1

120U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

KANSAS CITY PLANT WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

JANUARY 20, 2015

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened in the Brussels 

Room of the Cincinnati Airport Marriott, 2395 

Progress Drive, Hebron, Kentucky, at 8:30 a.m., 

Josie Beach, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member*

ALSO PRESENT:

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
2

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A*

MAURICE COPELAND

PETE DARNELL, DCAS

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

JOYCE FRANCIS, ORAU Team*

JOSH KINMAN, DCAS*

WAYNE KNOX

JENNY LIN, HHS*

JOYCE LIPSZTEIN, SC&A*

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A*

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

PAT McCLOSKEY, ORAU Team

JIM NETON, DCAS

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team

MARLON SMITH

JOHN STIVER, SC&A*

*Participating via telephone

T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Issue

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
3

13 - Mag-thorium alloy operations & exposure

 potential .................................. 6

1 - Data completeness ....................... 131

2 - Coworker internal dose modeling

 issues .................................... 143

3 - Exposure patterns (chronic vs.

 acute) .................................... 155

6 - Depleted uranium exposure

 potential at select periods ............... 156

7 - Radioactive waste

 handling, storage, transportation ......... 161

8 - Metal tritides exposure potential ....... 204

9 - Coworker external dose modeling

 issues .................................... 208

10 - Application of non-penetrating

 (Beta) dose records ....................... 216

11 - Neutron-photon ratio basis ............. 218

12 - Accounting for fading NTA film ......... 221

14 - Adequacy of post-1993 monitoring under

 10 CFR Section 835 ........................ 227

15 - Thorium Oxide exposure potential ....... 229

16 - Use of TBD-6000 for Natural

 Uranium, Thorium, and Thoron .............. 267

17 - D&D (decontamination and

 decommissioning) period issues ............ 237

18 - Use/adequacy of workplace

 incidents records ......................... 258

1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
4

1 (8:42 a.m.)

2 MR. KATZ: All right. Well, let's get 

3 rolling. We may not have our full complement of 

4 Board Members. Someone has an open speaker again 

5 because I can hear myself.

6 So let's begin with roll call. Welcome 

7 everybody in the room and on the line. This is 

8 Advisory Board on Radiation Worker Health, Kansas 

9 City Plant Work Group.

10 Roll call, for all the agency-related 

11 people, please speak to conflict of interest when 

12 we run through the roll call. And let's get 

13 started with Board Members in the room.

14 (Roll call.)

15 MR. KATZ: And we're expecting Dr. 

16 Lockey. He's in the hotel, but not sure where.

17 So the agenda and some materials for the 

18 meetings are posted on the NIOSH website. They're 

19 under the Board section under today's date. So 

20 people on the line you can follow along with some 

21 of the documents that will be discussed during the 

22 discussion by going there.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
5

1 And, Josie, it's your -- oh, and folks 

2 on the line, please mute your phones except when 

3 you're speaking. It'll improve the audio quality 

4 for everybody. And, Josie, it's your meeting.

5 CHAIR BEACH: All right, thank you. 

6 Like Ted said, there is an agenda posted, however 

7 I'm going to make some modifications to the agenda 

8 this morning. We do have a very full agenda. And 

9 we are going to adjourn at 2:45. So hopefully we 

10 will get through, I would say, 80 percent of our 

11 agenda.

12 We're going to start with Issue Number 

13 13, it's the mag-thorium alloy operations and 

14 exposure potential. If you remember back, the 

15 first White Paper came out August of 2014. SC&A 

16 produced that. And then NIOSH came out with their 

17 White Paper on January 9th of 2015.

18 We're going to go from Issue 13 to Issue 

19 20 and then we're going to go back up to the top 

20 of the agenda with Issue 1 and then work our way 

21 through the rest of the issues in that order.

22 Lunch will be sometime mid-day. We're 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
6

1 going to try and go for about a 45-minute lunch and 

2 then back to work. So, comfort breaks when we need 

3 them, as we can.

4 So, NIOSH, Pete, can you go ahead and 

5 start us off on the mag-thorium?

6 MR. DARNELL: All right, thank you. 

7 NIOSH and ORAU put together a thorium-magnesium 

8 White Paper. Basically, we've gone through the 

9 available monitoring data, SWIMS data, telling us 

10 what materials were onsite when and came up with 

11 a method to bound the doses that were at the Kansas 

12 City Plant.

13 MR. STIVER: Pete, I hate to interrupt, 

14 this is Stiver, I can barely hear you on the line 

15 here.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, his voice is hush, I'm 

17 going to move the speaker closer.

18 MR. DARNELL: I'm sorry. I'm going to 

19 let Pat talk about it, I'm not --

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh, sure, I'll take it.

21 MR. DARNELL: If you don't mind. I'm 

22 sorry, I'm just not very --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
7

1 MR. KATZ: It's okay.

2 MR. DARNELL: -- good today.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay, this is Pat 

4 McCloskey with the ORAU Team. So, when this 

5 petition first qualified in March of 2013 there was 

6 nothing on our books, nothing in the TBD, about 

7 mag-thorium machining at the Kansas City Plant.

8 It was new information that we started 

9 with working on this petition. So we put together 

10 what we knew in the petition and then SC&A came out 

11 with some comments -- in the ER, I should say. And 

12 they came up with some comments in the ER and they 

13 said that operations timeframe, data adequacy and 

14 completeness, dose estimation approach and the 

15 1970 breathing zone sampling need to be validated.

16 I'm reading from our White Paper. 

17 Skipping around in there just hitting the 

18 highlights so we can keep the meeting going. 

19 And they also wanted us to verify 

20 offsite mag-thorium fabrication.

21 So I didn't know a lot about mag-thorium 

22 alloys in the summer of 2013 when I started this. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
8

1 And so I wanted to bring to light some of the stuff 

2 that I found in the SRDB about it.

3 And so it was a new alloy in 1957, 

4 brought to the market by Dow. And they named their 

5 alloys with some annotations, such as HK31.

6 And each one of those letters in the name has a 

7 meaning. I put this in the paper because there was 

8 some question about the thorium concentration in 

9 the alloys used at the KCP.

10 So the two alloys used at the Kansas 

11 City Plant were HK31A and HM21A. The designators 

12 talk about the nominal concentrations and various 

13 elements in the alloy. H, meaning thorium, and K, 

14 meaning zirconium, and M, meaning manganese. And 

15 those numbers talk about the nominal 

16 concentrations in the alloy.

17 Matter of, I think that's publically 

18 available information. But just thought I'd set 

19 that out there to talk about concentration.

20 Magnesium is used in missile 

21 construction because it's lightweight. And they

22 added the thorium to the alloy for strengthening 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
9

1 at higher temperatures.

2 So, Dow, with their introduction of the 

3 alloy in 1957, did some testing of the material, 

4 because they knew that there would be work done with 

5 it and they were concerned with safety.

6 They took some air sampling, did some 

7 air monitoring during some hand-sanding of HK31 and 

8 some power disc sanding. And they did not exceed 

9 their permissible limit of 0.1 milligrams per cubic 

10 meter for the hand-sanding. And they did slightly 

11 exceed it for the power sanding. But they weren't 

12 using local exhaust ventilation.

13 That 0.1 milligrams per cubic meter air 

14 concentration deserves a little bit of 

15 elaboration. They would have performed that 

16 sampling and analyzed it with mass spectrometry, 

17 delivering results in a mass per cubic meter of air 

18 format.

19 And if you realize that essentially all 

20 of the weight of thorium -- so the mass spec would 

21 have delivered some results back in saying the 

22 species of thorium is there, but not talking about 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
10

1 the different nuclides.

2 But if you realize that, by weight, 

3 thorium is essentially all thorium-232, and you use 

4 the specific activity of thorium, you can derive 

5 a radioactivity concentration that would be equal 

6 to that of 1.1 E minus 11 microcuries per 

7 milliliter. That's just for reference.

8 So the paper goes on and it talks about 

9 some more studies that Dow did in '56. And it was 

10 a paper titled, "Magnesium-Thorium Alloys --

11 Industrial Health Experience in Fabrication and 

12 Production." And the report has air samples for 

13 grinding, filing, buffing and sawing 

14 magnesium-thorium with various concentrations of 

15 5.5, 5.4 and 3.3 percent thorium. And the highest 

16 recorded level was 0.53 milligrams per cubic meter 

17 during those operations.

18 There's a White Paper also written by 

19 SC&A back in 2007 where they analyze these same air 

20 sample data at the Dow plant. That paper is "A 

21 Focused Review of Operations and Thorium Exposures 

22 at the Dow Chemical Company -- Madison Plant," 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
11

1 produced in August of 2007.

2 And they went a little bit further than 

3 we did in our paper and determined that the doses 

4 that you would receive from those type of machine 

5 operations right there would, for the highest 

6 airborne concentration, give 5 millirem per hour.

7 Skipping down a paragraph. Dow put 

8 together a bulletin. Dow Bulletin Number 141-179. 

9 I have a copy of that, that's this one here. They 

10 produced this for their merchandising department 

11 and for engineer end-users, for customers that they 

12 were selling the mag-thorium to, such as Kansas 

13 City Plant.

14 CHAIR BEACH: That's in the SRDB, too, 

15 right?

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. 39899 is the 

17 SRDB number. Feel free to interrupt me if you ever 

18 have any questions.

19 Okay, so in here there's a few more air 

20 sampling results. They have one for the drumming 

21 of very fine powder at 0.015 milligrams per cubic 

22 meter. And slabs of mag-thorium in heat treat 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
12

1 ovens, with air sample data on that as well.

2 And they have arc welding analyzed in 

3 here. And their conclusion on the arc welding is 

4 that it would be possible to keep the thorium fumes 

5 at acceptable levels using local exhaust. And they 

6 have a picture of the way they would have done that 

7 and analysis.

8 So this is something that would have 

9 been in the hands of Kansas City Plant when they 

10 bought the magnesium-thorium from Dow. And they 

11 incorporated a lot of these same controls into 

12 their work control documents.

