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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

KANSAS CITY PLANT WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

TUESDAY,

JUNE 10, 2014

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened in the Montreal 

Room at the Cincinnati Airport Marriott, 2395 

Progress Drive, Hebron, Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., 

Josie Beach, Chair, presiding.
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MEMBERS PRESENT:

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON

JAMES E. LOCKEY

JOHN W. POSTON, SR.

LORETTA R. VALERIO

ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

ELIZABETH BRACKETT, ORAU Team*

MAURICE COPELAND

PETE DARNELL, DCAS

JACKSON ELLIS, ORAU Team*

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

DeKEELY HARTSFIELD, HHS*

JOSH KINMAN, DCAS*

WAYNE KNOX

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A*

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

PAT McCLOSKEY, ORAU Team

JIM NETON, DCAS

JOE PORROVECCHIO, SC&A*

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team*

MATTHEW SMITH, ORAU Team*

JOHN STIVER, SC&A*

*Present via telephone
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T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Welcome and roll call .................... 5

Review of SEC Issues Under Consideration

(SEC Issues Matrix)

1. Data Completeness, Legibility and

 Accuracy ............................. 7

2. Worker Location, Job Category and Coworker

 Model ................................ 19

3. Chronic vs. Acute .................... 41

4. Super S Uranium ...................... 78

5. Recycled Uranium ..................... 82

Break .................................... 84

Review of SEC Issues Under Consideration

(SEC Issues Matrix) (continued)

6. DU After 1971 and During and After

 1997 ................................. 86

7. Radioactive Waste .................... 99

8. Metal Tritides ...................... 124

9. External Coworker Dose ............... 129

10. Non-Penetrating Dose ............... 133

11. N/P Issues ......................... 142

12. Fading of NTA ....................... 148

Petitioner's Comments ................... 153

Lunch Recess ............................ 190
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Review of SEC Issues Under Consideration

(SEC Issues Matrix) (Continued)

13. Magnesium-Thorium Alloy Operations .. 191

 

14. Post-1993 Monitoring ............... 254

15. Thorium Oxide Operations ............ 261

16. Application of TBD 6000 ............. 221

17. D&D Activities ..................... 267

18. Accidents, Incidents and Fires in 

 Worker's Record .................... 277

19. Potentially Unmonitored Exposures ... 279

20. New Issue: Tritium .................. 282

Petitioner's Comments ................... 299

Path Forward ............................ 341

Meeting Adjourned ....................... 344
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (8:59 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: So, good morning, 

4 everyone. Welcome to the Advisory Board on 

5 Radiation and Worker Health, Kansas City Plant 

6 Work Group. We're just getting started here 

7 and we'll do that with roll call.

8 A few things to note before I go into 

9 roll call is we have some papers for this 

10 meeting and they are posted on the NIOSH 

11 website, under the Board section, under today's 

12 date.

13 So, people, for example, on the 

14 phone can follow on there to see the issues that 

15 we're discussing. And the agenda is posted 

16 there as well. It's a pretty simple agenda. A 

17 lot of little items, but they're all reviews of 

18 SEC issues that the Work Group has begun with.

19 And there will be an opportunity, 

20 also, for petitioner comments and questions. 

21 And Josie, the Chair, will indicate when those 

22 opportunities arise.
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1 And so we're talking about a 

2 specific site. So, please speak to conflict of 

3 interest as well when you respond to roll call. 

4 And we'll begin with the Board Members in the 

5 room.

6 (Roll call.)

7 MR. KATZ: Okay, then. Josie, it's 

8 your meeting.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. As Ted pointed 

10 out, we do have a matrix, it is posted, and we 

11 are going to follow down through the matrix.

12 There's 20 items on the matrix. 

13 SC&A is going to lead the discussion. Breaks, 

14 we'll try to take a break in the morning about 

15 an hour and a half into this meeting, and a break 

16 around lunch time, and then another break in the 

17 afternoon, but nothing formal on those.

18 First item of discussion -- oh, and 

19 welcome, everybody, to the first Kansas City 

20 Work Group meeting. It doesn't feel like the 

21 first meeting because we've been talking about 

22 Kansas City for many, many months now, but 
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1 welcome.

2 And we'll start with data 

3 completeness, legibility and accuracy, our 

4 first matrix item.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. This is Joe 

6 Fitzgerald. We took essentially the Site 

7 Profile issues that came out of the SC&A review 

8 and carried them forward in the SEC matrix.

9 And, again, the notion was to go 

10 ahead and present these to the Work Group, have 

11 the Work Group, you know, certainly be aware of 

12 these issues and sort of refresh your memories 

13 on what was in the Site Profile, understanding 

14 that, you know, the status of these from the SEC 

15 standpoint is going to be a little mixed, and 

16 that's how we intended to address them.

17 On this first one, data 

18 completeness, legibility and accuracy, we 

19 looked at sort of the standard approach that we 

20 have done with other SECs looking at the records 

21 from the standpoint of completeness and whether 

22 or not in fact the validity and verification was 
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1 done as far as the completeness of the records 

2 and accuracy of the records.

3 And on this one we had essentially 

4 two issues, really. One was the question of 

5 whether or not the original records were 

6 legible.

7 And in fact, when we looked at the 

8 SRDB, some of the concern was just essentially 

9 that some of these records just were not legible 

10 in terms of different pieces of information 

11 that were on the individual bioassays.

12 And one thing we wanted to do on the 

13 onsite visit was, frankly, just look at some of 

14 the original records, the ones that were copied 

15 and transcribed into the electronic database 

16 and see in fact whether that illegibility that 

17 we were picking up was in fact in the original 

18 records.

19 And what we found, essentially, was 

20 that the original records were in fact legible 

21 and could be relied upon. So, that was a very 

22 helpful thing just to make sure that the very 
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1 first order of business, that the records 

2 themselves were usable, legible and we didn't 

3 have a problem from the standpoint of that 

4 completeness issue.

5 The second question that we wanted 

6 to look at, and we looked at in other sites, is 

7 whether or not in the transfer of the hard copy 

8 records to the electronic database, whether 

9 that had been validated, you know, whether or 

10 not the transcription itself was a complete 

11 transcription.

12 And during the onsite visit, we had 

13 a chance to talk to Brent Nasca, who is the 

14 health physicist at the site. And what he had 

15 committed to do was to provide the QA/QC 

16 methodology that the site had used when they, 

17 you know, basically provided the electronic 

18 database to NIOSH and he was going to provide 

19 the summary. 

20 And I guess that summary is going to 

21 NIOSH, you all, so I think that will go a long 

22 ways to settling out the second question as to 
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1 how that was done and to what extent they QA'd 

2 that process.

3 So this is kind of a QA issue here 

4 and do we have a complete record, is it legible, 

5 and when the electronic database was compiled, 

6 did, you know, someone QA that to ensure that 

7 that in fact was a representative record of the 

8 original database?

9 And the only issue I think that's 

10 outstanding on that one for the Work Group is 

11 this QA/QC, you know, methodology that Mr. 

12 Nasca had offered to make available to the 

13 Board, to NIOSH and to SC&A.

14 And once we had a chance to look at 

15 that then, you know, I think we'll pretty much 

16 have what we need.

17 MR. KATZ: Before you go on, Joe, 

18 just let me -- I understand there's some people 

19 on the line who didn't have a chance or didn't 

20 realize they had a chance to register their 

21 attendance from the NIOSH ORAU Team.

22 (Roll call.)
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you. Go 

2 ahead.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. That pretty 

4 much sums it. I know NIOSH is still looking 

5 forward to obtaining additional records, but 

6 essentially the records that we've looked at, 

7 with those provisions, I think, is complete and 

8 we just need to know whether or not the method 

9 is there. And that's essentially it.

10 MR. DARNELL: So, summarizing it, 

11 we're okay with the legibility issue. We're 

12 just waiting on the information on the QA/QC 

13 --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: That's correct. 

15 That's correct. And, you know, for some 

16 perspective, I mean, legibility we typically 

17 don't -- you know, it’s five percent, 10 

18 percent.

19 But I think in looking at the SRDB, 

20 it seemed to be fairly extensive. So, we 

21 wanted to at least reassure ourselves by 

22 viewing the original records. So, I think 
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1 that's fine. We're okay.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Right. So, the action 

3 that I wrote down was just NIOSH is waiting for 

4 those from Brent Nasca.

5 MR. DARNELL: Actually, I've been in 

6 touch with Brent Nasca on and off about issues. 

7 Pat has also. And it's just waiting on him to 

8 get the time to get the information together.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

10 MR. DARNELL: And I want to take a 

11 short divergence from the agenda for a second 

12 just to make sure that the Board knows I will 

13 be traveling to KCP in August.

14 It's not related to anything with 

15 the Work Group. I'll be meeting with Brent 

16 Nasca and his management. Apparently, he's 

17 getting beat up by his management because they 

18 feel we're finding a huge amount of radioactive 

19 work ongoing at the site, when in reality it was 

20 a very small portion of what they did.

21 It's just they're viewing our 

22 scrutiny the same way that they view it as a DOE 
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1 audit.

2 CHAIR BEACH: So, you're going to go 

3 help smooth that out a little?

4 MR. DARNELL: Yes, try to smooth that 

5 out and let them understand our process a bit 

6 more. So, I just wanted to make sure everybody 

7 knew that.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, let us know how 

9 that goes.

10 MR. DARNELL: I will.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, the only 

13 postscript on this one is that there is an 

14 extensive database. I mean, we're not, you 

15 know, we typically look at completeness also 

16 from the standpoint of, you know, whether in 

17 fact there was a representative number of 

18 records.

19 In this case, there is a 

20 considerable amount of records for the depleted 

21 uranium work in particular. So, it wasn't a 

22 completeness issue from that standpoint.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

3 MR. KNOX: May I make a comment? 

4 Because I look at completeness from a different 

5 perspective. I look at it as a quality 

6 assurance auditor.

7 And as somewhat of a mathematician, 

8 completeness is based upon you being able to 

9 satisfy your quality, data-quality objectives.

10 And so, there is a certain 

11 percentage of the material that you have to look 

12 at in order to determine completeness.

13 And, unfortunately, under this 

14 program, the data-quality objective is a 99 

15 percent probability. So, you cannot use data 

16 that is less than 99 percent based upon the 

17 propagation of errors method that all of us 

18 studied in school.

19 So, all of the data that you use has 

20 to be of a 99 percent plus data-quality in order 

21 to be complete.

22 But as a person that worked in this 
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1 field as a dirty-hands operational health 

2 physicist, and I know, because there's a big 

3 difference between a health physicist and an 

4 operational health physicist, the data that has 

5 been collected that I generated never met any 

6 of the data-quality objectives.

7 It was not representative. It was 

8 not complete. It was not comprehensive. We 

9 never satisfied any of the basic quality 

10 assurance objectives.

11 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Wayne.

12 And going forward, please, there 

13 will be opportunity for public comment. So, 

14 you will have the opportunity to make comments 

15 and Josie will indicate when those are.

16 MR. KNOX: I'm a member of the public 

17 --

18 MR. KATZ: Yes.

19 MR. KNOX: -- and not a member of this 

20 group?

21 MR. KATZ: Yes, you are a member of 

22 the public and you are a co-petitioner.
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1 MR. KNOX: But I have nothing --

2 MR. KATZ: Sir, there are 

3 opportunities -- the public comment period, 

4 when we have those, are opportunities for you 

5 as a petitioner to provide your commentary. 

6 And we'll indicate when those are.

7 MR. KNOX: But why do we have to wait 

8 --

9 MR. KATZ: Because --

10 MR. KNOX: -- and make comments?

11 MR. KATZ: Because this is not --

12 this is a work group meeting. It's not a public 

13 meeting of the Board. It's a work group 

14 meeting and we have a lot of items to get through 

15 and that's why we sort of manage it with 

16 opportunities for public comment.

17 And you can take notes and remember 

18 issues and provide them when you have that 

19 opportunity, but we've brought all these people 

20 together from around the country to do a lot of 

21 work and get through a lot of work and we need 

22 to sort of go forward in a systematic way with 
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1 that.

2 And you will have opportunities to 

3 speak. So, no one is circumscribing your 

4 opportunity. It's just that we want to do this 

5 in an orderly fashion. So, thank you.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Data 

7 Completeness, Legibility and Accuracy, Work 

8 Group members, any questions, comments on this 

9 issue and the actions?

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I 

11 was just -- do we have a time frame that we're 

12 going to get this information or -- from them, 

13 or what are we looking at?

14 MR. DARNELL: We have a vague promise 

15 of, yes, we'll do it, but no definite date.

16 That's part of the reason -- another 

17 part of the reason why I'm going in August is 

18 to try to get this stuff moving forward.

19 I'm basically going to be telling 

20 their management, you know, when we get 

21 finished looking, all the scrutiny that you're 

22 feeling will go away. So, I'll try to help move 
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1 it along.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

3 CHAIR BEACH: All right. Anything 

4 else? Are we comfortable moving on to the 

5 second item?

6 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Two, Worker 

8 location, job category and coworker model. 

9 I'll just turn it over to Joe so he can give the 

10 background and --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. This was 

12 something that concerned SC&A in the Site 

13 Profile review which, you know, I think a lot 

14 of sites probably have a challenge in terms of 

15 the assignment of job categories and work 

16 locations for workers in circumstances where 

17 the job tends to move or over time the job 

18 changes.

19 In Kansas City in particular, we 

20 were concerned about whether or not you could 

21 implement a coworker model effectively if in 

22 fact one could not rely upon the job categories 
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1 the workers were assigned or what was recorded 

2 in their dose records and whether they -- if 

3 they in fact moved around, did different jobs, 

4 how you would apply that.

5 So, really, what we wanted to do and 

6 we started doing on the onsite visit was to get 

7 a better picture over time how the plant 

8 assigned jobs, how workers moved around the 

9 plant floor, whether it was possible for an 

10 operator -- or a non-operator to become an 

11 operator and then move out of that job category 

12 and whether that would confuse the picture as 

13 to what in fact -- what work they in fact did 

14 over time. 

15 And there were a number of 

16 interviews that took place before the most 

17 recent site visit where there seemed to be an 

18 indication that, yes, the job categories were 

19 somewhat loose and people did shift jobs over 

20 time.

21 And in fact on the work floor, there 

22 was a fair amount of movement between jobs. If 
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1 you think of Kansas City being sort of a large 

2 work area where people worked in different 

3 departments and stations, then that makes more 

4 sense.

5 Now, what we've heard on this last 

6 site visit, which is very helpful, was that 

7 there was a pretty clear distinction between 

8 the supervisory staff, for example, and the 

9 operators on the floor.

10 And on specific operations where 

11 you had workers doing the radiological work, 

12 there was a reasonable distinction between 

13 workers doing that work because it required 

14 access to those particular departments and 

15 required certain monitoring. So, there was 

16 more restriction that way.

17 There was still, I think, some 

18 indication of, you know, differences of opinion 

19 between different interviewees as to how much 

20 movement there might have been between workers 

21 in one department versus departments where the 

22 radiological operations were occurring, but, 
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1 again, I think it's coming more in focus. 

2 I think a number of Work Group 

3 members were part of the interviews we held on 

4 the subject. And I don't think we've nailed it 

5 to the ground, but I think it's pretty clear 

6 that, between supervisors and operators, 

7 clearly a distinction. And that's important 

8 because of the way some of these doses might be 

9 assigned.

10 On the work floor, maybe a little 

11 less distinction, but perhaps a little bit more 

12 confidence that you didn't have workers that 

13 were just willy-nilly moving from the non-rad 

14 area into the rad areas.

15 Now, certainly there's a question 

16 about adjacent operations taking place near 

17 where the radiological materials were being 

18 handled and to what extent those workers may 

19 have been exposed, but I think from the 

20 standpoint of the worker location job category.

21 We have some questions about the 

22 classified operations, as does NIOSH, I see in 
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1 the response, that we didn't really get a chance 

2 to hammer out completely.

3 So, there are still some questions 

4 about the workers that were assigned to some of 

5 those specific operations.

6 And we also came up with some -- and 

7 we'll get into this a little later, some 

8 potentially new source terms, whether it be 

9 tritium or some other items, where I'd want a 

10 better understanding of who might have been 

11 involved. For example, on the tritium 

12 modeling, who might have been involved in that 

13 and whether one can distinguish that subset of 

14 workers.

15 CHAIR BEACH: And where that took 

16 place.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: And where it took 

18 place. We got very scant information about 

19 that, for example. So, we're still, I think, 

20 trying to pin down whether one can tie workers 

21 to locations to source terms, but the picture 

22 is getting better.
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1 I don't think that's going to happen 

2 right away, but I think the picture is getting 

3 better.

4 With each interview, we're getting 

5 a little bit better focus on, you know, how that 

6 assignment was done and where these operations 

7 took place.

8 I know going in I had some sense of 

9 Department 22 and 26 and whatnot, but I think 

10 talking to the workers and getting a sense of 

11 where the work took place, to what extent these 

12 departments were in fact very much segregated 

13 or not became --

14 MR. DARNELL: Excuse me. 

15 Department 20 and 26.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: 20 and 26? Did I 

17 say 22?

18 MR. DARNELL: You said 22.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, 20.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I think there's 

21 some issue on where the waste operations took 

22 place. I don't think we've nailed -- and I know 
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1 that's going to be later on, but that was also 

2 some departmental issues, too. I don't think 

3 we really nailed that down.

4 There may be some issues there with 

5 who was involved in that, those activities.

6 MR. DARNELL: Are you talking about 

7 the radioactive waste?

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

9 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Of course.

11 MR. DARNELL: And remember that we --

12 this is Pete Darnell, by the way. Sorry.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

14 MR. DARNELL: Remember that we 

15 learned during the interviews it took a long 

16 time to get enough radioactive waste to make one 

17 drum.

18 So, wherever -- the drum was stored 

19 in the aircraft engine test center -- testing 

20 stands area.

21 So, we know where it was and it's 

22 just how long it took to fill up the one drum 
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1 that they needed to fill up before they had a 

2 radioactive waste.

3 CHAIR BEACH: There's some documents 

4 of 122 drums being shipped out in '64.

5 MR. DARNELL: Right.

6 CHAIR BEACH: So, yes. All I'm 

7 saying is, yes, there's still some work to be 

8 done in those areas.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you know, 

10 certainly, you know, they filled the drums 

11 where the work was occurring, the turnings and 

12 what have you. And then they would ship it to 

13 a holding area. And then, you know.

14 MR. DARNELL: And sooner or later 

15 they'd have enough for a transport.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

17 MR. DARNELL: And it may have taken 

18 years, it may have taken months or days to get 

19 the 164. That's what we don't know.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: This is Pat 

22 McCloskey.
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1 That's partly why I was jumping up 

2 at the map during each interview to try to knock 

3 this down in one --

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Understanding where 

6 things occurred.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Also, the year time 

9 frame is where a lot of the things changed. 

10 There were certain areas where you were 

11 generating an awful lot of it on a daily basis. 

12 And through the years, all of that changes back 

13 and forth.

14 And in the later years, that's where 

15 you see, you know, a time period where it's 

16 taking a month or two to be able to fill up a 

17 drum.

18 In the early years, no. It was --

19 there was big production of it.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: And we'll get into, 

21 you know, I think there was some mention in one 

22 interview, for example, this ballast depleted 
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1 uranium.

2 And there was some question about 

3 did that come from off site, was it fabricated 

4 onsite and how was it handled? I mean, there's 

5 some loose ends on some of the source terms.

6 MR. DARNELL: The primary indication 

7 on that was they were forms that were brought 

8 onsite to do the work that they needed to do, 

9 but we don't have it fully nailed down.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. So, there's 

11 some nailing down of --

12 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: -- source terms, 

14 location, who was handling it. And I think 

15 there's more research and more investigation to 

16 go to nail that down.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Also, on placing 

18 people in the areas, one of the things that 

19 bothers me about this in using that process is 

20 all we see is a snapshot of what that person was 

21 at the last -- was he a supervisor, or over 

22 previous years was he a QA person or a laborer 
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1 or whatever else.

2 This has been one of the biggest 

3 problems, we've come to find out. We just get 

4 the snapshot at the end when he retired, he was 

5 a supervisor. We don't see the 35 years before 

6 that he was a laborer, welder, whatever he was.

7 DR. NETON: Well, we do get some of 

8 that in the interviews. And the application 

9 actually asks you over time what you did. 

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. I just want 

11 to make sure that when we're trying to place 

12 these people like this, that we look at it 

13 because this is also one of the criticisms that 

14 I've heard from the public is they have me as 

15 working in this area, they don't have the 22 

16 years I worked in this area.

17 MR. DARNELL: Well, I think one of 

18 the things there is that there's a general 

19 misunderstanding about how this site -- what 

20 this site's actual function is.

21 The vast majority of the work that 

22 went on here was non-radioactive, had nothing 
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1 to do with the radioactive materials that we're 

2 looking at.

3 We're looking at discrete 

4 operations primarily on this site. There's 

5 not a general spread of radioactivity, you 

6 know, uranium just doesn't go away.

7 If there had been a spread of 

8 contamination, we would still see that today. 

9 We don't see that anywhere except in the one 

10 area where they did the decontamination, 

11 because we have records that said it's in that 

12 area and that's where it was.

13 So, when we look at a worker and we 

14 say -- we put him in Area A and we give him dose 

15 for Area A and we ignore Area B, C, D and E where 

16 they also worked, it's because there wasn't 

17 radioactive material there.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 

19 that, Pete, but one of my issues is that you 

20 take, for example, the person that is in X area 

21 as a machinist for so long, but then gets moved 

22 out and can get moved back and forth and around 
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1 because you realize, in my opinion, their 

2 limitations of movement of these people was 

3 more to control that they're at their work 

4 station doing work more than it was limiting to 

5 these areas.

6 Now, Kansas City is an example of 

7 areas. And one area doesn't know what another 

8 area is supposed to be doing.

9 MR. DARNELL: And there is a security 

10 concern.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: But -- for security 

12 concerns, but most of the people still have the 

13 same security processes.

14 My issue is, is that I have a hard 

15 time believing that we can limit these people 

16 into these areas, because there is a 

17 utilization of manpower.

18 If you are a certified machinist, 

19 you can be used in numerous different areas. 

20 So, you do have a movement of that sort.

21 But as in the interview they said, 

22 well, to say they couldn't go into any of these 
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1 areas, I beg to differ because it was more of 

2 a control of knowing where your workforce was 

3 at and trying to make sure they were getting 

4 eight hours for eight hours' pay.

5 MR. DARNELL: I don't think we're at 

6 odds at all with that, Brad. I think that the 

7 way NIOSH is looking at it, we look at it only 

8 from the point of view of radioactive materials 

9 exposure. So, all the other areas don't mean 

10 anything to what we do.

11 So, if we have a worker that was on 

12 a project, we give him the dose for that 

13 project.

14 If he gets moved off the project, 

15 it's like he's no longer a rad worker from the 

16 dose reconstruction point of view.

17 So, yes, I agree with you that they

18 had worker transference between different 

19 areas for manpower utilization.

20 When they go out of the machining 

21 area that did the DU machining to go someplace 

22 else, they're no longer a rad worker. So, we 
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1 don't -- it's not something that we concern 

2 ourselves about from the dose reconstruction 

3 point of view.

4 CHAIR BEACH: So, the key is making 

5 sure they get credit for the time spent in those 

6 areas --

7 MR. DARNELL: In those areas.

8 CHAIR BEACH: -- that we are 

9 concerned about. And so, there's more work to 

10 be done on both sides.

11 Where are we at with action items? 

12 And I'm assuming NIOSH has got action on this.

13 MR. DARNELL: Well, actually we're 

14 going to meet at lunch, Joe Fitzgerald, Pat and 

15 I, anybody else that would like to, and discuss 

16 what our next set of data retrieval will be for 

17 the site visit.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

19 MR. DARNELL: And when I'm there in 

20 August, I'm going to set that up.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, you're 

22 talking sometime in September-October?
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1 MR. DARNELL: Probably 

2 October-November. We're pretty busy with INL 

3 through September.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And I know there 

5 is a lot more work that needs to be done. So, 

6 okay. So, this one I'm going to leave as an 

7 open and maybe we'll come back to it with some 

8 specifics or I can actually just say site visit 

9 -- future site visit.

10 MR. DARNELL: Future site -- right. 

11 Part of the site visit.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But on this one, I 

13 think, you know, Brad raises the case where, can 

14 we in fact by virtue of the CATI or, you know, 

15 interview or whatever follow this worker and 

16 apportion whether or not the worker was in a rad 

17 area subject to dose reconstruction or not, 

18 moving around, whether the records are clear 

19 enough and accurate enough to give you that 

20 ability or not.

21 And I think we haven't had a chance 

22 to dive in that deep, but I think what we were 
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1 getting from the interviews was some sense of 

2 whether or not these different worker 

3 categories were relatively segregated or not.

4 And I think the level of QA you're 

5 talking about is maybe to go a little deeper and 

6 just make sure that we could maybe sample some 

7 of these operators or machinists and see 

8 whether the records would lend themselves to 

9 that.

10 MR. DARNELL: One thing that we have 

11 to make sure we realize is that when we're 

12 looking at categories of workers for dose 

13 reconstruction, it's only when they're on the 

14 rad project.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

16 MR. DARNELL: So, a machinist that's 

17 on the rad project will get dose while a 

18 machinist that's working --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

20 MR. DARNELL: -- next door won't 

21 get dose. So, it's not an across-the-board --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: No.
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1 MR. DARNELL: -- across-the-plant 

2 --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: That's my point.

4 MR. DARNELL: -- level of dose.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: You're looking at a 

6 machinist. And if the machinist did rad work, 

7 then he would be in. If he moved out of that, 

8 he would be out, but is that covered in the 

9 records adequately or not?

10 MR. DARNELL: And one of the things 

11 we have to realize, I mean --

12 CHAIR BEACH: You'll get your shot.

13 MR. DARNELL: Oh, I'm sorry, Jim. I 

14 didn't know you -- go ahead, please.

15 DR. NETON: I was just going to say 

16 this is not unique to Kansas City Plant.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: No.

18 DR. NETON: This happens at every 

19 single site. And if we get to the point --

20 we're going to have plenty of bioassay data from 

21 what I've seen. So, we will have a coworker 

22 model.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

2 DR. NETON: And then as we all know, 

3 we have a two-flavor coworker model, a 95th 

4 percentile for the whole distribution.

5 And so, if you can't ascertain into 

6 which category that person goes, we will always 

7 default into the 95th percentile.

8 So, it's not a matter of can we do 

9 something or not, it's how well we can parse out 

10 where they were.

11 And if it comes to be that we can't, 

12 we can still use this two, you know, box model. 

13 So, I really don't see that this is an SEC issue 

14 at all.

15 You really have to look at the 

16 quality of the bioassay data which we still 

17 haven't finished yet, but remember the coworker 

18 model applies to people that weren't monitored.

19 A lot of times we get balled up in 

20 thinking, was this guy monitored? We have a 

21 lot of people that were monitored and they're 

22 going to have monitoring data. We're going to 
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1 apply this model to people that had zero 

2 monitoring data and they're going to fit either 

3 the high end or full distribution.

4 So, a lot of this is detail stuff, 

5 in my opinion, and really Site Profile-type 

6 issues given the amount of bioassay data I think 

7 I see we have, but we still have to prove that.

8 MR. DARNELL: One of the pieces of 

9 data that we have not collected yet is some of 

10 the bioassay data that's internal to the 

11 workers' medical records.

12 And we know that that data exists. 

13 Actually, KCP told us it will cost 70 grand for 

14 them to go in and pull the data.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: What data?

16 MR. DARNELL: What?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Cost 70 thousand to 

18 pull what data?

19 CHAIR BEACH: I thought that was 

20 in-house.

21 MR. DARNELL: The bioassay data from 

22 inside their medical records.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I was going to say 

2 I thought that was an in-house bioassay --

3 MR. DARNELL: Again, the situation 

4 down there is getting very strange. So, and I 

5 --

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: For the uranium, 

7 depleted uranium machining work, the large part 

8 of the work that they did, they did have 

9 in-house urinalysis.

10 But for the early '50s, the natural 

11 uranium machining, it was sent out to Los 

12 Alamos.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it wasn't until, 

14 what, '64 I think they started in-house more.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: I would say '58-'59.

16 CHAIR BEACH: '58-'59, okay.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. So, that's 

18 part of the data collection we'll be going after 

19 in the subsequent visit.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anybody else on 

21 the second topic? Work Group members wish to 

22 make any comments, questions? I think the 
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1 action items are noted.

2 I think, Ted, you're keeping track 

3 of action items. I am, and I believe Joe is 

4 too, as well as Pete is. So, we should have it 

5 very well covered. Very nice.

6 Okay. So, the third issue is 

7 chronic versus acute. This is one of Ron's 

8 issues and I think John Mauro --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I --

10 CHAIR BEACH: No, you've got it?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: I'll handle it.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this is one of 

14 the Site Profile issues and I think Ron, who 

15 unfortunately couldn't make it this week, went 

16 through the bioassay data that NIOSH provided 

17 and I don't think there is any issue on the acute 

18 versus chronic having looked at that data in 

19 some detail, which we didn't have a chance to 

20 do in the Site Profile review.

21 The only question left on that one, 

22 frankly, is trying to get some sense of the --
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1 of generally, the higher readings in '60-'61 

2 which is just additional information as to 

3 maybe, was that strictly anomalous, or was 

4 there any reason to see that relative spike 

5 then.

6 And that doesn't portend anything 

7 more than just wanting to understand the 

8 operational, you know, reasons, perhaps, for 

9 seeing that relatively higher reading.

10 So, on this one, I don't think 

11 there's a chronic versus acute issue that I 

12 would see us pursuing or recommending that it 

13 be pursued by the Work Group, but we do want to 

14 take the opportunity going back to the site to 

15 spend a little bit more time understanding what 

16 we're looking at in '60-'61. I think that was 

17 the one issue left.

18 And I don't know if you've had a 

19 chance, Pete, to as you're collecting more 

20 data, shed any more light on that. That was 

21 still, I think --

22 MR. DARNELL: No, I didn't.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: -- one that came 

2 up a while back and I thought we even asked Brent 

3 Nasca about that and, you know, it was something 

4 that he sent back, right?

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, there's 

6 something --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: But he didn't have 

8 any -- he didn't have an explanation per se. 

9 There was just no --

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: No, Dr. Richard 

11 Traub in 2005 had a conversation with Brent 

12 Nasca about this. It's in the Site Research 

13 Database 49002, and asked this exact question.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: And Brent came up 

16 empty at that point and --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, it may just be 

18 left as just one of those things. It just was 

19 something that we wanted to take another look 

20 at before letting it go and perhaps in looking 

21 at some of the incident data, you know, the 

22 weeklies or something maybe would shed some 
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1 light on it.

2 MR. DARNELL: I would suggest that we 

3 close Issue 3 and roll the -- looking at the 

4 incidents into Issue 18.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Is that the 

6 incident one?

7 MR. DARNELL: That's the incident 

8 one. The two issues are fairly closely 

9 related.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I wouldn't 

11 have any objection to that.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I guess for me 

13 because it is cited in the coworker model and 

14 that would be captured -- I know you don't have 

15 one developed yet.

16 DR. NETON: I guess I'm a little bit 

17 confused as to why the inclusion of some 

18 incidents in the coworker model would be 

19 appropriate.

20 I mean, this happens somewhat 

21 routinely. If you -- a coworker model is a 

22 chronic exposure model.
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1 We've been down this path many times 

2 where if you're chronically, if you're 

3 routinely monitored, it captures the incidents 

4 that may have occurred and there may be spikes 

5 in the data that were related incidents, not 

6 chronic exposure.

7 But the fact is if you include those 

8 in the coworker model, it will then bias the 

9 results in a claimant-favorable direction and 

10 this is not unusual to me.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I don't think 

12 we would argue with that, but you want to 

13 reserve the coworker model as a discussion --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I was just 

15 curious about it, yes. That will be a 

16 discussion, I'm sure, at some point when that's 

17 developed.

18 I guess my question is, do we have 

19 all the source term? Would there have been 

20 some source term during '60-'61 that we haven't 

21 -- that may have led to that spike?

22 I don't know and I'm only bringing 
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1 that up because --

2 MR. DARNELL: And this is very 

3 similar to other sites. Right now we have the 

4 data that we have. And so, we think we know 

5 what was going on in '60 and '61.

