NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

Metals and Controls Corp. Work Group

Thursday, March 18, 2021

The meeting convened at 10:30 a.m., Eastern 

Daylight Time, via teleconference, Josie Beach, 

Chair, presiding. 
2 

Present: 

Josie Beach, Chair

Henry Anderson, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Also Present: 

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH Contractor

Bob Anigstein, SC&A

Bob Barton, SC&A

Grady Calhoun, DCAS

Duane Demore, SC&A

Michael Elliott

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A

William "Rusty" Lorenzen

John Mauro, SC&A

Pat McCloskey, ORAU Team

Michael Rafky, HHS

Lavon Rutherford, DCAS

Mutty Sharfi, ORAU Team

Tim Taulbee, DCAS
3 

Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health Metals and Controls 

Corp. Work Group Thursday, March 18, 2021 1

Roll Call/Welcome 4

DCAS Follow-Up to the M&C WG and WG 

Discussion 6

DCAS/SC&A/WG Discussion of Disturbance of 

Burial Ground 20

Petitioners' Comments 24

DCAS/SC&A/WG Review and Discussion 37

WG Discussion of Path Forward 78

Adjournment 105
4

Proceedings

(10:30 a.m.)

Roll Call/Welcome

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So my computer is showing 

10:30 a.m. Eastern. So we're going to go ahead and 

get started. I believe that the court reporter is on. 

So I think we are good to go.

So good morning and welcome, everyone. I am 

Rashaun Roberts. I am the Designated Federal 

Official for the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health. This is a meeting for the Metals and 

Controls Working Group.

Today we have a six-item meeting agenda, if you've 

seen it. And if you haven't seen it, you can find the 

agenda on the NIOSH website under Scheduled 

Meetings for today's date along with all of the 

meeting materials for today, which were 

disseminated to the Working Group in advance.

Now today I do want to let everyone know that I 

have an unexpected scheduling issue that could not 

be changed. So we will need to end promptly at 2 

o'clock.

So I do want to officially welcome all of you to this 

video, slash, teleconference. So first off, let's 

address conflict of interest. And I will speak to that 

with respect to the members of the Board who sit 

on this particular Working Group. In order for them 

to serve on this group, they really cannot have 

conflicts of interest.

So with that said, let's go ahead and move into the 

roll call for the Working Group, starting with our 

Chair Beach.

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: I'm not hearing anyone else at this 

point so thank you and welcome to you all again. 

Before we officially move into the meeting, I just 
5

want to cover a couple of brief items.

So, of course, there is always the issue of 

technology. So in order to keep things moving 

smoothly and so that everybody's speaking can be 

heard, please be mindful of whether you are on 

mute.

If you are on the telephone, please press *6 to 

mute and *6 to take yourself off mute. For those on 

Zoom, the mute button is on the lower left-hand

side of your screen. And I'd just like to ask people 

to periodically check the phone and/or computer to 

ensure that you are remaining on mute if you are 

not speaking.

And as I mentioned, the agenda for the meeting can 

be found on the NIOSH or DCAS website along with 

the presentations and background documents 

relevant to today's meeting so you can follow along 

if you're joining us by telephone only.

So with that, let's go ahead and get started. And I 

will go ahead and turn the meeting over to the 

Working Group Chair, Josie.

Chair Beach: Okay. Thank you, Rashaun. Just 

briefly I want to say that we've had a little bit of 

change in our agenda items. Rashaun and I talked 

about making sure the petitioner had time because 

of our shortened meeting time.

So we will go through LaVon's slides, maybe holding 

all questions if we can until after his presentation 

and then we'll go right into the petitioner's 

comments.

When the petitioner is finished, we'll circle back, and 

we'll go slide by slide. And then I think that will get 

us through close to the end of our agenda items just 

going through LaVon's slides.

We should take at least a 10 to 15 minute break 

halfway through the meeting. We are scheduled to 

be finished, my time, 11:00, 2:00 Eastern for most 
6

of you.

So I want to give us at least 15 minutes at the end, 

like at 1:45 to do some planning for additional 

meetings or, depending on where we are, plans for 

the April Board meeting. Any comments or 

questions on that?

And, LaVon, I'm assuming you're going to share 

your screen for the slides? Is that correct?

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. That's the plan, Josie.

Chair Beach: Okay. And I think the meeting 

materials are all NIOSH's. I don't believe SC&A gave 

us any materials. But I think they've got some items 

they are prepared to discuss. Is that correct?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes.

Chair Beach: Rose, okay. So you didn't send 

anything out, correct? I was looking --

Ms. Gogliotti: Correct.

Chair Beach: Okay. I didn't think so. Alright. 

Everybody ready?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: Okay. Thanks.

Mr. Rutherford: Alright. Can everybody see my 

slides?

(Chorus of yes.)

DCAS Follow-Up to the M&C WG and WG Discussion

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Alright. Again, I'm LaVon 

Rutherford. I'm the DCAS Health Science 

Administrator and the Metals and Controls Health 

Physics lead. And I will be doing the presentation 

today.

We're going to talk about the -- we're going to 

respond to Work Group comments that were made 
7

and questions that were brought up during the 

September 2020 Metals and Controls Work Group 

meeting.

We have documented our responses to the 

questions that were raised in a paper titled, 

Response to Comments for Metals, the Metals and 

Controls Work Group Meeting Held on September 2, 

2020.

On January 12, we received an additional question 

that we had not prepared for. Our previous 

response paper was virtually complete at that time. 

And so we documented a response to that question 

in a separate memo titled, Response to Comments 

Related to Soil Disturbances at the Burial Ground.

So let's start with the first question concerning 

additional fires. Hold on one second. I've got all 

these people's faces covering my thing up.

Okay. The first Working Group Member expressed a 

concern that there additional fires or explosions 

beyond the aluminum dust explosion addressed by 

NIOSH in a previous response paper.

The NIOSH -- I've got an echo there. NIOSH 

reexamined the interview summaries. One worker 

indicated uranium would sometimes catch fire, and 

they described a fire on the roof of Building 10.

Another interviewee described a positive 

temperature coefficient powder explosion in the late 

80s, early 90s that shook Building 10.

A third interviewee described dust explosions in 

Building 10's flank spray area. The individual also 

mentioned explosions in the electrical bus ducts in 

Building 4 as well as a couple of explosions in the 

electrical manholes in Buildings 10 and 4.

We also reviewed SRDB reports for additional 

information regarding fires and explosions.

So our position on this hasn't changed since our 
8

previous. We felt that any fires or explosions that 

occurred, the sediment and release and ash that 

would be caused by that would ultimately reduce 

the specific activity that would be in your HVAC 

system filters where we're looking at the highest 

release point.

So we have not found any interviews or reports that 

indicate a potential for radiation exposure beyond 

those that are already modeled or bound by existing 

contamination resuspension exposure models.

So our second comment, the Work Group asked if 

the drain lines of Building 10 were used during the 

residual period and if using the drain lines would 

reduce the concentration over time due to the 

addition of non-radioactive material.

Also a Work Group Member asked about sample 

data from one pipe in the west end of Building 10 

that was 1 million dpm per 100 centimeters 

squared.

Okay. NIOSH reviewed interviews and SRDB 

documents for information on whether the drain 

lines were used during the residual period. We really 

didn't find any reports that indicated that the drain 

lines were isolated or they were no longer in use. So 

we pretty much have to assume they were used 

during that residual period.

However, we do have a couple of key points we 

want to bring up. We want to point out that the 

suggestion that only non-radioactive material was 

added to the drain lines after the cessation of AWE 

operations in 1967 is not accurate for Building 10.

Dr. Roberts: LaVon?

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I'm getting an echo.

Dr. Roberts: I'm sorry to interrupt you. I got a 

message about people being on mute. John Mauro, 

Dave Kotelchuck, can you please make sure you've 

got your mute buttons on? If you're listening 
9

through Zoom, the mute button is in the lower lefthand corner. Yeah. We just want to make sure we 

don't have any additional noise coming through. 

Thank you.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Sorry, LaVon.

Mr. Rutherford: That's alright. That's quite alright. I 

still am getting some background but. Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. So the suggestion that only 

non-radioactive material was added to the drain 

lines after the cessation of AWE operations in 1967 

is not accurate for Building 10.

The non-covered HFIR operations continued until 

1981. When I mean non-covered, there are facilities 

and operations that are covered under the EEOICPA 

program and there are the radiological activities 

that are not covered, and this meaning that we 

would not have to reconstruct exposures from these 

types of activities.

So for HFIR operations, it is a non-covered work. 

However, it is a radiological activity, and it 

continued until 1981. So from 1967 to 1981, the 

only radiological work was from HFIR.

I also wanted to point out that during operations, 

you know, at least -- during the AWE operations, at 

least 80 percent of the work performed with 

radioactive materials was for the Naval Reactors 

Program. And, again that is a program that is not 

covered under our program. So exposures in the 

residual period for that activity would not need to be 

reconstructed.

I now recognize though that, you know, separating 

out and differentiating what's covered material and 

what's not covered material really can't be done. So 

we are including it. However, I just wanted to point 
10

out again that there is a large source term that was 

potentially added from these non-covered activities.

Alright. To understand the non-uniform subsurface 

activity and determine if something abnormal was 

involved with the scaling of Metals and Controls' 

drain lines, NIOSH examined similar conditions at 

other facilities.

What we did is we looked at six sites that were 

identified that had documented drain line sediment 

sample results. And what we were looking for --

initially we were looking to see if we could get 

activities in the drain lines during operations and 

then activities downline, you know, when a residual 

period occurred that did not include -- you know, so 

you wouldn't have operations. So you could see if 

there was a reduction in sediment over time.

However, we could not -- we did not -- we couldn't 

get that information out of this drain line activity. 

We just did not have enough information to support 

making a definitive statement whether there was a 

reduction.

However, what we could say was that all of the 

cases were very similar, meaning such that you had 

a grouping of samples that were relatively low in 

concentration and then you had these couple of hot 

spots, you know, where the specific activity was at 

least an order of magnitude larger than most of the 

other samples.

So we felt that most of these sites that we had 

indicated in there were very consistent.

So, again, we believe there's not a significant 

difference in the mechanism of deposition and 

accumulation of sediment in pipe scale at Metals 

and Controls when compared to these other sites.

Now this doesn't directly answer the question of 

whether you'll have a reduction in sediment across 

that. But I did want to point out that the area that 

had the highest activity included a uranium rod. 
11

This indicates that -- this area also was 90 percent 

clogged as well. So when we use the 95th 

percentile, it also includes that data and so, in the 

95th percentile, it comes out at 1 percent of the 

specific activity of natural uranium.

Okay. Alright. Now for the sample about the 1 

million dpm per 100 centimeters squared that we 

found, during the contamination concrete removal 

at the north side of the screen print area, the 

initiation point of the 4 inch vitreous clay mainline 

was encountered.

This line exhibited surface contamination levels as 

high as 1 million dpm per 100 centimeters squared 

although it did not contain a visible accumulation of 

residue.

From this report, this is a 1979 Texas Instrument 

report, we also noticed that what they did during 

this time period, they used direct reading 

measurements, you know, surface scan 

measurements to look for areas of hot spots for 

removal.

And this appears to be a surface scan. I say that 

because in the description at the beginning of this 

paper, it talked about the direct scans. And you 

typically don't see swipe data that comes out 

exactly in the million dpm like that.

So, again, also the report indicated minor soil 

contamination was noted near the initiation point of 

the line and excavated. Soil concentrations were 

71.6 and 9.8 picocuries per gram in soils near the 

initiation point and line removal termination point.

So when we modeled exposures to workers during 

excavation type operations, we believe it's 

appropriate to use mass-based samples to 

characterize the exposure environment, meaning, 

you know, if you look at that 1 million dpm per 100 

centimeters squared, that is a surface 

contamination measurement. And for our 

resuspension model, we feel that it's better to use 
12

the mass-based samples so if you look at soil being 

dispersed in air, for example, so activity per unit 

gram.

So typical soil sampling plans use mass-based 

samples to allow models to characterize subsurface 

work better than swipes of surface contamination.

Although there is a potential for isolated hot spots, 

there is no indication of systemic conditions at these

hot spot levels. Therefore, we consider our 95th 

percentile to be bounding.

So our conclusion is we feel that we've provided a 

conservative estimate. The doses assigned during 

the residual period include doses received from 

more than 80% of the non-covered source term. 

Again, we can't separate those out, but it is a fact 

that there was a significant amount of work that 

was done that would not be covered under this 

program.

The same person is doing all the work to arrive at 

the bounding dose. For example, the same person 

does the 48 hours of welding when you know there 

was more than one person doing the welding. It's 

the same for all of these models. So everybody will 

get the same exposure level.

We used the 95th percentile contamination level. 

And we also applied a 212 microgram per cubic 

meter dust load for wet sediment.

We assume all airborne sediment is respirable, and 

we use the most claimant-favorable solubility type. 

And, again, I point out that sediment area with the 

highest activity concentration contained the 

uranium rod, and it was also up to 90 percent 

clogged, so it did not appear that there was a 

reduction in activity over time.

Okay. The third comment. I'll make sure I'm on --

alright. Alright. During the last Work Group 

meeting, the Work Group Chair asked me if I could 

provide the SRDB numbers for the alpha 
13

contamination surveys taken at HFIR. And I 

indicated I would do that. However, I was wrong. 

We do not have the individual routine contamination 

surveys for HFIR.

But I will explain what we do have. We attempted to 

make the case that the Metals and Controls' 

monitoring assures that the 95th percentile soil 

contamination value is conservative based on 

routine surveys of Building 10 during the first 14 

years of the residual period.

To make the case, we referenced the Metals and 

Controls Health and Safety Manual that was in place 

at the start of the residual radiation period.

We believe that this manual adequately describes 

Metals and Controls' established concern for 

contamination control, the Metals and Controls' 

Manual institutes survey requirements for routine 

work area contamination, personal shoes and 

clothing, any item leaving the work area and all 

production materials before entering the work area.

And you may wonder why they were looking at

production materials before entering the work area. 

I would suspect making fuel, that they wanted to 

ensure that there were no contaminants that were 

being entered into the work area that could possibly 

get into that fuel.

The manual also required the constant review of 

these surveys by supervisors' investigations if 

control levels were exceeded.

So NIOSH is also aware that the NRC enforced these 

contamination surveys so that whenever Metals and 

Controls wanted to change administrative 

requirements, they sent a request to the NRC.

NRC inspections during the residual period provide 

NIOSH with independent assurance that radiological 

controls were monitored or maintained. NRC 

inspectors stated, each of the four operators 

interviewed demonstrated good knowledge of 
14

nuclear safety requirements for the operation. They 

also demonstrated knowledge of the precautions 

they should take for their personal radiation 

protection.

They indicated the alpha survey instrument used at 

the exit from the fuel manufacturing area was 

operating properly. The inspector observed that the 

operating personnel surveyed themselves upon 

leaving the fuel manufacturing area. And the 

licensee also had a record of the training of an 

individual in health physics.

Okay. Now let's talk about the actual surveys we do 

have. Remember that AWE operations ended in 

1967. And we have survey data from 1968 and 

1969 after the operations had concluded and 

cleanup had occurred.

So we have two years of initial residual 

contamination period there. We also, if you look at 

Table 3 in our report, we identified typical 

contamination surveys for the HFIR project area. So 

we don't have the individual surveys, but we do 

have these typical values that were identified in this 

-- and I can't remember the actual report number, if 

it was 1979 year or not. But I'm going to try to 

switch over and pull that table up real quick. No, I 

might not be able to do it.

Dr. Taulbee: I think you have to stop sharing the 

current presentation first, Bomber, and then you 

can pull up the next one.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Alright. I don't see it on my 

list here. Oh well.

Chair Beach: Are you looking --

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I got it. Okay. So what I 

wanted you to look at is actually this Table 3, 

Typical Contamination Results for the Metals and 

Controls HFIR project.

If you can look at all the areas that are surveyed, 
15

and the source document is the 1979 Texas 

Instrument document. And you can see that the fuel 

manufacturing area was surveyed routinely and the 

GMA, which is the general manufacturing area. You 

also have all of these different areas that were 

surveyed. And they gave typical results, both 

removable and fixed.

Also I wanted to point out, if we go down here, it 

also indicates the frequency of the FMA or, yes, the 

fuel manufacturer, or the GMA, which is also known 

as the FMA, or the clad fuel manufacturer. I'm 

sorry. But I wanted you to pull this.

Alright. This is the actual Building 10 layout from a 

1982 NRC report that indicates -- that shows the 

floor plan. And it shows you the HFIR area. It shows 

you the clad fuel manufacturing area, which is also 

the GMA. So you can see the areas that were 

actually surveyed with this.

So we don't have the individual surveys, but we do 

have some data from those surveys. Oh, wow. Now 

I have to get back to where I was. There we go.

Okay. So, again, like I said, we don't have the 

individual surveys, but we do have some typical 

data from those surveys that we have seen on that 

report.

Alright. The next comment was for us to provide a 

consolidated list of exposures. And, you know, this 

petition evaluation and review by the Board has 

gone on for some time so things have changed 

considerably over time. We've had numerous 

discussions back and forth. And so I will go through 

and lay out what we've decided on.