13 The exception on this one, the local 

14 exhaust that they have right there at the tack weld, 

15 they say 390 cubic feet per minute, but KCP 

16 specified 400 cfm. Little bit more. Pretty much 

17 everything else is the same.

18 So, still giving some background on 

19 magnesium-thorium. The Air Force published a tech 

20 manual, so we have an independent organization that 

21 looked the processing of mag-thorium alloys. And 

22 they believe that the 0.1 milligrams per cubic 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
13

1 meter air limit was readily met in processing 

2 magnesium-thorium alloys containing up to ten 

3 percent thorium.

4 For example, stirring an alloy melt 

5 with five percent thorium content resulted in 0.002 

6 milligrams per cubic meters. And grinding an 

7 alloy of three percent thorium content gave thorium 

8 contamination of breathing zone ranging from 0.008 

9 to 0.035 milligrams per cubic meter. Separate 

10 organization there.

11 And then in the next paragraph we talk 

12 about the fact that there's an exemption. It would 

13 have been from the AEC, at that time, in 10 CFR 40, 

14 for mag-thorium alloys containing less than four 

15 percent thorium. This is something that Kansas 

16 City Plant was aware of when they were working with 

17 it, that it was a non-licensed material.

18 Then there's a NUREG-1717 that talks 

19 about the exemptions for mag-thorium alloys. And 

20 they also discuss a fire, if it were to happen, what 

21 would be the repercussions of that. They would 

22 suggest an effective dose equivalent to an 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
14

1 individual who is not using respiratory protection 

2 during cleanup after the fire would be one 

3 millirem. Just a data point to consider.

4 So now we're going to start talking 

5 about mag-thorium operations specifically 

6 occurring at the Kansas City Plant.

7 When we first wrote the ER we based the 

8 start date for mag-thorium machining operations at 

9 1957 based on some Dorothy Troxell court documents. 

10 And what it said was that magnesium-thorium alloys 

11 were first handled in the plant in 1957. But it 

12 didn't speak to the nature of that handling 

13 operations.

14 Now given some more time and some more 

15 data capture in October of last year and some more 

16 documents, we were able to better refine what we 

17 believe the start date of the machining operations 

18 to be.

19 And so the first few years, from '57 up 

20 until '61, the magnesium-thorium parts that they 

21 had at the Kansas City Plant were machined offsite 

22 at three different subcontractors. The Sheffield 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
15

1 Corporation, it appears, did the majority of that 

2 machining. And also Twin City Tool Company and the 

3 Ladish Company.

4 So we have reports of Kansas City Plant 

5 safety personnel visiting the facilities and 

6 giving them the Dow safety bulletin to follow to 

7 make sure that they were being safe, and even giving 

8 them some more advice as far as using local exhaust 

9 and wetting controls while they were working.

10 I'm trying not to read this entire thing 

11 for the sake of time, but if anyone would like to 

12 read and visit any specific topic, feel free.

13 MR. DARNELL: Why don't we move ahead 

14 to how we bounded the dose and our assumptions 

15 therein.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay, let make sure --

17 sounds good. There's essentially two campaigns of 

18 mag-thorium machining operations at Kansas City 

19 Plant: the campaign that occurred in the '61 to '63 

20 timeframe that we have data on, and then another 

21 campaign that was in the '70s.

22 Okay, I guess I'll jump to the section 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
16

1 titled "SC&A White Paper Conclusions and NIOSH 

2 Responses."

3 So at the end of SC&A's review of our 

4 ER methodology, they boil a lot of their comments 

5 down to, what is it, four or five -- seven basic 

6 comments. And I'll go through those.

7 For the comment number one, 1957 to 1959 

8 period, "it's unclear whether the 9 E minus 11 

9 microcurie per milliliter for the thorium-232 

10 limit, the nature thorium limit or gross alpha 

11 limit. That issue is central for determining 

12 whether a mass loading limit can be used for the 

13 period. Furthermore, there are no data to enable 

14 determination of whether this limit was enforced 

15 and actual air concentrations for thorium-230 Type 

16 2 remained generally below this limit."

17 Our response is, considering the 

18 monitoring equipment available to Kansas City at

19 the time, the year one concentration limit of 9 E 

20 minus 11 microcurie per milliliter would have been 

21 implemented as a gross alpha limit and supplemented 

22 with the industrial hygiene limit of 0.1 milligram 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
17

1 per cubic meter.

2 NIOSH has continued to research and 

3 discover new information regarding the operations 

4 and now understands that those operations that 

5 began in '57 did not involve machining or an 

6 internal exposure pathway, as described in this 

7 paper, until August 23 of 1961. Therefore, NIOSH 

8 now considers that date as the start of mag-thorium 

9 machine operations for which an internal exposure 

10 bounding method would be necessary.

11 The next SC&A comment. 1958 to 1970 

12 air concentration data that NIOSH referred to are 

13 for DU and not thorium. NIOSH has provided no 

14 evidence that any of these air samples are related 

15 to the mag-thorium processing.

16 And the NIOSH response is mag-thorium 

17 machining ops began at Department 20, also known 

18 as Department 22 or the heavy machining area, in 

19 August 23 of '61, and were only performed in that 

20 department until September 21st of '70 when they 

21 were moved to the model shop, described previously 

22 in this report.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
18

1 This means the bulk of the available air 

2 monitoring data was obtained in the department 

3 where mag-thorium machining occurred and at the 

4 same time. Although these six-footer air 

5 monitoring stations were established primarily for 

6 Kansas City principle machining activities, they 

7 would have been analyzed for gross alpha and can 

8 be used to bound thorium exposures.

9 And then I show there an example of some 

10 of the air monitoring results. They were specific 

11 to say at which machine number the sample was taken 

12 and the types of instruments used. I provided this 

13 to speak to the idea that it would have been gross 

14 alpha counting at that time.

15 So, moving onto the next comment from 

16 SC&A. For the period of after '59, it's unclear 

17 whether the limit of 3 E minus 11 microcurie per 

18 milliliter includes thorium-228 and possibly other 

19 decay products of thorium-232. The limit for 

20 thorium-232, based on the lung as the critical 

21 organ set in NBS 69, was 1 E minus 11 microcurie 

22 per milliliter. And that was published in 1959.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
19

1 Okay, our response. Title 10 CFR Part 

2 20, Appendix B, dated January '57, with amendments 

3 dated in '57, '59 and '61, define the occupational 

4 maximum permissible concentration for air for 

5 thorium-232 and natural thorium to be 3 E minus 11 

6 microcuries per milliliter.

7 The document states, in Section 

8 20.5(c)(1), a curie of natural thorium, or 

9 thorium-natural in Appendix B or C, means the sum 

10 of 3.7 E to the 10th disintegrations per second from 

11 thorium-232 plus 3.7 E to the 10th disintegrations 

12 per second from thorium-228.

13 That information substantiates the 

14 basis for the 3 E minus 11 microcurie per milliliter 

15 MPC air limit and makes it clear that thorium-228 

16 was included in the limit.

17 NIOSH believes it is clear, from 

18 reading from safety practice as it was conducted 

19 in the '60s, that the MPC air value would have been 

20 interpreted as a gross alpha limit.

21 Applications of alpha spec to routine 

22 air sample counting is seldom seen, even now, in 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
20

1 a comprehensive, well-run radiological control 

2 program and it would not have been routinely used 

3 in the '60s.

4 Notice that we have propose to use the 

5 constant 3 E minus 11 microcurie per milliliter 

6 limit and not the lower value of 1.1 E minus 11 

7 microcurie per milliliter, which is equivalent to 

8 0.1 milligrams of thorium, like we described 

9 earlier.

10 So, consequently, discussion about how 

11 to covert these airborne concentrations to 

12 airborne mass concentrations is not pertinent to 

13 the bounding dose reconstruction method proposed 

14 by NIOSH.

15 "NIOSH has not provided any air 

16 monitoring data for the '71 to '79 period." That's 

17 the second mag-thorium machining campaign I just 

18 described. And that's right, we have not found 

19 additional air monitoring data for that time 

20 period.

21 They did the negative exposure 

22 assessment at the beginning of the second campaign. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
21

1 It's the one where it's described in the ER where 

2 they went to each work station in the model shop, 

3 performed some breathing zone sampling, and showed 

4 that they didn't think there was an exposure 

5 potential for all the wet machining and machining 

6 with the ventilation in place. And we're going to 

7 talk about that one a little bit; it's its own 

8 separate issue coming up.

9 So there's that air sample data. And 

10 after that we don't see any routine air monitoring 

11 of the machine ops. So we tried to build a model. 

12 We built a model here, in the absence of that data, 

13 that considered data from their surface 

14 contamination monitoring program as an indication 

15 of their workplace conditions.

16 We modeled the surface contamination 

17 that would have been created from the natural 

18 settling of air concentrations at Kansas City 

19 Plant's prescribed limit and compared the result 

20 to the actual surface contamination data.

21 We took that 3E minus 11 control limit 

22 and assumed a 7.5E minus 4 meters per second 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
22

1 settling rate for 30 days and derived 1,295 dpm per 

2 100 centimeter squared surface contamination 

3 level.

4 By comparison, routine survey records 

5 show the average measured level recorded for 

6 Department 20 general area from 1962 to '69 to be 

7 892 dpm per 100 centimeter squared. And there's 

8 no indication that Kansas City's control of work 

9 or in-plant environmental working condition 

10 degraded in the years after the cessation air 

11 monitoring.

12 And that leaves us confident that 

13 exposures remain bounded with the use of the 3E 

14 minus 11 microcurie per milliliter limit specified 

15 in the ER.

16 All right, next comment. SC&A's next 

17 comment, Number 5. "NIOSH refers to one thorium 

18 machining air concentration test. The test is 

19 inadequate to determine the value that should be 

20 used, even for the year of the test, much less for 

21 any other year."