6 If we find more, we'll have to add 

7 it.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

9 MR. DARNELL: But right now it is 

10 what it is and we have to go forward with what 

11 we have.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Right. And I do 

13 understand that. And you said you have no 

14 objection to moving it to --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes, the only 

16 issue you're talking about is we have not had 

17 a chance to look at the coworker model. The 

18 Work Group hasn't had a chance.

19 If that's the only reason, then the 

20 acute versus chronic as a subject -- and that 

21 was the way it was cited. That was the way it 

22 was just cited in the Site Profile.
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1 But if that's not the right 

2 characterization at this point, then we might 

3 want to just keep it as a coworker model 

4 question and reserve it for --

5 DR. MAURO: This is John. I'd like 

6 to add a little here, if I may.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, please do, John.

8 DR. MAURO: Yes, I was talking a bit 

9 with Ron on this very subject and it really goes 

10 in terms of looking at this issue because, as 

11 you said, this is a coworker model issue. And 

12 when Ron and I were discussing it, he was sort 

13 of describing the kinds of data.

14 I have not been looking at the 

15 actual air sampling or bioassay data. I've 

16 been looking at another issue, but Ron and I did 

17 have a chance to talk.

18 And the philosophy, I think as a 

19 coworker model issue and the incident issue, I 

20 think they should be kept separate.

21 I understand the rationale for why 

22 there's good reason to combine them, but I --
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1 there's also good reason to keep them separate.

2 The reason being -- and certainly 

3 Jim has alluded to this is that when you're 

4 building a coworker model, you think in terms 

5 of a worker population that is being routinely 

6 monitored or air samples collected or bioassay 

7 data being collected.

8 And you develop an understanding of 

9 the work that they were doing and the patterns 

10 of concentrations in urine or the patterns of 

11 the air concentrations that you observe.

12 And you're in a position where of 

13 course the workers that you have the data, you 

14 can reconstruct doses if there's sufficient 

15 accuracy and adequacy. And those are of course 

16 questions that are before everyone.

17 But given that you do have -- this 

18 is a supposition that you do have, you know, 

19 accuracy and completeness for the workers that 

20 were covered, then you comment to yourself, 

21 okay, there were other workers that were not, 

22 let's say, bioassayed. And the question 
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1 you've got to ask yourself is, okay, can somehow 

2 we use the data that -- for the workers that were 

3 bioassayed and apply it to these other workers?

4 And there's certain tests you have 

5 to pass to convince yourself that that is a 

6 reasonable thing to do. And that goes toward 

7 these spikes, you know.

8 If the worker -- the workers that 

9 were not monitored and you're going to use the 

10 coworker model and apply it to them, the way I 

11 look at it and I think the way we've looked at 

12 in the past is that if there's reason to believe 

13 that these workers were involved in a different 

14 category of work where the potential for 

15 exposure was less than the workers that were 

16 monitored, that's an important question.

17 If there's reason to believe that, 

18 no, these workers were involved in similar 

19 activities and, therefore, the coworker model 

20 would apply to them, but then you pose the 

21 question, okay, but there were these spikes and 

22 that sort of messes you up a little bit.
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1 You say, well, how do we know that 

2 some of these workers that were not monitored 

3 may have experienced an exposure to a site, the 

4 one case you folks just mentioned.

5 And the real -- and the way I get 

6 comfortable with this is I have to feel that the 

7 nature of the health physics oversight was such 

8 that when -- that there was in place programs 

9 when such spikes occurred, there's reason to 

10 believe that they were picked up by the air 

11 sampling program and that there was follow-up 

12 so that you could feel confident that you didn't 

13 have a person who was unmonitored that somehow 

14 found themself involved in a spike 

15 circumstance.

16 And here's where the judgment comes 

17 in. Do we feel confident that if that did occur 

18 to one of these unmonitored workers, that 

19 there's good reason to believe that it would 

20 have been captured?

21 And that's how I look at, get a 

22 degree of comfort whether or not you can build 
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1 a coworker model and, second, how do we feel 

2 confident that the worker himself would have 

3 been captured and covered if in fact there was 

4 an unusual circumstance or nature or campaign 

5 or operation or transient.

6 So, I want to just pass that on how 

7 I think we have been looking at this in the past 

8 and I think it applies here.

9 MR. DARNELL: I think that one of the 

10 things we need to come to an understanding about 

11 that is fundamental to all the information that 

12 you talked about, John, is what kind of site 

13 this actually is.

14 This is not similar to INL, Rocky, 

15 Hanford where the worker just by being on the 

16 site is exposed to radioactive material, 

17 exposed to radiation.

18 The operations here are very much 

19 like Pinellas where it was very discrete. The 

20 area was a small area. Workers were controlled 

21 by security measures more than health and 

22 safety measures on who was exposed and who was 
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1 not.

2 That's the fundamental view of this 

3 site that NIOSH is taking, you know. These are 

4 discrete, small operations of radioactive 

5 material handling and machining and what have 

6 you that went on.

7 Small within the footprint of the 

8 site. Small within the overall work of the 

9 site. Small within the workforce that 

10 actually took place.

11 So, when you brought up on the 

12 coworker model whether it would apply to 

13 workers outside of those small footprints, I 

14 believe you hit it right on the head with this 

15 site, it is not something that's going to be 

16 applicable to the vast majority of the 

17 workforce on the site.

18 And what we have to decide and come 

19 up with is whether we're going to view this site 

20 as the discrete operations that it appears to 

21 be from NIOSH's point of view, or whether it's 

22 an operation where everybody and everything 
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1 could have been exposed from these small, 

2 discrete jobs that they did.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: One thing I'd like to 

4 say to help make John comfortable with any 

5 spikes in '60 and '61, you said you'd feel 

6 better if there was a good HP program in place 

7 to catch any anomalous situations.

8 So we know that in '51 we were 

9 sending urinalysis to Los Alamos. And so, that 

10 wasn't as well-documented yet, but by '59 we 

11 have a ton of urinalysis records and good air 

12 monitoring records for that depleted uranium 

13 machining work.

14 So, certainly by the time your 

15 concerns over the '60-'61 spikes, we had a 

16 pretty good HP program in place that's 

17 documented.

18 MR. DARNELL: Well, one correction 

19 to that. We really can't look at it as a health 

20 physics program. This was an environmental 

21 safety and health program. It was run by 

22 industrial hygienists until very late in the 
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1 operations of the Kansas City Plant.

2 So, they were doing the right things 

3 that a health physics program would do -- at 

4 least we think they were doing the right things 

5 that a health physics program would do, but it 

6 was run by the industrial hygiene group, not a 

7 health physics group.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: That's true.

9 DR. MAURO: I think you've made some 

10 very important points here and I understand 

11 what you're saying.

12 In effect, what I heard is that 

13 there were these controls. You have these 

14 discrete operations where there was 

15 considerable control over access and who was 

16 working on it when and where.

17 And, therefore, the argument would 

18 be made that the -- that given a person that does 

19 not have, let's say, bioassay data -- we'll talk 

20 about the bioassay term. I'll be talking later 

21 about the earlier years when they were doing 

22 machining. That's separate.
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1 But for the bioassay and coworker 

2 idea, the -- we're saying this is important that 

3 you feel that there is strong evidence that 

4 there were -- that you could say which workers 

5 were in fact involved in what activities and 

6 where they were and that the records show that 

7 those controls over the discrete operations are 

8 clearly identified.

9 So, when you have a worker, you 

10 could say with a degree of confidence, no, he 

11 was not involved with that operation. He was 

12 not in that area where there was such a 

13 potential, let's say, for airborne uranium dust 

14 loading.

15 That's a very important argument to 

16 be made and why you can parse the ability to who 

17 should be considered to be covered by the 

18 coworker model and who should not.

19 And then if in fact there's a reason 

20 to believe that he was in this discrete area 

21 doing that work, but for some reason was not 

22 under the bioassay program, I don't know if 
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1 that's a plausible scenario that if he was 

2 there, he would have been covered. But if 

3 there's a reason to believe that he could have 

4 been there and he wasn't covered, then the 

5 argument would have to be that, yes, he was 

6 there or could have been there, we do not have 

7 bioassay data, but we do believe that the nature 

8 of the coverage was such as if there was a 

9 transient or an unusual circumstance because 

10 of, let's say, the air monitoring program, 

11 let's say, was effective, you would have 

12 captured that. And this goes to the weight of 

13 evidence.

14 Certainly I would agree that if he 

15 was there and you have lots of data, you could 

16 certainly reconstruct and build a coworker 

17 model for what I would call the chronic exposure 

18 scenario. That's classic coworker model 

19 development and that's well-established.

20 And the question of course always 

21 is, is it possible we might have missed a spike.

22 And I think you were making an 
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1 argument, a good argument, but certainly the 

2 documentation has to be there that we know who 

3 the people were that were potentially involved 

4 with these discrete operations and that there 

5 was the health physics coverage that they may 

6 not have been monitored or bioassayed, but we 

7 have good reason to believe that we could build 

8 a coworker model that would cover them for the 

9 chronic exposure.

10 And if they were involved for some 

11 unusual reason in some episodic situation that 

12 developed, or campaign, that we would be able 

13 to -- we would have captured that person. He 

14 would not have escaped coverage.

15 I guess that's how I look at this.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, I would 

17 propose that we separate out the question, can 

18 anything else be done to help identify that 

19 '60-'61, move that to incidents, 18. Leave the 

20 first part of this open in 3. That would be my 

21 proposal at this juncture.

22 MR. DARNELL: The first part of what?
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1 CHAIR BEACH: The first part of the 

2 coworker, the potential for acute intakes, not 

3 all operations were continuously steady-state 

4 processes.

5 MR. DARNELL: Well, this is a TBD 

6 issue that we're talking about, of course, for 

7 the coworker more so than --

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it is definitely 

9 leaning in that direction.

10 MR. DARNELL: So, I don't understand 

11 why we would leave it open for the SEC, because 

12 that's part of the TBD.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Well --

14 MR. DARNELL: Maybe I'm just being 

15 simpleminded. I don't know.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, I doubt it.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, could I make 

18 a comment?

19 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Pete made the 

21 comment that these are discrete operations and 

22 they're in these little areas.
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1 I want you to remember the way the 

2 facility is built and that the hallways run 

3 right alongside those discrete operations at 

4 the plant which had a positive airflow system.

5 So, in the earlier years especially 

6 with the uranium machining and so forth like 

7 this, I do not think that you can say that all 

8 of that was confined to that area.

9 You have processes going on and, 

10 yes, they were trying to control. But if you 

11 remember when you went to the first interview, 

12 those walls only went up so far and you had a 

13 whole empty spot. You had a positive airflow 

14 blowing in there and going in.

15 To me, I don't think that that was 

16 contained just in those areas. So --

17 MR. DARNELL: One thing you have to 

18 recognize about uranium machining is the actual 

19 physics of the material as it's being released 

20 from the lathe or whatever machine that they're 

21 machining on.

22 About the maximum distance that 
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1 uranium is going to travel before it falls out 

2 is about 20 feet in any direction.

3 We've seen that in operating 

4 experience at Fernald, it's in the uranium 

5 handbook that DOE uses and, you know, even 

6 though the walls didn't go all the way to the 

7 ceiling that was 30 feet tall --

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Wasn't 30 feet 

9 tall.

10 MR. DARNELL: Well, I don't expect 

11 that the uranium traveled far, because we have 

12 no indication of it now. There's no spread of 

13 contamination.

14 And for the exposures to occur that 

15 you're talking about, we would have had to have 

16 a spread of contamination.

17 It's impossible to say that a worker 

18 walking by, that the workers walking by were so 

19 effective in picking up the contamination that 

20 was transferred during the machining operation 

21 that none was left in the plant.

22 See, that's the scenario that 
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1 you're describing. The workers could have 

2 walked by and been exposed outside of the area, 

3 but there would be no trace of the radioactive 

4 material outside of the area off of those.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and I 

6 understand what you're saying, but also, too, 

7 it's interesting to me that we have an operation 

8 that is going on like this and we only have two, 

9 maybe three D&D processes that we even have on 

10 the books.

11 And to tell me that we -- that's 

12 telling me we're not seeing the whole picture 

13 of what actually went on in there.

14 And I know from experience that it's 

15 a marvelous thing what paint does on concrete 

16 to be able to adhere things down there.

17 So, I just want -- I just wanted to 

18 be able to say because NIOSH is looking at it 

19 this way. And as it is in everything, 

20 everybody's got their own opinion and we're 

21 maybe looking at it a little bit different.

22 I just want to go on the record as 
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1 stating that I think that there is a lot more 

2 going on in there.

3 I think that there -- we do not 

4 really have a full grasp yet of what went on with 

5 that product because it's amazing to me that we 

6 have this much machining and so forth like that 

7 and we've only come across two D&D periods.

8 Plus, when we did get into the 

9 trenches and so forth, we had -- it was fairly 

10 nasty.

11 So, this is part of the reason why 

12 we're looking at some of this stuff in a little 

13 bit of a different look. And it's not 

14 uncommon. This happens at every site and 

15 everything. So, I just want to go on the record 

16 to let you know we --

17 MR. KNOX: So I am sorry. This is 

18 absurd.

19 (Simultaneous speaking.)

20 MR. KNOX: -- said that that was 

21 uranium in the urine samples of most workers. 

22 You have it documented.
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1 MR. KATZ: Wayne. Wayne, you will 

2 have your opportunity to speak, but please do 

3 not burst into the dialogue here.

4 MR. KNOX: But he's saying --

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 MR. KATZ: Wayne, I need you to be 

7 able to control, please, your involvement. 

8 Now, you will have opportunities to speak, but 

9 please do not interrupt the dialogue. Thank 

10 you.

11 DR. MAURO: This is John.

12 Brad, I was about to make a comment 

13 because you're bringing up an area that I did 

14 look at very closely and I think you bring up 

15 a question that is important.

16 When I read the information, I'm 

17 looking at what section it's in. Section 5.1.2 

18 of the -- I guess it's the Site Profile. I'm 

19 not sure. I think it's the Site Profile.

20 I looked at it carefully and there's 

21 a lot of very good discussion of the machining 

22 operations that took place in '50 to '55. And 
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1 you're correct, you know, those operations did 

2 generate a lot of aerosols, airborne uranium 

3 oxide.

4 And the way it reads is that the 

5 operations were confined to what's called the 

6 main manufacturing building in Department 49X, 

7 okay.

8 And I looked very closely, and we'll 

9 be talking about this later, at the ability to 

10 reconstruct the airborne dust loading and 

11 exposures to workers involved in those 

12 machining operations for uranium and -- but I 

13 was operating under the premise that it was a 

14 facility set aside and specifically prepared 

15 for just those operations, which were 

16 substantial operations.

17 You're bringing up an issue now that 

18 I think is important and that we do need to get 

19 closure on.

20 If it turns out that the nature of 

21 that particular building and where those 

22 operations took place, the machining 
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1 operations, they were basically lathing, lathe 

2 operations and cutting operations. You know, 

3 if we can't -- if you're saying that the nature 

4 of the layout was such that you really can't say 

5 that confined the area and that there was the 

6 ability for airflow from that area where the 

7 work took place and perhaps other locations, 

8 and I have to say I did not look at that, I took 

9 this idea of the main building -- the main 

10 manufacturing building, Department 49X, as 

11 being a relatively large area, well-contained 

12 with, you know, isolated from the other 

13 facilities where operations were going on.

14 If there's reason to believe that 

15 there could have been airflow patterns where 

16 there were not adequate barriers between, let's 

17 say, different operation areas where airborne 

18 dust loadings that were being generated during 

19 the machining operations in the main 

20 manufacturing building could very well have got 

21 to other places, we do need to look at that.

22 I have to say I do not especially --
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1 I haven't modeled it, but, you know, when you 

2 generate these airborne uranium oxide during 

3 machining, we're treating them as five micron 

4 AMAD airborne particles with a relatively slow 

5 deposition velocity, 0.00075 meters per 

6 second.

7 And then if you think in terms of 

8 airflow in-room and the air patterns if there 

9 are ways in which the air is moving and leaving 

10 that area and going to other areas, I question 

11 whether or not you could say with a degree of 

12 confidence that all of the airborne uranium is 

13 going to be confined to that Department 49 main 

14 manufacturing building.

15 I did not look at that issue. I 

16 confined myself to looking very closely at 

17 those operations in that building at that time, 

18 but I did not look at the possibility that 

19 somehow air containing airborne uranium could 

20 have possibly left that which opens up perhaps 

21 other workers that might have experienced some 

22 exposure to airborne uranium due to the 
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1 machining operations.

2 MR. DARNELL: John, if you look at 

3 Table 11 in the TBD when you get a chance, it 

4 talks about the statistical parameters in 

5 depleted uranium in workplace air. And you're 

6 looking at median values on the level of minus 

7 13 microcuries per cubic centimeter done in a 

8 variety of locations like the mixing room, the 

9 airlock over-shower, rubber mill room, mill 

10 stack and dispersion roll.

11 So, there was air sampling that was 

12 done not only in the area, but outside of the 

13 area.

14 DR. MAURO: And you're saying that 

15 includes 1950 to '50?

16 MR. DARNELL: Actually --

17 CHAIR BEACH: '58.

18 MR. DARNELL: -- it's from '58 to 

19 '70.

20 DR. MAURO: Oh, I agree with you. 

21 Don't get me wrong. Please, I don't want to 

22 mislead the Work Group here.
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1 I confine the comments I just made 

2 to the 1950 to 1955 time period when the 

3 machining operations were going on and there 

4 were no air sampling or bioassay data there that 

5 will allow us to reconstruct those doses.

6 I focused in primarily on the use of 

7 TBD-6000 as a vehicle to try to place a 

8 plausible upper bound on those exposures. And 

9 that was the point I was trying to make.

10 Those analyses were limited to 

11 those machining operations taking place in the 

12 main manufacturing building area.

13 So, it's not the time period you had 

14 just mentioned. I understand what you're 

15 saying.

16 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

17 DR. MAURO: Post-1958, I did look at 

18 the data. There is a considerable amount of 

19 air sampling and bioassay data throughout the 

20 facility, but I did not look closely at that.

21 CHAIR BEACH: John, I think Brad had 

22 another question for you.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: My thing is, John, 

2 I want to make sure that you look at the prints 

3 because, realize, this is just one, large 

4 building.

5 And this is what we were talking 

6 about when we toured this area because we went 

7 down to where 49X was and it was just across from 

8 electronics.

9 So, this is one whole building, one 

10 whole basement. It's just one large facility 

11 that are all part of this. And this is part of 

12 my issues with this.

13 DR. MAURO: And, Brad, I agree. I 

14 think that an action -- well, in my mind, 

15 knowing the work that I did, you'll see 

16 eventually the White Paper that is in draft form 

17 right now, you'll see it, I presume, fairly 

18 soon, it speaks about the main manufacturing 

19 building and Department 49X which may turn out 

20 to be a very large area and encompass lots of 

21 workers.

22 Not only workers that were involved 
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1 in machining operations, but perhaps workers 

2 involved in other operations in the vicinity.

3 Under those circumstances, a 

4 question has to be asked. The dust loadings 

5 which are turned out that are being used for the 

6 machining operations in '55 to '55, they're 

7 using a number, a large number, 5,000 dpm per 

8 cubic meter.

9 The question becomes who are you 

10 going to apply those to and where those 

11 boundaries are.

12 You'll see as we get into it later, 

13 that that's a good number. I'm very 

14 comfortable with the way in which they 

15 implemented TBD-6000. We'll get into that a 

16 little bit why --

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, let's get --

18 DR. MAURO: But I think we raise this 

19 issue, though, that's important in that, you 

20 know, how far does that extend, you know? How 

21 many people are going -- are covered within that 

22 envelope of the TBD-6000 paradigm?
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1 So, anyway, I guess I'll stop at 

2 that point. If there's some question 

3 regarding that --

4 CHAIR BEACH: I think Joe is going to 

5 move us forward. This has kind of morphed into 

6 something other than the chronic versus acute. 

7 So, I think --

8 DR. MAURO: Yes.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me see if I can 

10 capture what -- again, this terminology is a 

11 little stinted coming from the Site Profile, 

12 but I don't think the issue -- its label is 

13 chronic versus acute. We're on board on that 

14 question. We don't have an issue.

15 We think it's a TBD issue at best, 

16 but we don't have an issue from the SEC 

17 standpoint.

18 I do think the '60-'61 could in fact 

19 be addressed in Item 18, as Pete has suggested. 

20 I think that's appropriate.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: And I do think, 
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1 though, that we do have some questions about the 

2 application of the uranium coworker model 

3 particularly as we're identifying some source 

4 terms that are ones that are relatively new, as 

5 we mentioned before.

6 And we do want to, I think, reserve 

7 judgment as to whether that would encompass the 

8 worker population that's been identified or 

9 not.

10 And I think that's part of what 

11 Brad's raising and to some extent what John is 

12 mentioning.

13 So, I'd rather see this really 

14 focused on that rather than this chronic versus 

15 acute, which I don't think we're disagreeing at 

16 all. And I don't think '60-'61 -- I think that 

17 kind of confuses the picture, too.

18 So, take the chronic versus acute 

19 out of it and, you know, certainly we still have 

20 some questions, not necessarily problems, some 

21 questions that we need to investigate before 

22 we're settled on the coworker model itself.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: So, does that go back 

2 to --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: So, I would say keep 

4 3 sort of a coworker model.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Internal.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Certainly NIOSH and 

7 SC&A are getting more bioassay records. 

8 They're going back to the site and I think we 

9 would be able to report back to the Work Group 

10 that we have converged and are in agreement, the 

11 coworker model in terms of scope and design is 

12 appropriate.

13 We'll look at the incident reports 

14 and try to come up with some sense maybe from 

15 the weeklies in '60-'61.

16 I'm not -- it's one of these 

17 operational curiosities which I would hope just 

18 turns out to be an anomaly, but I'd like to have 

19 a better sense of why we see that spike and have 

20 that operational information back to the Board.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. May 

22 I ask Joe a question or assemble a group of 
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1 questions?

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, please.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Josie.

4 Is there a chronic versus acute 

5 question for the periods for which we don't have 

6 uranium -- just focusing on uranium -- for the 

7 periods that we don't have uranium bioassay 

8 data, or are we kind of deferring that to when 

9 we have more complete information and we'll 

10 revisit it?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: That's probably 

12 addressed in the TBD-6000. You're talking 

13 about the early periods?

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

15 DR. MAURO: Arjun, this is John. I 

16 looked -- I took a very close look at that. We 

17 will be talking about that I guess a little 

18 later.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

20 DR. MAURO: And certainly everyone 

21 can make their own judgment whether or not that 

22 is an issue.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

2 DR. MAURO: But I'll present my case 

3 at that time and the data and the rationale for 

4 where I come out on the subject.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, John.

6 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I'm just 

7 talking to my colleagues and Pat. Apparently 

8 we do have access now to urinalysis samples in 

9 the '50s, the early '50s, that those were 

10 contained in their medical records.

11 So, again, I think we're going to 

12 have to wait until the complete coworker model 

13 is put together to maybe, you know, run these 

14 issues to ground. And maybe the use of 

15 TBD-6000 might not even be necessary if we have 

16 enough early bioassay data.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

18 DR. MAURO: Jim, again this John. 

19 That's great.

20 DR. NETON: Yes.

21 DR. MAURO: Because it allows us to 

22 validate TBD-6000.
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1 DR. NETON: That's a good point. 

2 Very good.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, 

5 John, Arjun.

6 Pat, I was waiting for you to jump 

7 up and put that map up. Did you bring it?

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: I have plenty of 

9 maps.

10 CHAIR BEACH: I figured you did. 

11 You were looking for a spot to --

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: This one?

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Anyway, I just 

14 -- he was very helpful with these maps at our 

15 Kansas City --

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Are you comfortable 

17 leaving it in that way?

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I'm very 

19 comfortable.

20 DR. NETON: I understand we're going 

21 to leave Item 3 as a coworker model issue, but 

22 --
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

2 DR. NETON: -- the acute versus 

3 chronic we're going to morph that into a 

4 coworker model.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And I think 

6 that label somehow got carried over --

7 CHAIR BEACH: From the Site Profile.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: -- from the Site 

9 Profile. I think this is more that issue.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Okay, great. 

11 Is everybody else in agreement?

12 MR. KATZ: I just wonder if you want 

13 to merge 2 and 3. Two and Three are both really 

14 coworker modeling. I don't know if you --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Let's see. Well, 2 is 

16 --

17 DR. NETON: I think it's a little 

18 different as to who you're going to apply the 

19 coworker model to.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. So, before we 

21 get into 4 -- well, 4 will be relatively quick 

22 and then we'll look at a break time.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, four, I mean, 

2 having worked on the Y12, I remember that came 

3 up very, very early five or six years ago. And 

4 it was picked up in the Site Profile.

5 I hadn't worked on the Site Profile, 

6 but it was picked up and we carried it over, but 

7 with the understanding that unless there is 

8 nothing new under the Sun, no new information 

9 or revelation on, you know, Super S or, you 

10 know, high-fired uranium, then we would defer 

11 to our past positions and the, you know, 

12 certainly how this issue has been disposed for 

13 the other SECs and that -- conclude that the S, 

14 you know, assigning the S solubility class was 

15 appropriate.

16 And we did go back to Joyce who 

17 always seems to have this institutional memory 

18 and there is some ICRP standards activity in the 

19 area, but it would not compromise using S as the 

20 solubility class.

21 So, although that was flagged in the 

22 Site Profile, we really don't see that as any 
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1 issue for the Work Group at this point unless 

2 there's any new information that would be, you 

3 know, countering that. I haven't seen 

4 anything.

5 MR. DARNELL: NIOSH is in complete 

6 agreement. We should close this.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. 

8 Could I ask a question of NIOSH and I am 

9 wondering has NIOSH looked at the Gulf War 

10 veterans' urinalysis data and whether it 

11 matches the S, you know, the uranium 

12 projectiles becoming ceramic, highly insoluble 

13 at the high temperatures?

14 Somewhere vague in my memory there 

15 is some -- there is some urinalysis data on 

16 veterans not from the fragments lodged inside 

17 their bodies and so on, but from inhalation of 

18 high, you know, insoluble particles.

19 Does that match the type S or do we 

20 know or --

21 DR. NETON: Arjun, this is Jim. I am 

22 familiar with the analyses. I think Melissa 
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1 McDiarmid at Johns Hopkins was doing that.

2 I don't know if there's sufficient 

3 data to match an inhalation intake to the 

4 urinary excretion. At this late juncture, you 

5 really can't tell what you're measuring in the 

6 urine as related to what's in a lung versus 

7 what's systemic.

8 I think it would be very difficult 

9 to do and the answer is we haven't looked at 

10 that.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. I was just 

12 wondering if there were any Super S indications 

13 there because the very -- and the conditions may 

14 or may not match, you know, what you find --

15 DR. NETON: Right.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- in a nuclear 

17 weapons complex. I'm just raising -- since Joe 

18 said unless there is new information, I was 

19 wondering whether the Gulf War experience might 

20 provide new information or new insights.

21 DR. NETON: It may, but we haven't 

22 looked at it. We've certainly scoured the 
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1 literature for, you know, existing uranium 

2 operations such as lathing uranium and there's 

3 no indication that there is anything like Super 

4 S from a --

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thanks, Jim.

6 DR. NETON: -- traditional 

7 machining operation.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, 

9 Arjun.

10 Any other comments on Three? 

11 Everybody okay with -- or Four. Excuse me. 

12 Four. Are we in agreement to close that issue? 

13 Okay. So, we will call that closed.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: If you want to 

15 squeeze Five in, we can do that, too.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, let's go to Five, 

17 too. Yes. Go ahead, Joe, on Five.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, on Five, again 

19 this is not a new issue and it comes up with most 

20 of the sites with uranium and we didn't see an 

21 explicit treatment in dialogue since the Site 

22 Profile.
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1 As we indicate here, certainly we 

2 understand that this is woven in on TBD-6000 and 

3 it is assumed in terms of time frame to be part 

4 of the uranium dose reconstruction.

5 And with that presumption going 

6 into the dose assessment, we don't have an 

7 issue. I think it was more recognition. We 

8 didn't see it explicitly, but I think since then 

9 we've had a chance to be assured that and 

10 pointed in the right direction.

11 So, we're fine that that in fact is 

12 recorded in the TBD-6000 and elsewhere.

13 MR. DARNELL: NIOSH also agrees we 

14 should close this.

15 CHAIR BEACH: So, NIOSH agrees that 

16 it will be --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Or is.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Is.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: It is addressed 

20 already.

21 CHAIR BEACH: It is addressed.

22 MR. DARNELL: It is addressed.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: My question is, is 

2 where is it addressed on TBD-6000?

3 CHAIR BEACH: Is that Section 2.3?

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, it's right 

5 there in the response. Section 2.3.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: So, Work Group 

8 Members, everybody agree we're okay with 

9 closing recycled uranium? Okay. We will call 

10 that closed.

11 I think this may be a longer 

12 discussion. So, should we take a 10-minute 

13 comfort break?

14 Okay. Let's do that. It's 11 

15 minutes after 10:00. So, about 21 after.

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

17 matter went off the record at 10:11 a.m. and 

18 resumed at 10:26 a.m.)

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, folks on the 

20 phone, we're back from break and ready to go 

21 again.

22 MS. BRACKETT: Okay, great.
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1 DR. NETON: I'm just going to make a 

2 comment for the record as long as we're back.

3 On matrix issue Number 5 that talks 

4 about recycled uranium, our response said that 

5 Section 2.3 identifies '52 as the time that 

6 recycled uranium was entered into the stream, 

7 which is true.

8 But if you need to find the actual 

9 way it's assigned, the doses and the nuclide 

10 assignment, it's in Section 3.1 on Page 19. 

11 So, it's in TBD-6000. How you deal with it is 

12 covered in Section 3.1. I just want to make 

13 that clarification.

14 CHAIR BEACH: And what was the 

15 section?

16 DR. NETON: 3.1.

17 CHAIR BEACH: 3.1, Page 19.

18 DR. NETON: On Page 19.

19 CHAIR BEACH: All right.

20 DR. NETON: Specifically, I think 

21 it's Table 3.2 is where the nuclide mix is 

22 provided.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you. Thanks for 

2 that clarification.

3 So, we're going to move on to issue 

4 Number 6, DU after 1971 and during and after 

5 1997.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, again this was 

7 an issue of just trying to be clear, to 

8 essentially verify that the scope, time and 

9 handling was clearly identified and that there 

10 weren't additional source terms for uranium.

11 Really, where we stand now is I 

12 think we had a chance to look through the 

13 classified records again. We've had a chance 

14 to look at the DU operation, both the earlier 

15 version and the later version and I don't sense 

16 that we have any disagreement on the scope and 

17 the time frame and the source term so much 

18 there.

19 We do have some loose ends. One of 

20 which is, I mean, we had an interview where 

21 someone identified a DU application and I don't 

22 think there's any disagreement we need to sort 
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1 of chase that down a little bit to figure out 

2 -- this was the use of DU, depleted uranium, as 

3 a ballast in telemetry tests that were being 

4 handled --

5 MR. DARNELL: We don't need to 

6 discuss --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 MR. DARNELL: -- how it was used.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And so, 

10 that's the question of whether it came from the 

11 outside or whether it was fabricated at KCP or 

12 not and I think we can chase that down.

13 The other thing I think we want to 

14 do on this one is, now that we are aware of the 

15 weekly activity reports, we identified that in 

16 fact they maintained those, we're not sure 

17 about the scope of them, but we're pursuing that 

18 now, that has a fairly complete weekly 

19 recording of incidents.

20 And I think what we want to do is be 

21 able to review that body of reporting to see to 

22 what extent the DU operations figured in 
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1 incidents at the plant just to get some nature 

2 -- sense of the exposure potential that was 

3 going on and whether that would be encompassed 

4 by the, you know, proposed approach on dose 

5 assessment. I think it would probably be, but 

6 we want to make sure and go through that.

7 So, in general, I guess and we were 

8 part of this review and we did look at the 

9 operation. Some question about dispersal. I 

10 think you were talking about that earlier. 

11 Some question about maybe additional source 

12 terms and we want to look at the incident 

13 database.