So subsurface inside, we calculated the 95th 

percentile concentration, and we'll use it to bound 

uranium exposures. Again, to remind you this is 1 

percent of the natural uranium specific activity by 

weight in the sediment.

And I think Dr. Mauro gave a good indication that if 
16

you think about 1 percent of all the soils and stuff 

that are being -- around Building 10 and such, that 

if they all contain 1 percent you would have tons of 

uranium.

We can also bound the thorium exposure by 

assuming the subsurface sediments contain 

equivalent amounts of weight of thorium 232. This 

equates to 1,109 picocuries per gram.

Okay. Subsurface outside, the subsurface areas 

were characterized with 2,391 soil samples collected 

for remediation. Of these samples, 1,629 were 

analyzed for gross alpha, and the remaining 762 

were analyzed for isotopic uranium and thorium.

Since frequent maintenance outside could have 

removed sediments with the highest concentration, 

we calculated 95th percentile uranium 

concentration. This equates to 117.86 picocuries per 

gram for uranium and 87.55 picocuries per gram for 

thorium.

Dust load factor for inside and outside subsurface 

work. We examined the excavation at the Mound 

site and determined it to a useful general model for 

dust loading during excavations of soils. And we 

plan to actually include this in our next revision of 

OTIB-70.

This model is directly applicable to Metals and 

Controls' outside area excavation and conservatively 

bounds Metals and Controls' inside Building 10 

work. We believe it is conservative.

There were three areas monitored at Mound. The 

excavation itself, the staging area and the support 

area. The excavation area had the highest 

concentration at 213 micrograms per cubic meter.

We calculated an empirical value at the 95th 

percentile of 212 micrograms per cubic meter and 

will use that value. So we had originally indicated 

220. Based on this additional data we got, we did 

the 95th percentile and came up with 212 
17

micrograms per cubic meter.

Roof and overhead. NIOSH used the 285 grid 

average alpha contamination survey results taken in 

1982 to characterize the Building 10 roof and 

overhead environment. These were direct probe 

measurements, fixed and removable. So the 95th 

percentile of the grid survey results in 89.9 dpm per 

100 centimeters squared.

We can assume 10 percent of that measured 

activity was associated with removable activity and 

that's per TIB-70.

The roof and overhead areas required frequent 

maintenance during the residual period, including 

the years before the surveys used to characterize 

these areas. Therefore, we use the 95th percentile 

removable contamination level of 8.99 dpm per 100 

centimeters squared.

Maintenance workers often performed aggressive 

operations that would disturb the heavy 

accumulated dust in the overhead. Therefore, 

NIOSH will apply a resuspension factor of 10 to the 

minus 4 for this work. And using the 95th percentile 

removal of contamination level, this equates to an 

air concentration of 109 dpm per cubic meter that 

maintenance workers were exposed to during roof 

and overhead work.

Welding operations. NIOSH is aware that good work 

practices require clean bare metal before welding, 

which can include wire brushing and grinding. We 

will assume 100 percent of the activity is 

resuspended, so that will be 489.94 dpm per 100 

centimeters squared.

We believe that this weld preparation work to be a 

portion of the welding task capable of generating 

the highest airborne concentration. Therefore, 

NIOSH will increase the resuspension factor and 

apply a value of 10 to the minus 3rd to the 95th 

percentile total contamination level.
18

This equates to an air concentration of 8.99 dpm 

per cubic meter for 48 hours.

Okay. This is the HVAC model and a significant 

portion of this model was developed by SC&A.

The geometric mean was calculated for 7,765 gross 

alpha swipe data collected at the end of AWE 

operations in 1966 and 1968. Using this geometric 

mean surface contamination value and a 10 to the 

minus 5th resuspension factor, the gross alpha 

airborne concentration in Building 10 was 

determined to be .0123 dpm per cubic meter.

Typical dust loading during normal non-maintenance 

type operations in Building 10 was assumed to be 

100 micrograms per cubic meter. So this equates to 

an estimated specific activity of the airborne dust at 

1.23 E to the minus 4th dpm per microgram. We'll 

assume one hour of exposure because nuisance 

dust at 100 milligrams per cubic meter would be 

barely breathable. Therefore, this equates to a 

gross alpha air concentration of 12.3 dpm per cubic 

meter.

Remaining exposures for exposures incurred by 

workers through the balance of the year, NIOSH will 

assume -- will use the geometric mean of the 7,765 

gross alpha swipe data collected at the end of AWE 

operations in '66 and '68. And using this geometric 

mean value and 10 to the minus 5th resuspension 

factor, the gross alpha air concentration in Building 

10 was calculated to be .0123 dpm per cubic meter.

Source term depletion adjustments will be 

considered to determine the non-maintenance 

exposure rates through the residual period. 

Recognizing that this swipe data was taken at the 

very beginning of the residual period, which you 

would expect to have the highest values of surface 

contamination from the covered activity.

So our occupancy rate, NIOSH will assume an 

occupancy rate of two months per year for 

subsurface work. We will assume one month per 
19

year for roof and overhead work. And for welding 

activities, we will assume 48 hours per year. And 

the HVAC exposure model, NIOSH assumed the 

buildup of particles on the filters continued for one 

year before filter replacement.

And for the remaining exposures, we will subtract 

the maintenance work from a 2,000 hour work year 

and assume 1,451 hours of exposure.

Ingestion. The method NIOSH used is like OCAS 

TIB-9 in that it accounts for any inadvertent handto-mouth exposures so that any employee in the 

plant, whether he had gloves on or not, are 

included.

Ingestion rates were determined using NUREG/CR5512 at 50 milligrams per work day. It will be used 

for subsurface work. And a factor of 10 to the minus 

4th meter squared per hour will be used for other 

scenarios that are based on surface contamination 

levels.

And our nuclide selection will use the most 

claimant-favorable mixture of thorium or uranium 

when estimating worker dose from gross alpha 

estimates.

Our external rates, the film badges that were 

collected at the end AWE operations were processed 

quarterly by Landauer. We used all the external 

gamma results from 1967 to determine the 

quarterly geometric mean dose rate and geometric 

standard deviation.

The quarterly geometric gamma dose rate was 

determined to be 12 millirem per quarter. And 

NIOSH will also use the Type 2 or skin exposure 

results from 1967 to determine the geometric mean 

dose rate, which turned out to be 36 millirem per 

quarter.

Worker categories. As we discussed at the January 

9, 2020 Work Group meeting, we will assume -- we 

can't clearly separate out all maintenance workers 
20

or we can't be assured that we have separated out 

all maintenance workers. So we will assume that all 

individuals that -- all claimants will get the same 

exposure in this. So if you are an administrative 

person, you are going to get the same exposure 

that the maintenance workers are going to get.

So in summary, Table 4 in our response paper 

summarizes the maximum annual dose estimates, 

and we've recreated that. I want to point out that 

these doses, the internal doses are a CED, 

committed effective dose. They would be converted 

to an organ-specific dose depending on cancer 

location for each claimant.

So if you look at these doses again, as we pointed 

out previously, when you look at even using the 

95th percentile on the contamination surveys and 

the external exposures and such, I still have a very 

low exposure, a total of roughly 153 millirem. And if 

you look at today's current regulations, they do not 

require monitoring unless you have the potential to 

exceed 100 millirem. So this is just barely above 

that exposure potential.

So our last comment that we got was concerning 

potential disturbances at the burial ground. On 

January 12, NIOSH received an email and a 

document, Burial Site Operations. This appeared to 

be a document that was generated by a Work Group 

Member -- I'm not sure -- concerning items to be 

discussed at the next Work Group meeting.

One of the concerns was whether soil disturbances 

at the burial ground would compromise the date 

obtained for the burial ground and whether that 

would affect any of the models used to bound 

exposures at Metals and Controls.

DCAS/SC&A/WG Discussion of Disturbance of Burial 

Ground

Mr. Rutherford: So we addressed this, as I stated 

earlier, in a separate memo, Response to Comments 

Related to Soil Disturbances at the Burial Ground.
21

We reviewed this document. The document provided 

some background in operations at the burial 

ground. The document included a number of 

excerpts from Sowell in 1985 and a CPS Report in 

1993.

Some of these are the Metals and Controls burial 

areas located between Buildings 11 and 12. Burials 

were made from 1958 to '61. The site was closed in 

'67.

Records indicate two known burials, one in 1958 of 

contaminated ductwork and one in 1961 of 28.4 

millicuries of the enriched uranium non-combustible 

scrap.

The formal burial waste site was believed to have 

operated from approximately 1958 through '61. 

However, materials found during the 1992 

excavation suggests that the first burial may have 

occurred in the early '50s.

A topographical study indicates that as much as 3 to 

4 meters of dirt may have been removed from the 

burial area during the construction of Building 12.

So the conclusion in this paper was that debris 

buried in the burial site was not representative of 

the radioactive materials -- uranium and thorium --

handled throughout the AWE operational period but 

was a selective sample of those materials, largely 

from 1958 to '61 near the top of the burial area 

trench.

Somebody has their mute off. Furthermore, the 

ground covering of the burial site appears to have 

been disturbed during the construction of Building 

12. And, again, I think this was a Work Group 

Member's conclusion.

Thank you, Court Reporter.

So our response, we developed six separate 

exposure models. The burial ground data was used 

for the outside subsurface exposure model. We used 
22

594 lines of burial site data from the radiological 

survey of the Texas Instrument site, and we 

blended them with data from other outside areas 

into a 2,391-line spreadsheet used to determine 

exposure.

So the burial ground data contributes a small 

amount of the data to one of our six exposure

models. We reviewed the entire outside subsurface 

model data to determine if the burial ground 

samples are significantly different from the rest of 

the samples.

And we found that all of the outside areas' data 

were consistent, making sense because the site 

grading in 1968 was responsible for much of the 

contamination on the other parts of the site.

So we had looked at two reports. One report 

indicated that the final grading at the conclusion of 

the Building 12 construction project in 1968 

distributed a thin layer of contaminated material in 

the southeasterly direction from the source at the 

former burial site location.

Okay. So we got a grading at the completion of 

Building 12, which was right at the beginning of our 

residual period. And the same report indicated 

contaminated debris was uncovered during the 

installation of a buried compressed air line between 

Buildings 11 and 12 in 1980.

The second report also indicated that the Metals and 

Controls surveyed the area southeast of Building 12 

and found slightly elevated levels of radioactivity.

Metals and Controls determined the contamination 

was likely from dirt removed from the burial site 

when the air line was installed underground in 

1980. The air line debris area was investigated but 

did not require remediation because levels of 

radioactivity detected were below applicable NRC 

release criteria and that's a significant point to bring 

up later.
23

So our conclusion is that we reviewed transcripts, 

SRDB records and identified two documented burial 

area disturbances, the final site grading after 

Building 12 construction in 1968 and the installation 

of a buried compressed air line in 1980.

The site grading at the beginning of the residual 

period has no adverse effect on our survey data 

used by NIOSH in developing exposures because 

the source term remained unchanged.

And the 1980 air line disturbance falls into the 

category of what we had concluded as an outdoor 

subsurface maintenance activity, which our 

exposure model is designed to bound.

If you look at that Figure 1 in that report, it's a 

small footprint of area. And below, and as reported 

earlier, it was below the applicable NRC release 

criteria, which I believe was 30 picocuries per gram 

at the time.

The 30 picocuries per gram is approximately four 

times less than the 95th percentile contamination 

level we had applied in our exposure model.

So our exposure model uses 118 picocuries per 

gram and that activity, we are suggesting was at or 

below the 30 picocuries per gram, so we don't see 

any issue with our current model with those 

activities.

And I believe that's all I had. I apologize for the 

beginning. I dropped my papers.

Chair Beach: Yeah. That would make it a little rough 

to keep going when you drop everything.

Mr. Rutherford: Oh, you aren't kidding. I was 

scrambling trying to find everything.

Chair Beach: Yeah. It's not easy to do a 

presentation when nobody is commenting. So thank 

you for that.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. I had hoped we could go 
24

through each one and stop. But I guess we'll circle 

back so it will be fine.

Chair Beach: Yes, we will. Any questions or 

comments before we move on to the petitioners? 

Everybody is true to their word. We're getting -- so, 

Mike, I guess, do you have a presentation for us or 

comments, I should say?

Petitioners' Comments

Mr. Elliott: Yes. I have some oral comments that I 

would like to make.

So first I want to thank you, Josie, and thank all of 

you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of my 

fellow petitioners with regard to this petition.

In the following remarks, I will comment on just a 

few of the deficiencies in the latest NIOSH response 

paper. By doing so, I hope to demonstrate to the 

Board Members who serve on the Working Group 

that NIOSH's exposure models contain a significant 

number of flawed and biased assumptions and a 

lack of basis in any actual measurement and 

monitoring data for the particular Class of workers 

to whom this SEC petition applies, the M&C 

maintenance workers.

So let's first turn our attention to the NIOSH 

response paper dated January 1, 2021, entitled 

Response to Comment for the M&C Working Group 

Meeting Held on September 2, 2020, which Mr. 

Rutherford just summarized for us.

I will not comment on every NIOSH response, but 

just a couple to make my point. But please note 

that my lack of comment to any one issue does not 

mean I agree with any of NIOSH's responses.

In the NIOSH response to Working Group Comment 

2, one of the points that NIOSH relies on to suggest 

that the 95th percentile concentration in soil was 

conservative is to restate something that Dr. Mauro 

of SC&A asserted during the last M&C Work Group 
25

meeting on September 2, 2020, that the 95th 

percentile concentration in soil corresponds to 1 

percent of natural uranium by weight in soil.

And given the volume of the soil, Dr. Mauro 

estimated that this corresponds to an inventory loss 

of he said tons of uranium. He also said thousands 

and thousands of pounds of uranium from the 

process, something Dr. Mauro suggests that the 

NRC would not allow to happen without shutting 

down the operation.

Dr. Mauro went even further by suggesting that 

"this is almost prima facie evidence that the 

fundamental strategy we're using is extremely 

conservative."

Presumably, the M&C operation was never shut 

down for this reason, but I personally don't know 

whether that's true or not. What I do know to be 

true is a conversation that my co-petitioner, Francis 

Vail, and I both remember having with M&C's NRC 

inspector in the 1980s, [identifying information 

redacted].

In that conversation -- and it could have been the 

early 90s. It was as we were, you know, starting to 

think about -- remember from 1982 until 1992, we 

were trying to figure out how to terminate M&C's 

special nuclear material license. So sometime in 

that decade there, mid-80s to early 90s we had a 

conversation with [identifying information 

redacted].

In that conversation, [identifying information 

redacted] expressed concern about historic 

inventory losses of licensed material at M&C. Jerry 

interrogated us on the subject and urged us to 

reconcile that discrepancy because he feared that if 

we didn't reconcile these losses, it might jeopardize 

M&C's license termination request.

On a related matter, and perhaps in response to 

[identifying information redacted]
26

interrogation, I distinctly remember discussing the 

matter with a fellow facilities employee, a 

gentleman by the name of [identifying 

information redacted], who was a facilities 

planner at the time of our conversation.

But back in the AWE operational time period, Jim 

was a process engineer in the nuclear program. 

When Jim told me that he had been tasked with 

reconciling the inventory losses of licensed material. 

After a thorough investigation, however, Jim was 

unable to reconcile the losses, and he told me he 

reported that to the NRC at that time.

So any suggestions by NIOSH and SC&A that there 

were no significant inventory losses of licensed 

material through the nuclear operations are clearly 

inaccurate.

In the NIOSH response to Working Group Comment 

3, NIOSH is again suggesting that M&C conducted a 

robust program of routine alpha contamination 

surveyed during the HFIR program that extended 

through the first 14 years of the residual period, 

1968 to 1981.

This is largely based on NIOSH's contention that the 

company was strictly adhering to the M&C Health 

and Safety Manual that was in place at the start of 

the residual period.

I have no reason to doubt that such a manual 

existed. But I am highly skeptical that M&C 

remained faithful to it after the AWE nuclear 

operations ceased and only HFIR operations 

remained active.

I don't know any employee, including the 

employees who were onsite during the HFIR 

operational period, with whom I'm still in contact, 

who have any recollection of such a health and 

safety program or manual.

Furthermore, NIOSH would have us believe that 

these routine alpha surveys extended beyond the 
27

boundaries of the HFIR area and throughout all of 

Building 10.

Note that at the last Work Group meeting on 

September 2, 2020, NIOSH presented this 

argument for the first time as evidence that the 

exposure assumptions to the M&C maintenance 

workers are conservative since the alleged routine 

radiological surveys during the HFIR project would 

have detected any significant exposures to the 

general workforce.

As evidence for this, NIOSH recreated the table that 

they say is a summary table of alpha contamination 

surveys compiled as part of the HFIR Environmental 

Monitoring Program. And Mr. Rutherford showed us 

that table and says it came from a TI document 

dated 1979, which by the way is when we were, you 

know, winding down the operation and trying to 

terminate our license.

Now, mind you, NIOSH offers no other information 

about when this data was collected or in what 

context it was used or reported. But one of the 

entries on the table is an area referred to with the 

acronym GMA, which we are told in a footnote 

refers to the general manufacturing area.

In the next footnote, NIOSH tells us that GMA, 

general manufacturing area, is synonymous with 

the clad fuel manufacturing area, or the CFMA, 

where clad special nuclear material was permitted 

to be handled.

