THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes 


MEETING 47 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


DAY TWO 


The verbatim transcript of the 47th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at The Sheraton Denver West, 


Lakewood, Colorado on June 12, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTING 

404/733-6070 
 

2 

C O N T E N T S
 

June 12, 2007 


OPENING REMARKS 
 10 


ROCKY FLATS WORKGROUP REPORT 12 


ROCKY FLATS PETITIONERS’ PRESENTATION 31 


ROCKY FLATS PETITION DISCUSSION 114 


WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATION 191 


SEC VOTE 197 


FURTHER ROCKY FLATS DISCUSSION 222 


BOARD WORK TIME 236 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 257 

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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

BEACH, Josie 


Nuclear Chemical Operator 


Hanford Reservation 


Richland, Washington 


CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 

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LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


SCHOFIELD, Phillip 


Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 


Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

ADAMS, DAVID, RF WORKER 


ADKINS, LEONILA, SPOUSE 


ALBERG, JEANETTE, SEN. ALLARD 


ALCORN, JIM, ROCKY FLATS 


AMADON, ALBERT, WORKER 


ANDERSON, ADRIENNE, RMPJC 


ASTIN, GARY, PROFESSIONAL CASE MANAGEMENT 


BAHER, LYNNE, USW 


BARKER, KAY, ANWAG 


BARRIE, GEORGE, ANWAG 


BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG 


BARTHEL, HEIDE, FORMER ROCKY 


BLACKMON, CARMEN 


BOLLER, CAROLYN, CONG. MARK UDALL 


BRADSHAW, CHARLENE A., RADIATION ORG. 


BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 


BUCHANAN, DENNIS, RCT 


BUIE, MARIE R., ROCKY FLATS 


BURKE, MARY, LOCAL 8031 


BUTZ, JR., REINHOLT, S.O.E. 


BYRD, GARY, EX ROCKY FLATS EMP. 


CAPPS, WALT, RF 


CARLSON, AUDREY, SPOUSE 


CARLSON, ROBERT I., RADIATION 


CASTILLO, CHRIS 


CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, HHS 


CHERATES, MATT, SEN. SALAZAR 


CLARK, DEBBY, RFETS 


CLAUSEN, DAVE, ROCKY FLATS 


CLOUD, TOM 


CUTSHALL, VIRGINIA, COALITION AGAINST SWEATSHOP ABUSES 


DALY, SEAN 


DANIELSON, JUDY 


DECASTRO, RANDY, IBEW 68 


DEHAAS, JUDY, ROCKY MT. NEWS 


DELFORGE, CLIFF, RF RETIRED 


DELOCKNOY, HARVEY, ROCKY FLATS 


DEMAIORI, ANTHONY, RETIREE USW 


DENNISON, ELIZABETH 


DESMOND, JEANETTE 

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DESMOND, JUSTIN 


DICKERSON, GLORIA 


DIGIACONO, RON, SELF 


DOBROVOLNY, MICHELLE, ROCKY FLATS 


DOWNES, AMIA, NIOSH 


ELMORE, RORY, RF 


ESCABOA, BARB, PROFESSIONAL CASE MANAGEMENT 


ESPINOZA, JOE, ROCKY FLATS 


ESPINOZA, REUBEN, ROCKY FLATS 


EVANS, JOHN 


FITZ-GERALD, SEN. JOAN 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


FRANK, LAURA, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS 


FREIBERG, KEN 


FREIBERG, MARY, WIFE RF 


GARCIA, SHIRLEY, BROOMFIELD CO/WORKER 


GONZALEZ, NORMA, ROCKY FLATS 


GROVES, DARCINIA, RF 


GUTIELLEZ, BARRY, ROCKY MNT NEWS 


HAINS, JOE, RF WORKER 


HARDEN, J.M., USWA 8031 


HARRIS, JOHN M., USW 


HAYNES, GENIE, RF 


HEELY, RITA, TIME MAGAZINE 


HEISZ, SHIRLEY, ROCKY FLATS 


HERHAGER, STEVE, ROCKY FLATS 


HILLER, DAVID, SEN. KEN SALAZAR 


HOFFMAN, GAYLE, RF WORKER 


HOLEN, BILL, CONG. PERLMUTTER 


HOLGERSON, ERIC, ROCKY FLATS 


HORAN, JAMES, ROCKY FLATS EMP. 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWARD, JOHN, NIOSH 


IMSE, ANN, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS 


JOCHEM, JIM 


JONES, SYLVIA, LOCAL 8031 


JURJOVEE, NICK 


KANNE-EVERT, TINA, ROCKY FLATS 


KESSLER, MIKE, 5280 


KIMBROUGH, MICHAEL, ROCKY FLATS 


KOHLER, ROMAN, R.F. HOMESTEADERS 


KRULL, WARREN S., SAIC 

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LAHTI, ROSE, ROCKY FLATS 


LAY, FRANK 


LIPSZTEIN, JOYCE, SC&A 


LUCERO, GENNY, RADIATION ORG. 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MALITO, RAY, PCM 


MARTINEZ, MICKEY, RF 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCCABE, JIM, ROCKY FLATS 


MCCARTHY, BILLY, RETIRED 


MCCARTHY, DIANN, SPOUSE 


MEANEY, CHERYL & PHIL, RFW & SPOUSE 


MEDINA, CARLOS, ROCKY FLATS 


MENDRICK, PAUL 


MILLER, CHUCK, ROCKY FLATS 


MOBLEY, JERRY, ROCKY FLATS 


MORRIS, ROBERT, CHEW & ASSOC. 


MOSELEY, HENRY, RF 


NEWBY, KEVIN, RF EMPLOYEE 


NORWOOD, BILLY, RF 


OLSON, JOHN, USW 


OPPERMAN, STEVE 


OSTROM, RICHARD, ROCKY FLATS 


PADILLA, CHARLES, RFP RETIRED 


PADILLA, JUDY, FORMER RFP WORKER 


PALIZZI, TOM, ROCKY FLATS 


PALMER, RANDALL, 8031 


PODRACKY, GREG, ENG 


POSEY, ROBERT V., ROCKY FLATS 


QUINLIN, DONNA, ROCKY FLATS 


RAMAGE, KATHRYN, 8031 


RAMAGE, WYNN, 8031 


RAMER, ELENA 


RICHTER, TONY, RET. STEEL WORKER 


ROBERTS, KIMBERLY, SAIC 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


RODRIQUEZ, WALT, ROCKY FLATS 


ROMERO, DENNIS R., RF WORKER 


ROMERO, SILVERIO, ROCKY FLATS 


ROSE, RUSS 


RUPP, MARYANN, SPOUSE OF DECEASED WORKER 


SABEC, CAROLE, STEEL WORKER 


SABEC, DON, 8031 

 

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SALAZAR, RAYMOND A., ROCKY FLATS 


SAUNDERS, DANIEL 


SCHULTZ, JEFFREY W., ENGINEERING 


SCHULTZ, LAURA, RF CLAIMANTS 


SKINNER, CHARLES 


SMALL, BERNARD, ROCKY FLATS 


SNODGRASS, LARRY, LOCAL 8031 


SOUTHALL, JOANN, ROCKY FLATS 


SOUTIERE, GALE, RFP RETIREE 


SOUTIERE, GERALD, RF WORKER 8031 


STEINBACH, ROCKY FLATS 


STOKES, ELLIOTT, RF WORKER 


STOLTZ, DENNIS, IBEW LOCAL 68 


SULLIVAN, JOHN, LOCAL 8031 


THIELEN, VALERIE, ROCKY FLATS 


TRESQUEZ, MICHAEL R., ROCKY FLATS 


TRUJILLO, GERARD A., 8031 


TUCK, KIM, LOCAL 8031 


TURCIC, PETE, DOL 


TURNER, JAMES H., ROCKY FLATS 


ULLMAN, JOSEPH, LOCAL 720 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 


VIGIL, DENNIS E., ROCKY FLATS 


VIGIL, JULIE TORRES, ROCKY FLATS 


WEAVER, JACK, RETIRED RF WORKER 


WEBBER, DONNA, ROCKY FLATS 


WHITE, CHARLES, RF WORKER 


WOLF, CHARLIE 


WOLF, KATHLEEN D. 


WOLFE, MAUREEN, USW 


ZIEGLER, DWAYNE T., USW 


ZIEGLER, TED, USW 

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JUNE 12, 2007
 

P R O C E E D I N G S


 (8:35 a.m.) 

OPENING REMARKS


 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'd like 


to call the meeting to order. Welcome to the 


second day of our deliberations, the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health. I trust 


you had a refreshing evening and Board members 


are ready to focus. I want to double-check on 


our Board members who are with us by phone. 


Mike Gibson, are you with us this morning? 


 (No response) 


 Mike Gibson? 


 (No response) 


 DR. WADE: No, he -- I mean he spoke to me a 


moment ago. Are the phone people hearing us? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mike Gibson, are you with us this 


morning? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I'm here, but 


it's -- we have a phone problem. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yeah, mute your phone then 


after you speak. Thank you. 


 Phil Schofield? 

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: I'm here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. John Poston? 

 (No response) 

 Jim Lockey? 

 DR. LOCKEY: I'm here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. John Poston? 

 (No response) 

 Poston -- 

 DR. WADE: He's supposed to be calling in. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Supposed to be calling in. Okay, 


we'll check again in a little bit. 


Josie Beach is conflicted on this discussion 


but is here in the audience, so we will 


proceed. The -- oh, comments from our 


Designated Federal Official, Dr. Wade. 


 DR. WADE: Now these -- these are not official 


comments, they're just sort of phone etiquette 


comments. I would ask everyone on the line, as 


Paul mentioned, to -- to mute the phone if 


you're not speaking. Be mindful of background 


noises that might be so familiar to you that 


you don't -- you don't hear them, but they can 


be very disruptive to what's going on here. 


If you're speaking to the Board, try and do it 


through a handset, not through a speaker phone. 

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It's important that the Board can extend its 


reach by having members or interested parties 


participate by telephone, but it's terribly 


important that we maintain the ability of all 


to communicate. So please think about that and 


it will serve all of us. 


ROCKY FLATS WORKGROUP REPORT


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. This morning we're going to 


first continue our discussion of the working 


group's report. Following that we will hear 


from the petitioners, and then we will have 


additional time for discussion and, as 


appropriate, motions relating to the SEC. 


So I want to begin, Board members, by opening 


the floor for discussion on Mark Griffon's 


report. Mark, do you have any additional 


comments before we raise questions? Or members 


of the working group? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, Board members, what questions do you have 


for Mark relative to his report? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Brad Clawson. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I'm -- I'm not clear -- I've been 


watching -- and forgive me for my ignorance 

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because I've been watching a lot of the e-mails 


go back and forth and stuff like that, and I'm 


still not clear on some of these thorium 


strikes and -- and where they were at because 


I've got conflicting e-mails back and forth of 


where they happened and when they happened and 


I'm just wondering if there's any kind of 


clarification of -- of what happened on those 


or --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark or -- or --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


NIOSH --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, maybe Brant -- we catch you 


off-guard here, but the question -- and the 


discussion can relate to issues raised by 


Brant, as well. The question was the timetable 


on the thorium strikes. Could you clarify that 


for -- for Brad and other members of the Board, 


and I don't know if you need to refer to your 


presentation from yesterday, but Brad, your 


question was when did they take place or -- and 


where or --


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, the facilities, because 


I've kind of been monitoring some of the e-


mails back and forth and stuff like that, and I 

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was kind of understanding they were in a 


different facility, and so forth like that, and 


I'm just not quite clear on -- on how -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Both when and where. 


 MR. CLAWSON: When and how many were there, 


actually. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, see if Brant can clarify 


that for us. Is that --


 DR. ULSH: How -- is this --


 DR. ZIEMER: That's -- there you go. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Brad, we talked to the 


project manager in charge of the thorium 


strikes. He was directly there, he was 


directly hands-on in the projects, and he had 


very explicit recollections about first of 


where the strikes occurred. They occurred in 


Building 881, Room 266. And he even showed us 


what glovebox they were performed in. The 


reason that they were performed there was 


because there was not a lot of activity going 


on in that building at that time, and you're 


talking about a project that had a significant 


external radiation potential, so that's why 


they chose to do it there. 


Now as I mentioned yesterday, there was some 

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confusion because there's a document that was 


located that seems to indicate that the strikes 


occurred in Building 71. We checked into the 


pedigree of that document. The first one was ­

- it's history of uranium-233 at Rocky Flats. 


It was written about 40 years after the fact in 


-- you know, in the 2000s -- and it referenced 


a classified document that was actually written 


in 1965. And we got redacted pages from that 


document and that document is the source of 


this impression that they might have occurred 


in 71. 


 However, that classified document was written 


by an investigative committee that was chosen 


because they were independent. They were not 


involved in the project themselves. And part 


of the uranium-233 processing did occur in 


Building 71. The first step was the receipt of 


the uranyl nitrate solution, and they 


transferred that into a receiving vessel, and 


that occurred in Building 71. 


The question then is what happened next. The 


next step is the thorium strike, and did that 


occur in 71 or -- or 81. The classified 


document indicates 71, but that, again, was 

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written by people who were not involved in the 


project, and we are basing our conclusion that 


it was based in 81 on the project manager's 


recollection, who was directly involved in the 


project. So -- and he had very compelling 


reasons as to why they did that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's 881 or 8--


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I'm sorry, Dr. Ziemer. They ­

- the building designations did change over 


time. They were originally 881, later the 


first eight was dropped; same with 771. So 


we're very confident that it was in Building 


81. 


However, in the worst case scenario -- let's 


just say it did happen in 71. We've also got 


air data for that -- that -- that room, too, 


for the time. 


Now, the second part of your question dealt 


with when these strikes happened and how many 


there were, and the first thorium strike 


happened --


 DR. WADE: Can I just stop you for a minute -- 

 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

 DR. WADE: -- give you a moment to think of 

your answer. The Board members and others on 

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the line can't hear because of a great static 


problem. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: We're going to take one quick fix, 


which is for us to break the line and dial back 


in, so let's do that, and then I'll ask them 


again if they can hear. If we solve the 


problem, fine. If we can't, we'll take the 


next step along the chain, and I'm sorry to 


interrupt, but I think it's important that the 


other Board members hear this. 


 DR. ULSH: So you want to just wait until we do 

that? 

 DR. WADE: Yes, ma'am. Consider your answer. 

(Pause) 

I'm sorry to do this, but I think it's better 


to do it early in the day than... 


(Pause) 


This is Lew Wade. Have we resolved the static 


problem? Can people on the hear me clearly? 


UNIDENTIFIED: I hear you better now, Lew. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, for the moment that was 


good. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. I guess I would ask David 

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Staudt, who I know is on the line, to serve as 


our monitor. David, if you sense a problem, 


then call my cell; I'll have it in front of me 


 MR. STAUDT: Will do, Lew, thank you. 


 DR. WADE: -- and we'll take the next step. 


Sorry for the break in the continuity, but I 


think it's important that everyone can hear. 


Please, proceed --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we'll proceed. Brant Ulsh 


is answering the question about the thorium 


strikes. Brant. 


 DR. ULSH: Right, and just to summarize because 


I don't know how much the people on the phone 


heard, we're very confident that the thorium 


strikes occurred in Building 81, Room 266, 


based on the information that has been provided 


by the hands-on project manager. 


Now the second part of your question, Brad, 


dealt with when the thorium strikes occurred 


and how many there were. 


 The first thorium strike occurred in April of 


1965. I gave the exact -- I think the 26th 


through the 28th, something like that. The 


second thorium strike, and last thorium strike, 

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occurred in January of 1967. And I don't 


recall the exact days off the top of my head, 


but we have provided that information. 


The motivation for doing a thorium strike was 


that the U-233 that they were working with 


contained, as a contaminant, U-232. And U-232 


leads to a lot of short-lived daughter 


products, one of which is thorium-228. And the 


U-233 that they used in those first two 


projects, 1965 and 1967, had a relatively high 


concentration of that contaminant. It was 


slightly less than 50pp -- 50ppm, so that was 


the motivation to do thorium strikes on that 


uranium-233, to remove that. 


Now, Rocky Flats also did some subsequent 


operations with uranium-233, but that uranium233 had a much lower concentration of the 


contaminant, and so thorium strikes were not 


necessary on those and they didn't do thorium 


strikes after 1967. And that is again based on 


the recol-- distinct recollections of the 


project manager and also on the recollections 


of Mel Chew, who is on the ORAU team, who was 


involved with the uranium projects from the 


other end and -- and both of those individuals 

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said no, we didn't do any later thorium strikes 


because we didn't need to; the contaminant 


concentration was much lower. 


So there were two thorium strikes, 1965, 1967; 


they occurred in Building 81, Room 266. 


 MS. MUNN: Brant, that's on your slides, the -- 


the dates, the exact dates, if you want them. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. CLAWSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


several different (unintelligible). (On 


microphone) I've seen several different e-mails 


going back and forth that has contradicted both 


of that, so I wanted to get clear exactly what 


we were dealing with. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, Brant, don't go 'way. While 


-- if -- I guess I'm trying to get a little bit 


more clarification on this. You mentioned you 


have air data for Building 771? 


 DR. ULSH: That is correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: Is it related to the same time 


period and same processing that was going on? 


 DR. ULSH: It's related to the same time 


period. We pulled the -- the air data for 


Building 71, Room -- I can't remember if it was 

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14 or 114, but it's the room where they 


received the -- the uranyl -- uranyl nitrate 


solution for the time of the thorium strikes, 


and so we have that available. We don't think 


that that's where it occurred, but we do have 


that available. 


In terms of was it related to the process 


involved here, it's just like the data that we 


have in Building 81 in that it is the -- the 


results from the air samplers that were in that 


room. And the approach that we have taken with 


the data that we have is that we will take the 


highest of those air samples. And you know, 


should -- should new information come up to 


suggest that it was actually in 71 -- I don't 


believe that's going to happen, but should that 


happen, we would take the same approach in 


Building 71 with that air data. 


 DR. MELIUS: Has the -- this is a question for 


Mark. Has the working group seen this air 


data? And evaluated -- I'm just -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we -- we've seen data for 


Building 81, so --


 DR. MELIUS: I'm asking for 71. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, we haven't seen that 

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 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- no. 


 MS. MUNN: Didn't need to, didn't think it was 


there. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 149 771. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Dennis, right? Dennis just 


told me that it's --


UNIDENTIFIED: Room 149. 


 DR. ULSH: -- Room 149. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. And is that data available 


on the O drive? 


 DR. ULSH: No. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Not at the moment, but we can 


certainly make it available on the O drive. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Okay, thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Additional question, Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: No, not on that issue. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other Board members? Questions 


for clarification? 


 DR. MELIUS: I -- Brant, before you get down 


then, I have a separate issue, just briefly. 


You quoted from the NR-- NDR-- NRDP, NDRP 

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(unintelligible) --


 DR. ULSH: NDRP. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- one of those reports yesterday. 


I got a copy of the report, don't find any 


mention of EEOICPA in it. I -- I can't recall 


if you were quoting from the report or from a 


transcript, and I guess I was looking for the 


reference, and if -- ask --


 DR. ULSH: Okay, when you say "the report," are 


you asking about the NDRP protocol, or 


something else? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I got "a report" -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- "the report" -- hang on, I'm 


trying to find the... 


(Pause) 


DR. ROESSLER: I think you quoted from the 


report of the Advisory Committee. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, the first -- I --


DR. ROESSLER: Report itself. 


 DR. ULSH: I presented two quotes. The first 


one recommended -- my loose paraphrase here -- 


recommended that the NDRP results be 


substituted for the dose of record. That came 


from the final recommendations of the NDRP. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Okay, so that's -- that's -- I 


have -- what I have is the protocol report. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. The protocol is a technical 


document that the Scientific Advisory Committee 


recommended be prepared by the scientific staff 


of the NDRP. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So that's not a -- an Advisory 


Committee product that you're looking at. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So the first quote about using the 


NDRP results as the dose of record came from 


the final recommendations of the NDRP 


Scientific Advisory Committee. The second 


quote about the NDRP results forming a reliable 


basis for dose reconstruction under EEOICPA 


came from one of the meeting minutes of, you 


know, a meeting just like this one where the 


Scientific Advisory Committee got together and 


they issued minutes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: And that happened sometime after 


2000. I don't know off the top of my head 


exactly which one, but I would be happy to 


provide those minutes to you. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Could you provide them to me this 


morning? I just asked, I'm not -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: We -- we have -- the workgroup 


has those. I have those with me. I -- I can 


probably --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you, Mark. I know they're 


sitting on my desk in my office in Cincinnati, 


but that doesn't do us much good here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? Jim, did you 


have a follow-up or --


 DR. MELIUS: No, not right now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I guess, Brant, you can stay 


there, too. Maybe you can help with this, or 


I'll ask Mark. Mark, yesterday in your 


presentation you had a slide that is called 


additional issues with regard to neutron 


approach, and you discussed buildings where 


neutron work was done and also the issue of 


when NTA film was or was no longer used. Do --


do we have any more definitive information on 


either of those? How well do we know where 


neutron work occurred, and number two, when -- 

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do we know now when use of NTA film was 


terminated at Rocky? 


 DR. ULSH: Do you want me to field that, Mark, 


or do you want to -- okay. 


 The first question, what buildings were -- were 


jobs performed that presented significant 


neutron exposure potential. Yes, we do know 


that. It was the plutonium processing 


buildings, and there are several -- 771, 776 -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't need all the numbers -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, there's a lot of them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I just (unintelligible) we know 


what buildings they were. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, we do. There -- in addition, 


there was the critical mass laboratory, which 


was Building 88--


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience) 886. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you -- 886. And that was a 


building that would have presented neutron 


potential. 


Now yesterday I believe Mark asked about these 


in situ experiments, and I described those 


yesterday -- you know, to determine safe 


storage conditions for ur-- uranium parts and 


plutonium parts. Those experiments were 

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performed in the 1950s by two individuals -- I 


know their names -- and they were the 


individuals that were responsible for nuclear 


criticality safety for the entire plant in the 


1950s. And so I checked to see whether or not 


they were monitored for neutrons in the '50s, 


and both of them were. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I should say all the -- all 


the workgroup has confirmed to this point is 


that the -- those sub-critical experiments were 


done in that facility. I mean that's all I -- 


I heard Brant's response to this yesterday, but 


we haven't seen that information necessarily. 


We've just heard what you've heard -- what the 


rest of the Board has heard, so... 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, this was a late-breaking -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- question --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that came up, but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: And what did you say about the NTA 


film? 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, yeah, right, the NTA film and 


when they phased it out. They transitioned 


from NTA film to neutron TLDs, and that 

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transition occurred in 1970. Now there was 


some confusion late in the process here because 


a couple of reports indicated maybe some 


different dates, and I think that confusion 


stems from the fact that the badges that they 


used at the time had the capability to insert 


neutron films, but they didn't -- there's no 


indication that they did that after 1970, so 


1970 was the transition year from film to TLDs. 


 MR. GRIFFON: TLD. 


 DR. ULSH: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And what was the -- what was the 


TLD system for neutrons? Was this one that 


used a -- moderated the neutrons and then 


detected the thermals or do -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I don't know off the top of my 


head, Dr. Ziemer, what -- what the TLD system 


was that came in. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I thought it was lithium 6/7 


combination --


 DR. ULSH: Sounds right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- system, yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: That sounds right, but I -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm pretty sure of that. 


 DR. ULSH: -- can't say definitively. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And then they had an 


algorithm --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to determine --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, uh-huh. So this would be a 


-- what, a lithium fluoride enriched in 


lithium-6 and one in lithium-7 -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: One in 7, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and you do the differencing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Well, it -- maybe not 


just the -- it's a little more complicated -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- an algorithm, but yeah -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, that's the sense, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Okay. Other questions? 


 DR. WADE: Could I do a quick line check? We 


had dif-- complaints of difficulties, now I'm 


getting the high sign. Are things okay out 


there? Can you hear me now clearly? 


 MR. STAUDT: Lew, you're pretty good, but 


there's a tremendous amount of noise on this 


line and pulsing and clicks and scrapes, it -- 

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it's terrible. 


 DR. WADE: Is this still -- that is still the 


case now? 


 MR. STAUDT: No, when you speak, you're pretty 


clear, but as soon as you get off the line and 


it opens up for everybody else, it's very 


noisy. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, let me try Brant now. Brant, 

speak. 

 DR. ULSH: Okay, is -- can you hear me clearly 

or --

 MR. STAUDT: You're good. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: I don't hear the noise anymore. 


Either someone dropped off or muted their 


phone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. WADE: We believe that the problem was 


someone had a line open, was typing and hadn't 


muted the phone. The -- the technical person 


here feels now the problem is resolved. Again, 


David, call me immediately if you have a 


problem. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Lew I would suggest that -- and 


Paul, everybody speak directly into your 

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microphone, too. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Little bit of discipline on 


our side then, everybody directly into the 


microphone, and we'll keep working at this. 


And again, if we need to, the next solution is 


ev-- we ask everybody to call back in, but at 


this point I don't think that's necessary so 


let's proceed then. Again, everyone real close 


to the microphone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Further questions or 

comments? 

 (No responses) 

Okay. Thank you, Brant. 


ROCKY FLATS PETITIONERS’ PRESENTATION


 DR. WADE: Petitioners. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Mark. I think we'll 


proceed to hear now from the petitioners, and 


let me turn the mike over to Jennifer Thompson. 


And Jennifer, you have others who are going to 


participate with you? Is there a debate as to 


who's going to lead off here? 


MS. THOMPSON: (Off microphone) lead off 


(unintelligible). 


(On microphone) Good morning to the Board and 


thank you again for the opportunity to speak to 

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you today and present some additional 


information on behalf of the petition. I would 


like at this point to introduce Anthony 


DeMaiori, former president of the United Steel 


Workers of America and petitioner. If you 


recall, he's been out of town for many months 


and is back with us, and he's going to serve as 


the moderator for the rest of this session for 


us. Thank you. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Thank you, members of the Board, 


for granting us this opportunity to present to 


you today. Right now I'd like to call -- call 


our distinguished Congressman, Bob Beauprez. 


Congressman? 


 CONGRESSMAN BEAUPREZ: It's really an honor to 


be with you this morning, and I think 


especially appropriate given the setting and 


the fact that we're really talking about a 


generation of patriots who helped us win a most 


important war. I'd like to just begin our part 


of the presentation, if everyone would please 


rise, and we'll do the pledge of allegiance: 


I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United 


States of America, and to the republic for 


which it stands, one nation under God, 

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indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 


Thank you. I'll be back up. Tony, you going 


to take over once again? 


MR. DEMAIORI: I'd like to call up Jennifer 


Thompson, spokesperson for the petition. 


Jennifer. 


(Pause) 


MS. THOMPSON: Good morning again to the Board 


and thank you. We're going to kind of go back 


and forth this morning and I apologize if it's 


not as smooth -- I'm not a techno—technowizard, so we'll try to make it go as smooth as 


possible. 


Initially I want to say thank you to the entire 


Board for the time and dedication for your 


service on behalf of our workers. We greatly 


appreciate it. And especially I want to thank 


Mark Griffon and the entire working group who 


have spent many, many hours on this particular 


topic. 


I would also like to thank Terrie Barrie -- 


Terrie Barrie and Laura Schultz and others, 


Judy Padilla, folks that have worked countless 


-- countless hours on behalf of our workers on 


a volunteer basis. Our workers appreciate it 

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and we greatly appreciate their dedication. 


