THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


ROCKY FLATS
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Marriott Airport, 


Hebron, Kentucky, on July 26, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S
 

July 26, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


INTRODUCTION BY MARK GRIFFON 11 


CLASS SUPER S PLUTONIUM 12 


AMERICIUM 16 

OTHER RADIONUCLIDES 52 


T-690 TRAILER RECORDS 88 


EXTERNAL DOSE, NEUTRON ISSUES 109 


NEUTRON/PHOTON ISSUE 154 


DATA RELIABILITY 161 


SAFETY CONCERNS 278 


FUTURE PLANS 376 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 381 

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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

4

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 

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PARTICIPANTS
 

ALBERG, JEANETTE, SENATOR ALLARD’S OFFICE 


BAKER, STEVE 


BARKER, KAY 


BARRIE, TERRIE 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAUT 


CHEW, MEL, CHEW AND ASSOC’S. 


DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


FALK, ROGER, ORAUT 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


JESSEN, KARIN, ORAUT 


LANGSTED, JIM, ORAUT 


LITTLE, CRAIG, ORAUT 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATT, ORAUT 


MCKEEL, DAN 


MEYER, BOB, ORAUT 


MINKS, ERIN, SENATOR SALAZAR’S OFFICE 


POTTER, GENE, ORAUT 


RICH, BRYCE, ORAUT 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


ROLFES, MARK, ORAUT 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(9:30 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

DR. WADE: Well, good morning. This is Lew Wade, and 


I have the pleasure of serving as the 


Designated Federal Official for the Advisory 


Board and to welcome you to this meeting of a 


working group of the Advisory Board. This is a 


working group that's very ably chaired by Mark 


Griffon, and has on it Robert Presley, Mike 


Gibson and Wanda Munn. This working group in 


its brief history has dealt with many issues. 


Today the issue in front of it is to look at 


the Rocky Flats site. As you know, for Rocky 


Flats there is an SEC petition that's awaiting 


Board action. This working group really began 


to look at site profile issues related to Rocky 


Flats, and now has tried to focus its attention 


on that subset of site profile issues that the 


working group feels is relevant to the Board's 


ability to make a complete decision relative to 


the pending SEC petition. 

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We'll go through and identify people on -- 


around the table here and then -- then we'll 


have federal employees on the line identify, as 


well as SC&A employees, and then anyone else 


who might want to identify we'll allow that to 


happen, and then Mark will begin the business 


of the working group. 


One of my jobs is to be sure we don't have a 


quorum of the Board present as this is not a 


Board meeting. It's a working group meeting, 


so I would start by asking if there is anyone 


on the line -- any Board members on the line 


I'd like you to identify yourself now. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, this is Mike Gibson. I'm on 


the line. 


 DR. WADE: Good morning, Mike, thank you. 


 MR. GIBSON: Sorry I couldn't make it to the 


meeting. 


 DR. WADE: That's fine. Thank you for joining 


us. Mike is a member of the working group. 


 Any other Board members on the line at this 


point? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. So we really don't have a quorum of the 


Board, which is appropriate. We simply have 

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the working group members. 


After we do the general introductions, I would 


ask the Board members present and then a 


representative of NIOSH and a representative of 


SC&A to go through any disclosures that need to 


be made relative to the Rocky Flats site, any 


conflicts that might exist, so let's start by 


going around the table here and we'll start -- 


start with the able chairman, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon with the Advisory 


Board, no conflicts. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Robert Presley with the Advisory 


Board, no conflict. 


 DR. WADE: And this is Lew Wade with NIOSH and 


I have no conflicts. 


MS. BRACKETT: Liz Brackett with the ORAU team 


and I have no conflicts. 


 MR. ROLFES: Mark Rolfes, NIOSH. I have no 


conflict. 


DR. MAURO: John Mauro, Sanford Cohen & 


Associates. No conflict. 


 MR. LITTLE: Craig Little with the ORAU team, 


no conflicts. 


 DR. ULSH: Brant Ulsh with NIOSH, no conflict. 


MR. MEYER: Bob Meyer with the ORAU team, no 

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conflict. 


 MS. JESSEN: Karin Jessen with the ORAU team, 


no conflict. 


 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, Advisory Board. No 


conflict. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald with Sanford 


Cohen & Associates, no conflict. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A. No 


conflict. 


 MR. CHEW: Mel Chew with the ORAU team, no 


conflict. 


 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell with HHS, no 


conflict. 


MR. MCFEE: Matt McFee with the ORAU team, no 


conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Now I would like other NIOSH or ORAU 


or federal employees on the line in an official 


capacity to identify themselves. 


 MR. FALK: This is Roger Falk, and I have a 

conflict. 

 MR. RICH: This is Bryce Rich. I have a 

conflict. 

MR. LANGSTED: This is Jim Langsted. I have a 


conflict. 


 MS. ALBERG: Jeanette Alberg with Senator 

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Allard's office, no conflict. 


 DR. WADE: All right. 


 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson, part of the working 


group. No conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Any other NIOSH, ORAU or federal 


employees on the line? 


 MR. POTTER: Gene Potter, ORAU. I have a 


conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. What about SC&A team members? 


 MS. DEMERS: This is Kathy DeMers and I have no 


conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Anyone else of the community that is 


made up of NIOSH, ORAU, federal employees, 


SC&A? 


 (No responses) 


Board members? Anyone else who would like to 


be identified for the record, please feel free 


to identify yourself. 


 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel in St. Louis. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Dan. It's always a 


pleasure to have you with us. 


 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie from ANWAG. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you for joining us, Terrie. 


 MS. BARKER: This is Kay Barker with ANWAG. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Kay, for being with us. 

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Again, as is our practice with the working 


groups, if the petitioners or their 


representatives have anything they'd like to 


say through the course of this, they're -- 


they're more than free to speak. The working 


group also is interested in information, so if 


there is someone on the call who -- who has 


information content to share, I'm sure Mark 


would be more than willing to accept that. 


My last official duty is to -- is to, from 


Ray's point of view, mention the fact that 


around the table please be cognizant of the 


microphones and speak into the microphones and 


watch Ray for a head nod or a head shake if 


you're not speaking to the sufficient volume. 


Also, those people on the line, if you can 


would you mute yourself except when you want to 


speak, obviously, as the heavy breathing 


distracts some people. 


 So Mark. 


INTRODUCTION BY MARK GRIFFON


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I -- I think before this 


meeting I did send out a revised matrix. 
I 


hope everyone got that, either directly or 


indirectly. And I think what we -- part of 

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what we're going to have to do, we had -- since 


the last Advisory Board meeting some work has 


been done by SC&A and by NIOSH, so I think 


we'll -- we'll probably go down -- I think I 


want to go down the primary issues, and then as 


we're -- as we're doing that we can keep our 


eye on the matrix and make sure we don't miss 


any specific items on the matrix, either. But 


part of it I think is going to be an update on 


where we stand, where NIOSH stands, where SC&A 


stands on certain issues. And then what's -- I 


guess the path forward is the, you know, a 


critical thing we want to come out of this 


meeting, as well. 


CLASS SUPER S PLUTONIUM
 

So the first item I have -- this is the way 


we've always gone through this list -- super S 


-- class super S plutonium, and I know at this 


-- at this juncture -- recently, I guess within 


the last week or so, we -- you posted some data 


that we had asked for. One was the Hanford-1 


case data, and the other -- I think -- was a 


spread sheet with the identifiers for the 


design cases. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. At this point we 


obviously -- we've discussed this. We haven't 


been able to cross-walk the ca-- any of the 


case data 'cause the database still doesn't 


have the right identifiers in it, but we -- 


we're making some headway on that. 


At the last Advisory Board meeting SC&A did 


present a paper -- interim paper on super S and 


the analysis of TIB-49 and -- along with TIB-49 


there's other super S document that kind of -- 


it's not a TIB, but it goes along with the TIB 


sort of, I think. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, it's a White Paper sort of 


thing, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: An explanation associated with 


the TIB. So I mean I -- I'm speaking for -- 


for myself here where -- where I've -- where 


I'm at with that is I think that we've looked 


at this, Joyce Lipsztein has looked at this for 


SC&A pretty in-depth, and Bob Bistline, and I 


think we're pretty comfortable with the 


methodology overall. What we wanted to do was 


to do these final cross-checks with the data 


and, you know -- so that's still outstanding. 


The one thing I did notice in the design case 

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spreadsheet that was sent, it was the six -- 


six or so cases, and I had asked for the 25 or 


so. Several times I think Roger has mentioned 


that there were 25 individuals that had lung 


burdens in excess of the maximum permissible 


lung burden at the time and -- and we thought 


it'd be useful to have identifiers for all -- 


for those sort of top 25 exposured people and ­

- just -- just to assure that the right cases 


were selected for the desi-- you know, for the 


TIB-49. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I understand. I might have 


misinterpreted you, Mark. We obviously focused 


on the six that were design cases. Hey, Roger, 


are -- you're out there. Right? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Would it be possible to 


provide similar information to what we've 


already provided for the six and expand that to 


include the 25 that Mark is talking about? 


 MR. FALK: I think there may be some type of a 


misunderstanding. I -- I'm thinking the 25 was 


from the initial lung count for the 1965 fire 


cases, and those -- and those -- I personally 


do not have the -- the datasets for all of 

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those. 


 DR. ULSH: What about the identifiers, could 


you identify who they are and then maybe we 


could just go to his 20? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FALK: It is possible. 

 DR. ULSH: Okay, let's -- let's put that on our 

list. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what we're looking for, 


yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. We'll put that on our to-do 


list and get that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I don't know if there's 


anything else on super S from SC&A's standpoint 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think we --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or if --


 MR. FITZGERALD: We spent a lot of time 


covering this in the last session. I think 


we're fine. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Well, we're moving along 


pretty quickly --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, that was quick. 


 MR. GRIFFON: About as fast as we ever got 


through one item. 

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 MS. MUNN: Especially that one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know. Well, we did spend 


a lot of time with -- with that item already. 


Okay, Wanda approves -- and that's a first, 


too. 


AMERICIUM
 

Americium is the next item I have on the list, 


and my sense -- my sense was this -- along with 


other radionuclides, this kind of came up in 


the context of do you actually have gross alpha 


for the people working with americium -- prior 


to when they were doing americium monitoring, 


obviously. 


 DR. ULSH: We've actually got -- this one won't 


go as fast, I'm sorry to say, Mark. We've got 


a lot to tell you about this one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: As you know -- I think it might have 


been the last working group meeting that SC&A 


prepared -- I think maybe Arjun prepared a 


document that was titled "Additional Issues 


from SC&A Focused Review of NIOSH SEC 


Evaluation for Rocky Flats Regarding Americium, 


Thorium and Other Radionuclides." In that 


document SC&A kind of laid out the concerns 

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about the early americium. 


If it's okay with you -- I made 15 copies -- if 


-- you know, I'll circulate them, we can talk 


about this. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is this one of your documents 


that was on the O-drive -- 


 DR. ULSH: No, this is something that -- this 


is Arjun's write-up. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, that's --


 DR. ULSH: It's just copies of it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. Yeah, that'd be good 


to have that. 


 DR. ULSH: In addition, we've done actually 


quite a lot of work on this. Mel Chew is here 


to talk about some information that we just I 


guess finalized and it just kind of congealed 


yesterday, as a matter of fact. Mel and Mark 


Rolfes and Bryce Rich went out to the Denver 


Federal Records Center and looked at some 


classified information. We've also been 


pursuing non-classified information. And then 


finally, I'd like to talk a bit about the 


interpretation that is contained in SC&A's 


document, interpretation of the TBD regarding 


what samples were conducted where. 

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Mel, why don't we start with your discussion, 


what you found out about americium prior to -- 


the concern here is pre-'63. In 1963 Rocky 


Flats instituted widespread use of americium-


specific bioassay. So the years that we're 


specifically concerned about are the years 


prior to that and, you know, how was americium 


monitored prior to that. So with that setup, 


Mel, why don't you take it away. 


 MR. CHEW: Thank you, Brant. I certainly want 


to acknowledge I think all of you -- many in 


the health physics community and the DOE 


community know Bryce Rich. I have to credit 


Bryce for kind of thinking of this thing 


through collectively as we all was trying to 


look at this particular issue here, Joe -- and 


Arjun. 


It was very curious of why, you know, we 


started -- if you look at the bioassays that 


started in 1963, what happened to the early 


years, because you know, there was certainly 


some indication that americium was potentially 


present there and why were they not sampled. 


Well, the real -- the real key to that is that 


-- let me just try to give you a little bit of 

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background and this'll be in terms that I can 


say, you know, without being sensitive 


information here. 


If you think about it, the plutonium that 


showed up at Rocky Flats in the early years and 


in the '50's, prior to '63, was fairly fresh 


plutonium that came in from Hanford. The --


the plutonium that didn't come in for the -- 


with the americium content was basically out of 


the recycled plutonium that was in the weapons 


that was in the '50s here, and really didn't 


come back out of the stockpile until '62, '63. 


All right? And so therefore where we were 


looking for americium in the early years at 


Rocky Flats, Wanda said it wasn't there. 


Right? So you know, I think we were all 


obviously looking and said -- well, assuming it 


was there. And matter of fact, we confirmed 


this with a discussion with Ed Vejvoda, and he 


was responsible for developing the process to 


start -- to start to thinking about separating 


the americium from the weapons returned. He 


made a comment very clearly in this document 


from this discussion with him that they even 


had a tough time with the metallurgist even 

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finding americium to validate the process. 


Right? And I happen to know some parts per 


million contents that I think the specs that 


came in from Hanford, and Wanda would know 


this, you know, of her early years, they were 


very, very low. For deliberate purposes. 


Right? And so clearly the americium, I think I 


can say with a fair amount of confidence that 


the -- where we were looking for bioassay, just 


wasn't there in -- in enough significant 


quantities or a few -- I'd hate to say a few 


atoms, to be humorous here -- that was enough 


to cause any concern, even -- especially they 


even tried to look for it here. Right? 


 But clearly when the weapons returned -- did 


come back in the -- in the '63, '64 time period 


-- which makes sense when you really think 


about it. Okay? When the time period, when we 


put into the stockpile. Okay? It stays there 


for a certain amount of years, I think all of 


you know that, and then we got the return. 


That's when the americium content really -- 


really start to come up and the americium was 


separated out, you know, to refresh the 


plutonium and make better -- to make weapons­
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grade plutonium back -- to go back into the 


system again. And also the americium was now 


concentrated in a form like the molten salt 


extraction, both to sell the -- and sent back 


to Oak Ridge. And as you know, your americium 


is widely used, you know, throughout the system 


for many, many other purposes, even more than 


the weapons complex. 


So I'd like to just make that comment is that 


we cannot see the americium prior to '63, Mark, 


because it just wasn't there. And that makes a 


lot of sense. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I thought -- I thought part of 


the reason this coming -- came up, and I'm 


refreshing my memory, too, was that that molten 


salt process was referenced prior to data -- or 


the dates for the data that we couldn't find 


for americium --


 DR. ULSH: Actually no, Mark. The time line in 


terms of uranium pro-- or, I'm sorry, the 


americium processing at Rocky Flats, I believe 


that there was indication perhaps in Ed 


Putzier's document -- maybe somewhere else; I ­

- I don't really remember -- that Rocky Flats 


started to consider separating out americium in 

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the late '50s, I think maybe around '57 -- 


don't hold me to that. And this is what Mel is 


talking about, they were just developing this 


process --


 MR. GRIFFON: Experimental work. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. It was a process that they 


wanted to develop, but the problem that they 


had -- Mel told me yesterday when they -- they 


talked to Ed Vejvoda, his conversation with the 


process operators that did that was that there 


just wasn't enough americium to even try to 


separate, so they had real difficulty with 


that. 


Now, later on -- I think it's in 1967 -- is 


when they started the molten salt extraction 


process, 1967, so this is after -- after the 


americium-specific bioassay and this is after 


they started lung counting. 


 Before that there was a process that they used, 


and I just can't remember which process it was. 


It wasn't molten salt extraction. It might 


have been some kind of a precipitation process, 


I don't -- I don't have that -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think there was an aqueous 


process. 

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 MR. CHEW: There was an aqueous process, uhhuh. 

 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think you're right. 

 MR. CHEW: '71, I mean. 

 DR. ULSH: But they did start experimenting 

with this in '57, but there just wasn't enough 


plutonium to even -- oh, I'm sorry, americium, 


to -- to validate the process is what we 


finally figured out. 


 MR. CHEW: Bryce, if you're on the phone, 


you're the one that had the direct conversation 


with Mr. Vejvoda. Do you have anything to add 


to what we have said -- said here? 


 MR. RICH: No, nothing more than that as I 


recall Ed indicated that -- that they were 


doing the process development. He just added 


as an aside that they had difficulty finding 


enough to actually validate the process. They 


were in this process and doing americium 


separation process development. It wasn't that 


they couldn't find any, it was just couldn't 


find enough to really validate the process. 


 MR. CHEW: In going back through the -- Mark, I 


mean it's a -- as Brant mentioned, Bryce and I 


and Mark went back to the classified ledgers 

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and pulled as many as the ledgers (sic) we 


possibly can and the americium was recorded in 


there, and so we do have a fairly good history 


of the amounts of americium that basically came 


into Rocky Flats. And when they mentioned it 


prior to 1962, '63, is really less than one 


gram. I mean that's what they recorded, and 


then -- and that's about as close as they 


needed to record it, as you well know. And 


then subsequently later on the quantity of 


americium is clearly marked -- defined in -- at 


Rocky Flats. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So this -- this sort of 


material account estimate of less than one gram 


was -- was made by -- by review of -- of the 


material records at Rocky Flats? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, sir. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: How did you arrive at that? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, sir, we actually looked at the 


classified ledgers. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, there's another -- there's 


another piece to this issue, and that is -- 


this is why I've made copies of SC&A's write-


up. There's -- there's some things in here I'd 


like to discuss. The write-up contains some 

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interpretations of the internal TBD that -- 


that Roger Falk wrote. And I particularly want 


to talk about, in SC&A's document, Sections B 


and C. Section B deals with dosimetry areas 


and bioassay data, and what bioassay techniques 


were used in what different areas of the Rocky 


Flats plant. 


For -- well, most of you will probably know 


this that have a familiarity with the site. 


The site was kind of divided up into plutonium 


areas and uranium areas. And they were 


essentially separate areas of the site. And so 


Roger's TBD contained some information on what 


bioassay techniques were routinely used in 


these different areas of the site, and that's 


the material that's discussed in Arjun's write-


up here in Section B. And then Section C of 


Arjun's write-up deals specifically with 


americium-241. 


I think there's some -- there's a problem here 


with some of the interpretation of the TBD. 


And since Roger Falk was the author of the 


internal TBD -- hold on just a second. 


 (Cell phone interruption) 


UNIDENTIFIED: That's Arjun's. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's a call from my doctor. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. That's unfortunate timing, 


because Roger is the author of the internal TBD 


and Arjun is the author of the write-up that we 


want to talk about. 


 MR. CHEW: Maybe they're talking on the site on 


the phone here. 


 DR. ULSH: So maybe I would ask maybe John or 


Joe to take good notes for Arjun while he's out 


of the room. Roger, can you discuss please the 


-- Arjun's interpretation of the TBD in his 


write-up? 


 MR. FALK: Yes. One of the issues was when he 


talked about whether gross alpha could have 


been used as a measurement method -- a bioassay 


method in the plutonium buildings, and he 


looked at my statement that gross alpha was the 


default for Building 91, which is D Plant, and 


that was for the routine program. But -- but ­

- but the point is that -- that -- that the 


gross alpha method could have been, and was, 


used for certain workers in -- for certain 


workers in the plutonium buildings essentially 


for the R&D staff. But -- but -- but the 


statement that we say that it was the default 

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for the routine program for a certain building 


does not preclude its use for special 


situations in basically any other buildings. 


So that's the clarification there. 


For -- for his issue one where he says the 


americium urine data appeared to be unreliable 


direct use in areas with pure or concentrated 


americium and based -- and he bases that on my 


recommendation in the T&B -- in the Technical 


Basis Document that the dose reconstructor 


should use the plutonium urine data instead of 


the americium urine data to assess intakes of 


the weapons-grade plutonium. And that is a 


valid statement and it does not imply that the 


americium data was not suitable for other 


situations where they had the higher 


concentrations of the americium, such as the 


purified americium. So that is my -- that is 


my -- that's a clarification there. 


Also, one of the problems that I pointed out 


with the americium data was that the chemistry 


of the bioassay urinalysis sometimes let the 


thorium and its daughters come through with the 


americium, which would then be -- be 


interference because some of the alpha energies 

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of the thorium daughters were -- were very 


similar to the americium alpha. The point is 


that when and if this did occur, it would cause 


the apparent americium urine result to be 


higher than was -- higher than the actual 


value, which is actually claimant-favorable for 


the assessments for the NIOSH project. So it ­

- so the problem is more of the accuracy, but 


it is not a question of the reliability because 


the outcome would be claimant-favorable if -- 


if that -- if that interference actually 


existed. 


The issue two basically refers to the lung 


counting with the sodium i-- with the -- with 


the sodium iodide simulation detectors, 


basically pre-1976, and the fact that -- that 


the resolution of those detectors could not 


discriminate between the 60 KeV gamma from the 


americium and the 63 KeV gamma from the 


thorium-234 daughter of the depleted uranium. 


But there again, this is a claimant-favorable 


interference and -- and -- and to the extent 


that that did occur, it would be claimant 


favorable for the assessment of the americium 


lung depositions based on lung counting. So 

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that is my clarification. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Can I ask a 


question? 


 MR. FALK: Certainly. 


 MR. GIBSON: I listened to what Roger just said 


-- and again, I'm not health physicist -- but 


speaking on the issue of just basing things on 


gross alpha, at times I could see that maybe 


that would be claimant favorable. But if there 


were other isotopes there and other situations 


that were more prevalent or people were exposed 


to more often that were more -- what do you 


want to say -- more a heavy-hitter of a dose 


consequence, I could see where it would be not 


claimant friendly. Is that correct, or am I -- 


am I not understanding the -- the health 


physics stuff right? 


 MR. FALK: It is my impression that the NIOSH 


project dose reconstruction would basically -- 


would basically interpret the gross alpha 


results in the manner that they would assign 


all of it to the radionuclide that the worker 


was potentially exposed to that would result in 


the best outcome for the claimant. Therefore ­

- therefore, they have that flexibility to -- 

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to make that interpretation. 


 DR. ULSH: That's correct, Roger. Mike, you 


raise an interesting issue. The situation that 


we're talking about here, the americium 


separations occurred in the plutonium areas of 


Rocky Flats, and in those areas the default 


method would be, you know, plutonium-specific 


bioassay. But if they were working with other 


radionuclides, such as americium, it's possible 


that they might have taken a gross alpha. Now 


if you did a gross alpha and you got the sample 


back -- you know, you got the results -- well, 


gross alpha's not a specific technique. If it 


was possible that they were exposed to both 


americium and plutonium, and it was claimant-


favorable to assume plutonium, that's what we 


would assume. So that's exactly what Roger was 


saying and that's -- that's what we would do in 


dose reconstruction. 


 MR. GIBSON: Thank you. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is there -- is there a protocol 


that -- that you relied on to come -- that 


Roger, you relied on to come to the conclusion 


that -- as to what special situations there 

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were where gross alpha sampling was done in the 


plutonium areas, or was this kind of just on-


the-spot judgment that was made if you found 


some gross alpha data, or how did you come to 


this conclusion? 


 MR. FALK: I came to the conclusion that gross 


alpha was used for workers, especially R&D 


staff, in -- in the plutonium areas based on my 


research into some of the files for the R&D 


people and noting that, yes, indeed, they were 


sampled for gross alpha, essentially into the 


early '70s. So I -- I -- I made a direct 


observation that there were gross alpha samples 


in some of the plutonium R&D people. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But you didn't find like a 


procedure or something that said when they were 


going to do gross alpha sampling. 


 MR. FALK: No, and that would have been based 


on the judgment of the radiological engineers 


and the health physics staff who were 


overseeing the health physics aspects of -- of 


the special -- of the special projects. 


 DR. ULSH: And one thing I think it -- it bears 


discussing is that while there was a 


distinction in terms of process functions, the 

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uranium area was separate from the plutonium 


area, I -- Roger, please correct me if I'm 


wrong, or someone else who worked at the site ­

- I don't think that same distinction applied 


to the health physics staff, the dosimetry 


people. They serviced both areas. Is that 


true, Roger, or am I not on track there? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, that is right. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So those -- that health 


physics staff -- I mean it's not like you would 


have plutonium health physicists that would not 


use gross alpha. I mean these were the same 


people that serviced the entire site, so I -- I 


think that the problem here is the -- you've 


made too hard a distinction between the areas 


of the site and what bioassay techniques were 


available. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that clear? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I think for americium -- 


I think for americium it looks all right to me. 


 DR. ULSH: And you made a good clarification 


there, too, Arjun. Mark, I don't know how you 


want to handle this. There were other 


radionuclides discussed in Arjun's write-up. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Why don't we just stick with 

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this and we'll move ahead on -- 


 DR. ULSH: That's fine. 


DR. MAURO: Brant, this is John -- John Mauro. 


I was on the phone. In the actual records, 


when you go back, does DOE report the results ­

-


 MR. GIBSON: John, could you speak up, please? 

DR. MAURO: Yes, this is... 

 DR. WADE: I think it's probably just... 

DR. MAURO: Oh. Yes, this is John Mauro and I 

-- I just had a question, it's quite a simple 


question. When you look in the DOE records 


themselves, do they report intake of specific 


radionuclides in these original records, and do 


they -- do they assign -- in other words, when 


they do their counting, they'll -- they'll have 


a -- a gross alpha count and then in the 


records themselves they'll report what intake 


that is, whether it's so many becquerels intake 


in that period for a particular radionuclide. 


So at that time did they make an interpretation 


of what they believed the implications of the 


gross alpha readings were along with reporting 


the gross alpha activity that they observed in 


the urine, and do -- and do we see a 

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distinction between their approach to 


originally estimating what the intakes and of 


course the doses are in compliance issues, and 


what NIOSH now is doing? Do you find that you 


are -- you are now interpreting their original 


data, their gross alpha data, in a way that's 


different than the way in which they 


interpreted the data at that time? 


 DR. ULSH: Roger, do you want to field that 

one? 

 MR. FALK: Yes, the -- the -- the short answer 

is no, that the -- the -- the project -- the 


Rocky Flats program did not report or they did 


not assess intakes from the urine data until 


the 1990s. We actually dealt with the 


depositions and -- and -- and the urine data 


was not in-- was not interpreted in the form of 


the intakes. 


 DR. ULSH: And that's a distinction I would 


draw, too, John. When -- when NIOSH goes in 


to do a dose reconstruction, what we're going 


to look at is the bioassay results in terms of, 


you know, the plutonium or uranium or gross 


alpha. If the site actually went further and 


estimated an intake based on those, we don't 

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really use that. We do that independently. 


But in my experience, I don't typically see 


estimates of intakes directly in the records. 


What I see is the bioassay results. Don't hold 


me to that because you might be able to go find 


an intake estimate --


DR. MAURO: So at -- so at that time then, the 


re-- when they took the urine sample gross 


alpha counts, that was the endpoint of the 


process for screening for the purpose of 


assessing compliance with the acceptance 


criteria. In other words, that's all they 


needed. They did not need to go ahead and say 


okay, what are the implications regarding 


intake and the doses to organs. It was more of 


a screening process than it was actually trying 


to report the dose commitment delivered to a 


particular organ. 


MS. BRACKETT: Prior -- prior to 1989 there 


were no rules requiring the calculation of dose 


or intake. It was a comparison to maximum 


permissible body burden. Yes. And in many 


cases the sites would come up with the value of 


the bioassay result that they could compare and 


say yes, this is above a certain maximum 

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permissible body burden. So it wasn't codified 


until 1989, like I said, is when dose started 


being calculated. 


DR. MAURO: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And a lot of times I think what 


they did with gross alpha was they -- they set 


that trigger at the lowest level based on the 


worst-case radionuclide. Right? So -- so you 


may still not know what nuclide they were 


dealing with with the gross alpha. I mean I --


I guess from my standpoint I'm still a little 


unclear on what -- any time we see gross alpha 


we're almost sure it wasn't used for plutonium. 


Is that a correct assumption on Rocky? 


 DR. ULSH: Here's what I can tell you. In the 


plutonium -- In the plutonium areas, the 


default bioassay was plutonium-specific 


bioassay. I can't envision a scenario where 


they would use gross alpha to detect plutonium 


instead of the plutonium-specific bioassay. 


Roger, do I have that --


 MR. FALK: Yes, that is right. 


 DR. ULSH: Does that answer your question, 


Mark? I'm not sure if it did or not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, yeah. 

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 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that's for all -- all times 


periods, all the way back? 


 DR. ULSH: I think so, yeah. But the point --


I mean we're talking about gross alphas here 


because this was what we thought before we came 


up with -- before we really realized the fact 


that there just wasn't any americium prior to 


'63, so that kind of trumps. But I did want to 


talk about this because -- you know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I was actually saying 


we should continue with other radionuclides 


'cause we're into this paper. I think we 


should --


 DR. ULSH: You think we should -- should go on 


further? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, 'cause we're --


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Dr. Wade, 


are you on the line? 


 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: It's kind of a procedural question 


and hopefully you can give me an answer to 


this. To what extent do the people that are 


answering questions from Rocky Flats that have 


a conflict of interest, to what extent did they 

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have to do with running the radiological or 


bioassay program at the site and could I get a 


clarification on that and is that -- could I 


get a clarification on that? 


 DR. WADE: Sure, you're asking for information 


as to the specific -- the people who are 


speaking on this call about the conflict, you 


would like to know precisely the basis of that 


conflict? 


 MR. GIBSON: Specifically, you know, did they 


run the program, did they set up the program, 


did they write the procedures -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that's a good 


question. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- I just -- I think that -- in my 


opinion, and correct me if I'm wrong, I just 


think that would be relevant to know since 


we're discussing, you know, this gross alpha 


and worse-case scenario and everything else. 


 DR. WADE: I think that's quite reasonable. 


Could you identify the -- I know Roger has 


spoken. Is there anyone else who we feel that 


should happen for? Again, I think the spirit 


that Mike raises is -- is true to the spirit of 


the working group, so Roger -- and then who 

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else? 


 DR. ULSH: I think so far only Roger. Am I 


mistaken? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's spoken, but I think Jim 


Langsted --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- probably others on the line. 


 DR. ULSH: -- there are others on the line, 


Mike. I think the people that would fall -- 


oh, yes, okay. How about this? We've got Gene 


Potter, Roger Falk, Jim Langsted and Bryce Rich 


on the line, and all of -- I don't know about 


Bryce, but I do know that Gene and Roger and 


Jim were involved in the dosimetry program at 


Rocky Flats. I might ask them to just describe 


their duties at the site. 


 DR. WADE: Yes, that's reasonable -- as a 


starting point, certainly. 


 DR. ULSH: So how about if we start with -- 


with you, Roger. 


 MR. FALK: Yes, I -- I started at Rocky Flats 


in 1966 and I was the technical staff 


supporting the external dosimetry program to 


about 1990 -- I'm sorry, to -- to 1970, and 


then I was transferred over to the body 

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counting facility and I was the technical staff 


for the body counting facility and also for 


special studies for the dosimetry program, 


essentially into 1986. 1986 I became manager 


of the dosimetry program and was manager until 


-- was manager into 1989. After that I went 


back to technical staff for the internal 


dosimetry program until 1993, then I became the 


internal dosimetrist in support of the Rocky 


Flats health effects program, which was medical 


monitoring for the former workers at Rocky 


Flats and doing updated internal dose 


assessments for those workers. That program 


was out-sourced to -- was out-sourced to the 


ORAU in 1998 and I continue in that same 


capacity. I also was technical support for the 


neutron dose reconstruction project that was 


also done by the health effects group, and then 


carried on by the ORAU project. And now I am 


essentially technical support for the internal 


dose reconstruction for the NIOSH project as 


part of ORAU. 


 DR. ULSH: So before I move on to Jim, if I 


could summarize that long work history at the 


site, I think, Roger, what you said is that 

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prior to 1986 you were not in a management 


capacity; you were technical staff. Is that 


correct? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, that is correct. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So Mike, I think the answer 


to your question is that Roger was on staff in 


the dosimetry program but didn't become a 


manager until '86. Is that accurate then, 


Roger? 


 MR. FALK: Yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. How about Jim Langsted? 


MR. LANGSTED: Yes, I started at Rocky Flats in 


1977 in a staff position and I supported the 


dosimetry records department and the various 


activities associated with that. I don't have 


the years in my head quite as well as Roger 


does, I'm sorry. But I then was involved with 


transitioning the program from the Harshaw TLD 


-- the external dosimetry program from the 


Harshaw TLD system to the Panasonic TLD system, 


and I was involved with procuring the 


equipment, setting up the program and 


initiating the use of the Panasonic TLD. 


At one point I managed -- internal dosimetry 


laboratory where we processed at that time the 

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Harshaw TLD chips. I was also involved at one 


time as the manager of the dose assessment 


organization responsible for processing the -- 


both external and internal TLD data in terms of 


the -- determining the dose associated with 


those exposures. 


I split my time during my career about equally 


between the dosimetry programs and the 


operational health physics organization. That 


was the organization that fielded the health 


physicists in the production facilities. 


And then in 1990 I left Rocky Flats and pursued 


other employment, some of which was consulting 


work back to Rocky Flats, and at some point I 


worked some with the external dosimetry data 


and the internal dosimetry data at Rocky Flats. 


That lasted until about 1995. In 1997 I came 


back to Rocky Flats for a four-year stint with 


Rocky Mountain Remediation Services. At that 


point the plant was in D&D and I -- my title 


was certified health physicist and I supported 


the health and safety program, including 


radiological safety program, for Rocky Mountain 


Remediation Services during that period. 


And then in 2001 I left Rocky Flats and have 

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not done any work for the contractor since 


then. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. How about Gene Potter? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, I worked at Rocky Flats off 


and on for about the last 15 years of the 


site's existence, started in -- between '90 and 


'92 I was on contract to the program from a 


consulting firm that works in external 


dosimetry, and I came back as a -- an employee 


in 1994 and, except for an absence between 


about 2002 to 2003, I worked in the dosimetry 


program, most of the time in internal 


dosimetry, although I held the title of 


dosimetry manager for a period of time until 


some downsizing occurred in -- in the last -- 


probably from about '98 to 2005, less than one 


year I was gone, I held the title of internal 


dosimetry lead. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. How about Bryce Rich? 


 MR. RICH: My association with Rocky has been 


mostly in -- in a -- when I was with Lawrence 


Livermore Laboratories from '63 to '73, but -- 


but mostly in a fact-finding mode, nothing 


directly associated with programs. However, in 


1992 to 1995 I was with EG&G corporate as a -- 

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corporate oversight of health and safety 


programs, including radiological safety, for 


all five contracts that EG&G had, which 


included Rocky Flats. So the period from 1992 


to '95 was in a corporate oversight role. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Mike, I've tried to 


anticipate who might be talking today on the 


call, and I think it will be -- well, Roger 


already, maybe Jim will chime in, maybe -- 


well, Bryce has, maybe Gene at some point. If 


I've missed anyone, please feel free to, you 


know, bring -- bring them up, Mike. 


 DR. WADE: Let me talk to this issue -- 


 MR. GIBSON: -- I think that's -- I think that 


the -- the main players that have been talking 


and I just wanted to know the background based 


on everyone's interest and conflict and 


everything else, so that's -- that's fine. 


 DR. WADE: Well, thank you. Let me take it a 


step further, though, Mike. This is Lew Wade ­

- and again, the Designated Federal Official 


for the Board. The Board and its working 


groups face a tension, and that tension is 


between people who have knowledge of the site, 


and their information is worthwhile to the 

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deliberations of the working group or the 


Board. But those people, because of that 


knowledge and the jobs they held to acquire 


that knowledge, can be viewed or are biased 


relative to some of these issues. And there's 


always that tension, the tension between people 


with knowledge and the fact that -- that the 


manner in which they acquired that knowledge 


could cause them to be biased in the eyes of 


some -- always a tension we face. 


I'm prepared in almost all cases to follow the 


guidance of the Board, in this case the working 


group, as expressed through the Chair if there 


are situations that would trouble the Chair of 


the working group, and we will see that those 


situations are dealt with. Absent that, I'm 


very comfortable with people with knowledge 


participating, as long as there's complete 


disclosure. And I thank you, Mike, for causing 


that disclosure to be on this record. I think 


that disclosure has already been made on the 


ORAU web site, but Mark, if you have any 


concerns at any point through this, then please 


let me know and we'll deal with those concerns. 


If not, then I think we'll let the discussion 

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continue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah --


 MR. GIBSON: If I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- go ahead, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- can follow up, Lew, I didn't 


want to offend anyone by asking those 


questions. It's just the fact that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mike, can you speak a little 


louder? 


 MR. GIBSON: I didn't want to question 


anyone's, you know, reputation or anyone else ­

- anything else, asking those question. I just 


wanted that general information, and it's just 


because on the fact that as Advisory Board 


members, you know, we would have to recuse 


ourself (sic) and become a member of the 


public, also. Say because I have 23 years at 


Mound, I would have to go out as a member of 


the public and then speak to the Board as to my 


experience. So I just -- I just wanted to know 


the employment and relationship between the 


people that are discussing this and -- and 


their own contract and stuff right now. 


 DR. WADE: No, well -- and well within your 


prerogatives, and I also think you -- you've 

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done a service to the process by -- by having 


us have that discussion. And again, if any 


Board member, you know, feels a certain 


discomfort, then please let me know, but -- 


 MR. GIBSON: And I'm -- I'm sorry for delay of 


the process, but I just -- I just wanted to get 


that on the record. 


 DR. WADE: You added value to the process, sir, 


and I thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I think the -- the important 


point that some of us on the Advisory Board are 


looking for, if not all of us are looking for, 


is that -- that there -- I think these folks 


definitely need to contribute -- it's my 


opinion, anyway. But we also need to keep an 


eye on the independence and the fact that -- 


that those involved in development and 


evaluation of the SEC petition or site profiles 


have an independence a step back so you have 


some other folks involved on the team that are 


also looking at -- you know, hard at the data 


from folks that have -- that are more 


conflicted, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Right, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Very valuable data and we need 

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their information, but we also need to take an 


independent look at it. 


 DR. ULSH: I understand. I understand 


completely and Mark, I do want to mention then 


that -- I mean the -- the conflict of interest 


policies for NIOSH and ORAU are -- I don't 


know, I'm not plugged into the latest status on 


that. I know that that's a very active issue. 


I can tell you that the people that we've 


mentioned who -- you know, that have 


participated in this discussion -- you know, 


Roger Falk, Jim Langsted, Gene Potter, Bryce 


Rich -- are contributing to both the SEC 


discussions that we're having, but they are not 


the leads in this process. Bob Meyer is the 


owner of the Technical Basis -- of the site 


profile, and Bob is not conflicted. Karin 


Jessen is the owner of the evaluation report 


and she doesn't have a personal conflict at 


Rocky Flats, either. It is true that these 


other people who are conflicted have 


contributed their experiences and knowledge, 


but they are not in charge of -- they don't 


have ultimate responsibility for these two 


documents. 

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 DR. WADE: Just to -- since the question of 


NIOSH conflict of interest policy is on the 


table, let me articulate it very briefly. 


First of all, it starts with disclosure by 


everyone involved in the process -- I mean 


complete disclosure -- and that's what Mike 


helped us do in real time, and again I thank 


him for that. 