Let me just point out this is a huge assumption on 

NIOSH's part, which may or may not be true.

Then to cap off the argument that the alpha surveys 

were conducted throughout all of Building 10 during 

the first 14 years of the residual period, NIOSH 

inserted Figure 1 entitled, "Building 10 Floor Plan 

Layout 1982."

The drawing, which is indeed dated October 18, 

1982, shows a layout of the building with the clad 
28

fuel manufacturing area extending from one end to 

the other -- we just saw that in Mr. Rutherford's 

presentation -- in other words occupying most of 

the building.

I am compelled to point out that this floor plan 

layout that was clearly drawn in 1982 does not, 

however, represent the layout of the building in 

1982. I suspect it was drawn in support of M&C's 

request to terminate Special Nuclear Material 

License Number 23 that coincided more or less with 

this time period.

As anyone who worked at M&C knows, except for 

the relatively small area that housed the HFIR 

project, Building 10 was repurposed shortly after 

the nuclear operation ceased for non-nuclear 

manufacturing.

In 2019, I conducted a personal interview with 

[identifying information redacted], one of the 

former Nuclear Program Contract Managers to get a 

sense of the transition after nuclear operations 

ceased, AWE operations ceased in 1967.

Dick emphasized two things. The repurposing was 

done quickly, and it was done without much 

attention or care to the decontamination process.

Then in a very short period of time, certainly by 

1970, Building 10 had been completely repurposed 

for non-nuclear operations. The majority of the 

building was dedicated to the wire manufacturing 

department. But in addition to that, other 

manufacturing areas that occupied smaller areas 

within the building included PTC or otherwise known 

as positive temperature coefficient line, billet 

jackets, coinage.

In addition, there were support operations such as a 

machine shop, R&D labs, metrology and 

metallurgical labs, a maintenance supply storage 

area and, of course, the facilities and construction 

maintenance workshop and offices that the M&C 

maintenance workers called home.
29

In the footnote that I referenced above prior to 

Figure 1, NIOSH tells us that the general 

manufacturing area was synonymous with the clad 

fuel manufacturing area.

Clearly, NIOSH would like us to believe that the 

alpha surveys during the HFIR project must have 

extended throughout the entire building. 

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the 

truth, and I find it somewhat disingenuous to 

suggest that alpha radiation surveys were being 

conducted outside the HFIR area that would have 

detected any significant contamination experienced 

by the general population, including the M&C 

maintenance workers.

To prove my point, I asked my [identifying 

information redacted]to comment on the 

suggestion that radiation surveys were conducted 

on a monthly basis throughout Building 10 between 

1968 and 1981.

Please recall that [identifying information 

redacted] dates of employment started as early as 

1969 and more importantly between 1973 and 

1976, he worked exclusively in Building 10 as a 

Wire Department machine operator and helper. 

That's immediately adjacent to the HFIR area.

Then after 1976, he switched to the facilities 

organization, where he started out as a lubrication 

oiler, mostly working in Building 10. And later he 

advanced within the facilities organization to 

industrial pipefitter that also entailed significant 

amounts of time working in Building 10.

The following is an excerpt of an email that John 

shared with me on this subject. "I worked in 

Building 10 exclusively in the early 70s. I worked 

just outside of HFIR in the Wire Department on a 

variety of equipment, for example the copper 

aluminum binding lines, copper scrub lines, FX 

machine and 125 machine billet prep, et cetera. I 

do not recall even one instance of being monitored 
30

nor do I recall ever seeing any other employees 

being monitored.

Routine radiological monitoring monthly or 

otherwise would, in my humble opinion, be a myth. 

I returned to TI in June of 1976. Within about three 

months, I started a job in the maintenance 

lubrication department and worked almost 

exclusively in Building 10 with a lubrication and oil 

storage area set up right behind the FX machine, 

abutting the HFIR east wall.

I entered the HFIR area approximately weekly to 

two times monthly to lubricate machinery. At some 

point, [identifying information redacted], and 

as far as I know the only person who did any 

radiological monitoring, questioned me about going 

in there, and there being HFIR. Why? For how long? 

Sometime following that, several weeks or a couple 

months, he told me it was determined monitoring 

was not necessary.

So once again, I was never monitored. I should 

mention also during the same time period I spent 

much time in the Building 10 wire department 

working in, behind and under machinery as well as 

on the Building 10 roof to do maintenance on 

equipment.

Working as a lubrication technician and later as a 

plumber/pipefitter into the early 80s, I never 

received any radiological monitoring."

So just before the call, I fired off an email to 

[identifying information redacted]. And I said, 

[identifying information redacted], besides 

personal monitoring, do you remember any swipe 

samples of the areas in which you were working? 

And he said, no, absolutely not.

So even if there was some type of radiological 

surveys outside the footprint of HFIR during the 

residual period, it certainly wasn't very effective.

One has only to reference the Westing report from 
31

October of 1996 entitled, Remediation of Building 

Materials, Buildings 4, 5 and 10 to see how much 

contamination was missed throughout the interior of 

Building 10 during the earlier decontamination and 

routine radiological surveys either before, during or 

after the AWE operations and HFIR project.

Indeed, if you refer to the section of the Westing 

Building Materials Report that addresses special 

features, you will find several of the sumps and 

trenches in the same places -- in the same pieces of 

the wire department manufacturing equipment that 

[identifying information redacted] listed as 

equipment that he worked on.

Even within the HFIR manufacturing area, the 

routine radiological surveys must not have been 

very effective. I have previously testified on the last 

call or the one before about loose particulate metal 

fines that I observed around a drain plug in the floor 

of the former HFIR area during the 1990s nuclear 

decommissioning project.

These shiny metallic fines exhibited elevated 

radiation as, you know, measured by handheld 

sodium iodide detectors and G-M pancake probes. 

Those, I guess, are the direct measurements that 

Mr. Rutherford was referring to. These were used by 

our health physics technicians for the 

decommissioning project. 

This contamination was right at the surface and 

readily visible to the naked eye. So how did that 

evade these, you know, routine radiological surveys 

that they were conducting?

So I for one don't know exactly what type of 

radiological monitoring may or may not have been 

performed during the HFIR project nor do I know 

whether it did or did not adhere to health and safety 

protocols written in a manual that existed at the 

end of the nuclear operational period, the AWE 

operational period, circa 1967.

But I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty, 
32

NIOSH certainly doesn't know either. And if they 

were honest, they would say so. But instead, they 

create this entire fictitious narrative without any 

hint of uncertainty or doubt that supposedly 

describes site conditions that they have no firsthand 

knowledge of and suggests that this provides 

further evidence of the conservative nature of their 

exposure model assumptions.

I hope the Board Members see the hypocrisy of 

NIOSH's argument.

I think we need to take the same skeptical eye to 

everything NIOSH purports to be evidence of 

conservativeness in their exposure model 

assumptions from the use of the 95th percentile 

uranium concentrations in drain surveys, almost 8 

times less than the highest actual concentration 

measured in 1995, which, by the way, was detected 

nearly 30 years, at least after deposition, and was 

not located in the footprint of the HFIR area. So it 

would have received no further contributions, you 

know, of HFIR -- source term from a HFIR 

operation.

If anything, it only decayed and was diluted by nonnuclear sediment. To the lack of isotopic thorium 

measurements in soils and sediment during the 

drain survey to all the other assumptions, or 

perhaps it would be more accurate to say guesses, 

that form the basis of the source term data, 

surrogate data, occupancy rates and modifications 

of existing technical bulletins that are incorporated 

into the numerous exposure models that NIOSH has 

developed, and after all this uncertainty, NIOSH still 

has the boldness to suggest that, "NIOSH believes 

that all of the models presented herein adequately 

bound exposures experienced by M&C workers 

during this new period."

I think I understand the origin of NIOSH's bold 

assertion and their unwillingness to acknowledge 

any uncertainty or to waver one bit from their long 

held position. It's pretty clear to me that NIOSH 
33

formed a pre-conceived idea of the outcome of this 

petition evaluation even before they issued the first 

petition evaluation recommendation.

This was readily apparent in the NIOSH original 

Petition Evaluation Report in 2016 when they 

publicly stated their recommendation to deny the 

petition. Since then they have felt compelled to dig 

in even deeper to defend their original position and 

make assumptions and assertions to support their 

original position.

At this point, NIOSH is unable to be objective and 

consequently their assumptions and narratives must 

be seen in that light.

Unfortunately, SC&A, which theoretically could take 

a more objective role as arbiter, has instead chosen 

to assume more of a collaborative role helping 

NIOSH defend their original recommendation.

With the exception of one honest admission in May 

of 2018 by Dr. Mauro that, "it is a stretch" to say 

that there was sufficient measurement monitoring 

data to estimate a bounding dose to this Class of 

workers, SC&A has never really questioned NIOSH's 

position that it can estimate the bounding dose.

Rather, SC&A has contributed to completely 

fictitious fabrications of exposure model 

assumptions such as the HVAC inhalation rates and 

the like.

I find it hard to believe that when Congress inserted 

the SEC provision into the EEOICPA in 2000 that 

this is what they intended. I cannot believe that 

Congress intended for NIOSH to go to such lengths 

to literally fabricate data and exposure assumptions 

to deny SEC petitions to workers for whom there 

exists no measurement or monitoring data for that 

particular Class of workers.

The SEC petition for M&C maintenance workers in 

my opinion is exactly what Congress had in mind 

when they included this provision in the Act.
34

I hope the Board Members will take a broader view 

and consider what Congress intended with this 

provision. And having done so, I hope the Board 

Members serving on this M&C Working Group will 

recommend to the larger Advisory Board to exercise 

its statutory authority under the enabling statute to 

recommend addition of the M&C maintenance 

workers as a Class of workers recognized under the 

Special Exposure Cohort provision of the EEOICPA.

Thank you for your careful consideration of my 

testimony. And with that, I conclude my remarks 

today.

Chair Beach: Alright, Mike. Thank you so much. I 

appreciate you taking your time. I know you had to 

take the day off to be able to be with us here today, 

so thank you for that. Are there any other 

petitioners that you know of that would like to make 

comments?

Mr. Elliott: Well, my colleague, William "Rusty" 

Lorenzen is on the line. I don't know for sure if he 

has any comments. But he's the health physicist 

who has been certainly providing us some 

assistance with our petition. So if we could maybe 

just ask Rusty if he has anything to say.

Mr. Lorenzen: Thanks, Mike. I certainly have no 

more directed comments. But I think your 

statement really summarizes my directed comments 

to the fact that the evidence really isn't there in my 

eyes to support this.

I mean, it seems to me that the approach seems to 

be if we don't find the evidence, there's no 

exposure. It should be the other way around. It's 

not a client favorable approach.

You know, why is it that we can't exclude exposures 

occurred because we don't have sound, scientific 

evidence? It seems like we're working backwards.

And I certainly appreciate the fact that you 

mentioned the subsurface sample that was used to 
35

justify the ability to determine internal exposures. 

Like you said, it wasn't the highest value found and 

the sample was not taken for the purpose of trying 

to determine exposures. So to use that as the only 

method for determining internal exposures seems 

unjustified to me.

And just to speak briefly about the burial ground 

gross alpha data, I feel that's biased low as areas 

identified by other radiological devices, because of 

their high activity, were not sampled for alpha 

contamination. We had other methods to do that. 

So all that data certainly is biased low.

And there were no alpha samples taken during my 

tenure there during the cleanup of areas that were 

high because there was no need to justify they were 

contaminated because we used other techniques to 

find the contamination. So that data is not all 

inclusive and to me is biased low.

And just one statement about that measurement 

technique, the gross alpha measurement technique 

that was used during the remediation efforts, were 

in no way scientifically validated for use for absolute 

contamination values for mixed isotopes, samples of 

uranium and thorium or just thorium.

These are measurements and the techniques used 

to derive only for the intent to determine the extent 

of excavation. They were not in any way justified for 

use or have any scientific validity for use beyond 

that, particularly to support or not support workers' 

exposures during the remediation period or the 

post-residual period.

Just a couple comments from me. But, Mike, I think 

you summed it up quite well. I totally agree with 

what you stated. Thank you.

Chair Beach: And thank you, Rusty, for your 

comments. We do appreciate them. And any other 

commenters from petitioners? Mike, is that all you 

think is on the line and would comment?
36

Mr. Elliott: Yes. I'm not aware of anyone else.

Chair Beach: Thank you. Okay. So, LaVon, as we 

move back through the slides, would you man the 

slides and forward them? Would that be okay to ask 

you to do that?

Mr. Rutherford: Why certainly. That would be fine. I 

can do that. Hold on.

Chair Beach: And as LaVon is getting those up, is it 

okay if we work until about 12:30 and then take a 

quick break? Is everybody in agreement with that? 

Just say no if you're not otherwise we'll assume 

everybody agrees to that.

Mr. Rutherford: Can everyone see my --

Chair Beach: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: -- desktop?

Chair Beach: It's up.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Alright. There we go. Where 

would you like me to start?

Chair Beach: Well, there might be times when 

you're going to need to switch over to that table 

that you put up.

Mr. Rutherford Okay.

Chair Beach: But at this point, I would just start 

with the first slide, and we can go through them at 

that point.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: Okay. And I don't want you to have to 

rehash each one of these slides other than if we 

have questions.

So starting with Worker Comments 1, probably on, 

yes, Slide 3. And so any comments to start with? It 

might be nice if you would just summarize the slide 

briefly, I guess, to get the conversation started, I 
37

guess. It's a little difficult when you do it the way 

we did it, but.

DCAS/SC&A/WG Review and Discussion

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. Yes. That's alright. I can 

summarize them. Okay. So we started out the first 

comment was on the exposure model -- does the 

exposure model bound bases for all fires? And there 

was a comment by one of the Work Group Members 

that expressed concerns there were additional fires 

that we hadn't taken into consideration.

And so we went through on this slide and discussed 

-- we went back and looked at interview summaries 

and identified where workers talked about fires or 

explosions and summarized it in these first two 

slides.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: And then we also indicated we 

looked at SRDB reports. But we concluded that we 

felt that nothing that we had read gave us any 

reason to change our current position on fires. That 

a fire that would have occurred in Building 10 as 

was discussed earlier, the sediment and debris that 

would be generated by the fire would only dilute the 

specific activity concentration in the HVAC filter, 

such that it would mean that our model was even 

more claimant favorable.

Chair Beach: Okay. And I know that was my 

comment earlier on. I think that last bullet, your 

conclusion, my only comment on that was the 

maintenance workers -- and the reason I brought 

up the fires in the first place is because some of the 

locations where the fires were, in a manhole, I 

believe, one of the interviewees said --

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: -- you know, the roof. My concern with 

that was the contamination that may have been in 

those areas, and the workers had to go back into 
38

them and clean up after the fire so.

Mr. Rutherford: And I understand that concern. 

However, we believe that the actual, the electrical 

manholes and the bus ducts and such like that 

would actually have less contamination in them than 

the main processing area. So we believe that there 

would be less exposure in those areas.

Chair Beach: Okay. Any other comments on this 

first?

Member Anderson: Yes. This is Andy. I mean, that's 

an assumption. I mean, is there any data to indicate 

that's true?

Mr. Rutherford: And that's --

Member Anderson: Like there wouldn't have been 

material that had settled down and gone down in 

the manholes when there was a fire would be rather 

explosively circulated at that time?

Mr. Rutherford: I don't know that we have actual 

contamination data. I will actually have to ask our 

ORAU counterpart, Pat McCloskey, if he knows of 

any contamination data specifically from the 

manholes.

Member Anderson: For any of the fires, were there 

any measurements made?

Mr. McCloskey: So the manholes -- hi. This is Pat 

McCloskey. The manholes were located -- had some 

fires located between Buildings 10 and 4. And that 

was not a location that showed up on any of the 

outdoor surveys as an area with high levels of 

contamination. In fact, none of the outdoor areas 

had high levels of contamination.

Although, Josie, the bus ducts in Building 4, Building 

4 was not an area that we had much concern for, 

really. But Josie brought up a good point with the 

roofs. We do have survey data up there.

And we do not know that there was a response 
39

performed to your point, to that roof, during the fire 

itself. And that contamination data for the roof is 

not significantly higher than -- it wasn't significantly 

higher compared to any of the other areas. So 

that's what I can say about survey data. I hope that 

answers your question.

Member Anderson: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. So we don't have actual data 

from when they responded to the fire because they 

did not -- we aren't assuming that they did any 

surveys or anything. We don't have any surveys 

from that. The only reason we believe that it would 

have been lower is because of what Pat had 

indicated.

Chair Beach: Hey, LaVon. Remind me where is the 

remediation, the metals and recovery area? What 

area was that in?

Mr. Rutherford: Oh, geesh.

Chair Beach: Do you know?

Mr. Rutherford: No, actually I don't know.

Mr. McCloskey: The metals recovery area was just 

outside Building 5, the old day care center area.

Chair Beach: Okay. Because I know they found 

quite a bit of uranium out there in the soil. So I 

wasn't sure if that contributed.

Mr. McCloskey: That was considered in part of our 

outside area. That data was combined with all of the 

outside areas, including the waste area, and they're 

all listed in the White Paper.