14 That seems to be a source of 

15 information about what radiological activities 

16 were ongoing. So, that would be another means 

17 to, you know, verify that this is pretty much 

18 it in terms of the source term for DU at the 

19 site.

20 And I think that would, you know, 

21 pretty much put us where we want to be.

22 MR. DARNELL: We did have one 
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1 discussion with Nelson Beard about this, the DU 

2 ballast. And he indicated that this was 

3 fabricated offsite, sent onsite for use with 

4 the instruction that -- or the assembly that the 

5 KCP did.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: That was an offline 

7 interview.

8 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Or discussion.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: No. No, it wasn't 

11 offline. It was during his --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, I didn't 

13 catch that. Okay. Well, you know, I think 

14 that was one question and, you know, how it was 

15 handled --

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Right.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know, I think 

18 it was pretty clear. Without getting into any 

19 details, it was a component that was used.

20 MR. DARNELL: It certainly fits the 

21 overall story that we've been hearing. The 

22 majority of the testing work that Kansas City 
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1 did and the assembly work that Kansas City did, 

2 the actual materials inside each of the units 

3 were pretty much brought in from offsite and 

4 assembled there.

5 Most of the machining work had to do 

6 with other things. The tritium water work that 

7 we'll be discussing later had to do with 

8 something. They were more or less like a 

9 contractor.

10 We obviously do need to nail down 

11 this loose end, but it seems to be fitting an 

12 overall picture.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And I think 

14 this is the process. We're using different 

15 sources of information. And I think we were 

16 able to actually see these ballast pieces 

17 showing up in the waste stream.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: It was in the waste 

20 -- SWIMS. It was in the waste inventory. So, 

21 you know, and we also picked up on some of these 

22 other source terms in the -- just in that very 
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1 brief look at the weeklies we picked up on 

2 source term.

3 So, I think it will be a process of 

4 just validating what was in the original Site 

5 Profile in terms of DU for these time periods, 

6 for these applications that, you know, this 

7 pretty much is the picture of KCP historically 

8 for DU.

9 And I thought we, you know, got 

10 fairly far along and we still have a little ways 

11 to go in terms of nailing that down. And some 

12 of this is kind of, you know, a bit Site Profile 

13 in nature. We're identifying source terms, 

14 but I think it's helpful to make sure by looking 

15 at the sources of information that, you know, 

16 we haven't missed anything and it can be 

17 accommodated by the dose assessment approach.

18 So, I really see this one as a -- of 

19 an accounting for the time frame and the source 

20 terms for DU and then sort of revalidating that 

21 it's encompassed by the dose assessment 

22 approach.
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1 And I think we've made some headway, 

2 but we have a few loose ends.

3 MR. DARNELL: And you're 

4 specifically speaking about the ballast, or all 

5 of the DU work?

6 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm talking about 

7 all DU work. The ballast being a small, very 

8 small component of it, but just validating that 

9 there is nothing else that comes to the fore in 

10 looking at, for example, the weeklies.

11 If we can get a 10- or 20-year span 

12 of weeklies, just, you know, sort of making sure 

13 there's the time frames and the scope of the 

14 activities all match up.

15 MR. DARNELL: So, you're looking for 

16 information from the weeklies that validate 

17 what we've already said.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and that's 

19 what this essentially is. It's just saying 

20 that, you know, the Site Profile paints a 

21 picture of a certain time frame, a certain 

22 activity. With that activity change in '97, do 
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1 we see anything that would change that picture 

2 or not?

3 And so far, no, with that one bit of 

4 an anomaly with the ballast coming to the fore. 

5 But beyond that, nothing so far.

6 CHAIR BEACH: We haven't heard 

7 anything back on those reports, have we? 

8 Because I know we left her with looking at them. 

9 She was going to try and put them on disk for 

10 us.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I have to check 

12 back with Lynn, you know. There was an option 

13 on the weeklies that they were going to see, you 

14 know, exactly which ones they had for what 

15 years. And to the extent they could -- I was 

16 really hopeful they would be able to transfer 

17 them to CDs and send them to us.

18 I think they would -- I told them 

19 that would be good for them, too, not to have 

20 to host us at the site again, but we haven't 

21 heard back on the feasibility of transferring 

22 all that. Depends on how much there is, I 
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1 think.

2 MR. DARNELL: Right now the site is 

3 actually pushing back to DOE because they feel 

4 they're under scrutiny, under an audit. They 

5 have a lot of misconception about what's going 

6 on.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: So, your visit will 

8 be important.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

10 MR. DARNELL: I'm thinking that it 

11 will probably behoove us just to go back and 

12 look for activity reports for two reasons. 

13 One, so that we know that we've looked at them. 

14 And the other is so that we know that we looked 

15 at all we could find instead of relying on 

16 somebody else to tell us this was --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, we're going 

18 to have to look at their holdings and, you know, 

19 find out, you know, if it's all microfilm, where 

20 it exists because I found the weeklies from 1964 

21 tacked on the end of 200 pages of day-to-day 

22 operational stuff. I mean, it was almost by 
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1 happenstance I came upon them.

2 So, it's not clear -- what I 

3 understand, it's not -- the microfilm is not 

4 categorized, you know, in a routine way. It's 

5 just everything is sort of lumped into a 

6 microfilm and there's no way to know what's in 

7 there, which is kind of scary, but, you know --

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Anything on tritium?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: They have a 

10 thousand rolls of microfilm and they don't have 

11 it categorized or indexed by what's in that 

12 microfilm. I can't imagine the time it will 

13 take just to --

14 MR. DARNELL: You know, actually it 

15 sounds like maybe we should just task ORAU with 

16 sending a team down there to capture that data, 

17 all of it, from the microfilms.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: No objections here.

19 (Laughter.)

20 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean, I sat 

21 through one half of one year and it took me about 

22 an hour to go -- and you can imagine 15, 20 pages 
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1 of each and, you know, it's a lot to look at.

2 Even though it's very valuable 

3 information, it's just that it's very tedious 

4 to go through month to month. And I think, Pat, 

5 you know, certainly can lead that team to do 

6 that.

7 (Laughter.)

8 MR. DARNELL: But this just sounds 

9 like something that's set for a subgroup to just 

10 go and capture it all and --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: I think the 

12 weeklies can be extremely valuable. I don't 

13 know how many years. And I don't even know what 

14 the organization is, and they didn't either.

15 They didn't really have any idea of 

16 how the weeklies are organized or how many they 

17 have. So, it was an open question when we left 

18 the site and --

19 CHAIR BEACH: Well, we had asked for 

20 the SWIMS reports, too, which you haven't heard 

21 back on those, have you, Pat?

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: No.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Tara, the last I 

3 heard, is still working on it. I think what we 

4 identified in our last visit was -- we brought 

5 some names of documents to ask for.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, more specific.

7 And so, Pete, did you get your 

8 question answered that you put in that you were 

9 looking for more specific information for the 

10 information missing from SC&A -- what SC&A has 

11 described as what's missing in the --

12 MR. DARNELL: Yes. Yes.

13 CHAIR BEACH: So, that's -- we're 

14 clear on that.

15 MR. DARNELL: I understand better 

16 now.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, the action 

18 here is to move forward with --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think we do 

20 have a need to focus on these weeklies and find 

21 a means to an end to get those organized and --

22 MR. DARNELL: Actually, I'd like to 
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1 hear from the Working Group. Is it okay for us 

2 to do --

3 CHAIR BEACH: That would be my next 

4 -- yes.

5 MR. DARNELL: Task ORAU with going 

6 out and getting the weeklies.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Absolutely. Yes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: I work with Tara and 

9 I think if it's more efficient to do it onsite 

10 rather than have her continue to investigate, 

11 then that's fine, too.

12 I think whatever gets us there most 

13 efficiently --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I -- what do you 

15 guys think?

16 (Chorus of yes.)

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I agree also.

18 MR. DARNELL: All right. And that 

19 will save our time, because what we're talking 

20 about is a long and tedious job and we have a 

21 group within ORAU that does that.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, and it's pretty 
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1 clear.

2 MR. DARNELL: And I feel sorry for 

3 those folks.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it's pretty clear 

5 what it is, weekly activities, yes.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: And it's maintained 

7 in the -- well, as you know, in the classified 

8 area. So, it's just difficult.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, moving on 

10 to Number 7, radioactive waste.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this one I 

12 think we've had a fair amount of discussion, but 

13 on the radioactive waste we did see on the SRDB 

14 and other places certain documentation where 

15 Los Alamos was actually questioning the 

16 condition of the drums they were receiving 

17 because Bendix or Kansas City was shipping its 

18 waste to Los Alamos, the rad waste, for 

19 disposition and in some cases they were picking 

20 up contamination and some leakage. 

21 And so, we wanted to go back and 

22 figure out if that was in fact a source of 
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1 exposure at the site at Kansas City and whether 

2 there was radionuclides involved that went 

3 beyond depleted uranium, you know, to find out 

4 whether or not you're talking about perhaps rad 

5 waste source terms that would be downstream 

6 from an activity we weren't aware of using the 

7 waste management as a means to determine what 

8 was being handled at the site.

9 And we didn't get too far on that. 

10 I think we did interview a number of individuals 

11 that painted a picture for us on how the drums 

12 were handled, how they were filled, how they 

13 were staged.

14 And we did see documentation as you 

15 indicated earlier, Josie, that they shipped a 

16 fair number. I mean, there was hundreds of 

17 drums at some points, but a lesser number at 

18 other points. So, it varied depending on I 

19 guess the operations.

20 But where that kind of leaves us is 

21 we do want to focus very much so in terms of the 

22 SWIMS, looking at the inventory.
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1 I think that's a good source. That 

2 gives you the characterization over time and 

3 will answer a lot of questions about what 

4 essentially was the rad constituent of the 

5 wastes that were being shipped.

6 And the incident reports, the 

7 weeklies, again, assuming that they are -- were 

8 generated over time, would give us some 

9 indication if any leakages involved rad 

10 materials and how the site handled those 

11 leakages.

12 So, I think we have some pretty good 

13 sources of information that would give us the 

14 kind of specific information we're looking for 

15 relative to radiological exposures involving 

16 the wastes that were handled.

17 I think what we gained from the last 

18 onsite visit was a pretty good feel for how they 

19 actually generated the waste, how it was 

20 transferred to a holding area, I think what was 

21 called a dump room.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Dump room, yes.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Sort of beginning 

2 to frame up exactly what was going on at this 

3 site.

4 And, again, I think as has been 

5 pointed out before, the rad waste was a 

6 constituent of the much broader waste 

7 management that was going on at the site, but 

8 it was --

9 MR. DARNELL: It's a very small 

10 constituent.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: It was a small 

12 constituent, but nonetheless it -- because it 

13 was rad, we have the advantage of being able to, 

14 I think, track it fairly carefully because the 

15 site did.

16 So, I think we have the source of 

17 information that we need to nail this one down. 

18 I think it's a matter of just doing the research 

19 a little bit more.

20 I think identifying the SWIMS, the 

21 Solid Waste Information Management System that 

22 was in place gives us a source of information 
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1 which I think will be very useful.

2 It's a printout, essentially, of 

3 the characterization of the waste. And most of 

4 the DOE sites are very careful particularly 

5 going into the '80s and '90s because of the 

6 environmental regulations to be able to 

7 identify what was in the waste.

8 That's a TBD, but I think it looks 

9 promising that we're going to have, you know, 

10 the information that we'll need to answer the 

11 question.

12 MR. DARNELL: And it's really -- it 

13 just boils down to looking at two more sets of 

14 data, the SWIMS data and the weekly activity 

15 reports.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I think those are 

18 going to be the two primaries.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

20 MR. DARNELL: I think we can agree to 

21 that one.

22 CHAIR BEACH: I agree. Part of that 
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1 ORAU team, I know they're going to capture the 

2 weekly activities. You're also going to have 

3 them capture SWIMS data?

4 MR. DARNELL: We can add that. 

5 Whatever --

6 CHAIR BEACH: I think we should.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: We planned to 

8 discuss things like that at lunch, but we could 

9 discuss --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: But there's also the 

12 urinalysis from the '50s.

13 MR. DARNELL: Right. Which is part 

14 of the medical records. And that's actually 

15 the only thing we've heard back from KCP about 

16 so far is bioassay that is included in workers' 

17 medical records.

18 And they're claiming it's going to 

19 cost them $70,000 to remove -- to get that data 

20 for us and they are -- DOE, KCP are discussing 

21 it right now.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.
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1 MR. DARNELL: So, we may add all 

2 three of those to the ORAU team that goes down, 

3 but we're also looking at the possibility of 

4 going back to the site for more data capture and 

5 looking at SWIMS firsthand rather than -- the 

6 SWIMS and the bioassay data firsthand rather 

7 than just having it grabbed and then trying to 

8 muck it out of the SRDB.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Right. And 

10 we can talk about that, too, like after your 

11 lunch meeting.

12 One question I have is, in your 

13 answer, you talked about utilizing models 

14 developed and approved in the TBDs and 

15 TBD-6000.

16 How does TBD-6000 work under this 

17 case? Just a brief description on, for 

18 radioactive waste.

19 I guess I was just surprised to see 

20 that referenced and under this item.

21 MR. DARNELL: TBD-6000 looks at the 

22 whole operational picture for work with 
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1 depleted uranium, which includes handling --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Handling of the waste 

3 also.

4 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I guess I'm 

6 more familiar with the models on the other end 

7 of it, not on the waste end of it.

8 MR. DARNELL: Yes, it's just they 

9 looked at uranium -- Jim, correct me if I'm 

10 wrong, but they took a big-picture look at all 

11 the uranium operations across the complex and 

12 those that were similar which was the uranium 

13 machining, and they came up with the bounding 

14 estimates for the different types of materials, 

15 the different forms, even, of radioactive 

16 material that was machined and took the whole 

17 process of the machining which was from birth 

18 to waste to come up with a bounding dose 

19 estimate; is that correct?

20 DR. NETON: Yes, I'd have to go back 

21 and refresh my memory of exactly how waste is 

22 handled in TBD-6000.
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1 DR. MAURO: This is John. I can help 

2 out a bit.

3 DR. NETON: Yes.

4 DR. MAURO: It really is not. I beg 

5 to differ.

6 DR. NETON: That's what I was 

7 thinking.

8 DR. MAURO: I think it's important 

9 that -- to look at TBD-6000 as its main concern 

10 is the exposures while the workers were 

11 machining.

12 And now, keep in mind that you could 

13 also think in terms of after the machining is 

14 done, you do have residuals. And then of 

15 course we have OTIB-70.

16 However, the idea of a waste package 

17 that is being, let's say, produced and handled 

18 and I guess --

19 MR. DARNELL: That wasn't what I was 

20 talking about.

21 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. My mistake.

22 MR. DARNELL: That was to generating 
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1 the waste and stopping there, not packaged, 

2 handled and doing the shipping.

3 DR. MAURO: Yes.

4 MR. DARNELL: It's just the 

5 operational end.

6 DR. MAURO: Just to help, TBD-6000 is 

7 very specific. It goes to the different types 

8 of uranium machining and handling operations.

9 It does -- I have to -- and it does 

10 capture, maybe there might have been some 

11 fires. It does capture the sweeping going on. 

12 So, it's quite a good document in terms of 

13 placing an umbrella over the people that 

14 handled and worked with, you know, natural 

15 uranium metal.

16 As far as a section on waste 

17 management in TBD-6000, I don't think it's 

18 there.

19 DR. NETON: There is a section on 

20 scrap recovery.

21 DR. MAURO: Yes, absolutely. 

22 That's part of the process.
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1 DR. NETON: Scrap recovery is part of 

2 the process. And I'd have to look at that in 

3 more detail to refresh my memory as to what is 

4 included in scrap recovery, but I would assume 

5 there's things like drumming operations and 

6 things like that that would be involved in the 

7 --

8 CHAIR BEACH: That kind of stuff --

9 DR. MAURO: Yes.

10 DR. NETON: If it's not there, I know 

11 for a fact that we really, thoroughly examined 

12 exposures during drumming operations.

13 John, if you remember with Hooker 

14 Electrochemical --

15 DR. MAURO: Yes.

16 DR. NETON: -- that was a site that 

17 was an SEC petition.

18 DR. MAURO: Yes.

19 DR. NETON: And we went through some 

20 extensive analyses of exposures involved with 

21 drumming, the drumming of uranium.

22 CHAIR BEACH: And when I look at 
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1 waste, I look at it from the, you know, you go 

2 back lines of inquiry. The spills, the leaks. 

3 John mentioned sweeping. We also have reports 

4 where they were using high-powered air to, you 

5 know, sweep down floors and --

6 DR. NETON: Yes. See, I would say 

7 that in general, though, that's going to be 

8 covered in the coworker model. I mean, if 

9 you've got bioassay data on these people and 

10 they're either operators and they get the 95th 

11 percentile, or they're moving -- they're doing 

12 ancillary support operations which would be in

13 the 50th percentile with the distribution.

14 These would be workers that weren't 

15 monitored. I mean, the monitored workers of 

16 course have their own data. So, they would be 

17 reconstructing in their own bioassay.

18 So, I don't know if you have real 

19 bioassay data and a valid coworker model, then 

20 I think these sort of things sort of take care 

21 of themselves. You just have to put them in the 

22 right part of the exposure model.
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1 CHAIR BEACH; Yes, and what years is 

2 this going to cover, do we know, for waste we're 

3 capturing?

4 DR. NETON: I don't know.

5 CHAIR BEACH: What do you think, 

6 Pete?

7 MR. DARNELL: I'm not sure.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Because I see in '64 

9 they shipped 122 drums and three sealed wooden 

10 boxes as radioactive waste.

11 There was like three different 

12 notices within the stuff that Joe found of 

13 different waste that was shipped and to where.

14 So, I was just curious if we had --

15 because radioactive waste is always kind of not 

16 -- it's kind of not really addressed. And I 

17 think there might have been more waste here than 

18 what we --

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: One of the reports 

20 that I found was from 1963, you know. A Los 

21 Alamos report where they had pictures of 

22 leaking drums that arrived from Kansas City.
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1 So, I don't know what dates the --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Can I just take a look 

3 at that? Is that on the SRDB, too?

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: It is.

5 CHAIR BEACH: I don't think I've seen 

6 this one.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: I don't have the SRDB 

8 number in front of me at the moment.

9 MEMBER POSTON: But leaking drums on 

10 delivery doesn’t=t mean leaking drums in 

11 storage.

12 CHAIR BEACH: In storage, yes.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: The early years of 

14 DOT weren't as rigorous --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Well, this is actually 

16 -- it looks like it's coming off the drum off 

17 the truck. At least in this picture, that's

18 what it looks like, but that might not be true.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think that's the 

20 picture taken inside the truck, Josie.

21 CHAIR BEACH: That's what I thought, 

22 yes. It looks like it's before they even took 
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1 it off the truck, they had problems.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: And the premise was 

3 that it occurred during transport, if I 

4 remember correctly.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: In these types of 

7 facilities, this is just for my education, how 

8 did they handle the metal-working fluids? 

9 What did they do with them?

10 CHAIR BEACH: The what?

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: Metal-working 

12 fluids.

13 MR. DARNELL: It was collected in the 

14 sump of the machine, and then transferred to 

15 drums.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: And then disposed 

17 of?

18 MR. DARNELL: Eventually, yes, once 

19 they had enough to make a buildup to have a full 

20 container.

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: So, each machine had 

22 their own collecting system, it wasn't a 
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1 central --

2 MR. DARNELL: Each machine had their 

3 own.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: And then they 

5 shipped it where? Where did it go?

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Los Alamos.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Los Alamos.

8 MEMBER LOCKEY: Los Alamos. That's 

9 where it goes, okay.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Initially there was 

11 buried on site. And it was of a classified 

12 nature and dug up during the '86-'87 D&D effort 

13 by Rockwell and sent to Los Alamos at that time.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I 

15 have a question about that. Are there records 

16 from the time that the waste was buried onsite 

17 as to their contents?

18 MR. DARNELL: It was classified 

19 waste. We wouldn't be allowed to discuss that.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, but I mean --

21 CHAIR BEACH: The question is, do you 

22 have it or not?
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: You could always 

2 make an --

3 MR. DARNELL: There was --

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- unclassified 

5 search.

6 MR. DARNELL: Yes, we've -- they've 

7 shown us records of some of their materials. I 

8 don't know if it exactly included what was 

9 buried in the trench, but we've seen some 

10 records.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: The point of my 

12 question of course is not to go into the 

13 classified area.

14 The point of my question is how sure 

15 are we that DU and magnesium or thorium alloy 

16 were the only materials, radioactive materials 

17 in these waste drums, because from what was dug 

18 up in 1987, there might be Los Alamos records 

19 on the receiving end. I don't know if you've 

20 contacted Los Alamos about the record at the 

21 receiving ends and looked at the records at the 

22 time these drums were buried.
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1 I think both of those would be 

2 important confirmatory --

3 MR. DARNELL: Arjun, we're actually 

4 positive that it is not just uranium, depleted 

5 uranium and thorium alloys.

6 We know that there were sealed 

7 sources used onsite that, over the lifetime, 

8 got disposed of.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

10 MR. DARNELL: There are some --

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, the question is 

12 -- I'm sorry I interrupted. You hadn’t 

13 finished.

14 MR. DARNELL: Go ahead. Ask your 

15 question.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, my question 

17 about that is, in the characterization of the 

18 leak, you know, where the exposure potential 

19 actually arises, internal exposure potential 

20 might arise, is whether some of these sealed 

21 sources and other radioactive materials were 

22 present, do we know are these leaks 
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1 characterized?

2 And so, how are we going to find out 

3 what were the sources, radionuclides to which 

4 there was exposure potential? So, that's sort 

5 of the drift of my --

6 MR. DARNELL: I believe the only leak 

7 that we really know of was the one that was 

8 discovered in Los Alamos. I don't remember 

9 seeing a radioactive leak, the record for a 

10 radioactive leak at KCP.

11 We've seen records for all sorts of 

12 chemical leaks at KCP, but not radioactive. 

13 That doesn't mean there aren't any. It's just 

14 we haven't found any yet.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: I seem to recall that 

16 Los Alamos complained about a radioactive leak. 

17 And that shipping containers were actually 

18 shipped in, you know, in not adequate condition 

19 and that there was radioactivity, but this is 

20 from some time back. So, I'm not really a 

21 hundred percent.

22 MR. DARNELL: And I agree with you. 
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1 We've seen things where Los Alamos had leakers 

2 when they arrived, but what it appears is, is 

3 that in transit the leaks occurred, not while 

4 at the site. 

5 We just haven't found a record for 

6 something at the site yet, which is why we're 

7 still looking.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, Arjun, I 

9 think, you know, we're looking at both the front 

10 end and the back end. We're looking at the 

11 incident reports that were part of these weekly 

12 reports hoping to see any indication that they 

13 were dealing with leakages at KCP.

14 We're looking at the SWIMS 

15 database, which is the inventory and 

16 characterization of all the wastes that run out 

17 of KCP to basically see what was in the drums 

18 as measured at KCP.

19 But I think you bring up a good point 

20 that beyond the memos sort of raising concerns 

21 of leakages at Los Alamos, to make sure whether 

22 or not in fact Los Alamos has any identification 
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1 or characterization information that might 

2 also be useful for identifying what was 

3 leaking, for example.

4 I think we've seen in memos that 

5 were complaining about the leakage, but we 

6 haven't seen the actual whether there was any 

7 measurements made and maybe any 

8 characterization that was done.

9 So, you know, I think those -- that 

10 would give us a front end and back end picture 

11 of what was in the drums and to what extent the 

12 leakages involved certain radiological 

13 constituents.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, because I, you 

15 know, this is, again, I have not looked at these 

16 documents recently. I looked at them when we 

17 were doing the Site Profile review, but -- as 

18 you know, I've become only recently reengaged 

19 in the SEC review.

20 But I think -- I seem to recall more 

21 than one occasion on which there was a complaint 

22 and that Los Alamos was directly complaining 
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1 about practices at the Kansas City Plant.

2 So, I think the back end -- so, maybe 

3 you can discuss it at lunch whether you're going 

4 to go to Los Alamos or what the determination 

5 would be to figure out what the Los Alamos end 

6 problem was with Kansas City.

7 MR. DARNELL: I think the thing that 

8 we need to remember is we're going to be looking 

9 for that data, Arjun.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, right. Yes, 

12 sure.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well and, Arjun, 

14 this is Brad. Also, too, we found 

15 documentation of they were using a private 

16 contractor to transport these down to Los 

17 Alamos. And the private contractor was upset 

18 because they cut up his trailer into pieces 

19 because of leakage.

20 So, we do know there were several 

21 other ones through the process that were going 

22 on with it. So, it's more than one, yes.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think it's 

2 fair to say that the Los Alamos memos and 

3 documents are to some extent driving this, 

4 because it was their complaining about these 

5 leakages which kind of has spurred our wanting 

6 to look forward to see exactly what the 

7 practices were at Kansas City, what the 

8 experience may have been at Kansas City in 

9 handling the waste and exactly what the 

10 constituents were.

11 And we think it was DU, you know, 

12 natural uranium and mag-thorium plus sealed 

13 sources, but we want to certainly validate and 

14 verify that by whatever characterization was 

15 done both at Los Alamos and at Kansas City.

16 So, I think there's three avenues. 

17 I think we identified the weekly activity 

18 reports that will hopefully give us a good 

19 picture week by week for a number of years.

20 The SWIMS, which is something that 

21 I think Josie identified onsite which is 

22 actually an inventory of characterized waste 
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1 that was being managed at the site, which I 

2 think is going to be very helpful.

3 And I think what you're raising is

4 maybe go a little further and see if Los Alamos 

5 has any additional information or 

6 characterization of -- since they were the 

7 recipient of the waste, whether they did any 

8 work to, you know, and some of this may be 

9 classified, but to characterize what they were 

10 receiving from Kansas City, but I think that 

11 will certainly answer a lot of those issues.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, Joe, they must 

13 have had waste manifests, you know, in their 

14 logs at Los Alamos.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

16 (Simultaneous speaking.)

17 MR. FITZGERALD: We haven't 

18 retrieved beyond the memos we were referring 

19 to. So, certainly there's another avenue 

20 there for characterizing what was being 

21 handled.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thanks.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you. 

2 Before we leave this topic, Work Group Members, 

3 any other suggestions, comments or thoughts for 

4 Number 7?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

6 CHAIR BEACH: No, okay. So, those 

7 action items are lined out pretty clear. Let's 

8 move on to Eight, metal tritides.

9 DR. FITZGERALD: A familiar topic.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

11 DR. FITZGERALD: But I think 

12 certainly a lot less contentious in this case. 

13 I think, you know, we wanted to since neutron 

14 generators were being handled, just to make 

15 sure that the operating history was complete on 

16 any instances.

17 Certainly the erbium tritide 

18 leakage was pretty well documented and is 

19 addressed in the ER.

20 We wanted to take the opportunity 

21 just to look a little harder at that particular 

22 issue.
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1 And really the only thing I would 

2 say is left, we did talk to individuals and I 

3 think we did establish that just because erbium 

4 was the one that leaked, doesn't mean that was 

5 the only constituent that was handled, but, you 

6 know, we're talking about sealed sources.

7 So, we're not talking about a 

8 situation similar to Mound or some other place 

9 like Los Alamos. 

10 There's were sealed sources. Your 

11 exposure pathway would only exist if there was 

12 a breach of the component.

13 We've only seen one. I think 

14 actually you may have seen another incident. 

15 You cite another one.

16 MR. DARNELL: Pat's got a record of 

17 that.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. So, there 

19 might be two instances over the history of these 

20 that might have represented breaches that led 

21 to some release. Not necessarily exposure, 

22 but release.
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1 MR. DARNELL: Do you want him to 

2 discuss --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you have the 

4 second one? I know about the first one.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: This was a recently 

6 obtained document. And I believe Brent Nasca 

7 referenced this second occurrence during his 

8 interview last month. And I don't have much 

9 else to say about it.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

11 CHAIR BEACH: So, there was two 

12 incidents then.

13 MR. DARNELL: No data on it?

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, we have this 

15 report here. So, radioactive contamination in 

16 excess of limits established by DOE order 

17 5480.11 was discovered on classified 

18 components sent by Pantex to Kansas City Plant.

19 And it's another, I believe -- well, 

20 I'd want to review it further. I just printed 

21 this before we came to this meeting.

22 MR. DARNELL: Is it in the SRDB yet?
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1 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, yes, it should 

2 be.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Can you make that 

4 available so that it can be sent out to the rest 

5 of the Work Group?

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Absolutely.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Send it to Ted, 

8 at least. So, then we're talking about two 

9 specific incidents at this point.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, it was just 

11 because Brent brought this up a few weeks ago 

12 that I went looking again with our --

13 CHAIR BEACH: Excellent.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, again 

15 this would probably be very much the exception 

16 given the fact they're sealed components, but 

17 just to have a better understanding of --

18 MR. DARNELL: One positive is that 

19 KCP was checking when they received this 

20 material.

21 CHAIR BEACH: And then it looks like 

22 the second part of your response actually 
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1 belongs on One; is that correct?

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: That's right.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: So, I would say the 

5 only thing left on this one is that I would want 

6 to look at those weekly activities assuming 

7 that that might be a way to see if there's any 

8 other instances.

9 Again, even if there were, I'm not 

10 sure -- and I want to reserve judgment, but I'm 

11 not sure this will, you know, be a SEC issue, 

12 but one that I think just to have a complete 

13 picture for the Board before we let it go, will 

14 be useful.

15 MR. DARNELL: I don't disagree. 

16 It's something that we need to bend the last 

17 nail down on.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Go ahead, 

19 Arjun.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry, Josie.

21 CHAIR BEACH: No, no, that's okay.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Joe, I understand 
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1 you're saying this may not be an SEC issue or 

2 this is not an --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: If in fact it turns 

4 out that we have two instances or maybe, you 

5 know, maybe that's confined to two instances 

6 and contamination was detected, but there was 

7 no exposure, for example, then, you know, again 

8 it was an isolated event that for which there 

9 was no exposure.

10 They were doing contamination 

11 surveys of all the generators that were being 

12 processed, but that was being done under 

13 controlled conditions. So, I think that would 

14 be the avenue we'd have to look at.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, thanks.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anybody else on 

17 metal tritides? Comments?

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

19 CHAIR BEACH: All right. So, that 

20 one is going to stay open. We are looking at 

21 weekly activity reports and we'll get to the 

22 second part of this comment in Item 20.
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1 So, Number 9 brings us to external 

2 coworker dose.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, that was a 

4 carryover from the Site Profile. And this is 

5 one that Ron looked at in some detail. It's 

6 sort of a two-part issue.

7 One was some concerns again over the 

8 validation and verification of the data and how 

9 they transferred the electronic database. 

10 That was covered in Issue 1 and there was 

11 certainly a legibility question as well. So, 

12 this is a bit of a duplicate from that more 

13 generic issue.

14 And as NIOSH noted, the legibility 

15 issue has gone away. We still have that open 

16 issue from before about the transfer. So, this 

17 was already covered previously.

18 MR. DARNELL: Yes, I suggest we close 

19 Nine and --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, there's --

21 MR. DARNELL: Since we have Issue 1.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: There's still --
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1 yeah, well, I think that's true on the first 

2 part of this, but we're still --

3 CHAIR BEACH: Part A, and we still 

4 have B.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. We're still 

6 waiting on, I think, Brent Nasca had agreed, and 

7 this was with Ron's discussion with him that '69 

8 is still a question mark. That he was going to 

9 go ahead and contact us in terms of why the 

10 records seem to be zero for that time period.

11 So, we have a loose end there. I 

12 don't think we have a broad question or issue, 

13 but certainly from the standpoint of getting 

14 some feedback from him on the external doses for 

15 '69, it just seems anomalous and he had no 

16 explanation at the time.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. So, I think 

18 those both fall under waiting for --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I just, you know, 

20 the big picture is I don't think we have a 

21 fundamental issue, but we want to get that 

22 clarification from Nasca on '69 before we let 
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1 that one go, from the Board's standpoint.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

3 MR. DARNELL: I wonder if they didn't 

4 do any operations in '69.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, he didn't 

6 have an answer at the time and it's sort of like, 

7 you know, we did ones like this and, you know, 

8 we're at the very early stages of doing the 

9 research. So, I think we'll get an answer and 

10 that will take care of it.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: During the writing 

12 of the ER because of a comment from Jim, we did 

13 email back and forth to Brent Nasca about this, 

14 the lack of records for that year.