I also want to thank our Colorado Congressional 


delegation, and the Governor and Lieutenant 


Governor of our great state, who in unprecedent 


(sic) partisan support have urged the Board to 


approve our petition today. 


I also want to thank the 15 Senators, including 


two Presidential hopefuls, who are calling for 


Congressional hearings to investigate the 


corruption of process and administration of the 


Energy Employees Occupational Illness 


Compensation Program Act. 


 I also want to thank the Rocky Mountain News
 

for their unrelenting coverage of this 


important issue. 


 And most importantly, I want to thank the Rocky 


Flats workers, our workers, our friends, our 


family, who have toiled with equal dedication 


to first make this world safe for democracy and 


then diligently worked themselves out of their 


jobs and performing the monumental 


environmental cleanup and closure of the Rocky 


Flats site. 


I would like to take a moment now to pause in 


thanks to our workers, those that are sick, 

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those that may one day become sick, and most 


importantly, the 67 workers who would have 


ultimately been approved for compensation but 


died waiting. May no more workers have to die 


while awaiting their claims to be processed. 


(Pause) 


Thank you. Oh, look, it works. Okay. Oops, 


my slides are out of order. 


(Pause) 


Okay, I wanted to show those photos to remind 


everybody of why we are here, and that is for 


our sick workers, for their surviving spouses 


in particular, who have an extremely difficult 


time getting through the process in terms of an 


individual claimant because they simply don't 


have the knowledge or information. If NIOSH is 


having a hard time determining which room 


numbers the strikes occurred in or what 


buildings they occurred in, imagine the 


difficulty of a surviving spouse in determining 


what buildings their -- their husband or their 


wife worked in during their 30 years of 


employment at -- at Rocky Flats. So we're here 


for them, the workers, the spouses, and we're 


here because we still believe in our hearts 

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that justice for all is the right answer today. 


That's the reason we wanted to begin today with 


the pledge of allegiance is to remind everybody 


what this country is about, and that is about 


justice for all. 


 Our workers should not have to fight for their 


lives and fight with the government at the same 


time in terms of getting claims compensated 


through this process. They deserve better than 


that. 


 Last month the Advisory Board took preliminary 


actions to approve SEC status for three small 


carved-out classes. You all know them well, 


1952 to '58; the neutrons '59 through '70; and 


thorium. And every indication to us has been 


that the Board is prepared today to vote to 


approve only these narrow classes. 


We are here to continue to press SEC status for 


the entire class of Rocky Flats hands-on 


workers. And again, the pledge you heard ended 


in "justice for all" and that's what we ask you 


to do today is to give justice to all of our 


workers. 


NIOSH is very good about citing a lot of 


statistics -- 300,000 internal records, 400,000 

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this, 80,000 lung counts. There's some 


statistics they won't cite so prominently or 


proudly -- 742, the average number of days it 


takes a claim to be processed resulting in a 


positive worker ruling; 67, the number of 


workers who were going to be approved but died 


awaiting the ruling; 70, the percentage of 


workers with cancer that have been denied 


compensation; 33, the percentage of workers 


from 1964 to 1992 with missing data in their 


records. 


Oh, well, I guess we have a little alignment 


issue there, but that's okay. You guys have 


seen this before. Most of the stuff at the top 


you've definitely seen before. This is the 


time line details for this process. I just 


want to remind everybody today we are on day 


847 since the petition was submitted. 


In 2000 the Energy Employees Occupational 


Illness Compensation Act was passed. It's been 


seven years. Some of our workers have been 


waiting seven years. And the other fact on 


this -- this slide that's important is that the 


NIOSH recommendation, which was a 


recommendation to deny the entire petition in 

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its entirety, was made on day 40 -- day 440 


after receipt versus the amendment to the law 


in 2005 which required them to make that 


recommendation within 180 days of receipt. Now 


NIOSH in their rule said that we want to do it 


180 days after certification, but even with 


their rules you can see at 315 days they missed 


it substantially. 


Okay. To remind you what we were asked to do 


when we submitted our petition, and that was we 


were asked to prove that there was a class of 


Rocky Flats workers for whom it was not 


feasible to accurately estimate the radiation 


dose they received. We believe that we did 


that on the day we submitted the petition, and 


we believe that the law meant today. The law 


didn't mean government wait almost two and a 


half years and then deny the petition based on 


a new set of standards, new TIBs, new 


information that wasn't available at that time. 


The charter of the Advisory Board was to 


evaluate the petition, not to help the 


government fix the wrongs. We are very glad 


that the wrongs are being corrected, don't get 


us wrong -- there's a lot of wrongs there -- 

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don't misunderstand. We're -- we're proud of 


the work that's been done to -- to make the 


dose reconstruction process better. We just 


feel that that is not what -- what was set out 


in the law originally, and we believe that our 


petition, on the day it was submitted, was 


valid; that obviously the Board and the working 


group has found many valid points in the 


petition, otherwise we wouldn't still be here 


847 days later. 


We believe that fundamentally from the 


beginning, some of NIOSH's basic assumptions 


were -- were very flawed; that their house is 


built on sand and not on science; that on April 


7th, 2006 when they issued their evaluation 


report, they did an important and interesting 


thing. They determined that they were going to 


expand the class beyond the class that the 


petition was filed for to include everybody at 


Rocky Flats. And in doing so they said NIOSH 


determined that all employees -- all employees 


-- were similarly or identically exposed and 


therefore cannot be disaggregated from the 


union workers with respect to their work and 


exposures. They offered no scientific basis 

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for that conclusion they came to, and nothing 


can be further from the truth. 


 The union collective bargaining agreement that 


they've had at Rocky Flats clearly delineated 


what work was steel worker work and no one else 


was allowed to perform that work. In fact, you 


would get grieved if you did. The steel 


workers were the only ones who handled 


plutonium with their hands in the gloves that 


did chemical processing of plutonium. They 


were the hands-on workers. And so we believe 


that that statement is -- is grievously in 


error. They had significantly greater 


potential for inhalations and external doses 


than any other categories of workers. 


Now NIOSH would have you believe that I was 


similarly exposed. I worked at Rocky Flats for 


14 years and in the end I was a nuclear 


decommissioning project manager. Okay? I 


oversaw work. I went in the back areas and 


watched my crews work and -- and dressed out 


and wore a respirator. But I did not go inside 


tents with contaminated equipment and cut it 


up; the steel workers did. I did not put my 


hands in the gloves and remove plutonium 

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materials and holdup from glovebox systems; the 


steel workers did that work. So we believe 


that -- that from the beginning, their premises 


are fundamentally flawed and not backed up by 


any -- any facts. 


There are limited exceptions where folks that 


were salaried people or other classifications 


that did receive substantial exposures, but 


those are the exception, not the rule. And 


those would be instances of fire response and 


cleanup, high dose vault work, and research and 


development efforts where scientists did put 


their hands in gloves and manipulate materials 


in research efforts. But those are isolated 


and easily separated from the rest of the work 


at the site. 


And -- and -- and it's interesting that as late 


as 847 days we're still arguing about some 


fundamental facts about the history of 


buildings at Rocky Flats, particularly Building 


881. I -- I did a quick internet search a long 


time ago -- and by the way, our petition 


pointed out that there was plutonium in 881 -- 


and in the historic American engineering record 


itself cites the fact that beginning in 1960 

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and until 1977 that they did chemical recovery 


operations on site returns that included 


plutonium processing. 


And -- and it's interesting that NIOSH uses the 


term nuisance plutonium. When they did the 


cleanup of Building 881 they found extensive 


contamination -- plutonium contamination in the 


ducts and throughout the building. What's also 


interesting is if this was in fact just nuisan­

- nuisance plutonium; i.e., just like little 


bit of contamination that you'd brush off your 


shoulder or something like that, then -- then 


it wouldn't have been necessary for them to put 


up an entire evaporation, calcination and 


drying process for that and then take it to 


another building to recover the plutonium. 


There was enough plutonium there that they 


wanted to recover it, so you're not talking 


about just a small amount of isolated 


contamination. They had plutonium in that 


building. 


And we think this draws the fundamental 


question of NIOSH's ability to recon--create 


the history of buildings and to not leap to the 


easy answers all the time that's convenient and 

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fits their models. The assertion that two 


people single-handedly conducted critical mass 


testing is -- is absolutely absurd, given -- 


given the requirements, the safety 


requirements, the building requirements at that 


facility, two people couldn't do almost 


anything. It took 14 people to change a light 


bulb in a criticality controlled area, so you 


think that two people could really go into the 


facility, take material out, put it together 


and -- running the risk that it could go 


critical, without an -- a support staff, no 


RCTs, no hands-on workers, no nothing? Two 


people may have been in charge of those 


criticality experience (sic), they may have 


been project managers like me, but I didn't 


single-handedly run the projects that I did. 


had dozens of workers doing that. Okay? So 


that's ridiculous. I mean -- so it's -- it's 


shocking that 847 days later that we're still 


discussing things so fundamental as whether or 


not there was plutonium in Building 881. And I 


think that just draws into question the 


ability, particularly that lots of the models 


rely a lot on what activities were in what 


I 
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buildings, whether there were neutrons or not, 


and then where the workers actually were at any 


given point in time to reconstruct their dose. 


I find this very disturbing. 


Thank you. She got it to work. 


 The Neutron Dose Reconstruction Project, as -- 


as you all recognize, is -- is another area 


that's -- that's disturbing. After 847 days, 


why is this still an outstanding issue? Why 


are they now just pulling another method or 


another model out at the last minute? Why 


again were we not provided the report that -- 


that NIOSH discussed yesterday, and it appeared 


that many on the Board had not seen this 


information, either. And -- and now we're 


going to make a -- a rush decision after 847 


days. I mean I -- I don't believe the Board 


has any other choice but to approve neutron 


exposures from '59 to '70 just based on the 


fact of this last-minute maneuvering. I think 


that it would be very insulting to me if I were 


a Board member to -- to have information 


discussed that I hadn't been privy to prior to 


the meeting. 


In addition, in that conversation there were 

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some shameless misrepresentations. The 1969 


fire in Building 776, when NIOSH implied that 


following the fire the workers were sitting in 


the cafeteria and so they weren't getting any 


dose. Hello, following the fire the workers 


were cleaning up from the fire getting huge 


doses. Okay? 


In 1970 there was a strike. Okay, yeah, there 


was a strike, 91 days. However, it's 


interesting that the site still met every 


single one of its production schedules for 


1970, so what do you think that meant? That 


meant that when the workers came back from 


strike, they worked a lot of overtime, a lot of 


extra hours and got a lot of exposure, not less 


exposure, the same exposure they would have 


gotten if they'd been working those 91 days. 


So it's just very frustrating to hear those 


kinds of statements and -- and that they're 


asserted as factual is -- is really 


frustrating. If -- if the NDRP works, as NIOSH 


asserts -- they put those two wonderful quotes 


up on the board and said oh, yeah, it's all 


great. It was the model, it's wonderful, we 


should use it. Okay. Well, if that's true, 

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then why did they come up with another method? 


If that's true and they really believe that 


true -- is true, they should have the integrity 


and stick behind it and prove to the Board that 


it does work, not come up with another Band-aid 


or another method. 


We believe that there's substantial process 


issues, and we believe the petition was valid 


on the day it was submitted. Ultimately if -- 


if we end up in appeal for this process, we 


have to discuss two things, the science and the 


process. And in terms of the process, we 


believe that currently we're out of bounds of 


the process that the Board was chartered to 


evaluate and not fix. And that's not really to 


lay blame on the -- on the Board. We 


understand your -- your desire, your goal to 


fix what's wrong and -- and bless you for that. 


But just in terms of this process, it's not 


what was envisioned. 


 Petition notification and non-timely 


distribution of reports, conflict of interest 


issues that we've discussed before and I won't 


go -- go over again, that the process has in 


effect been tainted by political and budgetary 

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influences. You can't help but, in this 


environment, have that affect the process. The 


180-day requirement was not met by NIOSH; that 


new science is used as the basis for denial -- 


I found it very interesting that when NIOSH 


issued its report on April 7th of 2006 they 


cited a list of 11 technical information basis 


documents that they based their report on, and 


eight of the 11 were written after -- or 


approved after the petition was filed. So if 


you look at that TIB-006, X-ray procedures, 


that's really not a crucial one, but 19 


coworker data is, 20 coworker data for external 


data is; 23, assignment of missed neutron doses 


is; 27, supplemental external dose information 


is; 33, applications of internal doses is 


important; 50, use of the NDRP document stuff, 


that's very important; and then -- though it's 


not on there because it came out not till 


February of 2007 is TIB-49, which is the high-


fired oxides TIB. So -- so the question is, on 


the day the petition was submitted, could they 


accurately reconstruct dose, and I believe the 


answer is no. Otherwise they would not have 


gone through the trouble of creating all these 

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new technical information basis document, 


changing methods, coming up with new 


assumptions. 


There's a couple of interesting things when 


asking questions. We -- we found on the SC&A 


report where it said that from '64 to '92 33 


percent of workers had air -- had missing data, 


and -- and when I asked NIOSH about that, they 


-- they said nor did we find that 33 percent 


had missing data. The records were complete. 


So I'm a little confused here because as SC&A 


is telling me there was missing data and NIOSH 


is telling me the worker -- the records were 


complete. 


You know, and again, quantity is not quality. 


I mean you keep hearing from NIOSH the numbers 


of this and the numbers of that and how many 


they have. The fact that records are present 


is unrefutable. Yes, records exist at Rocky 


Flats. The question is the accuracy of those 


records and being able to reconstruct dose 


based on a moving site population, based on 


unknowns or -- or historically people not 


remembering what happened where, that -- that's 


where you get into a challenge. SC&A said 

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there are large gaps in internal dose data, 


notably from 1964 to 1992, and SC&A said NIOSH 


has not demonstrated its ability to fill 


existing gap datas -- gaps for external dose. 


 The SC&A report on data completeness looked at 


32 cases and then also at 20 non-random cases, 


and in the report it says randomly selected 


cases allow a picture to be developed about the 


general extent of the gaps in the Rocky Flats 


workers' records. But then NIOSH told me we 


are not extrapolating from 32 random samples to 


the entire Rocky Flats population. Are we 


extrapolating or are we not? 


 Another interesting round of questioning was 


the petitioner asked was it possible for NIOSH 


to accurately reconstruct dose for individuals 


with high-fired oxide exposures prior to 


changing the particle size and prior to the new 


Technical Information Bulletin -- petitioner 


said that. NIOSH on June 5th said yes, so they 


said yeah, on February 15, 2005 it was possible 


for us to accurately reconstruct dose. 


Okay. Then they went on to say all cases that 


were denied compensation using the default ICRP 


solubility models are currently being re­
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evaluated to determine if they would become 


compensable when the methods described in TIB49 are used. So now I'm confused again. 


In a letter they say the prior dose 


reconstruction POC calculation on your claim is 


now invalid -- starting to sound a lot like 


they couldn't reconstruct dose for high-fired 


oxides on the day the petition was submitted. 


 There's potential that they're going to have to 


do 3,000 re-evaluations or redo dose 


reconstruction for 3,000 people. To me that 


sounds a lot like they couldn't reconstruct 


dose accurately. 


 We believe that there are some remaining issues 


for high-fired oxides. Particle size we still 


believe is one. NIOSH decided on a particle 


size of one, and in response to our questions 


cited one study in 1967 as the basis for 


selection of that particle size. We have 


documentation for particle size as small as 


0.12 -- now I think there's a -- a measurement 


difference there. I think the .12 is one -- 


one type of measurement and the 1.0 is another, 


so I think the .12 is actually like .36, so 


it's not as bad as it looks on that slide, but 

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I'm not a scientist so I don't quite understand 


the difference between AMAD and MMD, but I'm 


sure you guys get that. 


I believe that retention in the lungs is not 


clearly known and -- but what -- what I mean by 


that is you don't know how long it stays in the 


lungs. We haven't done studies to determine 


how long is that material staying in the lungs 


and what does that do in terms of -- of how 


it's metabolized and distributed to the rest of 


the body. 


NIOSH dismissed the ceramicized particle issue 


with no real scientific consideration, even if 


shielding -- they conclude that shielding would 


not be 100 percent. Okay, so even if it's not 


100 percent, does it -- does it allow your lung 


count to -- to think that there's less 


plutonium in your lungs. Okay. You can see 


it, you know it's there, but do you know how 


much is there. 


We found it interesting -- this word 


"plausible" that -- that people seem to use. 


I'm not sure if -- if they really recognize the 


connotations of it, but SC&A in its report said 


that it was plausible that if you use TIB-49 

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you could do dose reconstruction, and -- and 


that struck me as odd so I looked up the word 


plausible, and plausible means seemingly true, 


often implying disbelief; applies to that which 


at first glance appears to be true, but which 


would may or not -- may or may not be so. So 


what that tells me is we think it might work, 


but we're not really sure. That's really not 


good enough when you have people that are dying 


of cancer. 


We think there's still a lot of questions about 


super class Y material that's not known. In 


2003 the PNNL said the precise nature of super 


class Y material is not known and -- and the 


body of research data created from 2003 to 


present is almost minuscule. There's no new 


research or new science on this topic, so I 


don't know how you go from a point in time 


where the precise nature is unknown to a point 


in time you think that you can accurately apply 


a method to reconstruct dose. Things like what 


temperature is necessary to create a high-fired 


oxide. Okay? You know, NIOSH keeps 


referencing the fires, but there were a lot of 


thermal processes at Rocky Flats that created 

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high-fired oxides, and those are being ignored. 


What particle size is generated from high-fired 


processes and plutonium fires? Again, they 


have one datapoint. 


How long does a high-fired oxide particle stay 


in the lungs in its insoluble form before 


becoming soluble and making its way into the 


urine stream of an affected worker or to their 


bones or to other places in their body? How 


does the body metabolize high-fired oxides? 


How do you know what percent of a worker's 


plutonium exposure came from high-fired versus 


soluble forms? How do you know what type is in 


their lungs? Do particles resulting from high-


fired processes and fires have a ceramicized 


nature? What research was done on this? 


We believe there's several unresolved issues 


still at this point, and for that reason, 


again, we are asking the Board to vote on the 


petition in its entirety and grant justice to 


all of the Rocky Flats workers. Accuracy of 


monitoring of external exposure to the upper 


torso, head and back when the dosimeter's 


blocked or pointed in the opposite direction; 


movement of personnel across the site, accurate 

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records do not exist on where people were for 


what periods of time. You can't go on storage 


board location. You also can't go on people's 


memories. They just don't remember, and if 


they're dead their spouses definitely don't 


know where they were for what years. 


 Timeliness, 742 days to process a claim is 


definitely a timely process. 


 Neutron doses 1952 to 1970, you all know that 


issue better than I do. 


 Missing records, large gaps in internal dose; 


the adequacy of the coworker model which again 


relies a lot on location and -- and areas where 


neutrons were. The valid-- validity of dose 


records for specific workers working in high 


dose rate jobs, you heard workers testify that 


they thought sometimes the zeroes meant that 


they had burnt out on their dosimeters. 


The new methods, the models have not been 


sufficiently tested or proven. There's lack of 


independent verification in the NDRP data. 


 The high-fired oxides issue, and failure for 


NIOSH to understand basic building history and 


processes and extent of contaminants, and the 


willingness of NIOSH to disregard the truth or 

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manipulate it to meet their needs. There's no 


effort made to -- to determine the effects of 


the radioactive cocktail where chemicals and 


radioactive materials are exposed and -- and 


metabolized differently in the body. 


You know, I never thought I would quote Shelby 


Hallmark because of some of the other things he 


said, but this is something that he said that 


makes sense now. He said does it make any 


sense to continue to defend a dose 


reconstruction process that will just get more 


complicated and attenuated. I think in the 


last two years and four months or 847 days the 


dose reconstruction process for Rocky Flats 


workers has definitely become more complicated 


and attenuated. With all the new models and 


all the new TIBs, it's becoming more difficult, 


not less difficult to reconstruct dose. 


 We believe that what has happened over the last 


847 days dictates that the Board should approve 


the SEC petition for Rocky Flats in its 


entirety. Just the fact that it has been more 


than two years alone and significant factors 


are still unresolved means that our petition is 


valid and should be approved. The fact that 

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the site profile was significantly re-- changed 


and reviewed, that nine new TIBs were added, 


the particle size for high-fired oxide was 


changed, that the new coworker models were 


developed, adjustment factors, other models 


were tweaked, that the new methodology just 


yesterday unveiled for -- for NDRP 


reconstruction, and that -- that the PERs 


mandate that now NIOSH will have to do -- redo 


thousands of dose reconstructions based on 


these changes. To me that means you couldn't 


do it accurately before, otherwise why are you 


redoing it? For goodness sakes, if you could 


do it accurately before, please don't spend my 


taxpayer dollar redoing it. 


The Board has no legal or moral choice but to 


approve this petition in its entirety today, 


and that's what we ask you to do. Please grant 


justice to all of our workers. Thank you. 


(Pause) 


MR. DEMAIORI: At this time I'd like to 


introduce Mr. Bill Brady, a law professor at 


the University of Denver's Sturm College of 


Law, who teaches advanced law classes in 


hazardous waste and toxic torts and represents 

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cancer victims and others who have been exposed 


to toxics -- toxic substances. Bill. 


MR. BRADY: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 


I spoke to you briefly last time for about -- a 


little less than 10 minutes. With your 


indulgence, I'm going to take just a little bit 


longer today. And again, remember I'm a 


lawyer, and when a lawyer says a little bit 


longer, it sometimes might be a lot longer than 


most of you might anticipate. 


I -- I represent Charlie Wolfe, who you heard 


from yesterday. Charlie, you may recall, was 


the individual in the blue-green shirt who had 


the very severe scar on his head, who -- after 


fighting for four and a half years -- finally 


had his claim approved this past March. We 


started representing Charlie in October and 


refiled petition under Part E and were very 


fortunately successful in getting him benefits 


under Part E of the EEOICPA. 


We also learned yesterday afternoon that based 


upon a second cancer that had surfaced in 


Charlie, a bone -- a bone marrow cancer known 


as myelodysplasia, we had refiled for Part B 


benefits because he had been denied under Part 

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B several times. And we felt that with the new 


cancer and with both -- not only Charlie's 


doctor but the district medical consultant in 


Cleveland stating that he thought that perhaps 


the myelodysplasia qualified as a new primary 


cancer, that we might be able to obtain Part B 


benefits as well for Charlie. And we found out 


yesterday afternoon that he was denied Part B 


benefits based upon the fact that the dose 


reconstruction was still less than 50 percent. 


So I really don't know how to explain that to a 


client, to tell them that well, yeah, you got 


your Part E benefits and you're going to get 


your -- fortunately he's going to get his 


medical expenses paid under Part E for his 


glioblastoma multiform brain cancer, as well as 


his myelodysplasia. But for some reason NIOSH 


still doesn't believe that he's -- he's had a 


sufficient radiation dosage to justify Part B 


benefits, so it's very, very troubling and 


perplexing. 


I am here to talk a little bit more about 


Charlie's case again by way of example. I am 


not going to repeat myself, but I did want to 


share some of the evidence that we presented at 

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his hearing, which I think may be useful in 


your deliberations. 


We have a plutonium working group report that 


was done by the Department of Energy in 


November of 1994 and the report is on 


environmental safety and health vulnerabilities 


associated with the Department's plutonium 


storage program. And there are five pages that 


are devoted to Rocky Flats. I don't know if 


this is part of the record. I haven't been 


informed that it is and I -- I don't believe 


that it is, so I'd like to take the opportunity 


just to summarize some portions of this report 


for you, which I think provide some very, very 


interesting facts that you may not heretofore 


have been privilege to. 


This report was involved -- involved, excuse 


me, an 18-member working group assessment team 


and a 31-member site assessment team, and they 


conducted a Rocky Flats vulnerability 


assessment. This is an initial stakeholder 


involvement plan developed by the Department of 


Energy for Rocky Flats. A focus group of 


interested stakeholders was formed to 


participate in the assessment. The group also 

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included the Colorado Department of Health, the 


Environmental Protection Agency, an emergency 


planning committee and local public interest 


organizations. 


The findings are, as you might imagine, rather 


-- rather stark. The report says, in part, in 


December, 1989 the Secretary of Energy 


curtailed operations at Rocky Flats. 


Subsequently Rocky Flats plutonium operations 


were shut down. A large inventory of various 


forms of plutonium was placed into 


indeterminate storage. There were no formal 


plans for a safe and orderly shutdown of 


operations. Storage was not expected to be 


long-term. 


Reactive and corrosive plutonium materials and 


solutions are causing deterioration of 


packaging and containers, generating 


combustible gases and pressurizing packages. 


Unless corrective action is taken, these 


packages will eventually breach and could cause 


exposure of workers and the public, and 


environmental contamination. 


Rocky Flats has many of the most significant 


plutonium vulnerabilities in the entire DOE 

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complex. The exact magnitude of the problem is 


uncertain because of missed or incomplete 


inspections, records, and the difficult of 


ascertaining the status of degrading materials 


and packaging. In decreasing order of 


priority, the most significant vulnerabilities 


of Rocky Flats are -- and then there's a 


listing of buildings that goes on for about 


three pages, describing the number of plastic 


containers that are cracking and leaking, 


problems with the ventilation system, leaking 


gloveboxes, packages of plutonium peroxide cake 


which are chemically hazardous and unstable, 


55-gallon drums that are leaking, and a number 


of other instances which you've heard over the 


last few days from many of the people who have 


-- who have testified here. 


 Of particular interest I think are some of the 


statistics about the vast numbers of storage 


containers, over 8,000 drums containing waste 


and plutonium scrap residues are stored 


throughout all buildings. These materials 


increase general area radiation levels and the 


amount of radioactive material available for 


release in the event of a fire or an explosion. 

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The drums add to the combustible loading in all 


facilities. 


 The ventilation ducts, gloveboxes and 


supporting equipment have unknown quantities of 


plutonium holdup, which routinely adds to 


building radiation levels and worker exposures. 


Plutonium holdup is released to the environment 


during accidents. 


 Because of the storage of large numbers of 


packages in vaults, some vault radiation levels 


current exceed 100 millirems per hour. This is 


due to gamma radiation caused by americium 


buildup and to neutron radiation from mixtures 


of plutonium and lighter elements. 


The report goes on to talk about solution 


vulnerabilities within the piping and equipment 


in a number of the buildings, and the fact that 


these workers were routinely exposed. 


And then the report says records show that the 


workers have frequently become contaminated in 


Rocky Flats facilities. Out of service 


gloveboxes, tanks and piping systems in nearly 


all buildings contain internal radioactive 


contamination. Buildings 371, 707, 771 and 776 


have rooms with contamination in work areas on 

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the external surfaces of gloveboxes, outside 


the gloveboxes. In some areas an application 


of paint or elastomer compound has been used to 


cover up the contamination. However, these 


substances peel or chip from wear or aging, re-


exposing the contaminants. 


It's an extraordinary document and -- and one 


that if you haven't -- haven't seen, I think 


deserves -- deserves some study. 


I'm also -- also wanted to point out a couple 


of reports that I've reviewed and which we 


brought to the attention of the hearing officer 


during Charlie's hearing, some reports that 


were put together by Dr. Jim Ruttenber of the 


University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. 


You might remember Charlie referenced Dr. 


Ruttenber yesterday, and his reports 


specifically deal with Rocky Flats and I think 


are -- are telling. 