Once that disclosure is made -- at the root of 


the NIOSH policy is that someone who is 


conflicted should not be the owner, principal 


author, you define it any way you want, of an 


intellectual product. They should certainly 


not be in a position to sign off on that 


product, to approve that product. There needs 


to be independence of the owner of the 


document, and then independence of the reviewer 


and those that sign off on the document. And 


that's the essence of the policy, disclosure 


plus independence at the ownership level, at 


the review and sign-off level. Now it takes 


various shades and various words are used, but 


that's the essence of it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I think -- Mike, I 


think we're okay to proceed at this point. 

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Thank you for --


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, yeah, sorry I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, no, no, no, no, that was very 


useful. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- I mean, you know, lay of the 


background. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's good. And I -- just 


-- just to get back into the other radionuclide 


mode here --


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I had a question 'cause I'm -- 


as I'm thinking about that gross alpha for 


plutonium question, I thought I heard Roger say 


-- maybe I -- maybe I'm missing this, but for 


the Plant D -- and as one that's not as 


familiar with Rocky Flats, I should say -- for 


the Plant D workers -- Plant D plutonium 


workers, I thought I heard -- gross alpha was 


the default. Am I missing something? 


 DR. ULSH: Roger, can you -- can you field that 

one? 

 MR. FALK: Yes, it turns out that Plant D, 

especially in the 1950s, was the shipping and 


receiving center for all of the radioactive 


materials that entered and left Rocky Flats, 

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and they're also the site of the final assembly 


for both the plutonium and the uranium Rocky 


Flats products. Therefore, workers there could 


have been exposed either to the plutonium or to 


the am-- or to -- or to the enriched uranium, 


or basically to any other radioactive material. 


That is why they sampled those as a default 


type of -- of a bioassay because the workers 


could have been exposed to any of the 


materials. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thanks. Thank you for the 


clarification. All right, and maybe we can 


proceed with the other radionuclide questions ­

-


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- outlined in Arjun's document 


or -- or go beyond that, I don't -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: However you want to go forward, 


Brant. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'll leave that up to you. 


OTHER RADIONUCLIDES


 DR. ULSH: There are some other radionuclides 


other than americium that are mentioned in 

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Arjun's write-up. Mel Chew -- I'm going to 


turn it back over to Mel. He -- this was a 


topic that he investigated, he and Mark and 


Bryce, last week at the Denver Records Center. 


 MR. CHEW: Thank you, Brant. Well, Mark, I'd 


just like to say the last time we were together 


at the Y-12 I brought you a lot of exotics and 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's right. 


 MR. CHEW: -- and so I -- I think I've been 


tagged with a --


 MR. GRIFFON: It's your mission in life now. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, I've been tagged with the 


exotic -- I don't look like a snake here, I'm 


sorry. But in all reality, the -- the quantity 


and the different types of exotics at -- 


certainly at Rocky Flats was not nearly as 


abundant as the early days at -- at the -- at 


the Y-12. 


So with that the note, let's address -- 


probably -- I'm going to separate several of 


the exotics into groupings and so they can make 


sense of why they were there. I think that's 


usually what I try to start with are why they 


were there, and give you some feeling of what 

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they did with it, and give you some feeling of 


the quantities that were there and issues 


there. 


Let's talk with the exotics neptunium-237, 


plutonium-238 and curium-244 and a little bit 


of curium-242 but primarily curium-244. And 


also the addition of the americium, too, but 


the americium was there already at Rocky Flats. 


All these particular exotics were brought into 


Rocky Flats in -- in relatively small 


quantities for purposes of -- several reasons, 


for a -- diagnostic tools to put into the 


plutonium for the weapons test program. I 


think all of --


 DR. WADE: I might -- I might ask you just to 


hold for a minute. The working group chair has 


left the table for a minute and I think it's 


important that he be back and I can hear 


evidence of the fact that he is returning. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I could almost hear. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry. 


 MR. CHEW: Sure, Mark, no problem. Okay. 


Mark, as --


 MR. GRIFFON: It's illegal, isn't it, taking 

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your own break without giving one. 


 MR. CHEW: Mark, I mentioned that the three or 


four exotics I'm going to address right away 


here, the neptunium-237, plutonium-238, curium244 and a little bit of the americium came -- 


and not americium as part of the exotics but 


the reason for the particular purposes of 


(unintelligible) and what they were used for in 


general. Okay? 


I think all of us know that in the -- as a 


diagnostic tool for the weapons test program, 


it was important to put a small amount of these 


-- what they call trace materials into -- into 


the -- into the devices, and as they, they 


basically looked for it, you know, the 


aggravation (unintelligible). They're 


basically no different than -- many of you are 


familiar with threshold detectors that they 


would have in a -- in a -- in a criticality 


dosimetry program. Matter of fact, many of the 


materials was used later on for that particular 


purposes. 


The exotic material was brought in in -- in 


small quantities and quickly alloyed, and 


that's why you do see some alloying of material 

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when you come out with some -- how the process 


did. They basically took a small quantity of 


the material and immediately alloyed it with 


plutonium and made a small little button of the 


material, like a neptunium/plutonium alloy, 


which has been fairly well documented in some 


very well-written reports that came out of 


Rocky Flats. 


Then the material was then -- this alloy 


material was now put into the rest of the 


melting to -- to cast to melt the rest -- rest 


of the plutonium part. Right? And so -- so 


that there's a two-step process here. 


There -- we -- we were able to go back into 


ledgers to determine when the -- the material 


came, neptunium, the curium and -- unless you 


want to mention the americium, too -- in 


quantities and form. And the neptunium, being 


-- the Rocky Flats was very well known of 


making very good metal -- probably as good as 


you did, Bob, at Y-12, but -- they made the 


exotics ones and the making of americium metal 


was also very important as a by-product to go ­

- send back to Oak Ridge to be -- to be 


sold/sowed* and also to be put into threshold 

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detectors that I think many of us have -- have 


-- are familiar with here. 


And so Mark, on that note, we have the gram 


quantities. Just in general, they range from, 


you know, kilo-- small -- hundreds of grams to 


much as -- in the mid-'60s the maximum amount 


of inventory for neptunium was there was about 


three KGs, and then dropped down significantly 


thereafterwards. The curium was there in 


really in only in gram quantities only, being 


very precious. They actually -- actually 


revered every -- every atom that they had, and 


I think I've already talked about the 


americium. So -- and then these are the 


exotics that -- really that we're able to 


identify and clearly -- and it was used in 


support of both the physics experiments, they 


made some alloys so they can send back to Oak 


Ridge to look for low energy neutron capture 


examples --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which one are you talking about 


now? 


 MR. CHEW: This is the neptunium one, and I am 


bouncing around. I apologize, I just -- you 


know, I just gave a little background what they 

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-- the reason for the quantities and the amount 


of material that was there. And so I will stop 


with that with the exotics -- well, I'll just 


mention one more. There was some californium252 that showed up at Rocky Flats and -- and 


these were all in sealed sources, and I think 


many of us will recognize the value of 


californium, being a neutron emitter, a neutron 


source, for the active interrogation. For 


instance, as they were doing barrel counting, 


when Los Alamos developed a barrel counter, 


they used an active interrogator using 


californium and they basically shot the 


neutrons into the barrel and then looked at the 


fragments (unintelligible) at these open end 


they can -- able to tell the amount of 


plutonium that was there, and so that was the 


reason for the californium so we were able to 


identify that. These were also in the ledgers, 


too. And I'm not so -- yes, Bob? 


 MR. PRESLEY: That was in a -- that was in a 


later year that that was -- 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, it was. Yes, sir, the 


californium didn't show up until the late '80s 


in the microgram quantities. Thank you very 

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much. I think you had one down there, too, in 


Y-12 in one of the interrogators, if I remember 


-- or one of the first ones. 


I'm -- I'm -- this is part of the -- the rest 


of the ex-- exotics we can address later on, 


which is the U-233 and thorium, unless you want 


to do that now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, go ahead, we might as well 


stay --


 MR. CHEW: Okay, I'll address --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- stay with it. 


 MR. CHEW: -- it now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay, I'll address it now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. CHEW: We can start with the U-233. A very 


clear record of when the U-233 came into Rocky 


Flats, and for obvious reason, this is 


accountable material, fissile material that was 


clearly accountable and so it's accountable 


down to the gram level and so these were well-


recorded in the ledgers here. And you can see 


that the amount of 233 that came in was clearly 


for the specialty programs that -- that 


resulted in the Nevada test program. Okay? 

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You can just identify the part that came in and 


quickly cast. I think many times -- I think 


Bob Presley would remember it was a part -- 


potentially it was made at Y-12 and it was 


shipped to Rocky Flats for the final dressing 


and trimming before it went to Nevada, and Bob 


is acknowledging that, too. So we clearly have 


the records that show when the Uranium-230 came 


in in quantities -- certainly in kilogram 


quantities only for a short period of time. It 


was basically a proce-- proj-- process that 


required them to bring in the 233 and then 


remove it. 


With that, as all of us have been -- discuss 


and know that in uranium-233 it leads to -- to 


the thorium situation here, has a small 


quantity of uranium-232. And the uranium-232 


in the order of about 50 parts per million 


which naturally decays to the thorium-228, and 


that brings up, Arjun, about the thorium strike 


and I'm going to talk about that right now 


because that's where the thorium come in. 


As far as the U-233 going back there, back as ­

- it's more -- much more of an external hazard 


from a radiation standpoint, treated very much 

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like uranium-235 at -- at Rocky Flats, with the 


additional -- of the -- getting rid of the 


thorium, which leads the uranium to go into a 


thorium strike process. It's a process where 


they take the uranium and basically boil it, 


add a little bit of thorium actually to it as 


the carrier, and actually filter it out and 


then remove the thorium as quickly as they can. 


That particular thorium I want to mention to 


you, Arjun, was the -- the small quantity of 


thorium-228 was basically treated as -- as 


waste and clearly document that it was packaged 


very quickly because there was radiation issues 


here and shipped to Idaho, and so they got rid 


of the thorium-228 as fast as they can here 


from -- from the 233. 


So that brings us to the thorium, the amount of 


thorium here. The thorium does not necessarily 


have to be accountable in -- in the Rocky Flats 


ledger, but they were. Okay? Many times that 


they were mentioned that the thorium came in, 


so there was -- in the accountability ledger -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thorium-232 now? 


 MR. CHEW: This is the -- the natural thorium 


that we're -- been talking about. Our favorite 

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subject here, Arjun. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, right. 


 MR. CHEW: Well, I think I would start off to 


say the quantity of thorium showed up at Rocky 


Flats was not nearly -- nearly as -- not even 


close to the amounts of material that showed up 


at Y-12. And with that, let's talk about what 


they did with the thorium here. All right? 


 Clearly there was a discussion with Mr. Vejvoda 


again and asked them what did they do with the 


thorium there and what kind of processes that 


occurred. There was no metallurgical processes 


that he could identify, again, and that -- that 


he said there was no metallurgical processes. 


Different than what they did at Y-12. Right? 


And so with that, the material came in in -- in 


-- in several forms, probably most likely from 


the Y-12 complex and just can't be sure, Bob 


may know that, because it only came in in 


kilogram quantities here, in the -- in the tens 


of kilogram, and the maximum amount probably in 


the 1961 area where there has been 


documentation there was about 250 or 


thereabouts kilogram. Right? Significantly 


less than the metric tons that we saw at -- at 

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Rocky Flats, but clear again, no metallurgical 


processes that we do know of. 


 Material came in probably to do -- well, to do 


several things here, to -- to form -- as you 


all know, every one of the weapons there that 


we made a -- a trainer or a part or -- or a -- 


or a -- what do they call it, an exhibit 


component -- right? -- and -- and the material 


came in was, only was either trimmed, it was 


not machined, but trimmed to make it fit into a 


part. Right? And so the part is -- was -- I'm 


saying to you that the -- the thorium pretty 


much stayed as a part. And again, to reemphasize, there was no metallurgical processes 


done with it, and so the thorium was well-


documented through -- it came in about the 1956 


time period and stayed until about the 1970 


time period. And right now -- the last 


recorded even after that was less than kilo-- 


well, about a -- less than a kilogram of 


thorium that was present at -- at Rocky Flats 


here. And so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Now when you said 250 kilograms ­

-


 MR. CHEW: Yes, sir. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- I'm reading this excerpt in 


Arjun's document, thorium quantities varied 


from as little as none to as much as 238 


kilograms in a given month, are you talking 


annual or -- or... 


 MR. CHEW: When -- when we see the records 


here, it -- it either shows us the -- using -- 


or we looked at annual reports, Mark. Or for ­

- sometime the report broke it down to -- you 


know, they could see when that particular 


month. We recorded the highest values that we 


could see, and so we just say, you know, during 


that 1961 period as much as 250 kilogram was -- 


2.9 to be exact, that number came out of the 


records here -- was recorded on the records 


here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So it wasn't like at a peak they 


were getting 250 a month for months and months 


and months. 


 MR. CHEW: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It doesn't seem like that. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, it didn't seem like that. 


 DR. ULSH: I think it might be worthwhile to 


note, too, 250 kilograms sounds like a lot -- 


maybe, depending on your point of view. 

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 MR. CHEW: Well, not by Bob's -- 

 DR. ULSH: Right, not by Bob's point of view. 

 MR. CHEW: Obviously. 

 DR. ULSH: But I just did a rough, back-of-theenvelope calculation, just to get my hands 


around -- is this barrels, is it buttons or 


something in between. If you look at the 


density of thorium, you're talking about -- if 


it was cube, about 27, maybe 30 centimeters on 


a side. So it's a fairly small -- physically, 


it's fairly small physically. So the point 


that I'm getting at here is that they didn't 


have large machine shops that were dedicated to 


handling large quantities of thorium. I mean 


that could very easily have been one single 


part that was sent in from -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, it sounds like the 


potential for airborne wasn't that great from ­

-


 MR. CHEW: Yes, it is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- what you're describing. 


 MR. CHEW: It was ocmelding* when you're 


talking Y-12, yeah, was the issue, so it was 


none of that. 


DR. MAURO: So in what capacity could you 

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generate an aerosol from the type of handling 


of -- let's -- even though it may be a 


relatively small physical -- but it sound -- 


I'm not quite sure if -- in the end I ask 


myself well, is there a potential that there's 


some group of workers that might have been 


exposed to airborne -- falling particulates of 


thorium-232. 


 MR. CHEW: That's a very good question, John. 


Let me try to answer it. I think -- I 


mentioned the thing about trimming. Okay? And 


there was a thing about -- called shearing, 


too. You know, taking this particular thorium 


and just knock off a chunk just -- literally to 


shear it, as you well know. The trimming was 


done like it was handling uranium-235. Okay? 


And so these particular machines are -- are 


basically lathes -- has a shroud over it. You 


know, has a cover over it. I can show you a 


picture of that. And so I would say, to answer 


your question, probably the likelihood of, you 


know, airborne activity of a significant 


quantity to cause a, you know, inhalation of 


thorium was going to be very, very slight, if 


anything, to not at all. At least that's my --

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my feeling. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do you know what building or 


buildings this was? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, the buildings have been 


identified. Matter of fact, we even -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do you have these for all these 


isotopes then that you've talked about? 


 MR. CHEW: Well... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know that we have to go 


down them all right now. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, fairly much. Okay? You know, 


there might have been -- the -- most of the 


analytical labs, you know, and there was about 


four of them showed up with, you know, a 


microgram or a milligram worth. But the 


principal facilities, yes, we do have that 


information and they will be reflected in the 


SEC evaluation. 


 DR. ULSH: Hold on. Before --


 MR. RICH: Now this is Bryce, could I -- just 


to know, from a perspective standpoint, if 


you're taking a piece of metal stock and 


creating a part from it, you normally -- you 


know, you start with four or five kilograms 


and, you know, from experience, you wind up 

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with less than ten percent waste. In other 


words, you'd wind up with something in the 


range of 400 grams in waste, which would be 


collected and treated as such, just -- just to 


give you an idea. And the trimming and the 


handling of a -- parts from Y-12 would be much 


less than that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So essentially the material 


came in as metal? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, I'm -- yes, it -- pretty much 


so, in -- yes, in form -- it came in from Y-12. 


Bob is nodding his head. Uh-huh. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, a (unintelligible) would be 


in a gram quantity. 


 DR. ULSH: I just wanted to clarify something 


you said, though. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, I didn't mean to say it like 


that. I didn't mean to commit that, Brant. Go 


ahead. 


 DR. ULSH: The evaluation report has already 


been written. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So you said that that would be 


reflected in the ER and we've already written 


the ER. 

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 MR. CHEW: I apologize. I thought we were 


still there. 


 DR. ULSH: Welcome to the Rocky process, Mel. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Just to clarify, you said that 


you did have the building locations for most of 


these, in terms of nuclides, including the 


thorium? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, we do. And we can -- we can go 


through that with you. But the -- as I said, 


other than the analytical lab, the -- the 


thorium was picked up in about three different 


locations here. U-233 was handled pretty much 

in --

 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

 MR. CHEW: -- the -- you know, the uranium 


area, you know, the 881 area, 80 to 100 area, 


and then brought over -- 771 actually started 


the real process of that thorium strike and 


then got it back over to the (unintelligible) 


where they could make the metal out of it here. 


The maj-- majority of that alloy was done in 


probably -- was done in the R&D area because 


they kept it very, very clean. And they made 


that little button and then now took that 


button over to the rest of the foundry -- 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: But in terms of the thorium, 


you're almost talking that -- even though the 


quantities varied over time, pretty steady 


state operation where -- over a certain period 


of time up until the mid-'70s where you had 


material coming from Y-12 going through, then 


going to the Test Site, I guess. 


 MR. CHEW: Give you some feeling, Joe -- good 


question there -- probably I'm just going to 


round off some numbers here because it came out 


from the ledgers. In the early '56 to about 


the 1959 time frame they were in ten kilogram 


range. Okay? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: And reached up to 1960 and '61 to 


the 250 we talked about, and then dropped back 


down to like 50 kilograms or thereabouts, 


increased back up in 1965 to about 165 


kilograms, stayed there for about two years and 


dropped down to below 100 kilograms, and then 


basically dropped to -- almost to nothing after 


1970. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: In your review did you 


establish any particular consideration from the 


monitoring standpoint or was it pretty much 

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captured by the gross alpha analysis? 


 MR. CHEW: Well, I wouldn't -- don't want to 


say that, that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean was there any 


indication that there was any -- any monitoring 


that was tailored to that operation? 


 MR. CHEW: I -- we did not see any clear 


indication that they went out and deliberately 


looked for thorium. Like I don't -- we don't 


see any thorium lung counts, example. We --


then -- I did not investigate the air sampling 


like we did at Y-12, but clearly there was no 


lung counting. And as you well know, it 


doesn't show up in the urine very easily. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay? And so from that standpoint ­

- uh-huh? 

 DR. ULSH: I mean there were general air 

sampling done, just like they would for any 


uranium or plutonium -- 


 MR. CHEW: It was in the uranium area. 


 DR. ULSH: -- but nothing above and beyond for 


thorium, that we know of. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Do that back then. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did you -- I --

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 MR. CHEW: No, go --


 MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to ask, going 


back to neptunium --


 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- maybe it's just -- just for my 


 MR. CHEW: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- education here. Why was there 


-- seemed like there was a lot more neptunium 


than curium, for instance. Was there --


 MR. CHEW: Oh, yes, there's significantly more, 


as much as one time --


 MR. GRIFFON: Is there -- is there a technical 


-- I mean I'm sure there's -- 


 MR. CHEW: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- a basis for that. 


 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh, well, as much at one time 


there wa--


 MR. GRIFFON: Can you -- to the extent you can 


-- explain? 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, as much as I can, like there's 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's classified. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, well, it's sensitive more than 


anything else, Mark. I think the highest level 

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there was as much as three KGs of neptunium 


there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Three KGs on site or --


 MR. CHEW: On site, uh-huh, for that year -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay --


 MR. CHEW: -- the ledger. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- not receipts per year or for ­

-


 MR. CHEW: No, that's the highest level of the 


year --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- off-site or --


 MR. CHEW: -- on site. As I said, though, 


neptunium became a very valuable material. The 


weapons program for -- you know, each of the 


tests, you know, both Los Alamos and 


Livermore's tests, would use maybe a few tens 


of grams for the test, and that would account 


for quite a bit of material be trying to -- 


trying to get to to develop that particular -- 


for that particular test program. Okay? So as 


you know, in the -- that was kind of the height 


of the test program, there were many tests per 


year. And then there was a significant amount 


of neptunium since they had the ability to make 


the good metal -- as I said, again, you know, 

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they were still given back -- back to Oak 


Ridge, so they can now -- when there was a 


large amount of neutron threshold detectors, 


you know, for criticality alarms, you know, was 


set up and everybody -- every -- had one -- 


every one had about a gram of neptunium, if I 


remember correctly here, in those detectors and 


that went (unintelligible) the place, and that 


would pretty much account for that -- the 


reasonable quantity. They think -- they took 


advantage of Rocky Flats being the people that 


can purify it and making a good metal 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: And one other thing that bears 


mentioning, Mel's already told you that the 


thorium was sheared or trimmed in shrouded 


hoods. The neptunium, the curium, the other 


exotics were all hand-- there was very, very 


great sensitivity of avoiding cross-


contamination. Ed Vejvoda told us this. I 


think Ed Putzier mentioned it in his write-up. 


This was a great -- very great concern so they 


took a lot of lengths to make sure that that 


material did not spread, did not become 


airborne and spread around. They did it in 

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gloveboxes. The curium it even looked like -- 


it resembled a hot cell. I can't say that it 


was a hot cell, but it sure looked like it. 


 MR. CHEW: Well, it had some shielding because 


there was some (unintelligible). I'd like to 


add on that, not only the health physics side 


of it being part of the test program, the -- 


the physicists and the engineers responsible 


for those particular tests was even more 


concerned about keeping it pure. Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The same question along the line 


of Joe's question, for neptunium was there any 


-- any isotope-specific for that or you didn't 


see any urinalysis isotope-specific for 


neptunium? 


 MR. CHEW: No. Maybe Gene --


 DR. ULSH: No, we've looked in the HIS-20 


database. There are no neptunium bioassay -- 


 MR. RICH: This is -- this is Bryce, just 


another note from a perspective standpoint. 


These were specialty projects. They were not 


routine process-line type contaminants. And as 


a specialty process, they attracted a lot of 


atten-- special attention that they -- you 


know, they were there and a lot of material was 

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in storage waiting for the right time for the 


specific experiment or part production. 


 MR. GRIFFON: In the building for the 


neptunium, or where would that have been done ­

-


 MR. CHEW: 771, 559 -- 779, you know, the -- 


where the R&D for (unintelligible) area was 


(unintelligible) amount of neptunium. 


Now once -- once it got into the little alloyed 


button, it went to the foundry and that was 


707, but that time it was already in the button 


area. 


 DR. ULSH: Now you mentioned -- sorry, Joe. 


While we're on that, you just mentioned in the 


R&D areas. And recall from our earlier 


conversation about gross alpha, Roger said that 


in those R&D areas they did use gross alpha, so 


there were no neptunium-specific bioassays -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: But may have some possible -- 


 DR. ULSH: It's possible, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, just in general -- I 


know you're operating off this nice beautiful 


matrix -- is that going to be available at some 


point? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Soon or -- or later? 


 MR. CHEW: You mean the quantities we have 


here? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yeah. I know you're 


referencing the matrix, but is that something 


that would be available (unintelligible). 


 MR. CHEW: I think I need to probably send -- 


run it through classification, yeah. And I 


think maybe -- like we did at -- at Y-12, we 


just made them general terms. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, even general, I think that 


would be useful. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that would help us in 


terms of our final review that we owe the 


Board, just to be able to close the loop and be 


-- that's it -- should be more specific. I'm 


quickly writing things down. 


 MR. CHEW: Sure. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I just wanted to make sure we 


were getting (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Joe, I don't have the advantage of 


having been involved in the Y-12 process. 


There are some unclassified documents that 


speak in general terms about maximum quantity 

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that was available, and we can, you know, get 


you those documents. But if you're interested 


in a --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I -- we're writing 


things down as it were. I guess the one 


question is what you're telling us here 


presumably --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can't be classified while we're 


on the record, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- isn't sensitive. Right? 


Right, on the record, so I'm just saying that 


beyond that -- beyond that, you're going to 


make that determination. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy DeMers. 


Mel, when you first listed your grouping you 


mentioned 238 plutonium? 


 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh, we did. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You didn't really say 


how that was used. Was it used --


 MR. CHEW: Kathy, I'm sorry. That was the same 


for the -- many of the tracers for the Nevada 


tests was also using a small quantity of 238. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. And did you find 


anything out about polonium being handled 

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there? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's --


 MR. RICH: It never showed up in the records. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. Kathy, right now I think -- I 


just want to make -- don't -- don't say 


anything out -- that is maybe incorrectly. We 


did -- we did not find anything in the records 


because it was not kept in the records here. 


Okay? There may have been in potentially early 


years of some polonium would have brought in as 


part -- part of the -- a device or a weapon 


component, but I -- there was no record of 


that, Kathy, so I'm not saying that there 


couldn't be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Could I just -- just one more 


question and I've had a request for a break for 


the group so we'll take a break after I get 


through this section, but on the neptunium, 


what form did -- did it come -- what form -- 


 MR. CHEW: An oxide -- it came as an oxide. 


 MR. GRIFFON: An oxide? 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, it did. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And was it ever in any liquid or 


what I mean powder, but then did they ever -- 


I'm -- I'm getting a reference in a log book of 

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-- of neptunium spills, which could have been 


just a powder spill or... 


 MR. CHEW: Well, they dissolved it, you know, 


very quickly so they can, you know, make it 


into a metal fluoride out of it and so there is 


a very -- actually a very good document on 


neptunium processing here and so if it was like 


a neptunium spill, you know -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So it was a fluorination process, 


though, that they --


 MR. CHEW: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mel, you're -- I had some 


thorium questions before -- I can wait -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, go ahead. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Or before? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, go ahead, go ahead. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm a little --


 MR. CHEW: You'll have to speak a little louder 


so I can --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thorium-232 -- I'm a little 


confused about the numbers as to whether 


they're per month, whether they're per year or 


whether there are stocks -- you went through a 


lot of numbers, 250 kilograms in the early 

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'60s, then 50, then 165, then below 100, and 


then almost nothing after 1970. But I --


 MR. CHEW: That we have in the -- seen in -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- don't know --


 MR. CHEW: -- the records so far. Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, right. So I just -- I 


just wrote down the numbers that you said, but 


there were no -- no -- since we had a 237 per 


month, it seemed to me -- this is sort of 


following on Mark's earlier question. It 


seemed to me that if there were quantities like 


250 kilograms per month and 100 kilograms per 


month, I mean you're -- over the period of the 


'60s to the -- early '60s to the late '60s, you 


are talking tons. 


 DR. ULSH: Hold on, hold on, that -- what 


you're seeing, Arjun, is not receipts in and 


out. What you're seeing is inventory on site. 


So let's say in January you had 250 and in 


February you had 240. That doesn't mean that ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, it's not receipts. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly, it's inventory sitting on 


site. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So these are inventory numbers? 

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 MR. CHEW: Okay, let me -- in -- in the ledger 


it says -- very clearly it says what came in 


and came out, as many -- as much as they could. 


Okay? And then that's receipt. We chose the 


highest amount that there could have been there 


at any time during that year. And so when they 


says 250 per month, it's really a -- if you 


went back and looked at the ledger 


individually, but it's carried over from the 


previous month, so yes. 


 MR. PRESLEY: All right. You might have had a 


250-gram amount that came in in X month, but 


next month it might have been 240 because they 


used ten grams. The next month it might have 


been 238 because they only used two grams. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's -- kept your inventory on 


hand 'cause it was too hard to get. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify 


what the numbers were, flows or inventories or 


use --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, Craig just made a good 


analysis -- or a good analogy. It's your 


checkbook balance, it's not your cash flow. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, and I understand that 

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exactly. That was the point of my question is 


I did not -- since it wasn't said, whether that 


was inventory or flow. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now I have a question. 
I 


think this is actually a very valuable look at 


the material ledgers that probably hasn't been 


done in the depth that we've done before. Is 


there any nuclides of significance other than 


the ones that, you know, we kind of cherry-


picked from the, you know, what we saw, which 


was the unclassified, that would be of 


relevance to this discussion 'cause I think 


early on we got a -- a little heads-up on -- I 


think it was U-236 coming out of Idaho. You 


know, there was a couple of inferences there. 


Is there anything else that you can enlighten 


us on beyond these four or five? 


 MR. CHEW: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Without getting into 


classified --


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. Because, as I said, the -- 


the purpose of the material was quite -- still 


sensitive. Okay? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Uh-huh. 


 MR. CHEW: There's -- there's probably a 

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reasonable amount of plutonium-242 that was 


there, but we (unintelligible) our -- I think I 


want to just leave it that way. It is still --


for some physics experiments, as you can 


imagine. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, we need to take a break. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay, let's just leave it there. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Mark Griffon and Lew Wade, would 


it be appropriate for me to make a -- to add 


some new information, not -- not a comment, 


just some information about the thorium at 


Rocky Flats? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Who is this? 


 DR. WADE: This is Dr. --


 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel in --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, Dan, okay. Yes, yes, it's -- 


yeah, go ahead, Dan. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, I -- I've been working 


closely with the Dow Chemical site in Madison, 


Illinois and they -- as you know, Dow was the 


prime contractor at Rocky Flats from 1952 to 


1975, and that company was a major thorium 


supplier. And we -- we have direct testimony 


from many of the workers at the Dow Madison 


plant that extruded and rolled and cast thorium 

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metals that there were numerous shipments from 


the Dow Madison plant to Rocky Flats, as well 


as exchange of personnel between the two sites, 


of people who worked at Dow at -- at Rocky 


Flats who came to Dow Madison for special kind 


of extrusion and rolling and casting 


operations. And then the men tell of many 


shipments from Dow Madison to Rocky Flats, so I 


-- I believe that although the comment was made 


that there was no metallurgy operations done at 


Rocky Flats, that it's highly possible that 


there was a contract that the prime contractor 


did some of that machining and milling and 


rolling at Madison, Illinois and then sent it 


to Rocky Flats. So I think you should 


consider, besides Y-12 as a source for thorium 


at Rocky Flats, the Dow Madison plant. I -- I 


guess that's my main comment. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 


 MR. CHEW: I appreciate that very good, too. 


think I remember looking at the ledger, there 


was a comment that came in from one of your -- 


one of the sister facilities at Dow and I'm 


glad you recalled that. 'Cause sometimes in 


I 
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the ledger it would -- it sometimes identified 


where the material was shipped in from, so you 


-- you're absolutely correct. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is there anything else on the 


other radionuclides at this poin-- at this 


juncture? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: One -- one -- one more question 


about this -- so there's a whole aqueous 


neptunium processing stream there, but we have 


no air monitoring or -- so are there -- did you 


identify gross alpha data in these areas? I 


mean the key -- the key -- the central point of 


a lot of this was do you have gross alpha data 


for the radionuclides for which we don't have 


radionuclide-specific information, so there was 


some potential for airborne for neptunium and 


thorium. Say those look like the big ones. Do 


we know that there was gross alpha data for 


those workers? 


 DR. ULSH: First of all, I would -- there's a 


couple of things I want to address in your 


question, Arjun. These operations occurred in 


the R&D areas, for which we know there were 

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gross alpha measurements. Can I tell you that 


for a particular neptunium operation there were 


gross alpha bioassays, I -- I really can't at 


this point. But we do know that they had that 


technique available to them and they do have 


workers in those areas that have gross alpha 


measurements. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: Now the second point, you 


characterized that there was a potential for 


airborne of neptunium and thorium. I would not 


concede that. These were done, first of all, 


small quantity, small type operations. They 


were special campaigns and they -- there were 


great lengths taken to avoid cross-


contamination. So I think that the airborne 


potential is very, very minimal. I can't say 


zero, but it is very, very minimal. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just to clarify my own 


question, I -- I did -- I did get that they 


took great care, but I presume that it was 


comparable to the care that they took for -- 


for weapons plutonium, which was also done -- 


glovebox and there was potential for air 


contamination with -- with plutonium. So it's 

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-- and the -- the chemical -- the chemistry 


sounds like it was very similar, same -- same ­

-


 MR. CHEW: It is the same chemistry as the 


basically the same chemistry. 


 DR. ULSH: But it's a question of scale, 


though. They dealt with tons and tons of 


plutonium, so you did have events that led to 


airborne contamination. We're talking about 


kilogram quantities here, much, much less 


potential just based on the scale of the 


operation itself. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, that's true. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on this topic for 


now? I think we'll -- this is a good time for 


a break. 


 DR. ULSH: Mark --


 MR. GRIFFON: I've had a request for a break. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, let's do take a break. 


However, I've got Steve Baker on the line who 


is going to talk about the Trailer T-690 


records issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: He's only available until -- for 


another half-hour, so if we could take a 

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reasonable length --


 MR. GRIFFON: Ten-minute -- ten-minutes; keep 


it short. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:10 a.m. 


to 11:20 a.m.) 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we're getting ready to 


reconvene. Are our friends still on the line? 


Is there someone on the line? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, did you want to – 


T-690 TRAILER RECORDS


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, Mark, I'd like to ask the 


Board's discretion to maybe jump out of order 


from the matrix. Steve Baker is on the line 


and he -- we've been talking about this issue ­

- I think it was originally raised by Don 


Sabec* at the Denver Advisory Board meeting 


about some records that were in a trailer, T690. And I'm going to ask the folks around the 


table who were at that meeting to help me 


recall this accurately. Mr. Sabec told about 


some records, that he saw boxes of records that 


he saw in that trailer and they were there, and 


then a couple of weeks later they were not 

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there anymore. And he was told by another 


worker that they had been taken to the 


landfill. This is -- this is according to Mr. 


Sabec -- and it was Don Sabec. Right? I mean 


I think I do have that correct. 


 MR. LITTLE: That's correct. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. So this occurred I think in 


the early '90s -- maybe late '80s. It's been a 


while. But this is obviously an issue of 


concern for us, and for -- SC&A is also 


interested in this, we all are. And we've 


asked Steve Baker to talk to some of the older 


-- you know, some of the people who were on 


site at that time to see if we could kind of 


track down what this situation is. So Steve, 


are you out there? 


MR. BAKER: Yeah, I'm here. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Steve is only available for 


about another 15 minutes, I believe. So Steve, 


I'd like you to just maybe summarize the number 


of people that we've talked to, who we've 


talked to and what we have found out. 


MR. BAKER: Okay. So far I've spoken with 21 


people, all rad protection types, some in rad 


engineering, some in rad training -- those are 

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the two groups that were in the T-690 trailers 


in the early '90s. I've talked to some of the 


RadCon protection management/radiation records 


people. Most people did not remember hearing 


anything about the boxes. There were a few 


that had some vague recollection hearing 


something about it, but this is 


(unintelligible) detail. There are a couple of 


people that also said they remembered the 


incident, remembered it fairly well -- let me 


(unintelligible) my computer here. Larry 


Rands* was -- I can't remember if he was a rad 


engineer or in radiation training at that time, 


but he was down in T-690-D at about that time. 


He said he remembered hearing about or 


remembered seeing 100 boxes there stored in 


about half of the trailer. He thought they 


were collected from several buildings across 


site, possibly contained contamination records, 


survey records, dose reports, maybe some other 


reports. He remembers that they were there on 


a Friday and gone the following Monday. He'd 


also heard that trucking had taken them to the 


landfill, but he didn't know for sure and he 


didn't know for sure what the records were. He 

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suggested I call Don Sabec, who's one of the 


contacts he suggested to try to get more 


information. 


The other person I contacted, Jeff Jenns*, he 


was a radiation protection manager at the time. 


Again, he vaguely remembered hearing something 


about the boxes, couldn't really remember any 


details, but thought that they might be fixed 


air head and airborne activity monitoring 


records related to a claim made by two former 


employees in the early '90s. I think they had 


actually filed a lawsuit and may have been 


records to support that, but he wasn't -- 


again, wasn't sure, didn't know any other 


details. 


Tim Woods was a -- I'm not sure if he was a rad 


engineer at the time or if he was a rad 


engineering manager. He also vaguely 


remembered something about missing records, 


didn't know any details, but thought they might 


have been related to some contaminated records 


that were located in Building 881. I do 


remember that a little bit. There were some 


contaminated records found and had to go 


through and survey the records and made copies 

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of contaminated pages, and I'm not sure where 


they did that. They thought that might have 


been 690 where they did that. 


Bruce Wallen was with DOE. He doesn't really 


remember any missing records, but talking -- 


after I talked to him a little bit, he thought 


-- you know, the only thing he could think of 


was the contaminated records from Building 881. 


Finally Dick Link, who was in rad engineering ­

- I believe he was in rad engineering at that 


time. He remembers a pile of boxes is how he 


put it that was there one day and gone a day 


later. He didn't know what was in the boxes or 


what happened to them, but he did say boxes 


were routinely brought into 690-D to research 


information for lawsuits, building restart 


issues, other issues, and typically those boxes 


would contain survey records, exposure data, 


incident reports, things like that. He said he 


does remember bringing about 100 boxes into 


that trailer sometime around that same time, 


and he was looking for a particular survey 


record from the Building 771 fluorinator when 


he was doing his search. He thought his 100 


boxes went back to the Federal Center. He also 

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did mention the contaminated records from 


Building 881, and also thought those could have 


been taken to 690-D but he didn't know for 


sure, and that's -- that's all I've found out 


so far. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, Steve. Could you also walk us 


through what you said in an e-mail a few -- oh, 


I guess a few weeks ago about what the policies 


in place in terms of records control were at 


that time, and whether or not there might have 


been any legitimate reason for records 


destruction. 


MR. BAKER: Okay. I was radiological health 


manager from '95 until 2006. Before that I was 


in internal dosimetry and then spent one year 


in external dosimetry starting back there in 


1985, June of '85. The personnel exposure 


records -- we collected all those, we had files 


for each person, each contractor had their own 


file, and those were all stored in Building 123 


back in the mid-'80s, and then later they were 


moved to Building 112 across the street when 


123 came down. Those records were stored -- 


when they were in 123, they were in you know, 


the rolling -- rolling cabinet things. We also 

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had some file Fire -- Fire King file cabinets 


out in the hallways. 


Those records -- we held onto those very 


tightly. They had a check-out process. We had 


a log book that -- that we signed to -- to 


check out who had it, where it was going. 


Those were individual files at the time that 


were checked out. And then periodically the 


radiation records people, if a file was not 


turned back in in a reasonable amount of time, 


they would go find the person and make sure 


they, you know, still had the file and, if they 


didn't need it anymore, to get it turned back 


in. 


It would be very -- in my mind it would be very 


unlikely that those missing boxes, especially 


if they're talking a large number of those 


boxes, could have been personnel exposure 


history files. I just -- we never let those 


out of the building. The only -- the only 


buildings those were allowed to go to even. If 


a rad engineer wanted it, they had to come up 


to our building, Building 123. We would also 


let them go across the street to 122, which was 


our building, which was where the body counter 

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was. Roger Falk and others were housed over 


there for periods of time, so those are the 


only two buildings that -- that we would allow 


those records to go to. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- was that a DOE -- what was 


the DOE policy at that time for -- I mean I 


think there was some sort of moratorium on 


destruction of any records related -- 


particularly related to exposures. I -- I know 


that can be -- that was interpreted by the 


sites, probably, but what -- what was the DOE 


policy at that time when this -- this alleged 


incident occurred? 