15 And he did say that he didn't see 

16 anything unusual, but he's not a dosimetrist. 

17 So, we asked him this once before. So, I don't 

18 think it hurts to have him look again.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Just to cross the T. 

20 Again, I don't know if it -- I don't think it's 

21 going to undercut the bigger question, but it's 

22 an obvious question.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right. We'll just 

2 finish it before we end up closing it.

3 Okay. Ten, non-penetrating dose. 

4 This was another one of Ron's that you have.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. And 

6 unfortunately Ron couldn't be here. These are 

7 two issues and he has become -- this has sort 

8 of become a cottage industry looking at some of 

9 these external issues on neutron/photon ratios 

10 and the non-penetrating.

11 I thought it best just to give you 

12 his take on the specific questions that remain 

13 based on your response, Pete and Pat, on this 

14 particular item.

15 So, I gave -- you were forwarded 

16 pretty much his -- here's the loose ends from 

17 those two issues that, quite apart from your 

18 response, that he would like to see as far as 

19 additional input.

20 MR. DARNELL: And unfortunately I 

21 wasn't part of KCP when this was being 

22 developed. So, I don't have an answer.
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1 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think Matt Smith is 

2 available to discuss this.

3 MR. SMITH: Yes. Hi, this is Matt 

4 Smith with the ORAU team. Yes, just looking at 

5 the film badge results to answer Ron's 

6 question, it would be the value that they had 

7 in the rem column represents what we would 

8 usually call open-window plus shielded.

9 So, if we subtract out what they 

10 have in what they are calling the roentgen 

11 column, that's representing from what I can 

12 tell the shielded quantity. And so, the 

13 remaining quantity is the rads, which would be 

14 what we would call a shallow dose or open-window 

15 dose.

16 I will say that, yes, it's a 

17 different kind of way of displaying things 

18 compared to some other sites, but luckily the 

19 film badge registers have the gross density, 

20 the net density for open and -- open-window and 

21 shielded. And you can see how they correlate

22 with the rad being open-window, roentgen being 
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1 shielded and rem being a total of the two.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, I think 

3 it's not so much we have a problem with the 

4 outcome. It's just the details are missing in 

5 terms of I think what you are getting to which 

6 was the approach that you were actually taking 

7 to come up with the dose estimates.

8 And I think the way -- I'll propose 

9 this to the Work Group. If you all can provide 

10 a written response maybe and walk the Work Group 

11 through the -- what I think he was just talking 

12 about was how the non-penetrating dose was 

13 estimated and with the framework that was 

14 provided, the rad/rems, the actual database, 

15 that would be very helpful.

16 I think it was hard going through 

17 those details. And I'm not saying we 

18 necessarily would have a problem, but we can't 

19 follow it right now. And I think that was the 

20 thrust of what Ron was pointing out.

21 I don't want to speak for him 

22 because he did spend a lot of time on this data. 
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1 So, I'd rather, you know, have him see something 

2 in writing if that's possible.

3 MR. DARNELL: Would it be okay with 

4 the Board if Matt Smith and Ron Buchanan got 

5 together and talked about it?

6 CHAIR BEACH: Technical call, yes.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: That would be fine, 

8 yes.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

10 MR. DARNELL: Matt, would you mind 

11 doing that, getting together with Ron?

12 MR. SMITH: No, not a problem at all.

13 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. Just 

15 a clarification on that last point. Normally 

16 when NIOSH ORAU talk with SC&A, there's a memo 

17 of conversation.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, we'll do it that 

19 way. Yes, it will be a regular tech call.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: And then there will 

22 be a report back in certainly next session.
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1 MR. DARNELL: Right. And NIOSH will 

2 be involved with it, too. So, it will be NIOSH 

3 ORAU, SC&A discussing and any Board Member that 

4 would want to be --

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 MR. KATZ: I can make sure that gets 

7 circulated.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: And then my question 

9 relates to this, NIOSH is satisfied that 

10 maximally exposed work group and work scenario 

11 are represented.

12 So, this goes back to the earlier 

13 placing workers in the locations and so on. 

14 And I wonder how this particular statement 

15 correlates with the questions about being able 

16 to place workers.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that's a --

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: And how we're 

19 satisfied that maximum, you know, how we 

20 determined that the maximum -- who is the 

21 maximally exposed work group.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, I think we 
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1 simply said that since there were approximately 

2 5,000 records of non-penetrating doses during 

3 the time period in question, that we would 

4 assume that the maximally exposed work group 

5 and work scenario would have been represented 

6 in there.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that's not been 

8 a very good indicator in some situations, at 

9 least. Because in the past, for instance, you 

10 know, health physics personnel are 

11 over-represented and workers who may have had 

12 more exposure potential were under-represented 

13 or not represented, you know.

14 So, not necessarily in relation to 

15 external dose, but in relation to beta dose it 

16 might be a very important thing to look at and 

17 I think an assumption certainly would leave me 

18 pretty uncomfortable.

19 MR. DARNELL: That is one thing that 

20 we're looking for is who is making up the group 

21 that we're basing our decisions on, Arjun.

22 We're not simply looking at it as, 
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1 you know, just everybody. We're looking at 

2 what work group, where did they come from.

3 You've got to remember this is not 

4 really a traditional site in the sense that you 

5 would have a lot of health physics people 

6 surrounding a radioactive work job. These 

7 were more environmental safety and health techs 

8 who came in, checked and left and that's how 

9 more this site operated.

10 So, but we are keeping a mindful eye 

11 on what your concern is as just 

12 over-representing with HPs and other types of 

13 folks that weren't actually doing the work.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I mean, I 

15 represent -- I've stated about 

16 over-represented HPs because that's, you know, 

17 when we looked at in detail at Nevada Test Site, 

18 that's what it turned out to be.

19 And I think I have the impression 

20 just from memory that it's also the case at some 

21 other sites and I realize that Kansas City is 

22 different. So, some kind of demonstration 
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1 that the maximally exposed group is 

2 represented.

3 DR. NETON: Arjun, I think the HPs 

4 were more over-represented in internal dose at 

5 the Nevada Test Site, if I'm not --

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. No, no, you're 

7 right.

8 DR. NETON: I think external --

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: But I just want to 

11 make a caution that we can't have an assumption 

12 about that.

13 DR. NETON: You make a valid comment.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thanks, Jim.

15 MR. DARNELL: We are definitely 

16 keeping it in mind.

17 So, Matt, when we get ready to do 

18 that call, we'll do it as a conference call so 

19 that all of the people can be involved that want 

20 to be involved in the call.

21 If you can send me some times of your 

22 availability, we'll get something set up.
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1 MR. SMITH: Okay. We'll do that.

2 MR. DARNELL: Thank you.

3 CHAIR BEACH: And Ron is gone for a 

4 week. So, I think he's on vacation through the 

5 week.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

7 MR. DARNELL: Okay. So, we're 

8 looking at the first week of July for the 

9 earliest time frame.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Probably.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Which would be holiday 

12 week. So, maybe the second week.

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 CHAIR BEACH: You'll figure it out 

15 and let us know, I'm sure.

16 Okay. So, any other items for 10, 

17 Work Group Members? I think when I was just 

18 talking to Joe, we're going to try to go through 

19 11 and 12. Those are Ron's issues.

20 And then give the Petitioners a few 

21 minutes to speak before we break for lunch at 

22 least about this first part of the day.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and I think 

2 that's a good way. Ten is a clarification 

3 issue. I think that's a good way to dispose of 

4 that.

5 CHAIR BEACH: So, 11 is N/P ratios.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: I think 11 is very 

7 similar likewise, you know, neutron-photon 

8 ratio. Again, questions about how it's being 

9 applied rather than whether it's valid or not.

10 And I think the questions were this 

11 application of N/P value of 1. And I think you 

12 provided a response of how that was being done, 

13 how it was being applied.

14 And I think what Ron was clarifying 

15 was if it were based on information outside KCP, 

16 not KCP records themselves, it probably is 

17 certainly a claimant-favorable value, but he 

18 had some questions as to whether or not it was 

19 in fact derived from outside.

20 MR. DARNELL: And again I'm going to 

21 have to defer to Matt or one of the other ORAU 

22 team members on that one.
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1 MR. SMITH: Sure. The value of one 

2 that's in the TBD is in fact based on KCP data.

3 The number of positive neutron 

4 measurements is actually very small and they 

5 mostly occur in what we would call the post-NTA 

6 dosimetry era.

7 So, the authors of the TBD at the 

8 time took a look at that and made a 

9 claimant-favorable assumption based on what 

10 they were seeing in that typically the neutron 

11 values were less than the gamma.

12 In some cases it was a neutron-only 

13 measurement. In other words, the gamma was 

14 shielded out by whatever components or 

15 processes were going on.

16 And they came to a determination 

17 that a 1:1 ratio would certainly bound any 

18 neutron exposure condition.

19 And, again, the sources that were in 

20 use span the era from NTA up through modern 

21 dosimetry. Those sources mainly being the 14 

22 MeV neutron generator and then there's a 
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1 plutonium-beryllium source.

2 So, when they took a look at that 

3 even back when the TBD was first put together, 

4 they were basing it off really the results they 

5 were seeing in a more modern era.

6 We can, you know, go through that 

7 database again and --

8 DR. NETON: This is Jim --

9 MR. SMITH: -- talk about it as 

10 needed.

11 DR. NETON: This citation of TIB-24 

12 is that the N/P -- the neutron-photon ratios for 

13 alpha n reactions in natural uranium and 

14 thorium metal, which is three percent of the 

15 weight of the material.

16 I don't think there's any neutron 

17 dose coming off of that material. So, you 

18 know, I think it's these other --

19 MR. SMITH: I think that I got it in 

20 the mix somewhere along the line on the response 

21 process.

22 DR. NETON: Right.
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1 MR. SMITH: I didn't see any evidence 

2 of uranium work.

3 DR. NETON: There was no enriched 

4 uranium work, was there, at this facility?

5 MR. DARNELL: No.

6 DR. NETON: So, the potential for 

7 neutron exposures from the source term material 

8 is nil. So, any exposure that they're 

9 monitoring with these NTA film had to be these 

10 neutron generators or -- which I don't know if 

11 a 1:1 ratio is appropriate.

12 So, I think we need to do a little 

13 more work on that to --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we didn't see 

15 a basis in OTIB-24 either.

16 DR. NETON: No. I mean, 24 is --

17 well, it covers enriched uranium. There's, 

18 you know, there's theoretically, you know, you 

19 can get alpha n reactions off of natural, but 

20 it's just so small. It's not worth, you know, 

21 in my opinion.

22 So, I think we need to do -- in my 
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1 opinion, we need to do a little more work here 

2 and flesh out the potential neutron sources 

3 that were actually what was being measured by 

4 this NTA film. And I don't think the TIB-24 

5 response adequately addresses the issue. So, 

6 I think we need to go back and look at that.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, what would 

8 that --

9 DR. NETON: I think we need to revise 

10 our response to address the source term that was 

11 being measured by the NTA film other than 

12 natural uranium, three percent thorium metal.

13 MR. DARNELL: Matt, just to let you 

14 know, I'm going to get a G2K together for this 

15 for your support of the -- for your support 

16 after this Working Group meeting and ongoing 

17 with KCP so that we cover all those bases.

18 Is that all right with you?

19 MR. SMITH: That sounds good to me.

20 MR. DARNELL: Thank you.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Add it to the pile.

22 MR. DARNELL: Sorry to have to do 
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1 that, but --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. So, I guess 

3 --

4 CHAIR BEACH: Move on to 12?

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, certainly --

6 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, I'm sorry.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: -- we'll wait and 

8 see what the analyses are. I think we're in 

9 agreement on that.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, okay. So, we'll 

11 wait for that new, revised response from --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: This is 12?

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And our next one 

14 is fading of NTA.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think in 12 

16 looking at the response, I mean, just to 

17 clarify, is this a change of position that 

18 you're not going to use NTA at all, or is this 

19 something that we just didn't pick up and 

20 review?

21 Because this suggests that a 

22 correction factor could be developed which I've 
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1 seen in other sites, but you're not going to use 

2 any of the NTA-era data it seems in this 

3 response.

4 MR. DARNELL: Well, I would think 

5 most of the --

6 MR. FITZGERALD: You would 

7 back-extrapolate, you know, if you had to.

8 MR. DARNELL: Most of the data we 

9 have is post-NTA --

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

11 MR. DARNELL: -- era.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: So, whatever data 

13 you happen to have, you're not going to use. So 

14 this issue would not be relevant.

15 MR. DARNELL: Right.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: And you would apply 

17 what you've collected later if there was any 

18 instances --

19 MR. DARNELL: To previous.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: To previous. And 

21 that the activities or operations can be 

22 normalized for those few instances before the 
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1 -- during the NTA era.

2 I mean, that's the -- that would be 

3 the only proviso. You could back-extrapolate 

4 it and in fact the sources were, you know, 

5 generally the same.

6 MR. DARNELL: That's my 

7 understanding.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: That is true, Joe.

9 CHAIR BEACH: So, it sounds like this 

10 may be under the same, needing a new response 

11 or --

12 MR. DARNELL: No, that's what our 

13 response is. It's --

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: We're not going to 

15 use the --

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that's what I 

17 was kind of trying to clarify. Was that a 

18 change in what was -- I'm trying to remember if 

19 the ER actually made that particular point or 

20 you're saying now that you're not going to use 

21 whatever data was in the NTA era making the 

22 question fading of NTA sort of irrelevant.
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1 MR. McCLOSKEY: I don't know that in 

2 the ER we did specify that we were going to use 

3 NTA data.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Or maybe it's just 

5 silent on the question.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, maybe.

7 MR. DARNELL: Yes, it's silent.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. So, this --

9 you're just clarifying you're not going to use 

10 it and you're going to back-extrapolate if 

11 necessary. And you're assuming operations are 

12 normalized.

13 I'm just trying to figure out where 

14 we are on this.

15 DR. NETON: I think we need to 

16 revisit this one.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

18 DR. NETON: It's sort of combined 

19 with the first response, I think. We don't 

20 really know what the source terms were right 

21 now. We haven't identified what we're 

22 reconstructing.
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1 I mean, if there was these 14 MeV 

2 neutron generators and the fact that they're 

3 reading zero, to me, is not really 

4 justification.

5 It's not going to include fading, 

6 because they couldn't fade it to zero, right? 

7 I think let's just lump these two together and 

8 we'll -- I don't quite understand how this was 

9 all working. I hadn't looked at this until 

10 fairly recently.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. That's fair 

12 enough.

13 DR. NETON: We'll reserve both these 

14 neutron issues until at least I can understand 

15 it.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, we're more 

17 than halfway through with the matrix. 11:23. 

18 So, Petitioners, if you'd like to make a 

19 comment, I'm going to ask that you try to bring 

20 up topics related to the first -- to what we've 

21 discussed this morning.

22 If you have clarification or 
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1 questions or something that you can add, that 

2 would be helpful. And then I'll give you some 

3 more time for the second half of the issues 

4 after lunch.

5 Maurice, are you --

6 MR. KATZ: And, Charles, do you need 

7 them to come forward, or are you okay?

8 THE COURT REPORTER: To the extent 

9 that they have substantive comments, it would 

10 be helpful.

11 MR. KATZ: So, if you would just 

12 belly up to the table so it would be easier for 

13 Charles to cover what you say, thank you.

14 MR. COPELAND: Okay. I'm going to 

15 skip to the second part, the second question.

16 CHAIR BEACH: That's coworker.

17 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

19 MR. COPELAND: Seems that I'm 

20 hearing that the information that we're getting 

21 in the interviews are the differences and the 

22 generation of differences.
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1 I see that someone said that there 

2 was strict restrictions on people moving 

3 around. That's totally not true.

4 I was a union official. I was a 

5 union official and also a human rights 

6 committee member.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Maurice, can I ask you 

8 the time frame you're speaking to? That would 

9 be helpful.

10 MR. COPELAND: The time frame that 

11 I'm specifically talking about now, I hired in 

12 in 1968. From 1968 to 1973, the plant went from 

13 2,000 people to 9,000 people.

14 You have a machining capacity of 300 

15 machines, 300 people, but you got, I mean, a 

16 hundred machines and 300 people. You can't put 

17 300 people on a hundred machines. So, those 

18 people were loaned out. Those people were 

19 loaned out anywhere we needed them during the 

20 Cold War to get the job done.

21 We were in a high-production mode at 

22 that time. I myself was loaned out to the 
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1 barrel lot, waste management. I worked in 

2 building service -- building and grounds during 

3 some of those time periods.

4 Some people -- and I want you all to 

5 understand this and I don't want to take 

6 anything from those people because they 

7 trained, they were trained as machinists.

8 The machinist period or training 

9 period was like six to nine months, okay. Then 

10 they were assigned to Department 95, 93, 45, 

11 wherever.

12 Some of those people never ran a 

13 machine a day in their life while they worked 

14 for Bendix.

15 We got laid off in 1973. Those 

16 people were loaned out to do anything and 

17 everything, whatever needed to be done.

18 So, when you fix a coworker for 

19 those people, I really would like to know who 

20 they are. That was between 1968 to 1973. We 

21 had a layoff and the plant laid back off down 

22 to 3,000 people. In 1978, the plant went up to 
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1 9,000 people. Therefore, you have that again.

2 Now, when you're fixing your 

3 co-models, when you fix your whoever that 

4 person is, the model person, you don't know -

5 there's nowhere scientifically that anybody in 

6 here or anyone in your system can say what a 

7 person did out at that plant at any given time.

8 I don't care what -- I don't care 

9 what classification that they had in the 

10 factory because we moved people around.

11 Not only that, those departments 

12 moved around. Department 45 was not where 

13 Department 45 was when you went out there.

14 The day that you walked into that 

15 plant and you saw that plant, that plant changed 

16 drastically between 2000 and today. That 

17 plant did not look like that.

18 The walls did not extend that high. 

19 That plant was wide open. You could reach it. 

20 You could throw a brick from one end of that 

21 plant to the other end and not have it hit 

22 anything.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: So, you're talking 

2 about the earlier time period it was open.

3 MR. COPELAND: I'm talking about 

4 that plant was open all the way up until the 

5 1990s.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you.

7 MR. COPELAND: Okay. One more thing 

8 and it's something on Two. The restriction, 

9 yes, the restriction with the -- whoever this 

10 was from the union that says that they had --

11 the union had strict knowledge on people moving 

12 around, well, that wasn't really implemented 

13 until the '90s, the '90s.

14 The union didn't care where those 

15 people were as long as we got the job done. 

16 That's what it's all about is to get the 

17 production out, get the parts out, get the stuff 

18 moved to wherever.

19 So, whoever that was if they came --

20 if they were giving you that information and 

21 they were a 20-year employee, you have to 

22 understand that person only has been working 
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1 there from 1990 -- I mean from the late '80s. 

2 He don't know what went on back in the '60s. He 

3 doesn't know what went on in the '70s. He 

4 doesn't know what went on in the '80s. He's 

5 coming in under rules that did not work that 

6 way.

7 I was a clerk when I was in the Army. 

8 I wasn't a clerk in Vietnam, but my time in the 

9 Army is going to be judged on my MOS, but they 

10 don't know what I did in Vietnam. They don't 

11 know what actually happened, what I was 

12 actually doing, but they go by my job title.

13 I don't think that's -- that's not 

14 the way it works. I was not a clerk. Same 

15 thing with Bendix. So, I'll leave that for 

16 Number 2.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anything else?

18 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Go ahead.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I ask a 

21 question of the person who just spoke?

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that is Maurice, 
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1 Arjun.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maurice, excuse me. 

3 Could I ask a question of you, if you don't mind?

4 MR. COPELAND: No.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now, during this 

6 period until the 1990s, the people were moving 

7 around and got the job done independent of where 

8 in the plant it was or what the job was.

9 When people moved around, did they 

10 get badges or turn in badges depending on where 

11 they worked like this week or the next week?

12 Do you remember? Could you 

13 describe the badging practices about who wore 

14 them and who did not or whether we could find 

15 documentation about that?

16 MR. COPELAND: Are you talking about 

17 dosimeter --

18 CHAIR BEACH: Dosimeter badges.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, dosimeter 

20 badges.

21 MR. COPELAND: No, I never wore a 

22 dosimeter badge and I worked in -- I was one of 
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1 the people -- I was going to get to that, but 

2 I ran those uranium billets in Department 20 and 

3 in that special little room that people were 

4 talking about.

5 And I ran it on -- I gave you all the 

6 number or the name of the machines that I ran. 

7 The center drive, the bullets. I ran those. I 

8 ran that and I never knew until 2013 -- they 

9 never told me until 2013.

10 So, I mean, no, I never wore a 

11 dosimeter badge at all and I filled in for --

12 I gave you the name of the guy – [identifying 

13 information redacted] in Department 20. That 

14 was his job. I filled in for him and 

15 [identifying information redacted]. There 

16 was a guy named [identifying information 

17 redacted] in the model shop. I'm the one who 

18 ran that equipment.

19 When they were cleaning the 

20 equipment up, so to speak, up until the 1980s, 

21 I was running that equipment every day prior to 

22 the cleanup.
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1 I never was monitored. I never did 

2 a urinalysis. And that's just the way it 

3 works.

4 CHAIR BEACH: What year was that, 

5 Maurice?

6 MR. COPELAND: When I worked in 

7 Department 20?

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, when you said --

9 MR. COPELAND: I worked in 

10 Department 20 off and on up until -- up until 

11 -- it was in the '80s or late '80s, because I 

12 was a -- you understand? I was an apprentice. 

13 I'd like to see the model for an apprentice, the 

14 coworker model for an apprentice.

15 Evidently NIOSH or anybody else 

16 that's doing this stuff doesn't know what 

17 people do and what an apprentice does.

18 An apprentice carries about 12 

19 different classifications during his 

20 apprenticeship, okay.

21 We work with the engine process. I 

22 was a process engineer. I worked in 
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1 metallurgy. I worked with [identifying 

2 information redacted] with the centrifuges. I 

3 was an electrician, pipefitter, all of that. 

4 That's what you do. That's what an 

5 apprenticeship is and you do -- talking 

6 thousands of hours.

7 So, it's kind of difficult for me to 

8 see who's going to match me or who they're going 

9 to match me up, when and what time in all the 

10 skilled trades.

11 The pipefitters, the same thing. 

12 Everybody does that. That's what you do to be 

13 a master at your trade.

14 Senator McCain just said something. 

15 You do not fight a war like that. You don't know 

16 how we fought the war. You don't know how we 

17 got the job done.

18 I hope I answered his question.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, you did. Thank 

20 you very much.

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: Maurice, I just want 

22 to clarify. As an apprentice in a trade, you 
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1 didn't go across trade-wise, did you?

2 MR. COPELAND: Yes, I did.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: You went from 

4 pipefitter to welder to -- not that you welded, 

5 but you went from one apprenticeship to 

6 another?

7 MR. COPELAND: You didn't go through 

8 the whole apprenticeship. You have 600 hours 

9 that you have to spend, let's say, in machine 

10 repair. That's where you clean the sump pumps, 

11 overhaul the pumps.

12 With the electricians, you go 

13 through -- I forget how many hours. It's all 

14 -- they've got the schedule. All they have to 

15 do is do a comprehensive investigation or what 

16 you all doing. Pull out those records and see 

17 what these people do to get that 

18 classification.

19 When somebody says that this person 

20 is waste management, supposedly, I guess they 

21 were trained. So, there should be a training 

22 schedule to say exactly what this person -- what 
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1 qualified this person to do that job. And 

2 you'll see that you go across the lines, 

3 because, you know, your classification -- under 

4 your classification are four or five other 

5 classifications that you can bump down into 

6 because you qualified yourself to be that.

7 So, all of those things go under --

8 when I went through the apprenticeship as a tool 

9 and die maker, I got bumped all the way down to 

10 a laborer.

11 I had 30 or 40 classifications that 

12 I was qualified to do because I had done them.

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: It's a plant 

14 apprenticeship rather than a trade 

15 apprenticeship.

16 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Maurice, what he's 

19 trying to understand, we've dealt with, you 

20 know, designated unions and there was no cross 

21 in that, but Bendix was different.

22 This was an inside-plant 
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1 apprenticeship program there. And that's what 

2 he was trying to make sure that we understood.

3 MR. COPELAND: Right. That was an 

4 apprenticeship program. I understand. But 

5 when we did loan people out late, they did have 

6 time restrictions that you could loan a person 

7 out.

8 You can only loan a person out, say, 

9 for three weeks, 120 hours. Then you had to 

10 pull them back.

11 You pull them back for two days. 

12 Then you loan them out over again.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

14 MR. KATZ: That was Item 2. I think 

15 he had more.

16 MR. COPELAND: And in any of this, 

17 what I'm hearing, I just want to make it clear 

18 that it seems like the judgments coming from --

19 what you're looking at is a book. It's 

20 supposed to be written a certain way.

21 You're not dealing with what 

22 actually gets the job done. You're not dealing 
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1 with the exposures and -- that people actually 

2 had.

3 The machining of the uranium and 

4 these walls, I want you to understand these 

5 walls did not go 30 foot high. I never seen 

6 that before.

7 And we did use the high-pressured 

8 air hose. The floors were made out of wood and 

9 wood blocks. And these things, you know, in 

10 the government, we like to have things clean, 

11 you know. The lawn is nice. The office is 

12 nice.

13 You took your high-pressured air 

14 hose and you blew that stuff. And that stuff 

15 went all over the place. It went over you. It 

16 went over whatever was in there.

17 If a person came in to clean it up, 

18 one of the laborers come in to clean it up, 

19 they're sweeping. You're sweeping at the same 

20 time when you're removing your chips away from 

21 your cutter so that you don't have chatter that 

22 really sprinkles out dust in machining these 
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1 big billets.

2 And these billets are big and we had 

3 a lot of waste. And that waste, we were on 

4 stands. We were elevated on stands. And 

5 those stands are made out of wood and it fell 

6 down up under there.

7 And a lot of that stuff stayed down 

8 there for a long time because you don't want 

9 anybody crawling around up under there cleaning 

10 while you're working, you know.

11 So, what actually happened? The 

12 waste, the exposure, the chips, the scraps, 

13 it's not like -- it's not a pretty picture.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Maurice, the 

15 elevated platform, wooden platform where the 

16 scraps trickled down to the floor, where was 

17 that again?

18 MR. COPELAND: You know, I worked 

19 around a lot of noise and I -- what did you say?

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: That elevated wooden 

21 platform that you worked on where the turnings 

22 or scraps would fall some distance to the floor, 
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1 where was that again, that location?

2 MR. COPELAND: That was almost every 

3 department. Department 20. Department 20 

4 where we ran the billets.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay.

6 MR. COPELAND: The machine would 

7 probably take up a third of this room. I think 

8 somebody said they've been there.

9 And the curtains that were up were 

10 very thick. They are thick rubber. Very 

11 heavy rubber. I mean, you had to push, really 

12 push your way through that.

13 It was laced with, I mean, years and 

14 years of residue. Residue all over the place. 

15 So was the machine.

16 And those sump pumps, you know, we 

17 had to -- the operator had to -- in order to 

18 machine, you had to keep the process going.

19 So, therefore, you were the one --

20 you, not waste management, was the one that was 

21 adding the coolant, getting sprinkles all up on 

22 you and going down actually into the sump on 
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1 some of those machines.

2 The construction, I don't know when 

3 you all talking about these machines, if you're 

4 actually looking at -- in your head if you know 

5 what the machine looks like, if you know what 

6 the holding pit looks like.

7 It doesn't sound like it because 

8 you're rubbing against this stuff. This is 

9 your machine. This is your baby. You're 

10 laying on it. You love what you're doing. You 

11 like the sound of it, you know.

12 This is what actually happens, you 

13 know. You touch it. You're scratching 

14 yourself and all this stuff.

15 This -- these are the exposures and 

16 this is the stuff that you all don't seem to 

17 understand.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Some of us do. I 

19 worked in a radiation area, zone.

20 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, we do understand.

22 MR. COPELAND: And overall, Mr. 
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1 Clawson can give you a good scenario, a good 

2 scenario of what we know about what we were 

3 handling. The radioactive equipment, 

4 radioactive products.

5 Tell me what I just learned 16 years 

6 later about the box that I received. Tell 

7 them.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Just that, well, 

9 just a shipment that came in and a part was in 

10 there and it wasn't labeled on the outside.

11 Actually, we found a lot of 

12 documentation, just so you know that. And when 

13 you opened up the box, it had a radioactive 

14 sticker inside on the component that you were 

15 receiving.

16 And there's quite a bit there. 

17 We've got quite a bit on that.

18 MR. COPELAND: And I don't 

19 appreciate that. I'm going to give you a cup. 

20 Here's your cup and I got a radioactive part in 

21 there and I want you to open it up. And I don't 

22 -- you don't know it for 16 years.
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1 So, some of the questions that you 

2 all asked on this stuff is what did the person 

3 know? Was the person trained? Was the person 

4 monitored?

5 Nobody told me anything for 16 

6 years. I just found out this year.

7 MR. KNOX: May I piggyback on 

8 Maurice's box issue? In the documentation 

9 there is evidence, and I will present it to you 

10 that there was contamination found on boxes.

11 And I'm a technician, but we do 

12 things with ratios. If you look at the 

13 alpha-beta ratio that's on this document, that 

14 wasn't just plain old ordinary radioactive 

15 material. Those were alpha emitters.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Before you go further, 

17 was this a box from Kansas City?

18 MR. KNOX: Yes.

19 CHAIR BEACH: And what time frame? 

20 '89 to --

21 MR. KNOX: Yes.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I just want to 
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1 make sure we're talking about Kansas City.

2 MR. KNOX: And as you see, I 

3 submitted that as a part of the petition, but 

4 you can't just look at even those ratio numbers 

5 because you got to look at how -- when they --

6 when it was wiped, how much did they get off, 

7 you know? What is the efficiency for alpha 

8 detection?

9 Alpha detection has a very low 

10 efficiency in terms of being able to determine 

11 how much is there.

12 So, this piggybacks on what Maurice 

13 is saying. They have contamination throughout 

14 the facility. I'll shut up.

15 CHAIR BEACH: No, you're fine.

16 MR. COPELAND: Okay. And this is 

17 not my incident.

18 CHAIR BEACH; No, it's not.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: We just wanted you 

20 to see some of the other --

21 MR. COPELAND: Can I have my 

22 assumption read?
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Sure.

2 MR. COPELAND: I understand that 

3 this generator changes throughout the nuclear 

4 weapons industry, this incident that I had. It 

5 was a file that thick.

6 The generator changes throughout 

7 the nuclear weapon industry on shipping, 

8 receiving, the whole works.

9 How long have we been doing that? 

10 How many boxes did I receive that had 

11 radioactive parts in it throughout my 32 years 

12 at that plant? How many did anybody receive? 

13 Who did I give that part to? Who was I showing 

14 it to? Who did I give it to to look at it and 

15 look at the situation? Those people got a 

16 dose, too.

17 I never knew it. So, therefore, 

18 what precautions did I take to decontaminate 

19 myself? None.

20 So, one of the questions in this SEC 

21 is what did we know? Were we monitored? I 

22 didn't know anything for 16 years. I have not 
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1 been monitored yet. I have not been tested 

2 yet. I have not -- I don't know what -- didn't 

3 even know what it was.

4 And I have other situations as a 

5 supervisor where my people were contaminated 

6 and supposedly I wasn't. How was that? When 

7 I'm their supervisor, I supply them with the 

8 parts. I supply them with the material, but 

9 I'm not considered.

10 I don't know. It's strange the 

11 silences I'm hearing.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Those are --

13 and we are looking into those questions quite 

14 extensively.

15 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Maurice, anything 

17 else? Any other --

18 MR. COPELAND: Not at this point.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, you're done 

20 for this section?

21 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you for 
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1 your comments.

2 MR. KNOX: May I present Mr. Darnell 

3 some information that I think he should look at?