One is a very recent report, submitted in draft 


form, entitled "Risk Estimates of Brain Tumors 


and Ionizing Radiation", and Dr. Ruttenber -- 


the conclusion of the report -- I won't go 


through the detail in the report, but the 


conclusion says there is strong evidence for a 

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causal relationship between exposure to 


ionizing radiation and brain tumors. There is 


also strong evidence for an elevated risk for 


brain tumors among nuclear workers, 


particularly those involved in the processing 


of plutonium. There is evidence that the risk 


is likely to be associated with external 


penetrating radiation. However, the high 


estimates of risk per unit dose for workers in 


plutonium facilities needs much further 


exploration. 


The doctor explained, for example, that some of 


the bioassays that were done on workers were 


inadequate to show the extent of the plutonium 


contamination that had been either inhaled or 


ingested by some of the workers. The 


urinalysis, the lung counts, often were not 


reliable. 


He states in his report none of the studies of 


brain tumors among plutonium workers have 


explored the extent to which neutron exposures 


have been accounted for in estimates of tonal ­

- total penetrating radiation dose, or whether 


neutron exposure might have a unique biological 


effect on the tissues of the brain. The 

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extremely high risk per unit dose estimates 


from Los Alamos and Sellafield could be due to 


a large but unascertained neutron dose 


component from the fluorination of plutonium 


produced by alpha reactions with fluorene, or 


to unique biological effects of neutrons in the 


brain, or both. 


Given the possibility that the current IREP 


uncertainty distributions for the risk per unit 


dose for cancers of the central nervous system 


are underestimates of the true risk, it makes 


good sense to explore dose response relations 


for brain tumors among nuclear workers, and 


among plutonium workers in particular. Data 


from the Rocky Flats cohort promises to be 


particularly useful as data for gamma radiation 


doses are available for all cohort members, and 


data for job titles and building locations 


which can be used to identify the workers with 


potential neutron exposure, as well as some 


estimates for neutron doses, are available for 


most of the current -- most of the -- excuse 


me, production worker cohort. 


Given the likelihood that current IREP assigned 


share estimates are underestimated -- let me 

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read that again. Given the likelihood that 


current IREP assigned share estimates are 


underestimated for nuclear workers with brain 


tumors, it is prudent to replace the current 


IREP distribution with one that is more 


favorable to claimants. It is also fair to 


reopen previously dismissed cases of brain 


tumors for claimants under the Energy Employees 


Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. 


The issue of brain tumor risk for nuclear 


workers underscores the need for continued -- 


continued epidem-- epidemiolo-- epidemiological 


research in cohorts of nuclear workers 


worldwide. Data from this research is critical 


for the fair compensation for past U.S. 


workers, and for the protection of nuclear 


workers now and in the future. 


Dr. Ruttenber has also issued a second report 


entitled "The Mortality of Plutonium Workers at 


the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant" -- we 


also submitted this at Charlie's Part E 


hearing. And I'll just very briefly read a 


couple of quick sentences from the abstract of 


the report. 


 Studies of plutonium workers have identified 

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elevated risks for cancers at a number of 


sites, including lung, liver and bone, and 


other connective tissue. Previous studies of 


U.S. plutonium workers have suggested increased 


brain cancer mortality. 


Methods. We calculited -- we calculated 


standardized mortality ratios for 16,258 Rocky 


Flats workers who produced plutonium components 


from 1952 to 1989, and a subcohort of 8,672 


plutonium-exposed production workers. 


We're not talking about 30 and 22 here, or 32 


and 20. 


The results. The standardized mortality ratios 


for malignancy of the brain were elevated and 


of statistical significance. 


And then he goes on to conclude the elevated 


standardized mortality ratios for brain tumors 


extend previous findings for this cohort and 


indicate the need for a more detailed analysis 


of possible causes of brain cancer. 


We also submitted some reports from S. Cohen & 


Associates, and they seem to be fairly critical 


of the dose reconstruction process at work. 


Specifically a letter of January 17th, 2005 to 


Mr. David Staudt at the Center for Disease 

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Control and Prevention from John Mauro of SC&A, 


and a couple of very interesting issues were 


raised about the -- the dose reconstruction 


process. On page 2 of this letter there is a 


very brief paragraph that I'd like to read, 


which states: Objective one, determine the 


degree to which procedures support a process 


that is expeditious and timely for dose 


reconstruction. Answer: A well-written 


procedure presents all required data in a 


logical, concise, unambiguous and prescriptive 


manner. Frequently SC&A found that poorly 


structured procedures sequestered the key 


information or guidance in the final section. 


This requires the dose reconstructor to read 


through voluminous and frequently irrelevant 


background information. An improved format 


would provide the essential guidance and data 


for dose reconstruction at the front of the 


procedure. Relevant background or technical 


support data would be more effective as addenda 


that the dose reconstructor could consult if 


needed. 


Now this ties in with the next section that I 


wanted to read with you, which was objective 

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six on page 4. 


 Evaluate procedures for its ability to 


adequately account for the uncertainty of dose 


estimates. The input to the Interactive 


RadioEpidemiological Program of annual external 


doses as measured by weekly, monthly or 


quarterly assigned film or thermoluminescent 


dosimeters not only required an estimate of 


uncertainty for each individual dosimeter, but 


also considers the collective uncertainty of 


the annual dose that may correspond to as many 


as 52 dosimeters for a weekly exchange 


frequency. While all external dosimetry 


procedures reference the need to include 


uncertainty, only one guidance document 


attempts to explain how this is to be done. 


However, guidance in one document is inadequate 


and scientifically questionable as described 


below in the review of an implementation guide 


OCAS-IG-0001. The treatment of uncertainty 


pertaining to internal exposures as assessed by 


bioassay techniques is equally deficient. 


Again let me read that. The treatment of 


uncertainty pertaining to internal exposures as 


assessed by bioassay techniques is equally 

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deficient. 


Objective 7, assess the scientific and 


technical quality of methods and guidance 


contained in procedures to ensure that they 


reflect the proper balance between current 


consensus, scientific methods and dose 


reconstruction efficiency. The seventh -- this 


is the answer now. The seventh and final 


review objective not only assessed the 


scientific credibility of procedural methods, 


but also the EEOICPA directive that the methods 


and procedures must achieve a balance between 


technical precision and dose reconstruction 


efficiency. SC&A's review of procedures 


identified a number of technical inaccuracies 


and errors. Many prompt a dose reconstructor 


to pursue levels of detail not reasonably 


obtainable. On a more subjective level, SC&A 


believes that currently select portions of the 


dose reconstruction process demand a high 


degree of sophistication and detail that goes 


well beyond the regulatory requirement of a 


reasonable dose estimate and comes at the 


expense of reducing process inefficiency. 


Now having read that -- having understood Dr. 

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Ruttenber's concerns and having talked about 


what happened at Rocky Flats, I think it fairly 


quickly becomes obvious that there is a great 


deal of scientific uncertainty that surrounds 


this process of dose reconstruction. 


There are other letters that we introduced, 


talking about reports, another report for Rocky 


Flats, a report of epidemiological analysis 


performed for Rocky Flats production workers 


employed between '52 and 1989 dated March 3rd, 


2003, again performed by Dr. Ruttenber at the 


University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. 


And the report states the significant increase 


noted for unspecified nervous system neoplasms 


as well as the increase for brain and other 


central nervous system cancers, deserves 


further exploration since dosimetry models 


indicate that plutonium exposure deliver 


extremely small doses to the brain. Other 


agents such as gamma, photons, neutrons and 


chemical carcinogens should be considered as 


possible causes, both singly and in 


combination. 


There is also another report in the Federal 


Register entitled "Guidelines for Determining 

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the Probability of Causation and Methods for 


Radiation Dose Reconstruction" and there is a 


section on rule-making and it states in the 


future NIOSH may make additional changes in 


IREP to address the differences in radiation-


related cancer risk between Japanese atomic 


bomb survivors and employees involved in 


nuclear weapons productions. Some research has 


shown substantial differences in the risks for 


certain cancers such as brain cancer and 


multiple myeloma. The radiation-related risk 


of these cancers is significantly elevated 


among employees involved in nuclear weapons 


production, whereas it is not among the 


Japanese study population. 


Again, criticism of the IREP technique being 


used in dose reconstruction. 


I also wanted to reference very briefly a very 


short portion of testimony that was taken last 


April at your hearing out in southeast Denver 


at the Four Points Sheraton -- I was not 


present for that but I do have a copy of the 


transcript -- talking about the dose 


reconstruction process. And this is a very 


brief portion of the testimony from Dr. Ulsh, 

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and he says on page 53, we've got a large body 


of dosimetry records here, and this is the 


primary information that we use for dose 


reconstruction. He then goes on, on page 60, 


to talk about the basis for the petition and he 


says the next basis in the petition was that 


there are instances when it is not possible to 


link intakes to specific incidents. And the 


concern here -- if I can just present a 


hypothetical situation to you -- a worker's 


going along on a routine biomonitor -- bioassay 


program, let's say for plutonium. He gets a 


plutonium bioassay; it's negative. He gets 


another one a few months later; it's negative. 


He gets another one a few months later, 


positive. Well, then the question is where did 


that intake come from? Without having special 


bioassay results, if an incident is recognized 


at the time that it happens -- for instance, a 


glovebox fire -- what will typically occur is 


that special bioassay would be required. But 


in the absence of that -- I mean there are 


exposure scenarios where the worker wouldn't 


even know that he had been exposed. That has 


certainty -- that certainly occurred at Rocky 

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Flats and other places throughout the DOE 


complex. And so in some situations we agree 


with the petitioner that it's not always 


possible to link intakes that you observe in 


bioassay results back to specific incidents. 


It's helpful when we can do it, that is true. 


Now he goes on to explain that -- a method for 


taking that into account, which Dr. Ulsh states 


is approved by the International Commission on 


Radiological Protection. I wonder how long 


it's going to be before those standards change. 


The problem that we've got, ladies and 


gentlemen, is this issue of scientific 


uncertainty. And I am deeply distressed by -- 


by what I see as an air of benevolent arrogance 


in the scientific assessment process. I -- I 


don't think it's intentional. I think it's 


perhaps out of an unwillingness to admit that 


we simply don't know that which we think we 


should know. Examples abound throughout this 


process -- the dose reconstruction issues we've 


talked about, the issue of high-fired oxides, 


the so-called super S compounds, the 


reliability of measurements purporting to 


assess exposures and doses, the missing 

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records, the inaccurate records, the incomplete 


records. 


As a law professor I'm not usually concerned 


about what my students don't know, because most 


of them will readily admit their ignorance. 


That's why they attend class. They read their 


assignments. They exhaustively research that 


which they don't know, until they are as 


certain as they can be -- as certain as the law 


will allow them to discern what they believe is 


the truth. Hopefully then justice will follow. 


 But I'm deeply concerned about what my students 


think they know that just ain't so. In that 


case their analysis often turns out to be 


inaccurate, their advice unwise, and 


unfortunately clients will rely to their 


detriment on that advice. That approach I 


think forms the basis for this dangerous form 


of benevolent arrogance. 


 Now there's another answer, and it's an 


approach that stands in opposition to what I 


term as the benevolent arrogant approach, when 


we are faced with scientific uncertainty. And 


that approach is known in the law as the 


precautionary principle -- many of you may be 

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familiar with that term. The precautionary 


principle espouses a goal of preventing rather 


than merely reacting to harm. The principle 


incorporates issues of risk, of scientific 


uncertainty and cost that we're all familiar 


with. The application of the precautionary 


principle is triggered by the identification of 


a potentially serious or irreversible harm that 


could be averted by regulation. And of course 


here we have dying workers who have not 


received medical benefits in many cases. I 


can't think of a more serious or irreversible 


harm than those faced by the people that you've 


-- you've heard from. 


The central feature of the precautionary 


principle is to encourage regulatory approval 


before the causal relationship between the 


activity and the harm can be fully proven. We 


see it with mad cow disease. This is a 


principle that has been embraced by the United 


States government in numerous treaties, the Rio 


treaty of 1994 first adopted this principle, 


and it is embo-- firmly embedded in many of our 


regulatory structures and especially the 


environmental area. The focus on serious and 

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irreversible harm is a willingness to regulate 


under conditions of uncertainty because of the 


seriousness of the risk, and the mandate to 


take action in advance of harm occurring are 


existing elements of this Special Exposure 


Cohort process. The Special Exposure Cohort 


process really is a form of law which embodies 


the precautionary principle. 


Now assume for a moment that you are one of 


these unfortunate workers diagnosed with 


cancer. Can you honestly state, members of the 


Board, that knowing what you know now of the 


legitimate differences in studied expert 


opinions and the quality of the evidence before 


you, as well as the assumptions that are being 


based upon the lack of appropriate, competent, 


available evidence, that you'd be satisfied 


with the fairness of the dose reconstruction 


process at Rocky Flats if you had one of the 


cancers that these people who've testified 


before you have? Have you delegated the 


determination of whether or not dose 


reconstruction can be done with a reasonable 


degree of scientific certainty to scientists 


who just really aren't completely sure of the 

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process? Can you go home tonight confident 


that your decision to deny SEC status to 


workers stricken with cancer at Rocky Flats, 


treated each worker just like you'd want to be 


treated? If you were sitting out there in 


their place, based upon the doubts that you 


have about what you have seen, the evidence and 


the assumptions, would you want someone with 


your frame of mind making that decision for 


you? 


We have a process in criminal law -- it's 


actually a Colorado jury instruction -- called 


reasonable doubt. It's a short instruction, 


and it says reasonable doubt means a doubt 


based upon reason and common sense which arises 


from a fair and rational consideration of all 


the evidence, or the lack of competent 


evidence, in the case. It is a doubt which is 


not a vague, speculative or imaginary doubt, 


but such a doubt as would cause reasonable 


people to hesitate to act in matters of 


importance to themselves. 


 Can you honestly state that you are giving each 


one of these workers the benefit of reasonable 


doubt? I think if you can't, you're not doing 

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your job. 


 Ultimately your determination and that of NIOSH 


and the Secretary of Human Health and Services 


(sic) will have to be able to withstand 


judicial scrutiny. Dr. Ulsh's opinions and 


assumptions, and those of others at NIOSH, will 


be microscopically dissected under the glare of 


cross-examination to see if they can pass the 


test of reliable scientific evidence, which 


many of you seem eager to adopt today. 


Judicial review of final agency rule-making 


unfortunately is several years away, and you've 


already exceeded your allotted time for making 


a decision for far too long. It's tragic that 


many of the workers here won't ever know the 


final outcome. We implore you for the last 


time, please adopt the precautionary approach 


and pass the petition. Thank you. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Next I'm going to introduce an 


old friend and colleague, somebody who brought 


me along in the union movement for several 


years. That's this individual had worked very 


hard in conjunction with several members of the 


old oil, chemical and atomic workers union who 


-- who merged into PACE and then finally the 

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steel workers. This is an individual that 


testified before Congress on the effects of 


low-level ionizing radiations, that's -- and 


worked very, very hard to get compensation for 


the beryllium workers and the plutonium workers 


at Rocky Flats. This individual is invested 


30-plus years of experience with his time, his 


energy and his very life. That's -- the next 


person I'm going to introduce is the former 


president of Local 8031, Jerry Harden. Jerry. 


 MR. HARDEN: I don't like it when they clap 


before I give my presentation. Good morning. 


My name is Jerry Harden, as you've already 


heard. And I'm going to go through kind of a 


laundry list today because this appears to be 


my last attempt to convince you people the 


error of some of your ways. I have appeared --


this is the third time -- before most of you, 


and I -- I want to go through my laundry list, 


and if you have problems, I challenge you -- 


take me on, make me substantiate what I'm going 


to tell you 'cause if you don't, you're missing 


a chance. In fact, that's one element that's 


totally been missing from this whole process is 


a form of active dialogue where if there are 

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questions or challenges that they can be raised 


on the scene rather than having both groups 


sequestered where we do a hearsay, he said/she 


said thing, which we've all been victimized by. 


And I -- I'm appalled by this process, so 


you've got to know that. This is -- this is 


going to be a rock-throwing contest with me and 


I've got a big pile. 


So going on with this, I was employed at Rocky 


Flats for 37 years. My man [identifying 


information redacted]. I carry a lifetime 


exposure of 36 rem. I was discovered as having 


a high lung count in 1988. Now you've heard 


testimony the last few days how this 


reconstruction has occurred and they've used 


bioassay data. Keep in mind, 1988 I was 


already an employee for over 20 years, and then 


all of a sudden I showed up at the two-


dimensional lung counter and they said you've 


got high numbers. So I was very disturbed 


about it. In fact, I am today. You may see 


elements of that that still remain. And you 


know, I -- I think it shows the -- the 


fallibility of this so-called pseudo-science 


that we've been victimized by -- get out of the 

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way. 


The other thing that you need to know is in my 


lengthy career there I was a radiation control 


technician. I also served three terms as the 


president of United Steel Workers of America, 


Local 8031, representing the production and 


maintenance workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear 


weapons plant uniquely. 


When I hired early in 1967, the company didn't 


give us baseline analysis on radiation that we 


might have brought to the plant. That didn't 


occur till much later. In fact, it started to 


be more of a common practice after the big 


fire, the cataclysm of 1969. 


The fire, to me, was a -- was an amazing event 


and we'll talk about that through my ranting 


and raving here this morning. 


When I was hired I was issued a film badge 


which used photographic emulsion tablets or 


plates. And as you've heard in previous 


testimony, they went through thousands of these 


with a high quality control program in effect. 


The truth of the matter is, they had one woman, 


[name redacted]*, that counted physically the 


neutron tracks on the film emulsion. Many of 

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those emulsions were in question. 


Neutrons, by the way, have been talked about 


generally but not specifically. We haven't 


talked about fast neutrons or slow neutrons. 


And I would use my experience in the 71 


building, 771, in the 114 fluorinator -- and by 


the way, we had no radiation shielding of any 


consequence prior to about 1968. The neutron 


shielding was effected with a labyrinth type 


thing, or water walls later in some of the 


other areas. In the fluorinator in 114 of 771 


building we -- we developed or produced a 


product called pink cake, which was one of the 


earlier steps in the reduction of plutonium as 


metal. The pink cake was screaming, according 


to our field survey instruments. In fact, in 


the bullpen or the labyrinth, I couldn't use an 


alpha field survey instrument. There was so 


much activity due to whatever energy that was, 


it would avalanche a normal Ludlum air 


proportional instrument. We had to bring 


whatever those products were outside in an area 


where we could isolate them -- and where we 


could try to protect ourselves, too, by the 


way, 'cause as many of you know, neutrons are 

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one of the hardest things imaginable to try to 


shield production workers from. 


And so we hobbled along for many years, you 


know, with this pretense that we were being 


monitored for our radiation exposure. But I 


can assure you, if you were ever around pink 


cake with any of our instruments that we had, 


you'd -- you'd either think that there was a 


malfunction or some phenomenon that occurred, 


you know, out of the --the cosmos. And this 


was a normal environment. 


Keep in mind that the contractors received 


bonuses for kgs of plutonium out the door, for 


units down the road -- to Burlington, Iowa or 


Pantex at Amarillo that took many of our 


components. 


 Heard stories about atomic bombs and weapons. 


That isn't totally accurate in my working man's 


knowledge. We made the spark plugs. It takes 


an atomic bomb to make a thermonuclear bomb, 


I've been told. And in the course of that a 


lot of the eggheads had a lot of different 


designs. And every time there'd be a new 


graduating class at -- at University of 


California or wherever they were hired, we'd 

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get some new designs. And amazingly, a lot of 


these things looked like deja vu all over again 


to me. But these things like the enhanced 


neutron thing that you heard about, well, every 


weapon that we ever made -- or component, 


kicked off neutrons. 


Some of these unique ones for the Russian tanks 


were enhanced radiation devices where they were 


to be used as a tactical weapon, supposedly, 


due to the numerical superiority of the Russian 


tank force. That project was a hit and miss. 


Boy, they spent millions of dollars on 


equipment to try to shield the workers, and in 


most cases that equipment never performed as 


intended. 


Now in the -- in the sequence here, coming down 


the line, a lot of these -- these situations 


were crimes of omission and convenience. Keep 


in mind, the contractor got bonuses -- kgs to 


the -- to the -- off the floor and units, that 


was our completed product, down the road. 


We also received a lot of site returns. Those 


were -- were products that were viewed as being 


obsolete, or in some cases where they 


disintegrated to the point where apparently 

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they wouldn't perform as intended. 


The reason I'm telling all of you this is 


because some of these things seem to have been 


conveniently omitted in some of the -- the 


presentations that I've been a part of. The 


other thing that's been omitted is some types 


of radiation. We haven't heard about radon. 


We had huge concentrations of radon in the 


subterranean concrete buildings -- 991 tunnel 


was a real beauty; 81 building, another one; 


371, the new one, totally -- totally ignored. 


And the contractor conveniently disregarded 


radon exposure. And I can assure you that 


radon is a very serious thing. As many of you 


intellects know, the prime energy of the 


emission off of radon is very close to the 


prime emission off of plutonium. 


There was a doctor -- maybe he's still alive, I 


haven't talked to him or read about him in many 


years -- that did work for the uranium miners 


in Grand Junction. Some of those men were 


dying like flies due to radon exposure, diesel 


fuel and diesel emissions, cigarette smoking, 


you name it. His name was Gene Sakamano*, and 


the reason I'm going to throw these names out 

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as we go is to hopefully give you some 


credibility. Even though I'm an ignorant fool, 


I want you to know that I'm paraphrasing some 


of these other people's findings, and hopefully 


that'll flesh out this thing as -- as we go 


along. 


The other thing that has been totally ignored 


in my audience here is beta exposures. 883 


building, we were a part of what they called 


the LIP* project, and this was an attempt by 


the government to remedy a boondoggle on the M1 military tank. And we had over 100 tons of 


depleted uranium in residence. Now in the 


course of this production boondoggle, this 


uranium was decaying and creating oxide -- 


dirty, brown dust all over everything. In 


fact, it infiltrated our dosimetry badges where 


they actually had to have the workers put their 


badges in a sack in order to keep from cross-


contaminating the -- the radiation detection 


process. I don't know if you're aware of it, 


but you need to be. Beta emissions have been 


ignored here -- again, in my -- my visits with 


you. 


The other thing that has been totally ignored 

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through this process are tritium exposures -- 


haven't heard a word about it. Maybe you've 


talked about it in other sessions, but I 


haven't heard it here. The government spent 


over $100 million on property east of Indiana 


adjacent to the plant on land remediation 


processes due to tritium and some of our other 


effluents -- errant effluents. They even 


bought the rights of Great Western Reservoir, 


that was a water supply for the city of 


Broomfield until some sharpie said hey, you got 


tritium contamination in the -- in the -- in 


that reservoir. You need to know that. We had 


workers that were at the epicenter of these 


tritium projects. The contractor finally said 


oh, it was a problem of contaminated site 


returns and we didn't have a system to screen 


tritium, and we certainly didn't have a system 


in place to protect workers from exposures. 


That's been totally ignored through this 


process. 


 Now the health effects I realize are in hot 


debate on all of these things. And the reason 


that I'm telling you this is because, again, 


these -- these are serious omissions, in my 

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mind. We were not a -- a head shed. We were 


not dealing with onesie-twosie types of things. 


In fact, at one time Madame O'Leary, the 


Secretary of Energy, said we had 16 tons of 


plutonium in residence at Rocky Flats, and a 


fair percentage of that didn't occur on any 


inventory or any known way of accountability. 


And that was due to the so-called heritage 


thing or drag-along where the record-keeping 


was so deficient that no one could tell you for 


sure where the money was buried. 


And so the point I'm trying to make here is a ­

- is a sequence of incompetence, deception, 


distortion, omission, and as we go along here 


in my -- in my rambling I want to tell you that 


I'm very concerned about the well-being of the 


people. I would use my own example. As I've 


already confessed to you, I have a lung burden 


and body burden and some other problems that 


you've already witnessed mentally. And the 


reason that I bring this to your attention is 


because the exposures. And originally we had 


three crystal arrays as detectors, one of them 


positioned over a normal human's liver area and 


two over each lung. And as you know, the right 

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side is usually bigger than the left side kind 


of thing and it goes on and on and on. 


So, in the course of the early use of this 


array, one of the intellects in the castle 


decided that the data that they were generating 


off this liver crystal array wasn't to their 


liking, so they yanked the liver crystals. 


Again, keep in mind what I've already told you, 


that I was a worker for over 20 years before 


they found a high level of count in my lungs. 


 The other thing ironic is this presentation 


about bioassay. None of that ever showed on my 


urine samples. Now you're familiar with a 


phenomenon called Langham's curve, where 


usually after an exposure you have a high rate 


of excretion right after that event. Never 


occurred on any of my records. All of a sudden 


I showed up on that fine day in 1988 and I rung 


the bell. This is due to this -- this 


technique and this equipment that has already 


been highly praised through this -- this 


process that I've witnessed. I resent it. 


 The other thing that -- that thing is bothering 


me. The other thing that I want you to know, 


and I alluded to it briefly before -- I'm 

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deviating from my notes and it gets worse -- is 


the transuranic -- Transuranium Registry 


donors. The government has spent hundreds of 


millions of dollars soliciting workers to make 


these donations at their death so these 


scientists can analyze the -- the data. And 


Dr. Roessler, you got to be familiar with that 


because every month the Health Physics Society 


printed a journal and it was full of papers put 


up for peer review, and quite a few of them 


involved Rocky Flats autopsy donor data. And 


you can look through these indexes -- names 


like [name redacted]*, couple of others. Any 


time you see those, it's probably about Rocky 


Flats workers. And the list of papers is 


extensive. 


The reason that I'm bringing that to your 


attention today is the government has spent all 


this time and effort to harvest these organs 


and con these workers into donating body parts, 


and it's been totally ignored in this format in 


my attendance here. I don't understand that. 


I think that the -- the information gleaned 


from these body parts darned well ought to 


substantiate the -- the abilities of our -- of 

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our radiation protection program. Why hasn't 


it been a component of this -- this process? 


The other thing, as you may already be aware 


of, is we had three workers that donated their 


whole bodies. And I don't know what the 


outcome or the data generated from any of that 


has -- has developed. I don't know. But you 


need to know that this isn't a thing that just 


happened last week. It's been going on for 


years. 


 The other thing that you need to know is our 


workers have been guinea pigs. I was a guinea 


pig. Now I've dropped part of that and I'm 


just a pig, according to some of them, but what 


-- but a cultured one. And the reason that I 


bring that up is because our workers, when they 


had inhalations or puncture wounds, were 


subjected to several snake oil salesmen 


peddling DTPA, saying hey, take this magic 


drug; all the bad stuff will be gone from your 


life. 


Well, the fact of the matter is, it's always 


been an experimental drug, in my knowledge. 


[Name Redacted] down at Oak Ridge was another 


snake oil salesman peddling that. But the same 

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guy that sold that to our workers was the guy 


that harvested the organs for the -- for the 


Transuranic Registry. 


Now I find all these things, again, as being 


crimes of convenience. I don't have a PhD to 


present you today, and you ought to be grateful 


for that 'cause if I -- if I would have gone to 


school it would have been terrible, folks, but 


the reason that I bring that to your attention 


is not to necessarily entertain you, but to 


enter-- to inform you that I'm not making any 


pretense of being something that I'm not. 


 The other thing I would tell you, early on in 


my employment at Rocky Flats I was told 


routinely by management about this phenomenon 


known as hormesis. Well, a little bit of that 


isn't going to hurt you at all. Now that, to 


me, is a direct expansion on Nietzsche's 


comment that what doesn't kill you will only 


make you stronger, and I would tell you that I 


think that's a very poor operating philosophy, 


but it's one that we lived with for all my 


years at Rocky Flats. 