I don't know -- what time frame are we talking 


again? 


MR. BAKER: I can tell it --


 MR. GRIFFON: Is it in the '90s? 


MR. BAKER: -- probably sometime in the late 


'90s or early -- early -- late '80s or early 


'90s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


MR. BAKER: It was probably around 1990, 1991 


time frame. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


MR. BAKER: And I don't remember when the 

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moratorium on destruction of records came into 


being. Before the moratorium records had a -- 


a --


 MR. GRIFFON: Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: There was a moratorium, but it 


was in the late '90s and -- mid to late '90s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It was late '90s. Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: And one thing to keep in mind is 


that -- I don't know, maybe even then you could 


destr-- you could dispose of duplicate copies, 


but you couldn't get rid of the originals. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And it was due process where 


you had to actually send a notice around and in 


some cases get permission to do that. 


MR. MEYER: And actually I think that was in 


effect during the environmental dose 


reconstruction that started in 1992 at Savannah 


River and --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


MR. MEYER: Does that sound right? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So I guess at this point we would 


have to characterize it as we still have a lot 


of questions out there. We don't have the 


answer to this, to what happened, if anything, 

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I 

with this incident. 


What I do want to impress upon you is that 


we're pursuing this with due diligence. 


think Steve -- you said 25 people that we've 


talked to now? 


MR. BAKER: Twenty-one. 


 DR. ULSH: Twenty-one, 21, and there's a few 


more on the list if we can get contact 


information. 


MR. BAKER: Yeah, I've got about six more. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. I mean I hope that we'll be 


able to run this down. I don't know. We're 


trying. We've got 21 people that we've talked 


to. 


Now one per-- I think the next person or 


relatively soon we should talk to Don Sabec. 


spoke to Mr. Sabec at the Den-- at the Denver 


Advisory Board meeting. Not about this 


particular issue but, you know, some other 


things -- and he gave me his contact 


information, including a phone number. I tried 


to call him shortly after the Denver Advisory 


Board meeting about some other issues -- 


repeatedly, I think four or five times -- never 


got an answer -- you know, left messages, 


I 
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didn't hear from him. Amy Dean, who is on 


Bob's team, has also been trying to reach him, 


left three or four messages, haven't heard back 


from him. So --


MR. MEYER: It's been in the last week. 


 DR. ULSH: So he could be on vacation, for all 


we know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: But we are trying to reach him, too, 


because I mean he's the original source of 


this. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Might be able to work through the 


petitioners, too, and see if they can contact 


him, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. Now I know that SC&A's been 


interested in this issue. Do you guys know 


anything more that we don't know? I mean I 


kind of laid on the table what we do know. You 


guys found out anything? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, Brant, Kathy has 


actually interviewed I guess the workers -- or 


worker that has raised this, has brought this 


forward. I don't know, Kathy, is there 


anything more that we know? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I gave you all the 

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information I had. 


 MR. LITTLE: When did you talk to him? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Oh, this was before the 


last working group meeting. 


 MR. LITTLE: Say that again. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It was before the last 


working group meeting. It's been a while. 


 MS. MUNN: More than a month. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: My guess is two to three months? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The last working group meeting 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: At least a month. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- was the 30th of May. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I mean I guess the other 


question on this is -- is to what end? I mean 


where -- where is this going to take us? 


 DR. ULSH: I really can't say. Right now we 


have more questions than answers. It would be 


great if one of these next six people that we 


talk to says oh, yeah, yeah, this is exactly 


what happened. I can't -- I don't know if 


that's going to happen or not. 


MR. MEYER: We have put quite a bit of effort 

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into this and it -- I --


 DR. ULSH: Oh, talk about -- talk about the 


records searches that we've done. 


MR. MEYER: We have -- which ones do you mean, 


the full set? We've done quite a bit. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, we've been bogging down -- 


we've been overwhelming the Mountain View 


folks. We've searched on anything to do with 


the T-690 incident, any -- any investigation 


write-ups. 


MR. MEYER: We've spent -- our -- our contact 


there of course is Andrea (unintelligible) and 


Scott Raines*, Andrea does the searches for us. 


They're very cooperative, very helpful, and 


pretty creative when it comes to searching. 


They understand the record set and the database 


very well. And in this particular case, Scott 


has not been able to come up with any record. 


One thing we've been looking for in particular 


is was there an investigation of some sort of 


this incident. He's not able to find anything 


indicating that and he -- he would be able to 


if it's present. 


 DR. ULSH: So I guess what we know at this 


point is we have Don Sabec's recollection that 

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he saw trailer -- boxes of records in this 


trailer that were not there later. Another 


employee, according to Mr. Sabec, said that 


they were taken to the landfill. Mr. Sabec 


doesn't know that for sure, but I mean that's 


what he was told. 


In terms of the contents of those boxes, I 


don't know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It seems like --


 DR. ULSH: We've got a lot of --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- What Steve just said, it seems 


like at least one individual he talked to 


confirmed -- or -- or --


 DR. ULSH: Some people -- some people that 


Steve talked to do have --


 MS. MUNN: They also had heard. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, also had heard. 


 MS. MUNN: Also had heard. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: They recollect hearing this. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But even if -- even if -- my 


point is, even if they went to the landfill, 


they could just be duplicate copies of some 


other records, couldn't they? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, they could be, but we don't 

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know that at this point. I -- I really can't 


say that we can put this issue to bed yet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


MR. MEYER: The requirements for protection of 


dosimetry records are really clear within the 


(unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: They're pretty stringent, so let me 


see if I can -- can really summarize what we 


have here. 


We have an individual alleging that boxes of 


material that he was told were records -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, he looked in the 


boxes. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think, Wanda, he said that 


he did a cursory look through the boxes. 


 MS. MUNN: He looked in the boxes and he 


believes these records were what, Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Field records and 


records related to individuals. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So survey records and -- 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: He believes that these were original 


survey records? Does he have any assertion in 


that regard? 

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 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, he didn't say 


anything about that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: May have to follow up with him on 


that. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. We'll try to track him down. 


 MS. MUNN: So he has looked in boxes that he 


believes were records at one point, and several 


days later the boxes were not there. Some 


third person, unidentified, told him that they 


had been taken to a landfill. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: We have one other individual who 


indicates that some other third party had also 


told him that something had been taken to the 


landfill. He doesn't know whether it's the 


same batch of boxes or not. But we have a 


number of people who indicate that there's no 


evidence that such an event occurred, to their 


knowledge. Is -- is that a good summary? We 


have 20 people saying they don't really see how 


that could have happened -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Slightly leading, but yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, so was the what was there and 


-- but that's essentially the summary. Right? 


MR. BAKER: (Unintelligible) people said they 

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didn't remember anything about it. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Didn't say it didn't happen, just 


said they didn't remember hearing about it. 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Some other people -- I'm looking at 


one, two, three -- four or five remember 


hearing something about it, but can't remember 


any details -- and they don't have personal 


knowledge. They just remember hearing 


something. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Seemed to say something possibly 


related to a lawsuit, so -- or -- or -- 


 DR. ULSH: One person said -- and Steve, 


correct me if I'm wrong. One person said that 


records were often taken to this trailer to do 


research in support of lawsuits or building 


closures. Is that accurate, Steve? 


MR. BAKER: That's correct. 


 DR. ULSH: So that -- that's what we know and 


that's what we don't know at this point. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So we'll keep looking. 


 MR. LITTLE: But one thing we haven't been able 


to find -- to reiterate, we haven't been able 

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to find in the Records Center any -- any formal 


action that looks like a lawsuit or an 


investigation occurred around the time that 


we're talking about associated with this 


trailer, the lost records. I mean that's 


pretty interesting. It seems to me 


significant. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: What was the time exactly? 


 DR. ULSH: You know, that question keeps coming 


up; I wish I had the answer. I think it was -- 


 MR. LITTLE: Late '80s, early '90s. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm going to have to go back to the 


transcripts from the Denver Board meeting and 


see exactly what Mr. Sabec said, but that -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Wasn't there a worker lawsuit 


at that time? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: There -- there was a 


worker lawsuit and he had brain cancer, Arjun, 


but I don't know when it was. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I think there was a 


worker lawsuit around that time. One 


suggestion, Brant, is if it was related to a 


lawsuit and research about lawsuits, it must 


have been a check-out and check-in procedure at 


the time and there -- so I believe probably 

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that -- I know that prior to the big lawsuits 


in the '90s and later, there were -- I think 


there was an individual lawsuit, or two or 


three individuals at Rocky Flats. I don't 


remember the --


 DR. ULSH: That might be an angle that we can 


pursue, see if we can approach it from that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It might be possible to settle 


it that way, 'cause somebody may have seen it 


in the trailer and then they may have been 


taken back and logged back in, so if you could 


find that log, then --


 DR. ULSH: That would be great, but that... 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- It may be a long shot, but 


at least it's a shot. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only other interesting -- the 


only other point I have on that maybe was it 


sounds like you interviewed 20 or so health 


physics related people. Who was -- who was 


running the trailer? I mean who -- you might 


have --


 DR. ULSH: I'm looking at Steve's summary here. 


We've got people from rad health managers, 


people in rad engineering, there's a rad health 


secretary, someone from DOE, so they kind of 

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span the spectrum. Steve, can you speak to who 


was in those trailers or operating those 


trailers? 


MR. BAKER: Again, it depends on the time frame 


because I think rad training was in half the 


trailer and -- Larry Rands told me that rad 


training had half of T-130-B trailer at one 


point and the Union Progression Committee was 


in the other half of that trailer, and I think 


that was the time frame when these records 


disappeared because he mentioned Don Sabec 


would have been in the other half of the 


trailer at that time. 


 MR. LITTLE: And he -- he -- Sabec mentioned 


that he was on the Progression Committee. 


MR. BAKER: Okay. So that's probably the time 


frame then that they're talking about. A 


little bit later I think the union got their 


own trailer, and then rad engineering moved 


into that trailer. So the people that would 


have been -- from the rad protection group, the 


people that would have been in that trailer at 


that time were probably Curt Galloway*, Larry 


Rands -- there were probably a couple of rad 


engineers that were in there, too, I think -- 

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Mark Welley*. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that includes the people you 


talked to -- I mean these are people you talked 


to? 


MR. BAKER: Yeah, these are people I talked to, 


and the people I talked to either -- a couple 


of them remembered hearing something about that 


but nothing else, and then Larry Rands was the 


one who remembered the most, remembered seeing 


them. 


MR. MEYER: Steve, do you remember when Anna 


Montoya* was there? Was she there during that 


period? 


MR. BAKER: She was actually up in Building 123 


for that period. 


MR. MEYER: She was the rad --

MR. BAKER: She could not remember anything. 

MR. MEYER: Right, she was the rad health 

secretary at that time and doesn't recall 


anything about it, and she's very 


knowledgeable. She's still at the Mountain 


View Center. 


 DR. ULSH: So that's an update on where we are 


with it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think follow up with that 

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individual, but at some point we need -- 


 DR. ULSH: We're trying. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. It might be a dead end, 


you know. At some point we have to recognize 


that, too, so --


 DR. ULSH: It might be. I hope not, but it's a 


possibility. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thanks a lot, Steve. 


MR. BAKER: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Mark, we left off with --


 MR. GRIFFON: Going back to the agenda. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. We left off on page two. 


think we talked about issue four, and we went 


into other radionuclides. I think that's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- where we left off. 


EXTERNAL DOSE, NEUTRON ISSUES


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I'm kind of on the 


next issue, which is the external dose or 


neutron issues primarily, I guess. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And maybe just a -- a background 


-- catch up on where we're at -- 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


I 
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 MR. GRIFFON: -- on that as -- from both 


parties, from -- I know that SC&A provided a 


paper reviewing some of those issues and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I have extra copies of what we 


handed out last time in case people don't have 


it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just an update on that. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. I think Ron Buchanan was you 


guys's point person on these issues. Right? 


I'm going to rely on you, Joe, to make sure 


that I'm accurate here, but I think Ron 


reviewed OTIB-50. He -- we've had some 


discussions between he and Roger and other 


members of the team about some of the questions 


that Ron had about NTA film. 


Mark, you've got here that some of these 


questions are still outstanding, such as the 


justification for using the NTA film 


calibration factor for glass track dosimeters. 


I don't know that that is an updated status. 


Is that still an outstanding question? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No. No, it isn't. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 'Cause I mean we did discuss 


it. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: That's what pertinent about 


the thing we handed out last time and I'm 


handing out again. Given all the different 


nooks and crannies to the external issue, just 


to make it easier, I had Ron put this piece 


together which basically is a bottom line on 


the overall external dose assessment, the NDRP 


neutron, neutron, photon, everything. And 


distinguishing between what is -- has led us to 


a site profile conclusion -- in other words, 


there are issues, but for example, with NTA 


film, but there -- and aprons use and there's a 


whole number of issues, but they turn out to be 


more site profile questions. And distilling 


this thing down to what we're calling remaining 


SEC-pertinent questions -- which are -- which 


are two, essentially, and they're highlighted 


on page four of this handout and also in the 


conclusion of the last page of this handout -- 


they get around? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Take this one. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But in sum, one deals with the 


question of the early years, the question of -- 


of -- you know, the references for the data 


entries, the max and min values, number of 

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zeroes, et cetera for the early years in 


Building 771 and the basis for table 7-1 and 7­

2 of the site profile. And the only question 


there is that -- you know, we -- we don't have 


a problem so much with the methodology. I 


think that's been pretty well cleared. But we 


want to really look at the data behind -- the 


data that would be used in the neutron to 


photon ratios, and I understand better -- I 


guess number of the parameters which we list 


there, which -- number of data entries, for 


example, so we know what the statistical 


significance of those values would be. Max/min 


values, number of zeroes, just know-- wanting 


to know what the data behind the NDRP 


information is. And that's laid out I think 


pretty clearly there in terms of a summary 


conclusion of that. So it's not the method, 


just the basic data that will be used in that 


methodology that I think we want to validate 


and make sure that we understand and -- and can 


see the significance of it. 


The other issue is the one we talked about last 


time at some length. I guess we'll talk about 


more today, which is the -- the issue of the 

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'69/'70 data which I think Ron picked up in his 


review, and I think Kathy also raised in terms 


of some of the interviews that she had and 


trying to establish what may be behind what 


appears to be, at least for that period of 


time, some anomalous values. 


So those are the two remaining what I would 


call SEC-pertinent questions on the external 


side in terms of Ron analysis, and that -- that 


really distills quite a bit of territory in 


terms of neutron inf-- you know, neutron 


issues, and we've gone through quite a bit, so 


that's it, from our standpoint. There's a lot 


of SE-- I'm sorry, a lot of site profile 


questions, but those have been sort of 


identified in this review. We understand 


they're site profile issues. We understand we 


might have to go further with those at some 


other point. But those are the two SEC-


pertinent issues. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Joe, you -- you see this pre-'64 


-- I saw something in here, pre-'64 cohort 


badging versus badging the maximally exposed, 


you see that as sort of a site profile issue. 


Is that what you're saying? 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think at this stage 


we're seeing that more -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's on page three, I think. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that's a site profile issue, 


you believe, it --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. From our standpoint. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so in terms of follow-up or 


action items for us, for NIOSH, on this, you 


want to see the data behind the NP ratios for 


the early years --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Behind the -- you know, the 


two tables, 7-1 and 7-2, the -- the data behind 


-- you know, the parameters behind -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- those early years. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think it would answer the 


question, which is, you know, is this 


statistically significant, can you in fact 


apply the method without running afoul of that 


issue. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. The second issue, the -- the 


pattern that we're seeing in 1969 where some 


individuals don't appear to have dosimetry. 

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That's not specifically related to neutrons, 


but it is something that I wanted to talk about 


today. Is this a good time, Mark? You want to 


talk about that one? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Unless you want to save it for 


data reliability section. I mean I think -- 


 DR. ULSH: It's up to you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, go ahead on that one 'cause 


we're going to -- I'd like to break for lunch 


around 12:30, but --


 DR. ULSH: Oh, okay. That's -- that should be 


enough time. 


 Okay, just some background on this issue. I 


believe it was Kathy who originally identified 


two individuals, and I guess this might be a 


good time for me also to mention -- just to 


remind everybody about Privacy Act. I don't 


want to talk about employees by name, but Kathy 


identified two individuals who appeared to have 


gaps in their dosimetry in 1969. And I've 


asked some of the people on Bob's team to look 


into this, and Mark Rolfes and I, who -- who is 


still here, actually -- we noticed -- we poked 


around in NOCTS and we found a couple of more 


individuals that appeared to have work history 

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-- employment at the site in 1969 but did not 


appear to have records -- external dosimetry 


records in 1969. 


At that point I decided that we really needed 


to look at all of our claimants in NOCTS in 


terms of the Rocky -- the people who had 


employment at Rocky Flats in 1969 to see how 


big of an issue this might be. What we found 


out -- Jim, are you on line, Jim Langsted? 


 (No response) 


Uh-oh, I'm on my own. 


MR. LANGSTED: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, good. 


UNIDENTIFIED: He's on mute. 


 DR. ULSH: What we found out, there's about 600 


or so claimants who have employment at Rocky in 


'69. Of those approximately 600, there are 


about 138 who have periods in 1969 -- either 


the whole year or individual quarters -- with 


no external dosimetry results. So this appears 


to be a bigger issue than just the two that -- 


that Kathy originally identified. 


Now, the question is -- why? Why do these 


people have no dosimetry in that year? And 


this is another issue similar to the T-690 

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issue where I can't give you an answer today. 


I can tell you what we've done. 


There's a couple of hypotheses that we've 


investigated. First of all, one thing to 


remember about this year is that was the year 


of the big fire. And so -- in Building 771, 


was it -- anybody? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: 776. 


 DR. ULSH: 776, okay. That was the year of the 


big fire, and so it occurred to me that that 


might -- you know, that's a highly disruptive 


event. That might have disrupted the dosimetry 


program in terms of their ability to, you know, 


process the badges, what-not. It doesn't 


appear to be the case. We tried to look at the 


people that we've identified to determine 


whether or not they were directly involved in 


operations in that building. Some were, some 


were not. So --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: How did you make that 


determination? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, we looked at -- I looked at 


the information in their rad file, Kathy. On ­

- on bioassay cards sometimes you'll see where 


-- what building they were assigned to, and 

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there's some other clues in the rad files about 


where they worked. I'm not saying I could 


determine that in every case. What I am saying 


is that some of them appear to have worked in 


that building, and some of them don't appear to 


have worked in that building. So I -- I can't 


say that it's only limited to people who worked 


in Building 776. That does not appear to be 


the case. 


Also, the NDRP has some information about where 


people worked, and that supports that this 


wasn't limited to only, you know, plutonium 


process operators in that building. So I -- I 


can't say that it's not related to the fire, 


but that doesn't support it, anyway. 


Some of -- another hypothesis that we batted 


around is well, maybe this was -- you know, 


this -- after the fire you had a pretty big 


cleanup effort and people from all over the 


site were involved in that cleanup effort. It 


might be a badge contamination issue. People 


might have worn badges, but they were 


contaminated and somehow not able to be read. 


Well, that would make sense for the first 


couple of badge exchange cycles after the fire. 

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I mean if you started, you know -- but once -- 


once they determined that these things were -- 


that these badges were getting contaminated, 


you would think that they would take methods to 


correct that problem, either wrap the badges in 


plastic or -- or whatever. And another thing 


to remember is that when people were sent into 


these areas with the widespread plutonium 


contamination, typically they were in bubble 


suits and contamination was, you know, 


monitored for. I -- my gut feeling is that 


that's not a likely explanation for this. 


 It's possible that this could be a reporting 


issue. In other words, these people were in 


fact monitored, but for some reason they're not 


contained in the records that we're receiving 


from DOE. That's just a hypothesis. I have 


nothing to -- I mean I'm just trying to put out 


all the logical possibilities on the table that 


we can -- then talk about, you know, whether it 


holds up or not. That's a possibility. 


Bob, have I left anything out in terms of our 


efforts to clear this up? 


 MR. MEYER: Just to -- maybe timing. The fire 


occurred part-way through the year and some of 

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these individuals, at least a couple that we've 


looked at so far, we're seeing no data reported 


prior to the fire so that's kind of 


reinforcement of one of the things you said. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, it may not be related to the 


fire. 


MR. MEYER: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So at this point I would love to 


give you an answer for it. All I can really 


do, though, is tell you the status of what 


we've done to try to resolve it, but we're not 


there yet. We don't have an explanation for 


the --


UNIDENTIFIED: Fifth (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, fifth --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can you give us the 


claim numbers for the 138? 


 DR. ULSH: I'm sorry, what was the question, 


Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can you give us the 


claim numbers for the 138? 


 DR. ULSH: I think we can. We've got it on a 


spread sheet, I think we can get that to you 


pretty easily. I'm asking Bob to write that 


down as a follow-up action for us. 

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121

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And I guess the other 


thing I would like to this is that there is a 


gap not only in the dosimetry records, but also 


in the log books, in the reports that were put 


out by the field, or there is very little said 


about this huge fire and -- 


MR. MEYER: Actually we do have the log book 


that the shift foreman recorded in the night of 


the fire, during that period. It begins 


obviously well prior to that, but -- but I mean 


we have cop--


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: In which one? 


MR. MEYER: And we have copied that one and 


that -- we can make that available. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can you make that available? 


MR. MEYER: But it's -- it -- clearly the log 


of the fella who was in charge at the time that 


the fire occurred. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But to clarify, Kathy, what 


you're talking about is perhaps the 


documentation that would corroborate some of 


these issues in the period of time following 


the fire? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah, there's just a 


general lack of documentation right around that 

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time period, and it really doesn't matter where 


I look. I can -- I can look in the bioassay 


laboratories, monthly reports, and the only 


thing I see is we processed those -- so many 


samples and we had to stop routine processing 


because we had to process for the fire. And 


then I can look in dosimetry monthly reports 


and very little is said. 


MR. MEYER: We actually do have the dosimetry 


monthly reports, the quarterly reports and the 


annual summary for that period. We've got now 


-- and we just received these actually 


yesterday morning on disk and they'll be made 


available to you -- for -- it looks to be, and 


Craig -- Craig Little looked through these with 


me as well yesterday. It looks to be for the 


entire plant for that period, all of 1969. We 


have the original handwritten film badge 


records, including density measurements and 


dose -- related dose numbers, and we also have 


the pin-feed printouts that summarize those 


records. We -- we've been calling them the 


supervisor's reports but they're actually the ­

- the quarterly reports that are summarized 


every year, and we have all of that data for 

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all of 1969 as well. And I believe, I can't 


say for sure yet but I believe it includes all 


the workers that were on site at that time. 


The volume is about right, but we, again, just 


received them yesterday. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And you mentioned that 


you saw something in a log book? 


MR. MEYER: We have the log book for that 


period for the -- the foreman who was on duty 


at the time of the fire, and it works right 


through the -- the fire event. And that's 


available to you now, as well. We just 


received that also. Took some -- a fair amount 


of digging to (unintelligible) -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And would that be on the 


O drive? 


MR. MEYER: Not yet. We just received it 


yesterday. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Mark hasn't actually had time to put 


it on there yet. 


MR. MEYER: It's not (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: One thing that you mentioned, Kathy, 


about -- you said that you're not seeing much 


mention in the log books. It's hard for me to 

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comment without knowing, you know, exactly what 


kind of log books. But one thing to consider ­

- I'll just put it out on the table to consider 


-- is that once the fire happened, essentially 


plutonium production operations stopped 'cause 


that's the building where it happened. And so 


the people who were -- would originally have 


been working in those areas and keeping logs 


would no longer have been doing -- at least not 


the job that they did before the fire because 


it was shut down, the building was inoperable. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The other thing that -- 


that we noted, and we'd asked Bob Bistline 


about this, was that health physics -- or that 


we can -- you know, with relation to what we've 


looked for so far -- did not write up a report 


after this fire, like they would do with many 


other big incidents. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm not sure what conclusion to draw 


from that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I'm just telling 


you it's -- it's -- it's not just the dosimetry 


records. It's -- there's -- there's a lot of 


records that are not being found. 


MR. MEYER: Right, that's -- that's a good 

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point. We didn't specifically look for a 


report. I mean there are a number of reports 


related to the '69 fire. There's a --


 DR. ULSH: There's a well-known 


(unintelligible). 


MR. MEYER: -- for example, a chem risk report 


'90, '92 has a long discussion about the '69 


fire. The Radiological Assessments Corporation 


reports from '92 to 2000 have long discussions 


about the --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think she's talking about -- 


MR. MEYER: -- fire in detail. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- a report right after from -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The part --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- health physics. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- part that we're 


missing is --


MR. MEYER: Right, but those are all linked to 


records from the site. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: If you -- if you read 


through the log books, if -- if there's a 


personal -- personnel contamination, somebody 


will write that down, and there's a lot of 


examples in the log book of that. Well, there 


were a lot of personnel contaminations and 

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nobody that I can find so far wrote it down. 


 MR. GRIFFON: During the fire, you're talking 


about. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah, not even after the 


fact. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, it might be worthwhile to 


see if there's an HP report or HP log 


associated with that time period, but what we ­

- we also -- let's wait and see what you're 


going to post on the O drive, this -- this 


foreman's log, it might be useful. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now you were talking about I 


guess numbers of workers that had no records 


for external. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: I was talking about the numbers of 


workers -- the 138 number that I gave, there 


appears to be periods during 1969, from as 


little as one quarter up to the whole year, 


where there is no dosimetry results in what we 


have. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now the other -- I guess the 


other question were -- and this is what raised 


in Ron's review is the -- you know, the 


prevalence of what's -- appears to be a lot of 


zero entries and what the significance of those 

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are. That's a slightly different issue, you do 


have a record, but it appears to be -- for 


those two years -- a lot of zeroes. Which may 


get into the fact that there was no operation 


going on. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly, that's the point I was 


going to make. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But I think that was a 


question that he wanted to nail down a little 


better. 


 DR. ULSH: You're right, Joe. It would be 


consistent with what we know about the work 


duties of the people who were reassigned after 


the fire. They originally worked in the 


plutonium building, which is where you had the 


highest exposures -- among the highest 


exposures on site. Once those productions 


ceased, those workers were -- temporarily, at 


least -- reassigned to the cafeteria in 


building -- what was it, Roger? 


MR. LANGSTED: 750 building. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, Jim, thank you -- the 750 


building, and from there they were assigned out 


to other duties. But keep in mind that the 


activities at the site which generated the 

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highest doses were not going on after the fire, 


so that would be perfectly consistent with 


seeing a higher number of low or zero readings. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But did they have a period of 


cleanup? I mean --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Have you looked at the 


dose rates --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- would these same people have 


been involved in the cleanup -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- in the -- I guess -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or not necessarily? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- the rubble area? 


 DR. ULSH: What was that, Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Have you -- have you 


looked at any of the dose rates in the rubble 


area? You know, after the -- when they went in 


for the cleanup, have you actually looked at 


the dose rates? 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb 


here -- and others who were actually at the 


site at that time, please jump in and help me. 


It's my impression that while there certainly 


were areas that were heavily contaminated, in 


general the dose rates were lower than existed 

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-- you know, than workers might have been 


exposed to during operations of the plutonium 


processing. 


Now does -- for other people who were at the 


site, does that sound right? 


 (No responses) 


Hello? 


 MR. CHEW: I would certainly say so, Mark, 


because many -- much of plutonium was involved 


in the fire so it turned into an oxide. Okay? 


So it doesn't look like a chunk of plutonium 


metal is staring at you with a -- for an 


external dose. 


I'd like to add, to talk about when you said no 


records, Kathy, you know, I think this is very 


similar to the thing -- when we're talking 


about -- Bob, about that Y-12 with the -- 


looking for the incident reports. Remember, 


you had an incident called a fire. Right? 


And now you have an area that's significantly 


contaminated. Going back into the operation of 


cleaning up, especially -- and recovering after 


a fire was under -- on -- under -- not an 


incident condition here, which you would put in 


logs, but normal operations as doing cleanup in 

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operations. And so it would not surprise me 


they -- you would not put the onesie-twosies 


that you were looking at, Kathy, during normal 


operation where you may have a mishap. Okay? 


This is already an incident and then -- now 


you're going back and then going back and in -- 


under certainly what I would say controlled, 


radiological, suited-up conditions here when 


you are facing with contamination, you would 


probably not put those kinds of information in 


the log book unless you had something to happen 


during the cleanup that created an incident 


with a person -- you know, might have torn a 


suit or something like that. So I'm just 


trying to say why -- why you would not find 


that kind. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, in -- I don't see 


any reference to an incident report, and I've 


seen it -- seen references to incident reports. 


It's -- you know, there may be something out 


there and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Hold on, Kathy, on second, Kathy. 


Hold on one second. Ray has a question. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Hey, Kathy, this is Ray, 


the court reporter, and everyone who's 

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telephonically patched in, if you're on a 


speaker phone would you make sure that it's 


turned up to its maximum volume, because you 


may not be aware of that but it will really 


help us out here. Thank you. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Go ahead, Kathy. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay, there was no 


reference to an incident report, like there is 


with other incidents, in the log book. 


 MR. CHEW: Are you -- are you relating to the 


fire itself, Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. 


 MR. CHEW: As you well know, there's a 


significant amount of documentation, a major 


report. It was probably the largest industrial 


fire, from a cost standpoint, that this country 


had ever suffered at that particular time. I 


remember that kind of data. I know Roland 


Felt* personally. Roland was on the committee. 


There was obviously a -- many levels of 


investigation, including the DOE, you know, 


type A or B report that was done, and so I'm -- 


I'm not so sure -- I'm not following what you 


say here. 

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 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, first of all, 


we're trying to get ahold of that report right 


now. 


 MR. CHEW: Sure. Well, Roland's still alive. 


He's up in Idaho. He's -- I think he's one -- 


only one --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can -- can you -- it seems to me 


that -- yeah, it's obvious that there must be 


some (unintelligible) associated with this. 


 DR. ULSH: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can we --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- try to --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- and -- and there is 


at least -- I've got a redacted copy of -- of a 


fire report, but it doesn't have the detail in 


it. 


 MR. CHEW: What kind of details are you looking 


for? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That were -- that were ­

- you know, how many people were contaminated, 


how many people were sent for body counts, how 


many people had contaminated badges, that type 


of stuff. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I can tell you anecdotally, 

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Kathy, a couple of things. First of all, some 


of the claims that we've looked through in 


NOCTS -- this is -- Mark Rolfes just handed me 


this note -- they do in fact show re-entries 


into Building 776 following the May '69 fire, 


and they document that and the individuals were 


in supplied air and -- and they did have 


plutonium contamination on the suit. So I 


mean we do see that kind of information. 


 MR. CHEW: I know there's a report on the 


firemen and I know there's a report on the 


amount of contamination that was on the roof. 


I -- I've seen them myself, I just don't happen 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe as an action. 


MR. MEYER: Yeah. We were looking for the gap 


information and actually didn't -- hadn't 


pursued this, but this'll be easy to find. It 


should be easy to locate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm sure. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, obviously if 


there's a redacted version of a fire report, 


then there is an unredacted version of the fire 


report somewhere. And it -- you know, it may 


be that they just can't find it right now. 

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 MR. RICH: This is Bryce Rich. I'd like to add 


to what Mel said, and that is that this -- this 


fire was way beyond an incident, and Roland 


Felt I think has got a complete file on that. 


I could give him a call if you'd like. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That would be great. 


I'm also working through DOE to get a copy. 


 MR. RICH: Let me check with Roland and see 


what -- what he's got and -- I'd be very 


surprised if he didn't have a file cabinet 


full. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, and he's got pictures, too. 


He's given a talk many, many times. 


 DR. ULSH: And I guess one thing I would ask, 


Kathy, if there are particular logs that you 


are looking at that you think should have 


information but don't, can you forward them to 


us so that we can take a look? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Understand what you're looking 


for, yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Specific logs, I mean not -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or what's missing --


 DR. ULSH: -- copies of them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) think is 


missing, yeah. 

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MR. MEYER: And actually the most likely place 


to find this, because it was such a major 


event, is Roger Anders' Repository in 


Germantown, the DOE historian. He -- I've been 


in his archives at the time I had the Q 


clearance and he has copies of every major 


event at every site. So if we can't find it 


anywhere else, Roger will -- will have it. 


DR. MAURO: Could I ask --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I'm working with 


his sidekick --


DR. MAURO: Could I ask --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- in DOE, so... 


DR. MAURO: -- a simple question here? It 


sounds like that there's a list somewhere of 


everyone that was involved in the incident and 


then the follow-up, the fire and the follow-up. 


Is there a list of names, here are the people 


that worked -- who were there and participated 


or affected by this fire? I mean -- and when 


you -- when all is said and done, what -- what 


I'm hearing is that we're concerned that 


there's a large group of people that were 


involved, directly or indirectly, with this 


fire in 1969 and we don't have records that 

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will help us reconstruct their doses. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think --


DR. MAURO: Is that --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you might want to clarify 


that. 


DR. MAURO: -- am I -- is that --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) --


DR. MAURO: -- help me out here, what -- what 


is -- where -- where -- where -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) don't know if 


they were in the fire. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly right. There is a lar-- 


there are --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It just happens to be a 


coincidence. 


 DR. ULSH: There are 138 individuals out of the 


600 people that we have in NOCTS, they're NIOSH 


claimants, 600 people have employment in 1969; 


138 of them have what -- they have periods in 


1969 with no external dosimetry. Now, we don't 


know whether or not it's related to the fire. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, we can't make that 


distinction. 


 DR. ULSH: We can't make that distinction. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 

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 DR. ULSH: Another thing that you have to 


remember is that this was the year that the 


health sciences database was established. It 


is possible that there was a glitch in 


transferring the data. I've also talked about 


this could be a reporting issue. And so there 


are a number of possibilities out there. And 


yes, it very well could be a coincidence, 


Kathy. We don't know. We can't say that it is 


or is not related to the fire. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And I only provide the 


information on the other records as additional 


information. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Do what? 


 DR. ULSH: What was that? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That was the purpose. 


only told you about the other gaps in the log 


books and stuff as a piece of additional 


information. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Well, I appreciate it and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's worth following up. 


 DR. ULSH: -- and as I asked, if -- if there 


are logs -- particular logs that you're looking 


at that you think should have data in them that 


don't, can you please forward a copy of those 


I 
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logs to us so that we can look at them as well? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And I have a point of 


clarification, too. Did I understand you right 


earlier when you said that you just received a 


lot of the handwritten -- sort of the original 


primary records for workers -- 


MR. MEYER: That's correct. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- in that time period? So 


you don't know yet, but that possibly would be 


out in a way -- you have some original -- you 


may have some original dose data that may or 


may not have been transcribed, put in 


electronic database, but at least there's 


something there at this point. 


MR. MEYER: Our next step is to go through -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Go through that. 


MR. MEYER: -- all those records. It's two 


full boxes of handwritten dosimetry records for 


all of 1969. Looks to be -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: To see if you can marry that 


up to the --


MR. MEYER: Looks to be all the 138 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the 138 so you can cross-


reference them. 

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MR. MEYER: -- (unintelligible) 138. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll still need to question 


why not the transcription, but at least you -- 


there is some risk data, primary data. 


 DR. ULSH: There is one more possibility that 


we haven't talked about, and that is what was 


known as the fifth quarter rollover. Now I'm 


going to rely on Roger and Jim and maybe some 


of the other people to help me get the details 


right because this has been explained to me 


three or four times and I still don't quite get 


it. 


 Apparently when you had a badge exchange -- a 


badge wear period that extended over the break 


in a year, so let's say the end of 1969 into 


19--


MR. LANGSTED: Brant, Jim Langsted. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, Jim. 


MR. LANGSTED: Let me -- let me explain it, 


'cause I think you're getting a little off-


track here. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, thank you. I was hoping -- I 


was hoping that if I floundered obviously 


enough, you'd save me. 


MR. LANGSTED: We actually rehearsed this. 

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MR. MEYER: Brant actually understands it 


completely. 


 DR. ULSH: Go ahead. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Go ahead, Jim. 


MR. LANGSTED: What would happen is at the -- 


remember -- you've got to remember this is back 


in the days when computers were mainframes, 


they didn't have a lot of memory, they didn't 


have a lot of storage, so what would happen is 


as the -- as the calendar year ended, they 


would roll the detail off to magnetic tape, 


summarize the data up and store only the 


quarterly data. But what would happen is you 


would be processing badges for approximately 


three months after the end of the calendar year 


because January -- or December 31st you would 


get in all the semi-monthly -- all the 


monthlies and all the quarterly badges. So 


what they had to do was they had to get the 


semi-monthly badges read and the data put in 


and the reports printed out so they could get 


them back to the managers 'cause these are the 


people who were really controlling dose on a 


two-week by two-week basis. But at the same 


time they had all these quarterly badges that 

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141 

they had to get read out and it took them 


almost the three months to get those read out. 


So the question was, how do you enter data in 


the subsequent calendar year when you still had 


to put data in in the previous calendar year. 


And the way they solved this problem when they 


programmed it was they created a fifth quarter 


for every year, and the fifth quarter is where 


they would put the -- the data for the first 


quarter of the subsequent calendar year until 


they could get everything into the previous 


calendar year. And that -- like I said, that 


took about three months to do. 


Follow so far? 'Cause it's complicated, sorry. 


 DR. ULSH: Now you know why I had trouble with 


it. 


MR. LANGSTED: But then what would happen is at 


the end of the first quarter of the next 


calendar year, they would -- needed to clean up 


the records, so what they would do is they 


would actually cue a program that would get rid 


of all that -- or archive all of last year's 


data and then roll the fifth quarter back over 


into the first quarter of the calendar year; 


everything was straightened up. 

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142

 UNIDENTIFIED: We hope. 


MR. LANGSTED: Now -- yeah, we hope. And 


obviously that was a tense (unintelligible) 


records-keeping people because if the -- the 


programs didn't work right, you could have 


problems -- you could have problems with the 


data. 


Along with this process, this complicated 


process, was also the process of printing out 


the calendar year summary report that got filed 


in the health physics paper copy for each 


individual, and those are the things we see in 


the claimant files that DOE provides to us. 


Now as Brant said, this was one of the first 


years that the health physics database existed, 


and one of our suspicions is maybe this process 


was not completely clean. Obviously if it 


completely augured in and failed, that would 


have been noticed, the problem would have been 


fixed. If, however, the -- something happened 


and maybe only some of the low people -- some 


of the people with very low doses came out with 


blank reports, that wouldn't have been noticed 


by the records-keeping people, and that appears 


to be the case 'cause there is no record that 

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the records-keeping people went back and tried 


to resolve data discrepancies. They probably 


did not recognize it. Some of these people 


that did have badges during 1969 ended up with 


reports that were all blank in 1969, and that's 


our suspicion with what's going on. 


 I have interviewed several of the people who 


were involved with records-keeping at that 


time. Mind you, these are all people that are 


in their eighties now and have been retired 


from the plant for 20-plus years. And none of 


them can recall any specifics associated with 


fifth quarter rollover problems that they -- 


that existed. So I suspect that this was 


something that was not recognized at the time. 


 DR. ULSH: Thanks, Jim. So you can see that 


we've got a few hypotheses on the table that 


we're in the process of testing. I can't tell 


you why that there's a gap. I've given you a 


feel for, you know, the size of the issue and ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: And you've got a large hunk of 


raw data which --


 DR. ULSH: Which we don't know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- may answer some of those 

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questions, too --


 DR. ULSH: It may. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- hopefully. 


 DR. ULSH: We're hoping. 


 MR. RICH: Pardon me, this is Bryce Rich again. 