4 Would you read Number 4, please?

5 MR. DARNELL: United States Code, 

6 Title 18, Part 1018, Official Certificates or 

7 Writings, which states, whoever, being a public 

8 officer or other person authorized by any law 

9 of the United States to make or give a 

10 certificate or other writing, knowingly makes 

11 and delivers as true such a certificate or 

12 writing, containing any statement which he 

13 knows to be false.

14 MR. KNOX: Do you really, really 

15 believe that a footprint of an atomic bomb 

16 explosion is ground zero?

17 MR. DARNELL: Atomic bomb explosion 

18 has nothing to do with Kansas City Plant.

19 MR. KNOX: Okay.

20 MR. DARNELL: So, I'm not going to 

21 answer that question.

22 MR. KNOX: Okay. Do you really 
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1 believe that the exposures at the Kansas City 

2 Plant were confined to those facilities in 

3 which the work was done within the room and 

4 department? Do you really believe that?

5 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

6 MR. KNOX: And have you read this 

7 document which is from the Site Profile? And 

8 I'll present it to you. It has --

9 MR. DARNELL: You don't need to 

10 present --

11 MR. KNOX: Okay. Well --

12 MR. DARNELL: We've discussed that 

13 document before.

14 MR. KNOX: Okay.

15 MR. DARNELL: I have read the Site 

16 Profile.

17 MR. KNOX: Okay. So, you know then 

18 that based upon the Site Profile, uranium was 

19 found in the urine samples of most workers 

20 including the administrative type.

21 So, how can you now make a statement 

22 that it was confined to the footprint of that 
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1 facility where the work was done? It was 

2 outside of the facility, wasn't it?

3 MR. DARNELL: I don't have data that 

4 shows me that. I have urinalysis data for a set 

5 of workers that could have been involved in the 

6 work. I don't care where they were within the 

7 site.

8 If they were administrative workers 

9 that came to the project and we have bioassay 

10 data on it, we're going to take that into 

11 account and give them -- if they become a 

12 claimant, they will get their dose.

13 However, it doesn't matter where 

14 they were physically located or where they 

15 moved around to. If they became part of the 

16 project and had bioassay done on them, they're 

17 included.

18 MR. KNOX: The question --

19 MR. DARNELL: I have no other data 

20 that shows me --

21 MR. KNOX: -- again is, do you 

22 believe as you stated, that the exposure of 
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1 workers were confined only to those workers 

2 that were involved in actually performing the 

3 processes?

4 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

5 MR. KNOX: You actually believe 

6 that?

7 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

8 MR. KNOX: And then you look at this 

9 and you believe this, too? Okay. You really 

10 believe --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 MR. KNOX: Let me move on then. You 

14 have -- as I look at this facility, I look at 

15 what's in the Site Profile and what's been the 

16 Site Exposure Matrix.

17 Have you had the opportunity to go 

18 through the Site Exposure Matrix --

19 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

20 MR. KNOX: -- and look at those --

21 oh, you have?

22 MR. DARNELL: Yes, I have.
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1 MR. KNOX: If you have done that, 

2 then you will know that workers were exposed to 

3 a lot of different radioactive materials based 

4 upon their job category.

5 I have here some workers that were 

6 exposed to powder, radioactive tin. You have 

7 powdered materials that these people have been 

8 working with and they are not those workers that 

9 we would assume that was not exposed, that is 

10 exposed to these materials as a performance of 

11 these jobs.

12 MR. DARNELL: Off the top of my head, 

13 the workers involved with the powdered thorium 

14 standards that were used at the site were the 

15 laboratory workers that dealt with the 

16 standards that were being used.

17 Pat, correct me if I'm wrong if 

18 there's any more than -- any more powders that 

19 we came up with.

20 MR. KNOX: Do you --

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: No.

22 MR. KNOX: Do you believe that you 
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1 have fully done the research?

2 MR. DARNELL: No.

3 MR. KNOX: But that's what you 

4 stated.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Well, as we expressed 

6 --

7 MR. DARNELL: No, this is an ongoing 

8 process. And as you can see by the whole 

9 meeting today, it's an ongoing process.

10 We come together. We're 

11 discussing the science behind what has been 

12 done so far, finding what we need to do more work 

13 on and we're identifying that and making plans 

14 to continue on.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, this is 

16 preliminary steps and --

17 MR. KNOX: But he states that the --

18 he has fully done the research.

19 CHAIR BEACH: But this isn't attack 

20 NIOSH time frame and that's what it feels like 

21 to me, Wayne. So, I'm just saying if you could 

22 limit your --
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1 MR. KNOX: Okay.

2 CHAIR BEACH: -- discussion to new 

3 topics that we haven't discussed --

4 MR. KNOX: Okay. Contamination was 

5 found outside of the facility. It represents 

6 based upon the act a nuclear incident.

7 Here are the references. The last 

8 time we talked you said, give me the numbers. 

9 I can give you the documents, but here are 

10 documents that list where materials were found 

11 outside. Uranium was found in stairwells 

12 there in the GSA side.

13 Now, it's only anecdotal that you 

14 had radioactive contaminants found in the 

15 daycare center on the site. You had 

16 contaminants found on the GSA side.

17 Well, because, you didn't see any 

18 radioactive material, because you didn't make 

19 radiological measurements. So, you don't see 

20 it if you don't make the measurements with 

21 radioactive -- radiation-detection 

22 instruments.
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1 We make a statement here and I have 

2 explored the promethium-147 incident. And we 

3 say that there was no personnel contamination 

4 in the Site Exposure Matrix, but how can that 

5 be when you have the contamination? The 

6 promethium was found where? In New Mexico. 

7 It was not found here at the Kansas City Plant.

8 It was also found in Mound. It was 

9 found in Amersham, England and yet you say that, 

10 hey, there was no personnel contamination.

11 It was found in the homes of five 

12 workers, but there was no personnel 

13 contamination.

14 You had a Janitor that it was found 

15 on her toilet, on her pillow, on her carpet --

16 CHAIR BEACH: That's very 

17 well-documented.

18 MR. KNOX: Yes, but he is saying 

19 that, it was comprised of the footprint, which 

20 is not true and you've got to know that's not 

21 true.

22 MR. DARNELL: All we are allowed to 
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1 look at for the Kansas City Plant is the site 

2 that is defined by the Department of Labor.

3 I understand what you're saying 

4 about Amersham and Los Alamos and Mound and 

5 anyplace else. It's unfortunate, but for the 

6 limits of what we are allowed to address, it is 

7 also irrelevant.

8 MR. KNOX: Yes, but you can't -- you 

9 should not make false statements concerning it.

10 MR. DARNELL: I haven't made false 

11 statements.

12 MR. KNOX: You should at least say 

13 that, hey, we can't go that far. There are 

14 other things if you look at the exposure 

15 pathways of this facility, you have a common 

16 ventilation system.

17 MR. DARNELL: Did you receive the 

18 letter I sent you back --

19 MR. KNOX: Yes, let's not -- let's 

20 work on what I'm talking about. We have a 

21 common ventilation system. So, the material 

22 was tracked. People would come in and out of 
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1 it.

2 You had people that worked for GSA 

3 that moved inside of that facility using their 

4 GSA equipment to work on contaminated systems 

5 and then move right back out. They're not even 

6 considered.

7 MR. DARNELL: Mr. Knox, I empathize 

8 with you about personnel with GSA. And 

9 regardless of what happened to them, I know that 

10 their people had got sick while working at GSA.

11 However, they are outside of the 

12 designated facility.

13 MR. KNOX: They are not.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Hold on a --

15 MR. DARNELL: They are outside --

16 MR. KNOX: The facility is defined as 

17 the facility and the surrounding grounds. How 

18 can you say one half of a facility is not part 

19 of the facility? That, to me, is a false 

20 statement.

21 MR. DARNELL: I'm sorry, sir. That 

22 is something that we as NIOSH cannot address as 
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1 to what the facility definition is.

2 And as we spoke before, you need to 

3 speak with your elective representative, take 

4 it back to Washington to get the law changed.

5 MR. KNOX: The law --

6 MR. DARNELL: We cannot do it.

7 MR. KNOX: -- is clear. It's not 

8 the law. It's the interpretation of the law. 

9 The law is clear to anyone --

10 MR. DARNELL: Then your complaint is 

11 with --

12 MR. KNOX: -- that one part of a 

13 building is --

14 MR. DARNELL: -- the Department of 

15 Labor.

16 MR. KNOX: -- on the same grounds as 

17 the other part.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, let me 

19 break in. Wayne, I know that some of this 

20 information has been talked about in the past. 

21 And what we really need to do is stick with the 

22 action items and the topics that we're 
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1 discussing on the matrix.

2 Issues of that nature aren't of this 

3 Work Group. And I would like you to be able to 

4 further address this Work Group, but we need to 

5 stick on a topic.

6 MR. KNOX: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Otherwise we're going 

8 to have to end this dialogue at this point.

9 MR. KNOX: Okay. Let's go back to 

10 the original question of --

11 MEMBER POSTON: No, no, no, no.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Let's move forward.

13 MEMBER POSTON: Wayne --

14 MR. KNOX: The --

15 MEMBER POSTON: Wayne, you were 

16 asked to comment on what we've been doing.

17 MR. KNOX: Yes.

18 MEMBER POSTON: You haven't done 

19 that. You haven't done that.

20 MR. KNOX: Okay. I am --

21 MEMBER POSTON: You need to listen to 

22 what the Chairman is telling you. She's being 
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1 very gracious. She's offering you a chance to 

2 talk to this group and comment on the 12 items 

3 that we have discussed this morning.

4 You're not doing that and as far as 

5 I'm concerned, I'm tired of hearing it. So, 

6 I'm going to leave if you continue.

7 MR. KNOX: Okay. Let's talk about 

8 the gathering of information, and this was part 

9 of this, the completeness of information.

10 The first step should have been to 

11 look at what was required by regulation. This 

12 is the regulatory requirement.

13 I have made a sheet, a matrix that 

14 says what kind of information would be needed 

15 in order to at least have a complete set of 

16 documents because all of this document -- we 

17 talk about completeness, but I'm not so sure 

18 that we are working at the mathematical concept 

19 of completeness.

20 Any data has to be accurate, 

21 precise, complete and comparable and 

22 representative. And I'm saying that all we 
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1 talk about here is completeness, but we are not 

2 using the concept of completeness.

3 To determine completeness, you 

4 identify all of the material that is there. 

5 You set up data quality objectives. And that 

6 data quality objective is 99 percent 

7 probability of the -- Probability of Causation. 

8 So, your data quality objectives is at the 99 

9 percent plus level.

10 Now, how do you -- you indicate that 

11 you have collected over three million 

12 documents.

13 Have you really evaluated all of 

14 these documents? And then, again, we go back 

15 to the old issue of, yes, we -- okay.

16 I will say one other thing. I'm not 

17 saying anything else. I apologize. I have to 

18 laugh.

19 I was a technical intelligence 

20 officer. We were locked in a vault, inside of 

21 a vault for four years of my military duty and 

22 we have to laugh at what was happening, and, 
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1 unfortunately, I have to sit back here and just 

2 laugh at what is happening here because there 

3 are people that are suffering and dying as we 

4 delay.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Wayne, we take this 

6 very seriously. I mean, I can't stress that 

7 any more. We take it seriously. And we take 

8 each topic, each situation and we're going to 

9 work it until both sides are satisfied that 

10 we've uncovered all the documents that are out 

11 there, we've talked to the workers.

12 The process works, but it takes 

13 time. This is our first meeting. So, if 

14 anybody else wants to jump in, I think we need 

15 to break for lunch.

16 MR. KATZ: I think that's a good 

17 idea.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, about an 

19 hour. So, one o'clock.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, guys. I'm turning 

21 off the line until -- we'll be back around one.

22 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 
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1 matter went off the record at 12:02 p.m. and 

2 resumed at 1:03 p.m.)

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N

2 1:03 p.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, this is the KCP 

4 Work Group, Advisory Board on Radiation and 

5 Worker Health, and we're ready to get going 

6 again.

7 Josie.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Good 

9 afternoon. We are going to, John, since we 

10 have you on the line, we are going to combine 

11 starting with 13, the mag-thorium alloy issue 

12 which is -- you're going to cover under 

13 TBD-6000.

14 And then we're going to go to Issue 

15 16, cover that one, and then go back to 14 and 

16 15 if that works for you, John.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes, it does.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, are you 

19 going to kick it off, Joe, or --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. John, I'm 

21 just looking at, you know, what you've done on 

22 the mag-thorium on TBD-6000. I think it just 
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1 makes it easier if you just address that Item 

2 13 which is really the mag-thorium itself.

3 DR. MAURO: In fact, they are very 

4 different subjects.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Right. 

6 And I think just to keep it smooth if you can 

7 start with mag-thorium, then go to uranium.

8 DR. MAURO: Sounds good. If you 

9 folks are ready, I can get started.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

11 DR. MAURO: Okay. Yes, I reviewed 

12 the mag-thorium issue and prepared a draft 

13 White Paper that's actually currently being 

14 independently reviewed by Ron Buchanan.

15 And, in fact, I reviewed the SEC 

16 Petition Evaluation Report. There's a section 

17 there 7.2.3.1 that talks specifically about 

18 this subject.

19 And it turns out there is one SRDB 

20 in particular that was useful. It's Number 

21 128-148.

22 In addition, as you may know, we did 
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1 a lot of work a number of years ago on Dow 

2 Chemical which was also concerned with 

3 magnesium-thorium alloy. And that experience 

4 and that information also helped in looking 

5 into this issue.

6 It turns out that there was 

7 machining of magnesium-thorium alloy at the 

8 Kansas City Plant beginning in 1957 and 

9 continued on for quite some time.

10 And the process of machining that 

11 material generates an airborne aerosol that 

12 represents potential internal exposure from 

13 inhalation.

14 It's important to keep in mind that 

15 the alloy itself is three percent thorium based 

16 on the review of the material. So, it's not 

17 pure thorium and it's thorium-232. And the 

18 degree to which its progeny, and we'll talk a 

19 bit about that shortly, is present is also of 

20 course of interest, including thoron.

21 The approach -- now, there's very 

22 limited useful air sampling data to predict 
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1 what the air dust loading of the mag-thorium 

2 was. And there is no bioassay that's useful 

3 that will allow us to reconstruct the internal 

4 doses from that aerosol, but NIOSH did take --

5 have a strategy to come at the problem to try 

6 to place a plausible upper bound.

7 In looking at the program, the 

8 health physics oversight program, there was a 

9 limit, a maximum permissible concentration 

10 limit established for airborne thorium at the 

11 facility of nine times ten to the minus 11 

12 microcuries per milliliter of air.

13 And the basic approach NIOSH is 

14 adopting is to assume that that concentration 

15 is present all the time at that limit.

16 Now, normally when we review 

17 something like this, we don't presume that that 

18 limit is always maintained. 

19 It's certainly good that there's a 

20 limit and it certainly appears that there was 

21 oversight to help ensure that the airborne 

22 levels of various potential toxins including 
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1 beryllium were being under control, but NIOSH 

2 did one other thing that I think was very 

3 helpful in what you would say to provide 

4 assurance that was a reasonable upper bound.

5 And that is they said, okay, if you 

6 have an airborne level of magnesium-thorium 

7 alloy particulates due to machining 

8 operations, what does that turn into in terms 

9 of milligrams per cubic meter in air.

10 It turns out that it turns out to be 

11 27.3 milligrams of dust per cubic meter, which 

12 is a very high number.

13 It's such at a level that is above 

14 a level that you was taught to be concerned 

15 about, respiratory distress. And so, that 

16 sort of lends credence to the fact that it's 

17 unlikely that you would have prolonged periods 

18 of time where the airborne dust loading of the 

19 thorium would exceed that maximum permissible 

20 concentration of nine times ten to the minus 11 

21 microcuries per milliliter.

22 So, those two arguments I found 
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1 fairly compelling. That is in terms of placing 

2 a plausible upper bound on what the long-term 

3 chronic -- potential for internal exposure 

4 would be for workers involved with the 

5 machining of this alloy.

6 One question though that did emerge 

7 as I worked through this was from my experience 

8 with Dow, Dow not only was involved with the 

9 machining and handling of the alloy, but they 

10 actually produced the alloy where they would 

11 work with what was called the master alloy.

12 They would take an allow that was 

13 actually close to, I think, about 50 percent 

14 thorium and dissolve that in the molten 

15 magnesium which was a different kind of 

16 situation creating the potential for other 

17 types of exposures.

18 Now, the -- in reading the material, 

19 it does not appear that there was actually the 

20 manufacturing of the alloy taking place at 

21 Kansas City Plant.

22 I just -- my question I guess to 
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1 NIOSH is to confirm that that in fact is the 

2 case.

3 The only thing that they did was to 

4 machine the alloy that -- what arrived at the 

5 facility was this three percent 

6 magnesium-thorium alloy that was machined and 

7 they were not actually manufacturing the alloy.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: I believe we can 

9 product documents, John, that show KCP 

10 purchasing it from Dow Midland.

11 DR. MAURO: Excellent. That was my 

12 first question and that would be useful to have 

13 a statement to that effect. So, we can put that 

14 one to bed.

15 That being the case, so we're 

16 working with magnesium-thorium alloy now and I 

17 for one believe that the number that they have 

18 chosen as their plausible upper bound for 

19 chronic exposure is certainly plausible and 

20 bounding for the reasons I just explained.

21 One of the challenges of course will 

22 be who are we going to assign this to? This is 
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1 a subject of a great deal of interest by the 

2 stakeholders, the petitioners and the workers 

3 about, you know, okay, perhaps you can place a 

4 plausible upper bound on the dust loading, but 

5 who are you going to assign that to and how are 

6 you going to make that determination?

7 I'm just assuming that you're going 

8 to be extremely flexible -- not flexible. 

9 What's the word I'm looking for? That if 

10 there's any potential for a person to have 

11 experienced this type of exposure, you will 

12 assign them the full 2,000 hours per year 

13 certainly for the workers that were doing the 

14 actual machining operation.

15 It's always going to be a challenge 

16 to determine, you know, who's going to get 50 

17 percent, who's going to get whatever other 

18 percentiles are used for the supervisors, the 

19 clerks, the clerical and I understand that that 

20 is a challenge whether or not you raise that to 

21 an SEC issue.

22 In the past, my recollection is 
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1 generally that was sort of a Site Profile issue. 

2 How are you going, you know, you can place a 

3 plausible upper bound, but how are you going to 

4 determine who belongs to the high-end class, 

5 the one that's going to be assumed to be exposed 

6 for 2,000 hours per year.

7 So, that's sort of in a nutshell 

8 where we come out at least currently in our 

9 draft work regarding thorium-232.

10 Let me move on to the progeny. The 

11 -- one of the deficiencies of the SEC Petition 

12 Evaluation Report is the report is silent 

13 regarding thorium -- well, really the radium, 

14 the progeny, the radium that grows in from the 

15 thorium-232, for example.

16 So, I did a few calculations to say, 

17 okay, let, you know, when the thorium alloy 

18 shows up, it's thorium-232 alloy, but there's 

19 also going to be present with it one of -- the 

20 other thorium, 228, and in time, various other 

21 radionuclides grow in. It may take some time.

22 The radium-228, for example, I 
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1 think has about a five-year half life. So, of 

2 course you'd have to be fairly aged, but in 

3 theory, you know, you could receive some aged 

4 alloy.

5 So, I went ahead and said, okay, 

6 what happens if along with the thorium-232, all 

7 the progeny were present in equilibrium also.

8 Does that really -- could that have 

9 a substantial effect on the inhalation dose 

10 that you would calculate?

11 It turns out my calculations show --

12 now, the report is silent on this. I think the 

13 work would benefit -- the SEC Petition 

14 Evaluation Report would benefit from this type 

15 of calculation. But I went through it and I 

16 said, okay, if they were there, what would 

17 happen?

18 It turns out that the other 

19 radionuclides, the progeny, their dose 

20 conversion factors, you know, are much, much 

21 smaller than the dose -- inhalation dose 

22 conversion factor for thorium-232.
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1 So, even if they were present there 

2 in equilibrium airborne, they're not going to 

3 have more than like 10 percent of that.

4 And I believe built into the default 

5 dust loading, the use of thorium-232 is enough 

6 conservatism that that extra -- even if -- now, 

7 even if the other progeny were present there in 

8 equilibrium, they're really not going to change 

9 anything.

10 So, I sort of convinced myself that 

11 the strategy being used even though they're 

12 silent in the writeup on this matter, is 

13 claimant-favorable and scientifically sound.

14 So, I walk away saying 

15 notwithstanding the fact that they do not 

16 explicitly address the progeny of thorium-232, 

17 I don't think they're important.

18 In other words, they're assumed to 

19 be there, they may have a 10 percent effect on 

20 the dose calculation and the big picture in 

21 recognizing the inherent conservatism and the 

22 fundamental assumption regarding the 
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1 thorium-232, I feel as if they're covered.

2 But of course this is something that 

3 -- a judgment that they -- the Work Group needs 

4 to make and be comfortable with themselves.

5 Finally, I'm almost done, is 

6 thoron. One of the radionuclides that will 

7 grow in fairly quickly is thoron.

8 And what NIOSH did was say, listen, 

9 in order to account for the contribution of 

10 thoron to the inhalation dose, they're assuming 

11 that thoron is present, and of course its 

12 short-lived progeny, at 30 percent of the 

13 concentration of the thorium-232.

14 I considered this to be a reasonable 

15 value recognizing that -- you can almost 

16 envision the thoron -- you have these airborne 

17 particulates, these five micron AMAD 

18 particulates of thorium-232 floating in the 

19 air. And it's thorium-232 with possibly 

20 thorium-228 and the thoron grow in fairly 

21 quickly from the thorium-228.

22 And you think in terms of this when 
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1 it decays, not all of the thoron will escape and 

2 become airborne. It's going to be trapped. A 

3 lot of it will be trapped inside this little 

4 particle, but some of it, you know, could get 

5 out.

6 And you may be familiar with this in 

7 the radon world. It's called the emanation 

8 coefficient.

9 In effect, they're assuming that 30 

10 percent of -- if there's thoron there, 30 

11 percent would make it airborne. So, they're 

12 assuming that the concentration of thoron in 

13 the air is 30 percent of the concentration of 

14 the thorium-232 in the air.

15 I consider that to be a plausible 

16 upper bound of the presence of thoron airborne.

17 So, my takeaway from this, and this 

18 is what's written up, is that the approach that 

19 NIOSH has adopted to assign upper bound, 

20 plausible upper bound, is scientifically sound 

21 and I am comfortable with it basically using 

22 that nine times 10 to the minus 11 microcuries 
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1 per cc as if, you know, 2,000 per year and it's 

2 always at that level.

3 It's highly unlikely that that in 

4 fact was the case given that that would be 

5 associated with a fairly high dust loading. 27 

6 milligrams per cubic meter.

7 So, bottom line is I feel as if this 

8 is an issue that has been adequately addressed.

9 MR. DARNELL: Strange as it may be to 

10 believe, but NIOSH agrees.

11 DR. MAURO: Okay.

12 MR. STIVER: Hey, John. This is 

13 John Stiver. I got a quick question for you.

14 Are we reasonably sure that the 

15 thorium content was only at three percent in all 

16 of the magnesium-thorium alloy that was 

17 processed there?

18 DR. MAURO: Fair question. You 

19 know, when I looked at the SRDB and of course 

20 the SEC Petition Evaluation Report, that seems 

21 to be the case.

22 And my experience, by the way, with 
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1 thorium alloy from other work like the Dow work, 

2 that's where -- that's the level -- when they 

3 make -- they make thorium alloy because it has 

4 certain metallurgical properties regarding 

5 heat, resistance and structural strain for 

6 various uses.

7 And that's the typical 

8 concentration of the -- of thorium in 

9 magnesium-thorium alloy. So, I was not 

10 surprised to see that that's the number that was 

11 used and that's what we found in the literature.

12 Now, certainly if there are some 

13 exceptions to that, we may have some 

14 metallurgists involved that would know a lot 

15 more about it than I do that could say, no, there 

16 are circumstances where you may work with 

17 higher quantities and -- but as best I can tell 

18 from what I've read in the SRDB, from my 

19 experience with the Dow work, that is a good 

20 number.

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

22 think I recall looking at the literature that 
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1 this was specified as the HK-31, I believe, 

2 thorium-magnesium alloy.

3 DR. MAURO: Yes.

4 DR. NETON: That has a specific 

5 meaning in the commercial industry. And I 

6 believe it translates over to three percent 

7 thorium.

8 DR. MAURO: Now that you mention it, 

9 I remember Bill Thurber looking at that very 

10 issue and you are correct, yes.

11 MR. STIVER: All right. Thanks a 

12 lot. That makes a lot of sense.

13 MR. DARNELL: So, the only takeaway 

14 from Issue 13 then is we need to produce the 

15 document that shows that mag-thorium was 

16 purchased from Midland Dow.

17 DR. NETON: We need to review the 

18 report, White Paper, when it comes out when it's 

19 finalized. It may be slightly different.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: But I think that's 

21 a pretty fair walk through.

22 DR. NETON: Okay.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: So, that's part of the 

2 story, right? I mean, there's other 

3 contributing factors.

4 I was just pulling up the ER review 

5 and it says it was limited, not large scale, 

6 temporary basis.

7 DR. NETON: Yes, well, that was sort 

8 of the weight of the evidence issue that we felt 

9 that the value we chose was bounding, which John 

10 kind of got into.

11 DR. MAURO: I do think beside this --

12 the issue of whether there may have been other 

13 production work going on, it sounds like that 

14 you have evidence -- there's also -- a general 

15 statement is made that, you know, operators, 

16 folks who did the machining work would be 

17 assigned that concentration 2,000 hours per 

18 year, but supervisors and other personnel would 

19 be assigned something less.

20 That's always a difficult problem. 

21 In my experience, usually you make those 

22 judgments on a case-by-case basis based on 
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1 looking at the CATI reports on individual DRs, 

2 dose reconstructions.

3 However, we heard earlier from the 

4 petitioners that folks, you know, changed jobs 

5 a lot, did a lot of different things, were in 

6 different areas, that sort of thing.

7 So, I think one of the 

8 vulnerabilities is how are we going to go about 

9 deciding who's going to get the full dose, who's 

10 going to get the 50 percent or the 10 percent.

11 That's always going to be a 

12 challenge that, you know, we'll -- but my guess 

13 is that's addressed during the actual 

14 implementation. 

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that's Site 

16 Profile --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: That would be an 

18 implementation issue.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

20 DR. MAURO: Yes.

21 MR. DARNELL: And that's also part of 

22 the data that we're going back to Kansas City 
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1 to collect -- bioassay data within the medical 

2 records and the access lists.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, John, you said 

4 something before and I think this is germane to 

5 TBD-6000 that this assumes that the source of 

6 thorium is this one operation, right?

7 DR. MAURO: Yes, the machining 

8 operation. The only source of thorium would be 

9 machining of magnesium-thorium alloy billets 

10 of some sorts that was shipped to Kansas City 

11 Plant as three percent magnesium-thorium alloy 

12 to be machined.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. The reason 

14 I'm raising it is that, you know, there's sort 

15 of two elements. 

16 We wanted to I think early on focus 

17 on TBD-6000. And John has been working very 

18 closely with it and felt that, you know, we 

19 could get started on that review early.

20 And then the -- sort of the other 

21 facet of it was to look at some of the 

22 parameters, make sure that, you know, we looked 
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1 at the supervisor, you know, sort of the job 

2 category breakdown and also other sources of 

3 thorium.

4 And the reason I'm raising this, 

5 we're going to talk about this a little later, 

6 but looking at the inventory, you know, this 

7 non-alloy thorium I still don't quite 

8 understand what I was reading on the inventory 

9 data, the kilogram sources.

10 But I think what we want to do is 

11 just clarify exactly what that means and to make 

12 sure that this would be the source of any 

13 thorium that would be modeled as an exposure 

14 source.

15 MR. DARNELL: Actually, we discussed 

16 that very issue when we were at Kansas City with 

17 Nelson. That was one of the items we're not 

18 allowed to write down.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. I didn't say 

20 it. But in any case, that issue is certainly 

21 one relevant issue to TBD-6000 working in this 

22 case.
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1 And I think we just want to make sure 

2 that that's the -- that it is in fact the case, 

3 it's the sole source of potential exposure to 

4 thorium and I'll leave it at that.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and that's an 

6 important factor.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it's an 

8 important factor. I'll leave it at that. And 

9 like I said, we still have I think a little bit 

10 more research to do on it.

11 MR. DARNELL: Everything we have 

12 points to this being the machining source of 

13 exposure.

14 There were other thorium on the 

15 site. Some of it we can't discuss. And there 

16 was lab scanners.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. So, you 

18 know, I think as we firm that up, I think we'll 

19 be fine with this. And I think certainly as you 

20 heard, we're fine with the methodology.

21 So, there's a little bit of some 

22 basic data capture/review beyond this one 
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1 interview that we need to do on this one.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: The only thing I'd 

3 add is John started his discussion of his paper 

4 with the date of 1957 from the ER.

5 CHAIR BEACH: I was just going to 

6 mention that.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: And just recently 

8 we're now saying --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: 1954.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: -- 1954 based on an 

11 interview we conducted last month. Now, we 

12 selected '57 based on those (name redacted) 

13 court records. So, we felt like those were --

14 that was a good record of the start date.

15 MR. DARNELL: I think it's actually 

16 a good time to bring up the discussion of the 

17 1954 date.

18 I was in the interview with the 

19 gentleman that spoke to it and I have little 

20 doubt that he believes he worked on thorium in 

21 1954.

22 However, the area where he says he 
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1 worked on thorium again is outside of the 

2 facility. It's not part of the facility.

3 And regardless of the case being if 

4 it's outside, it's not something that we can 

5 take into account. Our records right now show 

6 1957, which is what we've got to use.

7 Perhaps we can go look for more --

8 something else to try to see if we can bring that 

9 work into the facility, per se, but right now 

10 we really can't address it because it was in 

11 Area 20A, I think he said, or something like 

12 that. Something that was outside of the 

13 defined facility is where --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: I wasn't aware that 

15 20A was --

16 CHAIR BEACH: I wasn't either.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we have to 

18 corroborate that with further records.

19 MR. DARNELL: Right, but I just 

20 wanted to make sure we all understood.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

22 MR. DARNELL: The understanding we 
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1 have --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: 1954.

3 MR. DARNELL: '54 was actually done 

4 outside of the defined facility. So, while we 

5 can definitely pull the string, right now we 

6 can't change --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Change that date.

8 MR. DARNELL: -- the date based on 

9 --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Does that 

12 make sense?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, it does. I 

14 just want to make sure that we understand 

15 because these areas that we're dealing with a 

16 map of a certain age and it has this area is here 

17 and dah-da, dah-da, dah-da, dah-da.

18 Those have changed over the years. 

19 So, we need to get one back in this time frame 

20 because as we've heard from petitioners, as 

21 we've heard from everybody, these areas could 

22 move from one place to another as time changes.
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1 MR. McCLOSKEY: Agreed. We've had a 

2 few maps come in this week. There's a few maps 

3 that KCP, Tara and company are photographing 

4 and sending to us now.

5 We've gotten a lot of maps and we're 

6 going to continue to try to understand how --

7 MR. DARNELL: We are working on that 

8 to try to make sure that we have the definition 

9 correct for especially this work.

10 It's not going to be a huge impact 

11 dosimetrically, but if the date was '54, it 

12 needs to be '54. If it was '57, it needs to stay 

13 '57. We've just got to get it correct.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, I'll continue 

15 to feel like I don't completely understand the 

16 layout and jump up whenever someone said that 

17 something occurred here and --

18 (Laughter.)

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, because when 

20 we took the tour and we were going back with a 

21 lot of the older people, they said, you got to 

22 understand, and they were pulling me to the GSA 
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1 side, by the end of the day, this was this area. 

2 We've covered all of this area.

3 Then when GSA took it over, it went 

4 over to this area. Little bit smaller. And 

5 this is what I want to make sure that we cover, 

6 because that's an important process.