The other thing is synergy, and some of you 


folks may already be well aware of that and may 

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be experts on the subject. But most of the 


things that we had at Rocky Flats were what I'd 


call mixed stream or mixed waste. It was very 


rare that we had a unique or a virgin type 


product, five nines pure. It just didn't exist 


except in the labs. Most everything was mixed 


with something else. 


And in case you haven't figured it out, they 


didn't make atomic weapons out of good things. 


And this phenomenon is merely where you take 


one bad thing and another bad thing and you 


make something even worse. And that happened 


with a lot of the products that our people were 


exposed to. 


We had limited resources for detection, and 


very limited ways to protect the people. As 


I've already tried to illustrate feebly to you, 


neutrons were very difficult to work with, and 


still are. We had virtually no protection on 


the shop floor other than distance and time. 


They tried the water walls and it caused a 


reflection where these particles -- or these -- 


these energy things would come in and they 


would bounce all around, so they made a problem 


that was bad much worse by this -- this 

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experiment. So we wound up where we stripped 


out most of our so-called neutron shielding and 


the workers worked with it naked, basically, 


using distance and time and our feeble 


instruma-- instrumentation and our dosimetry 


techniques. 


The reason that all of that is important to you 


is because I don't view this committee or this 


-- this legislation as just being a one or two-


item thing. It was intended to be an omnibus 


thing where you covered the beryllium victims, 


you covered the radiation victims, and then of 


course Part E speaks, you know, to the solvents 


and some of the other problems. 


Which, by the way, I heard someone talk about 


some of the solvents the other day. We were 


one of the biggest users of carbon 


tetrachloride in the U.S. We had over 20,000 


gallons in tanks in residence at Rocky Flats in 


the height of production. Now any of you that 


have ever worked around that know that that's 


very difficult to contain. It's probably about 


as difficult as it is for tritium. You can't 


keep tritium in anything for very long. And so 


we had this material and it was in our 

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production stream. 


Some of the eggheads said hey, we need to have 


that carbon tetrachloride because it doesn't 


seem to affect the properties of our metals or 


our products. Not much thought was given to 


what it was doing to the workers. I've seen 


carbon tet where it defied gravity, where it 


defied vacuum on dry boxes, and it would 


migrate through most all of our packaging. 


 Heard earlier in a presentation about 


radiolytic decay. Well, that came on us from 


the Ahern committee and a couple of those 


others -- again, intellects -- talking about 


all the errors of our ways. Packaging has 


always been a problem. And again, keep in mind 


that we didn't deal with pure products usually. 


Like if we had plutonium residue, we usually 


had nitric acid or something similar that was a 


component of that, as well. So most of our 


packaging would disintegrate and the workers 


would be around where there wasn't any air 


sampling. 


And as I've already feebly tried to point out 


to you, we didn't have real good monitoring for 


inhalations, other than bioassay. Again, 

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remember what I told you, my -- my body burden 


didn't show up on a urinalysis, didn't show up 


on a lung counter for 20-some years. I believe 


that my lung burden was this so-called S 


material -- which I believe is S, but not the 


connotation that you believe -- and I believe 


that we had high-fired oxide all along. 


And that brings up another one of my items on 


my shopping list. I was in radiation safety, 


as I've already confessed to you painfully. We 


used to have a stupid system -- stupid -- where 


we would divide the plant between soluble and 


non-soluble plutonium. And the standard for 


non-soluble was twice as high as it was for the 


soluble. Now I don't know the health effects, 


you know, and how they differentiate one to the 


other, but this is the way we operated. And 


some of the people have been around the plant a 


while maybe know what I'm talking about. But 


this was another crime of convenience. So our 


workers in the so-called non-soluble areas, 


they were breathing higher levels of radiation 


than those that were in the soluble areas. And 


you know, I -- I never could understand that 


conflict. 

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I had a guy the other day in the course of this 


hearing say, you know, you never -- you never 


were a very good worker on the floor; why did 


you stay? Valid point. I learned early on I 


couldn't afford to quit; I had a young family. 


I thought well, if you can't quit or don't have 


the guts to quit, try to make it better. And 


that's when I got involved in the union 


activities. Even though we didn't clear the 


deck, I think we helped make it a little 


better. 


 The other thing that helped is when we got out 


of this umbrella from the Atomic Energy 


Commission where the contractors didn't answer 


for any of their -- their ills. They still 


don't. Uncle Sam just writes them a check for 


their legal fees and whatever else is 


encountered along the way. But we were in a 


total vacuum, in a bubble. We had virtually no 


rights. We had virtually no sounding board for 


our problems. That came about as a DOE 


aberration, the Williams-Steiger Act, commonly 


known as OSHA. DOE said we won't allow OSHA 


inspectors in, but we'll give you our own 


rendition, and boy, did they ever. And we 

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brought in some inspectors -- I was promptly 


fired for about two -- two hours. And you 


know, this is the benevolent contractor that 


we're going to get around to here in a bit. 


And the point I'm trying to make is this wasn't 


an open environment, an open dialogue. In 


fact, in some ways it's reminiscent to what 


I've seen here. We had groups of people 


talking about problems, but we didn't have all 


the people talking about the problems. So it ­

- it winds up where you have isolated groups of 


information, isolated groups that are defining 


problems. And I'm very disturbed that there 


isn't a commingling where we have an active 


dialogue develop. 


In regard to the contractors -- I see that my 


protege is restless, and I hope you are, 


because if you're not I haven't accomplished 


anything. The history of Rocky Flats and the 


contractors. The government has conveniently 


hidden behind the cloak of secrecy and, by 


using pseudo-science created by arrogant 


intellectuals, denying the workers and the 


public access to the truth. So with that, I'd 


ask do you have any questions today? This is 

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your chance -- chickens. Once again, please -- 


please, fire away. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I -- I do want to talk because, 


you know, a lot of this is to be able to allow 


you to be able to have a say, but I also want 


to bring something else up. 


 MR. HARDEN: You've been captive. 


 MR. CLAWSON: The thing is is I want you to 


explain, when you have to go in and decon an 


area, what kind of stuff they'd give you to 


decon with and how -- how it affected you. And 


sometimes when it wouldn't decon all the way, 


some of the mixtures that they'd come up with. 


 MR. HARDEN: Well, first off, you need to 


calibrate your question in specific time frames 


'cause this thing evolved due to low-bid 


contracts and suppliers. Like after the big 


fire, Dow Chemical sold us a bunch of their 


kitchen cleaner -- imagine that. 


Speaking of the fire, and this is an extension 


of your comment, when we got shielding in 1968 


or thereabouts, a lot of it was Benelex. When 


the plutonium caught on fire or ignited, it 


gassified the Benelex and that accelerated and 


expanded the damage of the big fire 

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considerably. Prior to that we had virtually 


no gamma shielding on that main line. 


I heard a guy the other day say that workers 


were all in the cafeteria after the fire. 


Well, that -- that's bull, and we need to make 


a steer of that bull, and we're about to. The 


workers were out salvaging material. We had 


parts hanging on pendants in the chainveyors in 


the dry boxes with the gloves and the windows 


burned off. These workers were trying to 


recover the very valuable and strategic 


important plutonium at a line. 


To answer your question about the decon, it was 


always pretty much Stone Age. We went through 


several renditions and a lot of different 


chemical experiments, but the most effective -- 


if -- if that could ever be accomplished -- was 


usually with chem-wipes and with the solution 


with the water -- wetter or surficant. And the 


other thing that they used, especially when 


we're in the height of production, was purple 


paint. And whatever we couldn't control in a 


timely fashion, they'd bring out the boys and 


they'd start spraying the paint all over the 


place. And like in 71 building, a couple of 

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those corners of the big rooms had probably an 


inch or better residue of paint, you know, 


where -- they were interested in getting 


production going. They weren't interested in 


cleaning an area, you know, to satisfy workers' 


needs. 


So I would tell you that decon's very hard to 


generalize because every situation, every 


material brings its own unique characteristics 


into the mix, which brings up the subject -- 


like if you had solvents, carbon tet, very 


difficult to control or contain, very difficult 


to decon. Some of the solids and some of the 


bigger particulates like turnings from a lathe 


bed, obviously you can -- you can clean those 


up fairly easy. Some of the other things would 


permeate, you know, in the structure, in the 


pores of whatever the product was. We were in 


some situations where they had to use 


jackhammers or scarfing equipment, you know, to 


-- to abrade the surface before it could be 


released for whatever purposes that they 


intended. 


So I didn't mean to -- yes, I did. I meant to 


expand on your question. But I've seen a lot 

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of that through the course of this, and this 


may be my last chance to torment you so you're 


going to pay. And the purpose is not to 


antagonize you, it's to try to inform you that 


you've listened to a lot of people that had 


pedigrees, but they weren't on the shop floor 


and I can prove it. But I've been there and 


I'm -- I'm interested in it, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: I want to defer to your spokesman. 


Do you want to have the general questions and 


discussion now or do you have some additional 


presenters first? 


 MR. HARDEN: Yeah, sorry. Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We -- we do need to get a comfort 


break here (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. HARDEN: Yeah, no, no, no, that's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let us defer to your --

 MR. HARDEN: No, I can take a hint. Thank you 

very much. Please help the sick Rocky Flats 

workers. 

(Pause) 

MR. DEMAIORI: I would like to now introduce a 


Colorado native, somebody who's grown very 


close to us at Rocky Flats, somebody who grew 


up with a lot of the folks that worked at Rocky 

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Flats, a lot of the professional staff and the 


blue collar people, somebody who's represented 


the state of Colorado very well in Washington, 


the distinguished Honorable Bob Beauprez. 


I'd like also to remind everybody that 


Congressman Beauprez is a U.S. Congressman, cosponsored H.R. 428, and has always been a 


strong advocate of ours at Rocky Flats. 


Congressman. 


 CONGRESSMAN BEAUPREZ: Thank you, Tony, and all 


of you. It's a privilege to be here, and 


thanks for your patience and your dedication 


and -- as you can imagine from that 


introduction -- during my time in Congress at 


least I felt very much like I was on that side 


of the table, and that's probably what I will 


focus most of my comments on in just a moment. 


A little bit of expanded biography -- and very 


little. For the record, I was born in 1948, 


about a good drive or distance away from what 


became Rocky Flats. I was -- I guess I would 


have been two, maybe three years old when they 


broke ground at the Flats, so in fairness, all 


my life it's all I ever knew was the Flats. 


Didn't know for sure what happened there, 

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didn't talk about that for a long while. But 


almost everybody that I went to church with in 


Lewisville, to school with, their parents 


worked there, depended on it, did stuff that we 


knew was extremely important. And then it was 


their kids, same generation as me, and then the 


kids after that that worked at Rocky Flats. 


I came to appreciate especially this group of 


patriots. I don't think that word's been used 


today, but in my opinion, they are. We -- we 


won that war. We won that war because of you 


and we -- you know, we're -- we're in one 


again, and we're all distressed that we deploy 


our -- our best and our finest for a year, some 


of them two, some will go back for a third, 


maybe even a fourth tour of duty. You just 


heard from one that did it for 37 years. And 


we won that war. 


And we send people off to work. My [identifier 


redacted] told me to climb ladders and paint 


the sides of the barns on our dairy farm or 


stack hay or -- these people showed up for 


work, too, knowing full well that there was a 


risk inherent. They did the job. They did it 


with an assumption just like I did with my 

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[identifier redacted], that if something 


happened -- you fell, you got hurt, something 


unforeseen that we didn't imagine before were 


to happen to you -- we'd be there for you. 


Somehow we'll pick you up, take care of your 


injuries. We'll take care of you. 


Now a nation that is great enough to figure out 


how to win that Cold War, not only on behalf of 


the United States of America but I submit to 


you for the good of the majority of this entire 


planet. A lot of people are far safer because 


of what these people did. A nation that is 


great enough to win that Cold War ought to be 


big enough and great enough to have the 


compassion and the caring and the justice to 


take care of the warriors who won the danged 


thing in the first place. 


I want to talk a little bit about process, and 


I will submit to you -- I guess for -- for the 


record, for whatever good it is -- the wise 


words of a -- an old lobbyist friend of mine 


who happened to be from the other party. I'm a 


Republican, he was a Democrat. But he told me 


once, he said Bob, you know, if you're going to 


assign me something, assign me to defeat it, to 

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get a no vote. And if what I've read in the 


papers of late -- brought them with me -- is 


true, the votes are probably already in. 
I 


doubt honestly that anything I'm going to say 


up here in the next few minutes is going to 


change any of your opinions that are probably 


already cast. 


I've been in that situation. Again, I've sat 


through hearings before. I'll -- I'll confess, 


as a member of Congress you go there and your 


mind's pretty well made up. You think you've 


got the facts. I suppose you probably think 


you've got all the facts. Maybe you've made 


you mind up. And you just kind of wait till 


the bitter end when everybody's said their 


piece, and you cast your vote. 


I get the joke. It's not a joke to these 


people. This is life and death. This isn't 


about well, we ought to fix Social Security. 


We should. This isn't about disagreeing on 


immigration policy. We ought to fix that, too. 


But consistently we find the votes, don't we, 


to say no. And the way you do that, he told 


me, is massive amounts of information. And the 


bigger and the more complicated and the more 

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maybe, could have been, should have been, might 


have been that you can create, somebody gets 


just a little bit of an element of doubt and 


they let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 


It's not good enough. It's not perfect enough. 


I guess I'll vote no. And too often we avoid 


doing the right thing. 


I fear, if what I read in these papers is 


correct, that exactly what frustrates people -- 


and ought to -- about government is that 


government, as big and as great as this nation 


is -- and I'll defend that flag till the day I 


die and I know you will, too -- as big and as 


great as we are, sometimes we can't find the 


means to do what is right in front of us and is 


blatantly obvious. 


Now let me talk about EEOIPA (sic), or however 


you refer to it, that Act, that legislation. 


was there. I voted for it. And I did sponsor 


legislation with my Republican colleague Wayne 


Allard in the Senate and two Democrat 


colleagues, Mark Udall in the House and Ken 


Salazar in the Senate, that if EEOIPA (sic) 


wasn't good enough -- and for heaven's sakes, 


let us put an exclamation point on it and tell 


I 
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you -- if the record is not perfectly clear, we 


as representatives of the people, every single 


one of the current delegation, Democrat and 


Republican, House and Senate, as well as a 


bunch of us has-beens, Republicans and 


Democrats, every one of us, as representatives 


of the taxpayers, said take care of these 


people. They've earned it. They deserved it. 


They showed up and did the job. They took the 


risk. Some of them are paying the price. For 


heaven's sakes, do it. That's what we meant by 


the Act. Not to go through volumes and volumes 


of woulda/coulda/shoulda and find a reason to 


deny, but reasons to approve -- and do it in 


180 days or less, not in two and a half years 


or more, and submit these people to endless 


torture. 


I had [identifier redacted]that went through 


cancer. Fortunately not caused by work at 


Rocky Flats, but I know what he went through 


and we went through, my [identifier redacted] 


and I, in those eight months that he was on 


chemotherapy. I know what we went through and 


still go through every day with that ghost that 


sits on your shoulder -- is it back, am I sick 

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again, did I just get it, have I got the early 


signs? It's a terrible thing to live with, and 


then to believe that your government that asked 


you to do the job is going to pull the rug out 


from under you when you most need them. That's 

a terrible thing to put people through. These 

people did the job. 

 And [identifier redacted], wherever you're at ­

- wherever [identifier redacted] went -- see, 


all of you who took the risk and maybe didn't 


have every ounce of protection by the 


contractor, by the government, by whomever, my 


apologies. But let me state from a lay 


person's standpoint what I witnessed at Rocky 


Flats. I did visit. My [identifier redacted] 


and I visited. We went in Building 70 -- 70 -- 


771, too, and I guess if NIOSH is going to 


expand, maybe they ought to take care of me, 


too, in case I get sick. I don't think that 


was the intent, and I'll tell you that was not 


the intent. The intent of the legislation was 


to take care of the petitioners, these steel 


workers who did the heavy lifting, who put 


themselves in harm's way and who've got every 


right to expect that we would take care of 

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them. 


From my perspective, they did the unthinkable, 


the unimaginable, the impossible. They worked 


with plutonium, and you know all the rest. And 


they won the war. They did what we asked them 


to do, and they did it going home at night 


sometimes with a neighbor right across the 


street protesting what they were doing. That's 


tough duty. That's tough duty, to just 


continue to show up because you know it's the 


right thing to do, and you signed up and you're 


going to get it done, believing that the 


government's going to be there for you. 


And then we said all right, the Cold War's 


done. We can tear this place down. And of 


course we heard the hue and cry -- you'll never 


get it done, not in any of our lifetimes. 


You'll never really clean it up, will you? 


They did. It was these same petitioners, these 


steel workers, who got it done -- ahead of 


schedule, under budget, and today it sits 


perpetually, as it started, as a wildlife 


preserve -- from Mother Nature back to Mother 


Nature. That's a pretty glorious lesson that 


they taught the entire world. 

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Now we've got some of them that are sick, and 


we're trying to find every single way we can to 


say bad things happen to good people -- see ya. 


Not the government I served and not the 


government I believed in. I implore you to 


approve this petition. Not only me, but every 


single political representative in Congress, 


Democrat and Republican in this entire state, 


present as well as past and now your -- your 


current Governor and Lieutenant Governor, are 


saying this is a political question. What do 


we want to do on behalf of a grateful nation; 


we want to take care of these people. Take 


care of these people. 


 There's another test or two that I think is 


worth mentioning. We -- we are a nation, I 


think rightfully and proudly, founded on what 


we typically call Judeo-Christian principles. 


Go back to those first Ten Commandments that 


were given a long, long time ago. Right and 


wrong, take care of folks, treat others as you 


would want to be treated yourself. It doesn't 


get any more complicated than that. Our kids 


have developed their own cliche for that -- a 


little test. What would Jesus do. I suppose 

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we're not supposed to mix religion and 


politics. I don't think I am. I think what 


I'm doing right now is talking about the 


foundation of this country, the principles that 


guide us -- again, we call them Judeo-Christian 


-- what would Jesus do. Jesus will take care 


of these people some day when He gets them in 


His tender loving care, I have no doubt about 


that. Will we? Will we? It is in your hands. 


It is in your hands, and you -- as I've had to 


before with my votes -- you will have to live 


with whichever decision you make. I pray that 


you decide on behalf of these petitioners. 


They've earned it. They deserve it. They've 


got a right to it, justice for all. Thank you. 


MR. DEMAIORI: In order to facilitate this 


meeting, the petitioner now closes comment. 


Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I think we 


will take this point in the meeting to have a 


comfort break for folks, so let's take a break 


and then return around 11:00 or so and we'll 


continue at that point. Thank you very much. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:40 a.m. 


to 11:10 a.m.) 

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114

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're ready to reconvene 


if you'd please take your seats. 


I want to double-check and see if Board members 


-- Mike Gibson, are you still on the phone? 


 MR. GIBSON: Here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Phil Schofield -- 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Lockey? 

 DR. LOCKEY: Yes, I'm here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: John Poston? 

 (No response) 

John Poston not on the phone? 


 (No response) 


ROCKY FLATS PETITION DISCUSSION
 

Okay, thank you. We want to open the floor for 


some discussion period now. I want to 


recognize a gentleman who's been a pa-- I think 


a part of the petition group that has had some 


questions, and I'd -- if you would raise your 


questions now, I don't know if the Board can 


answer them, or perhaps NIOSH can help us with 


your --


 MR. ROMERO: Well, my questions weren't 


necessarily for the Board but it was for NIOSH. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

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 MR. ROMERO: And I asked these questions 


yesterday and you said NIOSH would answer them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I --

 MR. ROMERO: Well --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I can't volunteer NIOSH, I 

guess --

 MR. ROMERO: Well, whatever. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- but --

 MR. ROMERO: But my question was --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- NIOSH is here, a 

representative, if they can answer it. 


 MR. ROMERO: I mean they -- they had their film 


badges, we've listened to different people, and 


my concern is about internal deposition -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ROMERO: -- from airborne contamination -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ROMERO: -- from jobs that went on at Rocky 


Flats. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. ROMERO: Deconning, production, you name 


it. Hazards of the job, going in the area, 


SAMs go off, no respirator -- or going back in 


an area where the airborne concentration's too 


high for the type of protection that you're 

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wearing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. So the question has -- 


 MR. ROMERO: And many -- my question -- my 


question is, what documentation did NIOSH use ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: For internal --


 MR. ROMERO: -- other than bioassay. That's 


all they talk about --


 DR. ZIEMER: Other than bio--

 MR. ROMERO: -- bioassay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

 MR. ROMERO: What else did they use? We have 

numerous different types of information that 


was out there that's over at the Federal 


Center. Did they have access to all that 


information? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let me have NIOSH answer 


this, but I -- I can tell you that NIOSH's 


first approach is always to use the personal 


bioassay information, so I guess -- Dr. Ulsh, 


you want to address that? 


 DR. ULSH: I'll try. I might have to get some 


clarification on exactly -- 


 MR. ROMERO: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: -- what you'd like to know. As Dr. 

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117 

Ziemer mentioned, the primary source of data 


that we rely on to evaluate internal dosimetry, 


internal intakes, is the urinalysis data, 


whether it be for plutonium-specific, uranium-


specific or gross alpha -- I mean depending on 


what was available. Subse-- secondary to that, 


we also use lung counts when -- when necessary. 


I mean the first line of defense is -- or the 


first thing that we would rely upon is the 


urinalysis data. 


I know that also in -- in later -- sorry -- in 


later time periods, some limited fecal sampling 


was also done. We would use that when it's 


available. But those are the primary sources 


of data that we would rely upon. 


 MR. ROMERO: Well, my question is on protection 


factors of respirators. You know protection 


factor respirators and what the maximum amount 


you can be in an area with that type of 


protection. 


 DR. ULSH: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ROMERO: If you're in a area that's ten 


times or 100 times or 1,000 times that 


protection, that person's in that area working 

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118

 UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Sorry, we've got people on the 


phone (unintelligible). 


UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Could you (unintelligible) 


microphone? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. ROMERO: My question is about protection 


factors of respirators, 'cause that's all we 


had to do our jobs out there. A full-face or a 


PAPR respirator. 


 DR. ULSH: (Unintelligible). 


 MR. ROMERO: That's all we had to do the 


deconning, move material, bag-outs, glove 


changes, window changes, you name it -- 


respirator's all we had. When the protection 


factors were exceeded, management would allow 


us to close the job down, shut the job down, go 


to the next level of protection. 


 DR. ULSH: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ROMERO: But as times went on, management 


deemed that it was allowed to exceed protection 


factors out there, and protection factor were 


exceeded on a constant basis out there, 

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especially during D&D times. The levels may be 


1,000 times or 100,000 times the protection 


factor of that respirator or PAPR, and the 


people that were in those areas doing that 


work, day in, day out for months were not 


subject to fecal samples or not subject to 


urine samples on a daily basis. It was only 


during extreme sit-- sit-- situations where 


they would make them go do fecal, make them do 


urine. Occasionally they would do that, but 


they didn't like do it on a daily basis because 


they knew they were exceeding protection 


factors because they didn't want Price Anderson 


fines. 


So my question is to you, how do you judge -- 


I'm in a area that's 1,000 or 100,000 times 


greater protection factor than my respirator, 


how are you going to equate that to what I got 


internal to that respirator, if that respirator 


was functioning at 100 percent. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. That's a very good question 


and I appreciate your concern on this, and 


there are certainly -- certainly safety 


implications for a situation like you describe. 


What I need to try to make clear, though, is 

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that in NIOSH dose reconstructions we don't 


consider any reduction in intake because people 


were wearing respirators -- none, none 


whatsoever. We don't assume a protection 


factor of 1,000, 100, nothing. We rely 


strictly on the urinalysis, the bioassay data, 


under -- you know, most normal circumstances. 


So let's say you were wearing a respirator and 


it was malfunctioning, or you were in an 


environment that was inappropriate for that 


respirator and it resulted in an intake 


because, you know, you had the wrong respirator 


or it wasn't working. Well, if that resulted 


in an intake, then that would be reflected in 


your bioassay data. And I understand that it 


wasn't taken on a daily basis -- except under 


extraordinary circumstances. But there was a 


routine bioassay program at Rocky Flats. And 


let's say you go in on Monday, you get a -- an 


intake. You go in on Tuesday, you get another 


intake. On Friday you go in for your bioassay. 


Well, that's going to show the integrated 


measure, all of those intakes that you got are 


going to be reflected in your urinalysis data, 


and that's what we're going to use for dose 

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reconstruction. 


 MR. ROMERO: What about -- what about three to 


six months later? They weren't done three days 


later, four days later. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. ROMERO: They may be done months later. 


 DR. ULSH: Right, taking --


 MR. ROMERO: Or when specific times happened 


where they deemed for them that they needed to 


do it. So my question is, a person that did 


12-hour days, seven days a week in those high 


values, how can you sit there and tell me oh, 


we'll wait until we do a fecal sample or a 


urine sample on that person to get an 


evaluation. If it's three or four weeks later, 


he's already excreted whatever might have been 


inside of him, so the dose is not going to be 


the same. 


 DR. ULSH: You're absolutely right. The body 


can clear, and does clear, radioactive 


materials with a known function -- 


 MR. ROMERO: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: -- you know, that we --


 MR. ROMERO: Natural pathways. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. And so what we would 

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typically do is -- let's say you had a bioassay 


in January. You got an intake in February. 


You didn't get the next bioassay until June, 


and it shows a positive. Well, we can't say 


when in that period you actually got that 


intake -- sometime between January and June. 


So given the fact that we can't -- usually -- 


can't sometimes tie a particular intake to a 


particular event, what we are going to do is 


say well, we know it happened sometime in this 


time period, before -- or after the last 


negative bioassay. What can we do to estimate 


this dose in a claimant-favorable manner? What 


we're going to do is assume, in general, that 


it happened the day after your last bioassay. 


That results in the highest dose estimate for 


that situation. 


Now if we assumed that your intake occurred the 


day before your bioassay, that would not be 


claimant favorable, and that's why we don't do 


it. We go all the way back to your last 


bioassay, and that's a claimant-favorable way 


to do it. It results in the highest estimated 


dose. 


 MR. ROMERO: And that's going to be conducted 

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at everybody that worked out at the plant? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, that's routine. 


 MR. ROMERO: Plutonium side or uranium side. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, absolutely. That's the way we 


do internal dose reconstruction. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I might add that the Board has 


examined this methodology and -- and we agree 


with -- with NIOSH that that gives the most 


claimant-favorable outcome. In other words, it 


will give a number which is never lower, but is 


-- is in general higher than the actual dose 


because it is a very conservative assumption. 


It's sort of like the reverse of The Price is 


Right. You never want to be under the number, 


you want to be at the number or over, and this 


always does that. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, and that --


 DR. ZIEMER: So the Board has been satisfied 


with that methodology. 


 Another question? Yes. 


UNIDENTIFIED: I have a question for Mr. Ules 


(sic), too. My question is about -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: And for the record, you need to 

identify --

UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, I'm sorry. 

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124

 DR. ZIEMER: -- yourself, yeah. 


 MS. PADILLA: My name is Judy Padilla and I 


would like to ask Mr. Uls (sic) of NIOSH about 


the as least likely as not, the 50 percent. 