I took the liberty of calling Roland Felt as we 


were -- as the meeting was going on, and -- and 


I could give you just a brief update there. He 


indicated that -- well, first of all, he 


indicated that he spent more time in the 776 


recovery area so his personal exposure should 


be bounding. 


He indicated that there's an extensive report, 


but it's classified. And Idaho has a -- Idaho 


Operations Office has a copy of that. Bill 


Jensen* had it but he retired -- and Roland 


Felt, by the way, is retiring next Monday and ­

- but he said of his personal files, much of 


that has been disposed, but he has a wealth of 


information, knowledge and personal -- personal 


recollection, so -- and I asked him if he'd be 


willing to talk to individuals interested in a 


little bit more background, and he said he 


would. I can give you his telephone number if 


that's of interest. 

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145

 DR. ULSH: It is of interest. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) off-line. 


 DR. WADE: But I think --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, let's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's do it off-line. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: One question I had about the 


gaps in the data, did you look at 19-- first of 


all, was it a fiscal year or calendar year -- 


 DR. ULSH: Calendar year. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- (unintelligible). Did you 


look at 1970 to see if there were any gaps in 


1970 (unintelligible) originally I remember we 


talked about '69 and '70. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: I think that '69/'70 was the zeroes, 


wasn't it? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It was the zeroes, but Kathy, 


was that strictly '69? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, there was a 


noticeable low dose, exposure-type, received 


with several people who -- in the year after, 


like 1971 -- had a lot more dose, and then -- 


 DR. ULSH: Now wait a minute, low exposures is 


a different issue. We're looking for more 

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gaps. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: These are the gaps. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, and -- okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Speak up a little, too, Kathy. 


I'm sorry. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: '70 is not a gap. '70 


is either a lot of zero exposures or very low 


exposures compared to what that individual had 


in 1968 and 1971. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We'll get to that later. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, that's a different -- 


that's a different (unintelligible) because I 


was kind of confused in my mind 'cause I'd 


always heard these two years together and it's 


 MR. GRIFFON: Me, too. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Maybe we can think about lunch? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, in a few minutes or 


(unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: Wanda's thinking about lunch. 


UNIDENTIFIED: You're the man, Lew. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only other thing I wanted to 

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do while we're still on this external section 


was that, and I think we're going to move this 


to data reliability. In Ron's paper you have a 


-- on page three you have a paragraph on the 


"no data available" question, but I think that 


really falls under data reliability. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think that's one 


reason because --


 MR. GRIFFON: We can discuss that later. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I think we've covered 


everything in these. The only other part, and 


maybe I'm confusing it, but I had a note down 


here of neutrons versus HIS-20. Is that 


related to the source of the NDRP, are they 


(unintelligible) discussing that 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, that was the question of 


having identified the HIS-20 data so that you 


could, you know, cross-reference -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Cross-walk, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- cross-walk it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that's been (unintelligible) 

for a while. Okay. Is there anything else on 

this topic? 
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 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no, I -- like I say, I 


think we -- we've kind of settled this now for 


a couple of months where -- I think we have 


those two issues, one of which we just talked 


about. I think if we can get the early neutron 


data behind the NDRP, I think that'll take care 


of it. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, did we cover the neutron-


to-photon ratios going back from the '80s to 


the '50s? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did we? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that's -- yeah, that's 


been addressed. It's reviewed in here, but 


we've covered it in the past -- or do you want 


to talk about it more? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well -- yeah, the only -- the 


only question I had about that -- I think the 


only question I had about that was have we 


established -- and I don't -- you may have, I 


just don't have a recollection of it -- 


regarding -- like the amounts of materials that 


were stored in the '80s -- you know, the source 


-- the source term for neutrons, was it -- was 


it equivalent in the '80s to -- to the source 


term in the '50s? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- I guess what we're 


getting at is the representativeness. Is -- is 


that neutron-to-photon ratio in the later years 


representative of the operations and therefore 


the neutron-to-photon ratio in the earlier 


period. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, there's two things you would 


want to look at when you consider that 


question. One is was the amount of the source 


term the same. The answer is no. I mean 

certainly not. They started small and they 

ramped up. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 

 DR. ULSH: But the quantity of the material is 


not going to affect the N/P ratio. It's the 


composition of the source term. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree. 


 DR. ULSH: And with that, I've just exhausted 


my expertise. Was the plutonium -- was the 


source term in the '80s at Rocky Flats of a 


similar composition to what you would see in 


the early years. I'm putting this out there to 


any team members who are on the line. 


 MR. FALK: Brant --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

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 MR. FALK: -- the source term, as far as the 


composition, would not be significantly 


different. What is the crucial thing is the 


shielding configuration. That's going to 


affect the -- the neutron-to-gamma ratio. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and theoretically the 


shielding would have been a lot better in the 


later years. 


 DR. ULSH: Roger, can you pursue that a little 


more? Would -- can you speak to the 


representativeness? 


 MR. FALK: There -- there was a big push in the 


late '60s and the early '70s to basically -- to 


basically upgrade the -- upgrade the -- the -- 


upgrade the shielding. I -- I do not know much 


of the details of that, though. 


 MR. CHEW: Hey, Roger, this is Mel. I can 


share a little bit here. I think after the 


Rocky Flats fire -- I think many remember there 


was a -- called a general design criteria 


manual. Okay? 6430.1a and .1b -- I think I 


was working with Joe at that time at the -- in 


the office putting some of that criteria 


together. Right after the fire -- obviously 


the fire had a significant (unintelligible) 

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about design and -- and especially the issues 


about fire and fire redundancy and things like 


that. But along -- came along with that was 


clear criteria what the design parameters were. 


And I think the Building 371, which was a 


building under that design at the same time, 


along with TA55 and the small plutonium 


facility at Livermore, we all met together to 


discuss those kind of criterias. At that time 


it was the first time we actually had to design 


the gloveboxes and the glovebox shielding to 


have exposures to no more than one rem on an 


annual basis on a design basis. Okay? And I 


think that clearly reflects some of that change 


that you're talking about here, Roger. And so 


you're right, the -- the neutron-to-photon 


ratio probably did change because at that time 


things were talking about having even 


gloveboxes with two to three to four-inch 


windows there to protect the neutrons, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So as far as your justification 


for the back extrapolation -- I guess that's 


what we want to get back to -- is -- 


 DR. ULSH: I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and I can't recall -- I know 

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you --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I know, it's easy for me to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- responded in the document to 


this. 


 DR. ULSH: I know, and I'm trying to recreate 


this as we go. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean -- I mean I'm 


willing to --


 DR. WADE: So why don't you take -- take some 


lunch to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- let's do -- how long -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: We can come back to that 


question. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Mark, (unintelligible) 


reference. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it's (unintelligible) 


of that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Hold on a second. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It's on page -- it's on page 


five. I mean I think in Ron's piece we try to 


summarize where we came out. I knew there was 


a touch-point there, but we do raise some 


questions about the use of the single N/P -- 


you know, N/P value and using it to go 

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backwards, as -- as proposed, and whether 


that's in fact claimant-favorable. But I think 


in the end the judgment was that's going to be 


more of a question of conservatism and a site 


profile issue as opposed to whether or not it 


would be --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I do remember that 


sort of discussion was -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's -- that's kind of, you 


know --


 MR. GRIFFON: But even if -- even if we --


there's a disagreement on the ratio -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we can probably get a ratio -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And right here we even say 


that, the .42 --


 MR. GRIFFON: So it's probably a site profile 


issue more than an SEC issue. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It needs -- it needs to be 


pursued because there isn't a very complete 


technical justification for why that one value 


could be (unintelligible) backwards from the 


reasons that Arjun's raising, but it's -- it's 


going to be a question of conservatism more 


than anything else. 

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 DR. WADE: Mark, how long do you want to take ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: I still think we might want to 


hear an answer on the justification for using 


that ratio back. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I think at the end of the 


day it might go back to (unintelligible), I 


agree. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It might be a little more 


conservative, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 DR. WADE: How long for lunch? 


 MR. GRIFFON: For lunch. 


 DR. WADE: How long? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, let's take an hour for 


lunch --


 DR. WADE: Okay, we're going to break the line 


and we'll be back on line in one hour. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 12:30 to 1:30. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:30 p.m. 


to 1:55 p.m.) 


NEUTRON/PHOTON ISSUE


 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry about the delay. This is 

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the workgroup back and I think we wanted to 


pick up on the neutron/photon issue, a little 


follow-up on that. I just wanted a little 


clarification of the rationale for the back 


extrapolation and -- and, you know, whether the 


process is similar enough, including 


differences in source term or differences in 


shielding or whatever --


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to justify the use. 


 DR. ULSH: This was an issue that I think was 


considered in the NDRP. Roger Falk, are you on 


the line? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Can you kind of walk us 


through the rationale for the N/P ratio? 


 MR. FALK: Well, first of all, the -- the N/P 


ratio for the NDRP was based on the -- was 


based on the film dosimetry program and was 


based on data from the plutonium buildings, 


primarily weighted by Buildings 771, 776 and 


777. 


Now -- now in 1970 there were a couple major 


transitions. First of all, we went from the 


film era to the TLD era for the dosimetry 

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program. And then, since we had the fire in -- 


in buildings 76 and 77 in 1969 that we 


discussed earlier, the -- the plutonium metalworking operations were transferred to Building 


707 and that became operational in 1970, 1971 


time period. And that was a new building that 


-- that -- that had the processes essentially 


modularized and had engineered and designed 


shielding built into it. And for these reasons 


it is really not appropriate to forward 


extrapolate the NDRP ratios into the 1970s. 


Now the problem with the 1970s is that 1970 


through 1976 the record that is in the claimant 


files has a roll-up of the neutron and gamma 


data into one quarterly value, and therefore 


there was a -- the project needed a method to 


estimate what the neutron component was. And 


basically the recommendation was look at the 


neutron-to-photon ratios for the TLD dosimetry 


results when we have the detailed neutron and 


gamma data broken out for each badge exchange 


and is available in the claimant's record. And 


therefore 1977 and on would be the data 


appropriate to back-extrapolate into that 


period for the purposes of breaking out the 

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roll-up total dose into neutron and gamma 


components. 


Also during that time I am not aware of 


basically any significant shielding changes in 


-- in either building 71 or in the Building 


707, which were the two primary -- which were 


the two primary plutonium buildings at that 


time. 


So that is the rationale for the recommendation 


to the project to -- to -- to use the back-


extrapolated data rather than the forward -- 


the forward-extrapolated data from the NDRP. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The -- I guess the question I 


was raising, Roger, was -- it was my impression 


that there are no neutron dose data for 


Building 771 in the 1950s, so it was a slightly 


different one than you explained in that the 


neutron-to-photon ratio from the 1980s is being 


used with the photon doses from the 1950s to 


estimate the 1950s neutron dose. Am I right 


about that, or did I misunderstand something? 


 MR. FALK: That is -- that is not my 


perception. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, okay. 


 MR. FALK: That -- that basically the -- 

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basically the neutron-to-gamma ratios for the 


'50s be based on the NDRP back-extrapolations 


from -- from -- from the year 1959. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Is it true that there 


were no -- no neutron data for Building 771 


till -- till 1957? 


 MR. FALK: No, that is -- that is not true. 


They were -- we started to have the -- the film 


badge monitoring in Building 71 on a fairly 


small scale in 1957, and then in the summer of 


1958 it was a fairly larger scale of the people 


who were monitored. About 60 to 70 of the 


process operators were started to be monitored 


in 1958. The project -- the neutron dose 


reconstruction project did not find the neutron 


films archived until actually December of 1958, 


but we do have the worksheet records that do 


indicate that the film monitoring started in 


1957. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So -- so I was right, that up 


to '57 you don't have neutron data for Building 


771, so that's not wrong. 


 MR. FALK: That is right through 1956. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. Okay. And -- and so 


you're not going back from -- from the 1980s 

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into 1950s, you're going back from '59 to '57, 


okay. So that's more reasonable. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think we just needed to 


-- I -- I think that's been explained before. 


I think we -- at least I needed a refresher on 


that. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, me, too. Sorry I did not 

remember the details. 

DR. MAURO: Help me out a bit. It's clear now, 

but during our conversation -- and the dates 


may be missing -- there were two issues at play 


here. One was that there was some shielding 


changes that might have affected neutron-tophoton ratios, and also -- as I understood -- 


during the earlier days the -- the plutonium 


did not have any americium so we're -- you're 


not going to have the photon. So I just want 


to make sure I have this right. So the neutron 


-- the neutron-to-photon ratios that we have 


developed do take into consideration the fact 


that the shield-- the shielding -- at some 


point there was this change in the amount of 


shielding, which would affect the neutron-tophoton ratio. And also there's a point in time 


where the actual material being handled was 

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material that did or did not contain americium241. I just want to make sure that we're not 


operating on a premise that might be false. So 


does the '57 data take into consideration -- is 


that pre special shielding and pre -- it is. 


 MS. MUNN: Based on what Mel said this 

morning. 

DR. MAURO: Okay. That's why I wanted to get 

the dates right. 


 MS. MUNN: The special -- the special 


shielding occurred following the fire. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, which is --


 MS. MUNN: They were in the process of 


designing it when the fire occurred. 


DR. MAURO: And what is the date when they went 


from the plutonium that had the americium and 


when it didn't? That would -- that's another 


break point that might be important. 


 MS. MUNN: There was not an adequate amount of 


americium in the product -- 


DR. MAURO: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- until the mid-'60s -- 


DR. MAURO: Oh --


 MS. MUNN: -- to be able to adequately 


calculate --

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DR. MAURO: -- okay, so '57 works then. That's 


what I mean --


 MS. MUNN: '57 works. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, got it. Good. 


 MR. FALK: Now also I would like to emphasize 


that the back-extrapolation was based on the 


1959 data. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, we -- we got that, Roger. 


Thank you. 


DR. MAURO: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we've got enough on 


that. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Any follow-up on that question? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I think we've --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we've got a better 


understanding now of what -- yeah. 


DATA RELIABILITY
 

I think we're on to the data reliability 


question, if there's nothing else on neutrons. 


Now I'm not going right down the matrix. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What's the next thing on the 


matrix, though? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, we just covered -- I think -- 

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162

 MR. PRESLEY: Neutron-to-photon ratios. 


 DR. ULSH: Was that --


 MR. GRIFFON: That should cover number 7, too, 

right? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Right, that is 7. 

 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So we just covered that. The next 


thing --


 MR. GRIFFON: Nine does get into some of those 


questions already on data reliability. 


Correct? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, there are some issues like 


that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we can -- we can go 


through 9 on the matrix, too, just to make sure 


that I didn't -- I might need to update actions 


that I didn't properly update, so if you want 


to --


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- bring those up while we're 


doing that, that's fine. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I guess matrix item number 9, 


and then I'm looking over at the action column. 


One is a no further action, probably don't need 

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to revisit that one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Two is the job exposure matrix by 


Ruttenber*. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: You okay with that one? All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we're okay with that 


one. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not an SEC issue. 


 DR. ULSH: Number three, the action item listed 


is an SC&A action item. I don't know what the 


status --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think the status is 


we've come pretty far and the analysis we just 


talked about from Ron is a first installment on 


that overall external dose assessment. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Item number four, NIOSH will provide 


description of coworker model. We've given two 


draft TIBs and --


 MR. FITZGERALD: We've evaluated both of them 


and we included our analysis on the external in 


this piece we just talked about. 

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 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we haven't talked about 


the internal component, but we did talk about 


the external -- which is in here, yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Number five gets back to 


recording zeroes on -- when badges were not 


turned in. Let's see, I'm trying to read -- 


this is a rather long one, I'm reading through 


it right now. 


 Oh -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This kind of transitions into 


the data reliability. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. Now Mark, you've got listed 


here that -- that these items have been listed 


separately as number 12 through 28. Do you 


want to go through them there? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's what I'd think, 


'cause they were -- yeah, they were getting all 


lumped into that section so we decided to break 


them out individually. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's when the matrix got long. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Instead of making it shorter we 

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(unintelligible) longer. 


 DR. ULSH: Item number six --


 MR. GRIFFON: And Karin probably has something 


to add onto that, I think. Right? 'Cause 


there's other -- that you found in the 


petition. Is that not correct? 


 MS. JESSEN: I have a document here that's not 


quite done yet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So -- you mentioned that 


last workgroup that you (unintelligible) the 


petition and had (unintelligible) some follow-


ups from meetings that you -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, what we've --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- some other allegations that 


you were going to follow up on, so I think they 


fall into the same category, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: What I've asked Karin to do is go 


through the -- the SEC petition, number one, 


the items that were brought up by the 


petitioner and by the public in the workgroup 


meetings that we've had. And number three, the 


public testimony given at the Denver Board 


meeting and to capture all of those items into 


one document so that we can then go through and 


address each one on a point-by-point basis. We 

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now have those collected, and Karin and I are 


actually meeting tomorrow to firm up some of 


the evaluations of each of those issues. And 


yes, some of those are -- you know, there's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Similar, right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: I mean this -- this issue is 


included in that set. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I -- just for one second can 


I go back to number four, this question -- in 


the middle there's a statement, NIOSH indicated 


that few cases will rely on use of coworker 


data. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And we -- I -- I raised some 


questions about that issue with the neutron 


data. I don't know if you -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think it was a question of 


definition, if I think back now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: When I talk about coworker data, 


what I'm talking about is -- well, for 


instance, a gap in dosimetry, when -- when you 


have every reason to believe that a person was 

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exposed, but they weren't monitored for some 


reason. At that point we might rely on 


coworker data. But I think you were 


considering N/P ratios as coworker data, is 


that it? 


 MR. GRIFFON: One whole -- whole period of 


time when you rely on N/P ratios to -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- take people's data and -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, you're right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you're using it -- a 


distribution of N/P ratios -- I've got to look 


back on my notes on this one, I -- 


 DR. ULSH: I think you're right, Mark. I think 


that is -- that is true. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You're using a distribution, 


which is sort of like a --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, there are cases -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- sort of like your coworker 


model, that's why I thought it was 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: So let me -- let me be more clear 


when I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- talk about this. There are 

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certainly cases where we're going to be using 


N/P ratios based on the site population, and 


we'll be using that to calculate neutron doses 


in some situations. But in terms of addressing 


gaps in dosimetry where we assign, you know, 


the 95th percentile or the 50th percentile from 


the worker population, those instances are 


going to be very, very minimal. But the N/P 


ratio, you're right. They're -- that'll be a 


bit more common. 


Okay. Item number six -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: We -- that's all I need on that. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Item number six is the low 


energy photon detector correction factor that 


was brought up in a DNFSB report. We did 


provide a response on that that indicated that 


this would not be affected -- I mean this would 


not affect the -- by the change in the DOELAP 


testing procedure. That I think is the last 


action on this item. I don't know what comes 


next. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, well, I think we've 


accepted that response. 


 DR. ULSH: So I guess maybe that could be a no 


further action required. 

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 Action item number seven deals -- okay, this 


was the -- I guess it can be characterized as 


criminal investigation -- alleged criminal 


investigations that were brought up by the 


petitioner in previous workgroup meetings. I 


think what it was is Tony DeMaiori described 


numerous criminal investigations, security 


investigations -- it wasn't real clear exactly 


what kind of incidents or investigations we 


were talking about. We had a couple of 


exchanges on this. I sent a letter to Tony and 


he responded that -- okay, let me get this -- 


okay. What it was is Tony said -- I thought 


that he said that he had, you know, file 


cabinets full of them and then -- so we asked 


him to provide any, you know, specific examples 


so that we could run them down. He responded 


that he didn't in fact have access to those 


criminal investigations. He referred us to 


Kaiser-Hill -- Lisa Bressler* I think was her 


name. We talked to her. We worked up the 


chain in Kaiser-Hill. Bottom line is, nobody 


seems to be aware of any criminal security 


investigations, as such. 


Now it could be just a matter of inexact 

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descriptions. I mean there were certainly -- 


we'll get into this a little bit later. There 


were certainly safety concerns filed by the 


union and by, you know, members -- by workers. 


And those just about always involve some kind 


of an investigation, and those are documented. 


So that could have been what Tony was talking 


about. I mean it just might be a matter of 


terminology. I don't really know. But we 


didn't see any instance or any examples of 


criminal or security-type investigations. Now 


that I think is the status on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so is there any follow-up 


with Tony possibly on that to clarify? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I mean we've already had -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- you know, an interaction with 


Tony and he says, you know, I don't have 


anything -- I don't have access to the files. 


And you know, part of that, too, might be -- 


when we were in Denver, Tony and Jennifer 


Thompson mentioned that the -- you know, now 


that the site is closed, steelworkers don't 


have -- what do you call it, right of 


representation or -- they'd indicated that they 

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didn't have access to those kinds of records 


anymore, if they, you know, did before. But 


no, we've -- we've not seen any indication of 


criminal or security-type investigations. 


Item number eight, unless there's more to 


discuss on that one --


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- who would have done those 


investi-- what department would have done those 


investigations, if they in fact did occur? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, it's not real clear, Mark -- 


Mike, because it was never real clear what kind 


of an investigation we were talking about. I 


mean if it was within the sa-- you know, like a 


worker filing a safety concern, that would have 


been handled by an entity called the JCUSC, 


Joint Company Union Safety Committee, and it 


involved members of the union and members of 


management together on a committee that 


investigated, you know, those kind of concerns. 


I suppose it would depend on the scale -- 


 MR. GIBSON: I mean -- I'm sorry, I thought you 


said alleged criminal investigation. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, that's what's in the matrix, 

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and I think that those are the words that -- 


that Tony used when he talked about it. 


 MS. MUNN: That's what -- yeah, that's what 


Tony used when he first talked about it, Mike. 


And you're asking the very same question that I 


asked the first time Tony broached that 


subject. I asked him precisely what kind of 


charges and who made them, and what the 


organization was that was involved. And he 


said he had bundles of information about such 


files, and indicated that he would have to look 


them up. But when we -- when he spoke with us 


later at a following meeting, he did not have 


that information and referred us to the company 


investigators, who have no information either. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well -- and I'm not trying to be 


sarcastic, Wanda, but you know, I'm sure the 


company wouldn't be very -- may not be 


forthcoming if -- if that was indeed true, but 


it would seem to me -- has NIOSH checked with 


the Department of Energy or Department of 


Justice? 


 MS. MUNN: I believe they've checked with 


everybody. No one that I am aware of was able 


to -- I -- I responded so quickly to Tony's 

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allegation because he used the word "criminal," 


and to me that immediately means that there are 


going to be prosecutors and defense attorneys 


involved. And that's why I was asking 


questions. 


 DR. ULSH: I think, Mike -- we think Lisa 


Bressler is actually with DOE, but we also then 


talked to Kaiser-Hill, their legal department, 


so we talked to both the company and to DOE, 


but we didn't talk to anyone from any other -- 


you know, not -- not -- we didn't approach the 


FBI, for instance, or -- I don't even know if 


they would be involved, but those are the 


people that we talked to. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Department of Justice, I guess. 


 DR. ULSH: Justice, yeah. 


 MR. GIBSON: Would perhaps the -- the Defense 


board be -- be aware of -- if this is in fact 


legitimate, would the Defense board be in -- 


have knowledge of this or who might be involved 


in this? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I don't know the answer to 


that. I can tell you that certainly SC&A has 


cited a Defense board report, and we have 


access to those Defense board reports, and I'm 

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not aware of any findings of, you know, fraud 


in the dosimetry program or that kind of thing. 


Have you guys come across anything -- no, SC&A 


is indicating they haven't seen that kind of 


thing. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. All right. Thank you. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. Okay, that was number seven. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Number eight, relia-- NIOSH to 


demonstrate the reliability of bioassay and 


external database data for the comparison -- 


compensation program. We did -- oh, go ahead, 


Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to ask, I 


actually see in the -- in the matrix that -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you provided a document. 


Right? Status of Rocky Flats NIOSH 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ULSH: Yes, we did. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- April 20th, '06. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, Craig performed an analysis 


and -- and we provided that at a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause I was going to ask for an 


-- an update on that, but we can 

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(unintelligible) back to that I think 


(unintelligible) part of the -- and -- and have 


you done anything beyond that analysis? That 


was for the external, for internal or both? 


 DR. ULSH: Craig, can you speak to that? 


 MR. LITTLE: We've looked at both external and 


internal for film badges. We have TLD data 


from '78 that I haven't finished the analysis 


on yet, but we do have the -- we do have the -- 


the --


 MR. GRIFFON: And you compared raw records to 


the database records basically? 


 MR. LITTLE: Yep. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sampling of it? 


 MR. LITTLE: Yep. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that's presented in that 


document. 


 MR. LITTLE: Uh-huh, except for the '78, which 


we haven't -- we haven't finished yet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And for the internal side? The 


reason I bring up internal -- 


 MR. LITTLE: We did -- we did both, external 


and -- and internal. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. LITTLE: We have -- we pulled some of the ­
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- some of the bioassay worksheets -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. LITTLE: -- and compared those to the -- to 


the data that's in HIS-20. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And bi-- bioassay worksheets 


were not just printouts and database printouts, 


they're --


 MR. LITTLE: They're handwritten. 


 MR. GRIFFON: They're handwritten? 


 MR. LITTLE: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause we -- I mean I asked at 


the last meeting -- I forget if it was a Board 


meeting or workgroup, but it's referenced that 


there's these urinalysis logs available. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, there are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That might be a step back from 


these worksheets, I don't know. 


 DR. ULSH: Let me see if I can --


 MR. GRIFFON: Prob-- probably similar, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We do have -- okay, yes, there are 


urinalysis log books available. The data that 


we have on those -- they were used by the 


bioassay laboratory at Rocky Flats through the 


1980s, and maybe later. The information in 


attachment A of the internal TBD was based on 

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the data -- a review of the data in those early 


logs, from '52 to '55 and '60 to '71. And in 


those particular logs, the workers' names and 


employee numbers were linked to lab sample data 


and -- and included in the result that was 


calculated, so we know that that's in there. 


The data logs were not archived until 1960, and 


we -- we found the logs in 2003 for the '52 to 


'55 years. And let's see now, we have the -- 


the data logs starting in 1960 were archived at 


the Federal Records Center, we know that and 


we've got the box numbers, and right now those 


are being retrieved by Scott Raines and Andrea 


Wilson. That's what we know about those. 


Now it -- it should be possible to compare 


results in those log books with the results in 


the rad files. You can imagine, though, that 


there are -- I don't know, on the order of 


100,000 urinalysis data collected over the 


course of Rocky Flats. I think we need to 


discuss --


 MR. CHEW: Around 190-- or 270,000. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So let's dis-- it might be 


worth discussing, Mark, what kind of an 


analysis you would like to see. I mean should 

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we pick --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I think -- I mean I 


think we would be -- I would be open to, you 


know, just proposing methodology if we have 


this many raw records. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Here's -- here's where we -- 


here's how we want to sample from it, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Whether it's random, whether 


it's stratified by year, you know, stratified 


by areas possibly -- I don't know. 


 DR. ULSH: We should know more once we get 


ahold of the actual log books. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What it looks like, right. 


 DR. ULSH: And this -- this might --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) a very small 


percentage, you know, but -- but 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: I do want to talk about the issue of 


log books in general. I don't know that this 


is the place to talk about that, because that 


is an action --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- that is an item that we've 

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considered in previous workgroup meetings. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: But the urinalysis log is a little 


bit separate from the other logs, so we might 


want to discuss that at a different time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So let me -- let me just say as 


an action maybe -- I mean you're -- you're -- 


got the -- you're in the process of retrieving 


urinalysis logs. You'll come back with a 


method and approach. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that agreeable? 


 DR. ULSH: I think so. We can do that. Make a 


note of that, please. Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not sure how to -- I'm 


thinking of timing, too, as I was -- but I'm 


just not sure how -- you know, I'd hate to have 


you wait on, you know, sort of a joint appro-- 


approval of an approach before you actually get 


into doing this work, so -- 


MR. MEYER: We could go ahead and -- we could 


move ahead with a proposed approach, and then 


if it turns out you need some -- you'd -- you'd 


like to see some additional -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean --

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MR. MEYER: -- work done --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- even if you -- if you provide 


the approach on -- on the O drive or something, 


and if anybody has any -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, yeah, let me --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- reaction to it, we can -- 


 DR. ULSH: Let me put an idea out on the table 


and we can talk about it. Once we get the 


urinalysis logs, we'll come up with a proposed 


approach that we will then e-mail to the 


working group members and, you know, SC&A and 


maybe we could just, you know, correspond that 


way. We don't have to wait for the next 


working group meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, yeah, don't -- move -- move ­

- move on -- in other words, you use your best 


judgment and move on it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- and just keep everyone appraised 


(sic). 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And if we see any -- if there 


are any strong reaction against the approach -- 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- we can e-mail you back and 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but otherwise you can proceed, 


yeah. We don't want to hold things up. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we're on to the next thing? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, we're on page six of the matrix 


now, I believe, and that is numbered number ten 


-- oh, that's a no further action required. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Same thing with number 11. 


 DR. ULSH: Ten and 11, no further action 


required. Thank you, Joe. 


Okay, that takes us to number 12 and the "no 


data available" cases. Now this is an issue 


that keeps coming up. It was mentioned in the 


petition. Workers are very concerned that they 


worked in jobs that required dosimetry and they 


certainly believe that they were getting dose. 


And the concern that they expressed was that, 


in spite of that, they were getting badge 


results that said no current data available. 


Now in prior meetings Jim Langsted has 


explained that those "no current data 


available" entries that the workers were 

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talking about actually appeared on what we were 


calling the supervisor reports. I've seen them 


called other names, they're called high/lo 


reports, they're called -- what -- 


MR. MEYER: (Unintelligible) reports? 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. And what those are are the 


reports that were generated by dosimetry 


department and sent to the supervisors because 


the supervisors were responsible for making 


sure that the workers didn't approach or exceed 


exposure limits. And so what -- what they 


would do sometimes -- I don't know that this 


wads across the board, I think it kind of 


varied by supervisor, but they would post these 


results for the workers to see. And we do have 


examples of those reports with "no current data 


available" entries on them. We have seen 


those. We've got -- we've got them or they're 


coming? 


MR. MEYER: Actually they're on the disk that 


came yesterday. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. We've got those. The idea 


that I think this action item leads to or -- or 


implies is that we should take instances from 


those supervisor reports of "no data 

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available," go back and look at the worker's 


rad file and see what's in there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Now we can do that. But let me tell 


you what I think we might find when we do that. 


Jim told us that -- the situations that would 


lead to a "no current data available." There 


were a couple. Number one, the mo-- by far the 


most common was the badge wasn't exchanged on 


time. Could have been that the employee was 


off during the exchange date. Maybe it was 


stored in a -- you know, not in the right area, 


who knows what --


 MR. GRIFFON: For whatever reason. 


 DR. ULSH: -- for whatever reason, it was not 


exchanged. In that case, the worker would 


continue to wear the badge for another exchange 


cycle, another badge wear cycle -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, and what you would see in the 


worker's file then would be -- all that dose 


would be recorded in one of the other -- one or 


the other quarters. And in the other quarter 


you would see a zero, or maybe a blank, 


depending on the time frame. 

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 The other situation that could lead to a "no 


current data available" is -- well, if, for 


instance, there was, you know, a manpower issue 


in the dosimetry department and they just 


couldn't get the badges read in time when those 


reports had to go out to the supervisors. That 


would be a "no current data available," they 


just hadn't gotten to read the badges yet. 


And a last possibility, which was the least 


common, was that there was some problem with 


the badge, that it was unreadable or 


contaminated, whatever -- something that 


required an investigation. 


Any of those situations could have led to a "no 


current data available," so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) that last 


circumstance, though, have some sort of flag in 


the record? 


 DR. ULSH: It really depends on the era. Yes, 


exactly. And this description was given by Jim 


Langsted, and I now have corroboration of that 


from another site expert, Steve Baker. So if ­

- you know, we've talked to two site experts 


now and the story is -- it's pretty much -- 


it's exactly the same. This is where you would 

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see the "no current data available." 


And I can tell you that I've gone through 


hundreds of Rocky Flats rad files, and I never 


see "no current data available" in the 


individual's rad files. The only place you see 


them is on these supervisor reports or 


quarterly summaries. And tho-- and it makes 


sense. I mean this is consistent with what we 


know. This is what the workers would have seen 


on a -- on a periodic basis is these supervisor 


reports. They would go chase -- look at their 


badge number and see, you know, "no current 


data available." 


It really seems to me, after having looked into 


this, that this might have been a good 


opportunity to communicate better with the 


workers what this means, because I think the 


workers are very concerned that this might -- 


you know, that this indicates some kind of a -- 


a problem in the dosimetry department, or maybe 


even misconduct. You know, I know I worked in 


a radiation area, I know that there should be 


dose recorded on my badge, and I've got "no 


current data available." 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think the allega-- one of the 

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specific ones was when the person thought they 


were -- or at least reportedly was in a high -- 


higher area, at least where -- you know, where 


he thought -- he or she, I forget, thought that 


they had a higher exposure potential than their 


usual job and they were there for three cycles 


or something and there was no data available 


for all three or something like that, I seem to 


recall. 


 DR. ULSH: And that is --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) you 


investigated that one. 


 DR. ULSH: If it was in the petition. It rings 


a bell. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We -- we -- in previous Board 


meetings --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) sketchy on the 


details, but -- but (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: In a previous Board -- working group 


meeting we have talked about that -- 


 MS. MUNN: It's a legitimate concern from the 


worker's point of view. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, absolutely, and it's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that's the kind of one that I 

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think if you cross-walked and said the data was 


th-- you know, I -- I know what you're saying 


is that -- is it even worthwhile to -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I don't want to --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- cross-walk these "no data 


availables," but there's -- 


 DR. ULSH: I don't quite want to go that far, 


but I do want to kind of look down the road and 


see what is this going to tell us if we do it. 


You might very well see a blank, if it was a 


badge exchange problem and -- you know, missed 


badge exchange -- and all the dose may be 


recorded in another quarter. We might see 


that. 


DR. MAURO: But how do you know that? I mean 


see, I -- I'm putting myself in the position of 


the -- of the --


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 


DR. MAURO: -- claimant that says show me 


something in the record that -- where there's a 


notation that indicate what you just described 


happened, and this is how it was dealt with. 


mean that would be --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: -- putting the period at the end of 


I 
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the sentence. But right now it sounds like 


that -- the answers certainly are plausible, 


but is there anything in the records that say 


not only is it plausible, here's the evidence 


that it -- that this is in fact what occurred 


in your case. Do we have anything like that? 


 DR. ULSH: Well --


 MR. GIBSON: John, could you speak up just a 


little bit, please? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. Yeah, Mike, all I was saying 


is that I think that what was just described 


are plausible explanations for what in fact 


might have transpired. But is there anything 


in the records themselves which would 


demonstrate that for a given worker or for a 


claimant who is concerned that this is -- has 


occurred, that there's some -- some material, 


language, notation in one of these different 


types of record that that is in fact what 


occurred and how it was dealt with. I think if 


we can show them this, it would I guess give 


them a little bit more peace of mind that in 


fact they are being treated properly. 


 DR. ULSH: I think it kind of depends on the 


time frame. Jim Langsted, are you on line? 

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 MR. GIBSON: And what time -- and what time 


frames are we discussing here? Could you give 


me the... 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, that's -- Jim, are you out 


there, Jim Langsted? 


MR. LANGSTED: Yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Can you talk about the 


procedures for doing dose reconstructions? And 


what I'm thinking of is when -- what time 


period would you expect to see a -- if a dose 


reconstruction was conducted and -- oh, let me 


clarify here. I'm talking about dose 


reconstructions conducted by Rocky Flats 


external people, not NIOSH dose 


reconstructions. So in other words, if there 


was a problem with a badge, it couldn't be 


read, and a dose reconstruction was conducted ­

- I know certainly in the '90s you would see a 


dose reconstruction report in the file. You 


would expect to. But how far back in time can 


we expect that, Jim? Do you have a feel for 


that? 


MR. LANGSTED: You're right, Brant, in the '90s 


Rocky Flats formalized that process into a -- 


procedures and forms and documents that went 

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into the files, and it was a full-time health 


physicist that worked for Steve Baker that did 


these things. 


Prior to the early '90s, the process was less 


proceduralized. And if a dose reconstruction 


occurred it was likely that those records were 


stored in the health physicist's desk files and 


never got formally transmitted -- formalized, 


let along formally transmitted -- to the 


worker's record. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Let me ask ­

- I guess just based on my experience at Mound, 


and I'm just trying to figure out time frames 


here, there was a time when the dosimeter was ­

- the security badge, the Q clearance badge or 


whatever you had was slid into a little holder 


that had the dosimeter behind it and you wore 


it out as you left the gate, took it home with 


you. And then there came a time in the -- I 


want to say in the early to mid-'90s where the 


security badge and dosimeter were completely 


separated. 


MR. LANGSTED: Yeah, that was in 1992, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. And then you were not 


permitted to take the dosimeter off site, so 

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I'm just trying to get a feel on the time frame 


for -- you know, I can un-- if -- if someone 


took one home and they were on vacation, if it 


was the era where they had it in their badge, 


that may be one thing. But if there was a 


time where they had to leave the dosimeter on 


site, by security and safety regulations, then 


you know, I would question -- how could there 


be no data. 


 DR. ULSH: Mike, I think it's worthwhile going 


through the chronology here of badging at Rocky 


Flats. I know that -- okay, we know that the 


end date when the badges were separated was 


'92. Prior to that, the security badge and the 


dosimetry badge were combined, so -- as you 


described. Jim, how far back in time does that 


go? When did they combine the badges, do you 


know? 


MR. LANGSTED: 1962, I believe. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So early '60s. Now here's 


another question. I don't know that you guys 


are going to -- my team is going to have the 


answer to this, but these supervisor reports 


that were generated, how far back in time do 


those go? Do you have a feel for that, Bob? 

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MR. MEYER: I don't, I'm sorry. No. 


MR. LANGSTED: I believe 1969 is when we would 


start to see those. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So it's certainly in the 


period, Mike, when the badges were combined. 


At least -- you know, they were combined in '69 


and -- and all the way up through '92. Does 


that answer your question, Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes. Yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Mike, this is Bob Presley. 


Y-12 we still take our TLDs home every night 


with us, have ever since day one. 


 MR. GIBSON: Hmm. Well, certainly wasn't the 


case at Mound, but I -- I don't know that that 


was Mound-specific or DOE-wide. I'm just 


trying to, you know -- I'm not trying to argue 


with anyone, but the Board's supposed to be 


balanced and I'm just supposed -- I'm just 


bringing the labor perspective to the table. 


 DR. WADE: It's appreciated. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Brant, what -- so where -- where 


do you want to go with that? 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Well, that's what I wanted to 


kind of discuss. This is similar to the 

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previous issue about the urinalysis log books, 


and we now have these "no current data 


available" entries on the log -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: You have them for -- for all that 


scope of time or do you know? 


MR. MEYER: We -- the reason we have them is 


because we're looking for the 1969 data gaps, 


so that's what we have so far. 


 MR. GRIFFON: '69 period? 


MR. MEYER: My guess is they were -- they were 


easy for -- this particular set was easy for 


Mountain View to retrieve, and there's no 


reason to think we wouldn't be able to find 


them for any time period, with -- with a little 


effort. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But '69 may be a hard time 


period to compare since (unintelligible) 


database is in question. Right? 


MR. MEYER: That's true. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


MR. MEYER: That's true. 


MR. LANGSTED: This is Jim Langsted. We are 


doing -- in the process of doing an analysis on 


a segment of the dosimetry reports for 1973. 


