote 

because our processes are so unique that there's just 

certain problems.

The way they set up the computers are set up for 

people to be able to plug into the system, get the 

updates and everything else and we never plug in. 

That's what he's told me the issue is.

We used to get those people when we were first 

getting our computers, came to meetings with us and 

just took a day to be able to help work through some 

of our issues and stuff. So I guess all we can do is 

ask. 

Ms. Adams: This is Nancy. 

I may be totally wrong here, but I remember that 

who came out was from the IT section at DCAS to 

those meetings to help with all of the laptops. It was 

not ITSO.

Member Clawson: Well, you know what, Nancy? You 

might be totally right on that, too, now that I'm 

thinking about that.
98 

Member Valerio: Yes, it was.

Member Clawson: Okay. I apologize then. I used the 

wrong terminology there, but --

Mr. Rutherford: It was Leroy that used to always 

come out. Leroy Turner came out to most of the early 

meetings.

Member Clawson: Wow, Bomber. You remembered 

his name even. That's pretty doggone good at your 

age.

Mr. Rutherford: That's right.

Chair Anderson: Okay. We sort of got off track on the 

sites. 

Do we have anything else you need, Rashaun?

Dr. Roberts: Well, yeah. I mean, it would be nice to 

try to identify which one we need to start planning 

for.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: It sounds like there are a lot of different 

possibilities here.

Member Beach: So what do we have? Idaho, 

Savannah River and Pinellas. Those are the only 

three I heard -- oh, and Cincinnati.

Dr. Roberts: Cincinnati.

Member Beach: As much as I'd like to go to 

Cincinnati, I'd rather go somewhere where the 

petitioners are available.

Dr. Roberts: Right.

Chair Anderson: I think Pinellas would be a good --

Member Beach: I agree, and I wouldn't mind if we go 

to Pinellas trying to get a site tour. 

We've done that in the past. I don't know if that's 
99 

something that's doable nowadays.

Member Clawson: My understanding is Pinellas is 

pretty well tore down.

Member Beach: Is it?

Dr. Taulbee: That's correct, yes.

Member Beach: Okay. All right. Scratch that idea.

Member Clawson: But, you know, this is an 

opportunity for the people, the petitioners and stuff 

to be able to come in and be able to have an 

opportunity to let us know what they feel.

Member Beach: And we are talking about the August 

meeting, correct?

Dr. Roberts: August. And presumably there might be 

December as well that we would do in person, but, 

yes, for the time being we're talking about August. 

So Pinellas is --

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Member Schofield: I think Pinellas would be good. 

Andy could go fishing.

Chair Anderson: Yeah. 

Member Clawson: You know, depending on what 

troubles that Zaida has or whatever, I figure my 

personal opinion is Pinellas or Savannah River.

Dr. Roberts: Anyone else have a different 

recommendation? It sounds like most are saying 

Pinellas.

Member Lockey: Pinellas is good for me.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Chair Anderson: Where do you fly to for that?

Member Valerio: Tampa.
100 

Dr. Taulbee: Tampa.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Member Lockey: It's going to be hot.

Member Beach: Yeah. I'm almost thinking if we did 

Idaho in August and then Pinellas at the next one, 

but that's -- I know that might complicate things. I 

just don't want to end up in INL in the winter.

Member Lockey: No. Definitely not.

Member Clawson: You wimps. Snow machining, 

come on.

Dr. Roberts: Um-hm. And there might be more 

movement on Pinellas by December.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: I mean --

Member Ziemer: Pinellas in December would be a 

good location, but it looks much too much like a 

vacation to the administrators.

Member Lockey: I think Josie has a good idea. Let's 

do Idaho in August and Pinellas in the winter.

Member Schofield: I agree with that.

Member Lockey: I think it's a good --

Member Schofield: Only Brad would want Idaho in 

the winter.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. All right. Well, it sounds like 

there's some agreement there. So Idaho in August, 

Pinellas in December.

So other than that, we have a teleconference set up 

for October 20th. And then I just said the in-person 

December 7th through 8th is, I think, the days we 

came down on for that.

We do need to schedule next February and next April 
101 

just to have it planned out for a year.

Member Lockey: When was the December meeting?

Dr. Roberts: The 7th and the 8th.

Member Lockey: Wednesday and Thursday, okay.

Dr. Roberts: Yeah, I think there was some discussion 

about the days.

Member Lockey: There was.

Dr. Roberts: So February of 2023 is what we were 

looking to identify a tentative date for. I think this 

year we did it sort of mid-month. 

Would that -- the week of the 13th, for instance, 

would that be potentially doable?

Member Beach: Okay with me.

Chair Anderson: 14th is Valentine's Day.

Member Ziemer: That's okay.

Member Beach: So we usually do those on 

Wednesday, right?

Dr. Roberts: Wednesday or Thursday.

Would people want the 15th?

Member Beach: It's okay with me unless Andy needs 

to recover.

Member Ziemer: This is a telecon, right? 

Teleconference?

Dr. Roberts: Yes, just a teleconference. Correct. 

Okay. So tentatively February 15th. 

And then April would be presumably a face-to-face 

and we generally have those the last week of April.

Although this year, there's been a lot of other NIOSH 

activity on the last week of April. 
102 

Could we do the week of the 17th, maybe?

Member Beach: That's good. Easter's early in April. 

So that would take that out of the way.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So something like the 19th and 

20th --

Member Beach: Sure.

Dr. Roberts: -- of April.

All right. Well, I think that gets us up to speed and I 

think that's all we need to do for now for this.

Member Kotelchuck: 19th and 20th of April?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. Yes.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Tentatively.

Member Kotelchuck: Good.

Dr. Roberts: And then February 15th for the 

teleconference.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. All right. I think, Andy, that wraps 

it up for me.

Chair Anderson: Okay. I don't have any other things. 

Other topics on people or issues you'd like to raise?

Member Ziemer: I move that we adjourn.

Chair Anderson: Yeah, okay.

Member Beach: I'll second that.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Well, with that, we'll close it 

out at 4:30 your time, 3:30 my time, and we're 

adjourned.

Thanks everybody.
103 

Adjourn

(Whereupon, at 4:30 o'clock p.m. the meeting was 

concluded.)