22 Now, this is that air sampling that 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
23

1 occurred that I described as the negative exposure 

2 assessment at the beginning of the second campaign 

3 where they went to each work station. And I guess 

4 I'll talk about that more here.

5 As discussed previously in the paper, 

6 mag-thorium operations related to Kansas City 

7 Plant's second machining campaign would not have 

8 commenced in the model shop until after receiving 

9 approval from the health services department in 

10 September of '70. From September 18 to October 10, 

11 1970, Mr. Triplett performed a negative exposure 

12 assessment for the industrial hygiene and health 

13 physics department. And the following 

14 information was included in the report of that 

15 assessment.

16 Breathing zone samples were taken with 

17 the Unico 11 portable air sampler. Air flow for 

18 the samples were -- I give all the information about 

19 how the samples were done. And we're basically in 

20 agreement with what SC&A has said in their comment 

21 about the ability of the air monitoring to be 

22 conclusive.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
24

1 And I'll skip to the next paragraph 

2 there. SC&A concludes from this information, and 

3 NIOSH agrees, that the sensitivity of this test was 

4 not high. SC&A calculated the capability of KCP's 

5 analysis method using worst case background of 

6 three counts per minute and determined thorium-232 

7 plus thorium-228 concentration of 6E minus 11 

8 microcuries per milliliter.

9 NIOSH also agrees that it's evident 

10 from the one hour counts that a considerable amount 

11 of short-lived activity was present in the air. 

12 However, NIOSH accounts for that activity in the 

13 ER by including an additional thorium bounding 

14 model for each employee who performed the work.

15 NIOSH believes that the assessment 

16 Kansas City performed from September 18 to October 

17 10, 1970, prior to their second campaign, is useful 

18 as additional data to support our bounding method, 

19 as well as confirmation of Kansas City Plant's good 

20 work practices.

21 The next issue, Number 6, the issue of 

22 doses from progeny of thorium needs to be 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
25

1 addressed. That's in the SC&A paper.

2 And our response, there's no 

3 indications that chemical separations of thorium 

4 were performed in the Kansas City Plant. And the 

5 radioactive equilibrium between thorium-232 and 

6 228 and their progenies could not have been changed 

7 by the mechanical processes performed at Kansas 

8 City.

9 Due to the long half-life of 

10 thorium-232 and relatively short half-life of 

11 thorium-238, essentially all the mass of the 

12 airborne thorium would have been associated with 

13 thorium-232.

14 Mag-thorium stock material 

15 fabrication, which was done at one of the Dow 

16 Chemical facilities, involved chemical 

17 purification and heating previously refined 

18 thorium-containing materials.

19 Information presented in the August 

20 2007 document produced by SC&A. That's this on 

21 here that we talked about earlier. That's the one 

22 titled "A Focused Review of Operations and Thorium 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
26

1 Exposures at the Dow Chemical Company -- Madison 

2 Plant" shows that mag-thorium material was a new 

3 product in '57. It also shows that the thorium was 

4 procured from a Canadian vendor as pellets, ores 

5 and master alloy which contained a reactively high 

6 concentration of thorium.

7 It's likely that thorium or milling and 

8 other chemical purification processes occurred 

9 prior to metal pellet or master alloy fabrication. 

10 So it's likely that the thorium would have been 

11 triple separated over the course of several years 

12 prior to use at Kansas City.

13 We can use this information to 

14 reasonably bound the degree of this disequilibrium 

15 that would have been associated with material that 

16 was mechanically fabricated in Kansas City.

17 OTIB-76 is a document entitled, 

18 "Guiding Reconstruction of Intakes of Thorium 

19 Resulting from Nuclear Weapons Programs," 

20 addressed the similar situation involving triple 

21 separated thorium at Fernald. Triple separated 

22 thorium subject to pessimistically chosen 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
27

1 intervals between chemical purification results in 

2 thorium-238 to thorium-232 activity ratio of 0.19.

3 Radium-242, an alpha emitter decay 

4 product of thorium-228, would also exist in the 

5 activity ratio of 0.19. The beta emitters in the 

6 decay chain, radium-228 and actinium-228, would 

7 also be present in the aerosol at an activity ratio 

8 of 0.19.

9 By minimizing the ratio of thorium-228 

10 to thorium-232, the assumed isotopic mixtures 

11 weighted in favor of 232 thorium. And that is a 

12 claimant-favorable assumption because the dose 

13 conversion factors are higher for thorium-232.

14 This information can be used to 

15 interpret a gross alpha air sample taken in a 

16 thorium fabrication area. In keeping with typical 

17 air sample counting protocol, we assume that the 

18 air sample had been stored for a nominal four days 

19 prior to counting to allow short-lived progeny to 

20 decay.

21 Assuming 100 becquerels was detected in 

22 the gross alpha sample, 73 becquerels would have 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
28

1 been associated with thorium-232, 14 becquerels 

2 would be from thorium-228, 14 would be from 

3 radium-224. And we rounded those numbers.

4 The selection of intake method, most 

5 likely inhalation, and material type, slabs of 

6 Class F, M or S, is left to the dose reconstructor 

7 to determine based on a counting scenario for the 

8 affected organ.

9 Okay, comment number 7 from SC&A. 

10 NIOSH needs to determine the various alloy 

11 compositions that were machined and whether 

12 variations of thorium content may have made a 

13 difference in particulate generation during the 

14 machining.

15 There were two alloys machined at 

16 Kansas City: HK31 and HM21. We talked about what 

17 those nomenclatures mean at the beginning of this 

18 paper. Various Kansas City Plant letters and 

19 reports over time have referenced a thorium 

20 concentration range for the mag-thorium alloys 

21 processed at Kansas City. The range is explained 

22 by the specification of nominal values in the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
29

1 casting of the alloys and the need of some 

2 organizations to specify maximum values of the 

3 concentration.

4 While the fact remains that the only 

5 alloys machined at Kansas City were HK31 and HM21, 

6 with nominal thorium concentrations of three and 

7 two percent, respectively. Alternately, the 

8 thorium content of the machined alloy does not 

9 affect the bounding method due to the method's 

10 dependence on gross alpha air monitoring.

11 Therefore, if an employee machined 

12 mag-thorium with a higher thorium content, the 

13 limit maybe reached sooner, but it would not have 

14 effect the limit enforced.

15 Additional evidence that variation of 

16 thorium content makes no differences in 

17 particulate generation during machining was 

18 demonstrated in the Dow studies described earlier 

19 in the paper where we talked about them machining 

20 three, four and six percent and melting ten percent 

21 thorium. At the start of the work from Dow. And 

22 that's the end of that paper.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
30

1 CHAIR BEACH: Great. I think because 

2 of the lateness of that paper coming to the Work 

3 Group, and with all the Work Group papers this 

4 meeting, we're going to have just that conversation 

5 and then we'll expect White Papers from SC&A at 

6 post-meeting.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: It was ambitious with 

8 our October visit to Kansas City.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Yes, it was. So 

10 I'll go ahead -- if there's any questions for NIOSH 

11 from the Work Group Members? If not, then Joe --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, thank you for 

13 that. And I think, as Pat mentioned earlier, our 

14 concerns very early on, you know, you had a 

15 mag-thorium source term for which the thorium was 

16 a very, very small component. And there wasn't any 

17 routine monitoring, but there was good recognition 

18 by the site that they were dealing with something 

19 that was slightly radioactive. So there were, you 

20 know, certainly guidelines and precautions and all 

21 that.

22 Most of our concern, and we listed this, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
31

1 I think, in the very early Site Profile, and then 

2 later in our review of the evaluation, is simply 

3 to look to at the bounding methods in terms of 

4 aligning, because we don't have the routine data, 

5 aligning the locations with the times with, you 

6 know, what we know as far as characterizing the 

7 material. You know, looking at what samples do 

8 exist and just validating that from a timeframe, 

9 location, all of that kind of marries up. Because, 

10 again, I think, you know, there's an approach that 

11 can be taken. But all that really has to be 

12 validated and be aligned.

13 I think the information that's been 

14 collected has focused this much better than it was 

15 a year ago. I think there's even new information 

16 and revelations in terms of the start date. I 

17 mean, stuff like that has gotten better. So it's 

18 made it easier for us to look at that.

19 Most of our comments -- and I'm going 

20 to give it to our authors. I mean, Joyce, John and 

21 Arjun really wrote the last White Paper. So 

22 certainly they're going to want to talk about the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
32

1 details. But most of our comments go into this so 

2 called alignment. Just looking at those dates, 

3 looking at, you know, the sources we're talking 

4 about. And then looking at the bounding technique 

5 that's being proposed and just seeing if that all 

6 aligns and makes sense to us, that we understand 

7 it.

8 So some of our questions are, can we 

9 understand how this all works and put us in a 

10 position of being able to tell the Work Group 

11 whether we're comfortable that all this, you know, 

12 in terms of the different phases, different 

13 locations and operations, all works.

14 With that, and with the time 

15 limitation, who wants to start off on the issues? 

16 Joyce or Arjun, John? I guess Joyce has probably 

17 spent the most time.

18 MR. KATZ: And just before Joyce starts 

19 let me just note for the record, Dr. Lockey joined 

20 us at the outset of really the presentation. And 

21 he does not have a conflict for the site.

22 And let me just check in and see, do we 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
33

1 have Dr. Poston on the line yet? Okay. Anyway, 

2 carry on, Joyce. Thanks.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun, just 

4 briefly before Joyce starts. Let me just say that, 

5 you know, I defer to Joyce on this because she's 

6 been looking in this in more detail recently.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Arjun.

8 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay, most of our 

9 doubts, as Joe was saying, was looking at the data 

10 and seeing what there is really from the 

11 information that were collected.

12 We now know that the operation started 

13 in August '61. So we don't have to comment 

14 anything before that.

15 And from August '61 until March '63, 

16 NIOSH is applying a limit of the limit for thorium, 

17 which we accept without any further problem.

18 Then we have doubts after '63. Because 

19 there is some information on the paper that NIOSH 

20 gave us that from '63 to '97 there is no information 

21 on magnesium-thorium machining. So the same limit 

22 would be applied from '63 thereon. And the limit 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
34

1 was followed using some air samples and surface 

2 samples from DU.