We randomly selected a set of -- because we 

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could find them in the archives -- and we have 


found the worksheets that go along with it, and 


are in the process of looking at those and 


resolving the "no current data availables" on 


those. That's still in -- in the works. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, that's what happens when I go 


on vacation. I fall behind. 


 MR. GRIFFON: They've moved ahead on that. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that's an ongoing action, I 


guess. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I just 


want to prepare you that we might see instances 


where there were blanks in the record. I mean 


we might very well see that. 


 Okay -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And '73 forward -- that's an 


effort, '73 forward. Is there any effort to 


look at prior to '73 or is it more difficult 


because of records availability? He just said 


'73 forward. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think he said '60 -- Jim, 


when did you say, '67 or '69 when the -- the 


supervisor --


MR. MEYER: '69. 

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 DR. ULSH: -- '69? And we started in '73, so I 


mean --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, that's when it started. It 


didn't start till '69. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


MR. MEYER: (Unintelligible) the -- the raw 


datasheets (unintelligible) be available. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, yeah, but the supervisor 


reports where you're going to see "no current 


data available" are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's good. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Unless there's more to 


discuss on that, we're on to number 13. 


(Pause) 


Yeah? Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was waiting -- I was listening 


to what you were... 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. This -- item number 13, this 


I believe originated in -- yeah, yeah, the SEC 


petition, and the allegation is that chips fell 


out of TLDs and readings were not included in 


worker records. What we've determined on this 


issue is that there was a procedure in place in 


the mid-'80s to take the problems to the 


supervisors when that occurred, and that there 

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was a period of use of loose-chipped dosimeters 


from '69 to '83, so that's the time period that 


we're talking about. 


Okay. This one says that SC&A has provided the 


badge numbers to NIOSH for follow-up comparison 


against HIS-20 database. Let me clarify where 


we're on it. I'm looking at, Joe, the late-- 


the write-up that you sent last week. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Is that Table 2? Is that what 


that's referring to? It's the --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No. 


 DR. ULSH: No, it's not? Okay. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, this is several 


write-ups back with the 20 names. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm sorry, Kathy, I couldn't quite 


make that out. Can you --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It was several write-ups 


back, probably in the April time frame. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's an older version, I guess ­

- yeah. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And it had a list of 


names from the log book. 


UNIDENTIFIED: April 17th. 


 DR. ULSH: Do you have -- do we have a status 

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on that? That one doesn't ring a bell for me. 


Okay, we're going to dig out those names and 


I'm going to get you a status -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we'll hold on that. 


 DR. ULSH: The next issue, number 14, deals 


with contamination that might have gotten onto 


TLD chips. And by that I don't mean 


radioactive contamination, necessarily. We're 


talking about like hair and body oil, things 


that could have given a false signal when the 


chips were read. And we have provided some 


procedures for time periods that we could 


locate, and those were -- Jim Langsted -- oh, 


it's 1993 -- 1983, sorry, was the date of the 


procedure that we have provided. And I think 


in that procedure -- is it Link and Pennock? 


MR. LANGSTED: That is correct. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, Link and Pennock, good -- that 


talks about procedures that were used to clean 


the chips using alcohol that -- that would not 


affect the signal that was given off by the 


chip. It was just -- it was just simply used 


to remove contamination. I mean that was 


certainly an issue that was known, and it was ­

- you know, that's why these procedures were 

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implemented by the external dosimetry 


department. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Now the -- this formal 


investigation procedure was later. Right? The 


one they reference on the top of that 


paragraph. 


MR. LANGSTED: Yeah, that's correct. That's 


early '90s. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. I appreciate you -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So the '83 procedure was on the 


appropriate handling but wasn't a formal 


investigation process. 


 DR. ULSH: It wasn't an investigation process. 


It -- it dealt with chip handling procedures. 


So I mean that was -- the allegation -- or the 


concern here was that hair and body oils on the 


TLD chips could cause inaccurate readings. And 


while that's certainly a possibility if this 


kind of contamination was present on the chips 


and -- what I'm saying is there were procedures 


in place to prevent that kind of contamination. 


And if that kind of contamination was on the 


chip when it was read, it would lead you to a 


false positive signal. It would be probably 


not a credible result. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I think there was a method to 


how I wrote those last two sentences, too, 


though, in the matrix. NIOSH indicated that 


the badge which required handling of chips was 


used from '69 to '83. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: NIOSH provided an '83 procedure 


which discussed the appropriate handling 


practices. So it seems like that's at the tail 


end of the period that those -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- those badges were even used, 


so I'm wondering if it's even applicable to the 


-- the badges in question. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I'm thinking --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm assuming that Jim has looked 


into that, but --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, Jim, I'm going to turn this 


over to you in just a second, but what I'm 


thinking is that Link and Pennock, the '83 


procedure, that might -- I think that was the 


earliest instance of a -- that it was 


proceduralized, that we can find. But we've 


talked to Joe Aldrich*, who was in charge -- I 


believe -- of the external dosimetry laboratory 

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in the earlier period, and what we're getting 


is that these procedures were followed, but 


they were only proceduralized -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was the practice even -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- before the procedure was 


formalized. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. Jim, does that sound about 


right? 


MR. LANGSTED: Yeah, that's my recollection, 


that that in 1983 was a proceduralization of 


the process that had been used for the time -- 


the time frame before that. 


 DR. ULSH: So we're certainly keeping our eye ­

- I mean we're looking at a lot of Rocky 


documents. We're certainly keeping our eyes 


open for earlier procedures, but we're not 


aware of any right now. That might be as early 


as we can get. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. And that leads us to number 


15. 


 MS. MUNN: So are we okay? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm almost ready to say -- 


I mean I don't know that you're -- we need any 

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-- is there a further action there is the 


question. 


 MS. MUNN: Anything else we can do. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think there's -- I don't 


think it's worth any further action, really. 


If something show-- with the understanding that 


if he finds something, --


 DR. ULSH: Sure, of course. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but no further action. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Number 15, this is from -- I 


bel-- yeah, it's from the SEC petition, and it 


was also brought up by the petitioners in 


earlier working group meetings. And the 


concern here -- the allegation is that 


deliberately false entries were made into dose 


records. And the status of this is that we -- 


we're not currently aware of any findings of 


systematic falsification of data, and that -- 


you've got to keep in mind that Rocky Flats, 


throughout its history, was audited -- I mean 


there were QA -- there was a QA program in 


place. We mentioned the Defense Nuclear Safety 


Board earlier. There were various organizations 


that audited the Rocky Flats dosimetry program 


over the course of its operation. We have not 

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come across any findings in this regard, and 


this gets back to our discussion earlier about 


the criminal investigations, security 


investigations -- that's what these 


investigations allegedly dealt with. I mean 


this was -- this was the topic of those. And 


so that earlier conversation would apply here. 


I mean we've --


 MR. GRIFFON: But the -- I guess the question 


in my mind would be is there any -- again, I'm 


thinking flags, if somebody -- if this happens 


in the lab when you're reading the TLDs or film 


badges, it would probably be flagged in the 


log. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, in fact -- you're right, Mark 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) abnormally high 


reading and you're going to pursue this or this 


data -- this doesn't seem valid and this is the 


reason, it'd be flagged. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think I may be able to 


provide an example -- well, actually SC&A has 


provided -- Kathy provided it. It's in their 


latest write-up, Table 2. If you look at some 


of the justifi-- the column called 

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"Justification for Change," and what you see is 


(reading) Pen one crystal much, much greater 


than skin, can't happen. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: That might be an example of what you 


would --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: These -- this log book that Kathy 


pulled this from, I -- Kathy, was that called a 


dosimetry problem log book or something like 


that? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. That might be a place where 


you would expect to see a recording of some -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: What time frame was that from? 


The -- the dosimetry log book or whatever. 


 DR. ULSH: This says March, 1985 through '86. 


I don't know that this is the only one out 


there. This is just the one that -- that Kathy 


put in the write-up. So --


 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me --


 DR. ULSH: Yes, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- this is Mike. Did you say it 


was prior to '85? 


 MS. MUNN: No, these are '85s/'86s -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: '85 to '86 I think. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, the examples that Kathy has 


provided in her write-up are dated from a log 


book from '85 to '86. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. All right. Thank you. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you did-- I -- that is the 


follow-up question, are there other dosimetry 


log books like that for other time periods. 


 DR. ULSH: I suspect that there are. Jim, do 


you have any insight -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not that you've gathered -- 


 DR. ULSH: No, we haven't gathered them, but 


they should exi-- if they existed in '85 and 


'86, they should exist for other time periods, 


wouldn't you think, Jim? Jim Langsted? 


 (No responses) 


 DR. ULSH: He's running. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Mark, this is Kathy. 


only found that one in the boxes I went 


through. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But that -- yeah, but that 


doesn't mean they don't exist. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So I don't know --


I 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I guess in the later years 


-- my experience is in the later years in the 


dosimetry databases you have -- you know, 


instead of seven or eight columns of data, you 


have about 1,000 columns -- 


 DR. ULSH: With codes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- flags and codes and 


everything, right. But in the earlier years 


you usually have to go back to these kind of 


log books to find those kind of flags. 


 DR. ULSH: I suspect that that might be the 


case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Might be worthwhile to at least 


find maybe one from the '70s, one from the '60s 


or something. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, let's pull that string, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: A little bit --


 DR. ULSH: What kind of a follow-up action 


would you like to see? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- not all the log books, but I 


think --


 DR. ULSH: Okay, can we -- how about this? 


We've got this table that Kathy provided. This 


covers, you know, the mid-'80s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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 DR. ULSH: We could -- and she's provided an -- 


ID numbers. That's a badge number, I presume, 


and we've got a date. We could run these down 


and tell you what we see in the rad files for 


these particular entries. That's the '80s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: And what you're suggesting is maybe 


get ahold of another log -- similar log book 


from the '70s --


 MR. GRIFFON: And '60s if they're avai-- you 


know, if you can find them. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do it. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, we can do that -- similar 


number of cases, I'm presuming? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Yeah, we can -- should be a 


fairly --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean this log book and the 


others, I think it's a good practice just to -- 


if you're scanning them anyway, just post them 


on the O drive. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. I've 


put a folder on the O drive right now with log 


books. It's hard for me to keep track of all 

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the documents that are flowing back and forth. 


I'm not sure how we originally got that set of 


log books. It might have even been one set of 


log books that Kathy requested, I'm not sure, 


that we got a copy of the disk. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It is. 


 DR. ULSH: It is? Good. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's exactly what it 


is. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So -- and those have been 


posted up there in a folder. But yeah, if we 


locate any other ones, we'll put those up, too. 


Okay, so that's --


 MR. GRIFFON: That was item 15. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: -- 15. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I ran across a statement 


in a memorandum about the -- the neutron 


dosimeters, and I'm not quite sure where this 


is going to fall into the matrix, but 


essentially -- I'll just -- I'll just read part 


of this to you. It says (reading) During the 


month of January there were 21 neutron films 


reported as too dense to read. This included 


19 from buildings 76, 77, 77A and two from 


building 71. The current procedure is to 

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report these films with a code indicating too 


much gamma to read, resulting in an assignment 


-- assigned neutron dose of zero. 


And I realize that we (unintelligible) NDRP, 


but I guess the point is -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Kathy, I'm sorry to say this 


again, but a little louder. Ray's having a 


little trouble hearing you for the transcript. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Could you guys hear 


that? 


 MS. MUNN: Barely. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's a little better. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) could hear 


that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Would you like me to 


read it back? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, please. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Please, yes. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. It says (reading) 


During the month of January there were 21 


neutron films reported as too dense to read. 


This included 19 from buildings 76, 77, 77A and 


two from building 71. The current procedure is 


to report these films with a code indicating 

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too much gamma to read, resulting in an 


assigned neutron dose of zero. 


 DR. ULSH: Kathy, you said --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And what I was saying is 


I realize that this -- this -- they went back 


and re-evaluated the neutron doses, but I guess 


what I'm wondering is if the neutron films 


couldn't be read because they were overexposed, is it possible that the beta-gamma 


films couldn't be read and they followed the 


same procedure. 


 DR. ULSH: I think -- Kathy, I think -- it 


sounds like you're in a wind tunnel. 


 DR. WADE: Somebody needs to mute their phone. 


I can't tell who, obviously, but there's real 


loud interference. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I can barely hear you 


guys. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, it just got better. The 


interference is gone. 


 Kathy, I think the answer is no, that that 


would not be an issue on the beta-gamma films 


because we're -- we are certainly aware of a 


phenomenon of gamma fogging, is what it was 


known -- known as, and that occurred -- oh, I'm 

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trying to think of the gamma doses where -- 


where you would start to see fogging on a 


neutron film. I think it was around 500 


millirem. Roger, does that sound right? Roger 


Falk? 


 MR. FALK: Yes. It would depend upon -- 


 DR. ULSH: Hey, Roger, it might be you. The 


interference is back. I don't know who... 


 MR. FALK: No, we were on mute before. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, okay. It's better. 


 MR. FALK: If it were -- if it were the 


americium exposure, it would tend to saturate 


around 500 millirem. If it were the higher 


energy photons it would be around one or two 


rem. 


 DR. ULSH: But that was a -- that was an -- 


gamma fogging was an issue on the NTA films, 


but it was not an issue on beta-gamma. Right? 


 MR. FALK: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Kathy, what year was this? You 


said January, but you didn't say the year. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Oh, sorry, it's -- it's 


dated March 16th, 1965. 


 DR. ULSH: Could you also, Kathy -- that memo, 


could you send us a copy, please? 

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 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Thanks. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: If you'll e-mail it, I can just 


get it. I think a number of us could get it 


here. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm going to have to go 


back and find it, too. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay --


 MR. GRIFFON: Should we go on? 


 DR. ULSH: What's -- what's? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm -- I'm trying to 


figure out why the workers feel that, when 


they're working these high dose rate jobs and 


they're getting zero, that they should have 


received more dose. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, we've also talked about this 


issue on a number of occasions before, and I'm 


thinking of the last workgroup meeting here in 


particular. It is certainly consistent that 


individuals who worked on the same job could 


have received very, very different doses. 
I 


don't know, maybe the worker -- this may or may 


not be known by the workers, but it depends on 


the time, the distance, the shielding. And 

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we've been talking about neutrons. Certainly 


that is an issue for neutrons. You could have 


two people working side by side and, as you 


probably know, a very -- what you're looking 


for in a neutron shield is a hydrogenous 


material, something that's got a lot of 


hydrogen in it -- like, for instance, a 


coworker. So I mean if -- if you had a 


coworker standing between you and the neutron 


source, he might have a very high neutron dose 


and you wouldn't have much of anything. That's 


just one example. 


There are certainly situations where -- I mean 


I -- I would expect that on any given job you 


would expect to see a variety of dose rates for 


the individuals that worked on the job, 


depending on the particulars. But the workers 


-- you know, I mean -- the workers, you know, 


may not be trained health physicists and so, 


you know, this -- it might seem very logical to 


them that if, you know, five of their buddies 


who worked on the job had a high dose, why -- 


why in the world didn't they? Well, I know 


that workers express that concern, but they're 


-- it is certainly possible that there's a very 

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logical explanation for that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess their concern is 


that they take a survey there and they're 


working in a one R per hour field, and then 


they get no detectable. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, again, we've also talked about 


this. When you're talking about rad techs or 


people who are using survey meters, it was very 


common -- a LARA* practice for the rad techs to 


approach a source, take a reading as necessary 


at different points in a job, and then retreat 


to an area with lower dose rate. It's also 


true that when they posted dose rates, you 


know, for rad jobs, they would post the highest 


dose rate experienced in that area. And 


usually that was on contact or very close to 


the -- to the source. So on the sign, on the ­

- you know, the -- the posting that was around 


those jobs, that's what would be listed. That 


does not mean that that dose rate is 


representative of what the workers were 


actually experiencing. So that could be 


another thing that might lead a worker to a -- 


a conclusion that he should have had a higher 


dose. 

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 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Are you going to make 


adjustments to the dosimetry systems since 


they're so variable? 


 DR. ULSH: I'm not sure what you mean, Kathy. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, if you're saying 


that one guy standing right here and he gets a 


high dose, and the next -- and another guy is 


standing right adjacent to him and he gets 


virtually nothing -- you know, they don't stay 


in that place all the time, and I'm just 


wondering if you're going to apply a special 


adjustment factor to that dosimetry if the 


variation is that extreme. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm trying to think how to respond 


to that. The differences that you might expect 


between two -- between individuals on a job 


would of course depend on the specifics of the 


job. I'm not saying that the dosimeters 


malfunctioned or that they were functioning 


differently. I don't think we have evidence 


that they were inaccurate. There is certainly 


a sensitivity issue, particularly with neutron 


films, and we do take into account 


uncertainties associated with the different 


dosimeters that are used at Rocky Flats, as 

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described in the TBD. I guess I don't know 


what kind of an adjustment you're -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess my issue is not 


with whether the dosimeter can see the 


radiation in the laboratory setting. It's --


it's with the conditions that occur in the 


field, like -- like the person moving around or 


 MR. GIBSON: This is -- Kathy, if I could step 


in for a minute, if you don't mind, this is 


Mike Gibson. What Kathy is saying, and -- and 


being from maintenance at a DOE site, what 


she's saying -- I understand what you're 


saying, Brant, is that I may be standing behind 


-- I'm an electrician. I may be standing 


behind a mechanic while he does something in a 


particular area. But that's not going to be 


the whole case for the whole day or for the 


whole job. He's going to go in and do his 


part, and then he's going to turn around and 


I'm going to go in and hook up the wires and 


then I'm going to turn around and a pipe 


fitter's going to come in and do the plumbing, 


the pipe fitting or whatever else. So I -- I 


think, Kathy -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- 

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is what you're saying is we are not stagnant 


and -- and I don't think -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- that NIOSH can -- can say that, 


you know, just because one gay -- one guy may 


be shielded from the other, we're going to be 


constantly moving about during the day doing 


our particular jobs for the -- the task at 


hand. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But in -- but in theory, 


everyone's still being monitored, Mike. I 


guess that's the -- the other one still has a 


badge on. That's... 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: But I guess the issue 


is, and this is the question that has to be 


answered: I worked on the americium line. I 


know I got high levels of exposure. I saw it 


on my secondary dosimetry and on my portable 


survey instruments. Why did I get zero? And 


that's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, and I think that's -- I 


think the only way -- I mean I think part of 


the -- what we're trying to do to get at this 


answer is to look at some of the secondary 


dosimetry data, if we have them in log books, 

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and to the extent we can, you know, compare 


them with --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think this was brought 


up by one individual in the petition who worked 


on the stacker retriever. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, 


Kathy. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Again, I don't want to say a name, 


for Privacy Act reasons. We've got -- and this 


is one that we've addressed in a previous 


meeting. This particular individual -- oh, 


actually I made copies. How about if I hand 


them around? We didn't set this up, I promise. 


Kathy and I didn't coordinate on this. I'll 


give it just a minute for these to come around 


-- and you've seen this before. It's a copy of 


an affidavit from the petition and the 


dosimetry that goes with this individual. 


The allegation in the affidavit says that in 


1982/'83 loading nuclear material into the 


stacker --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Sorry, did someone have something? 


 (No responses) 

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 Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did we have this before? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, you -- it should look very 


familiar to you. In 1982/'83 loading nuclear 


material into the stacker retriever in building 


371, six quarters out of eight there is no data 


available for my dose. This work had very high 


dose, up to eight -- I assume that means rad -- 


per hour. Operators assigned were routinely 


rotated due to the high dose, but as a 


radiological control technician I was not. 


So what he says here is that in '82/'83 time 


frame, of those eight quarters he says that six 


quarters out of those eight there is no data 


available for him. 


Looking at the next page of the handout for the 


people around the table, I have the dosimetry 


results for this individual for the time period 


in question, 1982 and '83. And what you see is 


that in 1982, three out of the four quarters he 


has quarterly results, and in the one quarter 


where there is no quarterly result there is a 


monthly. And then in the next year there is a 


monthly, and then four quarterly results. The 


-- so what we have to conclude here is that the 

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dosimetry evidence does not support the 


allegation in the allegation. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, he has zeroes. I mean 


(unintelligible) clear. He said dosimetry 


results. I don't know that if they had no data 


available they wouldn't have transferred that 


to a zero in the database. 


 DR. ULSH: It is very possible that -- no, wait 


a minute, '82/'83. It is very possible in 


'82/'83 --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm looking at --


 DR. ULSH: -- this is the right time frame for 


the supervisor's reports to be out. It is 


certainly possible, Mark, that he could have 


seen on the supervisor's reports "no current 


data available" if -- you know, for all the 


reasons that we talked about earlier. That is 


certainly a possibility. And that would 


actually be, you know, consistent with what 


we're seeing here. However, that's exactly my 


point, is that "no current data available" does 


not necessarily mean that he was not monitored 


or that the results of the monitoring were not 


transferred into his file. 


Now Mark, you're absolutely right. When you 

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look at those results there are entries there, 


for sure, but they are low doses, for sure. 


And that gets back to, you know, what I talked 


about earlier about why you might expect to see 


different dose rates. And I would also point 


out that this individual was a radiological 


control technician that I talked about before, 


where they would approach, take their reading, 


and then retreat. So that would certainly be 


consistent with what you might expect. 


Now I -- I want to make it clear, especially in 


light of --


 MR. GRIFFON: It depends on the job, too, 


yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Absolutely. And -- and that plays 


to Mike's concern that he expressed earlier. 


can't say that -- that two workers on a job 


would have different dose rates, unless I know 


the specifics of the job. But what I'm -- the 


point that I'm trying to make is that you don't 


have to resort to deliberate falsification of 


data to explain these kind of results. There 


are certainly logical explanations available 


other than that. Without knowing the 


specifics, I can't say whether you would expect 


I 
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to see different results, but it is certainly 


within the realm of possibility. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, but -- Brant, the only thing 


I'm saying -- and again, I'm not trying to 


question anyone's credibility, you know. I do 


know for a fact in my experience at Mound, I 


know -- I know we're talking about Rocky right 


now, but I do know that there has been 


falsification of data. I'm not questioning 


anyone's integrity or their reliability about 


that. But the -- you know, and this is just 


the balance portion of this Board, me being on 


the labor side, I keep hearing when a worker 


says something, it's an allegation. And when 


someone else says something, that's the data 


and it's accepted. And you know, I just -- I 


have a little bit of trouble with that. So you 


know, I just want that on the record. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. I appreciate that, Mike. 

A couple of --

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess what I'm trying 

to -- to get at is it deserves some 


consideration, even if you only take a couple 


of examples and --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's what we're doing 

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here. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- and demonstrate. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, what would you suggest beyond 


what we've already done, Kathy? I mean we've 


pulled the dosimetry results and compared it 


for the time period in question. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, a lot of them are 


complaining about the survey -- 


 DR. ULSH: Surveys? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- data and how it 


doesn't match the survey data. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think I've already addressed 


why you might see that kind of a thing. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, and I guess 


another reason why it's probably worth our time 


is that we have the same operations down at 


LANL and I'm hearing exactly the same thing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, I -- I -- just looking 


at this, Brant, almost like -- I mean I grant 


you that this certain rad control tech could 


have been going in and out and taking spot 


measurements, but even if he's in there for 


seconds, I mean you're looking at about 133 


millirem per minute -- if you -- if we say that 


his eight R per hour is accurate here in his 

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allegation -- his or her allegation -- 


 DR. ULSH: At the -- at a certain point in that 


work area. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, so if he's in there for 


seconds, he's probably getting more than ten 


millirem and you don't even see ten millirem on 


his --


 DR. ULSH: Keep in mind -- Keep in mind the 


limit of detection on these dosimeters. If 


you're talking about a radiation environment 


that high, he's going to be on a pretty 


frequent badge exchange cycle, so he's going to 


be exchanging his badge very frequently, and 


especially for NTA films, the limit of -- lower 


limit of detection is 50 -- I'll go with Hans's 


number of 50, somewhere in that neighborhood. 


It's --


 DR. BEHLING: That's -- that's being very good. 


 DR. ULSH: And you also have to keep in mind 


that --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, that's right, these are 


quarterly roll-ups. 


 DR. ULSH: These are quarterly roll-ups, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thinking about that. 


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by -- by self-reading pocket dosimeters, which 


could have served as a surrogate -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that's what -- that's what 


Kathy's talking about -- 


 DR. BEHLING: -- when you have a film badge 


that fails or a TLD that fails at the end of a 


readout? I mean that's what's usually done is 


you default to pocket dosimeters, realizing 


that's the best surrogate you have. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. Well, I don't want to speak 


out of school here, Hans, 'cause I can't swear 


to you that in '82 or '83 they were using 


pocket dosimeters. Certainly at some time 


periods at Rocky Flats they were using pocket 


dosimeters, that's true. 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, they were using them 


probably still today. That's always been part 


of the process is to assess people on a daily 


basis, especially high rad areas, as opposed to 


changing out --


 MR. GIBSON: Could you speak up a little bit, 


please? 


 DR. BEHLING: As opposed to changing film 


badges or TLDs on a daily basis, which is the 


only other way of tracking the -- the exposure 

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during a wear cycle, you usually track it by 


use of pocket dosimeters. And that's still 


being done today. It was certainly done 


throughout the '50s and '60s when film badges 


were used. And whenever you have a film badge 


that -- or a TLD chip that malfunctions, such 


as the case with the issue of the oil or the 


hair, you then default to a pocket dosimeter 


cumulative readout for that wear period and 


then use that as your surrogate method. On the 


same issue when you just ment-- talked about 


the issue of NTA film being fogged at as little 


as 500 millirem exposure from low energy 


photons, again I would assume that NTA film was 


used for measuring neutrons, but concurrently 


they were also monitored by means of a beta-


gamma dosimeter, which means that you should at 


least be able to support the issue that the 


fogging was truly due to photon, which in the 


absence of a measurement on the beta-gamma 


dosimeter would not necessarily then serve as 


your justification for saying must be due to 


photon exposure therefore you get zero neutron. 


I think these are all catch-22 situations that 


you can look at and verify whether the 

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assumptions and default assumptions that were 


being used are in fact supported. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, certainly, Hans, what you said 


about, you know, cross-checking NTA films that 


might have been gamma-fogged with the beta-


gamma dosimeters themselves to see if it's 


logically consistent, yeah, that makes good 


sense and they probably did it. I can't -- I 


haven't specifically looked to see, on this 


particular instance, whether they did that. 


I'm not even sure that you would see that in 


the file. 


 DR. BEHLING: But for instance, what Kathy was 


reading did not allude to that as the solution 


of -- of assigning a value. In other words, 


what she read to me did not smack of a guidance 


that says hey, check the -- the -- the beta-


gamma dosimeter and if it's more than 500 from 


americium, then there's justification for 


coming to that conclusion. But in the absence 


of that, I see no justification for saying just 


assign a zero dose now. 


 DR. ULSH: I haven't -- I can't really comment 


at length on a memorandum I haven't seen. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

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 DR. ULSH: I don't know. I'd have to look at 


it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: To get back to this case, I -- I 


think if -- I don't know that we have secondary 


dosimetry data that goes -- 


 DR. ULSH: I can't say one way or the other. 


would say to you, though, that if you had a 


dosimeter for which you were able -- you know, 


that there's no problem with, that you got a 


reading from, and you had a pocket ionization 


chamber and the two disagreed -- you know the 


limitations of pocket ionization chambers; if 


you bang them, they go high -- I would trust 


the TLD, absent any reason to suspect it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It seems to me -- here you're in 


the '80s, too. I'm not sure we're dealing with 


50 millirem --


 DR. BEHLING: Well, TLDs in the '80s should 


have had a sensitivity level of 10, 15. 


 DR. ULSH: Right, right. The numbers may 


change over time, but that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not sure that -- you know, 


what this person -- I think I'd have to go back 


sort of to what Mike's saying. This person is 


a rad control tech, you know. 


I 
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 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If you -- if you believe that he 


was even spot-measuring eight R per hour, you 


think he'd have higher than zeroes during that 


job. I mean even if you were exchanging your 


badges weekly. 


 MS. MUNN: If you had a consistent field of 


eight R, but it says --


 MR. GRIFFON: No, even spot measurements. I 


mean it takes more than a few seconds. You're 


going to take -- you have to go in and make a 


measurement, you're there for 15 seconds, 20 


seconds, you're getting a little dose. 


 MS. MUNN: If he's the one who's making the 


eight R measurement, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's right. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. This was an issue in the 


affidavit. We're prepared a response, but it 


sounds like there's still some reservations. 


What further would you like us to do on this? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's the hard part. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: I mean I'm open to suggestion. If 


there's something else you'd like to see, let 


me know what it is and I'll try to get it, but 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I think part of what I've been 


trying to grapple with all along is -- is to 


look at some of these in aggregate, you know, 


that -- that if we start to see a number of 


these that -- that --


 DR. ULSH: Some of -- we might be going down 


that road a little bit on the safety concerns 


issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Is that somewhere else on the 


matrix? I don't recall. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think --


 MR. FITZGERALD: It is. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. I'll hold details till later, 


but there were -- I looked through personally a 


spreadsheet of about 5,000 safety concern 


document, looked -- I think this is probably 


similar to what SC&A did to identify the 


original seven of interest. I read the short 


description and went with it. And out of that 


-- those 5,000, I identified a few tens, maybe 


up to 30, I don't remember exactly how many, 


that the title suggested we should look at 


further. And so I think you're right, Mark, if 


we see a consistent pattern in these safety 

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concerns, that might be something that we would 


-- certainly something -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the other thing -- 


 DR. ULSH: -- (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- for this individual I'd be 


interested in seeing is before and after this 


was he getting measurements and here he's -- 


he's putting testimony out or -- or an 


affidavit, that says this was a high job I 


remember particularly where I think I should 


have -- you know, I should have higher readings 


in my records. If he had higher readings 


before and after, then all these sort of near-


zero readings in the middle, I'd be saying -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, keep in mind what the affi-- 


keep in mind --


 MR. GRIFFON: If he had zeroes all along, then 


you could say well, --


 DR. ULSH: Keep in mind what the affidavit 


said, though, Mark. In 1982 and '83 loading 


nuclear material into the stacker retriever. 


We don't know whether he was doing that job -- 


that same job before and after. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, we don't. 


 DR. ULSH: If he was, then you're right, if you 

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saw --


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but he's citing this as 


one -- it seems to me he's citing this as one 


of his higher --


 DR. ULSH: Yes, he is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- potential exposure jobs. 


 DR. ULSH: So you might --


 MR. GRIFFON: So if he, prior to this, had 


higher readings, and after this had higher 


readings --


 DR. ULSH: Okay, would you like to see the 


dosimeter results for this person? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think it might be -- you -- 


you asked --


 DR. ULSH: In the bounding years? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is there a path forward to go on 


this. 


 DR. ULSH: We can do that. 


 DR. BEHLING: How about RWPs? I mean I'm sure 


that there must be RWPs in place that identify 


the times that -- that -- a coworker that might 


have been part of that job coverage that he was 


doing and -- and you simply cross-reference -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The coworker is an interesting 


question. It could be tricky, like you said, 

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because the people doing the work could get 


different exposures than the -- than the rad 


worker tech. 


 DR. ULSH: The -- okay, first of all, I think 


it's very possible -- I can probably get this 


very quickly, the dosimetry results for this 


individual in the years -- well, this -- this 


affidavit's '82/'83. I can get you '81 and 


'84. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It should be all in HIS-20. 


Right? So we should only -- 


 DR. ULSH: I've got his rad file in the 


computer back in my office. I can pull it 


pretty easily, I think. So yeah, I can -- I 


can -- sure, I can do that. I'll get that --


mark that as an action item, please. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, there's also an internal 


dosimetry component to the affidavit, so maybe 


if we could just look at the whole -- look at 


it in perspective as to, you know, whether the 


-- the internal --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) case or -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, yeah, he says -- well, 


Mel, could I -- I don't know what happened to 


my copy, if I could borrow yours? 

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 MR. CHEW: Of course. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: He said that he was 


contaminated from head to toe in 1987 or '88. 


 MS. MUNN: That's a different --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, different -- that's why 


I'm saying if we can look at the whole -- 


 DR. ULSH: Same affidavit, different concern. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Same affidavit, but if we could 


look at the whole dose record in some 


perspective and settle the second issue, also, 


or address it in some way. 


 DR. ULSH: I think that should be easy to do, 


too, Arjun. I could check in his rad file for 


an incident report during -- during those 


years. I would ask you to perhaps wait and -- 


and hear the discussion on the Kittinger log, 


because there were several incidents like this 


in the Kittinger log that we've looked, and I 


would like to discuss -- after we discuss that 


-- a path forward on that. But yeah, if -- if 


the Board -- if the working group decides that 


you want me to look for an incident report 


there, I would be happy to do it. Not a 


problem. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Kathy, has somebody -- have we 

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interviewed this person? 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only reason I think this is 


worthwhile taking a look -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, not having it -- 


not having it in front of me, I'm not quite 


sure. 


 DR. ULSH: And we can't really say the name 


over the air. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You can ask her during the break 


'cause we're going to take one in a few 


minutes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah -- yeah, I'll call you -- 


I'll call you during the break and have -- 


yeah. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The only reason I think it might 


be useful to pull the string a little further 


on this case 'cause I --


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I can see, you know, we can't 


do this with all these cases, you know, but 


this -- this person has a fair amount of 


specificity in -- in the allegation, so -- 


 DR. ULSH: And this really gets to, Mark, what 


I've been thinking all along here. I mean our 

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first obligation, and certainly NIOSH wants to 


do that. Our first obligation is to give the 


allegations a full and accurate consideration. 


Second to that is the timeliness issue. And I 


know that we're working towards supporting a 


Board vote in September, so to the extent that 


we can be specific -- for instance, when you 


ask -- get me the dosimeter results on either 


side, that's something specific, I can do that. 


Big drift net type operations I think we might 


need to talk more about, but -- 


DR. MAURO: Can I say -- we're -- an 


interesting --


 MR. GIBSON: Brant, this is Mike Gibson again. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: Again, I just want to stress that 


when Secretary Richars-- then-Secretary 


Richardson announced this plan, she said that 


these workers have not always been protected 


and the data is sometimes not reliable. So you 


know, I just have -- I'm just bringing forth 


the concern that we don't give the same weight 


to an affidavit from a worker as we do to the 


data that was unrelia-- sometimes unreliable 


that caused this whole program to be brought 

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into effect. I just -- I mean I hope that's 


just a fair statement. And I know you guys are 


doing the best you can with the raw data that 


you have, but you know, there's just -- I 


believe -- missed dose and sometimes -- and now 


I'll put this mildly, sometimes falsification 


of records. I can give you a specific example 


of a Mound where a rad tech was fired for fals­

- falsifying records because it was getting 


late in the day and let a person go home 


contaminated. So I just -- you know, I just 


hope you guys take that into perspective to -- 


to these affidavits to what people are saying 


that really happened in the field. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, you --


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think you're right, Mike -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you're right, Mark (sic), and 


I -- Mike, and I think -- I don't even know my 


own name anymore. No, I -- I think I -- I mean 


I do agree with Brant on this, that we have to 


strike a balance here between -- we -- we 


certainly have to -- these specific allegations 


by petitioners or public commenters -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Absolutely. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but we owe it to take those to 

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ground as best we can. We're also -- we also 


owe it to all the petitioners to do this as 


timely -- you know, as efficiently as we can 


here, so you're right, Mike. I agree. 


 DR. ULSH: And I do hope -- not just you, Mike, 


but all members of the working group, if you 


think that there is something that -- that we, 


that NIOSH should do -- I mean I think that 


we're taking these allegations pretty 


seriously. I mean we're -- we're doing our 


best to look into them. But if -- certainly 


we're open to any suggestions from the working 


group and we're certainly willing to discuss if 


you think that there are other things that we 


should do to address these issues. And that's 


the whole purpose of this SEC process. I mean 


it -- as you mentioned, Mike, it was recognized 


early -- you know, early on Admiral Richardson 


-- that there -- that the DOE records are not 


perfect, and that certainly applies to Rocky 


Flats. It applies to any site. When you've 


got tens of thousands of workers with up to -- 


upwards of, you know, hundreds of bioassay, I 


guarantee you you can find isolated -- sorry, 


that you can find instances where the worker 

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was not monitored when he probably should have 


been, or there was a problem with his records, 


something like that. What I think we need to 


focus on in terms of an SEC context, though, 


how frequent is this. Does this represent a 


pattern that would make you date the 


reliability of the dataset as a whole. And 


that's kind of the approach that I'm taking 


here. And I'm -- you know, I understand, too ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: That's our -- that's our over-


arching concern. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Exactly. 


 MR. GIBSON: No, and I don't want to give the 


false impression that I'm this left-wing 


liberal that wants everyone just blanket 


covered. I don't -- I don't want anyone neces­

- I don't want anyone compensated that doesn't 


deserve it. But I certainly don't want anyone 


-- or a group of people -- left out that do 


deserve it. And so I just want -- I want the 


fair and balanced treatment between the 


workers' perspective of what they've witnessed 


in the field, and I want that weighed against 

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the reliability or the -- whatever word we're 


using about the validity of the data. 


 DR. WADE: And I think that -- this is Lew 


Wade. I think that's what we all want and -- 


and you know, what we're trying to do is to 


allow for a process to -- to go on that has 


point and counterpoint and let -- and lets 


every allegation or every question be discussed 


to the satisfaction of all. And you know, 


hopefully that process is fair and balanced. 


And you know, if you see instances where you 


feel it's not, then you need to raise them. 


And again, that's the perspective of the Board. 


You know, and we'll pursue this for as long as 


it needs to be pursued to bring to -- bring 


these issues to -- to a level of understanding 


that meets the Board's satisfaction so that 


it's willing to vote this out. Again, we'll 


take the time necessary to do that -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- but please raise your -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: -- voice if you think that it's not 


being dealt with in a fair and balanced way. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Wade, I don't know if I'm 

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saying this out of turn, but I -- I think, at 


least from the perspective that -- that I've 


taken, I know, on -- on -- in looking at this 


data is that, because of what workers have 


said, I am -- at least I am not taking it at 


face value, and I -- and I regard this process 


that we're going through as not taking the data 


at face value. But in the end, if the data are 


valid, then they can be used and then if -- so 


I don't think we're taking anything at face 


value here, and that's why I guess it is taking 


so long, because it has been quite difficult -- 


at least -- that's -- that's the perspective 


that I've brought to -- to it when I looked at 


it. 


 DR. WADE: And at the end of the day, a hundred 


individuals will look at it a hundred different 


ways. Our purpose is to have a process that 


lays it out as completely as possible, and then 


let each individual decide what they think in 


the case of the people involved in this debate, 


and eventually the Board in its vote, then 


eventually the Secretary and the Secretary's 


decision. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I'm going to use the 

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Chair's prerogative and ask for a comfort break 


for -- I mean we can keep it short, five -- 


keep it five to ten. If I'm going to say that 


I might as well say ten, right? 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:25 p.m. 


to 3:40 p.m.) 


 MR. GRIFFON: Brant, which item are we on, 


before we --


 DR. ULSH: Pardon me? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are we on 16? 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, hang on, let me look. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I think we are, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, we are on 16. 

 DR. ULSH: Only 18 more to go, Mark. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, we're back in business. 

 MR. GRIFFON: A few "no further action 


required.” 


Okay, I think everyone is still on the line. 


We're back -- we're -- we're on the matrix -- 


for those of you who have the updated matrix, 


we're on number 16 at this point and we're 


going to continue to work through those. 