Chair Beach: Yes. There was a report. It was dated 

March 20, 1997. I believe Mike Elliott -- oh it was to 

Mike Elliott, and it was talking about all the different 

sites after they finished their final surveys.

And I believe in '93 and '94, they did come up with 

17,000 picocuries in that area. And I guess my only 
40

comment would be that if there's no survey data, 

then how can NIOSH conclude that there's no 

potential for exposures? And I know you might not 

be able to answer that. So go ahead.

Mr. McCloskey: Well, I mean, we heard Mr. Elliott 

say before that they -- you know, after they started 

chasing the contamination around the site, they did 

a comprehensive look at the site and went into any 

area that they thought could have contamination to 

get their license released.

So I would believe that, you know, they tried to find 

contamination everywhere they could, including, 

you know, manholes, if necessary. We know they 

surveyed other buildings.

Chair Beach: So you would think, but we don't have 

any conclusive evidence of that at this point, 

correct?

Member Anderson: And no measurements.

Chair Beach: No measurements, there you go. No 

measurements.

Member Anderson: I mean, if they did a survey and 

we don't have any results that's not much different 

than if they never did a survey, and they should 

have.

Mr. McCloskey: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, I think what we're losing track 

of is we're talking about fires at this point. And this 

is during the residual period. So this is not 

contributing any new radiological material to this 

one. It might be redistributing it slightly, but it's not 

adding to anything. Nothing was added to these 

fires.

Chair Beach: So, Rose, I understand what you're 

saying. But I also brought this up because the 

individual interviews said they had to go back in and 

cleanup the areas or rework areas because of the 
41

fire so on the roof, in the manholes, wherever that 

was. So I think it's not just because of the fire but 

because of the actual cleanup afterward that the 

maintenance personnel would have had to have 

done so that wasn't --

Mr. Rutherford: But Rose makes a very good point 

in the fact that the source material hadn't changed. 

Operations had concluded in '67, and the source 

material for exposure concerns had not changed. 

And so we weren't adding any additional 

contamination or such during that operation.

Ms. Gogliotti: Josie, to clarify, are you suggesting 

that when they went back in they were removing 

source term and that's your concern that perhaps 

the later time period surveys -- what was there 

before because it was removed?

Chair Beach: Well, I don't think they ever did any 

surveys of those areas. So I guess my point mostly 

is the men working in that area, or women, they 

may have been exposed to that potential source, 

contamination source. And we wouldn't have any 

idea what that was because there was never any 

surveys done.

Dr. Mauro: This is John Mauro. I'd like to jump in a 

little bit also.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Dr. Mauro: Okay? Yes. When I read through LaVon's 

presentation and the issue of fires and explosions 

during the period and the potential that those could 

have generated aerosols with airborne uranium 

concentrations that were well above those that were 

estimated based on just the classic resuspension 

factor using the 1968-69 survey data so that could 

be something very important.

So the way I thought about it is if in fact there were 

pockets where the contamination level, let's say you 

mentioned manholes or their native fuel were a 

fairly highly concentrated uranium and they were 
42

engaged, involved in these fires, what you would 

have created is a short-term period where the 

airborne concentrations during the course of the fire 

and perhaps shortly thereafter would have been 

elevated substantially above the concentrations that 

are used for the classic resuspension factor 

scenario.

So what I would like to just leave everyone with is 

unless there is affirmative information that yes 

there were locations where there were unusually 

large amounts of uranium residual during the 

residual period and they may have been involved in 

the fire, I would argue that there's this 

redistribution issue. Of course, that argues against 

that being an issue. 

But there is the opposite that I would say would be 

a problem because during the course of the fire, the 

uranium would have become airborne. And if there 

were such pockets of elevated levels of uranium 

that differed substantially from the activity that was 

observed from the surveys, the dpm per centimeter 

squared surveys, yes, then that would be a real 

issue. 

The doses could not be reconstructed because that 

would say that well, we don't know what that was. 

We know that it had the real potential to be a very 

high localized concentration for a short period of 

time. And if it turns out it's plausible that those 

exposures could substantially increase the doses as 

compared to what we are doing, well, you got 

yourself a problem.

So I guess my perspective was after listening to the 

conversation I just heard that there in fact really 

weren't any pockets where the level of 

contamination in dpm per centimeter squared or 

inventory in terms of grams of uranium that was 

residual and left behind, that didn't exist.

As long as you can say that with a degree of 

confidence based on a literature review, I think this 

becomes a non-issue. But if it looks like there's 
43

affirmative evidence that, no, there really were 

some places where it was really high, and high I 

mean approaching the concentration of natural 

uranium, then it is an issue and certainly should be 

at play in SEC decision-making. I hope that helps.

Chair Beach: Okay. Thanks, John. Oh, go ahead.

Dr. Taulbee: This is Tim. One thing that I want to, 

you know, point out here is as Rose had indicated 

as well, we haven't added any material here. We do 

have surveys at the end of the operations. I believe 

it's '68, '69. Team correct me if I'm wrong here, but 

we have surveys at that time period.

And I believe what I was hearing Pat saying is that 

there didn't appear to be any of these pockets of 

contamination where this survey data was 

significantly higher in some locations versus others.

So from that standpoint, you know, even if there is 

a fire in one of these locations, based upon that 

survey, that's what's being resuspended here. 

There's nothing new being added.

Member Anderson: But the manholes that Pat 

commented here, they were never surveyed. So we 

don't know if there were materials that accumulated 

there.

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, there are certainly materials 

that accumulated. But since they weren't directly 

handling radiological materials in the manholes as 

far as we know, we wouldn't expect there to be a 

high contamination level there.

Dr. Taulbee: Exactly. That's my reaction, too. I 

mean, in the electrical manholes, you're not going 

to be handling uranium at that point.

Dr. Mauro: This is John again. I have one more 

perspective that goes towards this issue but also 

another issue that Mr. Elliott brought up. And you'll 

see how they're related.
44

Mr. Elliott pointed it out that the surveys that were -

- the swipe surveys that characterize the surface 

contamination, we have all been operating that was 

a fairly comprehensive survey. And originally, you 

may not remember, when NIOSH did the 

reconstruction of the doses, the nuclear 

resuspension of this widespread low level 

contamination, they used the upper 95th percentile 

level and on that basis came up with an upper end 

inhalation dose from this resuspension. Okay?

So, now, what I see here is that what happened 

after that is SC&A did an independent analysis. And 

our position was well, if you have a comprehensive 

characterization surface contamination, you don't go 

with the upper 95th percentile. And this is classic. 

We've done this many, many, many times.

And you want to know, okay, we know we've got 

residuals, this widespread contamination on 

surfaces and that there could be resuspension 

during the residual period to people who are at 

various locations at various times where sometimes 

it might be high and sometimes it might be low.

SC&A's position has always been, and I believe by 

way of previous experience, you go with the median 

concentration, not the upper 95th percentile 

because it's just not plausible that people would 

always be exposed to resuspension for over a period 

of many years to the upper 95th percentile level 

because they're not located at that location all of 

the time.

Now that being said, if in fact it turns out that Mr. 

Elliott is correct that the surveys that were 

performed did not really cover every area. There 

may be areas of interest that were not covered.

Then I say to myself maybe if that is true, I'm not 

saying it's correct or not, maybe you go back to the 

95th percentile as opposed to the average because 

that was the original profile NIOSH used. It was 

SC&A that came in and said back off. That's not how 

we do it. We always go with the average when it 
45

comes to this resuspension issue.

Now what we have here now is an interesting 

convergence of the explosion issue. So what we're 

saying is, oh, okay. Well, wait a minute there were 

some fires and explosions. And perhaps they 

occurred in places where the levels might have been 

a little higher than the average. And, you know, if 

they were more or less in -- and the contamination 

level was more or less within the range of the data, 

the swipe data that was collected. There was a fire 

that involved that, well, it's a nonissue.

But if it turns out that the fires could have occurred 

in locations where for some reason one believes 

that the levels were in fact elevated for some 

reason and did not represent the average, well, now 

we have a scenario where perhaps working with the 

95th percentile would give us some insight. And 

maybe taking the two together now, I'm really 

taking the two separate issues together, one is the 

concern about buyers and the other is the concern 

about do the surveys that were performed, are they 

complete and a good representation of the entire 

area?

I would argue that if there are questions about 

those that we go back to the 25, we got back to the 

95th percentile. You know, that is yet to be 

resolved, of course, whether or not Mr. Elliott's 

characterization of the limitations of the swipe 

surveys. If that's true then, I would argue that in a 

way the issues involved wants us to determine, yes, 

there's some validity here. Yes, we really didn't 

characterize it as fully as we should have or could 

have that the characterization wasn't -- well, maybe 

you move back to the 95th percentile of 

contamination level as being the baseline to operate 

from. And thereby you sort of kill two birds with one 

stone. You deal with the issue of the fires and you 

also at the same time deal with the issue of, well, 

the survey data, the swipe data, what, was in fact 

not complete. You might have missed areas that 

could be important.
46

So all I'm offering now is a perspective on strategies 

to deal with this issue if in fact it turns out that 

everyone agrees, yes, there could have been 

localized areas where there might have been some 

elevation of contamination that is not well 

represented by the average or median value that 

was adopted for use for this particular scenario. I 

hope that's helpful.

Member Kotelchuck: John, I thought that -- John 

Mauro.

Dr. Mauro: Yes?

Member Kotelchuck: I thought that Mr. Elliott said 

that there weren't alpha measurements done in 

Building 10 at all except in the HFIR area, which he 

argued was A, not covered, and B, separated off 

physically from the rest of the building. And he 

really -- I thought he was really arguing we don't 

have subsurface alpha or alpha in Building 10. Am I 

misunderstanding him or --

Ms. Gogliotti: We do have alpha samples at the end 

of the operational period.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. Okay. And by the way, 

since I'm asking, we're really confident that those 

measurements were made after the cleanup had 

occurred. I mean, M&C tried to do a cleanup at the 

end of the operational period of course. I don't 

know what period of time they spent on that, but 

the data that we have really is from -- is postcleanup, right? Well, I'm just asking to confirm that 

that's the case.

Ms. Gogliotti: Those are pre-cleanup.

Chair Beach: So you're talking about the swipe 

samples that were taken in '64, '68. I think there 

was one document that said '69 on it. You're talking 

about those swipe samples, is that correct --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.
47

Chair Beach: -- that are in the SRDB?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Chair Beach: Is that correct, Rose?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes. We have swipe samples at the 

end of the operational period --

Chair Beach: So most --

Ms. Gogliotti: -- before it was cleaned up. So it 

didn't get higher than that ever.

Chair Beach: So are you talking about the same 

ones, like the lunch room, the locker room, the 

machine shop.

Ms. Gogliotti: No. Those are HFIR surveys. We have 

--

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Chair Beach: Which ones are you talking about then 

just so I know the difference.

Ms. Gogliotti: The ones that were used in the 

original ER. There's swipe samples, I believe, in the 

late 60s.

Chair Beach: Yes. And those are reported in the 

HVAC swipe samples also in that slide.

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes. I believe those are the same.

Chair Beach: Those are the same. Okay. Because a 

lot of those basically -- most of them are '64 to '66. 

There's very few of them that I could find that were 

in the later or the '68, '69 time frame. And it would 

be a leap to say that some of the ones that are 

illegible that you can't read could possibly be a 9.

Okay. So those are the samples you're talking 

about.
48

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Okay.

Chair Beach: Okay. Any other comments on 

Comment 1?

Member Anderson: Yes, just one more. I mean, 

throughout this there's a lot of use of the 95th 

percentile as being, you know, an exceedingly 

important number.

And for me the issue really is how comprehensive 

and representative is the data upon which that's 

used to generate the 95th percentile if that data is -

- we're not very confident in that, that it's 

comprehensive or truly representative. And the 95th 

percentile has the same uncertainty to it. So that's

just a comment.

The second one here is you're talking here that the 

existing resuspension exposure models that are 

being used bound any of the fire reserve explosions 

commented here. Would those models include data 

from measurements of such events? Was it really an 

exposure model that was supposed to include --

including these kind of adverse short-term events 

that occurred? I can't see that in the writeups about 

these as to --

Mr. Rutherford: Let me respond to that.

Member Anderson: Were they dependent upon 

those kind of exposures?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. It is intended to bound 

exposures. We are not going to have data from the 

existing fires when they occurred, not activity 

concentrations, not anything of that nature. That's 

not going to be there.

So what you have to do is decide whether your 

models will support bounding the exposures from 

those events. And we believe they do because of 

the surveys that were done early on in 1968 and 

the early surveys at post-operations.
49

And, Josie, even some of the surveys that were 

done during operations, again, those are surveys 

that are supported that, you know, we have a 

source term at the end of operations that we're 

identifying in 1968 to start our residual period.

And we use that data to develop that source term. 

So that source term did not grow as we discussed 

over time. And we believe that that survey data is 

comprehensive enough.

I mean, we can go back and look at it and lay 

everything out and lay all the locations that were 

surveyed, all the different spots and everybody can 

look at that if they'd like.

Chair Beach: Okay. Thanks, LaVon, and as we move 

through this I'm sure that will all get discussed 

again.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: Because it will come up in several of 

these comments, I'm sure. Are we okay to move 

on? I'm not hearing closing at this point.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Chair Beach: Okay. On to Slide Number 2, this is 

the reduction in sediment in the drain lines and 

could it have continued after operations?

And I think this goes on for several slides. This was 

something that Bob discussed. And thanks for doing 

that extra work, too, LaVon. I'm looking at the other 

sites. I know this was kind of a complex issue.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. Again, this is -- basically what 

we did was we went back and looked at the number 

of sites that had residual periods. And we looked for 

data to support that we had during operations 

streamlined data and then if we had drain line data 

post-operation or during the residual period, so that 

we could see if there was a reduction in the 

sediment over time.
50

We just didn't have the data to actually make a 

clear conclusion on that. But the one conclusion we 

did make was that all these sites are very similar 

and such that you have a large number of activity 

concentrations that are in the same ballpark of each 

other, and then you have hot spots that are an 

order of magnitude higher than the other ones. And 

so yes, we did look at that.

Chair Beach: Okay. Any comments on this? There 

are several slides on this and so on this very first 

slide, I don't really have a comment. Anyone else?

Member Kotelchuck: No.

Mr. Rutherford: I got us off, didn't I?

Chair Beach: Yes. We're on five right now.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Thank you. Alright. So let me 

go to six.

Chair Beach: Six.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. And then on this slide what I 

indicated was that there was a lot of other 

radiological work that occurred during the AWE 

operational period that was not covered work. And I 

also pointed out that the only operations that

occurred in the residual period -- radiological 

operations which were not covered was HFIR.

And I was pointing out there that you could have 

had contributions to the drain lines from the HFIR 

operations from '67 to '81. And that could have 

added to the source term and that's not covered 

work.

Chair Beach: Yes. That really complicates the issue 

on trying to figure out exactly what is covered and 

what is not. And I know it's, like you said, you can't 

really tell between the two.

Mr. Rutherford: No. No. No, you cannot tell. And we 

always during -- in situations where we have 

uranium work that includes covered work, and then 
51

there's non-covered work that also includes uranium 

work because we can't separate it out. And if we 

cannot come up with a definitive way of separating 

it out, we just include it all.

So in this case, the point was to point out that, you 

know, the source term that we're using here, you 

know, was not only contributed to by the AWE 

covered operations, but it was contributed by a lot 

of other operations that were not covered under this 

program. So we believe that adds to the 

conservatism of our model.

Member Anderson: Just a question to that is: do 

you have evidence that the non-covered activities 

would have contributed higher exposure?

Mr. Rutherford: We have no evidence that they 

contributed higher exposure. We have no evidence 

that they definitely contributed less. But we know 

they contributed a portion of it at some point. And 

so it would be -- you cannot sit here and think that 

every bit of that source term that we're using is 

from the AWE operations, when as reported in that 

1979 document that 80 percent of the radiological 

work that was occurring during the AWE operational 

period was non-covered work in a naval nuclear 

program.

So yes, I don't know the portion that source term 

contributed definitively because you don't. I mean 

we don't know the specific operations and such. But 

we do know that they contributed some. And I see 

that Tim is wanting to talk here.

Dr. Taulbee: Just to add into what you're saying 

there, Bomber. If you look at the original question, 

could a reduction in the sediment of drain lines from 

continued use after operations?

So the AWE operations shut down in 1967. And the 

question was: well could there have been dilutions?

So the samples that we're using in the sediments in 

the latter years had been diluted.
52

That was the original question here. And what 

LaVon is trying to point out here is that if it was 

purely just a dilution scenario then, you know, that 

could be possible.

But in this particular case, we also have additional 

source term from an uncovered operation of HFIR 

that could be adding to it. So it just further backs 

up what LaVon is saying is that this is a bounding or 

a conservative estimate here.

We're not trying to separate out the two. Okay? 

We're not trying to do that at all. What we're saying 

here is there shouldn't be any significant reduction. 

That's just one piece. 

The other piece that he goes into and discusses is 

that they actually found in one of the drain lines 

some uranium fuel rod. So if that's the case, then it 

was not ever removed so there wouldn't be a 

reduction here in that sediment around that area. 

That's the original question.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: Yes, you're right --

Ms. Gogliotti: Because --

Chair Beach: Oh, who was talking?