3 From '63 to '66, there are air samples 

4 in Department 20D, which was the old 22, so there 

5 are air samples and some surface samples taken from 

6 '63 to '66 on Department 20D. If Mg-thorium 

7 machining took place at that time and in that 

8 department, 20D, it's okay to apply the limit.

9 Our problem starts on '66. Because on 

10 '66 the DU machining went down and Department 20D 

11 was cleaned. So there is information that the 

12 Department 20D was cleaned. There is information 

13 that, even in the NIOSH response to the matrix 

14 information, that Department 20D started being 

15 cleaned in '66.

16 There are some information talking 

17 about surface and floor monitoring done in '67, in 

18 which they say it was done in 20D, which was in 

19 process of modification to become an open area.

20 So the air samples and surface samples 

21 that were taken in 20D from '66 to '70, it seems 

22 to us that it was modified to be an open area that 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
35

1 was cleaned. So air samples taken there cannot be 

2 used to prove that the limits were followed. So 

3 I think NIOSH has to find out where this 

4 magnesium-thorium machining took place between '66 

5 and 1970.

6 And then after 1970 the operation moved 

7 to another department. A model shop. So after 

8 '70 there is no data on the model shop. Also we 

9 found some documents that were said that the model 

10 shop in principle was considered not a radiation 

11 area even though the operations from thorium 

12 machining took place in the model shop. 

13 And then there is no data at all after 

14 1971 until 1979. So with no data from '71 to '79, 

15 it's very difficult to accept that the limits were 

16 followed when the only air samplings and the 

17 surface contaminations were done in another 

18 department, which was not this one.

19 So that's a summary of our problems.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: I was going to say, 

21 after, you know, the 1966 to '70 timeframe that 

22 Joyce referenced, what we were trying to reconcile 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
36

1 is the commentary that was in your response under 

2 D&D. Where you got in some detail about that 

3 timeframe where apparently the DU was ramping down. 

4 And a lot of the surface samples and what not were 

5 taken from that same period. So it's unclear, you 

6 know, if those samples would be representative if 

7 the DU was going away, so to speak.

8 And it's not clear how quickly it was 

9 going away. It was just indicated that they were 

10 cleaning it up, 20D was being D&D'd. So that 

11 seemed to be a bit of a contradiction and we 

12 couldn't quite reconcile that with what was in the 

13 White Paper.

14 I think the other thing that maybe gave 

15 us a little pause, too, was the correspondence that 

16 was in the SRDB that was collected back in October, 

17 which I wasn't aware of. But, you know, the model 

18 shop was an uncontrolled area. Not even a 

19 radiation zone at that time.

20 And some of the supervisors were 

21 concerned about the fact that they were going to 

22 start out doing the mag-thorium there because it 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
37

1 was an unrestricted area, and were trying to get 

2 it moved back to 20D.

3 And I couldn't find -- you sort of 

4 looking for the later memos that said, okay, we 

5 either made it a restricted area and that's why we 

6 left it in the model shop. You know, it's a little 

7 bit uncertain to me exactly what the outcome was 

8 on that debate, because they were uncomfortable 

9 keeping it there.

10 So apparently the mag-thorium started 

11 in the model shop as an uncontrolled operation. 

12 Meaning that, you know, all workers had access to 

13 the area. They did rope off, I guess, the 

14 machinery, but the area itself was fully 

15 accessible, which is what I think was the concern 

16 of some of the managers, that that wasn't a good 

17 idea.

18 But I didn't see what happened. You 

19 know, did they make it restricted and then left it 

20 there? I would assume that might have been the 

21 case, but there was no paper on that.

22 They didn't move it back to 20D, that 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
38

1 was for sure. So, anyway, that was one 

2 uncertainty.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: I read that too, Joe. 

4 And my interpretation of that was that those 

5 managers were concerned that we were doing 

6 mag-thorium work in an area that was not a rad area 

7 when we had a rad area already established, and if 

8 there were problem here they'd be best if this were 

9 to occur in our established rad area.

10 I didn't interpret that that the model 

11 shop was ever not controlled or the general 

12 population had free access to it.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: It said unrestricted. 

14 I haven't seen anything else that could elaborate 

15 on that. There's one memorandum that said that 

16 part of the concern was that it was unrestricted.

17 Which could be interpreted in different ways. I 

18 kind of thought, knowing the terminology, it 

19 sounded like you had more access than you would 

20 normally have if you would have been in 20D as a 

21 rad area.

22 But, you know, it could be something 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
39

1 else. But I'm just throwing it out that I think 

2 that kind of opens up that question, which may be 

3 answerable if one could find a bit more 

4 documentation as to how they resolved that 

5 discussion, as it were.

6 But that gets to Joyce's original 

7 question, which is whether the sample information 

8 would be representative, given the circumstances 

9 of the model shop versus how the samples might have 

10 been taken in October of '70.

11 I think that was the question that she 

12 was posing for the post-'70. '71 to '79. Since 

13 that data comes from October of '70. I'm sorry, 

14 Joyce.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, that's exactly it.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: So kind of, in a 

17 sense, the early timeframes were fairly 

18 comfortable. I mean, I think there's 

19 characterization data. It's pretty clear the 

20 timeframes. In fact, the start date now is pretty 

21 crisp.

22 A little fuzzy on '63 to '66. Just 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
40

1 mainly because, as you acknowledged, there isn't 

2 a lot of conformation exactly where mag-thorium 

3 stood in that timeframe. That was the question we 

4 posed to Pete, and you as well, by email last week, 

5 was we couldn't quite figure out what you were 

6 saying there. But it sounds like the operations 

7 were there, but it was unclear to what extent things 

8 went on. Except it looked, in '66, mag-thorium 

9 went down and eventually was moved.

10 But we don't really have an issue per 

11 se, either, I guess, in that timeframe. It's only 

12 after '66 where, you know, using surface 

13 contamination information, other validating 

14 information air samples, what have you, DU air 

15 samples, from that latter 1960s period when if, in 

16 fact, DU operations were tailing down as indicated 

17 in the D&D response --

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: The other point I'd 

19 like to add to that is keep in mind that the 

20 mag-thorium machining operations were small scale, 

21 so for documentation to not be available, I mean, 

22 that could be some explanation for that. I mean, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
41

1 it was just small piecemeal work. 

2 The air sampling in the '60', we just 

3 used that as supplemental information to validate 

4 that they kept the mag-thorium machining ops in the 

5 box.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: And within --

7 certainly well below the criteria that the --

8 MR. SHARFI: We're citing based off the 

9 limit, not --

10 MR. FITZGERALD: 3E to the minus 11. 

11 It was well below 3E to the minus 11. Right.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: And we continued to use 

13 the 3E minus 11 as a bounding method, from '63, when 

14 the last point of good data on the ops occurring, 

15 up until the second campaign. Because we don't 

16 feel like we have a capital-letter D&D operations 

17 that occurred at the end of '63, the first campaign.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, our questions 

19 sort of go to the supplemental information that 

20 says, okay, you know, we don't have a whole lot of 

21 documentations, you're pointing out, through the 

22 '60s. But we want to certainly support the 3E to 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
42

the minus 11th 1 value going forward. And, you know, 

2 that's why we're looking at surface contamination 

3 level, some air samples.

4 And what we're saying is, well, we're 

5 trying to, as I said earlier, align locations and 

6 dates. And we're having a little trouble after '66 

7 to '70 because, from the response in the D&D issue, 

8 that item, it says they were cleaning up 20D 

9 starting in that timeframe. And so any samples 

10 taken at that time wouldn't necessarily represent 

11 mag-thorium.

12 Although, again, as you're pointing 

13 out, we don't even know what level mag-thorium 

14 operations there were. So there's a lot of kind 

15 of fuzziness there. And we're just raising 

16 questions whether one can use those samples to 

17 supplement or support the criteria. Because it 

18 seems like there's a lot of moving parts going on 

19 as far as operations tailing down on DU in the 

20 '60's. And then, of course, relocation of the 

21 operations in the model shop, which happened in 

22 1970, late '70.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
43

1 MR. DARNELL: It almost seems to me 

2 though that you're asking a different question from 

3 the way we're using the information. We're 

4 basically showing in the information that there was 

5 a robust safety program going on.

6 They were looking, they were following 

7 up, they were doing the things that they were 

8 supposed to do for radiation safety. And when 

9 we're using the limit with that information, saying 

10 that, yeah, it gives us a good idea that the limit 

11 would be the bounding case.

12 The other thing you have to remember and 

13 not get so hung up on restricted access versus 

14 unrestricted access: the guys that were working on 

15 that project had to have a specific medical 

16 monitoring and other testing done before anybody 

17 was allowed to work on that project.

18 So you wouldn't have unrestricted 

19 access to the workers doing the project. You would 

20 have workers that were specifically set up to go 

21 on that project. They may have some other workers 

22 around the area. But you would not have them on 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
44

1 the project itself.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. Well, that's a 

3 secondary comment. I think the primary comment 

4 was whether the October '70 samples would be 

5 representative for the '71 to '79 timeframe. And 

6 I think we agree that that's kind of a reach.

7 But to go back, just to clarify, all 

8 we're saying is that we don't have, I don't think, 

a fundamental problem with the 3E minus 11th 9 . But 

10 once you get past '63, we're trying to grab hold 

11 of something that gives us the kind of confidence 

12 that I think you were seeking when you're looking 

13 for supplemental information.

14 And if it's the gross alpha, all we're 

15 pointing out is it's unclear whether the operations 

16 weren't in fact going down in the latter part of 

17 that '60 timeframe and whether or not those samples 

18 would be very representative under those 

19 circumstances.

20 That's kind of the comment, and we've 

21 only had this for a week, but that's kind of the 

22 first thing that comes to our mind, saying, well, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
45

1 the response in the D&D item seems to be hard to 

2 reconcile with the reliance on those values on this 

3 response, because it just seems like if the 

4 operations were being cleaned up in 20D, then how 

5 representative are those gross alphas?