 DR. ULSH: Actually we're on 18 because 16 and 


17 are no further action. All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So number 18 --

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 DR. ULSH: Okay, the issue here on the matrix 


is workers frequently did not wear badges in 


production areas and did not report non-use of 


badge. This raises the question of how missed 


dose is to be interpreted. This is an issue 


that was raised by the petitioners, certainly 


in the working group meetings and I think also 


in the SEC petition itself. Right, Karin? 


Yeah. 


 MS. JESSEN: Yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Oh, yeah, it says right 


there. I addressed this -- we've talked about 


this issue on a couple of occasions before in 


the working group, and I also talked about it 


at some length at the Denver Advisory Board 


meeting, about the chain of events that would 


be required for this to be a problem in terms 


of the NIOSH dose reconstruction program. 


Now the action item here, Mark, that you have 


is -- is NIOSH is further evaluating the issue. 


This is a status from a while ago. I guess I 


want to discuss what the current status is. 


mean is there something else that you would 


like to see us do on this particular issue? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Did -- did -- I don't recall if 


I 
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-- if SC&A looked at this statistical analysis. 


Did we --


 MR. FITZGERALD: I can't --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I'm trying to remember, Brant, 


I --


 DR. ULSH: I know, so am I, Mark. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I can't remember. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The background? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Looking at background count, 


do you remember? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I -- I did not look at it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can we -- at this point I think 


-- let's -- let's put the ball in SC&A's court 


and the workgroup's. We'll look at the 


analysis again, 'cause I think if we did look 


at it, I don't think we remember it. But --


 DR. ULSH: I'm not sure -- Jim Langsted, I know 


you were -- you were handling this issue. Did 


we prepare a document that we have given to the 


working group or -- remember, this was your -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: This says NIOSH provided. Now 


maybe that was a verbal -- 


 DR. ULSH: Oh --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I don't know. 


 DR. ULSH: -- okay. 

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I 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right? NIOSH provided 


statistical analysis. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Was that written, though? 


don't know. Usually if it's written I put a 


document name in there and I don't have it 


here. 


 MS. MUNN: I thought they gave us a sheet. 


can't remember where I put it, but -- 


 DR. ULSH: I'm thinking this is the tailing-off 


issue, Jim, where we prepared the graphs or 


something like that, and I just can't remember 


what the status of that is. 


MR. LANGSTED: And what did we do, Brant? We 


showed some of those graphs at -- I think it 


was the September meeting -- I'm sorry, the 


Denver meeting, but I don't think we ever came 


up with any statistical conclusion on it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So you didn't have a conclusion 


on it, or... 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think what we concluded was 


 MR. GRIFFON: That you can't conclude 


anything? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think so, that that -- 


I 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Thank you, 


Karin. Do these graphs look familiar? 


 MS. MUNN: Those, yes, they do. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: These? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This was an April 20th 


package. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you. Thank you. Rescued by 


Joe and Karin, thank you. 


Okay, so it looks like we've at least provided 


something, if -- if SC&A and the working group 


can review --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, let's put it that way 


'cause I don't -- Joe, you're not in a position 


to respond --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we were just at the 


session and then we, you know, looked at the 


graphs. I don't think we actually pursued any, 


no. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's close it out that way, 


though. Let's put an action for SC&A to -- to 


review those and report back. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, number 19 then, this deals 


with a con-- some concerns that were expressed 

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in the SEC petition about badges did not 


properly record organ dose due to organ being 


closer to the source than the badge, or due to 


workers wearing badge under their lead aprons. 


So you've got two issues here imbedded in one 


concern. 


One is geometry correction factors. In other 


words, a badge worn at the lapel, how does that 


-- how do you have to handle that, how do you 


have to adjust that reading to account for 


doses in abdominal organs, primarily -- like, 


you know, prostate or bladder. And we have 


written, and I think I've seen these pretty 


well -- pretty familiar with the glovebox TIB 


for glovebox workers. That describes the 


methodology for handling that kind of a 


situation. 


Lead aprons, again, this is another issue that 


Jim Langsted was dealing with, but I think that 


where we left it was that there were field 


studies done at Rocky Flats to evaluate the 


response of the dosimeters when they were worn 


both -- or, sorry, when they were worn either 


under or on top of lead aprons. And so the 


TBD, as I recall, Jim, is being -- some 

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language about how to handle lead apron use is 


being added to the TBD. Is that correct, Jim? 


MR. LANGSTED: That's exactly right, Brant. A 


section has been added to the TBD that's in 


ORAU review right now, and it includes a 


correction factor for the cases where -- where 


dosimeters were worn either above or below the 


leaded apron. 


 DR. ULSH: So I -- I don't know, I don't want 


to go out on a limb too far here, but it seems 


to me that this is certainly an important dose 


reconstruction or TBD type issue, but I don't 


think that it rises to an SEC issue. Would you 


agree? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, Brant, I'd agree. Both of 


these are very tractable problems. 


 DR. ULSH: I like that phrase. Thanks, John. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: In the -- Ron's external 


analysis, which we handed around this morning, 


we also treat the lead apron issue and also 


treat it as a site profile issue. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. BEHLING: How does it affect the issue of 


skin cancer when you wear it under the apron? 


 DR. ULSH: Jim, did you hear that? 

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MR. LANGSTED: No, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear 


that. 


 DR. BEHLING: When a -- when a dosimeter's worn 


under the apron, what do you do to account for 


a skin exposure? 


MR. LANGSTED: We've got a factor that -- and I 


believe it's for penetrating dose only -- I'll 


have to take a look at that. I don't know 


right off. 


 DR. ULSH: So it's a correction factor that 


adjusts --


 DR. BEHLING: Well, I know the -- certainly 


account for a penetrating dose -- adjustment 


factor to account for the attenuation by the 


lead, but how do you account for a beta 


component that you wouldn't be able to -- to 


see if it's worn under the apron, meaning that 


this is a blank spot in your dosimetry system. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think, though, Hans, that -- 


Jim, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't lead 


aprons used primarily in the plutonium areas? 


MR. LANGSTED: Yes, under -- for the 


penetrating dose reduction. 


 DR. ULSH: And you would be mainly concerned 


about -- I mean the places at Rocky Flats where 

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you would have a beta problem would be 


primarily in the uranium areas, which -- I 


don't think lead aprons were -- I don't want to 


state this too strongly. I think there -- that 


lead aprons were primarily used in the 


plutonium areas, so it may not -- 


 MR. CHEW: 776 especially. 

 DR. ULSH: Does that sort of answer your 

question? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, if -- if that's a focus 


area for -- for using the apron data, that 


would probably be okay. 


DR. MAURO: And I would imagine, if you know 


your source --


 DR. BEHLING: And there's no beta component -- 


DR. MAURO: -- and of course you're not going 


to see your beta contribution, but you know 


your source, you know your gamma, you -- and 


you can say okay, what would you anticipate 


being a plausible upper bound of the skin dose 


from beta given the source -- I mean I think -- 


again, I think this is very tractable. 


 DR. ULSH: The ratio, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think it might be a good point 


-- as a reminder, and a reminder to the whole 

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workgroup, that we're going for SEC issues. It 


doesn't mean we're not going to cover these in 


our overview of the site profile, so we'll have 


a chance to look back at that section. I know, 


I know, it's painful to think about sometimes, 


but --


 DR. ULSH: You're absolutely right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- discussing this at lunch, that 


we got through Y-12, but we actually -- 


 DR. ULSH: Now the fun starts. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the site profile that we kind 


of skipped over the matrix, and Wanda insisted 


that we go back and get all those things. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Now, Wanda --


 MS. MUNN: Well, (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And she wants to do it tonight ­

- no. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think that brings us to 


issue 20. We can get through this pretty quick 


because we've already talked about it prior to 


the break. This is the affidavit from the 


petition about the guy who worked in the 


stacker retriever area, so we've already talked 


about that. And the follow-up items, I 


believe, there are we will get you the 

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dosimetry on either side of that time period. 


MR. MEYER: And incident (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, right, right, and I'll take a 


look through the rad file, see if I can find an 


incident. 


Okay, that leads us to 21. The concern 


expressed is bioassays redone when they 


indicated high exposure. There are two 


examples cited that claim that bioassays were 


redone on -- on individuals -- I'm sorry -- or 


individuals were recounted when the readings 


were high, and subsequent results were declared 


as having no exposure or false positives. 


Our response -- or I'm looking at the status 


column now, and if a worker was enrolled in a 


bioassay program, we would assign missed dose 


for bioassay results below the detection limit. 


We -- we don't think that we have a peculiar 


situation at Rocky Flats that would make what 


we're doing at other sites not apply here. 


An additional point to note here is that in 


situations like this where you had a bioassay 


that was considered by the dosimetry department 


at the site to be suspect, and then there were 


subsequent confirmatory bioassays taken, NIOSH 

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-- when we receive data from DOE, we get all of 


the -- well, we're at least supposed to get all 


of the bioassay results, whether or not they 


were -- the site concluded that they were false 


positives. And NIOSH is not in the practice of 


excluding any bioassay points, even if they 


were concluded to be false positives. So I 


think that that is our response on that issue. 


DR. MAURO: Brant, I --


 DR. ULSH: Yes, sir. 


DR. MAURO: -- I had a thought about several of 


these affidavits and the way we're dealing with 


them. It's sort of like we have an individual 


that has a concern, and then we're saying okay, 


that concern is going to be investigated as 


part of our data reliability that -- whether or 


not it has some implications regarding the 


integrity of the data and -- and I think 


everything that we've designed and implemented 


to date has gone toward that end. 


But then I -- and as we spoke about this, it 


dawned on me that there's another side that 


might -- we may want to think about, and that 


is the person himself that made that claim. 


He's looking for some satisfaction out of this, 

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also. So when we give a -- let's say a general 


answer -- oh, a plausible scenario why that 


happened and I think that satisfies -- with 


some degree of evidence by looking at these 


other records. At the same time -- and this is 


something that I just put -- I'd like to put 


before the working group. At the same time, as 


a form of bedside manner, wouldn't it be very 


satisfying to the claimant himself who brought 


this issue up for us to talk about him or her 


and -- and the work that was done to fully 


appreciate -- in the sort of a way the way we 


do the individual audits of dose 


reconstructions for individual people, year by 


year and check out every number to understand 


exactly what was this person doing and do his 


records make sense, do the input to the IREP 


make sense given the records and -- and his job 


history. What I'm getting at is I'm sort of 


like looking at the other side of the coin now. 


To what degree do you think it will benefit the 


program to not only answer the questions that 


these folks raise from more of a generic data 


reliability issue, but in the -- at the same 


time try to satisfy the -- the petitioner that 

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we looked at him and -- or her case as an 


individual with his -- his -- his own concerns 


so that he can walk away feeling as if he was 


not short-changed. 


Now I realize we ne-- we haven't talked about 


this before and -- but I think it's something 


wor-- I'm thinking in terms of credibility and 


bedside manner. We haven't done very much of 


that. And I think that if there -- if a -- if 


that person could be -- if we could talk to 


that person that we looked at that -- closely, 


specifically -- and right now we're talking 


about looking at either side of this time 


period as being part of it, but the more I 


think about it, to tell his story back to him 


the way we understand it and why we believe 


what we believe about him, I think might buy a 


lot of credibility, which is half of what we're 


trying to do here. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I'll take a shot at it, John, 


but I might -- I'm looking over at Lew, and 


hopefully he'll have something to say about 


this, too. 


I think it's a noble goal. I do. And in an --


given unlimited resources and unlimited time, I 

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would like to go back to every individual who 


made a public com-- every one that's going to 


be included in Karin's write-up and call them 


up or interview them and -- and tell them how 


we resolved their concern. That would be a 


great thing to do. 


We have to weigh that, though, against 


timeliness -- you know, how -- how much 


resources we have to dedicate to that. And 


keep in mind, you compared it to auditing the 


dose reconstructions. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: For those -- we -- we audit a sample 


of the dose reconstructions. We don't audit 


the -- all 17--


DR. MAURO: Absolutely. 


 DR. ULSH: -- all 13,000. There's not time to 


do that. I --


DR. MAURO: So this might open a door that says 


-- a flood of how many are you going to look at 


now. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, it might, but -- I don't know 


 DR. WADE: It's a good idea. 


 DR. ULSH: I do, I mean --

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 DR. WADE: Clearly it's a good idea. I mean 


NIOSH has recently taken actions to add to 


staff people who could sort of serve as 


ombudsmans for -- for -- ombudsmen for SEC 


petitions. And you know, a lot of thought has 


gone into sort of the front end sort of 


assistance, but I think you raise a very valid 


point. It would be good to have someone who 


could sit in these discussions, take in the 


full extent of what has been discussed, and 


then contact these individuals and tell a 


story. I mean no one would argue that that's a 


good thing to do, and we'll take that 


suggestion back and try and implement it to the 


degree we can. But it also raises the -- the 


always pragmatic issue of resources, and that 


has to be taken into account. But there's no 


one who would argue that we couldn't do a 


better job of dealing with the -- the people we 


affect, and a more sensitive job, and -- and 


we'll take your suggestion as a very positive 


one. 


MS. MINKS: This is Erin Minks calling from 


Senator Salazar's office here in Colorado, and 


I just wanted to jump into this discussion real 

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quick and just say that we would -- our offices 


would -- would be happy and pleased to -- to -- 


to find a way to effectively communicate to the 


individuals that are petitioners for you and 


constituents of ours, who contact us after 


these calls, who are probably listening right 


now, who understand -- to the degree that 


they've been listening to your discussions -- 


that there's an intricacy that has to go on 


that they may not fully understand. But you 


know, if there's a way that we can help to lend 


credibility to the process, please let us know 


as well. If it means there needs to be -- when 


the Board reaches a decision, that there needs 


to be a -- you know, it's almost a PR dimension 


to how you're going to do it, but something 


that our offices would probably want to be a 


part of or be willing to help you with. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you very much and -- but I 


will carry this back to Laurie Ishak who's been 


named as the --


MS. MINKS: Yeah, Laurie. Yeah, definitely. 


 DR. WADE: Right. And you know, we'll talk to 


her about this and -- and we'll certainly use 


examples that we discussed here today as sort 

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of pilots for this, John, so we appreciate your 


suggestion. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Dr. Wade, excuse me, this 


is Ray. Could I get that -- the lady who just 


spoke, her last name --


MS. MINKS: Sure, my name -- this is Erin Minks 


with Ken Salazar's office out here in Colorado. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay, thank you. 


MS. MINKS: Yeah, and we can -- off-line we can 


talk about my contact information. I think 

that Lew Wade has it there, so -- 

 DR. WADE: Yes, I do. 

 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Could I ask 

a question also? 

My concern is if there's a -- a positive 


bioassay result that's seemingly unusually 


high, then they -- the DOE rule of thumb seems 


to be you take two more bioassay samples and 


the two out of three rule wins. If the next 


two come back negative, it's a false positive. 


But you know, if -- if you take a bioassay 


sample and it comes back below the MDA, below 


the minimum detectable amount, there's no two 


or three samples to make sure that one was 


right. How far has NIOSH went to verify the 

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qualifications and the certifications and the 


quality at the lab? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, Mike, let me take a shot at 


some of that. I think you're -- you're right 


about the -- certainly at Rocky Flats, and I'm 


thinking of at least in the '90s, and probably 


well before that, it was policy to, when you 


had a positive bioassay, to then follow up with 


confirmatory bioassay results. And the 


thinking here is that there are -- there are 


circumstances that could lead to a false 


positive. For instance -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Correct. 


 DR. ULSH: -- you know, contamination of the 


sample or -- or the reader or -- or whatever. 


It's -- it's more difficult to envision a 


situation where a sample would have radioactive 


material in it that -- a false negative, what 


I'm saying. I think a false negative is a less 


likely -- far less likely outcome. And also 


keep in mind that these people were -- the 


workers were on routine bioassay, so even if 


you had a -- one particular bioassay, you have 


to consider that in the overall context that 


they were sampled on a periodic basis. So you, 

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you know, would have an opportunity to pick up, 


you know, an uptake in subsequent bioassays. 


Now in terms of what NIOSH has done to -- I'm 


trying to think of the words that you used, 


Mike, to -- to verify the -- help me out. 


 MR. GIBSON: The -- the quality assurance of 


the lab. 


 DR. ULSH: That is --


 MR. GIBSON: Itself. 


 DR. ULSH: That is certainly an issue that -- 


you know, I mentioned earlier in our 


conversation that there were QA programs in 


place at DOE sites, including Rocky Flats, and 


you're probably familiar with the DOELAP 


accreditation program -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ULSH: -- which was implemented in the 


'90s, I think. Before that -- you know, there 


were predecessors to that. We do have the 


QA/QC manuals -- I'm looking at Bob, he's 


nodding his head yes, we do have them -- that 


were used at Rocky Flats, so that is an issue 


that we've looked at. Does that answer your 


question, sort of? 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, I -- you know, and again, I 

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have no history at Rocky Flats and I -- I don't 


know what went on there, but I do have a 


extensive knowledge of the history at Mound 


and, for instance, you know, getting to 


occurrence reporting and Price Anderson, I know 


that was later, you know, later in the years, 


but they were DOELAP accredited. They put a 


new system in. They had the program -- they 


had the equipment programmed to subtract the 


background out of the bioassay sample, and then 


the manager of the bioassay program 


subsequently backed out that background again, 


which in essence doubled -- doubled less the 


minimum detectable amount of what would be seen 


in a bioassay -- or actually doubled up-wise 


what would be seen in a bioassay sample. So 


you know, my question again is how far have you 


guys looked at the quality assurance, you know, 


of the labs --


 MR. GRIFFON: Mike, I guess --


 MR. GIBSON: -- whether it was internal or 


external? Some of our samples were sent, for 


example, for actinium they were sent off-site 


to another lab at one point. It was raided by 


the FBI and busted for falsifying records. So 

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how far are you guys looking at this stuff? 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and I would just say -- 


you said you have the quality control or 


quality assurance manuals. Were there any 


reports, any internal audits or external audits 


of the bioassay program, of the dosimetry 


program, you know, prior to DOELAP I think 


would be the bigger (unintelligible) -- right, 


right. 


 DR. ULSH: Roger or somebody else out there who 


was involved in the internal dosimetry program, 


can you give us any insight on-- in that? 


 (No responses) 


Roger, are you on mute? 


 MR. FALK: I have just gotten to the captain's 


chair here. I don't have anything really 


concrete, because the bioassay labs were 


essentially a -- were essentially the separate 


entities, but they did -- they did regular, 


like maybe annual, essentially cross-checks 


with the other laboratories, that -- that I 


know happened, but I don't have the data for 


that. But yes, there -- yes, the laboratories 


did essentially cross-check samples with other 


labs, and I think they did some with the EML, 

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which is the Environmental Measurements Lab up 


in New York that was a DOE facility. But I 


don't -- I don't -- I don't have access to the 


specific reports. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, what I'm --


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't -- I don't think they 


took --


 MR. GIBSON: -- saying is -- and I know that -- 


at least at Mound anyway, I mean they even did 


a blank and a spiked check with each batch, 


which I believe was 12 or 24 samples that went 


through, but this still fell through the 


cracks. 


MR. MEYER: Yeah, the -- the round robin is 


what will catch that, and that's why they -- 


that's why they did it, if -- if another lab 


analyzes the same or -- or a duplicate, you 


know, working on (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GIBSON: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. 


Sir? 


MR. MEYER: I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. A 


round robin check with another lab will catch 


that and I'm -- something's tickling at me. 


think I have seen some of that, but -- but I 


can't -- I can't put my finger on it virtually 


I 
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here, so --


 DR. ULSH: I think that's pretty much what 


you're describing, Mike. You know, with blanks 


and spikes, it's pretty much standard procedure 


and I'm -- I would be extremely surprised if 


Rocky Flats didn't do exactly that. 


MR. MEYER: They were doing that, but that'll ­

- that'll miss the background, the double 


background issue and -- but the round robin 


will catch that and --


 MR. GIBSON: A round robin is what, sir? 


MR. MEYER: I'm sorry, sending the same sample 


or --


 MR. GIBSON: Who am I talking to? 


MR. MEYER: This is Bob Meyer, I'm sorry, the ­

- with -- with ORAU team -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


MR. MEYER: -- the document owner for the Rocky 


Flats site profile. What I -- and I'm sorry, 


what I meant by round robin is -- or -- or an 


exchange, sending the same or an exact 


duplicate sample off to another laboratory, the 


reas-- one of the reasons for doing that is to 


catch that sort of an error. The other lab 


then will come back with a -- a result that's 

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quite different and that leads to trying to 


figure out why -- why that happened, whereas 


the in -- in-house will miss that type of an 


error. That's -- that's an interesting 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GIBSON: And how often did Rocky Flats do 


that? Was that on every perceived false 


positive or was that on just a routine or -- 


basis or --


MR. MEYER: Roger actually has the answer to 


that. Typically that's done on a routine basis 


to catch this sort of problem, and then when 


it's caught -- if -- if an error is discovered, 


a person -- the lab has to go back and recount 


the samples or correct -- in this case you'd 


simply un-subtract it, if that makes sense, to 


correct the background subtraction error. But 


it's typically done routinely, and the reason 


is to catch that sort of an error. 


 MR. GIBSON: And routinely is how often? 


 DR. ULSH: Roger? 


 MR. FALK: I don't know how often they did the 


round robin type of the exchange of samples 


with the other labs, but that would probably 


have been done some -- something like annually. 

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Also, starting in -- in the early '80s, the lab 


had its own quality assurance officer who 


basically oversaw the -- the quality of the 


data and did routine checks, but -- but that 


was a lab function. But I'm sure there are 


probably -- be log books that would actually 


document that. I've not seen them, however. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do they -- I would imagine they 


must have generated reports over the time 


period. 


MR. MEYER: I'm just trying to think what they 


would --


 MR. GRIFFON: It might have been part of a rad 


program report or something -- no? 


 DR. ULSH: That seems -- that seems logical, 


but I can't say what's in it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) that have 


quality assurance, you know, (unintelligible). 


 MR. GIBSON: I think I would be interested in 


seeing, 'cause -- and again, I'm not -- I'm 


just basing my experience at Mound and asking ­

- generating these questions based on Rocky, 


but I think it'd be interesting for the working 


group or -- or full Advisory Board to see how 


that happened or how often that happened and 

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what kind of quality assurance plan they had. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, let's -- I'm looking around 


the table to working group members. I'd like 


to just maybe firm up what the action item is 


here if -- okay, so we're interested in looking 


at QA/QC type reports on the bioassay program. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, or determining if they -- 


if they're readily available, I guess -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Yeah, that's going to be the 


first step. 


 MR. GIBSON: And how often this round robin 


test happened --


 MR. GRIFFON: Sampling was done, right. 


MR. MEYER: Yeah, and I --


 MR. GIBSON: -- to verify --


MR. MEYER: -- let -- let's use a different 


name for that, I'm sorry, just an exchange with 


another laboratory that's certified in some 


way. Round robin, what I mean there was 


oftentimes labs will pass samples from one lab 


to the next, and that may well have happened 


within the complex, too. They all check the 


same sample and they -- and they inter-compare 


results, and actually studies are -- there were 


studies done, now that I'm thinking about this, 

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'cause I saw them at Oak Ridge so I'll be 


surprised if we don't see that here. 


 DR. ULSH: So I guess what we'll commit to -- 


right now, anyway -- is that we'll take a look 


and see if we can find those readily and -- 


this is another one -- I mean if we get them, 


we'll just post them on the O drive and let all 


the working group members and SC&A know that 


they're there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. And if we have problems for 


some reason, we'll also let you know that. 


Okay. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I'd like to see those 


results, please. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The other -- back to the 


specific in 21, I was wondering if you -- to 


sort of go back to John's point, did -- did you 


look at these I guess two ca-- I'm trying to 


remember which case this is, but it had two 


specific -- it says there are two examples 


cited in the claim. 


 DR. ULSH: Which one are we on? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Where bioassays were redone on 

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individuals -- 21. 


 DR. ULSH: Twenty-one --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) was talking 


about false positives and we kind of got off 


with the false positive question, but in the 


original allegation it says there are two 


examples cited that claim that bioassays were 


redone on -- on individuals -- 


 MS. JESSEN: I don't have that section done 


yet. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I wonder if we track that back 


to those -- those two cases, it may be worth 


doing that, too. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, we can get back to you on 


that. That -- depending on who it is, I may or 


may not have the rad file on hand. We might 


have to request it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If it's not possible, it's not 


possible. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I'm not saying it's not 


possible, it's just that it -- if I -- if I 


have it in my office, it'll be quick. If I 


have to request it from Scott, it'll take a 


little bit. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You can tell us, Karin. 

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 MS. JESSEN: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: I've got it. I think I've got it. 


Okay. Did you get that as an action item, too, 


this specific one? 


MR. MEYER: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. Are we ready for 22, 


Mark, or --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. This is the "no data 


available" issue, and I think we've already 


talked about -- okay, we've talked about this 


issue in general. This one is a specific 


example from an affidavit that was provided in 


the petition. The individual stated that -- 


let me see -- okay. This individual stated 


that there was -- the film was blackened with 


exposure and he was -- he got this "no data 


available" when the film was blackened with 


exposure, and the work was in a high exposure 


area, americium-241 processing, which we do 


know that was a high dose area, americium 


processing. By contrast, accor-- the -- the 


affidavit -- the affidavit states that by 


contrast, there were issues for positive dose 


at a time when this worker was serving in the 

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military in Korea. 


 Unfortunately I didn't go back and copy this 


out of an earlier comment set, but I -- I 


remember the specifics on this. We went back 


and checked the worker's radiation file and in 


fact there were -- we had the -- the work 


history for this individual and it did reflect 


military service, that he left the site for 


military service and then it showed his return. 


And in fact there was -- there were no 


dosimetry results for that period, and we 


presented that in previous comment set, so 


that's -- that --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I have a question about 


that. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Did you check the NDRP 


to see if it had readings for those two years? 


 DR. ULSH: Kathy, I don't recall off the top of 


my head whether we checked the NDRP. I'd have 


to go back and look. 


 MR. FALK: Brant, this is Roger. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, sir. 


 MR. FALK: It turns out -- yes, we (inaudible) 


asked and there were no entries during the time 

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when he was in military service. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thank you. But this does 


give --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm trying to remember, I 


thought -- I thought there was an entry on -- 


he went in the middle of a quarter or 


something, so there was some -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, that's right, Mark. That is 


right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that was (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ULSH: You're refreshing my memory. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The person's confusion was that 


he had --


 DR. ULSH: Could very well be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Could very well be. 


 MS. JESSEN: I think that's right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I do, but I can't find it right 


now. 


 MS. MUNN: I know, that's what I'm looking for. 


 DR. ULSH: You're absolutely right, Mark. I --


he did leave in the middle of a -- of a 


dosimetry cycle. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Monitoring cycle. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: But at any rate, your explanation 


was certainly plausible. 


 DR. ULSH: Plausible, yeah. Is there any 


follow-up action on this item? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don't think so. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Number 23 is -- the concern 


expressed was most exposed workers were not 


monitored for neutrons -- I don't -- and it 


says -- the petition cites Roger Falk as saying 


that until July, 1958 the most exposed workers 


were not monitored for neutrons, raising a 


question about how the neutron data in the NDRP 


study are to be used, even if the re-reading of 


the badges is accepted as sound. And it is 


true that until -- until about 1958 most 


workers were not monitored for neutrons. That 


was the reason for -- one of the reasons for 


the NDRP was to go back and deal with that kind 


of a situation. And this goes back to our 


disc--


 MR. GRIFFON: I think one follow-up was -- what 


Joe asked for earlier was -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, N/P ratios. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Some of the -- some of the 


parameters as back-up for the early years, that 

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was the -- one caveat. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, the way that we would handle a 


situation like that where a worker was 


plausibly exposed to neutrons and didn't have 


them directly measured is an N/P ratio and we 


talked about -- and we talked about that this 


morning, so --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, with that one caveat, I 


think we're okay on that analysis. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, let me see, that brings us to 


24, neutron -- the concern expressed is that 


the neutron badge reading was defective -- 


 DR. WADE: There's no further action required 


then on 24. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. I don't 


have to spend time on that one then. 


 DR. WADE: And 25 is the same. 


 DR. ULSH: Twenty-- okay, we're flying -- 26. 


This deals with incidents that -- that the 


petitioner was concerned that the -- there were 


incidents that occurred that were not reported 


or recorded, and the -- the concern here was 


that that situation could lead to missed 

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internal dose. And let's see, the -- in the 


status column, Mark, we have NIOSH contends 


that exposures from incidents would be covered 


by coworker approach. I don't -- I don't know 


that that was our response. I'd have to go 


back and look. I think what we would say there 


is that when we -- when we have incident 


reports, it is helpful -- it can be helpful for 


identifying the exact -- or the probable date 


of an intake. But in situations were we don't 


have that, as long as we have bioassay, we can 


do dose reconstructions in a claimant-favorable 


manner by making assumptions -- I'm looking 


over here at Liz, she can jump in and give you 


much more details than I can. The -- the fact 


-- and we do agree, by the way, that incidents 


were handled on a -- on the floor, unless they 


required whole body -- you know, sent to the 


whole body counter or they couldn't be 


decontaminated. I think that's right. Jim and 


whoever else is out there, correct me. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Brant --


 DR. ULSH: Yes, sir. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- handled on the floor without 


a report? 

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 DR. ULSH: I think that -- let me -- let me 


page through -- I think that is true -- could 


be true, Arjun, that an incident, unless it 


rose to a certain level of significance and 


people were required to go to medical or con-- 


there was contamination that couldn't be 


removed, those incidents might have -- might 


very well have been handled on the floor. 


 MR. CHEW: Posi-- positive nose swipes and 


things like this -- positive nose swipes, for 


example. 


 DR. ULSH: You're saying that that would have 


been handled on the floor and not -- 


 MR. CHEW: No, it would have gone up to 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thank you. You were scaring 


me there, Mel. So yeah --


 MR. CHEW: It's one thing you do very quickly, 


you take a Q-tip and put it in the nose and 


take a -- monitor and -- and we had counters 


right nearby and they brought them up to the 


next level. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. So that -- the situation 


described in the concern is certainly something 


that sounds very plausible. What -- what -- 

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our response, though, is that as long as a 


person had bioassay, we could handle that 


situation. Liz, do you want to add to that? 


MS. BRACKETT: Yes, for example, with plutonium 


and uranium, the excretion would last for quite 


some time. There would be -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Could you speak up, please? 


MS. BRACKETT: I've got the microphone in my 


hand. With plutonium and uranium, they're 


retained in the body for a long time and 


therefore excreted for a long time, so even if 


at a later date there was nothing detectable, 


we would still perform a missed dose on -- on 


that results so that if -- if the intake had 


resulted in something that would yield a result 


less than the MDA at -- at a later sample we 


would basically be overestimating the intake. 


We can put -- you know, we can estimate what 


the intake and subsequent dose would have been 


based on later bioassay data. And if the 


person were not monitored at all, we do have a 


coworker study that's being done for -- for 


Rocky Flats. I thi-- I believe it was just 


approved within the last week, and that's based 


on all of the available bioassay data at the 

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Rocky -- Rocky Flats site. 


 DR. ULSH: So TIB-38 or 50 --


MS. BRACKETT: 38, I believe -- yes. 


 DR. ULSH: -- 38, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was kind of a blanket answer 


for unmonitored workers -- 


 DR. ULSH: For unmonitored, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that coworker approach, but 


the allegation's a little different so I think 


I've got to reword that response. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thank you, Liz. Is there 


anything else you want to discuss on that 


issue? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think there is. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Number 27 is a no further 


action required, same with number 28. Number 


29 I think we handled this morning when we 


discussed Arjun's write-up on other 


radionuclides. I see nods so I guess we're 


okay there. 


SAFETY CONCERNS


 Okay, that brings us to number 30 and these are 


the safety concerns. Let me walk you through 


the history of this issue. SC&A expressed some 


concern about -- I believe it was seven safety 

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concerns -- not concern, but they identified 


them as being of interest. And I went back and 


pulled those seven safety concerns and 


presented an evaluation of them. I know that 


in the write-up that Joe sent over this past 


week there was some discussion on I think two 


of them. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Two of them, with one in 


particular. But Kathy can certainly go through 


that. 


 DR. ULSH: Do you want to go into those, Mark, 


those two in particular, or -- because -- well, 


let me just give you the rest of the picture 


and then we can decide whether we want to go 


into these. 


At the last working group meeting -- I can't 


remember who said it, it may have been Tony 


DeMaiori, made us aware that there was a 


database or, you know, a collection of these 


safety concern documents, and so the working 


group asked us to identify that -- determine 


whether that database was around and we could 


access it. We did find a spreadsheet that 


presents about 5,000 of the safety concerns. 


The earliest one in that spreadsheet is in 

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1970. Now you might have seen an earlier e-


mail, Mark, that I sent to Kathy. I don't know 


if that's a function of the database -- in 


other words, the database only captures them 


starting in 1970, or if this mechanism of 


dealing with issues through the safety concern 


system only started in 1970. I don't know 


exactly, you know, why we started in '70. But 


it goes from '70 all the way up into the 2000s. 


And I went -- and there are 5,000, 


approximately, safety concerns listed and that 


has been posted on the O drive. 


I went through and examined -- I suspect this 


is similar to what SC&A did to identify the 


original seven -- looked for anything that 


looked interesting in terms of a data integrity 


-- you know, the title or the short description 


suggested might have some relevance to data 


integrity. A lot of these are going to be -- 


once we get them, turn out not to be, just like 


the original seven, I suspect. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. But I've requested those from 


the folks at Mountain View. They have sent me 


all of them but maybe three over the course of 

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very late last week and early this week. 


MR. MEYER: We've -- actually I think we got 


the last ones in yesterday (unintelligible) 


quite a stack (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. I have not obviously had time 


to review those, but I will do an analysis on 


the second set similar to the first seven and, 


you know, sub--


 MR. GRIFFON: Did SC&A give you input on 


selections --


 DR. ULSH: No, this -- no, this is one thing 


that perhaps we should talk about. I went 


through the list myself when I got it. It's 


posted on the O drive. You know, if there are 


additional ones that you're interested in, let 


me know and we'll, you know -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was just -- it might be 


worthwhile for SC&A to -- to do the same with 


that list, look it over and... 


 DR. ULSH: Have fun, there's 5,000 of them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Also -- also, you know, search 


it or whatever, look it over, sort it, but also 


look at what Brant's already requested and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, that -- we -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- make a determination if it's 

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representative of what you're seeing. I mean ­

-


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I don't think we have to get 


every one, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: And I did -- I did include -- this 


is an Excel spreadsheet. I did include the 


master list, which includes all 5,000, and then 


two separate work sheets, one that identifies 


the one that I thought were interesting and in 


a separate work sheet the ones that I thought 


were probably not -- I want to be careful how I 


say that -- might be relevant to data 


integrity. I don't mean that they're not 


important, but... 


Okay. Now -- but let's go back to this issue 


with the original seven. When I analyzed -- 


when I evaluated the original seven, I -- my 


conclusion was that none of them really 


presented a data integrity issue. I think that 


SC&A may not agree completely with -- with that 


for two of them that they've listed here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: One of them --


 DR. ULSH: Is it just one --


 MR. FITZGERALD: One of them in particular. 

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 DR. ULSH: Oh, I'm sorry. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: The other one's sort of 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. One of them -- was it 71-4, 


is that --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's the one. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I'm trying to -- I'm looking 


through your write-up here -- ah, here it is. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Basically it comes down 


to the -- the same type of issue where the 


employee says that he got his badge results for 


December of '70 and they did not reflect the 


high neutron exposure which was out in the 


field. And this is kind of being addressed in 


some of the other items already. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. I see where you're -- what 


you're saying, Kathy. This is an issue that 


we've already discussed at this meeting. There 


was one part that kind of puzzled me, though, 


and that's -- well, I guess there's no page 


number. It's right before Section 2, the two 


paragraphs right above that, and it says that ­

- well, first of all, let me give you some 


background on this. 


 Like Kathy said, this -- this -- the concern 

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expressed in this safety concern was that the 


film badge results didn't reflect the 


conditions in the field. And my response --


oh, okay. The -- in the SC&A write-up it says 


that this is closely related to the concerns 


over "no current data available" results on 


badge reports. And I didn't see a connection 


there. Maybe you can elaborate on that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, all of this really 


gets down to they don't believe what dose they 


were given, and maybe that's not the right -- 


the right -- maybe I need to be broader in that 


statement. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: But --


 DR. ULSH: I mean it seems to me that -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- a lot of the -- a lot 


of the examples that are given in the petitions 


are very, very, very similar to -- to this 


safety concern. 


 DR. ULSH: I agree, and -- and I think -- I 


mean we have frequently heard this, both in the 


petition and in the public comments. The "no 


current data available" I think is an important 


issue, but I don't think it's the one that 

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we're dealing with on this particular safety 


concern. It's more with I don't believe my 


badge results. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, I think that's what 


she's saying, too. That was -- that was her 


intent on that one. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, good. Good. I guess that was 


the only thing I wanted to -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Which is the same issue we 


discussed earlier, so I'm not sure, you know, 


beyond continuing what we're continuing. The 


action, as I understand it, is to validate the 


representativeness of these seven by looking at 


the --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, if you can review the list 


also --


 DR. ULSH: Well, it's not the seven, it's the 


additional --


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, the -- yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The additional ones that's in 


his requested --


 DR. ULSH: -- ones yet. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the 5,000. I thought I 


heard that right. 


 DR. ULSH: If there are other individual ones 

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that you want me to get, I'll get them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: How many did you -- I -- I'm 


refreshing my... 


 DR. ULSH: On the order of 30 or so, 20 or 30. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It wasn't hundreds. 


 DR. ULSH: No, no. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Where do these sit now, 


they're on the --


 DR. ULSH: They're on the O drive -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the O drive now, right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- in the normal place. If there 


are additional -- you know, a couple of ones 


you want me to get, I'll do that. If -- if you 


want several hundred, let's talk. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I mean -- I mean I would say 


you should look at it in the light of there's a 


few others that look interesting, but you think 


that Brant's list is representative. I don't 


think we need to go there, you know. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, right. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I guess --


you know, my only comment would be, too, if -- 


if there's that many complaints -- and again, I 


know we need to pare them down somewhat, but if 


there's that many complaints, let's -- let's 

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put it on the scale here and let's see are the 


workers right or is the program right, you 


know. I'm not saying look into every one of 


the -- the cases, but -- but there again, if 


there's that many, you know, there's not that 


many workers that are going to make complaints 


if -- if there's something they see that's not 


-- I mean these are Q-cleared, well-trained -- 


God knows, DOE put us through enough training, 


you know, the -- it seems to me there would be 


enough weight there that you almost have to put 


it on a scale and weigh the balance. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I was wondering -- it 


might be useful -- I don't know if -- did this 


in any way when you looked through these. It 


might be useful to characterize them where -- 


 DR. ULSH: I was just going to do that, Mark -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, where there's 


different -- I mean there's safety concerns, 


then there's ones that are sort of specific to 


dosimetry issues -- right? -- and that's where 


you tried to (unintelligible) but can you sort 


of give us (unintelligible) out of the 5,000 


what categories do they fall into, maybe. 


 DR. ULSH: Mike, I would encourage you to take 

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a look at the -- at the spreadsheet because a 


very great number of these are obviously not -- 


they're related to safety issues only in a very 


indirect way. For instance --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean here's -- here's one like 


lack of proper equipment to complete safe drum 


movement. There's a -- there's a lot of safety 


stuff in here --


 DR. ULSH: That's an important issue. There 


are some that -- the locker rooms are filthy. 