7 MR. DARNELL: I think it's very 

8 important that we nail it down because if the 

9 size of the facility is wrong, the definition 

10 of facility is wrong, that's something that we 

11 need to go back with DOL, but we have to have 

12 something to substantiate what we're saying.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

14 MR. DARNELL: And we just haven't 

15 found that part yet.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Just one interview.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, I've got 

18 action items. NIOSH, you're going to produce 

19 the document, the purchase order from Dow? Did 

20 I get that right?

21 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

22 CHAIR BEACH: You're also looking at 
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1 bioassay data and access records for Kansas 

2 City for this also.

3 MR. DARNELL: Right.

4 CHAIR BEACH: And then I put under 

5 NIOSH and SC&A, continuing to review other 

6 sources for thorium.

7 Do I have that right or other 

8 operational -- oh, and part of that's incidents 

9 and fires and -

10 DR. NETON: Isn't that a separate 

11 issue, the other thorium?

12 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that's why I'm 

13 asking about --

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, that's another 

15 issue.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: It's a separate 

17 issue. It ties into the TBD-6000 discussion 

18 because it's a factor --

19 CHAIR BEACH: It's a factor and not 

20 deemed relevant.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: It's separate, but 

22 it's just something to mention.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And then you're 

2 going to pull the string for work being done for 

3 that '54 time period. You mentioned that.

4 MR. DARNELL: We're continuing to 

5 look into maps and find out what the correct 

6 size is and then it will depend on DOL's 

7 determination.

8 CHAIR BEACH: I understand that, 

9 yeah.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: I haven't seen the 

11 interview notes from this gentleman who said 

12 '54. I'd like to pull those in, read it and --

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I don't think we 

14 have all those back yet.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, we have them 

16 back. They haven't summarized it. They 

17 haven't returned them to the interviewees.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Interviewees and -

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

20 CHAIR BEACH: So, that's ongoing.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: That's working 

22 right now, right.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: And then, John, can you 

2 tell us do you know when your report is going 

3 to be -- I know Nancy is working on it.

4 Do you have kind of a date when that 

5 will come out to the Work Group?

6 DR. MAURO: I think, Joe, you're 

7 probably in a better position because you're 

8 ahead with Ron.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Actually, 

10 Ron and I are pretty much done. John Stiver was 

11 looking at it. And Nancy was getting it. So, 

12 it's one of these I think the train is pretty 

13 far along.

14 So, not long. I would say within a 

15 week or two.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, you'll see 

17 that come out --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, fairly 

19 shortly.

20 Now, you indicate you're about to 

21 receive some urinalysis records that were 

22 requested for --
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1 MR. DARNELL: Those are the records 

2 that we have been talking about.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Part of that 

4 package.

5 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anything else 

8 from Work Group Members on 13?

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: We're going to just 

10 specifically talk about TBDs. It's --

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 MR. FITZGERALD: We're going from 

13 thorium to uranium, which is -- we're going to 

14 talk thorium and uranium under 16. This looks 

15 like it could be easier to talk about it, you 

16 know, using 13 as a jump-off point for mag-thor 

17 rather than do it twice.

18 So, John, can you take 16 and focus 

19 on the uranium?

20 DR. MAURO: Sure. It's important to 

21 realize, first of all, that TBD-6000 is for 

22 uranium, not for thorium.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

2 DR. MAURO: And I did also prepare a 

3 draft White Paper that addressed TBD-6000 and 

4 how it was used. And also it turns out they 

5 used OTIB-70. Let me explain.

6 There certainly were a lot of 

7 different uranium operations taking place at 

8 the facility. I only looked at a very specific 

9 time period from 1950 through 1955.

10 A large quantity, about a thousand 

11 slugs per day were machined at Kansas City Plant 

12 in the Manufacturing Building, which I guess is 

13 a pretty big building. And it was set up 

14 specifically for a large-production operation 

15 where they were producing 1,000 slugs per day. 

16 And it was your classic lathe operation and 

17 cutting operation.

18 There were -- from my understanding 

19 of the data, there really isn't any air sampling 

20 data or bioassay data to help us reconstruct the 

21 doses from those exposures.

22 Jim had mentioned earlier though 
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1 they may have some bioassay data, which is 

2 great. It's going to help us validate and 

3 verify that the TBD-6000 approach works.

4 The extent to which -- as you know, 

5 TBD-6000 has been vetted very thoroughly. I'm 

6 not sure if the claimants and petitioners that 

7 on the line are familiar with it, but in a 

8 nutshell a really major investigation was done 

9 in the 1950s that tried to understand the nature 

10 of the exposure to uranium metal that was being 

11 experienced throughout the weapons complex in 

12 the early years where they were machining and 

13 working with uranium, uranium metal for the 

14 purpose of making fuel.

15 And there were a lot of private 

16 companies that were under contract to do this 

17 and the Atomic Energy Commission at the time at 

18 the Environmental Measurements Laboratory, 

19 probably one of the foremost laboratories in 

20 the world, was asked to do a comprehensive 

21 evaluation of, well, gee, what kind of 

22 exposures are all these workers at these 
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1 private companies experiencing, because all of 

2 a sudden these companies were being asked to 

3 help in the weapons program because they had 

4 certain skills with metallurgical and 

5 metalworking that were valuable for working 

6 with uranium.

7 They mainly worked with steel, and 

8 now all of a sudden they've been asked to, 

9 listen, let's take advantage of these companies 

10 in the -- sort of like the inception of the Cold 

11 War back in the late '40s and early '50s to get 

12 the uranium metal into a form that could be used 

13 for the weapons program.

14 So, a large study was performed by 

15 the -- it was called the Health and Safety 

16 Laboratory. I hope this is okay. I thought it 

17 would be helpful for the petitioners just to get 

18 a quick understanding that there is a large 

19 dataset that was compiled by the best we had at 

20 the time to understand what are the dust 

21 loadings, what are the exposure scenarios when 

22 someone machines uranium with a lathe, a 
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1 centerless grinder cuts it, extrudes it, rolls 

2 it.

3 There are all these different 

4 things you do with uranium metal to get it to 

5 where you want it to be.

6 It turns out that when you don't 

7 have real data like air sampling data, bioassay 

8 data, NIOSH makes use of TBD-6000. this is a 

9 special report that says, listen, we have all 

10 this great information that was developed by 

11 the Health and Safety Laboratory and all this 

12 experience from these facilities which really 

13 captures the full range of the kind of things 

14 people did with uranium metal in those days.

15 We said, boy, you know, I think we 

16 could use this information as a surrogate. So, 

17 we referred to the thing as surrogate data. A 

18 surrogate for the fact that we don't have good 

19 air sampling data at least for Kansas City Plant 

20 from 1950 to '55 when they were doing these 

21 fairly large amounts of machining operations 

22 with uranium.
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1 Okay. So, now what NIOSH elected 

2 to do is they looked at what they call the matrix 

3 of data. Think of these tables that say, well, 

4 here's the range of concentrations of uranium 

5 in the air when people use a lathe, when people 

6 do centerless grinding.

7 The difference in one case it's sort 

8 of like sandpaper. Centerless grinding really 

9 creates a lot of fine dust.

10 A lathe is more like a plane. 

11 You're planing it. You're shaving things off. 

12 So, centerless grinding generates a lot more 

13 dust.

14 They have data on extrusion or 

15 rolling uranium into different shapes. And 

16 there's a lot of very good data collected by 

17 really excellent scientists and establishes 

18 the foundation, the fundamentals of what we 

19 refer to as TBD-6000.

20 NIOSH used TBD-6000 as a surrogate 

21 for a way to estimate the exposures that were 

22 experienced by Kansas City Plant workers from 
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1 1950 to 1955 when they were actually machining 

2 uranium which is primarily, and this is 

3 important, a lathe operation.

4 And then they also used something 

5 called OTIB -- TBD-070 -- OTIB-70. OTIB-70 

6 which is directed to, well, once those 

7 operations stop in 1955, we know that there's 

8 going to be some residue, uranium dust and you 

9 want to take that into consideration also.

10 So, even though the operation has 

11 started, there are workers there, they're still 

12 working, doing other things and could be 

13 exposed to the dust that could be resuspended 

14 that was deposited on surfaces due to the 

15 machining operations.

16 Then beginning in 1958 and later, 

17 different kinds of uranium operations took 

18 place.

19 I am not addressing those 

20 operations. These are the operations that Joe 

21 and folks have mentioned earlier regarding DU 

22 powder, centering and a whole bunch of other 
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1 different kinds of things that took place which 

2 are a lot different than uranium machining.

3 And it's in that post-1958 time 

4 period where you start to see a lot of air 

5 sampling and bioassay data.

6 So, my report, this White Paper that 

7 I just, you know, finished, focuses in 

8 specifically on machining of uranium from 1950 

9 to '55. And the residual period that went from 

10 '55 to '58. And I stop at '58 because after 

11 that everything changes and now you have 

12 different operations and you do have bioassay 

13 data and you do have air sampling data.

14 So, I wanted to sort of explain that 

15 to all the interested parties that that's sort 

16 of the framework we're working within.

17 Now, what NIOSH did, it said, 

18 listen, when you look at TBD-6000, you have a 

19 lot of options. What are we going to use for 

20 the airborne dust loading, you know? Are we 

21 going to assume, you know, what's the right air 

22 dust loading to use that would be 
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1 claimant-favorable, but applicable to the 

2 kinds of operations that were taking place at

3 Kansas City Plant from 1950 to '55?

4 NIOSH elected to use the -- what I 

5 say is the worst case scenario. They adopted 

6 a dust loading around the order of 5,000 dpm per 

7 cubic meter as being the chronic exposure that 

8 all of these operators were involved in the 

9 machining operation were exposed to 

10 continuously 2,000 hours per year.

11 It's important to recognize that 

12 when you look at -- and I have this all 

13 summarized in the White Paper.

14 When you look at all of the data 

15 that's out there on this very subject of 

16 handling and machining of uranium, this is by 

17 far the worst case scenario.

18 The reality is, in my opinion, I 

19 believe that using that default surrogate dust 

20 loading is probably a substantial 

21 overestimate. It's plausible, but it's 

22 probably an overestimate and the reason is 
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1 this: Most of the operations that took place at 

2 the Kansas City Plant were a lathing operation.

3 And the dust loading that was 

4 selected from the matrix in TBD-6000, was the 

5 dust loading that's associated with centerless 

6 grinding which is a lot more -- it generates a 

7 lot more dust. Perhaps a factor of 10.

8 So, I believe a default value that 

9 was selected by NIOSH to apply to the operators 

10 who were involved in the machining is likely to 

11 be conservative. Certainly a plausible upper 

12 bound.

13 If there is some bioassay data, Jim, 

14 you're probably going to find -- my guess, you 

15 know, and we'll find out, is that you'll see 

16 that the bioassay data will show that that 

17 probably is an overestimate by on the order of 

18 perhaps a factor of ten.

19 That's my expectation, but my 

20 takeaway from this is that the default value 

21 selected is a good value.

22 Now, there's a little bit more to 
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1 the story that is important that everyone 

2 understands is that when you look into Harris 

3 and Kingsley, which is the researchers that did 

4 the original work that's the underpinning for 

5 TBD-6000, you find out there's a lot of texture 

6 to the matter that is when you're lathing, when 

7 you're centerless grinding, when you're doing 

8 these various operations with uranium, they use 

9 oil to keep it cool. There are different 

10 spinning rates that the lathes operate at. 

11 There are ventilation hoods that may or may not 

12 be there.

13 It's important to recognize that 

14 the default value selected by NIOSH which is the 

15 centerless grinding, had minimal controls to 

16 reduce airborne dust loading.

17 When you look at -- and there's a lot 

18 of -- by the way, in this particular report, a 

19 lot of information is given regarding the 

20 operation, the lathe operations that took place 

21 more so, quite frankly, than I've seen in 

22 perhaps a dozen other similar reports that I 
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1 reviewed where they give you information on the 

2 type of oil that was used, the quantity, a lot 

3 of detailed information on the kinds of 

4 operations that took place when they were 

5 working the uranium.

6 And every indication is that there 

7 were in fact place in these early years, and I 

8 was surprised to see this in '50 to '55, a lot 

9 of controls that were designed to reduce the 

10 potential for airborne dust loading.

11 So, we've got two factors at work 

12 here that would reveal to me that the 5,000 dpm 

13 per cubic meter default dust loading is 

14 probably a substantial overestimate and that is 

15 one -- it was not centerless grinding. It was 

16 a lathe operation which in itself has a much 

17 lesser potential for dust loading.

18 And second, the operations 

19 themselves made use of some technologies that 

20 I would consider to be fairly advanced for the 

21 time periods that we're talking about related 

22 to cooling, ventilation and cutting speeds, 
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1 that sort of thing, all of which is provided in 

2 the documentation for this operation.

3 So, again, I take away from this 

4 that the approach that NIOSH has adopted for 

5 reconstructing the doses to operators in the 

6 1950 to '55 time period is certainly 

7 claimant-favorable perhaps by about a factor of 

8 10 in terms of long-term chronic exposures to 

9 these workers.

10 Now, some people have mentioned 

11 earlier that, well, there could be spikes and 

12 transients and the reality is these operations 

13 -- there can be fires because the uranium could 

14 combust. People -- there was dust generated 

15 that settled. People swept that up generating 

16 dust.

17 It turns out that we researched that 

18 and it turns out that the Harris and Kingsley 

19 research and the TBD-6000 capture that.

20 So, embedded in that 5,000 dpm per 

21 cubic meter number, takes into consideration 

22 the fact that you do on occasion might have some 
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1 fires and you do have operations where you're 

2 sweeping and generating excess dust, you know.

3 So, I believe on every level the 

4 approach taken for reconstructing the doses 

5 during that time period for the uranium 

6 machining operation are scientifically sound 

7 and claimant-favorable.

8 I will quickly go on to what I call 

9 the residual period. Now, after they stopped 

10 operations and this is sort of interesting, 

11 what you want to do, you say, listen, we want 

12 to reconstruct the doses to the workers who are 

13 working there after those machining operations 

14 stop, but there's still the residue on surfaces 

15 that you -- that people could be exposed to.

16 You want to take that into 

17 consideration and that covers the time period 

18 from '55 or the end of '55 until 1958.

19 Now, the approach NIOSH used that we 

20 referred to, the OTIB-70 approach, there's 

21 something that was done -- this is what I'd like 

22 to bring up before NIOSH and the Work Group. 
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1 The approach used was the starting point 

2 starting in I guess late 1955 or '56 when 

3 machining operations stopped, you want to say, 

4 okay, what is the airborne dust loading right 

5 at the end of the machining operation in the 

6 beginning of what we would call the residual 

7 period.

8 Now, the approach NIOSH elected to 

9 use to say, well, we're going to assume that the 

10 dust loading toward the end of the machining 

11 operations was at that upper end, this 5,000 dpm 

12 per cubic meter, and that that dust is settling 

13 at a rate of 0.00075 meters per second. That's 

14 a good number. We've researched that number.

15 So, you can almost visualize the 

16 stuff settling and NIOSH assumes that it 

17 settles for 30 days and that it sort of achieves 

18 some kind of equilibrium where at the time of 

19 the end of machining operations and the 

20 beginning of the residual period you've got 

21 this dust layer on the surfaces that were 

22 calculated that way, you know. You derive what 
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1 the buildup is over that 30-day period.

2 I'd like to offer up a different --

3 and once you have that on the surface, then you 

4 say there's a resuspension factor of 10 to the 

5 minus five per meter.

6 We like the 10 to the minus -- in 

7 fact the whole approach we liked, but I was 

8 thinking about it. Why wouldn't you just start 

9 with the airborne dust loading itself, the 

10 5,000 dpm per cubic meter, as the beginning part 

11 rather than go through the process of having it 

12 settle out for 30 days, which there is some 

13 uncertainty, you know, how long you will let 

14 this stuff settle out, and the resuspension 

15 factor of 10 to the minus five per meter as a 

16 way to get to the airborne dust loading at the 

17 beginning of the residual period, why not just 

18 start with that dust loading as being -- that's 

19 what the dust loading is at time zero of the 

20 residual period.

21 So, I'd like to sort of leave in the 

22 mind of NIOSH and the Work Group of why wouldn't 
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1 that be a better approach? It's simpler, more 

2 direct and has fewer assumptions embedded in 

3 it.

4 I'm almost done and then we can talk 

5 about that so this way we can see the whole 

6 story.

7 What happens then is during the 

8 residual period we all know that the airborne 

9 dust loading is going to decline by natural 

10 attenuation. I mean, they're not generating 

11 anymore and little by little it's going away at 

12 some rate because it's being resuspended and 

13 it's being ventilated out and it's leaving.

14 So, and NIOSH did a very nice job and 

15 we reviewed this very thoroughly on OTIB-70 

16 that the rate of decline is 0.00067 per day. 

17 That's the fraction of the airborne activity 

18 that's going away per day. That's the slope.

19 And then so the exposure to a person 

20 there would be the integral under that curve 

21 from the end of '55 to 1958.

22 Now, what NIOSH did was they didn't 
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1 use that approach. There are many options, by 

2 the way, in OTIB-70 on how to come at this 

3 problem.

4 What NIOSH said is, well, you know 

5 what we'll do is we'll go all the way to 1958 

6 and take a look at the airborne dust loading at 

7 that time and say -- and so think of it like 

8 this: You've got an estimate of the airborne 

9 dust loading at the beginning of the residual 

10 and at the end and you connect the dots and 

11 you've got a slope.

12 Well, it turns out the slope is 

13 flat. Doesn't go down. And that doesn't make 

14 sense. And I think it doesn't make sense for 

15 the following reason. I hope everybody is 

16 following the story, because it's interesting.

17 What NIOSH did is in the 1958 data 

18 which was collected just prior to the start of 

19 the new operations, the other uranium 

20 operations, is they picked the highest dust 

21 loading.

22 So, I think they substantially 
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1 overestimated what the airborne -- what the 

2 average airborne dust loading was in the air in 

3 1958, the end of the residual period because 

4 they picked the highest number.

5 So, all of a sudden it appears when 

6 you look at the slope, that you start at a given 

7 concentration and it really doesn't go down. 

8 It stays flat. And that would say to yourself, 

9 well, something doesn't look right, the numbers 

10 should be going down.

11 I think the numbers are not going 

12 down because the conservative assumption made 

13 regarding what the airborne dust loading was at 

14 the end of the residual period.

15 To me, I would have taken an 

16 approach that said, let's start the residual 

17 period with the 5,000 dpm per cubic meter and 

18 allow it to decline at 0.00067 per day, or 

19 alternatively use the average airborne dust 

20 loading observed in 1958 prior to the start of 

21 the other uranium operations.

22 So, I think from a scientifically --
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1 from a scientific point of view, I think that 

2 is a simpler strategy and seems to make more 

3 sense as applied to this class of problem.

4 I believe it's certainly a 

5 tractable problem. In my opinion, it is not an 

6 SEC issue, but I do think a little more thought 

7 could be given to maybe there's a better way to 

8 come at the problem that more realistically 

9 represents what might have taken place during 

10 the residual period. And that's my story.

11 CHAIR BEACH: John, this is Josie. 

12 Did you address the post-DU operational period 

13 from '79 to 1984?

14 DR. MAURO: Not at all. Not at all.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Not at all?

16 DR. MAURO: My -- think of it like 

17 this. My mission was look at the use of 

18 TBD-6000 as a surrogate for your approach in 

19 dealing with the 1950 to 1955 machining 

20 operations. There was no data. No bioassay 

21 or air sampling data.

22 And also for the residual period 
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1 that -- the residual uranium from 1955 to '58, 

2 it's not there.

3 I did not move on and look at the 

4 period where different kinds of uranium 

5 operations took place and where you do have 

6 considerable bioassay and air sampling data. 

7 I did not look at that.

8 So, my report, my White Paper only 

9 addresses, I would say, would be the uranium op 

10 exposures that occur from 1950 up to 1958.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Understand. 

12 And this paper, is anybody reviewing it now, or 

13 is it with Nancy also?

14 DR. MAURO: It's been with Ron. Ron 

15 has reviewed it.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Ron's got it, okay.

17 DR. MAURO: And he has come back with 

18 comments and we are working them out.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

20 DR. MAURO: And, Joe, I think we're 

21 in the home stretch on this one also.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, within a week 
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1 or two. Just this '79 to '84 as I recall, and 

2 I don't have the ER right in front of me, but 

3 was that a TBD-6000 treatment of the residual 

4 period post-DU operation?

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: '79 to '84. '79 is 

6 when we say mag-thorium machining op stopped.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Uh-huh.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: And at that point, we 

9 tried settling and resuspension, I believe, and 

10 that doesn't get us a favorable number. And 

11 so, we go back to keeping the airborne 

12 concentration from the engineered control 

13 limit consistent throughout the time frame.

14 And Mutty would like to address 

15 John's concern about why don't we stick with 

16 Battelle 6000 airborne generating value 

17 instead of settling and resuspending.

18 It speaks to -- it needs to resemble 

19 true operations, I think is the point. Do you 

20 want to go ahead and elaborate, Mutty?

21 MR. SHARFI: Sure. This is Mutty 

22 Sharfi. The reason why even in 6000 that they 
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1 settle operational -- or air concentrations for 

2 a non-operational period is if you took the 

3 operational period, the source term is really 

4 changing. You're going from airborne 

5 concentrations associated with operational 

6 source terms to airborne concentrations 

7 related to just pure resuspension of materials.

8 So, you would expect once 

9 operations stopped, to see, you know, kind of 

10 a stair step drop to a new, you know, a new 

11 baseline and then you start from the new 

12 baseline.

13 So, though, using the operational 

14 period, the bounding can be done, I guess, as 

15 an extreme case. Generally you prefer to 

16 calculate what the proposed operational 

17 situation will look like and then resuspend 

18 that because really your only source term at 

19 that point, resuspending contamination is not 

20 new dust created from operations.

21 DR. MAURO: I understand and I cannot 

22 disagree with that. It would be interesting to 
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1 see how different they are.

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

3 just did a back-of-the-envelope calculation. 

4 If you believe the 10 to the minus five number, 

5 you have to have something like 500 million dpm 

6 per square meter of your --

7 DR. MAURO: So, it's just plausible.

8 DR. NETON: It's just not plausible. 

9 I mean, I don't know how many grams per square 

10 meter that is, but it would be a veritable 

11 pillow of uranium laying on the ground.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Something to trip 

13 over.

14 DR. NETON: Yes. So, it just 

15 doesn't seem like a plausible number if you 

16 believe the 10 to the minus five.

17 DR. MAURO: It was something that I, 

18 you know, I wanted to talk about as a Work Group 

19 and know the strategy, but, no, certainly as you 

20 know from reviewing notes of the '70s 

21 comfortable with the 10 to the minus five 

22 approach to coming up with the airborne dust 
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1 loading at the beginning of the period.

2 The only question we raise, if you 

3 remember, was that the time period that it 

4 accumulated, the 30 days.

5 But as you know when we reviewed 

6 that, you know, we came pretty close. I think 

7 we came up with 50 days being the number.

8 DR. NETON: Right.

9 DR. MAURO: But I, you know, I don't 

10 want to quibble over something that's -- that 

11 doesn't really -- these are Site Profile 

12 issues.

13 DR. NETON: Right.

14 DR. MAURO: And what you just 

15 described to me certainly is a compelling 

16 argument of why you would not start with the 

17 5,000.

18 CHAIR BEACH: All right, Joe. I was 

19 getting confused with all the different dates 

20 and jumping back and forth. So, it looks like 

21 we've got the mag-thorium issue in with this. 

22 It needs to be split out.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll clarify on 

2 this. This is a little confusing with the 

3 thorium and the uranium together. There's two 

4 residual periods we're citing. '79 to '84 is 

5 the thorium.

6 DR. NETON: It kind of runs parallel 

7 for a little while.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: So, I think it would 

9 be clearer to have thorium on one, and uranium 

10 on the other just to keep it straight.

11 CHAIR BEACH: And on this one, so 

12 actions would be to clarify this. You're going 

13 to get the review from John on 6,000. The Work 

14 Group will again have a chance to look at it at 

15 the same time you're looking at it. And then 

16 we'll go from there, I would say.

17 MR. DARNELL: By this one, you mean 

18 Issue 16?

19 CHAIR BEACH: Issue 16, yes. Sorry.

20 DR. NETON: We need to look at that 

21 report when it comes out.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Well, you need 
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1 to look at both the reports that John just cited 

2 since it's not at the table.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Josie.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Arjun.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry I'm a little 

8 late in commenting on the magnesium-thorium. 

9 I had my own phone on mute and I was playing with 

10 *6.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: I just had a question 

13 for John about his -- about part of his 

14 presentation on the daughter products.

15 John, I think you're right for most 

16 of the organs, but as I see the dose conversion 

17 factors for lung, I think the degree of 

18 equilibrium would make a huge difference 

19 because the dose conversion factor for 

20 thorium-238 for lung is about six or seven times 

21 bigger than the dose conversion factor for 

22 thorium-232, for Type M and, you know, the 
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1 particulars are different.

2 DR. MAURO: Arjun, you are bringing 

3 forth -- you are correct. When I made my 

4 scoping calculations to see if these other 

5 radionuclides might be important, I simply 

6 compared the effective whole body dose. I did 

7 not do it by organ.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah.

9 DR. MAURO: So, you bring up a good 

10 criticism that maybe we should be looking at are 

11 there any -- if the other radionuclides were 

12 there in equilibrium, would the -- I only looked 

13 at in terms of the effective whole body dose as 

14 a metric just to get a handle on it, but you're 

15 right. It would be a good idea to actually work 

16 that through to the different organs to 

17 convince yourself that we're 

18 claimant-favorable. Very good point.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, you know, 

20 actually the program works on organ doses. So, 

21 EDE is actually not the right measure.

22 DR. MAURO: No, I -- keep in mind that 
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1 NIOSH's report is silent on this. And when I 

2 got to this part on my White Paper, I said, well, 

3 let me just convince myself that by ignoring the 

4 progeny -- my main interest is radium-228, by 

5 the way.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

7 DR. MAURO: Is there a problem? So, 

8 I went ahead and just did this simple 

9 calculation, but I think you're right.

10 I think it's -- and NIOSH can 

11 certainly weigh in. It's worth looking into. 

12 Is it possible that there might be -- the 

13 thorium-228 is present there in substantial 

14 quantities? Could that have a substantive 

15 effect on your ability on bounding the doses? 

16 I just can't answer that question right now, but 

17 I think it's worth looking into.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, actually, John, 

19 you are right about thorium -- radium-228. The 

20 progeny that's important and I look at these 

21 numbers and I certainly can't see all of them 

22 at the same time, but it's thorium-228 and 
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1 especially for the lung dose.

2 DR. MAURO: Well, yes, thorium-228 

3 is going to be there. I mean, when you separate 

4 the thorium and make your mag-thorium, you're 

5 going to get both probably at least initially 

6 in equilibrium.

7 And the thorium-228 is going to go 

8 away with a 1.91 year half-life. So, it's 

9 gradually going to go away, but of course it's 

10 gradually going to be replaced.

11 So, in theory one could argue that 

12 if there's a substantial -- now, I didn't check 

13 your dose conversion factors for the lung, but 

14 you're saying that the thorium-228 lung dose 

15 conversion factor is substantially higher than 

16 the thorium-232?

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, well, I have it 

18 in front of me. The Type M thorium-228 dose 

19 conversion factor for lung inhalation Type M is 

20 1.81 times 10 to the minus four. And for 

21 thorium-232, let me bring it up so I'm accurate 

22 for the record here, is 2.71 times 10 to the 
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1 minus five. So, it's about a factor of six or 

2 seven higher.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay. Well, it's 

4 certainly something worth developing and 

5 presenting for completeness.

6 DR. NETON: Yes, John, I don't know 

7 that we intended that we would assign just pure 

8 thorium-232 intakes. I mean --

9 DR. MAURO: Yes. Yes, I would agree 

10 that you can come up with some factor that would 

11 be claimant-favorable.

12 I just don't -- but it would make a 

13 significant difference for some claimants. 

14 So, I think it should be looked at.

15 DR. NETON: Yes, there's a number of 

16 ways to look at it.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes.

18 DR. NETON: I mean, they kept the 

19 bounding estimate in terms of gross alpha 

20 concentration. So, then if the gross alpha 

21 concentration is based on a mixture, then the 

22 thorium is lower than what we're saying and 
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1 there's many different ways one can look at this 

2 problem.

3 DR. MAURO: I know it is I think in 

4 simplest terms, right now the SEC Petition 

5 Evaluation Report is silent on this issue.

6 DR. NETON: Right.

7 DR. MAURO: And it leaves you with 

8 the impression that you're simply going to go 

9 with the nine times 10 to the minus 11 

10 microcurie per cc thorium-232 and -- but 

11 nothing is really said about the points that 

12 Arjun is just making.

13 I know I did what I did to convince 

14 myself, oh, that's okay, but it wouldn't hurt 

15 to look into that a little more.

16 DR. NETON: Yes, I agree. So, 

17 whether you write it into your report and we 

18 address it then or we address it on the side, 

19 I don't know. Whichever way you want to do 

20 that.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: I think put it in 

22 the report.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: I was just going to 

2 suggest that.

3 DR. NETON: Great.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: That would make it 

5 easier all the way around.

6 DR. NETON: So, let's just delay the 

7 report a little bit. That's fine.

8 DR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Is that 

9 feasible, John?

10 DR. MAURO: Oh, absolutely. Sure. 

11 This is straightforward stuff.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: That was a hard one, 

13 right?

14 CHAIR BEACH: All right. So, 

15 actions. Anybody else on 16, Issue 16? 

16 Actions I have are SC&A to separate out this 

17 issue to clarify them a little bit more.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll make 16 

19 uranium, and make 13 mag-thorium.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Mag-thorium totally.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And then NIOSH 
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1 to review SC&A's White Paper when it comes out 

2 and to the Work Group also. I think that's all 

3 I have there.

4 Okay. So, let's go to 14.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, on 14 I think 

6 this is one we raised for Brookhaven and some 

7 of the others -- Lawrence Berkeley -- just 

8 scrutinizing the cutoff point.

9 In this case, it was based on the 

10 implementation of 835 and not pre-judging it. 

11 We just want to look at the evidence to more or 

12 less ascertain or validate that the management 

13 of the program in fact tracked with the timing 

14 that's suggested there.

15 And we have not seen anything that 

16 would contradict that, but that's part of what 

17 we're going to be looking at is looking at what 

18 data is available and seeing if anything would 

19 contradict that.

20 At some sites the implementation, 

21 you know, obviously lagged by in some cases a 

22 few years. Even though there was an 
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1 enforcement of 835, it didn't happen instantly 

2 on the -- I wish it did, having lived through 

3 that, but there's a lag. So, we just wanted to 

4 look at that and that's pretty much what's here.

5 Now, I read the response and that's 

6 certainly fine. I mean, I think we're all 

7 saying, you know, it's not going to be crystal 

8 clear, necessarily. But if there's any 

9 evidence to the contrary, the it sounds like 

10 you're flexible to judge that on its merits and 

11 that's fine. That's where we are, too.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Definitely. This 

13 is something I remember you asking Brent about 

14 while we were there and --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, it's getting 

16 to be ancient history surprisingly enough. I 

17 guess that's a sign of aging and --

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: 20 years ago.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, 20 years 

20 already. So, you know, I don't know -- he was 

21 there, but I think he just couldn't recollect, 

22 you know, what the process was to put that 
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1 program fully in place.

2 And I think the fact that they were 

3 in pretty good shape with the rad-con manual 

4 sort of indicates that they weren't in bad shape 

5 necessarily. So, this might bear out as far 

6 as, you know, when they actually made the big 

7 change.

8 MR. DARNELL: So, do we close this 

9 issue with the understanding --

10 CHAIR BEACH: That's what I was going 

11 to say. It's kind of a placeholder, but --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: It's a placeholder 

13 and I don't -- either way. It's up to the Work 

14 Group. I mean, I, like I said, I think it's a 

15 placeholder in the sense that we would want to

16 continue to look for any evidence that would 

17 suggest that implementation lags and --

18 MR. DARNELL: That's actually the 

19 same on any issue that we are to come up with. 

20 Even after we close and if we find something 

21 new, we reopen it.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Right.
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1 MR. DARNELL: So, and that would be 

2 the case with this also.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: It can go either 

4 way. I'll leave it to the Work Group. I don't 

5 have any strong feelings --

6 CHAIR BEACH: Work Group, what's 

7 your pleasure?