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

7 finding a little bit more removed from this, but 

8 we don't know that any operations occurred from '66 

9 to '70, is that right?

10 MR. DARNELL: That's correct.

11 DR. NETON: So there's no indication --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: We don't know of any 

13 mag-thorium operations.

14 DR. NETON: -- any mag-thorium 

15 operations occurred between '66 and '70. So right 

16 now we're in a position of proving a negative, that 

17 they didn't occur?

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I don't know. 

19 We need to know if there was mag-thorium.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. That's 

21 a part of the problem. We have bits and pieces.

22 And what my issue is, is you have a piece here and 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
46

1 a piece here and you're saying that nothing will 

2 add on there because you can't find it. But we're 

3 seeing history and information about it. So --

4 DR. NETON: I hear you, Brad. I'm just 

5 trying to get it clear. I mean, so you're looking 

6 for some confirmation that the operations didn't 

7 occur, even though they were D&D'd in the area where 

8 they had occurred.

9 So they would have had to move somewhere 

10 else and not be monitored, then no indication of 

11 any documentation that they monitored that 

12 operation, even though they were pretty well 

13 established in monitoring it while it was occurring 

14 previously.

15 That just seems sort of a stretch to me. 

16 I'm not saying it didn't, but I hear what you're 

17 saying and --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: It's just -- you know, 

19 and I sent this comment to Pete last week because 

20 I think we were confused, you know, but we basically 

21 said, are we reading that there weren't any 

22 mag-thorium operations? I think you're response 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
47

1 is we really don't know for sure. The 

2 documentation is so scanty.

3 DR. NETON: Right.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: But the gross alpha 

5 measurements that we have, you know, haven't 

6 changed markedly or wouldn't suggest it's above 3E 

to the minus 11th 7 .

8 And then we were looking at the D&D and 

9 try to say, well, why would they? Because if 

10 nothing was happening in 20D then they wouldn't --

11 DR. NETON: Well, I agree with you. 

12 But then they would had to have move it somewhere 

13 else and had no --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I understand.

15 DR. NETON: -- so you can't have it both 

16 ways.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, no, we're just 

18 trying to figure out what exactly is the position. 

19 And I think position is we don't really know because 

20 there's not enough documentation to fill in that 

21 hole. And --

22 CHAIR BEACH: Well, what do we know? 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
48

1 We know there was mag-thorium onsite, right? The 

2 inventory says it was there. And we knew they 

3 moved it to the model shop.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: In 1970.

5 CHAIR BEACH: 1970. But between the 

6 '66 and '70, that's where --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: We don't know.

8 DR. NETON: We're saying they're 

9 cleaning up the area where it occurred. It didn't 

10 move to the model shop. And so I have a point --

11 your question is, Joyce said, where did the 

12 operation occur between '66 and '70?

13 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

14 DR. NETON: And the possible answer is: 

15 it didn't.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

17 DR. NETON: And I think, you know, we 

18 understand what you're saying. You write up your 

19 White Paper, you know, we know what you're saying 

20 and we'll respond.

21 MR. DARNELL: But what I'm hearing --

22 and I just want to make sure I get it right. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
49

1 Fundamentally you agree with the use of the limit 

2 as the bounding case for the entire period?

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I'm saying we 

4 don't know. Between '66 and '70, who knows? 

5 We're just saying that the samples that were used 

6 as supplemental to say that it was well below, I'm 

7 having some trouble thinking that's your assurance 

8 because -- and I don't disagree. If there were 

9 mag-thorium operations and they were above that 

10 limit, you know, it's just that timeframe is just 

11 not characterized one way or the other. So I don't 

12 know what you can say about it.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: It's not for the sake 

14 of us asking for information.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no, no. I think 

16 we're point out the obvious. And your answer was 

17 confirming the obvious, that, no, we don't know. 

18 And we're saying, okay, then it seems like we have 

19 to take that value forward and feel confident from 

20 a programmatic standpoint that, you know, 

21 programmatically, it's unlikely that you would 

22 have a spike or something in that four or five year 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
50

1 timeframe.

2 But there's no way to objectively show, 

3 you know, by samples or anything on that.

4 MR. DARNELL: One thing to remember, 

5 though, is prior to that period you have a robust 

6 program that you can see the operations on. After 

7 that period, you see the same thing with 

8 radiological operations and how industrial hygiene 

9 handled the safety.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Programmatically. I 

11 can feel comfortable programmatically. I'm just 

12 trying to figure out if you just took the 

13 supplemental samples out, because, you know, for 

14 whatever reason, we don't know if they tie in or 

15 not. And we don't know if mag-thorium stopped, I

16 could programmatically say I can draw a line from 

17 here to there and be okay.

18 But from sort of the data standpoint, 

19 right now it's difficult because there's just not 

20 any information. That's all.

21 MR. DARNELL: We can go back and look 

22 for some more.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
51

1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I know.

2 MR. DARNELL: But I'm getting pretty 

3 fatalistic about looking again. KCP records, it's 

4 just so difficult to find anything.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: I one hundred percent 

6 agree with you having been there and experienced 

7 it. I just want the Work Group, I guess, to 

8 understand that our issue is not one where we have 

9 a positive finding of a problem. We just don't 

10 know and we can't sort of connect the dots on that 

11 time period. That's all.

12 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: And I don't think 

14 there's a disagreement, it's just that that seems 

15 to be the case. You almost have to take or 

16 interpolate from what happened before to what 

17 happened after and say it's unlikely that it would 

18 have been one exceeding that criterion. 

19 But the change of operations on the DU 

20 side, that would have effected the gross alpha 

21 measurements. And everything else would have had 

22 some --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
52

1 DR. NETON: I agree with you. If the 

2 operations didn't occurred in 20, using the air 

3 samples there, is not a good indication that they 

4 kept the procedures going.

5 But then if it didn't happen in the 

6 model shop either, so now we're going to have to 

7 find some place where they could have occurred in 

8 the building. Maybe it's a process of 

9 elimination. Where else would they have been? I 

10 mean, where else could they have processed 

11 mag-thorium in the Kansas City Plant besides these 

12 two places? And if they didn't, then there's no 

13 --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: And the NMMSS doesn't 

15 help us because I think that didn't begin until '70 

16 or '71. So it doesn't help in the '60's as far as 

17 inventory.

18 DR. NETON: Well, I'm not talking about 

19 inventory. I mean, there could have been an 

20 inventory but it just sat there.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah.

22 DR. NETON: What I'm saying is if it 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
53

1 didn't happen in 20, it didn't happen in the model 

2 shop, where could it have?

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And I think, 

4 you know, one could rely on programmatic, but I 

5 think before you get that far you might want to see 

6 if there's any -- and I don't disagree, it's a 

7 challenge -- see if there's any information that 

8 would give you some assurance in that timeframe. 

9 That's all.

10 DR. NETON: I think I hear you. We'll 

11 --

12 DR. MAURO: This is John. I know most 

13 of your discussion goes to mapping and location and 

14 concentrations. And there seems to be a degree of 

15 comfort with the 3E to the minus 11.

16 But I want to go back to that shortly, 

17 if it's okay, because I have to say, when I quickly 

18 read through the White Paper, I stumbled a little 

19 bit. And if you could help me out with this, that 

20 would be helpful.

21 The number, the 3E to the minus 11, 

22 that's your gross alpha count. And then you have 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
54

1 a 0.1 milligram per cubic meter. And then you have 

2 this number, this 0.19 ratio between thorium-228 

3 and thorium-232.

4 Now, bear with me for a minute. When 

5 I look at the decay chain, I see that -- you know, 

6 I'm visualizing someone is doing the separation of 

7 thorium, you know, getting pure thorium, triple 

8 separation.

9 Which tells me -- and you tell me if I'm 

10 wrong, please -- that that means you're going to 

11 have equal amounts of thorium-232 and thorium-228. 

12 Both of which are pure alphas. The thorium-228 has 

13 a 1.9 year half-life. So here I am confronted with 

14 what I believe would be, if you take the gross 

15 alpha, you could argue that, well, you know, it's 

16 coming both from those two radionuclides.

17 But then the thorium-228 has a string 

18 of short-lived progeny, several of which have 

19 alphas. So in a funny sort of way, when you look 

20 at a gross alpha count, I say to myself, well, 

21 you're probably -- and the gross alpha count is from 

22 this triple-separated thorium that then machined, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
55

1 and you're counting that, it seems to that you're 

2 counting all the alphas, which are one, two, three, 

3 four, five, six, seven alphas that are coming. 

4 Because they're all going to be there.

5 If you have separated thorium and, you 

6 know, have equals amounts of inactivity of 

7 thorium-228 and thorium-232. And then I hear the 

8 0.19 number. Why would there be a 0.19 on initial 

9 purification?

10 I could see at some time the thorium-228 

11 is going to decay away before it starts to grow in 

12 again. And I have to say, maybe I'm showing 

13 naivete in my knowledge of health physics, but 

14 there's something about the whole description of 

15 this that just left me uncomfortable. Can anyone 

16 help me out?

17 DR. LIPSZTEIN: John, I don't know --

18 this was just a way to do a claimant-favorable dose 

19 calculation. That's what NIOSH says. And 

20 actually I think this was a response to us asking 

21 about the progeny of thorium that needs to be 

22 addressed. And the response was that NIOSH would 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
56

1 use this 0.19 in order to be claimant-favorable 

2 when calculating the doses.

3 Actually, we have some problems with 

4 this because not for all organs the dose conversion 

5 factors for thorium-232 is higher than the dose 

6 conversion factors for thorium-228. But I think 

7 this is more -- it's not an SEC problem, it's 

8 something we have to discuss.

9 And if NIOSH wants to be 

10 claimant-favorable, they could choose which ratio 

11 is more claimant-favorable for the organ of the 

12 cancer type.

13 For example, the thorium-232 is a 

14 factor lower than the dose conversions factor for 

15 thorium-238. But the counter is for bone surface.