Ms. Gogliotti: That was me. If I could just clarify 

one thing. Yes, the HFIR was probably contributing 

some to the pipes. But I think it's misleading to say 

it was contributing to all the pipes equally. From the 

pipes maps, we do know which pipes ran under the 

HFIR and which ones ran under other parts of the 

facility.

And the ones that did run under the HFIR, other 

than that 1 million dpm sample that we'll get to, 

those weren't that particularly hot under one area of 

the building. The fuel manufacturing areas were 

where most of the radiological material was found. 

And that's where the fuel pipe was found.
53

Chair Beach: And that was close to Area 7, right?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes. Area 7 is beyond and that would 

be the screen print room, and that is absolutely 

HFIR if you look at the maps.

Chair Beach: Right, right. I agree with that. Going 

back through the source documents, I looked at the 

request for reimbursement. And you can't tell, even 

in Metals and Controls, when they were trying to get 

reimbursement, they couldn't even say what their 

contracts were for. So even during the AEC period, 

it was confusing because the contracts weren't very 

clear either, I believe. So no way to differentiate for 

sure.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, I agree with that. I would point 

out that there were other covered sources, you 

know, that should not be included.

Chair Beach: And just to be clear, that wasn't the 

only fuel rod that was found. There was actually 

another one reported, and interviewee was carrying 

it around in his back pocket showing people. I think 

that was found out in the burial grounds. But I'm 

not 100 percent sure at this point. There was more 

than one rod found, not that it has much to do with 

this but since it was brought up.

Member Kotelchuck: If I may, I --

Chair Beach: Yes. Please do.

Member Kotelchuck: It's not addressing this 

question about the reduction in sediment in drain 

lines. But to me the issue is was the 1995 

operation, did that characterize the 30 years of 

exposure that people had in the subsurface work 

because they were continually both snaking the 

lines but also replacing them.

And I wondered, and the petitioners raised it, could 

there have been another period? Was that a high 

period, a low period? Was it a typical period? A 

representative period when those measurements 
54

were taken? They were taken at one period, relative 

to 30 years, a point period.

And we're going to the 95th percentile of what was 

found then. But what was found in 1995, is that 

characteristic? The exposure was going on for 30 

years. Was the measurement characteristic of the 

entire period?

And all we can say is well we're taking the 95th 

percentile, which certainly suggests that, okay, 

we're trying to take into account that the exposure 

occurred. The exposure at that time was a 

reasonable exposure at that point.

And then we're extending it also by saying, well we 

did that work. Not only did we take 95 percent, but 

the person did that work every day for 30 years, 

which is certainly trying to be claimant favorable. 

But again, was that period in 1995 characteristic of 

the operations in the 30 year period? And that still 

bothers me. I don't know -- it isn't addressed in this 

question, but it lays behind my concerns.

Mr. Rutherford: I'd like to respond a little bit to that.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Mr. Rutherford: If you think about, you know, and I 

went back and I looked at SC&A's, you know, report 

they put out in March last year that summarized 

where we were. And I think that they did a great 

job of laying out the distribution of the samples and 

such, and showing the 95th percentile and the 

discussion on the fact that that 95th percentile is 1 

percent of the natural -- of the specific activity of 

natural uranium.

And if you think about that, 1 percent of the specific 

activity, we're assuming every time they take a dig 

and it rose up in the air, they're throwing out that 

activity concentration. That's used as part of our 

scenario for air.

I mean that is a stretch. It is a real stretch. I mean
55

and it's clearly. I cannot see how you cannot come 

up with that being bounded. It's clearly bounded.

I just I mean I realize the 1995 data is not data 

from 1968. It's not. That's why we use the 95th 

percentile in that situation. And it took into 

consideration some really high activity 

concentrations that were in that soil sample to 

produce that 95th percent confidence level. And so I 

feel very comfortable with that.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Well it is a powerful 

statement, the 1 percent. Mr. Elliott certainly 

criticized that. And I haven't had a chance to -- I 

heard him. But I haven't had a chance to study 

what he said. And I'll see that in the transcript. He 

was arguing, I gather, that source term got lost 

perhaps or they weren't accounting for the full 

source term that disappeared, if you will, in that 

period.

But you're right about the 1 percent. I mean that 1 

percent figure is important and persuasive. And in a 

sense, let's see if it holds up against that specific 

criticism by people who were there and had in many 

cases managerial responsibilities. Okay.

Chair Beach: Well and we're using the 53,225 

picocuries is where you started and got your 95th 

percentile. That's correct, isn't it, LaVon?

Mr. Rutherford: What we used was we used all the 

data, not just that 53,000.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: What we was used was all the data 

and then we drew the 95th percentile out of all the 

data.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Beach: But that was your high point?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.
56

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: And that was exactly where they 

found the fuel pin.

Chair Beach: What was that?

Ms. Gogliotti: That 53,000 number was where they 

found the fuel pin. It was directly surrounding the 

fuel pin.

Chair Beach: Are you sure? I believe that was a 

million at that point.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, no. The million number comes 

from --

Mr. Rutherford: Those were completely different 

units. Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: The million number came from the 

screen program in the HFIR.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: The fuel pin was found underneath 

the fuel manufacturing area.

Chair Beach: Okay. And that just goes back to our 

initial argument was the work that was done in that 

30 year period and was that the high end, or was 

some of that dispersed based on the maintenance 

cleanup activities. I'm not arguing that was the 

higher point, but --

Mr. Rutherford: Well I'll tell you what. You can also 

look at some of the data from the six other sites. 

And that 53,000 was as high or higher than most 

everyone and then I think maybe even as high as 

Mallinckrodt's.

And that tells you that it wasn't going to get much 

higher than that. And it was also -- 53,000 is 

roughly 10 percent of the specific activity, I mean --
57

Member Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Mr. Rutherford: -- and so take that into 

consideration.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: And the NIOSH model also assumes 

that not only the stuff inside the pipes was 

contaminated at that level, but also the soil 

surrounding it, not just inside the pipes.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Everything. And the soil we know is 

wet. And the material in the pipes presumably 

should have been wet also, which means that it 

should not have been leaked into the air at the 

same concentration as if you had a dry dusty soil.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: Okay. Yes, sorry, sorry. What's that?

Mr. Rutherford: I was wondering if we should move 

on or what was --

Chair Beach: Yes, no, my husband walked in, so I 

muted myself so he could tell me what he was 

doing. Okay. So yes, move on please to the next 

slide.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Alright. Why is my thing not -

- oh, there it went. Okay. Again, this next slide was 

discussed on those six sites that we identified the 

documented drain line sediment. And we indicated 

that although we could not tell a specific -- couldn't 

give a real answer to the question of whether the 

actual sediment dropped over time, we did notice a 

consistent pattern that you had a distribution of 

samples around the same, you know, magnitude. 

And then you had some hot spots of specific activity 

so. Was there any questions on this slide?

Chair Beach: None here. Any others?
58

Member Kotelchuck: I assume the six sites, and 

again this is getting back to basic stuff, but I 

assume these six sites were sites where people 

were following the rules of trying to -- of knowing 

that they're working with radioactive materials and 

taking appropriate action.

And one of the central features here is that the 

people here didn't know they were working with 

radioactive material and didn't do the kinds of 

things that would ordinarily be done by, I assume, 

any working person who knows that they're working 

with radiation.

Mr. Rutherford: Well and I think I think --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Kotelchuck, what I --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: -- spoke of just earlier speaks to 

that. Even if the sites were following radiological 

controls and such, if you look at their distribution, 

the data that we provided in that table, and I can 

pull that up if you would like, if you look at the hot 

spot activity, you know, their hot spot activities are 

not much higher or higher than Metals and Controls. 

I mean --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: -- so --

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: -- I don't think it matters on that 

point because it looks like the same amount of 

activity was going down their drains as well as that 

Metals and Controls or very close to it anyway.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Okay. Alright.

Chair Beach: But Mallinckrodt had the highest at 

56,000.
59

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: That was seven samples.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Right. That's true. 

Alright.

Chair Beach: You just have to go back, I think to 

Metals and Controls. Is that typical and 

representative because we only have those samples 

in that later time period?

Member Anderson: It just adds uncertainty, yes.

Chair Beach: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: I think one of the things we could 

do that we didn't do -- I think actually -- do you 

mind if we stop here and let me pull up that 

document, the report?

Chair Beach: No, go ahead.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Mr. Rutherford: Because I think there's -- I've got to 

make sure that -- okay.

Mr. Barton: While you're pulling that up, this is Bob 

Barton. I feel like I should probably comment since 

I kind of broached this subject originally.

The whole concept is if you're continuing to use that 

drain line, is it diluting the concentration of those 

measurements, not necessarily removing them. Of 

course, it would be impossible with replacing of 

piping and snaking and that sort of thing.

And the answer, and I think it is on LaVon's next 

slide, is that, you know, they did a great approach 

at going to those six sites and seeing do we have 

any evidence of drain line material in the 

operational period, and then again in the residual 

period at the same time how much did it possibly 

dilute? And then you could develop a factor to be 

used.
60

And this is an issue that I don't think this applies to 

M&C but is really a programmatic thing that we 

need to think about when we're using something 

like a pipe skill sample.

And the answer was we didn't have that data to be 

able to do a direct comparison. And we really don't 

even have much information about how that 

particular pipe was used after operations. Was it 

used -- you know, that extra material that's not 

covered, was it capped?

And so without that information you can't even 

really come up with a hypothetical on how that 

sediment might have been distributed over time 

over that 30 year period.

So what we're left with is can we create a 

framework using the assumptions and points that it 

represents in my presentation such as, alright, 

we're going to use the 95th percentile as it

appeared in 1995. We're going to turn that 

concentration is all in the subsurface soil not just in 

that hot spot within the pipe. A substantial portion 

of radioactive material at the site was actually not 

covered.

You know, all these things, when put together, is it 

convincing that the exposure is bounding? And that 

really comes down to a judgment call in this case. Is 

it built in enough to overcome uncertainty about if 

that sample was diluted from essentially clean 

sediment plates there over the course of 30 years? 

And that's really what it comes down to. And it is a 

judgment call.

We don't have the information to put a number on it 

to really calculate what the dilution might have been 

if it occurred at all. So I just wanted to throw that in 

there.

And the reason we broached it is not only for Metals 

and Controls, but I believe that this will come up in 

the future at other sites. And it has obviously 

already come up at at least six other sites when 
61

using these measurements and how you account for 

that.

I think that's why there are these conservatisms 

that is clear and favorable assumptions, or at least 

appear to be clear and favorable assumptions, built 

in around that measured concentration just to 

account for the uncertainty because we simply don't 

have good knowledge to quantitatively know how 

much that sediment might have diluted.

Now we can upper bound on it certainly because we 

know it can be more than a specific activity of what 

they handle. Of course, that would be a very 

unrealistic assumption. But you know, you put an 

upper bound on it, and the question again is you 

think it might have been diluted. To what extent we 

really don't know. And do the handle of other 

assumptions and the fact that a lot of it was noncovered material essentially obviate that uncertainty 

so that we can be convinced that we're bounding 

the exposure?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. I agree with Bob that we don't 

know for certain. And I agree with his summation 

there that, you know -- and we believe, we do --

and we, NIOSH, do believe that using that 95th 

percentile and recognizing that one of those 

samples was 90 percent clogged and it, you know, 

included a fuel pin and that our highest activity was 

53,000 -- or Metals and Controls' highest activity 

was 53,000 picocuries per gram.

And when you compare that and you look at 

Mallinckrodt at 56,000, who produced way more 

material and every bit of their operations were 

covered under this program, and they were roughly, 

if I remember, Mallinckrodt's covered period shut 

down in '68 or '69, somewhere around that time 

period. So that was nine years of post-operations. 

And we have that sample.

So you know, the point is that that 53,000 is a large 

number, and it's included in our distribution. And 

there are other high numbers that are right at the 
62

95th percentile that we included, and recognizing 

that 95th percentile is 1 percent of the specific 

activity in natural uranium and assuming that is 

released each time you are doing this subsurface 

work. It seems pretty -- you know, I think we can 

get around not having the exact information.

Chair Beach: Okay. Henry, were you going to say 

something?

Member Anderson: I got cut off.

Chair Beach: Oh, you're back. Good.

Member Anderson: I'm back. I don't know what 

happened. But I resolved it without knowing what I 

did.

Chair Beach: Yes. I don't know if you missed Bob 

and LaVon's comments.

Member Anderson: Some of them.

Chair Beach: Yes, some of them.

Mr. Rutherford: I'm not sure I can reproduce them.

Member Anderson: That's okay. It will be -- I can 

review it.

Member Kotelchuck: You'll have a transcript.

Member Anderson: I can read that part of it. I don't 

need to read the whole thing, yes.

Chair Beach: Okay. So page 6 of the Report and the 

different sites, I guess I wonder what any of these 

sites, LaVon, was there any maintenance work 

being done in the pipes like at Metals and Controls 

where they were refabbing and so they were down 

into those subareas quite a bit?

Mr. Rutherford: I cannot confirm that, you know, I -

- yes.

Chair Beach: I think that keeps going back to what 

maintenance personnel did at Metals and Controls 
63

makes it unusual, even possibly from these other 

sites, so --

Member Kotelchuck: Pardon. Which paper is this 

table in?

Chair Beach: It's in the --

Mr. Rutherford: It's from the -- yes, go ahead. Go 

ahead.

Chair Beach: It's in the January 21, 2021 report, 

which was hard to find, LaVon. I'm going to tell you 

that.

Mr. Rutherford: Really?

Chair Beach: Well I mean I found it, but it was 

down several layers into the O: drive and not 

everybody is as fluent in the O: drive. And I was 

going to bring that up at the beginning, and I 

thought maybe that should have been sent to the 

Work Group and not having us have to go find it in 

the O: drive.

Because remember I had a hard time finding it I 

because I didn't expect it to be buried. I think it was 

down four levels or so into reports. I mean you had 

to really be able to track it.

Mr. Rutherford: I had the specific link. If you put 

that link directly in, you should have gone directly 

to it.

Chair Beach: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: I don't know what happened there. 

I apologize for that.

Member Anderson: I tried that, and it didn't work.

Chair Beach: I tried it, too, so --

Member Anderson: Nice link, but it looked good, but 

-- I think we all --

Dr. Taulbee: These are also posted on our website.
64

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. But I got them the report 

early.

Chair Beach: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: I got that to the Work Group and 

SC&A.

Chair Beach: Yes. And if we waited for it to be 

posted, Tim, we would have been behind on it. So 

anyway, that's just a little information that the link 

doesn't always work, and in this case it didn't. So 

maybe if it could just, the report be emailed to our 

CDC accounts.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: Anyway. Okay. So Slide 9.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. Let me stop sharing on this 

and go back to that.

Chair Beach: Thank you for doing this, LaVon. I 

know it's tough going back and forth.

Mr. Rutherford: That's okay.

Member Anderson: Good practice.

Member Valerio: LaVon, this is Loretta. I have a 

question for you.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Member Valerio: Can you hear me alright?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Member Valerio: So the operations period ceased in 

1968, correct?

Mr. Rutherford: End of '67.

Member Valerio: And I was looking -- okay. Well 

'67. I was looking at some notes back from 2017, 

and this may not apply to the Metals and Controls 

specifically. It was, I believe, a stewardship report 
65

that said that site operations, our work with nuclear 

materials was gradually reduced beginning in 1968 

and terminated in 1974. Is that area just not 

covered at all under the residual period?

Mr. Rutherford: The only covered work that we have 

is as defined by the Department of Energy in this 

situation. It is up through 1967. Now if we uncover 

information that supports that the covered work 

should be extended, we would provide that 

information to DOE and DOL, and they could make 

the final determination as to whether it should be 

extended. So I assume that is not applicable at 

Metals and Controls for this situation.

Chair Beach: Loretta, I wasn't clear what report you 

were referring to. What was it?

Member Valerio: It was a stewardship report. And I 

have a reference ID number. I'll send that to you, 

Josie, in fact I'll go back through all of the SRDB 

and see if I can find it and send that directly to you.

Chair Beach: Oh, that's great.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Valerio: It was in my notes from 2017. I'm 

sorry?

Mr. Rutherford: Would you send that to me too as 

well?

Member Valerio: Yes. I'll go back, and I'll try to find 

it. I've had problems getting into the O: drive as 

well and tracking things down. But I'll go back, and 

I'll try to find it.

Chair Beach: Okay. Yes, and if you just --

Member Valerio: But I do have it in my notes.

Chair Beach: If you just send it to Rashaun, she can 

distribute it.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.
66

Member Valerio: Okay.

Chair Beach: Thank you.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: Okay. Slide 9.

Mr. Rutherford: Slide 9. Okay. This was the issue 

that was concerning the sample that was 1 million 

dpm per 100 centimeters squared that we went 

back and looked for, and we identified the location 

of it. It was during contaminated concrete removal 

at the north site of the screen print room, Area 7.

And it indicates the initiation point of a 4 inch 

vitreous clay main line was encountered. And this 

line exhibited surface contamination as high as a 

million dpm per 100 centimeters squared, and then 

it said although it did not contain a visible 

accumulation of residue. And then it goes on to 

identify the soil concentrations in that immediate 

area.