Why don't they put as 50 percent of what? We 


never know what that number is and how you 


arrived at that number. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. That's a -- I'm going to try 


to answer your question in the time that we 


have available, but recognize that it's a very 


complex --


 MS. PADILLA: Of course. 


 DR. ULSH: -- topic, of course. The 


probability of causation reflects the chance 


that the cancer was caused by the radiation 


exposure that you experienced at Rocky Flats. 


And we take the value at the 99th percentile -- 


now that sounds like mumbo-jumbo. Let me 


explain it just a little bit. 


 MS. PADILLA: Of course. 


 DR. ULSH: There's a dis-- there's a 


distribution of values, and it reflects what -- 


some of what you've heard about here today, the 


uncertainties. We take all of that into 


account explicitly, and when we come up with a 

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probability of causation value, we don't take 


the median, the average value. We take the 


value all the way out at the 99th percentile, 


and that tells us that in 99 times out of 100 ­

- there are -- a 99 percent chance that we are 


overestimating the dose, overestimating the 


probability of causation. And we do that to 


account for a lot of the uncertainties that 


have been discussed. I hope that answers your 


question. 


 MS. PADILLA: No, it doesn't answer my 


question. My question is, why don't they put 


the number of what the 50 percent is from, the 


-- the 99th percentile, as you call it. That's 


not on our paperwork. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, I see, not in the dose 


reconstruction report that you get. 


 MS. PADILLA: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Neton perhaps can clarify 


this. 


DR. NETON: I might comment on -- on that. The 


-- the do-- NIOSH's responsibility under the 


Act is to actually do the dose reconstruction, 


so you'll get a detailed report that highlights 


the information -- the dose that was calculated 

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in your particular case. It's really the 


Department of Labor that has responsibility to 


do the final adjudication; that is, do the 


final calculation to determine what the 


probability of causation is, and that number 


will show up on the letter that you get from 


the Department of Labor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let -- let me add some -- 


maybe to clarify. The -- the Department of 


Labor basically is using the IREP program, 


which has been referred to before, which is a 


computerized model of the National Cancer 


Institute's risk statistics. For example, a 


certain cancer has a certain probability per 


unit dose. This is largely based on the 


Japanese studies and adjusted for the American 


population, but it's a probability per unit 


dose, numbers that come from the National 


Cancer Institute, that Labor uses. And based 


on the dose that that person received to the 


organ of interest -- say it's the lung -- they 


compute that and it's -- and it is the -- they 


get a distribution of possibilities and they 


take the high end of that, which is the most 


claimant favorable, and they say okay, that is 

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what we're talking about. So it's -- it's 


that. It's the pro-- it's -- is it more likely 


than not, based on those numbers. 


Now let me give you an example, and I'll do 


this in terms of asking a question of one of 


our presenters. Let me ask Bill Brady, who 


talked about the risk estimates for brain 


tumors and cited the work of Dr. Ruttenber. 


Now -- so he had information on the incidence 


of brain tumors, I assume, and then calcul-- 


MR. BRADY: No, that's not right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 


MR. BRADY: His concern was that because of the 


high incidence at --


 DR. ZIEMER: At Ro--


MR. BRADY: -- at Rocky Flats, that the numbers 


were in fact not accurate and that the IREP 


model was faulty. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I understand that. 


MR. BRADY: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But I'm saying he had some number 


-- he had a number of brain tumors in that 


population --


MR. BRADY: Yes. I'm sorry, yes, I didn't 


understand. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I assume that he relied on 


the Rocky Flats dose data. What -- what did he 


use to -- to determine risk per unit dose? 


MR. BRADY: Oh, I -- I -- I'm sure that that's 


what it was, yeah. I mean I -- I can't --


 DR. ZIEMER: So he --


MR. BRADY: -- recall off the top of my head, 


but I can't imagine it being anything else. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So he -- he --


MR. BRADY: Would have to agree. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- he in fact relied on the Rocky 


Flats dose data --


MR. BRADY: I think that's right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to compute a risk per unit 


dose. 


MR. BRADY: I think that's right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And in essence, he could do 


something similar -- you know, he's saying 


okay, maybe -- maybe these numbers are the ones 


that should have been used. We're -- we're 


required under law to use the National Cancer 


values until they change them, and perhaps that 


study -- and -- and in fact the IREP model over 


-- over time has changed as we get new 


information. That -- that that was a possible 

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MR. BRADY: I think that was part of the 


conclusion of the study. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. So -- but all I'm saying is 


that that's really the approach that's used. 


It's to take information of that type, but it 


also -- I had a sort of a subtle point I was 


making is that he did rely on the validity of 


the Rocky Flats data to do that study, and I 


simply want to make that -- that note. 


DR. ROESSLER: Could I add to that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Dr. Roessler. 


DR. ROESSLER: I have a comment right on that 


point, and since you brought it up I'll make 


the point. Also Dr. Ruttenber -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) We can't hear you. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I don't think my mike is 


working maybe. 


 MS. MUNN: This one is. 


DR. ROESSLER: Let me try this one. Now I 


think this one's working. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Great. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yeah. You mentioned also that 


Dr. Ruttenber is recommending a rather large 

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epidemiological study on the Rocky Flats 


workers. I think he's particularly interested 


in brain cancer, but to do an epidemiological 


study you need dose estimates. You need good ­

- you know, excellent dose estimates, even 


better than you would need for this particular 


program. You don't need just upper bounds, you 


need accurate dose estimates. So my conclusion 


is that Dr. Ruttenber does feel that he can get 


dose estimates from the Rocky Flats workers, 


and that's my only comment. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I -- I hesitate to follow up 


'cause I think we're -- we're speculating on -- 


but -- on something that -- person who's not 


here and maybe that's not completely fair, but 


I -- I just would remind that -- one correction 


to what -- what you said, Dr. Ziemer, is the 


Act does call upon NIOSH to develop 


modifications to IREP where appropriate based 


on the worker experience and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right --

 DR. MELIUS: -- and my -- my inter--

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I thought I'd made that point, 

in fact --
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 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that we have modified IREP as 


we go along, as we get new information, and 


perhaps this would be such a case. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right, and I -- and I think that's 


what he was recommending, so -- okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. I -- I agree with you on 


that. 


MR. BRADY: If I could just comment on that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MR. BRADY: -- the conclusion of the -- of the 


-- I forget it now -- the mortality of 


plutonium workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear 


weapons plant, that conclusion is -- and I'll 


quote -- data from the Rocky Flats cohort 


provide the best source for estimating the risk 


per unit dose for lung cancer among modern 


plutonium workers, estimates that are important 


for assuring that plutonium workers receive 


adequate workplace protection, and that former 


plutonium workers with lung cancer are fairly 


compensated through the EEOICPA. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MR. BRADY: So yes, in fact he is recommending 


that study be done based upon that -- that 

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population. 


 DR. ZIEMER: While you're at the mike, could 


you clarify -- did -- did his study look at 


only malignant bone -- brain tumors or -- 


MR. BRADY: No --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- both --


MR. BRADY: -- he -- he looked at more than 


that, but -- and again, the -- just let me 


finish the -- the last sentence of the report 


following that last sentence was: For similar 


reasons, dose response studies of Rocky Flats 


workers may help clarify the risk for brain 


tumors among radiation workers. 


 This study purported to look at -- and I think 


I read it into the record earlier, but there 


were several cancers and I'm -- I'm looking for 


the section that I -- here it is -- lung, 


liver, bone and connective tissue were the 


areas that he looked at, and he found elevated 


risks certainly for the bra-- brain tumors, and 


is recommending further study for all of them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I'd like to 


-- just a moment. I just want to follow up on 


one thing. Jerry raised the issue of tritium, 


and I want to ask NIOSH, do we have tritium 

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bioassay on any workers at Rocky? I -- I think 


we do, but I just wanted to get some clarity on 


that. 


 DR. ULSH: The answer is yes, we do have bioa-- 


tritium bioassay. I've personally seen tritium 


urinalysis results in individual worker 


radiation files. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, just wanted to clarify that. 


I thought that was the case, but I wanted to be 


sure. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience) They didn't 


do urinalysis (unintelligible) tritium. 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, other -- Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Just to follow up on that -- Mark, 


maybe you can answer this, or somebody from 


SC&A -- has that issue ever been evaluated by 


the workgroup or SC&A and have they looked -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah --


 DR. MELIUS: -- at the completeness of that 


data and --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we -- we looked at -- in our ­

- our discussions on other radionuclides, we 


certainly looked at tritium as one of the other 


radionuclides and -- through the workgroup 

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process, so yes, we did look at that. 


 DR. MELIUS: But -- but has it been validated 


or verified -- I mean in terms of going back to 


-- I -- I'm just trying to get sort of the 


depth of the evaluation --


 MR. GRIFFON: I honestly can't remember. I 


don't know if SC&A can speak to that -- the 


extent of the data and whether we -- but we... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Makhijani's approaching the 


mike --


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, that's why we -- we did 


end up with thorium as --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- do you recall --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the final sort of nuclide that 


we were concerned about. But anyway, go ahead. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, tritium was one of the 


radionuclides that we looked at in our other 


radionuclide report. We did not find tritium 


data on the HIS-20 database, unlike some of the 


other radionuclides where we said -- neptunium, 


americium I remember -- to the best of my 


memory, we found them compiled in the 


electronic database. We did not find tritium 


data compiled in the electronic database and 


raised this question in a working group. And 

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at that time we were told by NIOSH that the 


tritium data are in the individual worker dose 


records. Also -- but for the record, there -- 


the one check that we did, I believe -- and 


Kathy was the one who did this -- from -- from 


the individual dose record, I believe maybe 


from the SEC petition, we didn't find that 


sample in the record, but that was just one 


thing and we didn't find a systemic pattern. 


There are -- I believe that we have verified 


that there are some tritium bioassay data in 


the -- in the record, but we did not follow up 


on the NIOSH statement and do an exhaustive 


check on that. We -- we accepted that 


statement. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Thank -- thanks for the... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kathy DeMers, do you have some 


additional comments from -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah, and if --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- SC&A? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- if you remember, 


there was a logbook that we looked at, 1966 


through 1969, special analysis logbook, there 


were also some tritium results listed in there. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Question. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Tony DeMaiori. I'd like to move 


to another subject that Mr. Bradley Clawson had 


brought up, and that was describe the decon 


procedures that we worked under at Rocky Flats. 


As being a chemical operator, chemical control 


operator and then a rad tech, I have a lot of 


experience in area and personnel 


decontamination. That's a lot of time working 


in Building 771, the carrier for the plutonium 


was nitric acid, whether it was seven -- seven 


five normality or 12, that's when a SAM alarm 


would occur, selective alpha air monitor, 


that's the people would go out of the room, 


they'd run. That's basically -- they'd meet in 


the hallway. We'd pick up the decontamination 


supplies, big stacks of paper towels, we called 


them chem-wipes, that was the manufacturer's -- 


and detergent. We'd run back in the room with 


full-face respirators on and we would, in a 


rapid fashion, throw as many paper towels on 


the floor as we could as quick as we could. 


Somebody would follow with the wet solution, 


the decontamination solution, in a desperate 


attempt to keep the plutonium from drying out 

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and going airborne, to reduce the mess, 


basically, is what I'm telling you. That --


that was pretty normal. We didn't take DAC 


samples back then. We didn't have any idea of 


airborne concentrations. We simply went in and 


negated the circumstance, the problem. That 


was pretty normal. That's 771, 371, being an 


aqueous system with all the variety of 


chemicals from hydrofluoric acids to nitric 


acids to caustics. After we controlled the 


spill, then the process of the actual cleanup 


would occur. We'd decon from the ceiling to 


the floor. That's -- and then we would have to 


neutralize the suits. That's -- this is --


considerable period later when we decided if it 


was a nitric acid spill, we'd dress everybody 


in a rain suit, a yellow acid-resistant suit, 


and we'd put -- we'd put individuals in 


charcoal canisters. Now I'll have to tell you, 


being human, you -- you know, I've done a lot 


of decontamination in charcoal canisters for 


nitric acid with plutonium, so I did take an 


OSHA class several years later that said no 


known protection for nitric acid other than 


SCBA, that's supplied breathing air, that's 

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SCUBA, that's self-contained breathing 


apparatus. We used nitric -- for nitric acid 


we used charcoal canisters. We thought we were 


protecting ourselves. We thought we were 


protecting our brothers and sisters. So in 


fact we were breathing plutonium nitrates the 


entire time we were deconning at Rocky Flats, 


and we did it for years. That's -- and as 


Jerry Harden articulated on the bioassay 


program, it may or may not have shown up in the 


bioassays. That's simply to say that we'll 


catch you in the next 30 days, 60 days, six 


months is absolutely incorrect. That's -- we 


believe this, we stand by this, that's -- we -- 


we failed to convince members of the Board of 


this, however we believe the high-fired oxides 


do mask themselves and that they're not caught, 


they don't dissolve, they're insoluble and that 


it doesn't go through the waste system in -- in 


a quick period of time. So -- so we don't 


believe that you can hang your hat on that. 


But you did ask for the decontamination 


procedures. 371, we had the big acid spills, 


the 4,000 or 5,000 liters where we blew up 


tanks when we were first starting the -- the 

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building, we had a -- a stainless steel side 


and we had a carbon steel side of -- of our 


process, stainless steel for the acids. 


Unfortunately during construction a few carbon 


steel tanks were piped into the stainless steel 


system and -- and they did explode and we lost 


4,000 or 5,000 liters of nitric acid, to the 


point where you could see an orange cloud above 


the facility. That's -- and I mean on the 


outside when I went to work that day. It was a 


huge spill it took us almost nine months to 


clean up. That's -- and we did the same thing, 


we used our charcoal canisters and it was with 


plutonium. I mean it was plutonium-based. So 


-- so you -- you know, we've had a lot of 


problems and the cocktails were definitely 


there. I use the term cocktails because 


whether it was aluminum nitrate, hydrofluoric 


acids, nitrates, you know, I dumped a lot of 


soda in -- in the bags of -- of the acid suits 


of my coworkers to neutralize so that it 


wouldn't explode in a 55-gallon drum. And we 


had 55-gallon drums explode on us. We -- we 


had drum lids where you could see the rings on 


the ceilings of our facilities that were 35, 40 

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feet in the air. That's -- and so, you -- you 


know, we worked real hard and -- and we tried 


to mitigate these things, and a lot of things 


we were involved in didn't go documented, but ­

- but I have to honestly tell you, what Dennis 


is saying is true. We tried to protect 


ourselves. We used the best -- best protection 


available to us. That's -- and we believed 


that we were protecting ourselves and our 


coworkers. That's -- but as time tells, as 


technology gets better, as we get smarter as 


people, we -- we often find that what we did in 


the past wasn't good enough. 


That's -- and my analogy to that is the solar 


ponds, state of the art in the '50s. You 


didn't like it, you threw it in the pond. It 


evaporated, wind blew it to Nebraska and it 


rained on those people, but it was gone. Okay? 


That -- we thought hey, that's a pretty good 


thing. That's a good way -- way of dealing 


with waste. And then we found out hey, no, 


that's not. Good folks in Nebraska didn't 


appreciate it. So -- so technology, you know, 


that's -- we're learning and that's why this 


petition is so important to us 'cause we 

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believe still today that we're learning this 


and, you know, when you're talking about 


people's lives and you're talking about their 


families, to -- to say absolutely we can do 


this -- I think in a perfect world, absolutely 


you can, given all the facts on every single 


thing. But I don't think that we have all the 


facts and I don't think we ever can. 


So anyway, to answer your question on the 


decontamination, that's -- we were in there, 


that's -- we did the decontamination the best 


we could as fast as we could with the tools 


that were available. That's -- we did try to 


protect ourselves from acid burns, that's -- we 


didn't want to absorb anything, for -- for 


goodness sakes, if we didn't have to. We 


didn't want to breathe it if we didn't have to, 


but that didn't always work. I worked in 371, 


caustic treatment, that's -- we broke a caustic 


line. I sent a guy in unprotected to shut the 


valve. It was a 4,000-liter tank. That's --


we didn't want to expose the rest of the world, 


so he just threw on a full-face. His job was 


just to go in and shut the valve. Somehow it 


got on his arm and it burnt the heck out of 

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him. I mean, you know, that was just part of 


the job, that's -- but he saved the rest of us 


tremendous amounts of exposure. It's just what 


happened. That's how we did it. That's -- we 


did it to the best of our training. That's --


and the end of Rocky Flats, we had the -- the 


fire in the stacker retriever in 371, that's -- 


and you -- you know, our procedure was three 


fire extinguishers and supplied breathing air 


and you're out. Then -- then you turn it over 


to the fire department. But our people thought 


that they could control this fire and 33 fire 


extinguishers later and a $1 million Price 


Anderson fine, that's -- we brought the fire 


under control. That's -- and I have to tell 


you, the guys did it for the right reason, 


that's they wanted to protect their families. 


They wanted to protect the community. Okay? 


had a answer to that, and my answer was that 


they were heroes. They didn't necessarily 


follow their procedure, that's -- and so you -- 


you know, I tell you that a lot of things that 


we did was instinct and training. That's --


and dedication, from the heart, but it wasn't 


always perfect and I think the nitric acid with 


I 
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the charcoal canisters is a prime example of 


that. I myself have a little bit of plutonium 


-- just a little bit, though -- in -- in my 


lungs, and you -- you know, it came out of one 


of these body counts. 


One year they said hey, the americium's up, 


we're going to recount you. They recounted me, 


you're below background. Next year they said 


hey, the americium's up, we're going to recount 


you. They recounted me, I was below 


background. The third year they said the Am's 


up and we know where it came from. You -- you 


were involved in an incident in this module, so 


draw your own conclusions. That's -- I -- I 


mean honestly, draw your own conclusions. I 


was in every environment on that plant site, 


both as an operator and a rad tech. That's --


I personally don't believe the bi-- bioassay's 


infallible. I believe that once you do detect 


it, once you do get ahold of it, then you can 


measure it, absolutely. But when do you get 


it? From incident, from inhalation, from 


intake, injection, whatever, to when we 


actually discover it, that's -- I was involved 


in shutting 771 down when we were in the middle 

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of decommissioning the building because we had 


11 people out of nowhere, out of absolutely 


nowhere, that's -- come up with extreme 


intakes. Okay? We didn't know where it came 


from. We'd been working in the building 


happily, everybody was working really hard, the 


progress was phenomenal. All of a sudden one 


day, wham, 11 people do -- we couldn't figure 


it out fast, but we had to shut the facility 


down. We had to stop the decommissioning of 


that facility and then try to regroup and 


figure out where it came from. So this 


happens, that's -- and how does it happen? It 


happens because a valve's leaking and you've 


got to go in there and shut it, and it happens 


because --


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


MR. DEMAIORI: Well, it's not -- not even 


mistakes. It's nature of the business, the 


absolute nature of the business. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Board members, any 


additional questions or comments? Dave Hiller. 


 MR. HILLER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I'm David 


Hiller with Senator Salazar's office. I've got 

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a couple of questions for the appropriate NIOSH 


representative. I'll let you pick. 


The -- the first question is that there were 


references made yesterday to comments -- 


statements of the Scientific Advisory Board for 


the NDRP, and my question is whether or not 


ORAU, who is managing NDRP for NIOSH, was 


involved in selection of the people who 


participated on that advisory board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I believe that advisory board 


predated the -- the EEOICPA activities, did it 


not? 

 MS. MUNN: It did. 

 DR. ULSH: That is correct, it predated 

EEOICPA. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But ORAU was around, so I guess 


that's the question. 


 DR. ULSH: I don't -- I don't know the answer 


to your question, David. I don't know how they 


selected the members of the advisory board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, go ahead David. 


 MS. MUNN: I think they were people who 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. HILLER: Before you leave, Dr. Ulsh -- 


second question is -- you indicated that with 

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regard to the analysis of the thorium strike 


issue that -- that there was one individual 


upon whom you placed a great confidence rather 


than relying on -- on the report of a 


documented investigation. But there are other 


issues. For example, Mr. DeMaiori just 


provided some personal history anecdotes of 


incidents that he was personally involved in. 


In some circumstances you don't accept the -- 


the statements of individuals as defining what 


occurred at the plant. Can -- can you explain 


that dichotomy, please? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, okay. In terms of the thorium 


strike, first you have to realize that we're 


talking about a very small group of people. 


mean there was a larger group that was involved 


in the uranium-233 project, but there were 


seven individuals involved in the thorium 


strike and we have their names. I mean we know 


who they were. The person that we relied upon 


was the manager in charge of the project at the 


time. He was there when they did the thorium 


strike. He was a hands-on individual involved 


in that project. 


Now in terms of -- you mentioned other accounts 


I 
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that you characterized as we don't accept. 
I 


don't agree with that characterization. We --


I spoke yesterday that we evaluated each and 


every concern expressed by members of the 


public in the petition, that we could cull from 


the transcripts, through communications with 


the petitioner, and we evaluate each and every 


one of those, just as we did with -- with this 


particular individual. I mean we -- we -- we 


consider each and every one of these things 


that we have heard. We take them very 


seriously and we -- we investigate it. 


 MR. HILLER: And did you contact each of the 


other seven individuals that were involved in ­

- in handling the thorium -- 


 DR. ULSH: No --


 MR. HILLER: -- materials? 


 DR. ULSH: -- no, we didn't. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Could I interrupt on this one? 


Now the -- the other report that you referred 


to, I think it was the advisory board or the 


advisory group, that identified a different 


building -- 71 --


 DR. ULSH: Not exactly. There -- the report 


that first raised this question -- okay, not 

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first raised it, but it brought it to our 


attention -- was called "A History of U-233 at 


Rocky Flats" and that report was written 40 


years after the fact. And it relied on a 


classified document that was authored in 1965, 


right at -- just after the time of the thorium 


strike. We got that classified document -- we 


had it pulled and we had it -- the pages 


redacted, and that is the source of the idea 


that the thorium strike might have happened in 


Building 71. So then we evaluated the pedigree 


of that -- of that document. And what we found 


was that it was authored by an independent 


investigation committee. Not investigating the 


thorium strike, they were investigating a later 


contamination incident dealing with the U-233 


and some U-235 that got in with it, and they 


were investigating that particular incident. 


And they were an investigation committee and 


they wanted to purposefully pick people who 


were not involved with the project because they 


wanted independence. So we evaluated that -- 


the word -- the recollection of the hands-on 


project manager was more definitive, more 


authoritative than -- than that other report. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: But you couldn't necessarily rule 


out the possibility that thorium strikes did 


occur in the other -- I mean in both cases it's 


recollecting something -- 


 DR. ULSH: I can --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- quite a ways back, I guess. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I can tell you that this 


project generated a lot of attention from -- 


from health physics. Dr. Bistline, who is 


known to many of the workers and who is -- or 


at least was, I think he still is -- retained 


by SC&A, characterized it as this project -- 


this is my paraphrase 'cause I don't have it 


right in front of me -- this project received 


very high attention from health physics and so 


-- I mean it just wasn't one of these projects 


that, you know, went under the radar. 


Now there was security concerns with it. I 


don't want to misrepresent that. But the point 


of that is that there was a small group of 


workers who were involved with this project and 


they wanted to maintain that group of workers 


to do that same project when it occurred again 


in '77, so I'm pretty con-- I'm -- I have the 


utmost confidence in the -- the worker that we 

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talked to. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. David? 


 MR. HILLER: My next question is for SC&A, Dr. 


Ziemer. In -- in reading the most recent 


supplemental report from SC&A, my 


interpretation of that report, as -- as a lay 


person, is that there's a real question as to 


the -- the reliability and accuracy of the -- 


the methodologies used as part of the -- the 


NDRP. And I guess my question for SC&A is 


whether -- if we leave aside the -- their 


careful wording that they used in the 


supplemental report, if SC&A has in fact 


concluded that the NDRP is not accurate and 


reliable. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We can have SC&A respond, or Mark, 


did your group address that question in terms 


of the SC&A report? 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


take that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Arjun? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) couple of slides 


(unintelligible) (on microphone) the table that 

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might help. 


 DR. WADE: We don't really have time. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You don't have time? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're kind of pressed for time, 


but can -- can you summarize -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I can give you an or--


 DR. ZIEMER: -- very quickly what --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I can give you an oral 


report. The NDRP had several components. One 


was to gather up nearly 90,000 badges that 


Brant has talked -- Dr. Ulsh has talked about 


and reread them. There was a process for doing 


that. And the other was to calculate doses for 


people who were not monitored for extended 


periods of time, like a whole year or large 


fraction of a year. They were called notional 


doses. And then the third involved badges that 


were never found and so could not be reread. 


Let me start with the notional doses first, 


people who were not monitored. The NDRP used 


the gamma badge data, neutron-to-photon ratios 


that have been talked about, by building -- so 


they calculated average ratios for buildings -- 


and then applied them to the gamma dose. And 


when we investigated this we found that it 

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might be okay for saying what happened to the 


population in the building, but that would not 


be accurate to calculate an individual dose on 


that basis. And in fact, the NDRP itself 


concluded that the notional dose estimate 


should be considered somewhat speculative and 


the variance estimate should be considered 


quite approximate. And this applied to periods 


when there were large gaps. There were 


instances when there were no building data for 


the whole year and for the whole building, or 


nearly no data, and this applied to the SEC you 


voted on last time, in much of that period, and 


also to Building 76 and 77 in the early '60s. 


And for that the NDRP itself concluded -- so 


what I'm saying is our conclusion was much like 


the scientific staff of the NDRP, not their 


advisory board which has been quoted, but their 


scientific staff report said that for 


building/year combinations in which neutron 


films are not available -- that's for the year 


-- for the whole year, the notional doses are 


highly speculative. So obviously in -- in 


those cases the NDRP cannot form the basis of 


individual dose estimates that would be with 

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sufficient accuracy, in my opinion. 


For the badges that were not found, there are a 


number of different problems. In order to be 


brief I'll just focus on the later period, '68 


to '70 or '69 to '70, when the badges were 


deliberately not archived. Some reasons have 


been presented, but we were not able to find a 


satisfactory reason why the badges were not 


archived. Or in more simple terms, thrown 


away. 


The main problem with these badges not being 


thrown away is that from -- starting from -- 


being thrown away or not being archived, is 


that starting in 1967 a new policy of reading 


neutron badges was instituted because it was 


found that the workload of reading all the 


badges was far too high and there weren't 


enough technicians to do that job. And so only 


some of the badges of people considered to be 


at higher risk were read, and the rest of the 


badges were not read. And instead of the badge 


being read, a calculated dose was entered based 


on an estimated neutron-to-photon ratio that 


was shown by later work in the NDRP to be 


generally, in our view, not correct. So 

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there's a real data integrity problem with the 


1968 to 1970 data because very large number of 


-- a fraction of those badges were not 


recovered and not reread, and the data record 


is actually a mixture of these calculated 


doses, most of which -- or many of which would 


be wrong, together with originally doses that 


were read at the time. 


The significance of that for the present 


situation is that NIOSH has proposed to use a 


correction factor based on all of the 87,000 


badges that were reread of 6.95, but if you 


look at the affected workers, 200-and-odd in 


'68, 200-and-odd in '69 and 1,700-plus in 1970, 


the correction factors are actually all over 


the map and vary from .22 to 220. That is, 


they vary by a factor of thousand -- one 


thousand, and they bear little or no 


correlation to the -- the reread dose, so you 


don't know what correction factor to apply to 


any particular amount of mis-- gaps where the 


badges were not recovered. You could apply .2, 


you could apply .5, so in the one specific 


instance I can give you -- so there was a 20­

millirem original badge dose that was not 

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found, and you could calculate a 10-millirem 


dose using a correction factor of .5; you could 


calculate 20 millirem using the correction 


factor of -- 16 millirem using the correction ­

- 20 times seven, 140 millirem using the 


correction factor proposed by NIOSH, and 20 


times 200, or 4,000 millirem using one of the 


correction factors that's plausible from the 


table. 