16 DR. MAURO: Excellent. You know, you 

17 brought me right where I wanted to go. So you're 

18 being conservative by disregarding the alphas from 

19 the short-lived progeny. And basically 

20 attributing all the alphas to some mix of 232 and 

21 228. And I agree with that. That's 

22 claimant-favorable.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
57

1 DR. NETON: Right, John. This came 

2 out -- and I wasn't involved, because I'm 

3 conflicted. But I know at the Fernald this triple 

4 separated thing came out as an issue. Actually, 

5 triple separated is a TIB now on this whole thing.

6 And, you know, it's the most 

7 claimant-favorable approach, as Joyce was saying, 

8 for most organs. Except maybe the lung where if 

9 you had a lot -- it wouldn't be any more than 100 

10 percent equilibrium, but you would have a higher 

11 dose to the lung. But I think for a systemic organs 

12 the triple separate gives you the highest organ 

13 dose.

14 DR. MAURO: Okay. But -- no, good. 

15 Now, the only, I guess, circumstance, the 0.19 

16 sounds to me that it would be claimant-favorable 

17 for lung.

18 DR. NETON: No.

19 DR. MAURO: No?

20 DR. NETON: No, I think, if you look at 

21 it, if you have a lot more thorium-228 activity --

22 DR. MAURO: Yeah, I'm not sure which is 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
58

1 the limiting organ.

2 DR. NETON: Yeah, we can look at that. 

3 Like Joyce says, it's calculable depending on the 

4 exposure scenario. 

5 DR. MAURO: Good.

6 DR. NETON: But I don't think a one 

7 hundred percent triple separated will give you the 

8 highest dose to all organs. She's right.

9 DR. MAURO: Okay. I completely agree 

10 that this is not an SEC issue. It's just how are 

11 we going to deal with the data for different 

12 cancers.

13 DR. NETON: It's interpretation. 

14 Right.

15 DR. MAURO: And what I'm hearing is 

16 you're going to use the assumption regarding what 

17 does that gross alpha mean in a way that will 

18 maximize the dose for that claimant, depending on 

19 the cancer he's dealing with.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Hey, John, can I cut in 

21 here?

22 DR. MAURO: Sure.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
59

1 CHAIR BEACH: Can you do this, I mean, 

2 I know it's important, but maybe offline? We've 

3 just got a limited time here with the Work Group.

4 DR. MAURO: Sure, no. I just wanted to 

5 bring this on the table. We'll resolve this later.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

7 DR. MAURO: When we write up our 

8 material.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

10 DR. NETON: Yeah, we'll look at your 

11 write-up when it comes out and respond to that.

12 CHAIR BEACH: So are there any 

13 questions? Loretta, Work Group Members, 

14 questions for NIOSH or SC&A at this point?

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: How many -- I'm having 

16 a hard time understanding how many actual samples 

17 we have to be able to tie this period together. I 

18 just know --

19 CHAIR BEACH: Are you talking the early 

20 period or the whole?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: The whole period. 

22 Over the whole period, how many samples do we 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
60

1 actually have?

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Air samples?

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yeah. Of all this. 

4 Because I'm just looking at a few that I've been 

5 able to find and I'm just trying to understand how 

6 we're bridging this gap there. I know that we've 

7 got a big blank spot in the middle, but how are we 

8 getting from one end to the other?

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: The ER talks about air 

10 monitoring that occurred in heavy machining area, 

11 Department 20. And so this is our fixed filter air 

12 sampling that would have been at all these stations 

13 around that area. And that goes from 1958 to 1971.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. How many 

15 samples would have there have been? How many total 

16 do you think there is?

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh boy, there are 

18 hundreds.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hundreds of them?

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Using gross alpha.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Using gross alpha, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
61

1 okay.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: So what you should be 

3 hearing there is the first mag-thorium machining 

4 campaign starts '61. Our first routine general 

5 air monitoring starts in '58 in that area where 

6 they're machining. Okay. So there are arms 

7 around that machining work with air monitoring.

8 Okay, and so we talked about this D&D 

9 that occurred in, don't quote me, I think we're 

10 using the year '66, when the DU didn't completely 

11 disappear, they were down to just a few pieces that 

12 they were working on. And the air monitoring 

13 continue in that area up until '71.

14 And so we wouldn't expect the 

15 mag-thorium machining work, after we've seen the 

16 documentation of it from the first campaign, to 

17 have gotten larger, right? And then when we get 

18 to 1970, the mag-thorium machining ops move to the 

19 model shop.

20 Just have the one air sample done as a 

21 negative exposure assessment at the beginning of 

22 that op with breathing zone monitoring in each work 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
62

1 station. And that's it. If that answers your 

2 question for air sampling.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, yeah. It does. 

4 Okay, I'm good right now.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Any other Work Group 

6 Members' questions? Maurice, do you have any 

7 questions or comments?

8 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

9 CHAIR BEACH: On this issue?

10 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. COPELAND: With all of what you're 

13 doing, where is the medical monitoring running in 

14 tandem with your air sampling and all? You know, 

15 we took physicals at that plant.

16 Not only did we take physicals, we had 

17 people that were going out on disability retirement 

18 for respiratory problems and stuff like that. 

19 Where was the medical monitoring going along --

20 where's the medical monitoring of the personnel 

21 going along with all of this?

22 They have physicals there in the plant 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
63

1 and we also have disability retirements of 

2 managerial personnel and the workers. So since 

3 we're concerned with the exposure rate, where is 

4 the data on the physical, the actual physical 

5 exposure rate of the people and the illness that 

6 they're coming down with and suffering from?

7 MR. DARNELL: We don't actually look at 

8 occupational illnesses, so we have to set that part 

9 aside.

10 MR. COPELAND: You're saying you don't 

11 actually?

12 MR. DARNELL: We don't actually look at 

13 occupational illnesses. We only look at the 

14 radiation-related things. So we have to set that 

15 part of your question aside. 

16 But to answer your question for the 

17 radiation aspects and for medical monitoring, on 

18 our last trip to the Kansas City Plant we went into, 

19 oh, hundreds of medical records for individual 

20 workers to look specifically for the data that 

21 you're asking about.

22 And that is where it's located. It's 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
64

1 within the employees' medical records, is where 

2 that is located.

3 MR. COPELAND: Right. So all of that is 

4 going into your -- I don't hear it though, I don't 

5 hear it here, but, okay, another thing.

6 MR. DARNELL: So are you asking are we 

7 using that in our dose reconstruction?

8 MR. COPELAND: Yes.

9 MR. DARNELL: We use exposure data from 

10 that in our dose reconstructions.

11 MR. COPELAND: And the illnesses that 

12 --

13 MR. DARNELL: Illnesses don't -- we 

14 cannot make any relationship between the different 

15 illnesses the worker got and the radiation 

16 exposure.

17 MR. COPELAND: So the illness --

18 MR. DARNELL: All we can look at is the 

19 radiation exposure.

20 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

21 MR. DARNELL: And we use that data.

22 MR. COPELAND: The illnesses related 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
65

1 to the elements aren't counted?

2 MR. SHARFI: There's a Part B that just 

3 deals with cancer induced from radiation, a Part 

4 E that's illness related to occupational exposure.

5 MR. COPELAND: Right.

6 MR. SHARFI: This is specific just to 

7 the Part B of the cancers related to radiation 

8 exposure. So we're not -- this part itself is not 

9 covering the decision making on illness related 

10 exposures to general exposure. That would be 

11 covered under Part E. Is that what you're asking?

12 MR. DARNELL: If you're asking about 

13 chemical toxicity of the materials, that would be 

14 covered under the Part E of the program.

15 MR. COPELAND: I know that I don't know 

16 much about this, but the elements that you're 

17 dealing with are radioactive, right?

18 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

19 MR. COPELAND: And there are certain 

20 illnesses that come from exposures to these things.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

22 MR. COPELAND: And that deals with the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
66

1 SEC, right?

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Some of the 

3 questions you're asking will be covered in other 

4 items on our agenda.

5 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

6 CHAIR BEACH: So we will get into some 

7 of those topics on how they correlate.

8 MR. COPELAND: Okay. And the 

9 operations done, an operation that you're talking, 

10 the thorium operation, the mag-thorium operations, 

11 the engineering process, it seems like you can't 

12 find certain things?

13 Certain things are done -- what we do 

14 is we work by engineering process controls. It 

15 should be found in the engineering process control. 

16 It seems like what's missing here is information 

17 that you can get directly from the engineers that 

18 worked in the plant. Like the period of time the 

19 certain thorium operations were done that seem to 

20 be missing here.

21 We still got those engineers walking 

22 around out here that they should be able to direct 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
67

1 you to their engineering process controls and the 

2 work that was actually being done.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Is that the title of a 

4 document? Would I find a document that says, 

5 "engineering process controls?"

6 MR. COPELAND: Right.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay.

8 CHAIR BEACH: See, through the 

9 interview process that's what we were looking for. 

10 We didn't find any specifics for that time period 

11 through our interviews. And when we go to look for 

12 documents, it's -- we've been there, what, three 

13 times now looking for documents. And it's 

14 difficult.

15 MR. COPELAND: Some of those engineers 

16 are still around. I gave you all names. I've been 

17 giving you all names for years.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

19 MR. COPELAND: And it don't seem like 

20 we're interviewing those people, because you could 

21 get that.

22 CHAIR BEACH: We are trying to. Okay? 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
68

1 We're not done by any means. Anything else on this 

2 topic, mag-thorium, that you have?

3 MR. COPELAND: Yeah, I have one. The 

4 operations of sanding and grinding these 

5 materials. Also the protection of the personnel 

6 doing it. Those engineering process controls, the 

7 PPE, how you protect the people, the exposure rates 

8 and what we wore, what was specifically done to 

9 protect the people.

10 And this has to do with the exposure 

11 rate. What did we do? What uniforms did we wear? 

12 Did we wear plastic suits, did we -- you know, I 

13 don't hear any of that. So, you know, that's all. 

14 I just wanted to throw that out so that everyone 

15 could hear.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: We have copies of the 

17 prescribed PPE and the controls used for the 

18 mag-thorium machining. We have five or six 

19 iterations of those controls, revisions of them.