Chair Beach: Okay. And that's one we feel like 

wasn't disturbed potentially?

Ms. Gogliotti: Sample, this is the one that we were 

talking about earlier? This is the sample, altered, 

whatever you want to call it.

Chair Beach: And it's in Area 7. Okay. I don't have 

anything more on that.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. And this we discussed the --

this is what we discussed how we used that model 

and the reason why that million dpm per 100 

centimeters squared sample was not used.

Chair Beach: Okay. And for me that third bullet, 

although there is potential for isolated hot spots, 

there is no indication of systematic conditions at 

these levels. And what does that just mean? You 

say that when there's no results? Or I guess I'm 

trying to figure out why that bullet point is there.
67

Mr. Rutherford: You know, and what we were saying 

any time you're doing a soil sampling, you know, 

you're sampling an area. You're looking for the best 

-- you know, you grid out an area. You sample it 

and such. There is no guarantee you've gotten 

every spot perfectly, you know. So you know, you 

could come up with a spot that's elevated.

And that's why, you know, you come up with 

different distribution levels based on your 

confidence. And you use those at different levels. 

And then look at what they were doing here with 

that million dpm, that sample.

The idea was to use a direct reading instrument to 

quickly identify potential hot areas. I think if you 

read that 1996 Texas Instrument Report it even 

talks about that specifically what they use it for. 

And then they do the quantification. They remove 

that pipe and they quantify different things, the 

soils around it, so --

Chair Beach: I'm sorry. And remind me, those 

samples for this '95 samples we're taking just -- the 

concrete was still in place, correct, when they were 

doing those measurements? Or was this after they 

had removed some of that?

Mr. Rutherford: No. The concrete was in -- the 

vitreous clay pipe was in place, and it was being 

removed. And they identified this hot location. I 

think if I remember correctly the report says that 

they removed this 12 feet of section of pipe or 

something like that.

Chair Beach: Didn't they do some sampling though 

before they started digging into that subsurface 

area in Building 10 to determine where the hot 

spots may be? Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: Pat McCloskey, could you help me 

on this?

Chair Beach: And the reason I'm asking it, so Pat 

knows, is I, myself, have read so many reports I 
68

don't remember where this one was.

But some of the workers said you're going to find 

the hotter areas where the concrete is new, which 

indicated to me that that was areas where it had 

already been -- maybe the pipe had been clogged, 

and so the maintenance people had to get in there. 

But I would have to go back and figure out where 

that report is. So anyway, go ahead, Pat. Sorry.

Mr. McCloskey: I would be curious to see that, too, 

Josie. I mean if I saw new concrete, I would think 

they dug something up and replaced it, and the hot 

one would have gone away. But I guess it could 

continue to get hotter again.

So as far as what was done in Building 10 for the 

subsurface, first that report will tell you all of this. 

But it says first they did a pilot scale trial run. They 

broke a little bit of the concrete out to see how their 

process would work.

But the majority of the subsurface work that was 

done as part of the remediation in the mid-90s was 

done after the characterization. They did a full 

blown characterization of the subsurface, but there 

was one small section where they broke out pieces 

of the concrete first just to do a pilot study on how 

this operation would proceed. Does that answer 

your question?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes. And that's when they found the 

fuel pin was in the pilot study.

Mr. McCloskey: Yes. And that caused them to go 

into a criticality based study. You know, that's why 

all that characterization was done because primarily 

they were concerned about criticality risk.

Chair Beach: Yes. That was when they determined 

the levels of the pipe one, two, three. That might be 

the report I read that about the concrete, so --

I'll have to find that because I thought that was 

interesting when they said new concrete was where 
69

you were going to find the hot spots. So I'll have to 

go back and find that. Alright. Any other questions 

on this slide?

Member Anderson: Just quickly, what other data 

could be -- I mean you're saying it's appropriate to 

use mass based sample data to characterize the 

exposure environment, which I think is probably 

reasonable. But what other data would be available 

that could have been used or may have been used 

at other sites? Are you talking about this initial 

survey data or yes, what else --

Mr. Rutherford: I think what we were saying was 

that, you know, in situations where we're looking at 

an excavation or digging and such like that, that 

actual soil samples and samples of the material that 

you're digging into and activity per gram is a better 

way to predict the exposure against surface samples 

because surface samples are not looking at any of 

the subsurface environment.

Member Anderson: Do you have a surface --

Mr. Rutherford: Very few surface samples do we 

have on the actual areas that were dug in. Am I 

correct on that, Pat?

Mr. McCloskey: Yes. As far as that characterization, 

you're right. There wasn't a lot of surface scans 

done.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Member Anderson: Okay. Does that -- I mean on 

the surface it's apt to be drier and finer particulates 

so more respirable. But if you don't have it, clearly 

some kind of a mass based sample is a useful tool. 

But if there is alternative data, it would be worth 

seeing what it is and has it ever been used.

Mr. McCloskey: Well if we wanted to model a 

residual period worker just walking across a 

concrete surface, the mechanism of exposure there 

would be his ability to stem the dust. It's lying on 
70

the surface available to become airborne, we think.

But if we're talking about a worker who is pulling up 

chunks of soil, we believe that that's -- that kind of 

exposure is to use the characterization data that 

describes that soil that he's working with. So that's 

basically our thinking there, I believe.

Member Anderson: Yes, I mean I'm agreeing to 

that. I was just wondering this sort of to me implies 

that there might be other methods or 

measurements that could be used. And it really 

doesn't. It isn't. It's the only appropriate use.

Mr. McCloskey: Right.

Dr. Mauro: This is John Mauro. I have a little bit of a 

perspective on this in thinking about it as -- what 

we have here is if we recall when we first had our 

four day meeting with all of the petitioners, what 

that was was we were trying to construct, what are 

all of the scenarios that took place during the 

residual period and sort them out. And as you know, 

we now have maybe five or six different ones, you 

know, for example, the subsurface work in Building 

10, subsurface work outdoors for the rafters, the 

HVAC system.

So what we did is we created scenarios. Now in 

thinking about your 100,000 dpm thing, well okay, 

what's really being said here is oh, we now know 

that there is at least one place, maybe more than 

one where the piping on its internal surface might 

have been quite high. Okay.

So what does that mean to me as a health physicist 

trying to reconstruct doses? Oh, well maybe this is 

another scenario that needs to be looked at. And is 

it possible that during the residual period some 

maintenance and repurposing work went down, 

without knowing it, of course, and this custom pipe 

or conduit that contained levels at that level. So 

that's a new one. It's a new scenario that we didn't 

look at.
71

And I said, well it's possible just like when we talked 

about replacing filters. It's a scenario. And we 

looked at that. And we have our analysis, et cetera.

Well like I said, is that listen. If everyone believes 

that there is a real scenario where someone, a 

worker, repurposing during a residual period 

encountered a pipe that may have had this level of 

contamination inside it, plated out inside, is there a 

need?

So well let's take a look at what kind of doses that

might have been. Then we realize that could have 

been a one-time event, two or three times event. 

We don't know that. But on a per event case, one 

could say, well these are the kinds of doses that you 

might experience for that scenario.

And now are we talking about another scenario that 

needs to be part of the compendium of scenarios 

that we looked at, or is it such that, well, the one 

that we're using already where we're dealing with 1 

percent of the specific activity of natural uranium, 

that more than adequately covers this particular 

scenario.

So to me, what I'm hearing is that this particular 

piece of information is not so much affecting the 

distribution of levels in the 95th percentile and all of 

that. No. It really says well we've got ourselves 

another scenario that we didn't look at, where if one 

believes, and I don't know if this is true or not, that 

there could have been a worker during the residual 

period that went down and happened to cut out a 

piece of pipe or snake a piece of pipe or whatever 

that had that, which is different, that had that 

internal plated out crux on it. Well what kind of 

doses might he have experienced when he 

performed that operation for whatever time period it 

took place? We didn't do that. I don't think NIOSH 

did.

Chair Beach: So John, let me -- can I stop you?

Dr. Mauro: Yes.
72

Chair Beach: We had talked about this from the 

very start of the Working Group calls and meetings. 

The maintenance workers were down unclogging 

those drains for the whole time period on a routine 

basis based on the interview notes. So they did 

mention cutting pipes and putting in new pipes.

They also mentioned when they refabbed that whole 

building, all of the equipment or -- actually 

equipment is not the right word. But all of the 

wiring, everything, they couldn't run it above. They 

had to go into the ground.

So when they moved equipment for all of those 

things that Mike mentioned for the new period, they 

had to be in that subflooring and in those trenches 

that they found in '95 that were contaminated, 

some higher, some lower.

But the problem is we don't know what those 

maintenance workers encountered doing that work. 

And I'm surprised to hear that that wasn't part of 

what you all looked at because we've been talking 

about it for a while.

Dr. Mauro: I believe the pipe --

Ms. Gogliotti: I misspoke. We definitely looked at 

that.

Dr. Mauro: Did we do -- now I know when, you 

know, we did our dose calculations, the rock we 

stood on was that whenever a person was down in a 

hole, for whatever the period of time, the number of 

times he did it, we always assumed that what he 

was dealing with was this 5,000 or 6,000 picocurie 

per gram, 1 percent number. That's what he 

encountered.

No matter where he was, whenever he went 

underground, that's what he encountered and the 

dust loading was 200 micrograms per cubic meter. 

And that's what he was breathing. And we felt that 

was a severely bad circumstance no matter where 

he was subsurface.
73

Now I do not recall whether we said, wait a minute, 

hold it. What about the scenario when it's not that 

he's working with, but it turns out he happens to 

encounter a pipe that has this other contamination, 

which one would call not loose contamination that's 

readily resuspendable, but now we're encountering, 

oh, no, a pipe that has relatively high levels of 

plated out material.

Now I didn't do the calculation. Maybe NIOSH did. 

But to me that's another scenario. And the only 

question we have to ask is: do we believe that the 

scenarios that we are using bounds that?

And if we say, yes, that is something we did not 

explicitly model. Then the question becomes if you 

were to explicitly model that, does the method that 

we are using universally, this 1 percent number 

we'll call it, does that more than bound that other 

scenario. And the answer to that is, well I'm going 

to give you just like a conceptual idea.

What you're now dealing with is rather than dealing 

with material that is theoretically resuspendable and 

inhalable, now you're dealing with a pipeline that 

has a given contamination contaminate with 

material that probably has much less of a potential 

to become airborne because that's what is plated 

out as a crust.

But all I can say is that what I'm listening to is as if 

I was sitting back in that meeting way back when 

and that was brought to my attention because I was 

sort of like one of the inventors of the different 

scenarios. I would say, oops, because we looked at 

a lot of them, I would say, you know, let's look at 

that one. That's what I would done back then.

So all I can say right now is that is there any reason 

to believe that there was someone that might 

caught and worked with that pipe or concrete 

conduit that had the 100,000 sometime during the 

residual period? And is there any reason to believe 

that it's possible that particular exposure scenario 

for that occasion could actually result in exposures 
74

higher than the kinds of exposures that we're 

calculating working with the 1 percent loosely 

contaminated scenario?

And you know, as an objective observer of this 

looking at the story, I said well did we miss a 

scenario that may need to be looked at? And I think 

that that's my takeaway from the conversation we 

just had.

Chair Beach: Okay. Thanks, John. Any other Board 

questions? We'll move on to Slide 11.

Member Kotelchuck: If we go on to Slide 11, we're 

not going to finish today.

Chair Beach: I know. I know.

Member Kotelchuck: I mean no. And I mean also I 

really wanted to discuss the interview with Tim 

Taulbee last October about the mound dig.

Chair Beach: Okay. Yes, and I --

Member Kotelchuck: And we're not going to be able 

to get to it today because obviously it deserves 

attention, careful attention and discussion. I don't 

know quite how to handle what we're --

Chair Beach: So yes, my suggestion is let's finish 

two. Let's take a break and think about where we're 

at and how we should move forward because we're 

definitely going to need another meeting.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay, yes.

Chair Beach: So let's finish -- there's two more 

slides here and --

Member Kotelchuck: Alright. Go ahead.

Mr. Rutherford: So these last two slides, we go into 

our conclusion why we feel that our method is 

conservative and bounding. We talk about the doses 

assigned during the residual period. We include 

doses from -- and we talk about the more than 80 
75

percent of the non-covered source term.

And it was very rightfully so pointed out, and I even 

acknowledged it, that we don't know the actual 

distribution of that source term, whether 80 percent 

of it's non-covered or not. We don't know what each 

contributor was. But there is a portion that was 

contributed by these other non-covered activities.

Also the same person is doing all the work to arrive 

at the bounding dose. So we provided an example. 

We assumed the same person does all 48 hours of 

the welding. And then that person turns around and 

does the two months of the digging or whatever it 

is, each one. And that same person is doing all 

these different activities, you know. And then the 

rest of his years we cover those exposures as well.

So we know the same person doesn't do all the 

work. We know that work is broken down into 

different people. So that's a very conservative 

assumption. We also used a 95th percentile 

contamination level.

And we feel the 212 microgram per cubic meter 

dust load is very conservative for a wet sediment 

that we expect to encounter based on those 

interviews.

Chair Beach: Yes. And I know you made that point 

on the wet sediment, and I know Rose made that 

point also. However, we did have, in our limited 

interviews with people that were in that area, it was 

a mix between whether it was moist or not, 

depending on what they were doing, so --

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: But the material in the pipes would be 

expected to be wet.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Chair Beach: Mostly. Unless they opened up the 

pipes and let it sit there, and have it dry out when 
76

they were cutting pipes and things like that. So 

there's different maintenance work that would have 

been done that potentially could have dried out that 

material.

And they weren't concerned about any radioactivity 

that could have been in those pipes at that time. I 

can't imagine that they cut into a pipe and got it 

done in the very same day so the material would 

have stayed wet. That's hard to imagine when I 

think some of the interviews we talked to said it 

took -- they may have uncovered an area, and it 

may have stayed open for a longer period of time.

So that's just -- some of it could have been 

respirable. I just don't want this to go on that it's all 

wet because that's not --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: Even though they 

acknowledged that it was wet, and we 

acknowledged that it was wet there, the fact is 

they're using the 212, which is dry. And they are 

eliminating consideration of the fact that it was wet 

there. And so I would like to -- I mean sooner or 

later we'll get to the mound data and interview with 

Tim.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Rutherford: Well I'll point out, I mean it's a 

good point though, Dr. Kotelchuck, but that is a 

conservative assumption. Using that 212 is based 

on a drier dirt and drier material. And so more of 

that material would be respirable and more would 

be in that area. So that's why we assume it's 

conservative.

Again, and then our other -- okay.

Member Kotelchuck: No, I took the floor. Look, I'll 

telegraph where I'm coming from. I looked at the 

interview with Tim Taulbee, and you're telling me 

that a ditch dug through contaminated dirt and 
77

essentially underbrush is a good model to estimate 

what's going on in the underground work that the 

people were doing with the pipes. And I must say I 

really am not persuaded.

I very much appreciated, by the way, that all of you 

did that interview. And I've been asking for 

information about mound, and how good a model is 

mound for what's going on inside Building 10. And I 

have to say I appreciate that you attempted and 

went out of your way to try and give us more 

information.

Nevertheless, it does not appear to me that it's a 

very good model. It's just not the same kind of 

work. But I'm getting ahead of myself, of course.

Chair Beach: Yes. So two things here, and hold that. 

One is was great that you guys held that interview. 

However, I was disappointed that the Work Group 

wasn't invited to listen in.

Second, I think we need to take a break because I 

feel that this might be a lengthy discussion. So how 

about, Rashaun, how long should we break for? Can 

everybody make do with 10 minutes or? I can't hear 

you, Rashaun.

Dr. Roberts: Yes. I mean 10 minutes sounds okay 

to me. I don't know how the other group members 

feel about that.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay by me.

Member Valerio: Okay by me.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: So we'll --

Member Anderson: 1:15.

Member Kotelchuck: We'll do a comfort break, not a 

lunch break.

Member Anderson: Right.
78

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Roberts: So reconvene at 1:15 p.m. Eastern.

Chair Beach: Alright.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Good.

Chair Beach: Thank you.

Member Kotelchuck: Thank you.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 1:04 p.m. and resumed at 1:15 p.m.)

WG Discussion of Path Forward

Dr. Roberts: Okay, by my clock, I do have 1:15 

Eastern Time, so I'm going to go and reconvene the 

Working Group, and I will start with a quick roll call.

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: So, let me just say while we're waiting 

just as a reminder, just make sure if you're on 

Zoom to keep your phones on mute. That button is 

in the lower, left-hand corner. 

If you're joining by phone, you're pressing *6 to 

mute and *6 to unmute. There's been not too much 

disruption, but some here and there, so just 

periodically check your phones, please. Thank you.

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay, great. Alright, Josie, we do have 

three out of the four. Would you like to go ahead 

and proceed? We have a quorum.

Chair Beach: Yeah, I think we need to have a 

discussion on how best to use the next 45 minutes. 

I know we ended with Dave talking about the 

Mound data. I don't know if we can cover that in 

that time frame.

Member Kotelchuck: No, I don't think we can either. 

That, we'll need to go through in another meeting, 
79

and I must say I'm satisfied. I mean, in terms of 

process, I really am satisfied going through slide by 

slide of LaVon's presentation. I think it's been 

useful.