The -- finally the question of the rereading of 


the badges and the statistical corroboration of 


the re-readings, the NDRP had an elaborate 


process of trying to check the accuracy of the 


rereading. This turned out to be a big issue 


because individual readers were generally found 


to have significant errors in their rereading, 


even in the NDRP, and there they were daily 


checked for the accuracy of their readings and 


validation of their readings, but as Dr. 


Griffon (sic) mentioned yesterday, there was 


one reader who was the gold standard and he -- 


as consultant to ORAU, Roger Falk described 


himself as the gold standard -- and the 


accuracy of his reading was never checked. So 


in a normal independent evaluation, the -- the 

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rereading that was done of the badges would be 


in question because all of the -- all of the 


readers had correction factors that were 


necessary to their reading, with a master 


reader whose correction was never -- whose -- 


so to that -- to the extent that the NDRP 


reread doses are the foundation of the neutron 


dose reconstruction project, that would remain 


 DR. ZIEMER: I believe --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- in question. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the working group has been 


quite aware of this and has looked at these 


issues, as well. Is that correct, Mark? Yes. 


David, do you have a final question? 


 MR. HILLER: I do have one other question, and 


that relates to the -- the timing of the 


process going forward. It's -- it's my 


understanding that -- that NIOSH has proposed, 


and I -- I'm not quite sure if the workgroup 


has accepted or is going to recommend to the 


Board for acceptance some changes to the 


methodology that will require recalculation of 


neutron doses and maybe other radionuclide 


doses as a result of the discussion that -- and 

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the analysis of SC&A that Dr. Makhijani just 


described. And -- and I -- I am wondering if ­

- in SC&A report, the suggestion was that there 


is no estimate as to how long it will take to ­

- to conduct that -- those recalculations, so 


my question is to -- to NIOSH whether in fact 


they have analyzed how long it will take to 


conduct whatever reconstructions they are 


proposing, whether they have the staff to do 


that at the present time, so that we know 


whether we're looking at a period of three 


months or six months or another year before 


these doses are calculated. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me suggest that NIOSH wait to 


answer that till they determine whether the 


Board is proposing any such thing to them. 


 MR. HILLER: Fair enough. I -- I would just 


urge -- in light of the fact that timeliness 


remains an important issue -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, understood. 

 MR. HILLER: -- that that's considered. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. HILLER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, other comments? 

Yes, Mark. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to -- I -- I think 


we might want -- it might be useful to have a 


follow-up from -- from NIOSH on -- and I -- I'd 


like maybe just the narrow question of the '67 


through '70 with the zeroes and the correction 


factor approaches and I -- I know you've looked 


into this quite a bit, so I -- I think we need 


to hear response on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, okay. 


 DR. ULSH: I can tell you that the NDRP -- 


well, the situation that Dr. Makhijani 


described I think is accurate at the time the 


badges were read in that time period. The 


NDRP, when they went back and they reacquired 


all of those neutron films, they reread them at 


the time. Now, Arjun is correct that there are 


a higher fraction of those original films that 


were not able to be reread in that time period, 


in that later time period. We also know that 


we can identify which of the films were 


actually read originally and which ones were 


based on the ratio that Arjun described. The 


worksheets that you fill out when you do the -- 


the reads are different. They're going to be 


blank. And so we know which ones are which. 

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And I also have to comment on the point that 


was made about the individual readers, and the 


reason I have to comment on that is because I 


don't think the description was complete. It 


is true that there was a senior reader who was 


considered the gold standard. However, his 


readings -- he was simply the normalizer. All 


of the other readers were compared to him, and 


his readings were compared to a calibration set 


of films of known -- films that had received a 


known dose. And so he was -- his readings were 


compared to those calibration films. So it's 


not as if it was just blind faith that they 


just accepted that his readings were right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just a --


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Brant, just a follow-up on 


that, just for clarification. The -- part of 


what I was questioning yesterday was you have ­

- for '67 through '70 you have this question of 


-- in some cases, and Arjun mentioned the 


archiving -- when these -- the policy in that 


time period, I'm not sure exactly when it 


started or stopped -- or when it started, but 

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the policy was to not necessarily keep the 


films, but in all those cases you have these 


worksheets. Is that what you're telling us? 


 DR. ULSH: Let me tell you again what the 


policy change was. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: I think Arjun alluded to it. The 


AEC, before they made this decision, considered 


the official dose record to be the NTA film 


itself. Then they changed their policy and 


made the official dose record the worksheet 


that was created when the films were read, and 


therefore the site was no longer required to 


archive the films. So to answer your question, 


Mark, yes, we have the worksheets that were 


created when those films were read. 


Now you asked me in every single case. Well, 


there are a lot of them, I can tell you that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: But you have the -- you have the 


worksheets --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- in gen-- and -- and I guess 


the other important thing that I heard, which 


we did examine on the workgroup, was that 


during that time period actually -- at least -- 

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I'm not sure if it's the end of '66 or early 


'67, we definitely saw a point where the most 


highly-exposed workers, to neutron exposures, 


were monitored -- had measured data and not the 


notional data. And I think -- you know, the -- 


the approach was to basically -- the non-


measured badges that we're talking about for 


the most part were -- and I -- and I -- and we 


looked at this at the workgroup and it was 


confirmed that the highest likely exposed were 


monitored in that time frame, so I think that's 


an important consideration in discussing this 


time period, too. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Wasn't a question there, just a ­

-


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) the record -- (on microphone) 


I just wanted the record to be correct about 


what I said in relation to the master gold 


standard reader. I said that there was no 


independent verification, and he himself has 


said that I was right about that, there was no 


independent verification. What he has said is 


documented in the SC&A report of April 30, 

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which you have. His calibration was done by 


his rereading calibration badges that he 


himself had prepared and in the '60s at least 


knew the readings of and said that he had 


disciplined himself to not remember those 


readings -- that's not a quote, it's a 


paraphrase, but I believe it's pretty accurate 


-- so that under a normal procedure or 


validation of an -- of a very large multimillion-dollar exercise of 90,000 badges, it 


would be expected that an independent 


validation of one person who was the master 


reader would have been conducted. 


A second point also should be clear for the 


record, which is that Roger Falk told us as a 


consultant to ORAU, which is why I'm allowed to 


say his name in that context, that the AEC 


required the non-- did not require the 


archiving of TLDs once TLDs were introduced, 


and that was not until 1971 -- this is also in 


the interview. We were -- and this is in our 


report. We were not able to find a good reason 


why the badges that were still NTA badges were 


not archived for the period when the policy 


change to paper records was supposed to have 

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gone into effect when TLDs were introduced, 


according to Roger Falk, all -- I believe that 


I've accurately represented what is in the 


reports and I just wanted the Board to be aware 


of what is in the SC&A reports. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. Board members, 


do you have any further questions for -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) I've got a question for you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we need to make it quickly. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Well, I'm a little confused with 


NIOSH's saying about the reconstruction and the 


doses on the TLDs that were zeroes or didn't 


have reading. Now what about the TLDs from 


when they started to closure that came back as 


zeroes and they should have information on 


them, are they go-- 'cause you can't reevaluate those 'cause those are only a one-time 


read, so how are they going to address people's 


TLDs that came back with no data available, 


what number are they going to assign those 


people in reconstruction? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think we're just referring 


to the film badges here, not to the TLDs. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Well, 'cause we've had TLDs in 

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the past that come up no data available, but 


yet the person sitting next to you or working 


in the same job, he's got data, so how they 


going to evaluate that? That's the same --


that's the same thing going on with the film 


badges -- the same thing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's -- that's an 


individual case. You take that case-by-case, I 


assume. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but they have approaches ­

- maybe -- maybe Brant can just say quickly, 


you know, you do have approaches and we -- we 


have discussed this on the workgroup. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, we have, we've discussed -- 


first of all, we're mixing a couple of issues 


here. The no data available was a concern that 


was expressed -- I think it was a matter of 


great concern for the workers, and we 


investigated it under the data integrity effort 


that the working group looked at, and the 


explanation for it is this, and I'll try to 


make this quick, as Mark requested. 


The dosimetry department issued supervisor 


reports to the supervisors and, during some 

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time periods at least, the workers -- you know, 


those were posted and the workers could see 


them. Due to workload, sometimes those reports 


themselves showed NDA, or no data available. 


That is not the same as a zero. What that 


meant was that by the time the report had to be 


issued, they hadn't been able to read the 


dosimeter yet. But we checked. We looked for 


individual cases where there was a no data 


available in the supervisor reports. We went 


back to the individual worker radiation file 


and we verified that those badge were read 


after that report and they -- the entry was put 


into the worker's radiation file. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


UNIDENTIFIED: But what if it's invalid? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


UNIDENTIFIED: How are you going to... 


 DR. ULSH: Well --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) those? 


 DR. ULSH: -- you're right, the TLDs are a onetime read, because when they read them it 


resets them --


UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

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 DR. ULSH: -- and so that is entirely correct. 


We have no indication that -- that there was a 


systematic problem with TLDs like there was 


with the NTA films. The NDRP covered the NTA 


films. 


UNIDENTIFIED: There was, constantly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark, do you have any other 


comments from the workgroup, or is the 


workgroup prepared to make any recommendations 


to this Board? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) And I have 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- I just think we might 


want one more response from NIOSH -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- on the independent verifica-- 


you know, the -- the question of the gold 


standard and the reading of the NDRP films -- I 


mean... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll hear from -- a 


gentleman have a comment first? 


 MR. HERRAN: Yeah -- yes, my name's James 


Herran. You know, all this stuff you talk 


about, I lived it. Roger Falk is the guy that 


was in charge when I filed that complaint 35 

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years ago that the film badges were wrong. My 


film badge showed 50 percent of the gamma for 


the neutron. In other words, it should have 


been ten times higher. It was half of what it 


should have been. Falk was in charge. I know 


these guys -- like Bistline. I know him. All 


you talk about this stuff like the 233, I was 


there. The first criticality test, I was 


there. The fire, I was there. All this stuff. 


You know, it seems like what we're doing here 


is we're generating some big high salaries for 


people that know big words. In the meantime, 


these people are dying. I think your 


priorities are wrong. I think it's time we did 


something where we said hey, let's put the 


priority where it belongs. We're spending more 


money doing this and talking with big words -- 


I think if you put the money where it belongs, 


there are -- these people worked hard. They 


did a damned difficult job in a difficult 


situation and sometimes they did it on -- they 


winged it, because they had -- there was nobody 


to tell you something. Like when I learned 


stuff, I went out and learned it -- you had to 


learn it on the job, or you tried to grab this 

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here or that there and you put it together 


because there was nobody there to stand over 


you. 


 You know, it's funny, I never saw any DOE guy 


in the area with me, or AEC people. They 


weren't there. You know why? They stayed up 


on the hill where it was safe. I think the 


priority is wrong. I think it's time to say 


hey, listen, folks, put the money where it 


belongs. These are the people that are dying. 


Those are the ones that did the work. Take 


care of them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. HERRAN: Put the priority where it belongs. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, is there someone from NIOSH 


that could address Mark's question? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, this is Jim Neton. I would 


like to address this issue of the -- of one 


person being the gold standard doing the 


calibrations. I've -- I've been involved in 


probably 25, 30 years of calibrating 


instruments in my career, specifically 


radiation instruments, and I -- I don't -- I 


don't find the argument that -- that -- the 


first part of the argument that SC&A rings very 

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true in the sense that if one person calibrates 


the instrument, they do it their way and they 


develop a ratio between their reading and what 


the standards measure. Now a different person 


could get a very different calibration factor, 


but the point is as long as you apply that 


calibration factor consistently across the 


board, you'll get the right answer every time. 


So it really in my mind is not relevant that a 


different person didn't establish the 


calibration of the -- of the technique. 


Now I will agree that Roger made the -- Roger 


Falk made the standards and it's not double 


blind. That may have some merit. But the fact 


that it was not independently calibrated is -- 


is not inconsistent with the way that many 


readers are calibrated in general. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Okay, thank you. Mark, 


additional questions? 


 Wanda Munn? 


 MS. MUNN: Just the observation -- a couple of 


observations, one with respect to the issue at 


-- at -- of concern right now. Although one 


might not consider that an individual's work 


was being peer-reviewed at the time, that 

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doesn't change the fact that if his standard is 


the one that all of the others were having to 


test to every single day when they went to 


work, then you're getting multiple individuals 


essentially verifying the same standard day 


after day after day, simply because that was 


the standard they had to meet. So it's 


difficult to say that that was not in fact the 


case. 


One other quick comment about concerns that 


have been expressed very passionately here 


about how long this process has taken with 


respect to your claims. It would be helpful if 


you understood that most of the delays that 


you're concerned with are not on the heads of 


the people that you've charged them with 


delaying. It's on the head of this Board's 


working group, of which I am a member. The 


reason these delays have taken place is because 


our contractor brought to us a long laundry 


list of very detailed concerns that you had 


brought forward and that they perceived might 


be problems with what they were seeing. And 


this group went through every possible activity 


that we could think of to examine each one of 

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those in painful detail. Nothing was 


overlooked. This was not the result of the 


agency. It was the result of the fact that 


this working group kept saying if this has some 


problem with it, is there any legitimate way 


you can approach it and still be accurate, and 


so the agency said yes, there is indeed another 


way to look at it and still be accurate and 


they've done that. And that's why you see all 


of the detailed procedures that were -- you 


were concerned with evolving after your claim 


was brought to us. It's because we looked very 


closely at how things could be done, how they 


should be done, and the procedures were in many 


cases produced to address exactly those 


concerns. So yes, it's been a long time. It's 


been painful for everybody. But those of us 


who were involved in the working group need to 


take responsibility for much of that delay, and 


it's because we felt we were doing so on your 


behalf. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Wanda. Other 


Board members, comments at this time? Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I just wanted to -- I think 


one -- one more point that we need maybe NIOSH 

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to respond on, as far as the three issues that 


we've been discussing, the follow-up iss-- 


actions from the Board from the previous 


meeting, the 881 building and whether we can -- 


whether the coworker approach adequately bounds 


the earlier -- early period photon doses and -- 


and shallow doses, but photon doses, and I -- I 


think the only clarification that I wanted as a 


workgroup member was a little bit more on the 


question of whether the operations in '60 and 


'61 when you do have data, I think compared to 


pre-'60 when you -- when you don't have data, 


whether the operations were comparable or if -- 


if changes were made, they -- they wouldn't 


affect the doses significantly. We saw factors 


of four or five in the difference in doses, the 


coworker model assigning higher than '60/'61, 


but I just want to be reassured that any 


changes -- or that there weren't any 


significant operational changes that may 


negatively affect our analysis on this, so... 


 DR. ULSH: Right, Mark. Yesterday I talked 


about the fact that we know that there were 


some changes that occurred, specifically I 


talked about the one in -- around the 1957 time 

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frame when they added to the machining 


capability in that building. That certainly 


happened. But what we expect is, because of 


the new pit design, that that increased the 


amount of enriched uranium and the machining 


that would be required. So if anything, you 


would expect the dose to go up, and that would 


be reflected in the 1960 and '61 dosimetry. 


Similarly with other processes, yes, there 


could have been other processes -- process 


changes. We know that there were not 


significant shielding improvements during that 


particular time period that would depress those 


later doses. We know that that didn't happen. 


So the crux of our reasoning on this issue was 


that the coworker models that we have exceeded 


even the maximally exposed individual by such a 


large margin that sure, the doses might have 


been a little bit higher in the '50s, but not ­

- it's just not plausible to say that they 


would have been so much higher at the same time 


that they were judged to have an exposure 


potential of less than ten percent of the 


regulatory limit. Keep in mind that that was 


why they were not monitored at the time. It's 

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just not plausible that they would have been so 


much higher that they would have exceeded that 


large margin of error in our coworker models -- 


large margin of safety in the coworker models. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and did you -- and I -- 


I'm trying to re-- I don't remember, quite 


frankly. I know that SC&A also I -- I think 


identified some operational changes in that 


period. Have you -- and maybe I have to 


(unintelligible) SC&A to the -- to the podium, 


but you know, I -- I'm not sure if SC&A 


identified any operational changes that they 


feel might have negatively affected this 


approach. SC&A, can you... 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, we -- we looked at the 


question of changes and the engineering history 


of Rocky Flats actually identifies a number of 


very substantial changes in Building 81 in the 


late '50s and early '60s. The nature of some 


of these changes including in the chemical 


process and the way things were handled and so 


on, beyond the pit design. Some of them at 


least are mentioned in the report that we just 


submitted to you, and it was for that reason we 


felt -- and -- and we did not find any 

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investigation of these changes in the NIOSH May 


17th report in terms of validation of the 


coworker model doses relative to what might 


have been. And since the early period -- the 


early period equipment, if I'm remembering 


correctly, and designs generally related to the 


Manhattan Project era and the changes that 


occurred from the mid-'50s onward, late '50s 


onward, were reflective of the experience, at 


least a priori it -- we felt it cannot be 


assumed that you could use 1960s data as a way 


of saying the coworker model is a lot more than 


1960s data, therefore it's okay, because the 


production processes look to have been -- at 


least in some cases -- substantially different. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and do you have -- I -- I 


know it's probably in your report, but for the 


record, do you have example of this -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I'll have to --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- significant change -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'll have to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let me just find it and then 


I'll bring up --


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- the page and quote it for 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John Mauro's approaching, maybe he 


wants to add to that or -- John. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, along those lines -- one of 


the -- Brant gave a presentation regarding the 


birdcages. Now if I cor-- if I understood it 


correctly, this is -- the argument was that 


well, really the worst scenario one could 


envision is you have this enriched uranium 


sitting in a birdcage which is specifically 


designed to pre-- prevent criticality, and you 


really couldn't have more material closer 


together without running into a criticality 


situation. Now I found that -- we -- we were 


not awa-- we had -- that was the first time 


we've seen that. And I just want to -- I guess 


-- am I correct -- I guess this is posing this 


question to -- to Brant -- that when that 


analysis was done, it's my understanding that 


it's being representated (sic) at -- as a 


scenario that places an upper bound. You 


really can't have an external exposure scenario 


worse than having a person one foot away from 


this five-by-five birdcage I guess for 2,000 

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hours per year. And I guess if -- this the 


first I heard it and I found it very 


compelling, and I'd like to hear a little bit 


more about that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right, Brant is approaching. 


 DR. ULSH: Actually what that was, John -- I -- 


I don't recall -- we didn't do that originally 


for Rocky Flats. It was just an analysis that 


was performed at one of the -- in one of the 


other TBDs. To be honest with you, I can't 


even remember which one it was and I certainly 


don't know if it's on the list that you guys 


have reviewed yet. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, that's -- that's where I 


pulled it from. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, you ge-- so -- my question 


really goes toward -- I am familiar with that 


analysis and -- but basically what I'm hearing 


is that that analysis and the dose rates that 


were observed from running those calculations ­

- and we did check those calculations at that 


other site, might have been Huntington, I'm not 


quite sure; it was one of the AWEs, but you -- 

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but that's one of the reasons you feel 


comfortable that the coworker model that you've 


constructed, notwithstanding the changes in 


design that we have been talking about, you're 


saying that notwithstanding those changes in 


design, you feel that since the coworker model 


comes up with external doses that are higher 


than what you would experience by being one 


foot away from this birdcage, that gives you a 


sense of confidence that the coworker model 


will serve the process well. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, you've accurately stated it, 


John. I'm not saying that this represents a 


situation that actually existed at Rocky Flats. 


It was presented merely to give some 


perspective on how much higher could it have 


been. And the details of that analysis were a 


five-by-five array of birdcages, a person 


spends 2,000 hours a year one foot from it. 


Now did that actually happen? No, it didn't. 


But it's meant to be a bounding analysis just 


to give you an idea of the magnitude of an 


increase that we could be looking at. And 


you've got to understand, as I mentioned and 


John mentioned, we're talking about fissile 

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material here and so criticality concerns are 


very serious, as you all know. And that's --


that -- you can't have more material really 


than that scenario presents because you would 


get into trouble with criticality. So -- so 


your description, John, was accurate in what we 


were trying to demonstrate with that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Arjun, did you have a follow-up on 


your previous comment? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I have -- I have quotes 


from the -- our report. They're on pages 25 


and 26 of the report where it does say that the 


initial processes at Rocky Flats were based on 


World War II processes that were then 


immediately after refined at -- at Los Alamos 


and Y-12 before the construction of the Rocky 


Flats plant, and that's what was operated 


initially -- I'm paraphrasing -- and that the 


dissolution, precipitation and calcination 


processes were originally performed as batch 


processes. By the late 1950s to early 1960s 


the processes became one continuous operation, 


so that's the first sort of major change. The 


orange oxides were converted to uranium 


tetrafluoride, a green salt. The conversion 

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was conver-- conducted by placing the orange 


oxides into Monel, copper/nickel alloy, 


containers, heating to reduce the compound and 


adding anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. The green 


salt -- et cetera, and then it describes how 


these changes came about, and this is all from 


the Rocky Flats engineering history. Plant 


personnel contributed many unique improvements 


to enriched uranium recovery processes. 


Improvements were made to the continuous 


dissolution processes of the following 


materials: sand and slag from foundry 


operations and skull oxide material recovered 


from foundry crucibles. Improvements were made 


in other continuous processes for peroxide 


precipitation, calcining of uranium peroxide 


and leeching of powdered solids. Site 


personnel developed improved processes for 


graphite incineration, (unintelligible) parts 


decontamination and achieved a 15 kilogram 


scale reduction of uranium tetrafluoride to 


metal. So as you can see, the -- the changes 


in the operations in -- in Building 81 were ec­

- extensive and -- and basic to the way they 


did business over there. The health physics 

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181 

implications of this are -- are not known 


because -- because as -- as NIOSH has stated, 


Building 81 workers were not monitored during 


the 1980s and this was one of the things that 


we discovered through our data completeness 


evaluation and also through what NIOSH has 


stated. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: Mark? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, I'd like to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just to follow up on 


that, that was in '59, Arjun? I think --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm sorry. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) Late '50s and 


early --


 DR. ZIEMER: Use the mike, Arjun, please. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Excuse me --


 DR. ZIEMER: Hold on, sir. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, excuse me, sir. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This happened in the late '50s 


and early '60s, and the data that we're talking 


about in terms of the first monitoring was from 


the last quarter of 1960 and the whole year of 

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1961. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sir, do you have a question? 


 MR. SABA: Yes, sir, my name is Phil Saba. 
I 


was a machinist in 81 building. I started 


there in 1957, and I was there until they 


closed the building down -- or the production 


down to send to Oak Ridge. Okay, the birdcages 


were used in the hot area in 76 and 77 


building. Okay. In 81 building the parts 


ranged from eight-inch diameter to 12-inch 


diameter, and they were set on a cart out in 


the open. We washed the parts in car-- in 


percolene and, like I said, you know, the carts 


were -- the parts were in open area so there 


was no birdcages in 81 building. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Okay, Mark. 


 MS. MUNN: Please. Please, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- this is a question 


again to NIOSH, just to clarify for the record 


for us, I -- following up on -- on Jennifer's 


presentation, the -- and -- and this -- this 


was new news to us, as well, but the 881 


subcritical experiments and I know you 


mentioned two individuals and my -- my sense is 

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similar to -- to what the petitioner presented, 


which is that likely these were the two leads, 


but you -- you must have had some support 


personnel, so I wonder if -- if NIOSH -- you 


know, it's the question of whether this 


building is included as a neutron building and 


to what extent we can identify who within that 


building is likely a -- a -- you know, a 


candidate for neutron ex-- or had potential for 


neutron exposure, and I -- I would -- I would 


expect it might be a little wider of a 


population than two, but I -- I -- you know, I 


just want to understand more how NIOSH is going 


to make -- make that determination. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Don't they have 


(unintelligible) in the trunk? 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, this question came up -- was 


brought up by SC&A, and the source that they 


quoted was the -- it was called a "Technically 


Useful History of the Critical Mass Laboratory 


at Rocky Flats," I believe, or pretty close to 


that. And I pulled that same document and 


looked at it, and -- okay, I'm going to delete 


the names here for Privacy Act considerations, 


but to quote directly from it, it says 

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(reading) A bright and innovative young man 


named -- and it gives his name -- was hired 


away from -- again, I -- I want to be very 


careful --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- for Privacy Act information, but 


he was hired away from another facility. His 


task was to establish some form of criticality 


safety at the fledgling facility. Soon after 


arrival he hired another scientist -- it gives 


his name -- to assist him, and here is the key 


part -- these two provided the entire 


criticality safety program at Rocky Flats 


throughout the rest of the first -- that first 


decade, the 1950s. That's quoting directly 


from the report that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- formed the reference that NIOSH ­

- that SC&A quoted. Later on they hired more 


people. For many years the entire nuclear 


safety group consisted of only 14 persons, but 


that was later on, into the '60s. 


Okay, here's another quote from the -- that 


same report. (Reading) Prior to constructing 


the CML, that's the Critical Mass Laboratory, 

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persons performing in situ experiments were the 


same ones evaluating criticality safety 


throughout the plant. The same ones. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: And there were two -- at least 


according to this report. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. But I -- I guess -- do we 


have any further indication of where -- within 


881 was it a certain designated area all the 


time? Was it in various areas? Do we know any 


 DR. ULSH: No, I don't --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- mention anything like that? 


 DR. ULSH: I don't --


 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause I would argue that if 


someone says that they were in that building 


and worked, you know, in that certain room or ­

- or area, I -- I would think -- and I would 


hope that DOL's determination would be to 


presume they were exposed to neutrons rather 


than make the individuals prove that they were 


one of those two, you know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or even if they weren't part of 


that group --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so I --

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- if they were in the area. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I understand these two 


were likely in charge of the experiments, but I 


-- I would imagine that they might have had, 


you know, setups and things like that, or 


stand-by people in case of a -- an accident, an 


incident or whatever, I -- I don't -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know. 


 DR. ULSH: A couple of other facts about these 


in situ experiments, because they were also 


done at Lawrence Livermore and I talked to a 


guy who did them there. He said yeah, we did 


similar types of things as they did at -- at 


Rocky. These are not big, enormous 


experiments, Mark. I mean they're putting 


together components, pieces, stacking them up 


in different configurations and they're very 


carefully monitoring the amount of neutrons 


that come off of them. And what I was told is 


-- I mean you've got to understand that as you 


approach criticality, it's not like once you 


hit critical geometry you use this much and if 


you only go -- have half that much, then you 


have half the number of neutrons. It's not 

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like that. It's like flicking a switch -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Exponential. 


 DR. ULSH: -- because of exponential -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. So what I'm saying is that 


they always -- and that's described in this 


report. They always kept the neutron dose, the 


amount of neutrons, neutron flux coming off of 


these experiments to a very, very low level. 


It was characterized to me as they could barely 


even detect them they were so low. And the 


quote that SC&A pulled out from this same 


report -- which I can't find right now on the 


spot -- also talked about for safety 


considerations or something like that -- this 


is my loose paraphrase -- they always did this 


off-shift, when other people weren't around, 


for exactly these reasons. That's what it says 


in this -- this report, because of -- you know, 


I mean you don't want to exp-- put more people 


at risk than absolutely necessary. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I --


 DR. ULSH: Now all I can do is rely on this 


report right here and what it says in that 


report. I'll -- I'll let you evaluate the -- 

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the merits of what -- what it says. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A question? 