20 They first started with the Dow safety bulletin. 

21 They incorporated largely all of these sorts of 

22 controls that I spoke about earlier.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
69

1 MR. COPELAND: Yeah.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: The first revision of 

3 them would use these. And they even reference them 

4 in the back of their controls.

5 And those controls specify 

6 contamination limits on materials that have to not 

7 be exceeded and airborne limits. That's where we 

8 got our 3E minus 11 control limit from.

9 So we have copies of those. I'm glad 

10 to show you some that I have during the next break.

11 MR. COPELAND: And that would be in 

12 also the engineering process controls because 

13 that's the way we work, step by step. We do not 

14 deviate. You use a blue eraser, use a blue eraser. 

15 It tells you step by step. Put your gloves on first 

16 before you do this.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Good.

18 MR. COPELAND: I want to see that. 

19 Because I did it. And it wasn't done. Okay.

20 MR. DARNELL: That's actually a very 

21 good question, but I think these discussions we're 

22 kind of one step above that. We're not looking at 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
70

1 that, we're looking at, worst case, what the doses 

2 would be and what the highest boundary of that dose 

3 would be. So we actually don't take protective 

4 clothing into account.

5 MR. SHARFI: We're assuming your 

6 protective clothing fails.

7 MR. COPELAND: I'm sorry?

8 MR. SHARFI: We're assuming the 

9 protective nature fails and that you got a full 

10 exposure from the loss of the PPE.

11 MR. DARNELL: Right.

12 CHAIR BEACH: A lot of that's in the 

13 background documents where you'll read it and it'll 

14 say they were wearing plastic suits, eye glasses.

15 MR. COPELAND: That's written by the 

16 engineers?

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. But it's --

18 MR. COPELAND: I want to see that.

19 CHAIR BEACH: But they're saying you 

20 didn't have anything on and this is what you're dose 

21 was.

22 MR. DARNELL: It doesn't matter what 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
71

1 the engineers said. If they told you you had to 

2 wear a plastic suit with an airline respiratory and 

3 the whole bit, that was for your safety then. We 

4 assume that you didn't wear any of it. You walked 

5 right up and took a straw and went, sniff. That's 

6 what we assume.

7 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

8 MR. DARNELL: The absolute worst case.

9 So all that other stuff that you're worrying about 

10 doesn't really matter.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Exactly.

12 MR. DARNELL: Because we're not using 

13 it anyways.

14 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

15 MR. DARNELL: We described it in our 

16 documents, but we don't use it.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so let's wrap up 

18 and talk about actions. What I have is SC&A's 

19 action is to write their concern or their issues 

20 into a White Paper for the Work Group.

21 And also continue to look for 

22 operations during that 1966-1970 timeframe. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
72

1 That's an ongoing for NIOSH action. I'm assuming 

2 we're not finished with that.

3 MR. DARNELL: No.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Anything else on actions 

5 for this 13, mag-thorium?

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: What was going to be 

7 for after '70? Is there any action after '70?

8 CHAIR BEACH: No, I believe that SC&A 

9 --

10 DR. NETON: Well, SC&A's going to 

11 comment on that in their report, their White Paper.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll include that. 

13 But I think our comment is -- and I'm not sure 

14 there's a big disagreement. We have the one 

15 October '70 negative exposure assessment. That 

16 one set of samples, breathing zone samples. And 

17 we're questioning how that can be applied to the 

18 model shop given, you know, the change in location 

19 and the admitted inaccuracies involved with that 

20 particular test.

21 That's always been kind of a standing 

22 question we've had, which is you got one sampling 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
73

1 and you don't have any more sampling after that.

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: I understand that, so 

3 --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: So we're questioning 

5 whether that can be applied.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Well, I understand the 

7 question. How is NIOSH going to --

8 DR. NETON: We can't react to it until 

9 I see it in writing.

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: I'm sorry?

11 DR. NETON: I'd like to see the report 

12 and see exactly, you know, how they did couch it. 

13 I mean, we're not going to --

14 MEMBER LOCKEY: If there's just one 

15 sampling data, are you going to go back and look 

16 for additional data or --

17 DR. NETON: No, no. We'll respond to 

18 the White Paper when it comes out.

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: I'm just curious --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: I thought the White 

21 Paper we've got actually came up with several more 

22 information we had before.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
74

1 DR. NETON: The fact is that there are 

2 a lot of other engineer -- there's a lot of 

3 engineering documents out there that show it's very 

4 hard to get large concentrations of airborne 

5 thorium when 98 percent of the material's inert. 

6 It's magnesium. So you generate some very large 

7 dust clouds before you get to the point where you 

8 start seeing 3 times E to the minus 11.

9 It's that sort of common sense approach 

10 that you got to start going back to when you start 

11 saying, you have a negative exposure assessment, 

12 they're not seeing anything, they did all this 

13 stuff. There's studies done by Dow back in the 

14 '50's that shows if you grind it, you weld it, you 

15 do all this stuff, there's not much in the air.

16 Like I said, if you have 98 percent of 

17 a material is inert material, only two percent is 

18 radioactive. It gives you some cushion.

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: The dust is going to be 

20 huge.

21 DR. NETON: You get huge doses.

22 CHAIR BEACH: So they'll include '70 to 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
75

1 '79 in their White Paper for --

2 DR. NETON: Yes. That would be our 

3 kind of response.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: I just wanted to know 

6 what you're going through.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think, you 

8 know, based on this dialogue, clearly there's the 

9 two timeframes that we'll comment on. I think 

10 we're okay with the early timeframes and we're okay 

11 with the thorium progeny.

12 So we're trying to narrow this thing 

13 down to really questions revolving around those two 

14 time periods. And we'll lay that out and, you 

15 know, try to get that to you as soon as possible.

16 MR. DARNELL: Thanks.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right, so the 

18 next item is 20. How does the Work Group feel? Do 

19 you guys need a comfort break?

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: We need a break.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So try to do a 

22 quick five minute break. That work? Five to 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
76

1 seven.

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

3 went off the record at 10:05 a.m. and resumed at 

4 10:15 a.m.)

5 MR. KATZ: Okay, we're back. Let me 

6 just check on the line and see, do we still have 

7 you, Loretta?

8 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes, I'm still here.

9 MR. KATZ: Super. And, John Poston, 

10 have you joined us? Okay, then. Carry on.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So the next item 

12 on our agenda that we're going to go to is Issue 

13 20, the tritium exposure potential. And I'm going 

14 to let NIOSH jump right into that one.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: Is that my cue, Pete?

16 CHAIR BEACH: That's the new one.

17 MR. DARNELL: Yes, if you don't mind. 

18 I just don't have the voice.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh, no problem. So 

20 Issue 20 was something we added --

21 CHAIR BEACH: In June.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, June. So we 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
77

1 found -- I forget when the first document surfaced 

2 showing that we had tritium issues there, but in 

3 June we decided that there was something more to 

4 look at.

5 I'm reading from -- I'm going to try 

6 to read less of this White Paper than I did of the 

7 last paper just to keep things moving a bit quicker. 

8 I'll just touch on the highlights from it. And if 

9 anyone wants to delve into something any deeper, 

10 please let me know so we can talk about it. 

11 So, the second page of the White Paper, 

12 our first indication that tritium was being --

13 well, I'll even go back a bit further. I'll read 

14 the introduction. Operations at Kansas City that 

15 involved working with tritium and nickel-63 were 

16 remitted in the scope. 

17 Two production tasks are known to 

18 involved tritium. One is the use of luminescent 

19 paint to fill engraved markings on a high/low 

20 switch plate. And a second operation involved 

21 manufacturing instrumentation for tritium 

22 analysis in urine and water.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
78

1 As part of that second operation there 

2 was a nickel-63 plating operation associated with 

3 the manufacturing of instrumentation for tritium 

4 analysis work. 

5 That nickel-63 information is probably 

6 new to a lot of people. We were just emailed 

7 documents on that December 15, 2014. It's when we 

8 first learned of it. Kansas City Plant found it 

9 and realized that they had not told us about it and 

10 sent it over to us.

11 So now we're going to talk about the use 

12 of tritium as a phosphor on the high/low switch 

13 plates. So the first use of it occurred February 

14 8, 1963. And that's in a memo from an industrial 

15 hygienist and he states that the activated phosphor 

16 is associated with negligible radiation exposure 

17 and a non-specified ADC study on the topic is cited.

18 So that's our first notice of it 

19 occurring. Let's see. And there's some 

20 communications back and forth between Kansas City 

21 Plant, another Bendix facility, and U.S. Radium 

22 Corporation. And they talk about acceptable 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
79

1 contamination levels that the Kansas City Plant 

2 would allow for these parts to be received at their 

3 facility. As a non-nuclear facility, they 

4 couldn't accept contamination levels at their 

5 site, so they had a visit.

6 Let's see here. And they performed 

7 some decontamination tests on three batches and 

8 showed increasing contamination levels over a 

9 one-week period and showed that the contamination 

10 levels were, let's see, increased from zero to 1500 

11 background detected counts per minute over that 

12 period.

13 I'm trying not to read it all and just 

14 hit the high points.

15 MR. DARNELL: Any questions on any of 

16 the background information? We're going to jump 

17 to the bounding scenario. Okay.

18 CHAIR BEACH: So let's be clear. 

19 There's two separate operations?

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

21 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And that Ni-63, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
80

1 that is associated with the first one, the 

2 luminescent paint? Or is that separate? 

3 MR. DARNELL: It's associated with the 

4 tritium monitor that they were building.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: The second application 

6 was the one associated with --

7 CHAIR BEACH: The second one, okay.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: So now we're talking 

9 about, you know, the use of this luminescent paint 

10 on a switch.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. I'm trying to 

13 skip ahead.