So, we might just want to go ahead and keep going 

as far as we can go and then schedule a meeting 

just as quickly as we can to continue really the 

agenda for today, which is to finish this up and go 

on to the other issues, in particular the interview. In 

my case, that's what I would like.

Chair Beach: Right, and so I think we have about 30 

minutes left, and the last 15 minutes, I think we 

need to use on scheduling. Rashaun, do you think 

that's enough time to try to sort it out or are we 

going to have to schedule maybe via email?

Dr. Roberts: I would say we would probably need to 

do the specific scheduling via email, but, and we 

also have the point of needing to prepare if there's 

going to be an item on the agenda for the full Board 

meeting on the 14th and 15th.

Chair Beach: I suspect we're not going to be ready 

for any -- I'm echoing here. I suspect we're not 

going to be ready to report out if we're only to slide 

12 and we have 30 minutes left, so that's going to 

be an issue. We need to do some tasking potentially 

too, but we need to have some time maybe at the 

end.

Dr. Roberts: Sure.

Chair Beach: So, save the last, you know, ten to 15 

minutes maybe to talk about tasking. Okay, so I 

guess we're going to restart.

Mr. Rutherford: Alright, I think everybody's mute 

must be on because I'm not hearing the same echo 

Josie had. 

Okay, so on this slide, this is where we were 

continuing our discussion on reasons why we felt 

this was a bounding and conservative assumption. 
80

We assume that all airborne sediment is respirable. 

We also use the most claimant-favorable solubility 

type, and this sediment area with the highest 

activity concentration contained a uranium rod and 

was approximately up to 90 percent clogged, you 

know, so we felt like this activity concentration, 

given the high activity that it was, had not been 

reduced over time, and that was it for this slide. 

So, these last two slides discuss what we thought 

was claimant favorable in that. Do we have anything 

on this or should I go on?

Member Anderson: Just a quick question. So, I 

mean, there's no question you can always make 

anything claimant favorable or -- a question to me 

is does this result in a plausible exposure even if it's 

a low exposure? How accurate is this assessment? I 

mean, how conservative is it?

Mr. Rutherford: Well, you know, I think it's pretty 

conservative myself, but I also want to point out as 

we had spoke about at the last Work Group meeting 

that, you know, Dr. Melius made statements about 

these situations where you have a lower dose, you 

are allowed for more uncertainty in a perceived 

lower dose in that situation. And I recommend 

everybody go back and read his words on that 

because in this situation, we feel like we have 

bounded it, and although there's always 

uncertainty, there's uncertainty in any model, but 

look at these doses. The dose is very low, and as 

Dr. Melius said, we can allow for more uncertainty in 

those situations.

Member Anderson: I mean, kind of what is the 

criteria for sufficient accuracy?

Mr. Rutherford: Well, if --

Member Anderson: I mean, if you're accounting for 

uncertainty, I mean, we don't have any 

measurements, but the result, do you end up with a 

result that's really, you know, not --
81

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I think we have a plausible 

model here. The feel is or the -- recognize that this 

program allows for models. It does allow for you to 

develop models and you are going to have 

uncertainty in models, but again, you've got to look 

at where we feel like that we have applied 

conservatism in this model and the fact that, at a 

much lower dose like this, you can have larger 

uncertainties because it's not going to affect -- it's 

not going to change the compensation decision.

Dr. Taulbee: If I could interject here, and Bomber, if 

you could go to that last slide that shows Table 4, I 

think it is, which shows what the dose is for the 

subsurface that we're currently assuming?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Dr. Taulbee: If you could jump over while I'm 

speaking? We're talking about using the 95th 

percentile of the soil concentration. We're talking 

about adding a 95th percentile of an airborne 

resuspension type of factor.

And what we're looking at, assuming a two-month 

exposure, is 17 millirem for uranium and 30 

millirem for thorium. To put this into perspective, 

that's the minimum detectable level for a single film 

batch for a radiological worker.

So, to have this -- you know, this dose is very, very 

low from that standpoint. This is what, you know, in 

early years, really wasn't even recorded. It was 

recorded as a zero. We account this as missed dose 

when we're doing external, and so that's the order

of magnitude that we're talking here.

So, you know, even if this is off by -- well, we 

believe it's high for one thing because we're taking 

the 95th times the 95th percentile here to calculate 

it. It's not unreasonably high. This is a very low 

dose that needs to be kept in perspective.
82

Mr. Rutherford: You know, one of the other things 

you brought up, Dr. Anderson, was that -- the 

criteria for sufficient accuracy. We went down that 

path. 

You know, if you can remember back in the time 

where some of these discussions with Dr. Melius, we 

went down the path to try to develop criteria, and 

each site is different. Everything is different and we 

never could come up with criteria on that, so I did 

want to at least address it since you brought it up.

Chair Beach: Well, the other part of that too is we 

have awarded SECs, three that I can think of off the 

top of my head for low doses. Mound was one, 

Pantex for that DU uranium, and then I believe 

there was one in LANL. I'd have to go back and 

research that, but, so it's not unheard of that the 

Board has --

Mr. Rutherford: The Mound -- or which period are 

you talking about? Because the Mound period had 

significant exposure concerns. I mean, especially we 

had the polonium in the early years. We had radon 

concentrations that drove another part of the Mound 

period and --

Now, the Pantex DU portion of it, I can't remember 

what the doses were. They were small, but they 

weren't as small as this.

Chair Beach: Oh, I thought they were small. Like, I 

said, I just thought of it when you were discussing 

that, so.

Mr. Rutherford: I think any time -- here's what, you 

know, it obviously comes down to what information 

you have about the source term, what information, 

what data you have and such.

We've awarded SECs where we may have internally 

thought they were really low, but we just had no 

information to really put our arms around the 

source term, no information to put our arms around 

the work that was performed at the site.
83

I think of ones like Standard Oil and some of the 

other ones that seemed like small activities, but we 

just didn't have that information, so we've awarded 

it in situations where we just didn't have enough 

information, you know? 

We think we have enough information. We've pulled 

together more models for this residual period than 

we have ever done at any other site. 

We've pulled together more information for the 

residual period. So, I mean, we've looked at 

activities very closely for Metals and Controls and, 

you know, and tried to be objective as best we can.

Member Kotelchuck: I respect the enormous 

amount of work that's been put in by NIOSH, by 

SC&A, and the integrity of the process. I cannot tell 

you, however, that it is convincing. It's always been 

an issue that these folks were, if you will, not 

playing by the rules. 

There were so many things that were going on that 

should not have been because they thought they 

were not working in a toxic environment and we're 

saying, well, NIOSH is trying to argue that, well, it 

wasn't a toxic environment, and I feel like we just 

don't know what the exposures were, just as the 

case you're referring to, LaVon, and that's where 

the problem comes in at.

I have to say I've tried to listen carefully and read 

carefully. I've done a lot of reading of materials, 

backup materials here, but the --

Mr. Rutherford: I respect your guys' looking this 

hard. I think it's great. I think that's -- you know, 

we should be trying to do our best job. There's no 

doubt, so --

Member Kotelchuck: Right, all of us, all of us.

Mr. Rutherford: -- I have no problem with what 

you're --
84

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah, and I agree. I've put 

more work into this M&C than I have for many 

other, other than the ones that I, the Working 

Groups, the one Working Group that I chair, but 

other than that, you know, we've got two groups

trying sincerely to do the best job and working very 

hard at it.

Mr. Rutherford: Right.

Dr. Mauro: Dr. Kotelchuck, I do need to --

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Dr. Mauro: Because we're talking uncertainty, there 

is something that is not uncertain. The doses that 

have been derived are clearly very, very high and 

it's, I would say, bordering on the point that they 

could never have really come to that level.

And it's not so much it is because we multiply 95 

percent by 95, but there's one more thing we do 

that we keep forgetting. We're assuming that the 

same person is doing this job all the time over a 20-

year period.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Mauro: The same person is always in the 95 

percent times 95 percent. So, what I believe is that 

we have now constructed something that, it's not 

that it's uncertain. It's that have we overestimated 

the dose to such an extent that it's not plausible? 

So, I would say the doses we're looking at right 

now, the real doses are easily 100 times lower, 

okay?

Member Kotelchuck: And I don't deny that the 

attempt by taking the model and then trying to 

make it claimant favorable means that a number of 

assumptions are just, if you will, exaggerated, but 

that again, it still leaves me feeling as if I really 

don't know and I don't believe we --

I'm worried that we haven't maximized. I don't 
85

want to say I'm convinced, but I am really worried 

that these estimates, much as the work has been 

put in and much as the model has been extended 

enormously, don't persuade me I really know what 

the exposures are.

I will come to this also a little later in tasking 

because I have some thoughts about pursuit, 

continuing pursuit. Let me not -- let's go back to the 

main business.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, any more on this slide? 

Should I move on?

Chair Beach: Yeah, I think so. I was thinking of 

thorium in that scenario, but I know we will talk 

about that also, and I understand the method that 

you're using, so I think that comes up later.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I think we are down to -- is 

this Work Group comment three? Is that correct?

Chair Beach: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, alright, the petitioner and 

Work Group Chair were concerned that they had not 

seen the Building 10 surveys that NIOSH had 

mentioned and they wanted NIOSH to follow-up on 

these surveys and provide more detail about them, 

and I was wrong. We do not have the actual 

surveys of the HFIR routine contamination surveys 

that were done. 

And then we talked about we were making the case 

that because the surveys that were taken, then we, 

you know, they would not want to spread 

contamination, one, out of the HFIR area and they 

would not want it coming into the HFIR area. You 

don't want contaminants coming into the HFIR area 

because you don't want to contaminate your fuel. 

So, these routine surveys were important, so we felt 

like this helped support our 95th percentile soil 

contamination level, and then we referenced the 

Metals and Controls Health and Safety Manual, 
86

alright.

Chair Beach: Yeah, and my first comment on that is 

when I said sample, air samples, I didn't mean to 

say air. I just meant to say samples, so I wasn't 

thinking you had any air samples, so I know --

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I knew what you meant.

Chair Beach: You pointed that out, but, yeah, it was 

part of your report.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Okay, any comments?

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Yeah, I know I have a whole page of 

them, but go ahead, Dave.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, no, I'll just say the 

people who -- the claimants from that site said that, 

they explicitly said that they didn't know about the 

manual, that they didn't pay attention to the 

manual. 

I just don't think the statement that the manual sort 

of tells us about concerns about the M&C's 

established concern, that's the next slide, for 

contamination control. I do not -- if we're going to 

talk about that in disagreement with what people 

there testify pretty uniformly, the people who lived 

it, then I'd like to know, you know, who wrote that 

manual, why -- it just seems to me it's frankly not 

credible, and I would just say it, and that's the one I 

absolutely reject, reference to the health and safety 

manual from the operations period, and I'm willing 

to listen to the claimants on this. There's a sharp 

disagreement and the claimants where there.

Mr. Rutherford: Recognize this was only used in 

support of saying that, okay, you know, this area 

was likely -- assuming, if we assume these surveys 

were done, then we would assume they would have 

identified areas of contamination and removed 
87

them. Even if we don't assume these were done, it 

makes no difference to our current model. 

You know, we looked at the data from right after 

post operation, post operations, the very beginning 

post operations to support our model, so this was 

only just as a supporting thing to say, hey, look, 

you know, they're saying they do these 

contamination surveys. 

If they did these contamination surveys, they would 

have identified all of these contamination spots and, 

you know, and it was just in support, but it doesn't 

change the data that we used to develop our 

exposure model.

Member Kotelchuck: And I would just say if I were 

in your shoes, I would delete it entirely and make 

the rest of the case. 

(Laughter.)

Member Kotelchuck: You have data. You have 

arguments here.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah.

Member Kotelchuck: This doesn't back it up. It 

undermines it, in fact, and --

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: Because -- anyway.

Chair Beach: Well, and let me point out because I 

had something on that last bullet also, and I just 

propose that NIOSH does not make its case citing 

the health and safety manual and I was asking do 

you have the sample results, which you already 

answered. 

To me, this is a program on paper only. There's 

nothing here and, I agree with Dave, it hurts your 

case when you look at a manual or you cite a 

manual, but then every single interview that you 

asked those interviewees -- and mind you there was 
88

a very small amount of interviewees conducted that 

actually worked in that area.

Mr. Rutherford: Well --

Chair Beach: They all said they had never seen it, 

hadn't heard about it, don't know about it.

Mr. Rutherford: And I could agree with that on 

surface if it was just the Metals and Controls manual 

that we were talking about, but we have NRC 

inspection reports that support --

Chair Beach: Right, right.

Mr. Rutherford: -- that they were doing the 

monitoring and --

Chair Beach: Right.

Mr. Rutherford: -- we also have the other report, 

the TI, Texas Instruments report that identifies the 

routine contamination levels.

Chair Beach: Right.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Beach: Which are on different slides. We're 

not to those yet, but --

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, yeah, but, I mean, on 

surface, I know that there are sites that have been, 

you know, great on paper or, you know, but in the 

field can be different, so we've seen that, you know.

Member Kotelchuck: It's generally been true in the 

whole field of health and safety I have to say, even 

beyond radiation.

Chair Beach: So, and your next slide, that routine 

work area, your second bullet, that all comes from 

your health and safety manual.

Mr. Rutherford: Right, yeah, that was in the 

manual, the identified routine work area 

contamination, personal --
89

Chair Beach: It --

Mr. Rutherford: -- but it also is supported in that 

Texas Instruments document that shows the things 

that are surveyed, and so --

Chair Beach: Well, yeah, and if you want to jump to 

that, it actually shows -- I think that's your Table 3, 

right --

Mr. Rutherford: Right.

Chair Beach: -- that you brought up earlier? And I 

don't think we're --

Mr. Rutherford: Do you want me to pull it up?

Chair Beach: We're not to that yet, but there's more 

to that story than --

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: I guess back on this slide, it bolsters 

that NIOSH has all of the evidence by putting these 

bullets in, that, oh, of course, they had a program, 

but we're talking about the maintenance workers. 

The maintenance workers did not have a program. 

They did not have shoe covers. They did not have --

I mean, I think they might have wore gloves, but 

nothing for radiation contamination. So, when you -

-

Mr. Rutherford: Well --

Chair Beach: -- put something like that in there, it 

just, it kind of undermines --

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I --

Chair Beach: -- well, in my opinion.

Mr. Rutherford: I understand what you're saying. 

The real discussion there was mainly for the HFIR 

project in that they had controlled that environment 

to go in and out.

Chair Beach: But even there, there's some 
90

interviews that said the maintenance people for 

Metals and Controls did the maintenance on the 

HFIR program equipment, and we have people that 

have testified that they went in and out with no 

surveys, so --

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: -- again, you're using an area that if 

you go back and interview more people or -- we 

only have what we have with that limited sampling. 

It wasn't a program that was recognized by the 

maintenance personnel.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Member Anderson: And I just, I would agree with all 

of the comments. This just seems like an overreach 

and I think that hurts the case.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, right.

Member Anderson: And my earlier comments, I 

think what's happened is you have a --

(Audio interference.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay, I'm hearing some interference. 

Please mute.

Chair Beach: Yeah, that's Dave. He's out of the 

picture, but he forgot to mute, so. He had a phone 

call.

Member Anderson: So, next slide.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, alright, and this is where we 

talked about the NRC enforced those contamination 

surveys so that whenever M&C wanted to change 

the administrative requirements, they send a 

request to the NRC.

And they also had NRC inspections during the 

residual period and provided NIOSH with 

independent assurance that radiological controls 

were monitored and maintained, and we talk about 
91

what the NRC inspection inspectors wrote, so 

comments, questions?

Member Anderson: Do you have copies of the 

requests that M&C sent?

Mr. Rutherford: We have copies of those NRC 

inspections. They're listed in the --

Member Anderson: The requests, I mean the --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Anderson: -- you make any changes, they 

would send in the request to the NRC. You have the 

inspections of the NRC, but that could be different 

than the requests to make changes. Is there any 

documentation they actually sent in requests?

Mr. Rutherford: Pat McCloskey, could you answer 

that question for me?

Member Anderson: I mean, they're changing 

administrative --

Mr. McCloskey: Yes, yes, we do have some of those 

requests. If you look at the references that are 

provided in our White Paper, one has Metals and 

Controls saying, hey, you know, we're reducing the 

amount of fuel fabrication work we're doing. 

We would like to stop doing the air sampling 

because all of our air sampling has demonstrated 

very low exposures, lower than what are required, 

something to that effect, but, yes, we do have a 

request or two where they asked for reduced types 

of surveys and NRC granted it.

Member Anderson: And what --

Chair Beach: Is there some supporting -- do you 

have that in the SRDB, those --

Mr. McCloskey: Yeah.

Chair Beach: And can you send that to us or send it 
92

to Rashaun?

Mr. Rutherford: I think the SRDB numbers are 

listed.

Chair Beach: I looked at all of the SRDB numbers 

and I didn't see any request to make change coming 

from the site that I could identify, but I did look at 

all of the NRC, when they were trying, you know, 

the 79, 81 to 82.82, but I think this was, would 

have been in a letter to the NRC and I don't know 

that that is what you have listed in the SRDB.