Well, that's certainly an important issue, but 


it doesn't really, you know, rise to a data 


integrity -- I think what -- what I was really 


keeping an eye out for was anything that 


indicated a pattern. You know, a concern that 


kept coming up over and over and over again, 


and I'll be prepared to discuss whether there 


is that kind of a pattern or is not that kind 


of a pattern once I finish the analysis on 


these. So I would encourage you, Mike, it's -- 


it's on the O drive there. Take a look and get 


a feel for the kind of concerns that are 


expressed here. Some of them are certainly 


safety related. Some of them are perhaps not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or -- or -- or some are rad 

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safety related --


 DR. ULSH: Or industrial hygiene. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- some are -- some are 


industrial hygiene or industrial safety -- 


 DR. ULSH: Or just general hygiene if the 


locker rooms are filthy. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, and believe me, being a 


past union president, you know, I know people 


have told me that they didn't like the color of 


the clothes that the company issued them. I 


understand all that --


 DR. ULSH: Well, there are some of those in 


there. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- so I understand there's 


ridiculous claims, you know, this and that, but 


-- yeah, I'll look over that. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, and please --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not even saying ridiculous, 


I'm just saying maybe not rad -- radapplicable, you know, radiation-applicable. 


 DR. ULSH: And please don't misunderstand me. 


I'm not saying that they're all that way. 


There are certainly some very important safety 


issues raised in some of these concerns, but -- 


but there's also a set in there that really 

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aren't, I don't think. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Brant, where is this -- where 


is this --


 MR. GIBSON: Right, I'm just -- well, I'm just 


saying I've been down that road, but -- you 


know, let's --


 DR. ULSH: You want to know the location, 


Arjun? 


 MR. GIBSON: -- let's not discount -- let's not 


discount them all, let's -- 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, no -- no, no. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- you know, and certainly not 


inspect them all, but you know, at least let's 


look at it fair and balanced. 


 DR. ULSH: I agree. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Where is this 5,000 safety 


concern spreadsheet? I'm not finding it. 


 DR. ULSH: It's -- okay, I can get you at least 


part of the way there. It's on the O drive at 


document review --


 MR. GRIFFON: AB document review. 


 DR. ULSH: -- AB document review Rocky Flats. 


Now there are two folders, it could be -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: July 26th meeting. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you, Mark. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: I only see the 30 there, but 


not the big one. 


 DR. ULSH: They're -- they're a separate 


spread-- work sheets. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, maybe -- oh, yeah, there's 


a -- you have work sheets in it? Sorry. 


 DR. ULSH: There you go. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I got it. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. All right, so that is the -- 


issue number 30. I think follow-up action 


there, Mark, is that I will analyze these -- I 


don't know how many, 30, maybe -- that I've 


identified as being interesting and get an 


analysis. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And SC&A's going to review the 


list. 


 DR. ULSH: And if there are additional ones, 


we'll --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: With-- within reason. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you'll post when you recover 


them. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. Yes, I will. The seven SC&A 


was originally interested in are already there, 


and I'll put the rest of them there as soon as 

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I can. 


 MR. CHEW: Brant, I -- I don't think I'm 


speaking out of turn, I'm going to draw on 


Karin's experience, too, because both of us 


have done extensive actual monitoring. It was 


one of the comments that the -- the survey 


datas didn't reflect those on the badge; is 


that what I'm hearing? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, that is certainly a concern 


that has been expressed. I don't know that it 


was expressed in a safety concern, but it's 


been expressed -- well, we've had a discussion 


here again. 


 MR. CHEW: I'm just making a general comment 


here. It does not surprise me that at all, 


especially in plutonium areas where you're 


actually walking up to a glovebox. Okay? And 


I mean -- just say the general monitor is 


supposed to be useful to post areas, and they 


normally post areas to the highest level of 


reading they get. And then when they walk up 


to a glovebox, especially in the molten salt 


extraction area where we all know -- I happen 


to know the facility fairly well, there is a 


streaming of -- of photons and 60 kilovolts 

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(unintelligible) coming out of the 


(unintelligible), you know. You try to shield 


that as much as you can. But clearly I -- I 


would see a higher survey. But the person that 


is doing that monitoring is walking up to the 


glovebox with a -- with a hand-held instrument 


at pretty fair reasonably medium arm's length ­

- I wouldn't say it's fully arm's length -- and 


that's the measurement he takes -- he or she 


takes. As they back away to where the person 


is actually standing most of the time, they'll 


probably drop off -- and I think you folks know 


that -- and maybe it's a factor of three to 


five or ten. Okay? From -- you know, for 


hands-on, especially (unintelligible) sources 


like glovebox (unintelligible). So I just want 


to give -- Karin may want to add to that 


because you've done that. I've asked you to do 


that. Right, Karin? 


 MS. JESSEN: Yes, you have. 


 MR. CHEW: Karin worked with me in the 


plutonium building many years ago. Okay. 
I 


just wanted to share that. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The one thing that was 

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made clear to me when I went through the Los 


Alamos log books from a similar area is that 


the glove changes did not happen once a year. 


They happened several times a week. 


 MR. CHEW: Sure. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And the bag-out 


processes didn't happen once a week, they 


happened daily. 


 MR. CHEW: That's correct, Kathy. You're 


absolutely right. At all plutonium facilities, 


more than you think. Go ahead. What is your 


point? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I just wanted to 


bring that up because a lot of times workers 


tell me the bag-out process is where they 


believe they got most of their dose. 


 MR. CHEW: You mean a bag-out from the bag-out 


process and not cutting the bag correctly and a 


little bit of contamination, or is it directly 


external dose? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, no, I mean removing 


things from the glovebox. 


 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's probably 


true. When you bag out a part and move it to 


the next box, you are holding it right next to 

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you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Higher potential. 


 MR. CHEW: Absolutely. There's no question, 


you probably hold it right next to your badge. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But they're still monitored -- 


but they're still monitored, theoretically. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And all I was saying is 


I did not realize how often those things 


happened until I read that log book. 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, that's general practice, 


Kathy. There's no question of that. That 


happened all the time. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, and I -- I'm cert-- Kathy, I'm 


thinking back to some of the rad files that 


I've looked at recently in support of the 


Kittinger log analysis, and -- oh, a fair 


number of the incidents that are reported are 


bag-- you know, something went wrong during a 


bag-out process. So yeah, I mean you're right, 


it is --


 MR. GRIFFON: Are you transitioning to the 


Kittinger log now? 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know, am I? Let me see 


what's next. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You were transitioning. 

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 DR. ULSH: No, I'm just --


 MR. CHEW: Our biggest concern back in the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I think we're ready to -- you 


know, I think we're ready -- 


 MR. CHEW: Kathy, I'm sure you read this -- 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, we are there. 


 MR. CHEW: -- in the logs, too. The biggest 


concern of doing the bag-out was actually 


taking that knife and cutting the bag -- and 


cutting your finger. That was it. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And they did that. 


 MR. CHEW: They did that, no question. That 

happened. 

 DR. ULSH: Okay. 

 MR. CHEW: We did it the same way at Hanford, 


we did it the same way at Livermore, the same 


way at Rocky Flats -- time-proven. 


 DR. ULSH: I guess that takes us to issue 31, 


Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Now the Kittinger log 


discussion is going to be -- it's not going to 


be fairly -- it's not going to be that quick. 


It's going to take a little time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, can you summarize it? No, 

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I mean it's out there and I mean I think the -- 


the upshot of it is that it matched up pretty 


well. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Let's take a few minutes and talk 


about it. Let's take a few minutes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay, let's go through it. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. The one piece of this that I 


really can't recall is how we originally got 


turned on to the Kittinger log. I'm pretty 


sure Kathy identified it as one that was 


interesting. Is that right, Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, good. That explains why I 


looked at it. And as you recall, at the last 


meeting we talked about the way that we were 


going to approach these logs. We were going to 


look specifically for anything like 


overexposures, contamination incidents, body 


counts, something that we could bounce against 


information in the worker rad files to see 


whether we had agreement between the log books 


that were taken in the field and the rad files. 


And this directly -- it's directly relevant to 


this broad issue that the workers are 


expressing that, you know, they think that the 

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conditions in the field were not -- are not 


reflected in their dosimetry. So that was kind 


of why we were approaching these log books. 


And -- and in fact, the Kittinger -- Kittinger 


log book that I reviewed was -- it had numerous 


instances of -- numerous entries that were 


specific enough. In other words, Mr. Kittinger 


was very good at going sequentially, 


chronologically, so we have a particular day 


and -- and we have entries that are attributed 


to a particular date. And he also mentioned 


names of people involved, so I could actually 


go back to these individuals' files and -- and 


check this information. 


So I just want to walk you through what process 


I followed when I did this. The first thing I 


did of course was to read through the log and 


flag anything that I thought was specific 


enough that I could go back to a rad file and ­

- and check it, and you'll see ten pages of my 


notes here. I copied these verbatim, so -- out 


of the log. 


And the next step then that I went to was to go 


to the NOCTS database, just in case the 


individuals involved were claimants. So for 

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instan-- now one thing I also want to mention 


here is that I'm not going to refer to people 


by name for Privacy Act considerations, but 


I'll point you in the right direction so we can 


all look at this. So when we had a name --


let's say Smith -- I would go into the NOCTS 


database and pull up all of our claimants for 


Smith and try to find someone -- a Smith that 


worked at Rocky Flats during the time period in 


question. I would go through the rad files 


that were a match. 


Now let me characterize the rad files for you. 


They range anywhere from -- oh, on the order of 


ten pages, that was a -- those were nice ones ­

- up to I think the biggest one I saw was about 


600 pages. So -- and that's not typical. I 


would say on average somewhere between 100 and 


200 pages is about typical of the rad files, 


depending on the length of employment and other 


factors. 


So that got to be a problem when you're talking 


about -- I mean in several of these entries he 


would just -- Mr. Kittinger would just identify 


people by last name, so if you had a Smith or a 


Jones, a very common name, I have to go through 

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all of the rad files that match until I find 


the right person. And I did that in NOCTS. If 


I didn't get a hit there, I went back to Scott 


Raines* at the DOE and said give me all the rad 


files for anyone with this name, and I went 


through, got those rad files and checked them. 


So let me characterize -- I'd like to bin 


these. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What happened to HIS-20? 


 DR. ULSH: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I would have done this a 


little quicker. 


 DR. ULSH: No, no, not -- not really, because 


what we're talking about are -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Name, date, I'm there, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: But the concern is that the worker's 


record doesn't reflect -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, if --


 DR. ULSH: Well, I understand, Mark, but I 


wanted to --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, but some of these -- when you 


look through here, some of these are going to 


be -- well, like I said, in order to get to 


HIS-20 I'm going to have to have, you know, the 

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worker's identifiers and, you know, I was just 


dealing with last names here, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not necessarily, but go -- go 


ahead -- go -- go ahead. 


 DR. ULSH: Right, in some ca-- in most cases 


there were just last names. Sometimes he gave 


the badge number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I found -- I found almost 


all the design cases in HIS-20 and I still 


don't have an identified database. 


 DR. ULSH: Right, but some of these -- some of 


these --


 MR. GRIFFON: As I've said before. 


 DR. ULSH: -- some of these, too, are incident 


reports. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So I -- I just thought it was 


prudent to go to the -- to the rad file for 


them. 


Now I'd like to characterize -- bin these into 


what I found. One category could have been 


there was a disagreement between the rad file 


and the log book. That would obviously be a 


very great concern. I didn't find any of 


those, so far. 

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And now let me tell you where I am in this 


analysis. I found approximately I think 80 


specific things I could check -- on the order 


of 80. Let's see, 31 and nine is 40 -- yeah, 


about 80; 39 of them I'm still investigating. 


I haven't found a match, but there are other 


rad files out there that are candidates. 


Thirty-one of these agree completely. There's 


an exact agreement between the log book and the 


worker's rad file. In other words -- let me 


give you an example. 


Well, for instance, on page 3 of my write-up, 


Mr. Kittinger -- Kittinger listed some 


dosimetry results for particular individuals, 


and there are several here that -- where I 


categorized them as "agree with Kittinger log," 


and in that case I had a very -- I had an exact 


dosimetry result. Say for instance, the first 


entry, 3160 millirem for that particular 


quarter, I found that number at -- in the -- in 


the rad file, agreed completely. There were 31 


of those. 


There were a second set -- second category of 


entries that I found where I don't want to 


categorize it as an exact match because the 

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information either in the log book or in the 


rad file was not specific enough for me to say 


the numbers match exactly. But in general, 


they appeared to be in agreement. An example 


here that I've presented on the first page, on 


page 82 of the log book, for instance, an 


employee's hand exposure is given as 19,265 


millirem for the 4th quarter through December 


8th of '67. Well, when I went to the rad file 


for this particular employee, I've got the 


quarterly dose, the entire 4th quarter dose of 


22,125 millirem. So the -- the log gave you a 


partial result for the quarter. I pulled out 


the quarterly result from the rad file, and it 


looks to be on the same order of magnitude. 


The numbers are a little different because the 


rad file has the whole quarter. 


Those I categorized as being consistent. I 


didn't characterize it as agreement because he 


didn't have exactly the same number, but 


they're consistent. 


And then, as I said, the other category, there 


are 39 of them that I'm still investigating. 


And finally, instances where there was definite 


disagreement, I've found zero so far. 

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Now I think at this point I want to open up for 


discussion with the working group and SC&A the 


path forward on these log books. Let me first 


of all give you a feel for the magnitude of the 


number of rad files that we looked through. 


Now this list that I'm handing around is only 


the ones that I could not find in NOCTS, the 


ones that I retrieved from Scott Raines, so 


there are probably 20 or 30 percent higher than 


this actual number. And you'll see it takes up 


three single-spaced pages. I've gone through 


all of these rad files, and I told you that 


they range up to 600 pages -- 200 is typical. 


I was fortunate in that the Kittinger log -- 


this seems like a trivial consideration, but it 


really isn't. Mr. Kittinger kept very legible 


logs, very organized. His writing is good. 


can read them fairly quickly. I'm sending 


around some example pages from Mr. Kittinger's 


log and some example pages from another log. 


So the bottom line is that this -- the review 


of this log represents a significant investment 


in resources. So far I've spent approximately 


40 hours reviewing this and I've resolved about 


half the cases -- half of the data points from 


I 
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the Kittinger log. You can anticipate that by 


the time it's done, it might approach 80 hours 


-- 80 man hours. 


The Kittinger log, as I mentioned, is a very 


legible one. If you look in the handout I just 


provided, I've also provided some example pages 


from another log just to give you an example of 


probably both ends of the spectrum. And what 


I'm -- what I'd like you to do is -- is think 


to yourself, how long would it take to review a 


log with this kind of entry compared to the 


Kittinger log. It would take a long time. The 


writing is pretty bad, the copy quality is not 


great. So what I'm saying is that the 


Kittinger log probably represents the best case 


and this one represents more towards the worst 


case. 


 Now with regard to how we should proceed on 


these log books -- and I'm not including the 


urinalysis log. We've already discussed that 


separately. But in terms of, you know, like 


the daily decon logs or the foreman's logs or 


the RCT logs, what I'd like to open up for 


discussion -- what I'd like to suggest to you 


is that these large-scale drift net type 

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operations -- we put out a net and see what we 


can dredge up -- may not -- may not be the best 


return on our investment. What I'm thinking is 


if there are specific examples, specific 


concerns -- a worker has expressed a concern 


about a particular time frame -- we should 


focus on those. That's where we're most likely 


to see the problems anyway. 


But what we're finding with the Kittinger log 


so far is agreement. I mean it's not done, the 


analysis is not complete -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: But where you find --


(unintelligible) I think so. I knew that that 


was the upshot of this anyway, but I mean 39 


that you don't know yet. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, you're right, I'm half done, 


so --


 MR. GRIFFON: So what does that mean? You say 


you have zero that disagree, but 39 you're 


still investigating --


 DR. ULSH: Let me give you an example, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- It's not clear. 


 DR. ULSH: Take the -- take the first -- this 


handout. When I say I'm still investigating, 


the first name on the list here, there are one, 

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two, three, four -- five of them. I've maybe 


reviewed two of them and haven't found a match. 


I'm still waiting on the other three to come 


in. Those would fall into the other -- they 


would fall into the category of under 


investigation. 


 MR. LITTLE: Because you have -- there are five 


of the same name and only the last name. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, exactly. I mean these are the 


candidates right here, and you can see that for 


some of the more common names there are -- 


there are significant numbers of them. 


Now I would propose that I finish this analysis 


on the Kittinger log. I mean we started it, we 


might as well -- I might as well finish it. 


But in terms of looking forward to the other 


log books and how we approach them, I think we 


need to discuss what makes sense, keeping in 


mind that -- so far, anyway; I'm only half done 


with the Kittinger log -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: -- so far I'm not finding the kind 


of issues that we were looking for. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. You want to hear my ­

- my simplistic approach? I mean I -- I think 

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you're -- you're -- you've made the argument 


again and again to us that HIS-20 is 


representative so I think we've got two prongs 


that I'm interested in. One, I'm asking for 


you to validate and verify, or at least check 


reliability of is our sort of phrase, HIS-20. 


On the other hand, you know, you're -- you sort 


of -- you have these logs that have 


individuals' datas in -- individual data, in 


some cases, in -- not all -- 


 DR. ULSH: In some cases. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- not -- not all of it's that. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I've looked at a few of the 


others just last night, and you can pick out 


some points, so you have a data point and a 


name, and I'd say go to HIS-20 and if you don't 


get a match --


 DR. ULSH: That's certainly --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- then you note that. 


 DR. ULSH: That's certainly a possibility where 


we have a specific number for an external 


dosimetry result. I didn't --


 MR. GRIFFON: To pull the full rad file, I 


agree, is just -- I think -- 

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 DR. ULSH: But that's the only place we're 


going to see some of this stuff in the log. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: So maybe what you're suggesting is 


that we --


 MR. GRIFFON: Triage this maybe and say let's 


look at this --


 DR. ULSH: That's what I'm getting at. Let's 


talk about --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- database first and if there -- 


I mean if there's large discrepancies there, 


then we -- we have to consider other 


alternatives. But if you have very good 


agreement there, then I think I'm with you. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, but that --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- this confirms that. 


 DR. ULSH: Keep in mind that's going to limit ­

- okay, if I'm -- if I'm talking about the 


Kittinger log and to the extent that it's 


representative, that's going to limit the 


number of entries that we can check to only 


those that have information contained in HIS20. Like a particular dosimetry result for a 


particular badge exchange cycle, we can -- we 


can check those. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and give us a sense -- 


'cause we just got this stuff, but give us a 


sense of how that -- out of your list of about 


100 or so -- was it about 100, or more? 


 DR. ULSH: Eighty. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Eighty. Out of your list of 80, 


how are -- how many of that would -- would have 


names and the specific data? 


 DR. ULSH: Specific external dosimetry results? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or -- or internal. I mean I 


found some internal. I don't know if this one 


has internal, but --


 DR. ULSH: The Kittinger log I think does not 


have internal results, because that's really 


not something that Kittinger would have had 


access to. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know who -- who he is. 


 DR. ULSH: I think --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: He does have reference 


to sending people to the whole body counter. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. Yes, he does have reference to 


that, and that is usually tied to a specific -- 


specific incident that occurred, and so I went 


in and checked the rad file for an incident 


report and a whole body count on that date. An 

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incident report is not something you're going 


to be able to check with HIS-20. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but if you look for a -- 


 DR. ULSH: Whole body count, you probably 


could. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- on that given date --


 DR. ULSH: Yes, you probably could do that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- HIS-20. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, so there are certainly a subset of these that can be checked, and maybe 


that's the answer. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I mean is it -- out of 80 is 


it five or 50 --


 DR. ULSH: Oh, out of 80 -- I'm just guessing 


here, Mark, maybe 20 or 30. This is my gut 


feel. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And what's the nature of the rest 


of them? I'm just scanning through, but an 


incident occurred or something like that or -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, or a person was placed on 


restriction. I don't know, I'm just looking 


here -- yeah, someone was overexposed, but he 


doesn't really give quantitatively what that 


means exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But he gives a name. 

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 DR. ULSH: Yes, it does give a name, yes. That 


kind of thing. I mean other things that you 


couldn't -- you know, I'll let you look through 


this at leisure. I just wanted to give the 


working group a feel for the magnitude of what 


we're talking about when we're talking about 


reviewing these logs, and get a feel for what 


exactly it is you want us to do -- how to 


approach these logs. So Mark, what I'm hearing 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) sense -- my 


main -- my sense would be to -- to sample some 


more of these logs, but do it against HIS-20 


only and -- and then if -- you might -- I mean 


you might have a couple of different answers 


still. You might have agrees, disagrees or 


inconclusive, because of -- a number of 


reasons. You might have only Smith and you 


can't -- you know, you just can't discern which 


Smith it was in the database. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, so you will -- may 


still have that issue, but I would think that ­

- and -- and if you were getting, you know, 


over a certain percentage that matches, I think 

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that adds to the check on the reliability of 


the database, so --


 DR. ULSH: Okay. If I can --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that's the way I would 


approach it. I don't know if SC&A -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yeah, I -- I think -- my 


sense was -- I think triage is a good word. I 


think you're scanning these and looking for 


instances where you might have a high anomalous 


reading of some sort, then you would run that 


against the database and see if it shows up. I 


mean if it doesn't, this is -- sort of 


corroborates some of the concerns the workers 


have expressed that maybe these fields have 


existed but for some reason or another they 


didn't get a -- a reading. And if you check 


maybe a dozen instances over these logs of that 


-- in that case and you found all of them 


matched, I think that would go a ways to settle 


that issue, to some -- you know, to that 


extent. 


 DR. ULSH: Is that the kind of thing you're 


thinking about, Mark, maybe a dozen instances 


pulled from various logs? Is that what you're 


thinking? 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the number I think is 


not the point I'm trying to make. I'm just 


saying that instead of taking one log book, and 


I think -- certainly the Kittinger example is 


an example of doing something that's very, very 


rigorous; you know, chasing down every single 


reference in there. But taking a look at --


across the different log books, identify 


instances -- you know, I think we've talked 


about this case. I think Kathy's raised these 


cases and the workers have raised these cases 


where these fields have existed over time, it's 


sort of anecdotal and if you actually found a 


reference in a log book you could actually run 


to ground by comparing it with the HIS 


database, then you could, you know, establish 


okay, it -- you know, whether it's a dozen or 


20, whatever you find, I mean across these 


different log books, that would tend to 


validate that -- it seems like you could 


actually track these down and establish the 


reading that goes along with the -- the 


reference by the -- the log. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, keep in mind that -- I mean 


regardless of what kind of analysis we do, we 

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have to -- when we pick a log book to look 


through, we're going to have to, you know, read 


through the whole log book, so that's an 


investment that's not going to be -- not going 


to get around -- we're not going to get around, 


but -- so I guess I'd like to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: But that's not insurmountable if 


you -- if you're --


 DR. ULSH: No, it's -- well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- scanning for names and numbers 


-- I don't know, I was doing in last night. 


Like I said, you can get -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I guess I want --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- like me, it's a little longer. 


 DR. ULSH: Or me. Okay, I'm not -- 


 MS. MUNN: Well, good, Mark's already done it 


for you. 


 DR. ULSH: Mark, why don't you report to us 


what you found? 


 MR. GRIFFON: What I find. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I guess --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean there's some -- and 


there's some -- some obvious ones, but there's 


also some a little more subtle that are not 


completely quantitative, but the one you -- the 

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example you just gave, that they were whole 


body counted, there's no number there but you 


can check that they were whole -- you know, 


that there is something there -- some data from 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the one that I -- and I 


haven't found many, just scanning last night, 


but one that I recall is the individual was 


involved in a neptunium -- and that stood out 


to me -- neptunium spill and a highly pure 


plutonium spill and, you know, the thought went 


through my mind they had a badge number and 


name, follow up to see if -- if it -- now that 


might be an inconclusive one -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, you won't find it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- 'cause you don't know 


necessarily that they were -- it didn't -- the 


log didn't say -- it said so-and-so was 


involved in this -- in this spill with this and 


this. Now were they followed up with gross 


alpha or were they followed up at all, but it 


interested me 'cause I was curious whether they 


were doing neptunium-specific urinalysis, and 


probably not --

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 DR. ULSH: They're not, they're absolut-- 


they're definitely not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but they would have -- right, 


but they might have had gross alpha there, 


so... 


 DR. ULSH: Might have. Okay, so I guess in the 


interest of making sure that we're all on the 


same page, I just want to pull the string a 


little bit further about what your expectations 


are and what you would like us to do. So we've 


got some different kinds of logs. We've got 


foremen's logs, which I think everyone was in 


agreement about at the last working group 


meeting that those may not be the most helpful 


type of logs to look at. But then we also have 


the Kittinger logs, which I think Kittinger was 


a health physics supervisor. We've got 


radiation con-- RCT logs, and we've got daily 


decon logs, I think. 


MR. MEYER: Yeah, right. 


 DR. ULSH: So what kind of log books are we 


interested in looking at? Probably not 


foremen, but now we've got RCT, daily decon or 


-- and -- did I forget one? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Decon. Tony raised the -- 

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 DR. ULSH: The daily decon. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the daily decon's a good 


place to look in terms of those kind of things. 


 DR. ULSH: So maybe pick a representative from 


each of those categories and look? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Kathy, do you have any 


perspective? You spent some time on these. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I think there -- 


they should cover different areas. Kittinger 


was the 700 area, 771 in particular. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we want -- we're -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- sample across different 


buildings and also by different types of -- 


those three different types of logs maybe? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Now you keep in mind that 


every variable you add here is a multiplier. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Why don't we establish how 


many variables we're talking about before -- 


and maybe that's the piece of information that 


no one has at this point. 


 DR. ULSH: So we've got the different kids of 


log books. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Three kinds, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Three kinds. Now we've got 


buildings. 


 MS. MUNN: How many buildings? 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I would do it by area, 


A, B, C and D. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay, three times three, that's 


nine. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Four -- four times three. 


 MS. MUNN: Four times three -- oh -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's a little late for Wanda. 


 DR. ULSH: You see where I'm going with this? 


We're already at 12 logs and I've -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: And now you've got to multiply by 


the number of things that we check out of each 


log. That's the big one. Give me a feel for 


what you want I guess is -- 


 MS. MUNN: Is this the kind of number that has 


an exclamation point after it? 


 DR. ULSH: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, you -- you -- part -- 


part of the problem is -- I mean I think we're 

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not expecting Kittinger (unintelligible) this 


time, so you go through one of these logs and 


compare it against HIS-20, what do you -- what 


do you expect that would take -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Actually --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- ten -- ten work -- ten or 20 


work hours? 


DR. MAURO: Could we step back a little bit? 


I'm too -- I'm lost in the woods. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. It sounds to me that there 


is a record of worker exposures that is the 


record -- a record that DOE provides to NIOSH 


that says when you do your dose reconstructions 


for this worker, here's the numbers you use, 


here's -- here's all the -- here's the records. 


That becomes the thing that we are supposed to 


trust as being -- we're going to do a dose 


reconstruction. Here's the records that DOE 


has provided. 


Now, during this process the perturbation comes 


in. A large number of people don't believe 


that those records can be trusted -- or some -- 


not a lot -- some people, some people 


(unintelligible) -- you have to bear with me, 

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I'm stepping back. Now -- so then a judgment 


is made collectively by the working group and 


SC&A that well, you know, there are other 


documents out there that contain information, 


and I'm presuming that they contain information 


that somehow are decoupled from the information 


that DOE is providing to NIOSH. In other 


words, if there is a conspiracy to falsify 


records, what's going to happen -- I mean I use 


-- be very blunt -- to try to systematically 


cover up the true doses a group of people may 


have experienced. What I'm hearing is, by 


going to these other places -- no one's that 


good at covering their trail. Okay? That's 


what we're getting at. Is anyone that good at 


covering their trail, because there are -- 


there are six, seven different types of 


documents -- Kittinger log is just one of 


several -- where my God, you've got to really 


be good if you're going to try to falsify 


records across such a range of different places 


where information's contained. Okay? 


Now, so -- so what we're trying to do right 


here is say well, what are we going to look at 


that's going to give us a degree of confidence 

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that, for all intents and purposes, the records 


that DOE provides NIOSH can be -- are a 


faithful representation and were prepared in 


good faith as best they can, and one of the 


things we can do is look at some of these other 


things because we believe they're decoupled. 


Okay? I guess first and foremost, is everyone 


comfortable with the fact that they're 


decoupled? That is, there's no linkage between 


the work that was done to create the data fi-- 


the original records that a work-- you're using 


for doing dose reconstruction and what 


Kittinger did? They're not -- sort of like -- 


this is separate. Kittinger did his own thing, 


so that -- I mean this is what we're buying in 


on right now. Am I making sense? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, this is separate from the DOE 


or AEC -- separate. 


DR. MAURO: It's separate, yeah. Okay. Now --


all right. Now what I just heard you say is 


that okay, let's see -- they're separate. 


(Unintelligible) in and grab, as best you can 


out of these -- there's a list of names of 


people -- I'm not sure how many work log -- how 


many -- how many people -- and not -- not -- 

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did you end up being able to capture and look 


at and then compare back to see if 


(unintelligible)? 


 MR. LITTLE: Over 80 instances and he's done 


about half of them. 


DR. MAURO: And out of the half that you've 


done, everything matched. 


 DR. ULSH: Everything has been either in 


complete agreement or consistent. 


DR. MAURO: Close enough. Close enough. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. So what we're saying is -- 


so for the ones you could look at, you got 40 


out of -- 40 that you said -- and now what 


we're saying now is -- we're asking ourselves a 


question. What's the likelihood that there is 


some kind of systematic error or deliberate 


falsification in the records that were provided 


to you by DOE for dose reconstruction, and you 


did not catch one of them when you looked at 


this thing? Okay? It's a -- and my -- my 


intuition tells me, and I don't know the time 


period covered in those buildings so it sounds 


like there's these time and building issue, but 


at least with the buildings and the time period 

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covered by the ones you looked at, what you 


just told me is there sure as hell wasn't any 


cover-up or falsification here. 


 DR. ULSH: No evidence of it yet. 


DR. MAURO: And that -- no evi-- and -- at 40 


out of 40 --


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: -- the probability that you missed 


one -- I mean -- so I mean -- what I'm getting 


at is that -- all right, now, so there's -- now 


we're saying that -- wait a minute, there are 


other -- there -- there are other time periods 


that Kittinger covers, at least -- there are 


other documents that are separate from 


Kittinger that can be looked at. And what 


we're trying to say is when are we going to get 


to the point -- have we -- have we hit -- after 


everything that you've done, have we hit 


anything that says you know what, this one 


stinks? Other words, I don't like what I'm 


looking at here. I can't explain to myself. 


Is there anything that -- I mean that -- you 


sort of like take -- you take your hat off and 


say listen, is there anything that you've seen 


so far that says you know, this is bothering 

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me. I can't figure out what -- why this 


happened. Or -- and did you have any of those 


right now? 


 DR. ULSH: Not yet. Now I will caution you to 


keep in mind the degree of completeness in my 


analysis. I've analyzed about half of this one 


Kittinger log. I haven't found anything yet. 


DR. MAURO: But -- and at the same time now -- 


so while that's going on, there's also these 


individuals that have -- or these named 


individuals in the affidavits -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: -- who've raised issues. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: And to the best of your ability -- 


so this is almost an independent line of 


inquiry now. Now we're going to look at 


complaints who -- who believe that something's 


wrong, which is almost like different than what 


you're doing here, and you're saying okay, can 


I find anything there that says I don't like 


it? For example, I know Hans has mentioned to 


me there's one case about a lady who had 80 


millirem in her record and then it was zeroed 


out and -- and I know that -- my conversations 

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with our SC&A people, that seems to be an 


unusual thing to happen. Now there may be some 


reasons for it, there may not be. So bear --


I'm sorry, I'm just sort of get-- trying to get 


my arms around this thing. 


 DR. ULSH: Remind me and I'll give you an 


update on that one, but go ahead. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. So -- and I -- I'm 


getting to the point where I'm -- what I'm 


hearing is -- I don't see too much stink coming 


out of the records. I'm hearing --


 MR. GRIFFON: You want to hear the glass is 


half empty view of this? 


DR. MAURO: Well, yeah. I mean I'll take -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm hearing the glass is -- 


DR. MAURO: I'm waiting to --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- half full. 


DR. MAURO: No, no, I'm waiting -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The glass is half empty is -- is 


you've got 40 out of 80 that seem to be in 


agreement, and -- and John, maybe you're a 


quicker study than I am of this data, but I 


haven't looked through these so -- 


DR. MAURO: No, I'm --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so assuming there's 40 out of 

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80, I'm also assuming that the other 40 -- 


Brant's probably not going to rush in and say 


well, I -- you know, I've got this workgroup 


meeting coming up and I can't really track 


these yet but I'm going to say right now that 


they're not consistent with the Kittinger, so 


they're under investigation. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm not making any judgment about it 


at all. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, they're still under 


investigation. So I mean I think the -- 


 DR. BEHLING: The problem wouldn't show up -- 


would certainly show up in the 40 -- 


DR. MAURO: Would show up in the first 40 -- 


So -- I mean to go to the next 40, the 


probability on there -- I mean I get -- I -- I 


-- my reaction -- right now my reaction is, 


listening to the probings this ocean that 


you're sampling from, you know -- this -- the 


Kittinger really did it for me, actually got -- 


got to me, got to me. When I heard you looked 


at 40 and you couldn't find any -- and you -- 


you, for all intents and purposes, matched them 


all, they -- at least for that time period, for 


that facility, that was captured in this 

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particular look-see, I'm convinced there's 


nothing -- no shenanigans going on there. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, now keep in mind that this is 


not -- the Kittinger log was not selected at 


random. Kathy, maybe you can speak to why the 


Kittinger log in particular was of interest, 


because I don't really know that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Oh, I just -- I just 


threw that out because it was one that I knew 


had a lot of dose rates and names in it. 


DR. MAURO: Had a what? Sorry, Kathy. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Had dose rates and names. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, yes. So you selected one to 


see if there was anything that stinks. 


 MS. MUNN: And from -- not only that, the time 


period that it covers is a very interesting 


time period. We've heard so much about -- 


DR. MAURO: It was a nasty time period. 


 MS. MUNN: -- '68, '69, all of the things that 


went on, this is the time this log covers, so 


that's doubly interesting. It does not, 


however, address the time frame that we have 


listed on our matrix, which appears to me to be 


a logical next look, which is '85/'86. So if ­

- if we're going to -- if we're going to -- and 

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-- and I agree with you, John, from any 


statistical point of view, I -- it looks to me 


as though the Kittinger log is complete. You 


know, this -- this time period, this building ­

-


DR. MAURO: This house is clean. 


 MS. MUNN: -- is okay, yeah. There are the 


other houses. How much you want to look at is 


the issue that I think must be looked at now. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This is the 100 percent 


sampling, which I think is reassuring for the 


time period in question. Now we're saying 


let's go to a less rigorous sampling to cover 


other time periods, other locations, not go to 


this -- this 100 percent sampling, but get 


enough of a sampling that gives us that 


assurance to go -- walk away from this. I 


don't think you need to keep doing 100 percent 


samplings. I think this one's reassuring from 


that standpoint. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. Could I say a couple of 


things? I think you -- you picked the 40 -- 


how did you pick the 40 that you looked at 


versus people you haven't looked at yet? 


 DR. ULSH: I didn't pick 40, Arjun. What I did 

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was I started with NOCTS and identified any 


matches, and then I requested the rest from 


Scott Raines, and as they came in I analyzed 


them. So I didn't --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so it was sort of, in a 


way, a -- a fairly random -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, yes. 


MR. MEYER: Yes, Scott -- Scott had no agenda 


at all. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: My -- my feeling, Mark, is it's 


not a glass half full/half empty. I think I'm 


more in John's corner, that if you have done -- 


if you have done a random check of 50 percent 


of the file and found nothing, it's very 


unlikely -- if you're -- it's possible you'll 


find some problems in the other 40, but they're 


not going to fall into a pattern of data 


fabrication. I think -- I think that -- in -- 


I -- I -- there are some hunches I have about 


what kinds of data fabrication problems that I 


would hesitate to say them on the record, but ­

- because I -- because they're just hunches. 


But what I will say is I think -- I think we 


need to have a more selective -- if we're going 


to do this cut across facilities and time 

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periods, we -- we do need to observe some rules 


of random -- random sampling and -- and sample 


a few names. And then -- out of the different 


periods. And my -- my feeling is that we've 


had a lot of complaints out of the later 


periods -- obviously because we're hearing 


people who are -- who worked in the later 


periods. And if only for that reason, we ought 


to be looking at these later periods to make 


sure -- Ms. Munn has just said '85/'86, but I 


think -- but I -- I think that from the '70s 


through the '90s would -- would be an 


interesting period to look at. But here we 


didn't have '69, so we didn't cover the -- 


 DR. ULSH: You're right, this -- the -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- we didn't cover the -- 


 DR. ULSH: -- Kittinger log --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that's the year that I 


would look at. 


 DR. ULSH: '69? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So Arjun's put a couple of -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ULSH: Arjun's put a couple of ideas on the 


table. One I like -- well, sorry, that's not ­
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- that -- that didn't sound right. One I 


especially liked -- one I especially liked, and 


that is to look at a log book in particular in 


'69. That is the year of interest. We might 


want to make a non-random selection there. 


That I think is a good -- is a really good 


idea. 


Now Wanda, where on the matrix were you looking 


when you said 1985 and 6? 


 MS. MUNN: The end of item number 31. 

 DR. ULSH: Oh, okay. 

 MS. MUNN: It says NIOSH will review -- that -- 

that's the time frame given in -- 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, this is the one, though, that 


was in the -- Table 2 of that write-up, I 


think, Kathy identified from the log, the 


dosimetry problem log book. 


 MS. MUNN: Then it's done. 


 DR. ULSH: It's not done. It's not done. But 


what I'm saying is that -- well, there's 


another non-random selection that we might want 


to make. We might definitely want to make, we 


want to track those down. 


 And now you're talking -- Arjun, you also 


mentioned the time periods '70 to '90? 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Personally I would -- I would 


pick -- I would -- if you're going to pick 


years, I would pick from the '70s onward. 


 DR. ULSH: So let's say '69 forward. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: We've looked a lot at the early 


-- we've looked a lot at the early data. I 


think -- we haven't found data fabrication 


problems. We also looked at data fabrication 


issues in Mallinckrodt in the '50s and did not 


find problems there. We -- there have been 


many complaints from later era workers about 


data fabrication. Mike -- Mike has -- Mike has 


issues at Mound, for example, and I think it 


would be --


 (Telephone interference) 


 MR. PRESLEY: Somebody mute their phone, 

please. 

(Pause) 

 DR. ULSH: Okay, so how about this. Taking all 


of this into consideration, what everyone has 


said, we'll look at the -- we'll take a sample 


of the urinalysis log books, that's one thing. 


We'll track down the specific instances 


mentioned in SC&A's write-up Table 2, the 


'85/'86 dosimetry problem log book, we'll look 

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at those. I -- I'm hearing that it may not be 


worthwhile to continue to pursue the Kittinger 


log, that we might be satisfied with the 


analysis there, or we're not? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, for Kittinger. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so we're done with -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it's not worthwhile to 


do the rest. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, we're done with this 


particular Kittinger log. From the remaining 


years, '69 especially but extending up to maybe 


1990, we'll take a sample of the RCT, the daily 


decon log books, and we'll try to identify 


maybe five or ten external dosimetry or whole 


body counts, something that we can bounce out 


of HIS-- once -- bounce against HIS-20. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now are you omitting the '90s 


because it's decommissioning, or -- 


 DR. ULSH: No, only because you said up to the 


'90s. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I said '70s through '90s -- 


no, no. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so up to 2000. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. Does that sound like a 

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reasonable plan forward? I just want to make 


this as specific as possible so that I give you 


what you -- what you want. 