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, myself, I'd 

9 rather just keep kind of this in place, you 

10 know, it's --

11 CHAIR BEACH: I guess I'm kind of, of 

12 the mind that we could close it. But if we're 

13 going to do a lot of data capture in the next 

14 several months, the next Work Group meeting if 

15 there's nothing more to add to this one, we can 

16 go ahead and close it at that time.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess my thought, 

18 too, and working on the Los Alamos SEC, I 

19 thought that was kind of a straightforward 

20 question as well, but just trying to come up 

21 with any demonstrable, you know, evidence that, 

22 you know, things happen. It's just taking a 
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1 lot more --

2 DR. NETON: But Los Alamos is a lot 

3 more varied site.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, it is.

5 DR. NETON: Here we have a single 

6 operation.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: So, I'm thinking 

8 this would be straightforward and hopefully it 

9 will be --

10 MR. DARNELL: A little bit more 

11 straightforward.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

13 MR. DARNELL: And I don't think you 

14 can call this issue really straightforward with 

15 any site no matter how simple the site is except 

16 to say that, you know, we think we're done with 

17 it and -- but if anything else comes up, well 

18 -- like anything else, we'll --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess my thought 

20 is, you know, when you hang something on a 

21 compliance date, there's sort of a built in 

22 assumption that they abided and the program 
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1 followed the management direction, but --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Or it took a couple 

3 years to catch up.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: I was just looking 

5 at, you know, okay, what was the actual, you 

6 know, when did they actually --

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, Joe, beyond 

8 the, you know, just beyond the date that 10 CFR 

9 835 was implemented complex-wide, we also 

10 provided an SRDB reference that talks about 

11 audits that were performed on site --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: -- and that they 

14 speak specifically about the process of 

15 implementation there and how far along they 

16 were.

17 And it appeared pretty 

18 comprehensive before the end of '93, that they 

19 had it implemented except for a few small or 

20 non-dose-related issues such as, you know, the 

21 wording on the high radiation sign was not 

22 compliant with the one that's in the manual. 
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1 There were two findings within that audit.

2 And so, yes, you might find post-'93 

3 a few follow-on audits that will have some, you 

4 know, hits identified.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think we can say 

7 largely before the end of '93 that they had a 

8 pretty good implementation of 10 CFR 835 and 

9 we’ve produced in the SRDB documents that speak 

10 to that.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: I'll leave it to the 

12 Work Group. I mean, I think again that was the 

13 reason that was raised. And if this, you know, 

14 I think the documentation that NIOSH can 

15 provide is sufficient, it's a judgment call.

16 CHAIR BEACH: So, I heard from Brad. 

17 He'd like to keep it open. I don't think it 

18 hurts to keep it open until the next Work Group 

19 meeting.

20 Mr. Lockey, what's your thought?

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: I'm okay to keep it 

22 open.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. John, the same? 

2 We'll just go ahead and keep it open and maybe 

3 SC&A would want to look at those SRDBs that are 

4 cited there and report out on it at the next Work 

5 Group meeting.

6 All right. 15, the thorium oxide 

7 operations. Finishing up Action Item 15.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, on thorium 

9 oxide, you know, I think the understanding from 

10 the ER was there were laboratory quantities 

11 being handled. And I think we've verified that 

12 in our interviews onsite.

13 The real question I have is having 

14 looked at the NMMSS Inventory trying to make 

15 heads or tails of some of the references there 

16 where so-called non-alloy thorium was cited in 

17 kilogram quantities, I don't know what that 

18 means.

19 I guess I'll be the first to say it, 

20 you know, just the fact that it's listed doesn't 

21 necessarily mean --

22 MR. DARNELL: I actually know what it 
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1 means and we can't --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

3 MR. DARNELL: -- talk about it.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Well, I 

5 would want to know more about it in order to feel 

6 that, you know, that we're, you know, whether 

7 the references are adequate and, therefore, can 

8 be addressed by the dose reconstruction method.

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, I remember 

10 when Joe Porrovecchio was in the room and Nelson 

11 gave us the spiel on it. He even concluded 

12 toward the end of that --

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

14 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- that, you know, 

15 we would all be looking for a dose pathway. And 

16 he even agreed with my assessment when I heard 

17 it from the previous visit that I didn't really 

18 see a dose pathway there, the material that 

19 we're not allowed to talk about, you know.

20 So, I mean, that's been shaken down 

21 somewhat.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Well, I'm 
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1 saying we're not quite done with that.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Sure.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: I want to -- for the 

4 years, we have the years I think pretty much 

5 from the inventory. I want to just chase that 

6 down a bit more.

7 MR. DARNELL: I think what we can say 

8 is the material was not machined. Its form was 

9 not changed.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Right.

11 MR. DARNELL: And there was no 

12 breaking of the material that would cause a 

13 release of thorium. That's really all I can 

14 say.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. I also want 

16 to look at the incident reports that hopefully 

17 will be able to identify the weeklies and --

18 MR. DARNELL: If there was incident 

19 reports with that stuff, it would be really 

20 strange.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, like I said, 

22 I'd want to take a look at those as well for the 
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1 years -- since we have the years, we actually 

2 could look at those and confirm that there was 

3 nothing.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Joe, on your NMMSS 

5 summary here you have like kilograms, plural, 

6 at the top of the deuterium.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 MR. MCCLOSKEY: And kilogram, 

9 singular, in the bottom three rows.

10 Is there any significance to that?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I didn't want 

12 to get into year-by-year -- not to mention it 

13 would have taken a lot longer into the exact 

14 amount. Kilograms, more than one.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: And they actually 

17 do list a very specific amount. The site had 

18 to report a specific amount. So, I thought it 

19 was just significant that it was certainly 

20 kilograms of material.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, action item 

22 for SC&A wants to review source further and 
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1 incident reports on that one.

2 Anything else on 15?

3 MR. FITZGERALD: More so because we 

4 have years where it was acknowledged to be on 

5 site.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Uh-huh, yes.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: So, it gives us some 

8 lead to look at both the weekly summaries as 

9 well as some other information. That's pretty 

10 much it.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, Bill Frede 

13 produced some documents on thorium oxide. I 

14 don't know where they are.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: That was the whole 

17 exchange of documents through --

18 CHAIR BEACH: That was during our 

19 visit?

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: And so, that might be 

21 worth -- and they're on his computer now. 

22 Remember he said, come on over and --
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, those were the ones 

2 that we're not sure what happened to.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. And so I think 

4 --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Bill Frede?

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Frede, F-R-E-D-E.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: And, you know, we 

9 could easily call him up and say, send them 

10 through Nelson again, we need them, we lost 

11 them.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we might have 

13 to.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: They might speak to 

15 this as well.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Well, they're not 

17 lost. They're just misplaced. They're in 

18 some file, yes. Okay. So, a little more work 

19 to do there.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Not a lot of work.

21 CHAIR BEACH: No, a little work.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: I just think -- I 
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1 think we've actually done a lot of spade work 

2 on it.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Just enough to put 

5 it to bed.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Let's go to 17.

7 MR. DARNELL: I like it because NIOSH 

8 isn't on the hook.

9 CHAIR BEACH: No, no. You're not on 

10 the hook this time. Don't worry. You've got 

11 enough to do.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: On D&D, that simply 

13 was, you know, there was a statement in the ER 

14 that we're looking at D&D confined to '84-'86. 

15 And we wanted to spend time particularly in an 

16 onsite visit validating that D&D was in fact so 

17 limited and we didn't see anything that would 

18 contradict that per se.

19 We actually did a fair amount of 

20 interviews that focused around that time period 

21 when Rockwell did the D&D.

22 What I'd be interested in is not the 
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1 D&D with capital letters, but the d&d with small 

2 letters.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Small letters.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think that 

5 would be accessible maybe through --

6 MR. DARNELL: You're talking about 

7 the machines, the D&D?

8 MR. FITZGERALD: No, just --

9 CHAIR BEACH: Possibly, for me. 

10 Sorry.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: I wasn't going to 

12 say that, but okay. But, you know, just 

13 looking at D&D, that would be of a lesser degree 

14 that was occurring during the history of the 

15 plant and the implications of that.

16 We heard a little bit about it with 

17 cleaning up the machines, but I think we'll see 

18 more of it in some of the weekly reports.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, we don't really 

20 know a lot about the D&D.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think we 

22 know a lot about '84-'86. I think it would be 
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1 helpful to know a little bit more about the 

2 second level down-type cleanups that were going 

3 on unless there were none which I --

4 MR. DARNELL: Which that would be a 

5 grand statement as far as the amount of 

6 radioactive material at the site is if we see 

7 no other D&Ds in those weekly reports.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Well, like this in '64 

9 it says, D22 radiation area, several machines 

10 in this area have been decontaminated and 

11 removed. And in the near future another lathe 

12 and another mill will come out of this area as 

13 well. 

14 So, there was small -- those are the 

15 small type of D&D activities I guess we want to 

16 run to ground a little bit more.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: We do reference one 

18 in the ER and it occurred in '71 or two at the 

19 end of the DU machine ops.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. But then we've 

21 also heard from petitioners that they were 

22 moving things, too. And so, you know, just 
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1 want to have a better understanding of that and 

2 what kind of D&D did they -- did they just blow 

3 it off or did they, you know.

4 MR. DARNELL: But you have to 

5 remember there's a difference between 

6 decontamination and decontamination and 

7 decommissioning.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. Sure. I 

9 understand that.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: I think one thing 

11 that was pretty clear that in terms of a 

12 facility, classic facility decommission 

13 decontamination, I think '84-'86 stands out.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: Right.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't think we've 

17 seen anything or found anything that 

18 contradicts that. So, I'm not particularly 

19 concerned about that, but probably want to 

20 still verify a bit more.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, sure.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't think 
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1 anybody actually said no and what about the you 

2 know, 1972 one, you know. Nothing like that 

3 came up.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

5 MR. DARNELL: The only other thing 

6 that came up was when we talked about taking 

7 down the machines.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: For the machines 

9 themselves, right.

10 MR. DARNELL: It's definitely 

11 something we need to look into just to verify 

12 in the weekly reports. It's when we do those 

13 reviews and --

14 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Yes, this is Joe 

15 Porrovecchio.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Joe.

17 MR. PORROVECCHIO: The (name 

18 redacted) record had a fantastic map 

19 identifying the physical location of equipment 

20 and sources at a point in time that was used in 

21 that case. And that's the kind of thing that 

22 would really help us locate operations and 
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1 activities that we should be tracking down when 

2 we look at the activities reports.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Joe, remind me --

4 MR. PORROVECCHIO: We had an 

5 investigation that happened maybe every ten 

6 years or so, relocation of equipment and where 

7 things stood similar to the way in which (name 

8 redacted) record produced it.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Joe, remind me what 

10 dates that map was that as produced for that 

11 (name redacted ) --

12 MR. PORROVECCHIO: I think it 

13 covered the 1954 time period. And I think the 

14 case was closed in '57.

15 I'm not positive, but that's what I 

16 recall.

17 CHAIR BEACH: And you were thinking 

18 mapping for what years would be helpful?

19 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Well, at a 

20 decade's level from '57 when that (name 

21 redacted) case was over, maybe what was the 

22 situation ten years after that and following 
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1 just so that we could, you know, close the loop 

2 and have a real good understanding physically 

3 what went on at the facility.

4 When a department changed location 

5 and activities so often, that happens.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Wasn't that 

7 something you tagged for retrieval?

8 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Yes, I did. It's 

9 something that will be copied.

10 CHAIR BEACH: So, is that something 

11 that NIOSH could do?

12 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Absolutely. I 

13 think they have --

14 MR. DARNELL: People are already --

15 MR. PORROVECCHIO: -- looking for 

16 investigative records of interviews and work at 

17 the site to be able to do that certainly faster, 

18 more expeditiously than we can, but we can do 

19 that also.

20 CHAIR BEACH: I think --

21 MR. PORROVECCHIO: I'd much rather 

22 NIOSH take the shot at that first.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I think I was 

2 asking NIOSH, Joe, when you answered, and I 

3 think so NIOSH is already working on that.

4 MR. DARNELL: We're already working 

5 on that.

6 CHAIR BEACH: So, it's kind of like 

7 a roadmap without saying that word from Mound, 

8 but --

9 MR. DARNELL: Well, we've been 

10 collecting maps as we've been going along --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

12 MR. DARNELL: -- because areas have 

13 changed. Pat has some of them. We haven't 

14 received all of them yet.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: The other ORAU team 

16 that was there with us in May was there 

17 primarily for that purpose to get maps.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay. So, we may 

19 see something from the '57 to '70 time frame of 

20 -- okay. That would be helpful.

21 MR. DARNELL: And we're actually 

22 hoping, you know, as early in operations as 
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1 possible through.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it sounds like we 

3 already have a pretty good one from '58.

4 MR. DARNELL: Mid '50s.

5 CHAIR BEACH: '58 to -- or '54 to '57, 

6 yes. I think that (name redacted) one hit '54.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: But that was 

8 requested.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Joe tagged it. 

10 So, we should see that. That was a good map. 

11 Maybe we can reproduce it on a smaller level so 

12 we can send it around.

13 MR. DARNELL: I don't know how useful 

14 it would be at a small level, because there's 

15 just so much information.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Well, we could 

17 possibly bring it to Work Group meetings. 

18 Okay. So, that's an action ongoing item, Joe. 

19 That's for reminding me. I had forgotten about 

20 that (name redacted) map.

21 Anything else for D&D for Work Group 

22 members of interest? Questions? I don't 
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1 really have any actions per se on that one.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: That's ongoing.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Ongoing, yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we've got a 

5 good start. We got a good start in May, but I 

6 think it's starting to develop.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, 18, 

8 accidents and incidents. Does anyone want a 

9 break before we continue on or where are you 

10 guys at?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we were, you 

12 know, beyond the erbium tritide, post-97 

13 incident and '89 promethium, we were looking at 

14 what body of records existed on incidents or 

15 events onsite.

16 One focus was looking for any 

17 evidence of fires or spills and we had not found 

18 those.

19 There was some reference in the ER 

20 that those -- that data might be in the 

21 individual files. I think that was one comment 

22 that was in there.
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1 And during the visit we did come 

2 across the weekly activity reports and I think 

3 that's what we want to focus on as far as trying 

4 to review the event history for the site and see 

5 what that can basically lend itself in part as 

6 far as incidents.

7 And looking at the sampling we did, 

8 that was just very rich. I mean, they 

9 literally report everything that was happening 

10 operationally from fires to who was exposed to 

11 organic to who might have been exposed to 

12 radiological exposures. A couple of those. 

13 And it just seems like it would be a good way 

14 to understand the operational history in terms 

15 of what was the incidents.

16 So, I think that one I was feeling 

17 less optimistic before the visit. But having 

18 seen those weeklies, I think that's going to 

19 help a great deal.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: And we don't have 

22 any issues or questions on the promethium. The 
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1 two big ones have been cited. Certainly the 

2 tritide and promethium. I think that was 

3 pretty well covered.

4 CHAIR BEACH: And then we're moving 

5 one action from three over to there.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

7 CHAIR BEACH: And then the thorium 

8 mag fires is captured. So, okay. All right. 

9 Anybody else on 18?

10 19, potentially unmonitored 

11 exposures.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: This is a 

13 petitioner issue. And it was the one 

14 petitioner issue we felt we wanted to lock down 

15 to a greater extent.

16 And we understand NIOSH's position 

17 that there was no evidence of verified 

18 exposures to the source terms, but given the 

19 list we thought we would take the opportunity 

20 and validate and walk down that list.

21 And I think just based on the onsite 

22 viewing and the records research, I think we 
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1 have in fact were able to validate that no 

2 plutonium, no weapons grade-235 or 233 were 

3 present except in gram quantities in sealed 

4 sources and maybe some isolated instances.

5 And we heard a couple of these, a 

6 fugitive contamination on returns which is not 

7 uncommon.

8 And on the external radiation 

9 sources, again I think, and Ron spent some time 

10 looking at that, I think we're also comfortable 

11 with that.

12 Tritium obviously which we'll talk 

13 about this new issue we're proposing, is a 

14 slightly different issue. Just the sampling 

15 on the microfilm we found certainly evidence 

16 that tritium was being received in bulk 

17 quantities and rebottled --

18 MR. DARNELL: Well, let's finish 19 

19 before we discuss --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I know. I'm 

21 just saying -- so, in any case, certainly for 

22 tritium was one issue that we felt on this list, 
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1 on the petitioner's list we needed to do further 

2 research on that. So, that's kind of where it 

3 is.

4 And we're looking -- I don't think 

5 there's any disagreement we're looking for 

6 verified exposures. I think that was the term 

7 that's used in your response. And I think 

8 that's the same criterion I think the Work Group 

9 would be looking at.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: And we will continue 

11 looking for those regardless --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: -- of this issue.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. So, I think 

15 in general we're pretty satisfied except for 

16 tritium --

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: -- that this is 

19 covered.

20 CHAIR BEACH: So, everything on this 

21 list other than tritium which we've now moved 

22 to 20 --
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Because I think --

2 CHAIR BEACH: -- is covered.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: -- it's an 

4 activity all by itself.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Is there any reason to 

6 not close this based on further data capture and 

7 --

8 MR. DARNELL: Well, this is -- this 

9 again goes back to that age-old question do we 

10 close it out even though we know we're going to 

11 be looking for this stuff anyways?

12 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Pete, if we find 

14 something --

15 MR. DARNELL: If we hear a rumor of 

16 something, we're going to go track that rumor 

17 down.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, or it becomes a 

19 new issue.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

21 CHAIR BEACH: So, okay. What's your 

22 pleasure, Work Group? Close?
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1 MEMBER LOCKEY: Close it.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. With the --

3 knowing that we moved tritium to Number 20. 

4 Okay. So, this one can be considered closed.

5 All right. Let's move on to 20.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Now tritium.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Now.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Now tritium. 

9 CHAIR BEACH: And just before you 

10 start, Joe, understand for the Work Group if you 

11 look under -- which one is it?

12 MR. FITZGERALD: And that's a pretty 

13 good summary. I guess I won't even --

14 CHAIR BEACH: If you look at Number 

15 8, that summary should be under Number 20.

16 MR. DARNELL: So, we're going to 

17 combine Eight and 20?

18 CHAIR BEACH: No.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: No.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Only your response 

21 that actually should have fell under --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Eight is tritides, 
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1 but the tritium response was tacked on the end 

2 of --

3 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

4 CHAIR BEACH: I just wanted the Work 

5 Group to remember where that response was.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

7 DR. NETON: We generated a response 

8 prior to your adding 20. We wanted to make sure 

9 --

10 (Laughter.)

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, it didn't seem 

13 to fit very well in that one. So, in any case, 

14 though, and I thought the extracted summary was 

15 a good one.

16 Looking at these microfilm weeklies 

17 for mid-'64 for no other reason than it just 

18 happened to be on that roll --

19 MR. DARNELL: Hundreds of small 

20 bottles of tritium.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, you know, 200 

22 plus bottles of -- four-ounce bottles of 
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1 tritium were being filled from an eight-gallon 

2 I think -- yes, from Los Alamos.

3 I said, well, that's interesting. 

4 I had no other idea they, you know, clearly 

5 compartmentalized it so they wouldn't discuss 

6 what it was being used for.

7 And I think the one piece of -- I 

8 guess it was a document that you all had cited, 

9 it gives you a clue. And I would like to 

10 connect the dots and see if that was -- what was 

11 the phosphors? I think it was phosphors? Was 

12 it tritiated phosphors? Tritiated phosphors

13 was something that Kansas City was dabbling in.

14 MR. DARNELL: Prepared a tritiated 

15 phosphor --

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

17 MR. DARNELL: -- within an exhaust 

18 fan.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: And it was the same 

20 time frame, roughly. So, it's suggestive of --

21 that was the '60s too.

22 CHAIR BEACH: It's mentioned five or 
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1 six times within a three-month time period of 

2 what you captured.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: '68.

4 CHAIR BEACH: '68.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: And this is '64. 

6 So, that's a possibility that they were doing 

7 that.

8 And the memos that were going back 

9 and forth on that with Bendix suggested that 

10 certainly they were doing that later.

11 So, this might in fact be the source 

12 of the tritium that was being used for that.

13 Why were they filling up hundreds of 

14 bottles? I don't really know. I don't know 

15 what the process was.

16 MR. DARNELL: It looks like 

17 something they were doing for Sandia.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Maybe.

19 MR. DARNELL: For some reason.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: They were 

21 reflective enough though to ask Sandia for 

22 procedures on doing bioassays and setting up a 
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1 bioassay program.

2 At least we'll think that if they 

3 can carry it through, then there very well may 

4 be some bioassay records.

5 DR. NETON: We don't have any tritium 

6 bioassay.

7 MR. DARNELL: That's part of the 

8 bioassay we're going after in the medical 

9 records.

10 DR. NETON: What year was this?

11 MR. DARNELL: '64.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: '64 is when it 

13 started.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Started in --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Don't know when it 

16 stopped.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Well, we don't know --

18 MR. DARNELL: And we actually don't 

19 know when it really started. It sure looks 

20 like it did, but there's nothing that says in 

21 what little bit we have.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: You got the big 
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1 bottle and you got the little bottles and --

2 MR. DARNELL: But we don't have the 

3 pouring yet.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: We don't have the 

5 pouring yet, but the big bottle arrived. It's 

6 sort of like you're looking at weeklies and you 

7 get to the point where the big bottles arrive 

8 and they have those little bottles ready. So, 

9 it's like, you know, probably did happen.

10 MR. DARNELL: When Pat and I 

11 calculated it, mainly Pat. What's the dose 

12 consequence of the -

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Tritiums.

14 MR. DARNELL: And Pat came up with, 

15 what is it, 450 -

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Not much.

17 MR. DARNELL: Yes. 455 millirem --

18 456 millirem if they drank all eight gallons.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: If they drank eight 

20 gallons.

21 MR. DARNELL: Okay. So, again, 

22 being as conservative as possible, we're not 
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1 talking about a dosimetrically significant 

2 event here, but it is something that we need to 

3 --

4 CHAIR BEACH: I like the fact that 

5 they --

6 MR. DARNELL: Eight gallons of water 

7 will kill you.

8 CHAIR BEACH: I like the fact that 

9 they were looking for Carter ink. It's 

10 specific to what kind of ink that they were 

11 going to write on the bottles with.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: They were very, 

13 very explicit by what they --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

15 MR. DARNELL: I think that once we 

16 get the weeklies, we'll be able to track this 

17 down very easily.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, boy. And then 

19 we'll --

20 MR. DARNELL: Jim, you look like you 

21 have a question.

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: No, no, I'm just --
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1 I was just going to say they sell them in the 

2 gift shop, but --

3 (Laughter.)

4 CHAIR BEACH: When they were 

5 purchasing, they were getting the water from 

6 Sandia. So, it would be interesting that they 

7 were actually -- because Sandia was selling 

8 them the water. So, I wouldn't think it was 

9 going to Sandia.

10 They were selling it back. See, it 

11 doesn't make sense in that -- in those terms.

12 MR. DARNELL: Yes, you're right.

13 MEMBER POSTON: When I was at ORNL, 

14 there was some guy who came up with an idea and 

15 actually manufactured little key chains like 

16 this where they embedded in plastic a small, 

17 stainless steel disk that was covered with a 

18 small amount of uranium-235.

19 CHAIR BEACH: What year was that?

20 MEMBER POSTON: I don't remember, 

21 but I have one.

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: I wouldn't be 
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1 surprised.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Of course you do.

3 MEMBER POSTON: I do. And it 

4 actually -- there was so much helium gas 

5 generated that it blew the top off of it.

6 (Laughter.)

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, that takes 

9 us through the --

10 MR. FITZGERALD: We have the SEC 

11 coming up. Thought I'd throw that in.

12 MEMBER POSTON: Well, I was there for 

13 13 years. I can't tell you, but my -- had a 

14 friend lived across the street who was in public 

15 relations. And he came across the street and 

16 gave me one. I said, okay.

17 CHAIR BEACH: So, we're finished 

18 with the issues matrix items. I did want to 

19 give -- Maurice, did you have --

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: I've kind of sat 

22 back. I want to understand more about TBD-6000 
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1 and understand how we're using this. Because

2 my understanding was, was TBD-6000 was designed 

3 for uranium facilities only and the process of 

4 that.

5 And I can understand why we are 

6 using it for this one part of it, but the issue 

7 that I have is if there are any other operations 

8 going on during that time period that are 

9 different than that, to me it looks like a 

10 severe problem.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, one use of 

12 TBD-6000 for the mag-thorium machining ops, we 

13 just use the methodology or the ratioing of what 

14 amount of exposure a supervisor would get in 

15 relationship to an operator.

16 We think that that 

17 operator/supervisor-type ratio holds up with 

18 most machining-type operations including with 

19 mag-thorium.

20 And so, that's the only way we use 

21 TBD-6000 for thorium.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.
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1 MR. McCLOSKEY: If that's your 

2 question.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: That's part of it. 

4 And then the other question is if we are using 

5 it for the other people in the earlier years.

6 It's we're using TBD-6000 --

7 DR. NETON: Just the uranium 

8 operations.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. But if we 

10 have any other operations going on at the same 

11 time as that --

12 DR. NETON: Such as?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: What?

14 DR. NETON: I don't know what other 

15 operations were going on at the same time.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and see this 

17 is --

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Like non-rad 

19 operations.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, no. If we 

21 had any, you know, we're machining the plugs for 

22 something else, but we still have operations 
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1 going on in the facility that I believe that 

2 were radioactive parts and pieces that were 

3 going for other things.

4 MR. DARNELL: Like what?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, they were 

6 into the weapons complex already then, okay. 

7 They were using -- they were building parts for 

8 the weapons.

9 And as we've seen earlier, you know, 

10 I just want to make sure because I keep hearing 

11 -- one of the things they throw out is that, you 

12 know, well, the Board approved TBD-6000. Why 

13 do you have a problem with it?

14 When I approved TBD-6000, it was 

15 very cut and dry what we used it for. Now, all 

16 of a sudden it seems like it is branching out 

17 and growing leaves and growing --

18 DR. NETON: But, Brad, it's not. I 

19 mean, it's a lathing operation that we're 

20 applying it to just like what's used in Kingsley 

21 and Harris.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 
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1 that, Jim, but if through our work here we see 

2 another process that is going on during that 

3 time period, it's --

4 DR. NETON: Well, all bets are off 

5 then.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. I just -- I 

7 want to make sure that --

8 DR. NETON: It's still applicable to 

9 that operation.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: It is and I want to 

11 make this clear. I have no problems with that, 

12 but I don't think that that was the only thing 

13 going on.

14 DR. NETON: Well, the other piece of 

15 the puzzle is that we do have apparently some 

16 bioassay data for that time period.

17 MR. DARNELL: We think we do.

18 DR. NETON: We think we do.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

20 DR. NETON: If we can get it out of 

21 these medical records for $70,000.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.
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1 MR. McCLOSKEY: You said you didn't 

2 know what other operations could have been 

3 going on at the time, but we didn't even know 

4 about the U-nat machining until we started this 

5 process and we discovered that.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: And so, I mean, we're 

8 looking hard for any --

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I'm not saying 

10 you aren't. I just -- I just want to make sure 

11 that we keep in mind what TBD-6000 was designed 

12 for.

13 And I have no problems with us using 

14 it for that portion of it. But when all of a 

15 sudden other processes start, you know, come 

16 into that, I just -- that's an issue.

17 MR. DARNELL: I think we all agree 

18 with you there.

19 DR. NETON: And the other piece of 

20 the issue that I think we need to demonstrate, 

21 it's not automatic TBD-6000 that can be used. 

22 We need to demonstrate the conditions that were 
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1 there are comparable and match up with what --

2 MR. DARNELL: I think John --

3 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, that was --

5 really the task was to very early on -- in fact 

6 I think that was the first thing started -- we 

7 went to John because he had spent so much time 

8 with 6000 and said walk it down from A to Z and 

9 make sure that it applies all the way across and 

10 all the factors are considered.

11 And I think we did look on the 

12 natural uranium and did not see any other source 

13 terms that would be a problem. That was a part 

14 of also looking at -- now, thorium we mentioned 

15 that we still have a question mark. Just 

16 wanted to hammer it, make sure that was the case 

17 with thorium.

18 But other than that, no, I don't 

19 think there's any issues on uranium.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and how it 

21 applies and to whom it applies, that all has to 

22 be addressed. Like John threw something out, 
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1 but there's two conversations that need to 

2 happen on that.

3 DR. NETON: Yes, I think that sort of 

4 falls in the category of example dose 

5 reconstructions and how we would treat 

6 different classes of workers, that sort of 

7 thing.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

9 MR. DARNELL: And I think a lot of 

10 what John said validated what we've put in the 

11 ER to the point of saying that we were 

12 conservative with our estimations.

13 But as Brad has pointed out, you 

14 know, if anything changes along the way, we have 

15 to change what we've done so far and we're 

16 continuing to look.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks for pointing 

18 that out and -- anything else?

19 DR. MAURO: This is John. I'm sorry 

20 to interrupt. I heard mention that TBD-6000 

21 was used at some later time period and I have 

22 to say that I did not look at any later time 
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1 period.

2 CHAIR BEACH: No. No, no.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no.

4 CHAIR BEACH: No, John.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, John, that may 

6 have been me saying it wrong. I just wanted to 

7 clarify what my interpretation of what TBD-6000 

8 was designed for, what it was used for.

9 And if other -- during that 

10 machining process if something else came in 

11 there that, you know, this was a problem for me, 

12 I just wanted to make sure and go on the record 

13 as stating that.

14 DR. MAURO: Okay, thank you.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Thanks, John.

16 CHAIR BEACH: So, for the next hour 

17 or so I want to go ahead and give the petitioners 

18 a chance to talk to this last section. And then 

19 talk about path forward here and you should 

20 still be out of here by 3:30 at that point since 

21 we're right at 2:30.

22 Maurice, do you have anything that 
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1 you would like to add? Anything new to this 

2 last topic that we've been discussing?

3 MR. COPELAND: Well, for the last 

4 topic --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Can you come up to the 

6 table again? Thank you.

7 MR. COPELAND: Probably what I'm 

8 going to relate to you is something that you can 

9 think about --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

11 MR. COPELAND: -- when you're 

12 analyzing certain things. I hear that there's 

13 a problem with the connection of an exposure of 

14 a supervisor and the worker on certain bounds.

15 And I have that experience myself. 

16 And it's kind of rare. I filed a claim and 

17 formaldehyde was one of my -- was what I was 

18 considering as an exposure.

19 Well, they told me that the 

20 likelihood of me being overexposed to 

21 formaldehyde was not likely because I was a 

22 supervisor, but the workers, you know, would 
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1 get different consideration.

2 Now, the workers that they were 

3 talking about of course were the tool and die 

4 makers and the model makers and it would be 

5 machinists too because of the phenolic. 

6 Phenolic is a formaldehyde base.

7 They didn't take in consideration I 

8 was a machinist for 19 years and I was a tool 

9 and die maker and a model maker for eight years. 

10 So, how could you exclude me just because I was 

11 a supervisor when I filed my claim?

12 So, you all, you know, that can help 

13 you think about a person's work record and work 

14 history.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. Yes, and I 

16 think that was brought up earlier --

17 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

18 CHAIR BEACH: -- during that very 

19 first topic we were talking about this morning.

20 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

21 MR. DARNELL: Generally, though, 

22 when we do a dose reconstruction --
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1 MR. COPELAND: I'm sorry?

2 MR. DARNELL: Generally when we do a 

3 dose reconstruction for a person like you which 

4 had supervisory experience, machinist 

5 experience and so on, we'll apply the worst 

6 case.

7 So, if your worst case dose 

8 potential was as a machinist, from a radiation 

9 standpoint you get the dose from a machinist, 

10 not the dose from the supervisor.

11 MR. COPELAND: Okay. Okay. 

12 Another thing, the waste handlers, the people 

13 that handled the waste, in your investigation 

14 I hope you notice that in the '90s waste 

15 management was completely re-manned.

16 Now, you got to realize people 

17 handled -- the people that were in that job 

18 handled that job in waste management for 20, 30 

19 years and all of them were taken out of that job 

20 and re-manned by other employees, some new 

21 employees.

22 And the reason that they did that 
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1 was they found out that these people could not 

2 read.