MR. DEMAIORI: Yes, I'd like to extrapolate a 


little bit on what NIOSH has articulated as far 


as the amount of individuals that would be 


required to do this. That's -- the building 


would have to have a minimum of two SOEs just 


to operate the building air. That's -- there's 


no experiments that could possibly take place 


that -- where they would abandon the minimum 


staffing of the facility. That's -- they would 


also have to have rad techs. That's absolute. 


That's your minimum, your safety envelope, your 


SOEs, your rad techs. You'd have to have 


security, special nuclear material. That's --


you'd have to have material control people, 


special nuclear material, access in and out of 


the vaults. That's true enough, that's -- 


anybody within reason would -- would do it on 


an off-shift to reduce the number of building 


personnel day to day. That's -- however, to -- 


to make the assumption from a report that a 


building was evacuated -- that's on a second 


shift or a third shift -- completely of 


personnel is absurd. That's -- it would have 

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been very unsafe. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, thank you for clarifying 


that, it (unintelligible) to make sense. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, I think I --


 DR. ZIEMER: Further comments or questions? 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Please 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then I'm going to ask Mark -- 


question, sir? 


MR. CASTILLO: My name is Richard Castillo. 


worked there from 1978 to 2005. Back in the 


'90s when we were in production, how do you 


take and try to evaluate a reading, a dosimetry 


reading, when you have management telling the 


workers your dose is too high; you need to take 


your badge, stick it in the office in a desk. 


How do you get a reading for that? I mean he 


can calculate all he wants, but these people 


were getting dose that was never calculated. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Actu--


MR. CASTILLO: Also I want to go back to an 


incident that happened in -- in E module. In E 


module we had the birdcages that they talk 


about. There was a line, there was a conveyor 


and they went overhead. We had this one 


I 
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foreman, and I could give you his name if I -- 


but I -- for purposes of safety or -- not 


safety, but Privacy Act, I will not. But 


anyway, what happened is five of the triggers 


fell off the line, off the birdcages overhead. 


Okay? He came to me -- well, first he went to 


the crate engineers and he said okay, the crate 


engineers got back with me. They said for -- 


it was okay for you to get up there and move 


them, it wouldn't cause a criticality. I says 


I want to see it in writing. He says oh, they 


said it's okay. I says no. I says I want to 


see it in writing. He says well, then I'll do 


it. I says okay, you do it. Let me get out of 


here. So I cleared that -- that -- in case his 


hands caused a criticality 'cause now you have 


-- you're changing the configuration. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We understand. 


MR. CASTILLO: He got in -- up there and moved 


it. I seen him a year later. Both hands are 


full of cancer. I don't care how much data he 


has, that's living proof. That's all I want to 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And let -- let me -- 


let me mention that in the -- the first case 

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that you described where if a worker in his -- 


in his claim so indicates that the situation 


that you described did occur, NIOSH does have 


methods to -- to handle that, as well, so they 


-- they do -- and it's done on an individual 


worker basis. If you -- if you said that this 


was done with my badge -- 


MR. CASTILLO: Yeah, they have -- they have 


calculations for that, but how do you account 


for the guy having the skin cancer? That's 


living proof. And I -- I could tell you the 


guy's name, and I could give you the names of 


the people that put the badges in the desks. 


They asked me to do it. I refused. 


WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATION


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Now Mark --


call on Mark for purposes of a recommendation 


from the working group. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I think at this point 


the workgroup -- I have at least a -- a 


preliminary motion, and I think -- I have 


written out a draft anyway that has some of the 


details supporting the motion, but I think I 


can offer the sense of the motion first -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- if that's okay. 


The motion is to -- to have an SEC established 


for all workers who were monitored, or should 


have been monitored, for neutron exposures from 


January 1, 1959 through December 31st of 1966, 


and -- and it's -- it's worded as all -- all 


workers who were monitored, or should have been 


monitored, so we have that same language where 


we have to -- that's why I was inquiring some 


on the buildings that would be included and how 


we're going to determine -- I think that's a 


separate discussion, but that's -- that's the ­

- that's the one -- one motion we're prepared 


to make. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let -- let me -- that -- 


that is a motion then from the -- from the 


workgroup? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, it's a motion -- well, I 


guess it's my motion. We didn't have -- Mike 


Gibson wasn't -- hasn't -- hasn't seen this or 


heard this, so -- but Wanda -- 


 MS. MUNN: I second. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Wanda seconds, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the motion is made and 


seconded. Let me ask if the workgroup is 

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prepared, after we take action on this motion, 


to address subsequent years, namely '67 and 


beyond, in some fashion and -- or -- your 


motion goes through '66 -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- 1966, you would --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the motion beyond -- '67 


through the -- is it 2005, the motion is to 


accept NIOSH's evaluation report and -- and 


that would also overlap the '52 through '66 for 


non-neutron parts of the evaluation report. So 


it's basically to accept NIOSH's conclusions in 


the report for --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that motion is not before us 


yet, but just --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in anticipation. So the motion 


is to recommend Special Exposure Cohort status 


for neutron workers for the period of January 


1st, 1959 through December 31st, 1966 -- is 


that correct? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right -- yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, and the motion's been 


seconded. Board members, do you have questions 


or comments on this motion, pro or con? 

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 MR. GIBSON: Can I make a comment? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, is that Mike? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike Gibson, please proceed. 

 MR. GIBSON: First I apologize that I wasn't 

able to be there in Denver, but -- so I have 


not seen the motion. I guess I just want to 


comment that in light of Ms. Munn's comments 


and I, as part of the working group, do take 


responsibility for the process being drawn out. 


I didn't quite look at it in those terms as -- 


that she's put them, but I do accept that 


responsibility. And I feel that since we have 


been less than timely, I would just like to say 


that at the end of this exhaust-- (broken 


transmission) approach, we're still down to 


NIOSH saying -- throwing the word "plausible" 


around. And when I look at the definition of 


"plausible," it says believable and appearing 


likely to be true, but usually in the absence 


of proof. And given that, I just think that we 


might ought to consider (broken transmission) 


the petition to include all Rocky Flats 


workers. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: So Mike, you are speaking against 


the motion, as I understand it then. 


 MR. GIBSON: Or to -- to amend it and to 


broaden the scope. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank -- thank you. Other 


comments or questions, Board members? Dr. 


Lockey or Phil -- Phil Schofield, any comments? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, this is Phil. I would 


like to -- I'm still concerned about some of 


the records, particularly (broken transmission) 


to about 1970, which if we're not going to be 


able to expand it for the whole time frame, 


then we should at least make it through the end 


of 1970 because of the spottiness of a lot of 


the records in '69 and '70. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so your concern here is the 


period from basically '67 to '70. Is that 


correct? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, okay. Let me ask Mark to 


address that momentarily here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was certainly a -- a -- a 


lengthy discussion between workgroup members 


that -- and we -- we certainly considered that. 


A couple of points on that. One is that it's ­
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- it's clear in our review that the -- the 


highest exposed individuals from '67 through 


'70 -- the time period for this NTA film 


consideration -- were actually measured during 


this time period and -- and not -- not assigned 


notional dose in the NDRP project. So that was 


one part of it. 


The other part of it was that this question of 


the zeroes and the correction factors and this 


-- this sort of non-recovered films that were 


never -- never measured. The -- the worksheets 


being available is helpful 'cause we can 


distinguish which ones are actually measured 


zeroes versus -- and I raised this as a concern 


yesterday, that if we can't sort that out, we ­

- we may have a -- a problem here. But in fact 


we have the worksheets to back that up and -- 


and one further item was that I've -- and NIOSH 


can confirm this, but I've been assured that in 


the event that worksheets are not available for 


certain of that group, they would assume 


unmonitored and assign just the highest -- the 


95th percentile cycle date. I -- NIOSH may 


want to veri-- they're -- they're nodding their 


head, the record should show, in agreement with 

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that. 


So given those factors, I think that -- you 


know, that made -- that made a solid argument 


to break that period up and that's -- that's 


why we ended up with that split there. 


Certainly we -- we did consider at -- at length 


for quite a while as to whether to include it 


all the way through '70. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Other members 


wish to speak for or against the motion? 


 (No responses) 


Are you ready to vote on the motion? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, call the question. 


UNIDENTIFIED: All or nothing. 


SEC VOTE


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the motion is to add -- or 


recommend the addition of neutron workers to 


the Special Exposure Cohort for the period of 


June 1st --


 MR. GRIFFON: January. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- or January 1st, I'm sorry, 1959 


through December 31st, 1966. We'll take an 


individual vote here. I think I'm going to ask 


the Designated Federal Official to do a roll 


call vote here, so --

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 DR. WADE: Okay. Mr. Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I vote for the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Mr. Clawson? 


 MR. CLAWSON: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No. 


 DR. WADE: Mr. Griffon? 


 MR. GRIFFON: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Ms. Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: I'm for the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Ms. Munn? 

 MS. MUNN: For the motion. 

 DR. WADE: Dr. Melius? 

 DR. MELIUS: Just repeat the motion again. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The motion is to recommend a 


Special Exposure Cohort status for neutron 


workers covering the period of January 1st, '59 


through December 31st, '66. And of course the 


wording that would go to the Secretary would 


include the more complete description and our 


usual caveats which would spell out how soon 


the Chairman has to get that information in and 


-- and --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the usual legal wording on -- 


on that motion. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Then -- then I'll vote for that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: I vote for the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Mr. Schofield? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Vote for the motion. 


 DR. WADE: I'm sorry? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Vote for the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Mr. Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: I abstain. 


 DR. WADE: I assume Dr. Poston is not on the 


line? 


 (No responses) 


Dr. Mel-- Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: We have eight yeses, one no, one 


abstention. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The motion then carries. The 


Chair now recognizes the workgroup chairman for 


making any additional motions. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the -- the -- the second -- 


this second time period, I don't know that 


we've -- I -- I was trying to look for language 


to this effect, but it's basically to -- we did 

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agree that we would discuss this second time 


period separately, in a separate motion, so 


that's why I'm offering it as a separate 


motion, to have a separate discussion on it and 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, the --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- separate -- separate vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Chair insisted at the last time 


that the Board take some kind of action, pro or 


con, on the remaining time period. I -- I want 


it on the record, at least. So we're talking 


about January 1st, '67 and up through I think 


2005 --


 MR. GRIFFON: Five, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- was the period covered in the 


petition. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So your -- your motion basically 


is that --


 MR. GRIFFON: That the -- that the Board accept 


the NIOSH evaluation conclusion that they can 


reconstruct dose for -- can reconstruct all 


radiation dose for that time period. 


DR. ZIEMER: That is the motion. Is there a 


second? 

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 MS. MUNN: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. Now discussion on 


this motion? Let me start with those on the 


phone. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, could I have the motion 


restated and -- I seemed to break up right 


then. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The -- the motion is to accept the 


-- or to agree with the NIOSH recommendation 


that for the period 19-- January, 1967 through 


2005, agreeing that dose reconstruction can be 


done and therefore to not recommend Special 


Exposure Cohort status for that time period. 


 Now Board members, do you wish to speak for or 


against the motion? Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: I'd like to speak against the 


motion. I think there are too many open issues 


that have not been adequately addressed, at 


least to my satisfaction, regarding the '67 to 


'70 neutron dose exposure issue, the thorium 


issue and the building 881 issue, as well as I 


think a number of other issues that have been ­

- been brought up today by the petitioners and 


other people here. And for those reasons, I am 


not in support of that motion. 

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 UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Somebody on the phone, is it -- 

 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer, it's Mike. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mike Gibson, thank you. 

 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I'd like to -- I'd like to 

speak out in opposition of this motion. This 


Board was made up by law of those from the 


scientific, medical and the labor field, and I 


think that we have to give as much weight to 


the experiences that the people went through at 


the site as we do to the scientific issues. 


And again I state, at the end of the day all I 


hear is it's plausible on the scientific side, 


and I hear argument after argument from people 


that were actually there doing the job, and I 


think that the -- if we're to do our duties 


correctly, we need to consider the people's 


experiences and we need to grant this petition 


as they (broken transmission) it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So you are speaking 


against the motion. Thank you. 


 Wanda Munn. 

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 MS. MUNN: At the core of our responsibility on 


this Board we have only one issue. We are not 


chartered with dealing with the unfortunate 


business of what's been referred to as chemical 


cocktails -- I think appropriately referred to. 


We have one responsibility and one only, and 


that's to deal with the issue of whether 


adequate information exists to complete 


accurate -- reasonably accurate dose 


reconstructions for individuals who have had 


radiation exposure. So the core of our 


responsibility is really very difficult to get 


to, but in simple terms, the only issue is 


whether adequate information exists for those 


reconstructions to be done in a reasonable 


manner. 


We have heard no indication that we do not have 


adequate information to do that. We have 


excellent information, and for that reason I 


support the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other Board members, pro or con? 


Yes, Mr. Clawson. 


 MR. CLAWSON: You're absolutely right. We've 


got a responsibility, but we also know that 


there is gaps. And I'm -- I'm not a scientific 

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person. I'm still a worker. I still work in 


the industry and I still know the fallacies 


that are out there. I believe that we are 


still learning. I believe that we -- you look 


in the last 40 years what we have learned and 


what we have gotten, and I apologize, I -- it's 


no disrespect to NIOSH or anybody else, but I 


really do not feel that it can be done, and I 


speak against it. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So you speak against the motion. 


Mr. Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: As a -- a Board member that's 


been on the working group, yes, we've taken a 


tremendous amount of time. We've looked at a 


tremendous amount of data. And I think that 


NIOSH has done their job, SC&A has done their 


job. They have given us reports, they have 


given us data that says that they can do dose 


reconstruction and do it accurately and do it 


in the favor of the petitioner. I would like 


to speak in favor of the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Dr. Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: I wasn't on the working group, 

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but I have worked in the field of health 


physics and dosimetry for a long time. And I ­

- I have confidence that NIOSH, in their very 


detailed evaluation of the situation, can 


reconstruct the doses in the manner that we're 


required by this rule, and that is to have an 


upper bound. I think enough information is 


known, in spite of all of the things that have 


been brought up, that -- that an upper bound 


and a claimant-friendly dose can be obtained. 


I -- I do want to add, though, that it's very 


difficult, as a Board member, to listen to 


these people, and I sympathize with all of the 


health problems. So this decision is very 


difficult for me to make. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others on the 


phone that have comments? Dr. Lockey? 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: If I could just add --


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- (broken transmission) my 


comment just a little bit. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mike Gibson. 


 MR. GIBSON: And with all due respect to my 

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former -- my working group member, Ms. Munn, I 


just want to make a note (broken transmission) 


the record that we have more than one 


responsibility. We have the responsibility to 


do this in a timely manner, and I just (broken 


transmission) I take the responsibility as a 


member of the working group that we have not 


(broken transmission) in this time, but you 


know, I don't think we have that liberty now 


that it's been put in this kind of light. But 


we have more than one responsibility to do it 


in a timely manner and I don't believe that 


criteria was met in this situation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's see, Mike -- 


okay, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I guess I have to -- I 


mean I -- I want to say that I agree with 


Wanda's point that -- and as a workgroup member 


I do take responsibility, and probably the 


chief responsibility for some of these delays 


because, quite frankly, I was the last person 


maybe on the workgroup or -- well, maybe not -- 


maybe that's not true, but I certainly was 


attempting to, as Brant I think characterized 


it, turn over every stone and had a great bit 

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of doubt about some of the database data, asked 


for -- met some resistance sometimes, but asked 


for a lot in terms of we want more raw data to 


support some of these conclusions. We -- you 


know, I -- I see some inconsistencies between 


databases. We -- we have to go back to raw 


data and verify this. We're not just going to 


accept this as the truth. And I think we did 


push for a lot of those -- extensive amount of 


raw data and looked into that at great length 


and, you know, I -- I think it's also important 


to point out, after doing all this, I think -- 


at least for those points I went over in my 


presentation yesterday -- it doesn't include 


the '67 through '70 time -- time period with 


the neutrons, but from '70 and beyond, SC&A is 


-- is concluding -- is in agreement with this, 


you know, that their -- their findings are 


consistent with what we're saying on the 


workgroup. So it's not only NIOSH telling us 


this. We've had SC&A look at this thoroughly, 


and I think that's also important to remember. 


We -- and we all know how extensive SC&A's 


report is. I think it totals probably over -- 


close to 1,000 pages now. So we -- we 

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definitely looked at this and didn't just 


accept it on face value. We -- we tore into 


this and I think at the end of the day, you 


know, we -- we do have the data for that later 


ti-- I feel we do have the data for that later 


time period, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let me ask if either 


Phil or Jim Lockey have any comments, pro or 


con, on the motion? 


 DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. I -- I've 


been impressed by the -- the work that this 


working group has gone through, and 


particularly Mark leaving no stone unturned. 


And I think that all the Board owe a debt of 


gratitude and thanks for the extra effort 


that's gone into this project. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Do you have any specific 


comments for or against the motion? 


 DR. LOCKEY: I -- you know, after looking at 


all the data and -- and listening to the 


workgroup, I think it -- it -- that it appears 


that dose can be reconstructed in this cohort 


for the time period outlined. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Phil, are you on 


the line? 

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, sir. I'm actually against 


the motion as it stands because I still feel 


that the data for '69 to '70 is awful spotty 


and there's a lot of assumptions being made 


instead of hard data for that, so people 


actually trying to get their dose 


reconstructed, '69/'70, when there's large 


gaps, I have a problem (broken transmission) 


those years in the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Dr. Melius, you 


have an additional comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: I would just like to elaborate a 


little bit. First of all, I -- my disagreement 


with the conclusions of the workgroup is not 


meant to in any way criticize the workgroup's 


hard efforts in trying to evaluate this 


petition and -- and come to grips with what's a 


very complicated site with lots of different 


exposures and over a long time period and with 


information that's not always easy to deal 


with. However, I would remind the -- all of 


the Board that I -- I think the -- the fault, 


to a great extent, with this process and with 


the effort required, you know, goes back to how 


this site was originally approached. We had a 

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site profile that was largely written by people 


with very significant conflicts of interest. 


To this day if one goes back to the revised 


site profile in the two main chapters, those on 


external and internal exposures, all of the 


attributions I believe in those chapters are to 


those two individuals who were originally 


involved in the dose reconstruction program -- 


yet to be convinced that there's been an 


adequate, independent review of that. 


Secondly, there was no opportunity, for very 


little opportunity for worker input into the 


process. There was one meeting held in 2004 


prior to the more recent work with the 


petition. And one -- if one goes back to the 


revised site profile, one -- though one finds 


some verbiage that says that worker inputs were 


considered, there is not one reference to a -- 


any comment or information received from a 


worker into that -- that report. 


 Unfortunately we're then left at the end of the 


process with the petition to try to sort 


through what I think's been a lot of valuable 


information, including valuable information 


that we received last night that I don't think 

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we've given, you know, adequate attention to or 


-- or have adequately followed up on. 


We also are dealing with a process that's very 


unfair to the petitioners. They are given -- 


you know, they lack resources. They're given 


access to information begrudgingly and often at 


the last minute and not in a timely fashion. 


And even the Board is presented with 


information from NIOSH that is incomplete and 


at the last minute. We were given a 


presentation yesterday we're still struggling 


to get some of the references for that was -- 


the report given to us I believe in the end of 


May had no attributions as to where the 


information came from and so forth. And so 


we're being asked to judge things very quickly 


and with incomplete and inadequate information. 


And finally, I -- I think the report that 


Jennifer and the other petitioners have -- have 


made quite well. I mean this process has taken 


847 days and that's -- it's -- something is 


sort of grossly unfair about that and, you 


know, maybe we could struggle on and -- and try 


to come to grips with all these issues, but I 


think we have to try to reach some closure on 

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it. It may be up to Congress or to the legal 


system to better address this process, but -- 


or it may be to NIOSH to revise the whole 


process, but -- but thi-- this is not a fair 


process and I can't, you know, claim that I've 


been adequately convinced that individual dose 


reconstruction is po-- feasible to be done with 


sufficient accuracy over the entire time period 


and over the tire-- entire scope of the period 


that's covered in -- in Mark's motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And typ-- typically 


the -- typically the Chair on a board of this 


type is supposed to sort of be the moderator 


and -- and not enter into the debate. But I 


think it behooves me to make some remarks, as 


well. 


First of all, I've become convinced, based on 


the work of the working group, that it is 


certainly feasible to -- for NIOSH to do dose 


reconstruction with sufficient accuracy -- and 


sufficient accuracy in this case means accuracy 


that will allow them to make a claimant­
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favorable decision. I also note that the 


workgroup, through their process, has caused, 


in a way, NIOSH to change much of what they 


were doing on this site in terms of dose 


reconstruction so that in the end, sort of 


regardless of how the final thing comes out, 


dose reconstructions done here will be done in 


a much better manner than they would have been 


done prior to the efforts of this workgroup and 


this process. 


Now we heard from the Congressman earlier today 


and I -- in a sense, and I can say this since 


I'm not a part of any of these agencies. It's 


unfortunate that the burden has been passed to 


a group like this to correct what Congress 


should have done correctly in the first place. 


It is hard to get any of them to admit that the 


-- the generation of the convoluted process 


that we find ourselves in is the way that the 


law was originally written, that basically -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that basically requires us to 


go through this process, that requires some 


time-consuming efforts for us to do our 

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responsibilities as they are stated under the 


law, because what we see here is duplicated all 


over the country. This is not the only site 


that has the same -- we have these problems -- 


timing problems with a Board which -- of 


workers which is not as large as the law 


dictates it should be and therefore is very 


overburdened. That's why our working groups 


are -- are overburdened in time -- doing a 


little soap-boxing here -- 


 DR. WADE: No more about Congress, but you can 


talk about the process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. But the process perhaps 


could -- could have been set up in a better 


manner at the front end, but we have what we 


have. And I think the Board is struggling to 


do its job in the way that it -- it believes it 


should be done. Every Board member is very 


conscientious. I think every Board member 


empathizes with the workers very much. We --


we end up in somewhat different places. We do 


this in a collegial fashion. None of us are 


mad at each other because of how we vote on 


these things. We do it in a collegial fashion, 


but we have to -- we have to proceed and vote. 

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Now at the moment, without the vote having 


occurred, it appears to the Chair that the vote 


may pass. Now -- and I want -- I want us to 


think about that for a moment because what we 


will have will be a recommendation to the 


Secretary that is not a very strong 


recommendation. But nonetheless, he will have 


to deal with that in some manner or another. 


The other part of it is to point out to the 


assembly that we are not precluded, I suppose, 


in the future from having a different 


recommendation if other information comes forth 


of the type that Jim mentioned. However, I --


I do -- I don't want to drag out the process 


and -- and delay the process. I've tried to 


press the Board to come to a type of closure. 


We'll be where we are at the end of this 


process today. Perhaps there will be 


additional information come forth that would 


re-- that would suggest that there be some -- 


some other endpoint in the future, but we have 


what we have at the moment. 


 MR. ROMERO: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Mr. Zimmer (sic), another question, 


please? 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MR. ROMERO: If it's Congress's problem why 


this is not working, why didn't you address 


that when the man was standing right there? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Probably I --


 MR. ROMERO: Why didn't you tell him how to fix 


it so he can go to Washington and fix it? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I think -- I think he's 


already indicated that -- that they're -- 


Congress is in fact taking some steps that may 


change the process, so he recognizes that, I 


think, and -- I -- I don't want to say -- I'm ­

- it's not my intent to insult Congress. I'm ­

- I'm simply expressing a concern -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm simply expressing a 


concern. None -- none of these laws are -- you 


know, this one doesn't consider the chemical 


mixes and so on, so we have -- there's -- 


there's those kinds of things. We can't 


address them all, but we'll do the best we can. 


 Now -- 


 DR. WADE: Call the roll? 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- additional comments. Robert? 

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 DR. WADE: I can call the roll. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Ready for a roll-call vote. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I vote for -- I vote for the 


motion. 


 DR. WADE: Clawson? 


 MR. CLAWSON: No. 


 DR. WADE: Griffon? 


 MR. GRIFFON: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Munn? 

 MS. MUNN: For the motion. 

 DR. WADE: Melius? 

 DR. MELIUS: Against the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Schofield? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Against the motion. 


 DR. WADE: Gibson? 


 (No response) 


Mike? Mike Gibson, are you with us? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, are you calling me? 


 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: I can hardly hear. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: You vote --


 DR. WADE: I'm sorry. 


 MR. GIBSON: I vote against the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: For the motion. 


 DR. WADE: The vote is six to four in favor of 


the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Six to four is the vote. The 


motion carries. 


Board members, are there any follow-up -- and 


again, this motion would be put into the -- the 


normal regulatory form that would go forward to 


the Secretary, and I assume that -- and -- and 


we have, at the request of the -- the Colorado 


delegation, held the letter for the original 


motion. They asked that it not be sent in 


until we completed the -- the work here at this 


-- so there -- there would be recommendations 


on three different time periods that would go 


forward. Is -- is that your understanding -- 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Dr. Wade? Right. Okay, Board 


members, any further comments or questions 


relative to the Rocky Flats petition. 

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: This is Phillip, just one 


comment. I think that SC&A and the working 


group have done an outstanding job and have dug 


up a mountain of facts that they have (broken 


transmission) to sift through. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Mike (sic). Any other 

comments? 

 DR. WADE: We have more work to do. That was 

Schofield. 

 DR. LOCKEY: Paul? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, that was Schofield. Okay. 

Yes? 

 DR. LOCKEY: Paul, Jim Lockey, I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

 DR. LOCKEY: -- I just wanted to reiterate your 


-- your comment that you made a few minutes ago 


about additional steps that -- that perhaps 


should be taken in relationship to this 


legislation. 


 DR. WADE: Again, individual Board members can 


speak out their views relative to Congress, but 


the Board really is in no position to advise 


Congress. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yes. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

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(Unintelligible) Maryanne (unintelligible) (on 


microphone) and I'm going to ask you to sit 


through one more thing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


UNIDENTIFIED: This is called "The Silent 


Soldiers". (Reading) They walked many days in 


plutonium dust because there were those who 


told them they must. They stood behind glass 


that was meant to shield while the gaskets on 


boxes plutonium did yield. They battled the 


dragons of plutonium fire and fought 


criticalities down to the wire. Aprons of lead 


were their garments of armor, dosimetry badges 


their badges of honor. They went when their 


call -- country called them to service, as the 


nuclear threat made our citizens nervous. Day 


after day quietly serving their nation, and 


they did it proudly till the Cold War 


cessation. But now when they need their 


allegations supported, there is none to be 


found, the nation's aborted. They die one by 


one, brothers and sisters by their side, 


watching and waiting till it's their turn to 


die. There will be no flags flown half-mast in 


their honor, no flags on their coffins when 

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that -- once they have passed. No statutes --


no statues designed nor monuments created, no 


walls with their names, only memories abated. 


I call the nation to consider their plight, for 


these are the silent soldiers of the Rocky 


Flats site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) I honor all of 


you, including (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: One thing we need to do are the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Let's see if 


we can move ahead. 


 DR. WADE: Right now? Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We do have some members that will 


be needing to catch planes and I'm wondering, 


Board members, do you want to proceed through 


the lunch hour and try to finish up? 


 MS. MUNN: Could we have a 20-minute break? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We can have a break -- comfort 


break, 20 minutes, and we'll recon-- well, 


let's see what it -- it's -- 


 MR. ROMERO: I'd like to thank the four members 


-- four Board members that voted for us, I'd 


like to thank them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So noted, thank you. We'll take a 

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20-minute break. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 1:10 p.m. 


to 1:50 p.m.) 