MR. MEYER: Do you want to randomize the 


selection, maybe, within the -- the notebook, 


every ten pages? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I'll just -- I'll just start 


skipping through. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: If you take every fifth name or 


every tenth name, it's -- 


 DR. ULSH: I'll just start skipping through 


pages till I find --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- automatically random. 


 DR. ULSH: -- you know, five or so or 


something. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It doesn't have -- the 


randomization of selection of names doesn't 


have to be complicated because it -- it wasn't 


made to be checked in this way, so if you just 


pick every tenth name you're going to be all 


right -- or however many you want to do. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I think that's an approach 


forward that I can -- we can accomplish. 


 MR. GIBSON: Could I -- this is Mike. Could I 


(unintelligible) this -- now what -- what kind 

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of selections are you talking about and how -- 


how late in time? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, we were going to go up to 


2000, Mike -- that was Arjun's suggestion -- 


focusing on '69 because that was a year of 


particular interest. But --


 MR. GIBSON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- up through 2000, you know, 


through the '90s. What was your other 


question, selection? 


 MR. GIBSON: I would just like to suggest that 


there be a specific look at -- probably when 


these sites -- well, Rocky, when Rocky went 


from production to decommission, and 


specifically when these common contractors who 


-- they're through a revolving door -- some of 


their top officials ended up in DOE offices in 


Washington. I think some of these common 


contractors -- you know, from that time frame 


forward, be it the probably -- into the '90s, I 


think it needs to look into the D&D phase as 


far as the production phase. 


 DR. ULSH: That's a good point, Mike. I think 


that transition occurred at Rocky Flats in the 


-- in the early '90s. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: '92/'93. 


 DR. ULSH: So the time period that we've talked 


about will include that D&D phase. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: The variables you're talking 


about are the three log book types. The time 


period -- time frame certainly is established. 


And now this question about -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Areas. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Areas? What are you going to 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know, let's talk about that. 


 MR. GIBSON: And are there -- are there log 


books also available -- how many have you 


retrieved from the '90 time frame -- or from 


the '69 time frame up to the -- the current 


time frame and are they available on the O 


drive? 


 DR. ULSH: I can tell you what's available on 


the O drive, Mike, and that is -- I don't know, 


Kathy, how many were on that disk that you 


requested, maybe -- maybe 10, 15-ish? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Something like that. 


 DR. ULSH: Something like that, so that's an 


order of magnitude, Mike, of what's posted 


currently on the O drive, plus this Kittinger 

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log that we've been talking about. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Now Bob is going to tell you maybe 


how many log books have been retrieved. 


MR. MEYER: Well, we -- you know, there are 


thousands of log books available. It's that 


size problem. We were just trying to remember 


the number, and it's huge, so -- of all 


different types --


 DR. ULSH: Maybe what we can do is take a look 


at the log books that are available. We'll 


come up with some kind of a crite-- you know, a 


list, and put it out to the working group and ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: We should be able to narrow the 


areas by the areas of most concern. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think once -- once you 


come up with the matrix and just say here -- 


here's the best sampling we could come up with. 


 DR. ULSH: I'm thinking the primary divisions 


are plutonium and uranium. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Let's make it two areas. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And as -- as Mike's pointing 


out, D&D would be the 1990s. That would be a ­
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- a good place to look. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, after Bush announced the 


end -- Bush One announced the end of the Cold 


War. 


 DR. ULSH: We'll put together a plan and we'll 


put it out to the working group and to SC&A, 


and solicit your comments. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's fine. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Make a note of that. 


MR. MEYER: It's a long note. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I know. Okay, I -- it's 


getting late. I think -- that was issue 31 -- 


31? 


 Thirty-two, concern that secondary dosimetry 


logs, contamination control logs or foreman 


logs include exposure information which is 


inconsistent -- that's the same issue, I think. 


Right? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Same issue. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. Thirty-three -- oh, this 


is the D&D workers, the D&D era. This was an 


issue that -- Joe and I kind of looked at each 


other after the Denver Advisory Board meeting, 


after that -- that movie that showed and we -- 

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like holy cow, what about the D&D era? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, ten years worth of 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Since then -- since then we 


committed to extending the internal coworker 


TIB through the D&D era. Dave Allen at NIOSH 


has been working on that. He's actually 


extended the table, but we haven't officially 


incorporated that into the TIB. He just got 


that finished last week. We'll be getting that 


out to you. The external already goes through 


that era. 


We've talked about -- initially there was some 


concern about BZ sampling and DAC-hour 


tracking. I'm -- I'm going to look at Joe or 


the rest of SC&A for confirmation here. I 


think we discussed that at the last working 


group meeting. What -- what concerns remain, 


if any, about that topic? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yeah, I think the -- the 


comments that were made by Roger and others 


about the practice, and I think the sense that 


rad worker 2-trained people -- who were the 


only ones allowed to do active D&D -- in fact 


were routinely bioassayed, I think that was 

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certainly the explanation. But I think the 


comment was made -- maybe it was Mark -- and 


the workgroup was saying that sounds fine. Can 


we validate that by actually coming up with the 


bioassay data that you can marry up with these 


rad worker 2-trained people. That would 


confirm that in fact the data exists and it -- 


it substantiates the fact that people who were 


in fact involved with D&D, rad worker 2­

trained, were bioassayed routinely and not on a 


special bioassay basis. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, I understand what you're 


saying. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That was the -- that was the 


remaining action out of that whole thing, I 


think. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 MR. GIBSON: If -- to add to that -- and again, 


at least getting back to the commonality of 


DOE's favorite contractors, there was a routine 


bioassay program -- at least at Mound -- that 


was quarterly or monthly, depending on where 


you were at. It was not RWP-driven or anything 


else. That was specials. And then when they 


went into the D&D phase, they went to DAC-hour 

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tracking -- at least at Mound, and I would like 


to find out if they did this at Rocky, as well 


-- to assign dose. And then they called -- 


they -- they kept what they called a routine 


bioassay sampling program, but it was an annual 


bioassay to substantiate the DAC-hour tracking 


that they assigned dose with. So it's -- it's 


a play on terms, it's semantics or whatever, 


but I would just like to find out if that's 


true at Rocky, just like it was at Mound 


because that would have, to me, a very 


important -- that would weigh heavily on my 


deliberations. 


 MS. MUNN: Mike, it's Wanda. What -- what was 


the termination you were using about -- before 


tracking, what -- what name? 


 DR. ULSH: DAC-hour. 


 MR. CHEW: Device (unintelligible) air 


concentration. They used that -- 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, oh --

 MR. CHEW: I'm sorry. 

 MS. MUNN: -- excuse me. 

 MR. GIBSON: I'm sorry, Wanda, I didn't hear 


you. 


DR. MAURO: Used (unintelligible), right? 

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 MS. MUNN: That -- that's all right, yeah. 


That's all right. 


 DR. ULSH: Mike --


 MR. GIBSON: Hey -- I mean it was -- it was 


commonly -- commonly -- I don't know how to 


describe it. They would -- they would commonly 


describe it as -- they would use that to 


determine if you were expected to receive 100 


millirem a year. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I understand. 


 MR. GIBSON: And then they would put you in a 


bioassay program. But what they actually used 


was they would use the DAC-hour tracking to 


assign the dose, and then that fell back to 


what I brought up at a previous meeting that 


they would sample one -- they didn't want to 


buy a breathing air zone detector for every 


worker, so they would put one on every four 


workers who entered an area. And typically it 


would be the RCT, the rad control tech. And as 


I -- we discussed earlier, they may run in and 


take a reading, you know, for 15 -- 15 seconds 


every -- every hour, and then stand in the 


corner while the workers did the work. So I'm 


very concerned that there was missed or un-- 

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under-reported exposure based on applying dose 


from DAC-hour tracking they still went down the 


road with all their paperwork saying we still 


do routine bioassay. But they changed it from 


monthly to annually. And I would just like to 


know if these common contractors did the same 


thing. 


 DR. ULSH: Mike, let me -- let me speak a 


little bit about the experience at Rocky Flats 


-- at least what I've heard of it. AT the last 


meeting Gene Potter and Steve Baker -- Steve is 


not on the line. Gene, are you still there? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, sir. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, you're in for the haul. I -- I 


think Gene and Steve are the ones who commented 


on the monitoring program during the D&D era at 


Rocky, and Gene, please jump in here, but as I 


understand it, DAC-hour tracking at Rocky was 


used to trigger a special bioassay -- or to 


trigger -- not a special bioassay, but to 


trigger a bioassay. But that was on top of -- 


layered on top of the routine bioassay program 


that all the rad worker 2 people were on. Is 


that correct, Gene? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, sir, you're correct. There 

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was always a routine bioassay program. In our 


case it was annually for urine samples for the 


rad workers who were in the program, and lung 


counting as frequently as workload and 


equipment and availability would allow, which 


is -- ran something like 18 months on the 


average, I would say. And DAC-hour tracking 


was done in the buildings for their own work-


control purposes up until the last few years. 


It always was a means of triggering special 


bioassay if you received 40 DAC-hours because 


that would be an indication that you could have 


received 100 millirem. That was also confirmed 


by fecal bioassay, which is the only thing we 


had that was sensitive enough to detect down 


into that range. 


So in the later years, though, we went to a 


program where we did assign some doses off of 


DAC-hour tracking, and that would be cases 


where the 40 DAC-hours, or whatever it was, was 


accumulated over a fairly long period of time. 


And then, for those of you who are familiar 


with it, the -- that makes the -- if you do a 


fecal sample over -- after a, you know, fairly 


long period of time, that -- the results become 

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very ambiguous because it could have been a 


chronic exposure, it could have been an acute 


at the beginning of the period, it could have 


been an acute the day before you collected the 


sample; it was very sensitive to that. So in 


those cases we would assign some doses off of 


DAC-hour tracking, even though we did not do a 


bioassay. But that was just (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Now let me clarify -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, and --


 DR. ULSH: Let me jump in here and clarify that 


that's -- what Gene has just told you is what 


the site did. They assigned internal doses in 


some cases based on DAC-hour tracking. But you 


have to distinguish that from the way that 


NIOSH does dose reconstructions. We would not 


calculate internal doses based on DAC-hour 


tracking. We would use the bioassay results. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Well, let me -- this is 


Mike again, and if I can, Brant, let me ask a 


couple of questions. And one -- who was the 


gentleman I was just talking to? 


 DR. ULSH: That was Gene Potter on the line. 


Is that who you mean, Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, okay. I'm -- Gene, did Rocky 

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have a monthly or quarterly bioassay sampling 


program at any time, and when did it change and 


go to the annual? 


 MR. POTTER: In the time frame I'm familiar 


with, which is mid-'90s on till the end, the 


routine program was as I just described. I 


don't think there's any need to repeat it. And 


the old means of detecting intakes that we were 


concerned about, which was at a regulatory 


level -- 100 millirem in a year -- you could 


not do that with a routine bioassay. However, 


you certainly could detect intakes that were of 


a health concern by routine bioassay, so that's 


why we used fecal sampling extensively for our 


specials. 


For the larger -- we had two tiers of potential 


intakes. For larger ones, urine samples and 


lung counting was collected, also. 


 MR. GIBSON: So you don't know if Rocky went 


from a monthly or quarterly to this DAC-hour -- 


 MR. POTTER: No, not -- no. 

 MR. GIBSON: Not to your knowledge. 

 MR. POTTER: Well, the -- no, not during -- not 

for D&D or anything like you've described from 


Mound. Very early on, from the records I've 

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looked at -- and Roger could probably speak 


more accurately on this -- you know, there was 


at one time programs that would have been semiannual -- or -- semi-annual, I believe was some 


of -- would have done some of the earlier ones. 


I don't know if they ever did quarterly, and I 


can't tell you exactly when the annual thing 


came in. 


MS. BRACKETT: Can I jump in here a minute? 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, and so -- and again, I'm not 


a health physicist, so I'm just going to -- I'm 


throwing this question out here as -- just as a 


dumb layman. 


MS. BRACKETT: I'd like to jump in here for a 


minute. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mike -- Mike, let Liz Brackett -- 


I think she wants to respond for a second. 


Hold on one second. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


MS. BRACKETT: Right, the -- going from -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Could you please speak up, please? 


(Pause) 


MS. BRACKETT: Going from monthly or quarterly 


sampling for plutonium is not going to change 


the dose that you can detect in a year, and 

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that's one of the reasons why that change was 


made. Because it drops off relatively rapidly, 


unless you have a known intake that you collect 


the sample within a few days of the intake, 


then whether you collect a sample a month, a 


quarter or a year later, you would calculate 


the same dose, pretty much. And the DAC-hour 


tracking went into effect in fact to try to 


compensate for that, because it's what DOE 


termed a technology shortfall in that the -- 


the bioassay method that was in use, which was 


urine sampling, was not capable of detecting 


the requirements in the order or in the rule. 


And so DAC-hour tracking was put into place to 


try and catch the smaller intakes, at which 


time then -- you know, when you reached a 


certain level, then you could take a bioassay 


sample. So -- so like I said, going from 


quarterly to an annual sample is not going to 


cause you to miss any more dose, unless you 


happen to collect the quarterly sample within a 


few days of having an intake. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Then, again, let me throw 


this question out a different way and -- and I 


don't know that it happened at Rocky, but given 

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the fact that I've seen the health physics 


people jet back and forth between Rocky and 


Mound, between the common contractors in the 


D&D days, number one, did they put a breathing 


air sampler on every worker or did they do it 


on say one out of every four, is one question ­

- or two questions. 


And number two -- number three -- and a lot of 


times, you know, it was the hourly workers 


being in a full-face mask or a bubble suit or 


whatever else or whatever they were in, they 


didn't want the extra weight of carrying this 


device so the RCT wore it and stood in the 


corner while the people had their face in the 


work, and the RCT would walk up ever once in a 


while. Now you know, that, to me, would not 


show an accurate dose of record. And number 


two, you have to question accuracy of the BAZs. 


The reason they didn't want to buy them, 


obviously, is the cost and the batteries. And 


once you're in there for a while and the 


batteries wear down, are they going to take an 


accurate reading? 


And I'm sorry it's a five or six-stage question 


and I -- I don't mean to belabor things but... 

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 DR. ULSH: Well, Mike, it seems like you're -- 


you're pretty concerned about some aspects of ­

- of BZ sampling. But the point I want to come 


back to is that's not what we rely on for dose 


reconstruction -- for NIOSH dose 


reconstruction. We rely on the bioassay 


results, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, and that -- that gets to 


the heart of my question, which is much 


(unintelligible) than where we've gone so far, 


which is do all these people have annuals even? 


You know, if they have annuals, then you've got 


a data point and you can reconstruct dose, in 


my opinion. 


 MR. GIBSON: What'd you say, Mark -- Mark -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The question is -- the question 


is did --


 MR. GIBSON: -- could you repeat that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm saying, you know, they -- 


they did go to an annual program, Mike, and -- 


and, you know, they -- the question of 


sensitivity -- you know, we can debate that a 


little, but -- but at the end of the day, for 


NIOSH's DR purposes, if they have data, you 


know, annually to the end of their career, then 

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they can reconstruct internal doses because 


they'll -- they'll -- they'll just assign the ­

- even if it's less than the MDA value, they'll 


assume MDA and back-calculate from there an 


intake. 


My question more was did some of the 


subcontractors and others -- I guess two prongs 


on this, since we're getting into multiple 


level questions -- were -- were all the subs 


included, but secondly, my experience tells me 


that rad worker training depended on how rad 


areas were defined, and that is very -- at some 


sites that could be a very big issue. Rad work 


issues were defined, and then the areas started 


to be ripped out and they realized -- oh, God, 


all of a sudden we've got a rad area. We 


should have had these people on -- you know -- 


so there are those issues, too. But I mean sub 


-- subs were the big issue. And then the rad 


worker -- if the rad worker 2 training was the 


criteria to get in the monitoring program, 


which it seems to be stated, can we cross-check 


that and see. Did those people have da-- is 


there data there for these people and can you 


use your regular method to reconstruct dose. 

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That's the question. Or do you have to go over 


to this air sampling data, which we're -- would 


be a little more concerned about, you know. 


 MR. GIBSON: And tasks, this -- and you know, I 


-- you know, I trust your judgment, Mark, but I 


-- and I'm not a health physicist, but if I 


have an annual bioassay and at the end of the 


year it turns up that -- so many picocuries or 


nanocuries or whatever else, does that mean I 


got the dose the day before or does that mean 


that I got the dose a year ago and I have -- I 


have been excreting this and -- and -- wouldn't 


that change the amount of dose a person got? 


MS. BRACKETT: What we do for this project, 


given unknown intake dates, which is the case 


for most of the -- well, for pretty much all 


the claims that we get -- 


 MR. GIBSON: I'm sorry, I still can't hear you. 


DR. MAURO: We got to get more microphones in 


here. 


MS. BRACKETT: Yeah, I have two microphones in 


front of me. What we assume on this project, 


because we generally don't know when an intake 


occurred, is a constant chronic intake for 


people. So we assume that person started 

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intakes on the day -- their first day of 


employment and continue all the way through the 


end of their employment, and that pretty much 


approximates a series of acute intakes, given ­

- given the lack of any other data. Certainly 


if we knew of a particular incident date that 


the person had, we would use that. But in 


general we just assume chronic exposure for all 


the working history. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And we -- we've cross-checked 


this with Jim Neton and -- I'm missing his name 


right now, but --


 DR. ULSH: Dave Allen. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Dave Allen, and we've gone 


down this path before. And it does -- you 


know, we -- we've --


DR. MAURO: It works. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- looked at acutes right after 


the -- you know, bioassay sample an acute the 


day after and then a year later and still 


chronic pretty much approaches the same values, 


so I -- I think that does work, Mike. I think 


there is a question, though, if all that data's 


there for all those people or -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, that's a -- that's a good 

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question. 


 MR. GIBSON: Again, I just wanted to -- I mean 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- Mark, you know -- if you 


remember when we were going through the 


actinium thing at Mound, they said, you know, 


we haven't tested these bioassay samples and if 


we test them now and they come under the MDA, 


all we can tell you is you haven't had 100 rem 


of exposure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 MR. GIBSON: So that's -- that's why I'm -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That would be -- Mike, that -- 


 MR. GIBSON: That's what got my -- and again, 


I'm not a health physicist -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: But that -- Mike, that's not -- 


that's the exact same thing as here, because in 


that case you were talking about those samples 


sitting around for several -- what was it, two 


years or -- I forget the time frame, but those 


samples were not analyzed for years -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and they were saying, worst 


case, if they had an acute intake two years 

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prior to these being analyzed, then the worst 


case dose could have been X, and that same sort 


of thing would be applied here, according to 


Liz and -- and Brant. That's what they're 


saying is that --


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if they don't know any 


different, they're going to assume that 


conservative model to extrapolate in between 


data points. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, I'm just not understanding 


this health physics stuff, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Good questions, though. 


 DR. ULSH: Mark, I would like to go to your 


questions about --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- who was -- who was included in 


the monitoring program. Gene, I -- I could 


almost swear that at the last meeting either 


you or Steve said that the subs' dosimetry 


records were collected. Is that the issue that 


you're concerned about, Mark, that -- that we 


wouldn't maybe have all their dosimetry 


records? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we -- we heard the policy 

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approach, and I guess all I was asking is that 


let's verify that the policy was practiced. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So given that concern, do you 


have any ideas on how we could address your 


concern? I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- mean it's going to be tough to 


identify subcontractors from others, I think. 


Do we have an easy way to do that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, you need ro-- you need 


rosters from DOE, probably, and I'm not sure -- 


 MR. CHEW: Gene, this is Mel. Can you speak to 


that, what Brant just asked? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, it's possible to identify 


subcontractors by company name in the site 


database. 


 DR. ULSH: The site database, okay. Is that --


Gene, is that something that we can access 


easily and in a timely --


 MR. POTTER: HIS-20. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, HIS-20, okay. 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, there's a -- there's a 


company name field in HIS-20. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So --


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identified database when you get it posted. 


 DR. ULSH: I know, I know. 


 MR. CHEW: We were doing that for the 


construction --


 MR. GRIFFON: I got beat up on the log books, 


so... 


 DR. ULSH: Mark, so -- given that we can do 


that, we can identify subcontractors, what 


would you like to see us do in terms of -- like 


pick a sample of them and show that there are 


dosimet-- bioassay results for them? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think -- there's a certain 


time period -- I mean I'm asking as much as -- 


I'm not telling, I'm asking, is there a time 


period after which it was only D&D operations 


at the site? 


 MS. MUNN: '92. 


 DR. ULSH: '92, I think. 


 MR. GRIFFON: '92, right? So I mean I would 


say post-'92 you can truncate the database that 


way, and then --


 DR. ULSH: So pick a sample of people who are 


identified in HIS-20 as being subcontractors -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Subcontractors and -- and are -- 


I mean is there any field that says they were 

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RW2-trained? 


 DR. ULSH: How about that, Gene? 


 MR. GRIFFON: HIS-20. 


 DR. ULSH: Is there a way to easily identify 


who was RW2-trained? 


 MR. POTTER: Now what I'm talking about in HIS20 would be people who were in the dosimetry 


program, so we can't compare it to people who 


were not in the dosimetry program. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right, so you've 


got HIS-20, yeah. Then you really need 


rosters. Right? You need site rosters more 


than dosimetry rosters -- and they exist. I 


mean we get it in our medical surveillance 


program, so they do have site rosters -- 


subcontractors have rosters. They're usually a 


little more difficult -- 


 MR. POTTER: Now I think I've talked about this 


before, but just to maybe mention it again, how 


people got into the internal dosimetry program 


was when they were issued an external dosimetry 


badge, which most areas that anyone would be 


concerned about on site required an external 


dosimeter right up till the very end. And 


people, when they would come to get a badge, if 

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they were rad worker 2, they were sent to 


internal dosimetry and put into the program. 


 DR. BEHLING: How about rad worker 2 training 


rosters? You just mentioned earlier that that 


was a requirement for decon work. Can you look 


at the rad worker 2 training records and then 


determine who was incorporated into the 


bioassay program? 


 MS. MUNN: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. BEHLING: That would be an independent 


method. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so I guess what we would be 


looking for is anyone -- anyone who was rad 


worker 2-trained that didn't have bioa-- 


bioassay results. That would give us a special 


interest. Is that right? Is that kind of what 


you're getting at? 


 Gene, what about the availability of rosters of 


people who received RW2 training. Is that 


readily available? 


 DR. BEHLING: Should be available. 


 MR. POTTER: All of that -- all of that type of 


information I would assume is archived. We 


used to have that -- access on-line when we had 


a site. No longer available, you know, 

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electronically, but I would think that yes, 


that's archived someplace. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, so how about I commit to do 


this, Mark. We will work with Scott Raines and 


Andrea Wilson to try to find rad worker 2 


training rosters for the time period in 


question here, the -- after '92. We will also 


work with them to try to identify site rosters 


for which we could I guess pick out who was the 


subcontractor. And then we'll report back to 


you on our success in getting those. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Assuming that we get them, then the 


next step --


DR. MAURO: Then there's the bioassay, where 


does that fit into that, those two lists, so -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, assuming that we get those, 


then the next step is to go after their 


bioassay data. 


 DR. BEHLING: One -- one last question. In 


addition to annual bioassay, was it a policy to 


give everyone an exit bioassay on termination? 


 MR. CHEW: Gene, did you hear the question? 


 MR. POTTER: No, I didn't hear it. 


 MR. CHEW: Hans -- Hans --

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 DR. ULSH: Did everyone get a termination 


bioassay, Gene? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, in addition to annual, was 


it a policy to give everyone a termination or 


exit bioassay? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, that was the policy. Well, 


we kind of -- we kind of talked about this 


before, too, and basically when someone walks 


out the door, they were given the opportunity 


to have a bioassay. They could refuse the 


bioassay, because all you could do was issue 


them a kit. You couldn't hold a gun to their 


head and have them actually fill it. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I remember reading -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I know, that's what you said 


before, but--


 DR. BEHLING: -- that this was a problem, that 


some people simply didn't respond. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- this is Mike and I would just 


like to say that, you know, a roster is almost 


what you're going to have to have rather than 


RW2 training, because I know for the 


accelerated clean-up sites -- the Rocky, the 


Mound, Fernald -- that, you know, DOE put in 


their plan, and I know I'm getting deeper into 

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politics and this and that, but as it came down 


toward the end they started trying to rush in 


more contractors to help do this work and, you 


know, reduce the cost, supposedly. And Mound 


is still not officially closed. It's like $434 


million over-budget from what it was supposed 


to have been done and -- last year. Rocky did 


I guess meet its date, according to Tony, 


working 24/7 with contractors. So they 


deposted a lot of areas and just acted like it 


was a demolition rather than a radiological 


clean-up. So they're -- you know, I -- I can't 


speak specifically for Rocky, but I know for 


Mound there was a lot of people that just -- 


contractors that came in and just thought they 


were doing a demolition job when they may in 


fact have been doing a radiological demolition 


job. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I just think we need to 


check this. The subs are a possible place that 


they might have fallen through the cracks, and 


if it's a few, that's one thing. But if it's 


many -- or hundreds, you know, that's another 


thing I think. If they all -- if a large 


majority of them had a termination survey -- I 

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don't disagree with you that a large majority 


of them had a termination bioassays, then I 


think you're pretty much -- you at least have a 


data point to work with, you know, so -- 


 DR. ULSH: So does that sound like a reasonable 


course of action, that we'll get back to you 


with the availability of these rosters? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. And I would say you 


might even look at HIS-20 -- ahead of time look 


at post-'92 HIS-20 and do a query on names 


versus number of bioassay samples for -- for 


the years they were there. And you might come 


to some conclusions before we get too far down 


the path, too. You might -- of course that's 


the people that were in the program, I 


understand, but as a first step, maybe that 


might be of use. 


 DR. ULSH: So you want --


 MR. GRIFFON: Or if you find that you have, 


you know -- I don't know how many people were 


there, but if you have 2,000 people and you 


only have 1,000 bioassay samples, well, right 


away you see -- you can see some problems, you 


know, 'cause you've got specials in there and 


everything, so everybody -- you know, if they 

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were there -- you know, '92 to 2000. 


 DR. ULSH: So what you're asking then is that 


we look, from the '92 to 2005-ish period that ­

- the D&D era, you would like us to look at -- 


give you some kind of a feeling for how many 


bioassay points the people who worked -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, maybe query that database. 


 DR. ULSH: -- in those years had. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's a -- that's a easier 


thing than trying to find this data that you're 


asking for the rosters and RW2 training logs. 


 DR. ULSH: I think that's something we could 


easily do. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again, and I would 


also request not only -- 1992 the D&D started, 


that -- it wasn't until I don't believe 1997, 


'98, '99, somewhere in that time frame that 


this accelerated clean-up program started by 


Jesse Roberson* and Bob Card*, and I think 


probably from that time frame forward you 


should see the dif-- look at a roster and see 


the difference. If Rocky had, you know, 500 


contractors since 1992 and in 1999 they had 


1,000 contractors, I think you me -- may need 


to compare that to the database, too. 

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 DR. ULSH: Well, I think we would include those 


years, Mike, staring in '92 and then going all 


the way forward to the end of D&D. 


 MR. GIBSON: To today -- today's date, yes. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, the end of D&D. I mean that 


was 2003. 


 MR. PRESLEY: 2003. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's a good point, though, 


Mike. There might have been different -- 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- change in the program there, 


yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We'll include those years. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we have our action for that 


one? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, I think so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I got a note -- Joe had to leave, 


but I have a note for one -- one last thing, I 


think -- or -- or we also want to hear from 


your listing -- right? -- of these other -- or 


is that ongoing? 


 DR. ULSH: That's ongoing. 


 MS. JESSEN: That's ongoing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: An ongoing investigation, right? 


One other thing that Joe left me a note on 

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which we -- we talked about earlier and we 


deferred it to later discussions and never got 


to was the '69/'70 -- the disposition and 


validation of zeroes resulting from sideline 


workers, it says on his note. And this was the 


-- Ron, I think he -- yeah, he asked you to 


maybe speak to this a little bit, the zeroes. 


This is not the other '69 question. Remember, 


we said the zeroes is a different thing, we'll 


talk about it later? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, we had the blanks. That's a 


separate thing. Now we're talking about 


zeroes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Zeroes. 


 MS. JESSEN: Zeroes were in 1972. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe it was '70s, but Ron, 


yeah, go ahead. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, that -- '69 and '70s, as 


this chart I think most of you have shows, that 


-- I had no explanation for it, but it did 


raise kind of a red flag why we went along with 


about ten percent zeroes, and then suddenly for 


'69 and '70 we ran about 35 percent zeroes, 36 


percent zeroes. And then the next five years 


dropped back down to about ten percent zeroes 

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in the external badge dosimetry program. And 


we -- we wanted to see why -- you know, was 


there some -- were these zeroes blanks or were 


they zeroes, were they -- were they monitored 


at less than detectable limits or were they not 


monitored and zeroes were entered. It just 


seemed like an abnormality that we wanted to -- 


to address. 


 DR. ULSH: I think what -- what we discussed 


the last time -- there's an event that happened 


right around then that would be very consistent 


with what you're seeing and that is the 


cessation, temporarily, of plutonium duties due 


to the fire -- the big fire in, I can never 


remember -- Mother's -- 


 MS. MUNN: May of 1969. 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, that was the area on the site 


that contained the higher exposure jobs. Of 


course after the Mother's Day fire, those 


operations shut down until they could clean up 


and -- and repair. 


 MR. LITTLE: Also had a strike in '70, I 


think. 


 DR. ULSH: And there was a strike in '70 -- in 


1970. 

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 DR. ULSH: But going back to the '69 fire, 


those workers who ordinarily worked in those 


fairly high dose rate jobs, relatively 


speaking, were then reassigned into other jobs 


where the dose rates were much lower. So that 


would be consistent with a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you've -- you've 


investigated that? I mean I -- I would have 


assumed that mo-- a lot of those workers would 


have also been involved in the cleanup of the 


fire. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, they might have been involved 


in the cleanup, Mark, but even there you 


wouldn't expect the dose rates to be as high as 


during plutonium production activities. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, but they wouldn't have 


been zeroes probably. 


 MR. LITTLE: No, but certainly not all of those 


(unintelligible) just a percentage we're -- 


 DR. ULSH: Just the percentage went up. 


 MR. LITTLE: Some of them -- some of them were 


not involved. 


 MR. GRIFFON: One possible -- one possible 


explanation. 


 DR. ULSH: It's a possible explanation that's 

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consistent. I can't say that that's -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Brant, how long was the strike? 


 DR. ULSH: It occurred in the summer of 1970, I 


think. Roger, do you know? 


 (No response) 


Wake up, Roger. 


 MR. CHEW: He's coming on. 


 MR. FALK: I'm -- I'm thinking it lasted about 


three months. 


 DR. ULSH: In 1970, summer? 


 MR. FALK: Or -- or possibly two and a half 


months, in the summer of 1970. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So it was quite long. 


MR. BUCHANAN: How long did the fire displace 


the plutonium production -- how long a period? 


 DR. ULSH: Do you know when the plutonium 


production operations resumed, Roger -- or 


anybody? 


MR. MEYER: About a year and a half. 


 MR. CHEW: It was about a year and a half. 


I think they were cleaning up even after two 


years, but they started production in the other 


areas, so you're talking about 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. FALK: Let me -- let me add one thing to 

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that. It was transferred to Building 707, 


which had the engineered -- which had the -- 


which had the engineered shielding and also had 


the modularization, so it was a much better-


controlled external dose type of situation, 


also. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But then the -- but then the 


percentage of zeroes should not have gone down 


after 1972. That would be a reason for a high 


percentage of zeroes to continue, so that -- 


that can't possibly be an explanation. 


 MR. FALK: Well, I'm not -- I've not -- I'm not 


answering that question. I was answering the 


question when did the plutonium metal 


production resume, and it basically resumed 


when they got Building 707 on line, and just 


pointing out that it would be a lower dose rate 


than what they had experienced in buildings 77 


-- 76 and 77. I don't have the other answer 


about the number of zeroes. 


 DR. ULSH: The do-- it could be consistent -- 


everything you're saying could be consistent. 


The dose rates could have been lower starting 


in 707 and later years, but not zero, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think the other possibility 

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here is -- is you've got a couple of files of 


data from '69. Right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Raw records? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So maybe -- I hate to put -- put 


stock into records I haven't seen, but maybe 


these'll answer some of these questions. I 


mean if we have raw data to compare to the 


database --


 DR. ULSH: It could -- yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- they can at least tell us that 


it wasn't -- you know, zero it out in the 


database accidentally or inadvertently or 


whatever. 


 DR. ULSH: That's a possibility. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Well, can you tell the 


difference between zero entry and -- and not -- 


not monitoring blanks in '69 and '70? 


MR. MEYER: Yes, that dataset shows a code, a 


01 code where a badge was not returned, and it 


shows zeroes where the badge was read as 


zeroes. It actually has blanks and a 01 code 


where the badge was not returned -- at least 


the 100 or so I've looked at so far that are -- 

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are coded 01. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So you can make a distinction. 


 MR. CHEW: That's good, yeah. 


MR. MEYER: And also there are codes that were 


-- were --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's in the raw records where 


you can make that distinction? 


MR. MEYER: Handwritten raw records. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Not in the database. 


MR. MEYER: No, it's in the raw records. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that's another way we can 


check that. I guess that's a follow-up on that 


item -- right? -- is to check the raw records. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I don't know that there's 


any other follow-up, is there? 


 DR. ULSH: Help me out, what do you mean, 


follow-up on... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Follow-up on the '69/'70 ze-- 


you know, this higher percentage of zeroes. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I don't -- I don't know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean you've given your 


possibil-- possible explanations. 


MR. BUCHANAN: I did -- what about internal 


dose? It might just be helpful to shed some 

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light on it. Did the internal dose follow the 


same scenario, and I haven't seen any results 


and I don't know how to get ahold of that. But 


if we could compare it with internal and see if 


it's -- verifies it or contradicts it. 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know the answer to that, 


Ron. 


MR. BUCHANAN: That would be one suggestion 


that might help shed light on it. 


MR. MEYER: I don't have an answer for that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you would look at a sort of 


percentage of less than detectables for 


plutonium for that time period or... 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, for whatever they were 


doing for bioassay and see if it came along 


with a large percent of zeroes. That would 


enforce the fact that the workers weren't in a 


radiation area. If the bioassays remained 


fairly constant during those 12 years, 


including '69 and '70, well, then that would 


kind of not reinforce. 


 MR. CHEW: You mean positive bioassays? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: But it's -- it's possible that if 


they weren't working in plutonium areas, then 

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they wouldn't have been getting plutonium 


bioassay during that period. What do you 


think, Roger, is that... 


 MR. GRIFFON: They wouldn't have stayed on 


some -- some program -- 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know. I really don't know, 


I'm just saying that -- 


MR. BUCHANAN: Well, we can look at see if the 


number of positive bioassays -- the percent of 


positive bioassays --


 MR. CHEW: These are -- these are not the 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: We can see a number of bio-- 


these are -- (unintelligible) some with number, 


but we can see whether the number went up or 


down. In '68, '69 and '70 the number of -- the 


number of bioassays didn't go down in '69 and 


'70 compared to '68. They went up -- they -- 


they went up in '71. 


 MR. CHEW: But these are just the number of 


bioassays, not the (unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just the number. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, that might argue against what 


I was saying, that they might not have been -- 


they might have just kept on -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe we could look at that -- 


Those two things, look at the raw data for the 


external and the internal (unintelligible) time 


period. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And let's see if there was 


anything else. I think -- I think we're 


wrapped up. Right? We're all ready to wrap 


up, anyway. 


FUTURE PLANS


 DR. WADE: He needs to talk briefly about a 


path forward. You know, when does the working 


group want to come back together, what would it 


like to see at that point. You know, we have 


the call coming up on August the 8th, and then 


we have the mid-September meeting in Nevada, 


where it's the hope that Rocky Flats could be 


voted out -- could possibly be voted out, the 


SEC petition, so it's up to you, Mark, to think 


about --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean I -- I think we 


need another meeting at the end of August or 


so, and maybe -- and then I would -- I would 


like to shoot for the end of August, and then 


if we need something between the end of August 

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and September 15th, whenever the meeting is, 


maybe we can do a call or whatever, you know, 


something -- a final phone call meeting. 


 DR. ULSH: And given where we're at in the 


process, we'll be pumping things out as we 


finish them. We aren't going to hold them 


until the workgroup meeting, so -- 


 DR. WADE: Do you want to tentatively pick a 


date? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, let's --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Are we talking physical -- 


present -- meeting like this? 


 MS. MUNN: I'm assuming, yeah. We have one 


meeting here on the 22nd. Right? And we have 


a --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: In August? 


 DR. WADE: Savannah River Site is in --


 MS. MUNN: Savannah River Site. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: 27th is a Sunday. 


 MS. MUNN: 22nd. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, 22nd. I'm sorry. 


 MS. MUNN: And then we've got a phone call on 


the 23rd, which could be overridden, I suppose, 


move it. 


 DR. WADE: Nevada Test Site is 1:00 p.m. on 

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the... 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's going to be kind of hard 


to get -- have to meet here and then get home 


for this. You know, it may be that we have the 


Nevada Test Site meeting here. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Three-day meeting. 


 MS. MUNN: Might be simpler, if we're going to 


do this on the 24th. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I can't be here on the 24th. 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, you can't. 


 DR. WADE: What about -- I mean I also assume 


another week for you to get things together 


will make it a more productive meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, too. I was looking 


at the very end --


 DR. WADE: 29th, 30th? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Pick one, Mark. What day of the 


week -- what day of the week is easiest for 


you? 


 MR. GRIFFON: How about the 31st? 


 DR. WADE: Okay, August the 31st, tentatively a 


meeting here in Cincinnati -- the 31th, anybody 


have any issue with that? So tentatively 


August the 31st here in Cincinnati, working 

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group meeting on Rocky Flats. That squeezes 


every bloody day out of August. 


 DR. ULSH: I have one final note. I handed out 


a lot of material here that contains Privacy 


Act information. You're welcome to take that 


home, but if you don't, please return it to me 


and I'll make sure it's shredded. 


 MS. MUNN: I'd rather (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: I won't take it personally, Wanda. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The meeting is official 


adjourned. 


 DR. WADE: What about -- what time tomorrow 


morning? 


 MR. GRIFFON: The time for tomorrow morning -- 


is anybody tra-- I mean does anybody need -- 


traveling in to the meeting, Lew, do you know? 


'Cause we said 9:30, but if everyone's here 


already --


 DR. WADE: I told Stu just a moment ago to come 


at 8:00, and you know -- but that doesn't mean 


we have to start at 8:00, but -- so Stu'll be 


here at 8:00 representing NIOSH. I think the 


rest of the principals are here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, let's start at 8:00, is 


that --

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 MR. PRESLEY: 8:00? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'll be a little late. I have 


 DR. BEHLING: You're supposed to be on first to 


discuss the... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's say 8:30 then. 


 MS. MUNN: 8:30. 


 DR. WADE: 8:30. 


MS. BRACKETT: The web site says 8:30. That's 


what it said on the OCAS web site. 


 DR. WADE: 8:30 tomorrow morning. 


 (Whereupon, the working group concluded its 


business at 6:10 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

381 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of July 26, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


9th day of August, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102