3 Now, how did they protect these 

4 people all of these years that they were in that 

5 job and then when HAZMAT, HAZWOPER training and 

6 all the certification came along, they gave 

7 these people a test and they found out that 

8 these people could not read.

9 Now, I think that's very 

10 embarrassing for the industry, I think it's 

11 very embarrassing for the plant, but that ought 

12 to go into the consideration as to how good did 

13 they protect the people, how much were they 

14 trained.

15 If those people were trained, they 

16 should have found out that they couldn't read 

17 long before that dealing with the hazardous 

18 waste and all the waste. So, consider that, 

19 too.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Was that a large 

21 number of people that --

22 MR. COPELAND: Oh, yes. Of course. 
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1 and like I said, these are long-term employees.

2 CHAIR BEACH: That was in the early 

3 '90s, you said?

4 MR. COPELAND: Yes, it was in the 

5 '90s. And you ought to be able to really get 

6 a good feel on that because they started a 

7 vanilla reading program and put people through 

8 the reading program and they had testimonials 

9 after they completed the reading program.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: KCP conducted that?

11 MR. COPELAND: Yes. Yes. So, you 

12 know, that -- and I think that would kind of 

13 reflect on actually just how much the employees 

14 knew about what they were doing. And because 

15 we indoctrinated that the less you know, the 

16 better off you are.

17 So, that's really all I have to say 

18 about the last portion.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Maurice, I wanted 

20 to ask you one question because I found it 

21 interesting. When you talk about the model 

22 shop, could you explain what the model shop 
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1 actually did?

2 MR. COPELAND: The model shop, we are 

3 just that. We build the models. We build the 

4 prototypes. We build the first part. We take 

5 it through design to production.

6 We build the jigs, the fixtures, 

7 everything to produce the part. Now, these are 

8 not -- these are not permanent fixtures or 

9 permanent jigs.

10 The tool room builds the permanent 

11 production jigs, but we go through -- we start 

12 the work on a napkin. Engineers come down and 

13 we go through the development of the product, 

14 of the parts.

15 Another thing that we do that --

16 this should be very important to the SEC. I've 

17 termed it autopsies. We did autopsies.

18 We would get a unit in from Pantex, 

19 wherever, and some -- we might recover -- we 

20 could have an assembly unit and we may want to 

21 recover a unit out of assembly, but they don't 

22 want to take it all apart.
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1 Well, we will locate it, locate 

2 where the unit is and go in, we'll cut out a hole 

3 or something to get the access -- to access the 

4 part and bring it out.

5 Now, it was rumors and we know that 

6 sometimes they will come back and they will say, 

7 well, this thing was contaminated. And that's 

8 all we would ever hear about that the unit was 

9 contaminated. That's all we hear.

10 Contained with what? I don't know, 

11 but I know that some of the units came from 

12 Pantex. They might have come just from some 

13 engineer at Sandia or some engineer somewhere 

14 out there that wants something.

15 CHAIR BEACH: This is part of our 

16 interview notes, too, from the last visit to 

17 Kansas City just because you discussed this at 

18 that time, too.

19 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

20 CHAIR BEACH: In case somebody wants 

21 to look at those notes.

22 MR. COPELAND: Yes, and a lot of 
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1 those -- a lot of those remnants, you know, was 

2 -- I call them "scary" now. I didn't call them 

3 "scary" then, because some of that stuff would 

4 -- some of these things would ooze out fluids, 

5 green fluids, you know, and it would mix in with 

6 the coolants that we didn't use because we can't 

7 use coolant, but the machine had coolants in it. 

8 And when it oozes it, it's in the machine, you 

9 know, go down in the machine.

10 We wouldn't be using coolants at the 

11 time, but it would go down in there and that 

12 stuff would stay there, because we're not going 

13 to change the coolant just because something 

14 oozed out of it, you know, but we would get back 

15 words a lot of times that the units were 

16 contaminated.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: So, the model shop 

18 does a lot of this prototype work and then they 

19 could also assign jobs where they cut open and 

20 --

21 MR. COPELAND: Oh, yes.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: -- do autopsies.
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1 MR. COPELAND: Yes, we did -- that's 

2 what I call them. Autopsies, you know. 

3 Recovering units. Recovering -- and we did a 

4 lot of destruction.

5 I gave you a name of a guy named 

6 [identifying information redacted]. And that 

7 was the one with the tritium.

8 They wouldn't tell me what the units 

9 were contaminated with. [Identifying 

10 information redacted] was the ES&H guy on the 

11 job. [Identifying information redacted] was 

12 the guy that came in from Rocky Flats and he went 

13 to work for ES&H.

14 I had a guy that gets sick which I 

15 didn't -- it didn't relate as far as I'm 

16 concerned to the job, but they wanted to talk 

17 to him, but he was in the hospital.

18 I told them he was in the hospital. 

19 And they said, well, when he comes back, we want 

20 to talk to him.

21 Okay. He came back. [Identifying 

22 information redacted] and about four or five 
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1 other people came up. [Identifying 

2 information redacted] was talking to him. 

3 Other people were looking around just observing 

4 him.

5 And I wanted to know after watching 

6 this, I wanted to know what was the source of 

7 contamination, you know.

8 I work with him. I set the job up. 

9 I'm the one that we adjust them down with the 

10 face mask that eventually they said you didn't 

11 need to wear it and we were destroying these 

12 parts. We were still in the destruction.

13 We destroyed configurations. So, 

14 it was a classified job. Okay. Well, they 

15 wouldn't tell me what it was, what the source 

16 of contamination was.

17 I was pretty upset about that and I 

18 was looking over their shoulder. This one guy 

19 sitting back at the desk and he was the one 

20 writing on a piece of paper. And I looked over 

21 his shoulder and I know doggone well I saw 

22 "tritium" on that paper.
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1 There was about five -- five 

2 different substances and I know -- I know I saw 

3 tritium on there and I don't know if that was 

4 the source, but I know I saw it.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: So, you were 

6 destroying a lot of these pieces?

7 MR. COPELAND: Oh, yes.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: And in what way were 

9 you destroying them? Were you cutting them 

10 with --

11 MR. COPELAND: Cutting them up.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Under the saw, okay.

13 MR. COPELAND: Cutting them up on the 

14 machine. On a lathe.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: Just so you couldn't 

16 recognize the classified shape anymore.

17 MR. COPELAND: Right. And we did a 

18 lot of that.

19 CHAIR BEACH: What time period was 

20 that; do you remember?

21 MR. COPELAND: That was in the -- was 

22 in the '90s.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. COPELAND: About the mid-'90s in 

3 the model shop.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I'll let you 

5 understand why I asked, Maurice will be able to 

6 tell us this, is because when I think of the 

7 model shop, I think of something harmless, you 

8 know, putting little stuff together.

9 But the whole process of this and 

10 what I found interesting in Kansas City was they 

11 received everything back from be it Pantex, be 

12 it wherever. These parts came back to them.

13 It was part of their QA program to 

14 be able to go through these after they had been 

15 on the line for so long like that. They were 

16 continuously making improvements to it. They 

17 were seeing different wear process and 

18 everything else like that.

19 To get to a lot of these parts, they 

20 came back as -- what can I say? They came back 

21 as one big part and they had to cut these out 

22 of there.
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1 So, you have a lot of other things 

2 coming back with these potentially. And I just 

3 wanted to make sure that we understood that when 

4 I thought of model shop, I was totally thinking 

5 of something different until I got in and 

6 started finding out what the whole process was.

7 Because this was the beginning of it 

8 to basically bringing everything all back and 

9 seeing how it did sitting out there for 10, 20 

10 years. And that's -- I just wanted to make sure 

11 that all of us understood what --

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: The model shop was 

13 also where we say in the ER that the mag-thorium 

14 machining, most of the mag-thorium machining 

15 occurred from '57 to '75. So, that's the space 

16 for that.

17 MR. COPELAND: Yes, we prove in -- we 

18 prove in everything for production. We prove 

19 it in from our fixtures, our jigs. When it goes 

20 into production, ours is not permanent. Like 

21 I said, the tool room does the permanent stuff. 

22 It's design-build in the model shop once we get 
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1 it all.

2 And we build the first part. We 

3 also build the first part from the fixtures and 

4 the jigs and it goes to the design agency where 

5 --

6 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Yes, this is Joe 

7 Porrovecchio. I have two questions, Maurice.

8 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

9 MR. PORROVECCHIO: One question is 

10 when you destructively accessed some parts, was 

11 that the entire unit like the reentry heat 

12 shield that you'd have to cut through?

13 MR. COPELAND: Did you say the entire 

14 part? Yes, it would be -- well, we are just --

15 if it was the configuration that they wanted to 

16 remove, that's how we would remove it.

17 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Uh-huh.

18 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

19 MR. PORROVECCHIO: Okay. And the 

20 second question is, do you have any samples or 

21 relics that may be analyzed or looked at by the 

22 Work Group?
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1 MR. COPELAND: No. No, that stuff 

2 is --

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: It never left the 

4 site, Joe.

5 MR. COPELAND: No, no, no.

6 (Simultaneous speaking.)

7 MR. COPELAND: I wish I did. I wish 

8 I did.

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 CHAIR BEACH: Maurice, do you have 

11 anything else for us?

12 MR. COPELAND: No.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you very 

14 much for your comments.

15 MR. KNOX: I will be short.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

17 MR. KNOX: And it's just I'm sitting 

18 back here thinking about the good old days in 

19 the '60s when I was a young Air Force officer 

20 and radiation physicist in foreign technology.

21 Our job was to prevent a 

22 technological surprise. And we can, shall I 
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1 say, collected things.

2 And it looks like to me and I don't 

3 know this for sure, and I can speak to it because 

4 I only look at the foreign side of the coin, but 

5 it looks like the Kansas City Plant was set up 

6 as a special repository for material that was 

7 collected and needed to be worked on and 

8 flipped, that technology could be flipped into

9 our industry.

10 It's interesting that it was 

11 classified as a non-nuclear facility, which is 

12 one of the normal plausible deniability 

13 schemes.

14 If you look at the materials that 

15 they think that facility had, it had the 

16 materials and capabilities to build and test 

17 atomic bombs. Think about it.

18 It had tritium, you know. They use 

19 that tritium to provide a little more oomph to 

20 the bomb, right? 

21 Think about Teapot and --

22 MR. DARNELL: Those are topics that 
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1 are getting onto things that we cannot discuss 

2 in this meeting.

3 MR. KNOX: I don't know about it 

4 though. I'm just speculating. I only worked 

5 foreign side of the whole house.

6 MR. DARNELL: I'm letting you know, 

7 sir --

8 MR. KNOX: But it still represents 

9 exposure to the workers and that's what we're 

10 talking about. You don't want to talk about 

11 those things.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Let me tell you what we 

13 want to talk about is specific to Kansas City 

14 during --

15 MR. KNOX: That's what I'm talking 

16 about. Specific to Kansas City.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, but that is 

18 outside the realm of the topics that we've 

19 discussed today.

20 MR. KNOX: Okay. Okay. I thought 

21 we were about exposure -- let's move on then. 

22 You're talking about thorium oxide exposure.
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1 As I recall when they use that stuff 

2 to make U-233, you have the high-ingrowth of 

3 gamma -- high gamma emitters, didn't you?

4 MR. DARNELL: 232, yes.

5 MR. KNOX: So, I don't know if that's 

6 taken into consideration here.

7 MR. DARNELL: The thorium oxide 

8 powder at this site, all the information we have 

9 on that is that it was used as a laboratory 

10 standard.

11 So, there was not a dose 

12 significance to the general population of the 

13 plant from that thorium oxide powder.

14 MR. KNOX: Yes, but where did you get 

15 the U-233 from?

16 MR. DARNELL: We did not get the 

17 U-233.

18 MR. KNOX: It says it here.

19 MR. DARNELL: I don't know where 

20 this document came from.

21 MR. KNOX: That came from the Site 

22 Exposure Matrix. And the Site Exposure Matrix 
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1 is supposed to represent materials that were 

2 found at the plant.

3 This sheet here from the Site 

4 Exposure Matrix said that you have the metal. 

5 Do you know what the metal -- the metal was the 

6 fuel. That's what it was called.

7 You have a lot of -- you have things 

8 that -- like stable alloy and I think -- I'm not 

9 sure, but some other organization developed 

10 that because they were testing a lot of metals 

11 in -- metal alloys.

12 Were you guys here testing all of 

13 these metal alloys, or were you a repository for 

14 a lot of these metal alloys that were being 

15 tested associated with the development of the 

16 atomic bomb? Because it would have 

17 represented a significant exposure given that 

18 you did not have any health physicists.

19 And that is the most interesting 

20 part of this whole thing is that you have all 

21 of these radioactive materials and you did not 

22 have health physicists. You classified the 
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1 facility as a non-nuclear facility. Plausible 

2 deniability.

3 Because if I don't have anyone 

4 training in the detection of this material, it 

5 never happened.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

7 MR. KNOX: Now, the other issues --

8 MR. DARNELL: Before you move on to 

9 the next issue, I'm looking at the Department 

10 of Labor's Site Exposure Matrix for the Kansas 

11 City Plant. None of this is included.

12 MR. KNOX: It is.

13 MR. DARNELL: So, where did you get 

14 this?

15 MR. KNOX: From the Kansas City Site 

16 Exposure --

17 MR. DARNELL: I'm looking at it right 

18 now at the Site Exposure Matrix.

19 MR. KNOX: Well, I copied this from 

20 it. Now, the only difference is that I went 

21 down and put in special nuclear materials and 

22 identified it. I highlighted the metal and 
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1 said the metal was called reactive fuel.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Wayne, do you have the 

3 source document with you for that?

4 MR. KNOX: I do not have the source 

5 document, but I will give you the source 

6 document.

7 MR. DARNELL: The SEM lists 

8 promethium, but only promethium. No cask 

9 number, no aliases, nothing.

10 It lists thorium. None of the 

11 other information that you have listed. It 

12 lists uranium. None of that other information 

13 that you have listed.

14 MR. KNOX: I will get you that. You 

15 might have taken it out, but I do have the 

16 original copy that I copied from the Site 

17 Exposure Matrix.

18 Now, we know that you have metal 

19 because if you look at the Mallinckrodt, you've 

20 got --

21 MR. DARNELL: We're not discussing 

22 Mallinckrodt here.
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1 MR. KNOX: Mallinckrodt defines you, 

2 that is the Kansas City Plant, as a metal 

3 handling facility.

4 If you look at TIB triple four, 

5 Bendix, Pioneer who operated this facility, was 

6 defined as a metal handling facility, right?

7 I think, Neton, you approved that.

8 DR. NETON: Yes.

9 MR. KNOX: Yes. So, it wasn't --

10 DR. NETON: There's uranium all over 

11 the Kansas City Plant, absolutely. That's 

12 what we're talking about.

13 MR. KNOX: Yes, and that it was 

14 shipped. It was shipped from Mallinckrodt, 

15 right?

16 DR. NETON: I believe some of it 

17 might have come from Mallinckrodt. Some might 

18 --

19 MR. KNOX: Okay.

20 DR. NETON: I think some of the slug 

21 came from Bethlehem Steel, actually.

22 MR. KNOX: Okay. Well, what was a 
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1 non-nuclear facility doing with the metal which 

2 was reactive fuel?

3 DR. NETON: I don't know who called 

4 it a non-nuclear facility. Did we call it a 

5 non-nuclear facility.

6 MR. KNOX: Yes, it's defined as a --

7 and interestingly enough, which is interesting 

8 is, there is no such animal.

9 DR. NETON: Well, isn't there a 

10 special definition of nuclear facility, 

11 though?

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 DR. NETON: Depends on how much 

14 material is present. They define quantities.

15 MR. KNOX: It's in 820. 820 defines 

16 --

17 DR. NETON: It's quite possible to --

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 CHAIR BEACH: The quantities.

20 DR. NETON: Quantity of material.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

22 MR. DARNELL: See, one of the things 
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1 that goes into the definition of a site as 

2 non-nuclear it's part of the weapons complex, 

3 but they don't do any of the nuclear materials 

4 for the weapon at this site.

5 MR. KNOX: What? How can you say 

6 that?

7 MR. DARNELL: Because it's the 

8 truth, Mr. Knox.

9 MR. KNOX: Why would you have all of 

10 this -- I even saw --

11 MR. DARNELL: Again, this document

12 appears fallacious when I look at the Site 

13 Exposure Matrix right now.

14 MR. KNOX: Okay.

15 MR. DARNELL: So, I can't speak to 

16 this. We can't use this.

17 MR. KNOX: Okay. Well, can you tell 

18 me why then from Mallinckrodt a plausible 

19 exposure to -- which was better, in my opinion. 

20 I'll get it right here. Mallinckrodt. Here.

21 Mallinckrodt in 2006, did really 

22 what they were doing with TBD-6000, right? 
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1 Neton, you approved it.

2 DR. NETON: I approved TBD-6000.

3 MR. KNOX: No, I'm talking about you

4 approved TBD-0004. Your name is on it.

5 DR. NETON: Okay.

6 MR. KNOX: Okay. And in that 

7 document it specifically designates Bendix as 

8 a metal handling facility.

9 MR. DARNELL: Which Bendix facility?

10 MR. KNOX: The Pioneer division.

11 MR. DARNELL: Pioneer division? 

12 The one in Detroit?

13 MR. KNOX: No, the one in Detroit --

14 you told me that they got the metal --

15 DR. NETON: Well, there's no 

16 argument that metal was handled at Kansas City 

17 Plant.

18 MR. KNOX: Okay, but the metal --

19 DR. NETON: I'll agree to that.

20 MR. KNOX: -- was weapons grade.

21 (Simultaneous speaking.)

22 DR. NETON: It was natural uranium 
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1 that came from Lackawanna plant and Bethlehem 

2 Steel.

3 MR. KNOX: You're telling me that the 

4 metal -- get this on the record. You're 

5 telling me the metal was -- say that again.

6 DR. NETON: The slugs, I believe, 

7 were natural uranium.

8 MR. KNOX: Natural uranium slugs.

9 DR. NETON: Yes, that were going to 

10 Hanford to be put in the reactor.

11 MR. KNOX: Uh-huh, okay. Now, the 

12 -- if you are looking for perhaps the forerunner 

13 of TBD-6000, it was this document here.

14 MR. DARNELL: What document is that?

15 MR. KNOX: This is the one that he 

16 approved.

17 MR. DARNELL: What is the name of the 

18 document?

19 MR. KNOX: It is the estimation 

20 estimating maximum plausible doses to workers 

21 at atomic --

22 DR. NETON: TIB-0004.
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1 MR. KNOX: Yes.

2 DR. NETON: Okay.

3 MR. KNOX: That is sort of the 

4 equivalent to 6000.

5 DR. NETON: Well, not exactly. 

6 That's --

7 MR. KNOX: I know it's not exactly, 

8 but I'm saying it was -- it has all of the 

9 radiation doses. It does in my opinion, a lot 

10 more than 6000 does.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Where is this going?

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Wayne, we are 

14 not citing that document for Kansas City. That 

15 document is not being used as far as I know at 

16 Kansas City.

17 MR. KNOX: It's not being used at 

18 Kansas City, but they indicate in this document 

19 that Bendix Aviation, they ship material to 

20 here. And they indicated it could be a uranium 

21 handling facility.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.
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1 MR. KNOX: Right?

2 DR. NETON: It handled uranium. We 

3 agree with that.

4 MR. KNOX: Okay.

5 DR. NETON: Natural uranium.

6 MR. KNOX: Mallinckrodt didn't ship 

7 out this natural uranium.

8 CHAIR BEACH: But what's your point?

9 MR. KNOX: The point is that we have 

10 all of these radioactive -- you have all of 

11 these special nuclear materials here at the 

12 Kansas City Plant.

13 MR. DARNELL: There is no special 

14 nuclear material at Kansas City Plant. There 

15 never has been. We looked on the secure 

16 databases to make sure of that. 

17 Okay. Again, we've told you this 

18 time and time again. And time and time again 

19 you bring it back up. 

20 There are no special nuclear 

21 materials. There have not been special 

22 nuclear materials.
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1 MR. KNOX: What's plutonium-239?

2 MR. DARNELL: Not present. That's 

3 what it is.

4 MR. KNOX: But it was there. You 

5 have sources.

6 MR. DARNELL: It was not present as 

7 an exposure source to the general workforce. 

8 It was there as --

9 MR. KNOX: What?

10 MR. DARNELL: It was there as a 

11 neutron source for the workers that did the 

12 neutron work.

13 It was not spread throughout the 

14 plant. It's not an exposure potential for 

15 every Tom, Dick and Harry that worked in human 

16 resources. It's not around the plant. It's 

17 in a very specific use.

18 MR. KNOX: Neutrons without proper 

19 shielding.

20 MR. DARNELL: Without proper 

21 shielding.

22 MR. KNOX: Yes. You're spreading 
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1 neutrons around without proper shielding.

2 MR. DARNELL: We don't have any 

3 indication of that. Do you have the source 

4 document to show where you're coming from with

5 that, because we would like to see it and 

6 incorporate it into our dose estimates if you 

7 --

8 MR. KNOX: That's what I had asked 

9 you for.

10 MR. DARNELL: We don't have that.

11 MR. KNOX: Provide the shielding 

12 design studies which is expected based upon 

13 NCRP 49, for all of those sources.

14 MR. DARNELL: We've addressed this 

15 with you before also. Those go back to the 

16 manufacturer of the source.

17 If you want to get the shielding 

18 calculations, the shielding design and all that 

19 for those sources, you have to go back to the 

20 manufacturer.

21 MR. KNOX: But, no, you don't 

22 understand. Whenever you bring a source in, 
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1 you have to perform a shielding design study. 

2 It has the amount of time people are expected 

3 to be in the area.

4 MEMBER POSTON: No. What it has to

5 be is in an appropriate shield that has been 

6 transported in. The dose from the largest 

7 plutonic source that ever was made was 40 

8 curies. And the output of that source is about 

9 10 the ninth neutrons per second. Doesn't 

10 present an extremely large field by itself.

11 Through calculation, you will find 

12 out how little the dose is from a 40-curie 

13 plutonium source.

14 MR. KNOX: A neutron. A PuBe 

15 source.

16 MEMBER POSTON: Yes, a PuBe source.

17 MR. KNOX: You're telling me a 

18 40-curie PuBe source --

19 MEMBER POSTON: Has an emission rate 

20 of about 10 to the ninth neutrons per second.

21 MR. KNOX: Uh-huh.

22 MEMBER POSTON: And I'm telling you 
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1 that's not a significant dose rate when you r 

2 square it -- Four pi r square it from the source.

3 MR. KNOX: Okay.

4 MEMBER POSTON: So, when it comes in, 

5 in the shield that it's shipped in that meets 

6 DOT and everybody else's regulations, it's 

7 perfectly fine.

8 And you could perfectly fine store 

9 it in that container. You don't need to design 

10 a room. You don't need to design a shield. 

11 It's perfectly fine the way it is.

12 MR. DARNELL: The only thing you 

13 actually have to do is when the source is being 

14 used, verify there's no radiation area 

15 established where people can get into it. 

16 That's what they have to do.

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 MR. KNOX: What about the cobalt-60 

19 source?

20 MR. DARNELL: Same thing. There's 

21 no difference in any of those sources.

22 MR. KNOX: Okay. Well, can you tell 
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1 me how (name redacted) managed to get cataracts 

2 in both eyes --

3 MR. DARNELL: Act of God. We're not 

4 here to decide that court case again.

5 MR. KNOX: But because it was left 

6 open. You can't --

7 MR. DARNELL: The court case was 

8 decided. It's not part of this.

9 CHAIR BEACH: And it's out of the 

10 purview of this Work Group.

11 MR. KNOX: We have -- we have here 

12 workplace incidents that (name redacted) was a 

13 workplace incident in which she was exposed.

14 CHAIR BEACH: And she --

15 MR. DARNELL: She had her day in 

16 court.

17 CHAIR BEACH: She had her day in 

18 court and --

19 MR. KNOX: But that exposure, that 

20 cobalt-60 source left open would have exposed 

21 all of those people that were permanently 

22 stationed on the roof tremendously and in 
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1 versions there was a scattered radiation all 

2 over this site.

3 MR. DARNELL: For what purpose in 

4 any universe would somebody permanently 

5 station personnel on the roof? Come on.

6 MR. KNOX: People were -- because 

7 you had a lot of the HVAC units on the roof and 

8 they were constantly maintained. So, you had 

9 people that were permanently stationed on the 

10 roof at this facility.

11 MR. DARNELL: Again, the sources 

12 come in the approved containers and shielding 

13 that is done by the manufacturer. If you want 

14 that data, go to the manufacturer.

15 The radiation areas are supposed to 

16 be established when those sources are used. 

17 And they had environmental safety and health 

18 people on the site controlling the use of those 

19 sources.

20 I did not read fully everything in 

21 the (name redacted) case, but that case had its 

22 day in court and was decided and is not going 
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1 to be done again in this group.

2 MR. KNOX: Decided in terms of 

3 radiation exposure --

4 (Simultaneous speaking.)

5 MR. DARNELL: It does not matter. 

6 It's done.

7 MR. KNOX: Okay. It's done as far as 

8 you're concerned.

9 MR. DARNELL: We have no say in 

10 litigation that was done --

11 MR. KNOX: No, I'm talking about you 

12 have a say-so in the exposure of people. It has 

13 nothing to do with the litigation.

14 The source was left open. She had 

15 ended up with cataracts in both eyes. And I'm 

16 telling you that that situation would have 

17 exposed all of the passive eyes and heavily 

18 exposed all of the people on the roof.

19 And you keep saying, well, we have 

20 nothing to do with the litigation. I agree. 

21 You have something to do with the exposure of 

22 people to accidents like this.
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1 MR. DARNELL: We look for the 

2 exposure potential that's out there to ensure 

3 that we give the appropriate dose to the 

4 appropriate personnel.

5 You are stating that because this 

6 woman got cataracts, that all these other 

7 people could have gotten exposed.

8 Where is all the other cataracts? 

9 Where is all the other radiation damage? 

10 Where's the people that died in their 30s from 

11 all this terrible radiation exposure?

12 It's not there.

13 MR. KNOX: It's not there because you 

14 are not acknowledging it. There is a 

15 difference between something --

16 DR. NETON: I'm not sure this is 

17 accomplishing anything.

18 CHAIR BEACH: It's not.

19 (Simultaneous speaking.)

20 MR. COPELAND: I understand what 

21 he's saying. It's not there. Look, these 

22 people at that plant when you had that IG 
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1 inspection out there, you told me that that that 

2 IG inspection was done on the DOE side.

3 It was not. I have it right here. 

4 That was not. It was done on the GSA side where 

5 they looked for a cancer cluster.

6 MR. DARNELL: DOE did it on the GSA 

7 side?

8 MR. COPELAND: It was done where they 

9 looked for cancer clusters.

10 DR. NETON: That's the Inspector 

11 General.

12 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

13 DR. NETON: That's the Inspector 

14 General.

15 MR. DARNELL: There was one done by 

16 the Department of Energy, and one done by the 

17 Inspector General.

18 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

19 MR. DARNELL: There was one done by 

20 the Department of Energy on Kansas City --

21 actually, more than one. And there was an 

22 Inspector General report done on the GSA side.
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1 MR. COPELAND: Right.

2 MR. DARNELL: So, you're talking 

3 about the GSA.

4 MR. COPELAND: No, I'd love to see 

5 the one done by DOE because you said that it's 

6 not there.

7 You cannot tell me that they don't 

8 have cancer clusters on the DOE side when that 

9 whole doggone waste management people, the ones 

10 I told you about that couldn't read, look and 

11 see where they are.

12 They died within four years of the 

13 same cancers. And we've got a lot of examples 

14 like that in the model shop and in the tool room.

15 You didn't look for it. You 

16 haven't looked for it yet. All we have to do 

17 on this whole thing is go ahead and get your --

18 go to Social Security, get your disability 

19 retirement records, get your disability 

20 retirement records and you'll see cancer 

21 clusters.

22 MR. DARNELL: I apologize for this. 
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1 I actually have an entire listing of all the 

2 cancers associated specifically with the 

3 Kansas City Plant.

4 I can't get to my drive to get to it 

5 because for some reason it will not allow me to 

6 contact, but I will promise you --

7 CHAIR BEACH: It won't let me either.

8 MR. DARNELL: I will promise you I 

9 will forward you along that information. It's 

10 non-Privacy Act. It's been scrubbed. So, it 

11 is something that you can take a look at and you 

12 can see all the cancers.

13 It's for 704 individuals and 

14 there's, gosh, over 1200 different cancers for 

15 704 individuals that were -- that have put in 

16 claims.

17 So, I'll be glad to send you that 

18 information and let you see it.

19 MR. COPELAND: Send it to me and I'm 

20 going to show you --

21 MR. DARNELL: Mr. Knox, would you 

22 like a copy?
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1 MR. KNOX: Yes.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Can you send it to Ted 

3 and I'll just have him send it to the Work Group.

4 (Simultaneous speaking.)

5 DR. NETON: I'm not sure we're in the 

6 business of deciding whether there's cancer 

7 clusters at Kansas City.

8 (Speaking over each other.)

9 DR. NETON: We decide whether we can 

10 reconstruct doses to the workers that were at 

11 the plant and that's our charge.

12 So, getting into this cancer 

13 cluster discussion is really not going to serve 

14 this group any further.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you.

16 MR. KNOX: But the elephant in the 

17 room is --

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

19 MR. KNOX: -- the development of 

20 nuclear reactors at --

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Whoa, whoa, 

22 whoa. Wait a second.
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1 MR. KNOX: -- that facility.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Let's --

3 MR. KNOX: And we have all of the 

4 evidence --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Wayne --

6 MR. KNOX: -- that they were.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Wayne, that topic was 

8 brought up at the last interview. I know 

9 there's people here that need to leave and we 

10 need to finish the Work Group business here in 

11 the next 10 minutes. So, I'm going to stop you 

12 at the reactor and --

13 MR. KNOX: Okay.

14 CHAIR BEACH: So, path forward. I 

15 can't see scheduling another Work Group meeting 

16 at this time.

17 We have -- we did discuss briefly at 

18 lunch that we -- that Pete Darnell is going to 

19 go back to Kansas City on an unrelated issue in 

20 August and he's going to try and set up a path 

21 forward for another site interview or site data 

22 capture sometime in September-October time 
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1 frame.

2 So, and I think we should leave it 

3 at that until after that data capture before we 

4 try to move together on any other Work Groups.

5 There are a couple of White Papers 

6 that you can look --

7 MR. DARNELL: Just we're also going 

8 to turn on ORAU to go get the data for the weekly 

9 reports -- excuse me -- and the SWIMS database. 

10 So, that will be concurrent with --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, you'll be 

12 seeing some documentation. You'll have the 

13 two White Papers coming out for 13 and 16.

14 You'll also have interviews from 

15 our last interview cycle, that SC&A and NIOSH. 

16 Those will be posted in the next couple of 

17 months.

18 I think we can just keep moving 

19 forward. And after the next data capture, 

20 we'll discuss another Work Group meeting.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: And someone will 

22 type this up and there will be a summary of what 
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1 we --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I believe Joe will 

3 type it up, send it to NIOSH.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

5 CHAIR BEACH: You guys can add your 

6 --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll go back and 

8 forth to make sure the notes are complete.

9 CHAIR BEACH: I'll check what I have. 

10 And then once we're all satisfied, Ted will send 

11 it out.

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, or Joe. You just 

13 send your draft to everyone, and everyone can 

14 --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Add to it.

16 (Simultaneous speaking.)

17 MR. KATZ: The transcripts take a 

18 while to get out. So, this is good for action 

19 items to get this earlier.

20 MR. DARNELL: Sounds good.

21 MR. KATZ: Transcripts take about 

22 30, 35 days.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: I'll probably just 

2 use the matrix and just --

3 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: -- put a column on 

5 the bottom or a bar on the bottom as to the 

6 status.

7 CHAIR BEACH: And we'll probably see 

8 the matrix updated as well from after this 

9 meeting to reflect some of the changes. And 

10 SC&A will take care of that.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any other 

13 comments? Then let's go ahead and officially 

14 close.

15 MR. KATZ: So, we are adjourned. 

16 Thank you, everyone on the phone.

17 (Whereupon, at 3:19 o'clock p.m.

18 the meeting was adjourned.)

19

20

21

22