 DR. WADE: People on the line? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me check and see who's on the 


line. Mike Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim Lockey? 


 (No response) 


May -- may not. Phil Schofield? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we have a quorum. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have two on the line, we have 


four, five, six here. 


 DR. POSTON: Paul? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. POSTON: John Poston's on the line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, John, hi. Okay. Thank you, 


John. 


FURTHER ROCKY FLATS DISCUSSION
 

Now we have one -- one sort of carry-over item 


and I committed to Dave Hiller to see if we can 


get an answer to his question, which basically 


was how -- sort of imbedded in Mark's original 


proposal was that we would encourage NIOSH to 

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utilize the issues -- the new information that 


has derived out of the working group to -- to 


upgrade -- I'll use the word upgrade -- how 


dose reconstructions are done on this site. 


There's been a piece of paper passed around and 


it has four bullets on it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think NIOSH needs to be in the 


room, too, for this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't -- I'm looking for -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- NIOSH people. Is either Jim 


Neton or Brant --


 MR. PRESLEY: I think Jim had to leave. I 


believe they had to catch a flight. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What about Brant? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'd say they're both on that same 


plane. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Better get 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. PRESLEY: They left here about -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible). 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- (unintelligible) 1:00 o'clock. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can we get either one on the cell 


phone or not? I don't know. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Let me look out here --

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 DR. ZIEMER: David Hiller --


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


went to go (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: Can call Brant on his cell -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. David, we're going to try 


to reach Brant or Jim by cell phone. 


Apparently they have left the -- left the room 


-- left the hotel, but David, do you have a 


copy of the bullet points that -- that the 


Board has that describe the new issues that 


were raised in terms of dose reconstructions 


and changes? Do you have that? 


 MR. HILLER: Yes, I do, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And I think your question 


was how long would it take NIOSH to enact or 


get these in place. Is that basically your -- 


or do you want to restate the question? 


 MR. HILLER: No, that -- that's exactly my 


concern, and I was hoping that the -- the -- 


the Board would have that information from 


NIOSH before you acted on the motion. I'm not 


sure if -- if it's a three-month process or an 


18-month process, or longer, for NIOSH to 


reconstruct all these doses again based on the 


-- the new methodologies. 

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 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


thinking -- I doubt they could tell you that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're going to try -- try to 


get one or the other of them on the phone here 


in a moment so stand by and we'll see if we can 


get an answer. 


 MR. HILLER: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know. No, I don't know. 


 MR. PRESLEY: That sticks in my mind. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't -- I don't want to put 


words in (unintelligible). 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, I don't want to say it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Should we -- should we 


read -- I -- I -- I handed around -- and I 


think they're available for the public, also -- 


the -- sort of the full -- the motion is the 


same in these, but I think it also gives the 


detail of what I think should be rolled into a 


letter when the letter is written, including 


for the first period the -- the defin-- or the 


technical merit or basis of the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- proposed petition -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: You want to read that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and for the second period 

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it -- it lists these re-evaluations that NIOSH 


should do in -- in a timely manner, so we -- we 


sort of do -- we think that's important to get 


on the -- in the letter to the Secretary, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Read that -- that one with the 


bullets. That's the (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay. So the -- and I -- 


I think -- you know, we -- we may need -- this 


was done hastily so there may be some editorial 


questions, certainly. But this is the -- the 


second motion that we voted on, and I'll read 


it for the record. 


 The Advisory Board is in agreement with NIOSH's 


evaluation report with regard to the ability to 


reconstruct radiation dose for the period from 


'60 -- 1967 through 2005, and for all radiation 


dose other than neutron dose from 1950 -- that 


might be '51, I -- I might have to correct that 


-- 1951 through 1966. I'm not sure if it's '51 


or 2, I'd like to --


 DR. ZIEMER: We'll check --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- come up with a --


 MS. MUNN: My memory is 2. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Through the review process of the 


Rocky Flats petition, SEC 30, NIOSH has made 

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several important modifications to the dose 


reconstruction approach, and the Board notes 


that NIOSH has committed to re-evaluation of 


all affected cases in a timely manner. The 


primary changes of concern include, but are not 


limited to -- bullet one -- NIOSH will use 


modified approach for assessing internal doses 


due to super S plutonium for all affected 


cases. Bullet two, NIOSH will use modified 


internal dose coworker approach, using the 


agreed-upon approach of using the 95th 


percentile values of the electronic data in 


estimating worker dose via coworker internal 


dose model for all affected cases -- and I'm -- 


get your edit pencils out on that line. Bullet 


three, NIOSH will use modified internal dose 


coworker approach for D&D workers using the 


agreed-upon approach of using the 95th 


percentile values of the electronic data in 


estimating worker dose via coworker internal 


dose model for all relevant radionuclides for 


all affected cases. And bullet four, NIOSH 


will use modified approach for reassessing 


neutron doses for the time period from January 


1, 1967 to December 31st, 1970 for all affected 

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cases. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Via telephone) Hello, 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: The Board strongly recommends the 


-- that re-evaluation described above be 


completed in a timely manner. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Someone on the phone? 


 DR. WADE: Someone was speaking. This is a 


conference call. Is either Jim Neton or Brant 


Ulsh on the phone? 


DR. NETON: Hello, this is Jim Neton. 


 DR. WADE: Hi, Jim. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. WADE: Would you please stay with us? The 


Board is starting to discuss, Jim, this issue 


of a timely re-evaluation of completed dose 


reconstructions based upon the technical 


changes that have resulted from the workgroup 


process. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: And again, I think that the Board 


might have some questions for you as to your 


ability to meet their desire to see timely work 


done. So stay with us. Mark was simply going 


through a motion where he called out several 

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issues that NIOSH had to rework. Mark --


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- for Jim's benefit, could you give 


the list again? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Just read the four bullet points. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the four bullet points, 


NIOSH will use modified approach for assessing 


internal dose due to super S plutonium for all 


affected cases. Second bullet, NIOSH will use 


modified internal dose coworker approach, using 


the agreed-upon approach of using the 95th 


percentile values of the electronic data, in 


estimating worker dose via coworker internal 


dose model for all affected cases. The third 


bullet, NIOSH will use modified internal dose 


coworker approach for D&D workers, using the 


agreed-upon approach of using the 95th 


percentile values of the electronic data, in 


estimating worker dose via the coworker 


internal dose model for all relevant 


radionuclides for all affected cases. And the 


fourth bullet, NIOSH will use modified approach 


for reassessing neutron doses for the time 


period from January 1st, 1967 through December 


31st, 1970 for all affected cases. 

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DR. NETON: Okay, I've got it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Dave Hiller basically asked 


how long will it take to implement these 


changes, or perhaps you've already implemented 


some of them. 


DR. NETON: Right, we've started on some of 


them, but I -- I would say that we -- in some 


cases when we -- when we apply the Program 


Evaluation Report, we actually just take the 


analysis far enough to make a determination 


that it doesn't change the case, the outcome of 


-- of the decision. So with that proviso, I 


mean one -- if that's okay, that's how we'll do 


it. Are you looking now for an opinion as to 


how long it would take for us to implement all 


four of those changes? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I said for affected cases, 


so you know, that --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, in other words, you're going 


to have to go back and redo some earlier cases, 


possibly. Right? 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we had some --


DR. NETON: I would say -- I'm not sure what 


time frame is desirable, but I think we can do 

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this in a matter of -- of a month or two. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think that's the kind of 


information Mr. Hiller was looking for. We 


wanted to see --


DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- whether we're talking about a 


month or a year or whatever (unintelligible) -- 


DR. NETON: Right, I -- I --


 DR. ZIEMER: Dave, is -- is that responsive to 


your question? I just want to make sure 


that... 


 MR. HILLER: Yes, that -- that's responsive to 


the question and I hope it's an accurate 


estimate. Thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and we will certainly be -- 


can I commit us to following up at our next 


meeting to make sure that that's on track, just 


to get a report from NIOSH -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I did -- I did consider putting a 


-- a time estimate in here for -- in our letter 


of what the Board considers timely. I know 


that wouldn't necessarily be binding, but I -- 


I -- I don't know if it's worth including 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, unless -- unless the Board 

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feels that -- that we need to do something 


that's more pressing, I -- it seems to me a 


month is quite reasonable, and we'll be -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


is still reasonable. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- meeting -- we'll be meeting in 


a month and if we find nothing's happening, why 


we can take some further action. But is -- is 


that --


 MS. MUNN: I -- I'd hate to put restrictions on 


them, really, not understanding fully what else 


is before them -- how big the Hanford site and 


how -- how big other sites and -- and other 


things we have on our plate are going. But 


certainly a month or two seems more than 


reasonable to me, and a verbal commitment ought 


to be able to do it without our providing 


restrictions, I think. 


 DR. WADE: Could -- could I ask a clarifying 


question of Jim while you're on the line? Jim, 


this is Lew. 


DR. NETON: Sure. 


 DR. WADE: I know your process is you first do 


the step of triaging all of the denied cases, 


and then you make --

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DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- then you make a judgment as to 


which cases could be affected, and then you go 


ahead and re-evaluate those cases. 


DR. NETON: Correct. 


 DR. WADE: Now is your month or two covering 


all of the steps I've listed? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I would say it'd be closer to 


two months just to get it through the process, 


but we can get the triage done fairly quickly, 


but then we'll have to apply these models to 


the remaining cases and it's difficult for me 


to predict how many that would be, but I'm 


pretty confident we could do that in two 


months' time. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Jim, appreciate 


the input. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hiller. 


Board members, we have a couple of items to 


take care of. First of all --


 MR. GRIFFON: Do -- do we want to read both 

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these motions in for the record, the other 


motion as well, or do you just want to take 


these -- I mean I -- I look at these and I 


already found edit -- you know, certainly 


grammatical problems, but if -- I would leave 


it if the Chair --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- wants to reword for editorial 


purposes, that's fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think the -- I think the 


original motion is on the record -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and is adequate for that. We 


have already indicated we would put it in the 


form of -- of the letter, which will be 


actually more detailed than this -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess just one --


 DR. ZIEMER: Liz, do you --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- one point of clarification in 


-- in this motion, it does say that -- and for 


all radiation doses other than neutron doses 


from '52 through '66 or '51 through '66. I --


I had -- I'd said that in my initial motion, 


but I think when you -- when you 


recharacterized it you sort of boiled it down 

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to this '67 through 2005 time frame. The 


question was raised during the break as well, 


what about the non-neutron workers prior to 


'67, and this -- this says we can reconstruct 


those doses, so I just wanted to be clear on 


that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That was already sort of built in. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It was said, right, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Also -- well, Liz, did you have a 


comment -- comment? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I just would like you to 


clarify for the record, when you say you're 


going to put it into your standard language, 


does that include the 250-day determination? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's all included in there and ­

- and the reference to the appropriate legisla­

- or -- or --


 MS. MUNN: Part? 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- CFR 82 Part whatever -- 81 and 


2 and 3 and the other wording, so we will 


distribute to the Board the drafts of those 


letters so they have the exact wording on that. 


The thrust of the motion remains the same, I 


believe. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And further, I -- I don't want to 


do additional voting now -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- because we've lost members. 


Not everybody's here that was here when we 


voted. 


 DR. WADE: Understood. 


BOARD WORK TIME


 DR. ZIEMER: I do want to ask for a motion to 


approve the minutes of April 5th. It was a 


relatively brief meeting and hopefully you've 


had a chance to read those. I've read them and 


 MS. MUNN: So moved. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any -- any corrections or 


additions? 


 (No responses) 


All in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Opposed? 


 (No responses) 


 And Mike and Phil on the phone? 


 MR. GIBSON: Aye. 

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: Aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, motion carries, minutes are 


passed. 


I'm going to suggest that we not have workgroup 


updates today. Lew, I don't think it's 


mandatory. We had them a few weeks ago in our 


earlier meeting. We can pick that up next 


time, but we do need to get underway with the 


SC&A contract issues. 


 DR. WADE: Right, one small issue now. Jim, 


are you still on the phone, Jim Neton? 


DR. NETON: Yes, I am. 


 DR. WADE: Jim has given me a report to give 


you on the status of the Hanford SEC. I guess, 


Jim, I might have the piece of paper, so you 


want me to do it or do you want to do it? 


DR. NETON: No, it'd be better if you did it. 


I don't think I have it memorized. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So you had asked Jim to 


provide you with an update with the -- on the 


Hanford SEC status, and this is his update. 


A class for SEC0057 (sic) proposed by 


petitioners for 1/1/42 through 12/31/90 -- so 


there was a petition 0050 (sic) proposing to 


add that class. A NIOSH evaluation report was 

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issued on 5/18 of this year that proposes to 


add a class for 10/1/43 through 8/31/46. Okay? 


A second NIOSH evaluation report will be issued 


to address the remaining years. The 


anticipated completion date is by August 21st 


of this year. 


Last item. There is an SEC outreach meeting 


scheduled for Hanford the week of June 18th of 


this year. 


So this was in response to whether it's 


worthwhile to go to Hanford. I think you have 


one petition evaluation report by NIOSH that 


recommends that you add a class. You have 


another pending. I think it would be good to 


go to put this Board before the workers at 


Hanford and to start to hear their stories. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: It's always good to go to Hanford. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We like those unbiased opinions. 


 MR. CLAWSON: That's questionable. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Do we -- any 


more on that then? 


 DR. WADE: No, then I can do SEC. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: SC&A. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: SC&A. 


 DR. WADE: We all realize that SC&A is a 


critical part of this process and we want to 


make sure that SC&A is available to the 


process, and particularly for the Board, at the 


start of next fiscal year. That's October 1st 


of 2007. In order to do that, the time line 


David Staudt and I have looked at would be that 


we would be in receipt of SC&A proposals for 


work next year when the Board meets in Hanford 


in July. The Board could then modify those 


proposals as it would like, ask for amended 


proposals, and that would give David the 


ability to get amended proposals from SC&A 


according to Board's instruction, and issue 


modification to the contract that would have 


SC&A funded and working on October 1st of this 


year. 


In order to do that, I need to go to SC&A and 


ask them for proposals. What I would like to 


do is ask the Board's concurrence that I go to 


SC&A and ask them to produce cost proposals on 


Task I, that is the review of site profiles. 


would ask them to do a proposal that would 


include six site profiles, but to present it in 


I 
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a way that the Board would be able to see the 


unit cost of reviews so that the Board could 


decide in July if it wanted to adjust that 


number up and down. 


Second thing I would ask the Board to do -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me interrupt, Lew. Are -- are 


we at this point simply asking for a number of 


site -- not specific sites in -- 


 DR. WADE: Not specific sites. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- their proposal. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Not specific sites, generic -- SC&A 


has a good ability to estimate now -- I think 


John would agree -- the doing of site pro-- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Does it make much difference 


whether it's a complex site like Hanford or a 


simpler, smaller -- I -- I'm -- what I'm really 


getting at is whether or not we should say, for 


example, three major sites and three minor or 


just leave it at six or -- or what -- how would 


you approach that? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, in the past we did make that 


distinction. Based on the experience, the 


reality is it doesn't -- we can -- quite 

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frankly, it's 1,000 work hours per site 


profile, and it averages out -- typically what 


happens is we -- we don't know which ones are 


going to be the tougher ones, but usually it 


works out that they end up averaging out at 


that right spot and -- and that's exactly 


what's happening with the set of six we're 


doing this year. So we -- I -- I would prefer 


just to give you unit cost for the six, and I ­

- the way the cost would be is to deliver the 


draft report, and then there would be a 


separate budget in terms of work hours again 


for the closeout process. This is exactly how 


we did it the last time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, fine. For Task III, 


that's the review of procedures, I would ask 


SC&A for a cost proposal that would include the 


review of 30 procedures, that's what we've 


normally asked for, but I would ask them to 


give me unit costs on three types. One would 


be the review of a new procedure. The second 


would be the review of a previously-reviewed 


procedure that has undergone major revision by 


NIOSH. And the third would be the review of a 

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Program Evaluation Report. That's what we're 


talking about in terms of the review of 


completed dose reconstructions that Jim was 


speaking of. 


I would like to have the Board have the ability 


to decide that it would like to do some of that 


type of review next year and to have unit costs 


on those three types of procedures. Okay? 


For Task IV, which is individual dose 


reconstruction reviews, I would ask for 60, a 


proposal for 60. Again, SC&A has good cost 


estimating capabilities now. And for the 


record, SC&A has realized significant economies 


now in their performance of this work. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do we want to -- do we want to 


scale up? I know we talked about eventually 


adding more per year -- 


 DR. WADE: I think we want to have the ability 


for you to judge --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- that in July, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: I know -- I know -- having said 


that, I know the workgroup's -- or the 


subcommittee's way behind where -- the 


resolution process is way behind where SC&A is 

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(unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: You want to ask for 60 plus the cost 


of an addit-- of additional blocks of 20? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Mark? Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, at least 


to have -- so we can consider it. 


 MR. PRESLEY: What about -- what did we decide 


to do about blind? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Use -- use the mike. 

 MR. PRESLEY: What did we decide to do about 

blind? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we -- we did say 

(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I think it was said 


this would include some blind studies since -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- proportionately there's not as 


many of those, so you could -- for example, if 


it was 55 and five, is it going to make much 


difference. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Factor that in, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: To help that out a bit, with regard 


to this eighth set, we're expecting that we 


will be doing the eighth set and some 


additional blind -- perhaps two, three, 

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whatever you decide -- within the existing 


budget. So as far -- so what I can do is when 


I provide the -- the cost, I guess I could also 


put in the unit cost per blind dose 


reconstruction as part of it, so I'll give you 


the -- in other words, there's unit cost for 60 


plus additional blocks of 20, and per 


additional blind dose reconstruction -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: That would be good. 


DR. MAURO: -- so you can pick and choose. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's do that. 


 DR. WADE: Fine, thank you. And for Task V, 


which is the SEC task, I would ask for six, 


three focused reviews, three general broad 


reviews, and again with unit costs for each -- 


each type. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now --


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I was just going to ask, in 


terms of the 60 cases, I know we have -- we've 


had some discussion on the subcommittee about 


basic versus advanced and -- and re-looking at 


that scope as a subcommittee. I don't know 


that we've completely defined that, but I know 


John's been there during those deliberations. 

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I don't know if it'd be worthwhile to break out 


unit cost at least. I don't know that we know 


how many advanced or basic, but reconsider 


maybe unit cost for the advanced cases based on 


what --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, didn't we --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we were discussing --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- end up sort of saying 


everything we're doing now -- it's not basic 


and it's not advanced; it's somewhere in 


between? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Somewhere in between, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And unless -- unless we're going 


to make that distinction in the future -- if 


we're -- if we're going to continue -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess we haven't made it yet so 


we can't (unintelligible) yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we haven't, and -- and in fact, 


it really has come down to the distinction 


between the -- the best-estimate cases and the 


other kind of cases. That's what it's really 


boiled down to, in practice, at -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no --


 DR. ZIEMER: No? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- not -- not always, but we -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: And I guess we have to wait till 


-- we -- we are working on that issue in the 


subcommittee, so --


 DR. ZIEMER: But we haven't --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- until we -- until we define 


something --


 DR. ZIEMER: Unless the subcommittee comes up 


with a good definition -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I agree. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- of what these are --


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I think we can go with -- now I 


think, Lew, you've suggested how we proceed. 


I'm going to ask the Board for a motion -- 


 MR. STAUDT: Lew, this is Dave. 


 DR. WADE: Yes, Dave. 


 MR. STAUDT: There just another -- Task VI, and 


that covers program management cost, and I 


think it's probably going to be pretty 


consistent again this year. 


 DR. WADE: Right. Sorry, Dave, that's right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That would be built in. Right? 


 DR. WADE: But we would ask for --


 DR. ZIEMER: We would ask for that. 

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 DR. WADE: -- for a reasonable and prudent 


proposal for project management -- which is 


excellently done. 


 MR. STAUDT: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, David. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Ziemer, I just have a 


question on these -- I -- I guess I'm wondering 


-- these blind or -- or whatever case profiles 


that we redo, I guess what I'm getting to is 


will some of these -- or could they be part of 


some of the Rocky Flats ones that were -- we're 


asking them to go -- NIOSH to go back and redo 


some of these. Are they still going to be a 


part of this -- they'd be -- can I just -- I 


want to kind of check the work that is -- has ­

- has been done and that it -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it may or may not be. I --


I think a blind review is going to be 


completely blind to the -- to the reviewers, 


but it'll be up to the subcommittee to consider 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


select, yeah (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- whether to select --


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I just wanted to make sure 

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that we -- we had the ability to be able to go 


back and look at some of these that were -- 


were redone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, whether blind or not, we can 


always do that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

yeah. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. I -- I'm simply going to 

ask for a motion to -- to charge SC&A to 


prepare the cost proposals as described by Lew, 


which is, to reiterate, Task I, six site 


profile reviews; Task III, review of 30 


procedures, which includes the new, the revised 


and the Program Evaluation types and subsets; 


60 dose reconstruction reviews plus blind 


reviews plus additional sets of 20; and 


finally, three focused and three broad SEC 


reviews. Can someone make a motion? 


 DR. WADE: And project management. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or project -- plus -- plus the 


project management proposal. Someone make such 


a motion? 


 MR. CLAWSON: I move to do what you said. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. That was exactly the 

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motion I was looking for. 


 MS. MUNN: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. Any discussion? 


 (No responses) 


And Phil, Mike, John, Jim, any discussion? 


 MR. GIBSON: No. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: No, it sounds good to me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sounds good, that's what we were 


looking for. 


All in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 DR. WADE: Let me call the roll. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Call the roll since we have some 


on the phone. 


 DR. WADE: Well, I know the ayes in the room, 


but on the phone -- Phil Schofield? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: John Poston? 


 (No response) 


 DR. ZIEMER: We lost John. 


 DR. WADE: We lost John. John (sic) Lockey? 


 (No response) 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim Lockey. 


 DR. WADE: Mike Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Aye. 

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 DR. WADE: Okay. So we have Gibson and 


Schofield voting, Lockey -- Jim -- and Poston 


not on the line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, motion carries. Thank you 


very much. 


Do we have any other items to come before the ­

- the remnant of the Board? 


 MS. MUNN: I have one. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: Due to unbelievably fortunate 


circumstances, all of the procedure review 


committee is -- working group is still present. 


That's Mike, Mark, Paul and alternate Presley. 


I had mentioned earlier that I'd hoped we might 


be able to identify a date for a workgroup 


call, a conference call, where we could take a 


look at the outstanding procedures which we 


already have in hand. They've been provided to 


us by SCA. And identify what date we might be 


able to take half a day to sit down and go 


through that list, between now -- hopefully 


between now and -- and the July meeting on the 


17th, so --


 DR. ZIEMER: You have a date to suggest? 


 MS. MUNN: I would like for us to do that yet 

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this month, if it's possible to do it. I was 


looking at something like June 27th, Wednesday. 


Give us a couple of -- of weeks to look at the 


material we have and give some thought to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm okay. 


 MS. MUNN: -- advanced thought. Is the 27th 


okay? 


 MR. GRIFFON: If it's early or late, I can do 


it. Middle of the day is tough for me, but... 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, early Eastern time. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, early for you is too early for 


me, probably. So late is okay, late being 


after what your time? 


 MR. GRIFFON: 4:00 p.m. 


 MS. MUNN: After 4:00 p.m. your time? 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 


 MS. MUNN: Is that bad for others? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, are you going to go all 


evening then or --


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, you may be able to pick 


another -- better date, I don't know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm okay. I mean I'm willing to 


stay over. 

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 MS. MUNN: Would you be better --


 DR. ZIEMER: Are -- are we talking about 


Cincinnati or do you want to go somewhere -- 


 MS. MUNN: Well, I'm -- for this date I'm just 


talking about a four -- probably a four-hour 


phone call. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Phone call. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, a phone call. 


 MS. MUNN: Phone call probably. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah, that's -- I thought we 


were traveling. 


 MS. MUNN: Would a day other than Wednesday be 


better? In the morning? Or are all your 


mornings tied up? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, Thursday's better, Thursday ­

-


 MS. MUNN: Thursday better -- Thursday 28th all 


right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

can't. 

 MS. MUNN: No, not for Bob. He's our --


 MR. PRESLEY: And I'm -- I'm just an alternate. 


 MS. MUNN: What about --


 MR. GRIFFON: Wednesday --

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 MS. MUNN: -- you, Mike? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Wednesday if we started it at 


 MR. GIBSON: What time of day did you say, 


Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: I'm -- I'm -- we're looking at the 


morning of June 28th for a four-hour -- 


probably -- no more than four-hour phone call 


talking about SC&A procedure reviews and making 


some selections about which ones we want them ­

- we want to talk about them with face-to-face. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I could do the 28th in the 


morning. 


 MS. MUNN: 28th be okay? So we can't get to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I could -- I could do -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- Presley from anywhere. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Bad for Presley. 

 MR. PRESLEY: That's -- go ahead and have it. 

I --

 MR. CLAWSON: He's an alternate. 

 MR. PRESLEY: -- (unintelligible) go see my... 

 DR. WADE: Pick a time, Wanda, see what 


happens. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're -- you're out? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: If it was -- actually Wednesday 


or Thursday I could probably do it if we 


started at 9:30 Eastern time. I don't know if 


that's too early for you, Wanda. It's kind of 


early. 


 DR. ZIEMER: 6:30. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 10:00? 


 DR. ZIEMER: She's up by then. 


 MS. MUNN: Up, but not awake. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, Thur-- Thursday I 


could go -- you know, start a little later, at 


10:00. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What about Friday? 


 MS. MUNN: Well -- well, I guess we have not 


looked at Tuesday. Would Tuesday the 26th 


catch everybody? Could we do that? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I can do that. 


 MS. MUNN: Tuesday the 26th? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Let's -- let's do the morning of 


Tuesday the 26th. Okay? 


 DR. WADE: Morning is what time? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Morning is what time? I've --


I've got a luncheon that day and I -- 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, you do? Okay. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Although I'd be willing to skip 


it. 


 MS. MUNN: If we start 7:00 o'clock my time, 


that's 10:00 o'clock -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- your time, that's going to take 


you through lunch, but it may not -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's -- no, that's all right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- take us more than two hours. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's all right, I can -- I can 


skip this one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So 10:00 --


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- 10:00 on the 26th? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, 10:00 o'clock Eastern time on 


the 26th. 


 DR. WADE: Mike, did you hear that? 10:00 


o'clock on the 26th of June? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I got that. 


 MS. MUNN: And that'll do? Okay. And you have 


the material from -- from SC&A, all that list 


of procedure reviews that they've done? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MS. MUNN: You have that, Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I believe so. I think it's 

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on my flash drive. I'll look and make sure. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay, good. Thanks. I'll verify by 


e-mail. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Any other 


items to come before us? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Just mine on the Fernald 


workgroup. Hans Behling has given us the SEC 


review -- SC&A's review of the Fernald group 


and I wanted to be able to get the working 


group together, but we don't have NIOSH so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's do it by e-mail probably -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do it by e-mail, yeah, we're 


pretty (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, I'll --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. CLAWSON: -- send out the e-mail and we'll 


go from there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If there's no other items to come 


before us, I declare the meeting adjourned. 


Thank you very much, everyone. 

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 DR. WADE: And thank you all for your service. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 2:20 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

258 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of June 12, 


2007; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


4th day of July, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102