Mr. McCloskey: Yeah, what they did was -- there 

are numerous versions of the Metals and Controls 

safety manual that we're talking about here, revised 

in the '60s, revised in '68, and what they would do 

is they would copy a page of the health and safety 

manual into an NRC letter, a letter to the NRC 

saying this is what we were required to put in our 

safety manual as far as the frequency of surveys. 

We need to change those now. This is the 

justification. Then the NRC would permit them to 

change their frequency of surveys and --

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. McCloskey: -- would allow them to change their 

safety manual.

Chair Beach: Okay, so that basic --

Mr. McCloskey: I'll send those to you.

Chair Beach: Yeah, pardon me?

Mr. McCloskey: I will provide those to Bomber and 

he will get them to you.

Chair Beach: If they're in the report, I already have 

them. If there's nothing else that's not in the report, 

I'm okay with what we have, but, so this goes back 

to the HFIR operation and reducing for that 

operation. 

It really, for maintenance and controls, it doesn't 
93

really cover what they -- anyway, okay. Henry, do 

you --

Member Anderson: I couldn't find any. You've done 

a deeper dive than I was able to do. I just got 

frustrated in trying to read things that are illegible 

and things like that, so.

Chair Beach: Yeah.

Member Anderson: That's why I asked. It's easier to 

ask and then whenever -- I'm not saying you don't 

have it. I can't find it. So, if you have it, just send it 

along and we'll shorten the search.

Mr. Rutherford: Alright, so the next slide is just 

more of the quotes from the NRC inspections, and 

then I get into what actual data we do have, so 

comments on this slide?

Chair Beach: So, the actual data, again that last 

bullet -- oh, I'm not muted -- the survey data from 

1968 to 69, so those are the samples that in the 

SRDB go back to all of those sheets and I know 

there's like 20 of them from '64 on through '69. 

I could only find one, the last SRDB number, clearly 

it was '69, so that's the survey data you're talking 

about, is that correct?

Mr. Rutherford: That's correct, all of the SRDB 

references that are listed in the report.

Chair Beach: Yeah, some, okay, some of those are 

pretty hard to read.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: And does the AEC come in on this slide 

or is it a different slide because you commented on 

the AEC report, that '63 to '71 time period, and then 

the 1967?

Mr. Rutherford: I don't remember commenting on 

that.
94

Chair Beach: There was a comment for this, for 

comment three, pages nine through 16, but then 

when I looked at that report, there was also some 

non-reporting issues that AEC -- that were 

documented in this AEC report about non-reporting. 

So, Metals and Controls didn't report some of their 

issues and they were written up for it, but --

Mr. Rutherford: I've seen that they had had some 

kind of spill in one of the reports and then that AEC 

wasn't contacted, but then ultimately they had no 

finding on it. I've seen that one.

Chair Beach: I don't know if that's the same one.

Mr. Rutherford: Alright.

Chair Beach: My notes are kind of brief. It just, it 

was a non-reporting issue that they were -- I guess 

my point in writing it down was you can find pretty 

much whatever you want in these reports if you 

look before or after the pages that you guys looked 

at.

And so the other samples that are mentioned in 

your report on page nine are the -- and it gets to 

the locker room, lunch room, maintenance shop, 

those reports. When I brought them up earlier, Rose 

said they were HFIR surveys, so do those count or 

not, because those --

Mr. Rutherford: Pat, correct me if I'm wrong. Those 

aren't HFIR surveys, are they? Those were surveys 

from the post-operations for the areas on Building 

10. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Mr. McCloskey: There could be a room or two there 

that are within the HFIR footprint. I think we could 

tease out which ones were within HFIR's footprint 

and which ones were not.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Mr. McCloskey: I'd have to go look at that.

Chair Beach: I only found one that was in 1968 and 
95

that was the furnace area. All of the other ones 

were between '66 and '67 from what I could tell on 

those, and I looked at each one of them. 

There were some inventory issues too on the 

furnace when it reported having inventory or survey 

data that weren't actually available, so.

Mr. Rutherford: Well, what we can provide the Work 

Group exactly are the samples that we used and the 

sample areas that were covered by, you know, the 

survey data that we used for our analysis.

Chair Beach: Again, it just complicates it. If this is a 

HFIR time period and it's not covered, then it, you 

know, it makes it hard to sort through, so, okay, 

that's all I have on that.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, let's see, well, it's about 12 

minutes until 1:00. I don't know when you want to 

stop.

Chair Beach: Yeah, I think we better --

Mr. Rutherford: Or 2:00, 12 minutes to 2:00.

Chair Beach: I think we better talk about tasking. I 

think, Dave, you mentioned tasking of something?

Member Kotelchuck: Well, I have, earlier this week 

in preparing for this meeting, I went back to Jim 

Neton's original, his original presentation in, what 

was it, October of 2017 or August, I think, of 2017, 

and there was something, a comment that bothered 

me.

First, if you want to go to his slides, it was slide 16 

on the date 8/24/17 Board meeting, the second day 

of our Board meeting. It's slide 16, and he talked 

about, and I'm quoting him here, I'm just quoting 

the transcript, there's 448 claims that were 

submitted for dose reconstruction.

What's interesting to me is the number 314, which 

is dose reconstructions completed for energy 

employees who started their employment during the 
96

period under evaluation, so 70 percent of the claims 

we have are affected by this SEC Petition, which is 

higher than I expected.

And then he goes on to say, well, it's a large site. I 

mean, I could read you the rest. I wanted to 

understand that, and if I went to slide 16, he quotes 

the numbers. He doesn't say, you know, it was 

more than I thought.

What I want to know is I'd like to task SC&A to get 

the information about how many people were, how 

many claimants were compensated during the first 

SEC during the operations period and how many 

people have filed claims during this second period?

And because if 70 -- if we gave an SEC and then 70 

percent of the people who were claiming, and to 

make a claim means that you have cancer, 70 

percent of the claims occurred during the period 

under consideration, the residual period, then it 

may be a sign that something is -- the exposures 

are more serious than we thought.

The answer, I don't know. All I would like to task is 

to get the information on claims during the previous 

SEC period, operations period, and the claims that 

we have now, and take a look at them and see if --

Chair Beach: Yeah, I think that's a NIOSH tasking, 

is that not correct, not an SC&A, LaVon?

Mr. Rutherford: NIOSH can certainly do that. We 

can --

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah, would you do that? I 

know it's data and it's probably been presented in 

later periods, but it is disturbing, although I'm not 

sure I'm clear about, based on what he said, that 

we're really talking about a total of 448 claims from 

in M&C.

Mr. Rutherford: I will make sure that we provide a 

detailed breakdown of the claims from the 

operational period, the claims that we have from 
97

the residual period, the ones that break down the 

claims that were just from they only worked in the 

residual period.

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, okay.

Member Kotelchuck: I really appreciate that. Thank 

you.

Chair Beach: Okay --

Mr. Calhoun: This is Grady. Let me chime in one 

time on that.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Mr. Calhoun: It's not -- I don't want to say wise. I 

don't know what you can glean that would be 

statistically significant from trying to relate cancers 

that were present or diagnosed when somebody 

worked at a site and funneling that into a decision 

on an SEC.

Member Kotelchuck: Well --

Mr. Calhoun: That really doesn't make sense. That's

not part of our program at all, and given the limited 

number -- I mean, there's studies that have gone 

on at many of these nuclear facilities throughout the 

country with little or no indication that cancer risk 

was increased, and trying to do that on just a little 

subsample, I'm not sure that's a statistically valid 

approach to consider.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, let me say this: I am 

perfectly open. We're not doing epidemiology here 

and that's not our task, but I'm trying to deal with 

the fact that there is real question as to whether we 

are properly judging the level of exposure from the 

model that NIOSH is presenting.

And this may give some, if we have a very large 

number of claims, which is to say cancers, from 

people who started their employment during the 
98

residual period, it may suggest that we're 

underestimating the exposure, and that is very 

loose, and I will also agree that this is not an 

epidemiological study. That's not our task. Our task 

is compensation, but our decision --

Mr. Calhoun: I don't think I'd even put that in the 

realm of something you'd look at. It's just not --

Chair Beach: I think it's --

Mr. Calhoun: It's not valid. It's just not.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, to say it's not valid, the 

numbers are the numbers. Now, I'm willing to 

absolutely consider the fact that in the end, it 

doesn't say anything. I'm not --

Chair Beach: And can I stop this going back and 

forth? 

Member Kotelchuck: Sure, yes.

Chair Beach: NIOSH already said they would do it. 

We have about six minutes left and we have to end 

promptly at --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Chair Beach: -- 2:00 for Rashaun. So, other tasking 

that needs to be done, anybody?

Member Anderson: How about the new model?

Chair Beach: The new, the January 21 paper? Yeah, 

I was going to -- I was hoping that we would get 

through that, but since we haven't, and now that we 

have NIOSH's models -- and I know they're using 

some of SC&A's. They added -- they've kind of 

outlined it.

I honestly think we do need to have SC&A look at 

that and maybe not give us their models, but just 

look at what's being done in this last paper and then 

give us a White Paper on that. Is that something we 

want to do now or after we have another Work 
99

Group meeting and go through it all again? Which is 

more timely?

Mr. Rutherford: It would seem it would be more 

timely to have them do it now so at the next Work 

Group meeting, we can try to get through all of this.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Anderson: The Mound data is important for 

this site and --

Chair Beach: Yes, yes, I agree, and --

Member Anderson: -- it could also become 

important for other sites, so I think we need to get 

a sense early on is it appropriate for this site? And if 

it isn't, then how it will be for others, we don't 

know. So, I think if SC&A could get started on that -

-

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. 

Member Anderson: We hope we're going to get it 

before the April meeting, but I think --

Chair Beach: Yeah.

Member Anderson: -- we should take a look at that.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: So, there's two parts to that. There's 

the White Paper that NIOSH put out on January 21, 

and then there's the additional support information 

for the Mound data, and we want it against the 

Board's criteria for surrogate data, correct?

Member Anderson: Yes.

Chair Beach: Even though it's -- oh, go ahead, 

Rose.

Ms. Gogliotti: So, just to clarify, you'd like us to look 

at the Mound data and see if it's applicable to this 

site based on the Board's surrogate data criteria?
100

Chair Beach: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Also take a second look at all of the 

models that we've previously reviewed just in a new 

light?

Chair Beach: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay.

Chair Beach: And I know you've reviewed them, but 

they've added and bolstered those up in some ways 

using some of your models, and so primarily I think 

they're the same, but, yeah, if you could do that, I 

think that would be helpful.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay, and I will reach out to someone 

with NIOSH too because I know that we have had 

some trouble replicating some of the numbers, not 

all of them, but just to confirm that we know what 

assumptions are being used.

Chair Beach: And that's what we're looking for. 

We're looking for that technical support on those 

numbers.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay, absolutely.

Mr. Barton: This is Bob. It may be appropriate to 

hold a technical call where we can ask specific 

questions where we are unsure of how they arrived 

at their numbers, and it might just help clarify 

things before we get to the next Work Group.

Chair Beach: And I would ask that the Board 

members be allowed to sit in on that, listen in if we 

do have a technical call, good idea.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, and I think that's a great 

idea, Bob. I do want to say though that if we are 

going to try to schedule a meeting with every Board 

member being there and --

Chair Beach: Oh, no, no, make it available, LaVon, 

not try to schedule it.
101

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: If nobody's available, then nobody's 

available, but if we can be available -- just like with 

your interview with Tim, it would have been nice 

just to have been able to know it was happening 

and be able to listen in as we have on other 

interviews, not injecting, just listening.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, and I apologize for that. We 

should have asked you to participate.

Chair Beach: Yeah, and we won't hold you up. Don't 

think that that's the intention.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: I just think we're all invested in this 

and would like to know where those numbers are 

coming from also, so.

Mr. Rutherford: You know, if it makes it better, we 

could set up a separate -- another additional 

interview to go back with Tim over with some of the 

Work Group members.

Dr. Taulbee: That's no problem.

Chair Beach: If we're going to do that, it might be 

nice to set up some interviews with personnel from 

the site, but that's, yeah, that might be a stretch. 

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah.

Chair Beach: Is anybody interested in that interview 

or is it okay just to read the report? I think, Dave, 

you might have an answer on that.

Member Kotelchuck: No, I don't have an answer, 

but I would like to see more interviews, but I don't 

feel that we have discussed this sufficiently to know 

what we want to do the interviews for exactly.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: Because we have a lot on the 
102

record from the claimants, so I'm open to that, but 

I'm certainly not ready to request that right now.

Chair Beach: Yeah, I was mostly talking about 

LaVon just said that he could recreate the interview 

with Tim and asking you, I don't think that's 

necessary, but I was asking you because it was your 

issue.

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, I would, if I could be on 

that, sure, I'd love to. That, I misunderstood. Yes, 

certainly, I had real concerns about that and I'd 

love to sit in on it, but you folks decide when you 

need to meet and can meet, and I hope I can work 

it out to join you.

Mr. Rutherford: Well, recreating the interview with 

Tim would be specifically for you, Dr. Kotelchuck, so 

--

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: -- we could definitely work out a 

time for that that --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: That way if you have additional 

questions and things you want to ask him, you can 

ask him.

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, that would be fine because 

really I have a number of questions.

Chair Beach: Okay, so wait a second. The problem 

with that might be that it should be recorded not in 

like a technical call, so I'm wondering if that 

wouldn't be better served in a Work Group setting 

to ask all of your questions.

Member Kotelchuck: That's what I had expected to 

do.

Chair Beach: Yeah, so that might not be a good 

idea.
103

Mr. Rutherford: I wasn't going to do the -- I was 

going to do that separate. The technical call is just 

to go over certain things with SC&A to make sure 

that SC&A's going to ask us, okay, how do we do 

this or that, or what data was used for this and that. 

Yeah, I agree that's not where we would make --

Member Kotelchuck: You're right about that and I 

wasn't --

Chair Beach: It might end up there.

Member Kotelchuck: -- really looking for another 

report. I want to discuss that report. I think --

Chair Beach: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: -- that has much content in it 

and things we could discuss, should discuss.

Chair Beach: I think we should hold that then for 

the Work Group meeting --

Member Kotelchuck: Good, okay.

Chair Beach: -- and then, and have the technical 

call between NIOSH and SC&A on data points and 

such that we discussed earlier.

Member Kotelchuck: Very good.

Chair Beach: Alright, anything else?

Member Anderson: Not from me.

Chair Beach: Rashaun?

Dr. Roberts: No, so it sounds like there are a couple

of meetings and things that need to be done in the 

interim before we have the next Work Group 

meeting.

So, I do think, you know, given that we have these 

interim activities, maybe we can talk about 

scheduling the next Work Group meeting via email 

and identify a reasonable time to reconvene.
104

Chair Beach: Yeah, and the tech calls are usually 

just between NIOSH and SC&A and then they just 

let us know when they do it, so you don't need to 

be -- I don't think you're involved in that.

Member Kotelchuck: I'd certainly like to --

Dr. Roberts: But the point is you wanted to have 

the technical call before the next Work Group 

meeting, correct?

Member Kotelchuck: That's right, yes.

Chair Beach: Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, so all of that needs to be -- my 

only point is that all of that needs to be factored 

into the timing of the scheduling of the next Work 

Group meeting.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Roberts: But other than that, I'll certainly be in 

touch via email with the Work Group to try to put 

something together for a next meeting. Other than 

that, I don't have anything further.

Member Kotelchuck: I would love to have the 

meeting ASAP, the next Work Group meeting ASAP 

because we have an agenda and we're going 

through it, and so --

Chair Beach: How much time does SC&A think they 

need for --

Ms. Gogliotti: My review of the model should not 

take that long, but we'd have to get it through 

editing and publishing, which has a two-week 

minimum, but I don't know what kind of posting 

requirements we have either for the meeting.

Dr. Roberts: Right.

Mr. Barton: So, depending on what that shapes up 

as, it may require --
105

(Audio interference.)

Mr. Barton: -- new procedures that we're following, 

so that can add, again, significant time onto when 

we'd be ready with the White Paper that could be 

viewed by the public --

(Audio interference.)

Mr. Barton: I mean, we can almost always get --

(Audio interference.)

Mr. Barton: -- copies to the Work Group Members 

via --

(Audio interference.)

Mr. Barton: -- as long as it stays behind that --

(Audio interference.)

Mr. Barton: -- but the delay is really in getting it in 

a postable version so the public can see that work 

too, and that can be quite time consuming if we 

have to go to DOE because of certain references 

that are in there or what have you. 

I know this previous report by NIOSH, I believe had 

to go through DOE as well, so I imagine any 

response from us or adding any new data or new --

(Audio interference.)

Mr. Barton: -- then it might have to go to DOE just 

based on our requirements.

Adjournment

Dr. Roberts: Right, so again, I think that it's 

probably more productive to just try to work out the 

timeline keeping in mind that, yes, we probably 

need to bring the Work Group together sooner 

rather than later, but obviously we need to factor in 

reviews and other things into that.

So, at any rate, if there isn't anything further, I 
106

really do need to get off the call, so if it's okay, I'd 

like to go ahead and adjourn.

Chair Beach: Okay, I second that adjournment. 

Thank you, everyone.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 2:05 p.m.)