14 CHAIR BEACH: I'm just wondering if you 

15 can just describe what they were doing and maybe 

16 like kind of give an overview of it. I don't know 

17 what the rest of the Work Group needs, and we've 

18 all read the White Paper.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. So the 

20 application of the paint occurred at another 

21 facility. And the parts, the switch plates, were 

22 brought to the Kansas City Plant and handled there, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
81

1 so they wanted assurance that there was no removal 

2 contamination once it got to the Kansas City Plant.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: So the first part of 

5 this is the discussion about, you know, how do we 

6 survey for tritium in, you know, the early 1960s? 

7 What methods are available, what should be used? 

8 So we get some Sandia health physicists involved 

9 because they were considered the experts on that 

10 at the time, and all that's documented in there.

11 Okay. And they landed on the liquid 

12 simulation-type of monitoring that would be best 

13 for contamination surveys. The work was done in 

14 Department 212, the receipt of this work. Okay.

15 CHAIR BEACH: And the dates you have 

16 here on Page 4, you've got four sets and the number 

17 received, that's the sum total of the operation, 

18 that you know of, is that correct?

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

20 CHAIR BEACH: So essentially we're 

21 talking about 1965 is when that work took place?

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, let's read the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
82

1 bounding scenario. The exposure bounding 

2 scenario from tritium on high/low switch plates, 

3 in this scenario, exposure to tritium associated 

4 with the radio-luminescent high/low plates is 

5 estimated based on the period in which we know the 

6 switch plates were used. We assume that exposure 

7 occurred continuously between '63 and '68.

8 Okay. They had a formal method for 

9 controlling employee access to the work area using 

10 security guards, medical screenings, and 

11 qualifications.

12 In this bounding scenario, only those 

13 workers who received, inspected, installed, 

14 tested, and packaged the switch plates may have 

15 been exposed to tritium that was incorporated into 

16 the zinc sulfide simulator.

17 Okay, now we have a change that we need 

18 to make to this document for this next sentence. 

19 We now believe that the chemical form of the tritium 

20 was an organic compound, okay. And that is a memo 

21 by [identifying information redacted] earlier in 

22 this document where he says it was an organic 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
83

1 compound. And so that's going to cause us to 

2 change this bounding scenario slightly. But we're 

3 going to use the rest of this as it stands, and I'll 

4 explain a little bit --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you have the SRDB 

6 on that already or no?

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: On which one?

8 MR. FITZGERALD: On the organic 

9 compound.

10 MR. DARNELL: No.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

12 MR. DARNELL: That just came in last 

13 night.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: All right.

15 MR. DARNELL: It's hot off the press, 

16 so we're going to change to the organically bound 

17 tritium, and you'll SRDB references when those get 

18 uploaded.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: All right, thanks.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well let's see --

21 MR. SHARFI: The [identifying 

22 information redacted], isn't that the 128438 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
84

1 letter?

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, we saw that.

MR. McCLOSKEY: Let's see, on July 1st 3 , 

4 1965, a memo written by [identifying information 

5 redacted] regarding high/low switch plates used in 

6 the MC 1931 cable assembly, SRDB 137154. So look 

7 at that one.

8 The memo stated that the tritium 

9 phosphor filled the engraved letters so that they 

10 could be read in the dark and that the phosphor was 

11 a tritiated organic compound. So make note of 

12 that.

13 Okay. We know that the surface 

14 contamination on the intact switch plates 

15 increased as a function of time. This suggested 

16 that tritium gas was disassociating from the 

17 chemical matrix and diffusing to the surface.

18 At the surface, the tritium would most 

19 likely exist as water or hydration on the switch 

20 plate. You know, that's the not case now. It's 

21 going to be an organic compound. Soon the chemical 

22 form makes this tritium readily available for skin 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
85

1 absorption. 

2 So that's going to be a more 

3 claimant-favorable form of translocation through 

4 the skin, so we're going to continue to use that 

5 even though we're going to switch to an organic dose 

6 conversion factor later.

7 Okay. And then we're going to talk 

8 about the number of exposures that could've 

9 occurred over this time period. We know that from 

10 a February '66 trip report recapping the order 

11 status from the prior year that 500 units were 

12 ordered and 181 were shipped prior to the report 

13 date.

14 We also know from swipe test records 

15 that 330 switch plates or components were received 

16 in four batches in '65. That suggests two 

17 different orders for switch plates were made in 

18 '65, and we can use that information regarding the 

19 number of items received to estimate what chronic 

20 exposure would've occurred daily to estimate that 

21 nominally three switch plates per day would've been 

22 handled.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
86

1 Data collected in '65 from 110 swipes 

2 used to assess contamination level on the switch 

3 plates was fitted to a log-normal distribution and 

4 that data was found to have a geometric mean of 

5 4,246 dpm per 100 centimeters squared and a 

6 geometric standard deviation of 2.32.

7 The upper 95th percentile value of the 

8 excretion is 16,900 dpm per 100 centimeters squared 

9 and we assume that value for the contamination 

10 level in the bounding exposure scenario.

11 We do not the size of the switch 

12 plates, but we'll assume they're two-sided and 

13 nominally 100 centimeters squared on each side for 

14 a total of 200 centimeters squared.

15 And each switch plate had 33,800 dpm 

16 distributed over the entire surface. We assume 

17 that each switch plate was handled enough for all 

18 surface contamination to be transferred to the 

19 worker's skin where it was completely absorbed. 

20 That would not be the case with an organically bound 

21 tritium, but we're going to continue to use that 

22 for claimant-favorability. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
87

1 And for a worker handling three switch 

2 plates each day, the bounding intake rate of the 

3 tritium through the skin would be 101,400 dpm, and 

4 that bounding intake would've been chronic through 

5 the years, for the period 1963 to 1968.

6 If we use an ICRP-68 dose conversation 

7 factor of 4.19 E minus 9 rem per becquerel, the 

8 worker dose would be -- oh, what did I say that would 

9 be? It now becomes 1.77 millirem per year.

10 You know, this paper was based on it 

11 being tritiated water, and we came to a dose of 0.76 

12 millirem per year and we upped that to 1.77. So 

13 that's the first tritium operation of the phosphor 

14 applied to high/low switch plates.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So in the 

16 scenario that you created, the scenario of the 

17 spill, only the workers who received, inspected, 

18 and installed, how do you know which workers did 

19 that?

20 MR. DARNELL: It's in their medical 

21 records.

22 CHAIR BEACH: And we have their medical 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
88

1 records for every person to know that that would 

2 be covered?

3 MR. DARNELL: Well, we would have 

4 medical records for every claimant. We have 

5 searched medical records for other people. How 

6 many was that? We got through maybe --

7 MR. SHARFI: They do provide them as 

8 part as of a request for records. The medical 

9 records are scanned and provided to us.

10 (Simultaneous speaking.)

11 MR. DARNELL: Oh, it's written very 

12 plainly on the card, mag thorium evaluation, or DU, 

13 or Department 20, so --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Of the known workers?

15 MR. DARNELL: On the cards that we 

16 received.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Were any cards found 

18 with tritium?

19 MR. DARNELL: That would --

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MR. DARNELL: I don't remember.

22 MR. SHARFI: I don't know if they 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
89

1 listed specifically tritium, but you could look, 

2 they did list departments.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, do we know the 

4 actual work location for these activities?

5 MR. SHARFI: Yeah.

6 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, it's in there.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: Department 212.

8 CHAIR BEACH: 212.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: 212 for both or --

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: For the next one, for 

11 the tritium and water and air monitors that's going 

12 to be in the chem labs. So, no, not the same 

13 department for both tritium activities.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so 212 for this 

15 one.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: So it's been 

17 confirmed both places, the chem lab for the second 

18 and the 212 for the first one?

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Any other questions for 

21 this first activity before we move on to the next?

22 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, Mutty just brought 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
90

1 up a good point. The dose is a little less than 

2 two millirem per year --

3 CHAIR BEACH: I understand that. Yes, 

4 we realize it's a small dose.

5 MR. SHARFI: It would probably be just 

6 as easy just to give to everybody and not worry 

7 about it.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Okay, so if you 

9 want to go with the next one, tritium water.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. Next they are 

11 making some radiation detection instruments used 

12 for the military to monitor, you know, during the 

13 Cold War, if there was a nuclear detonation they 

14 would have wanted the ability to monitor for 

15 tritium in both urine and in air that they were 

16 breathing. So Bendix, or the Kansas City Plant, was 

17 making some instruments. Let's see.

18 MR. DARNELL: What page are you on?

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh, there it is, Page 

20 8. Okay. There's evidence that tritium air 

21 instruments and urine monitors designed by Sandia 

22 were manufactured by Bendix at Kansas City over an 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
91

1 extended period.

2 The manufacturing involved the use of 

3 tritiated water as a calibration standard. 

4 Radioactive nickel-63 was plated on a component of 

5 one of the in-air instrument models and that is 

6 going to be talked about separately.

7 The manufacturing of these instruments 

8 began in '59 and four monitoring kits were produced 

9 in 1960. And the manufacturing of this equipment 

10 continued in campaigns through the 1970s.

11 The manufacturing effort was not in 

12 response to tritium used programmatically at 

13 Kansas City, rather it was done under contract to 

14 Sandia. And they were used by military 

15 organizations in the United States during nuclear 

16 testing.

17 Okay. I'm skipping ahead to Page 9. 

18 By 1972 the tritium in-air monitor Bendix/Sandia 

19 Model T446 and the tritium urinalysis model T449 

20 was available, as documented in instrumentation

21 for an environmental monitoring published by 

22 Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Okay. So we're 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
92

1 trying to show that these would've been used into 

2 the '70s there. 

3 The next paragraph, no evidence was 

4 found indicating that tritium gas or tritiated 

5 water vapor was used at the Kansas City Plant in 

6 direct association with the ion chamber 

7 production.

8 Tritium in-air monitors do not 

9 necessarily require tritium gas or water vapor to 

10 be available during the manufacturing process. 

11 These monitors are based on ion chamber technology, 

12 and I won't go into all that.

13 CHAIR BEACH: On that same page, I 

14 guess I'll ask you a question now. Initially in 

15 1959 the bottles were received and inspected 

16 without opening and then stored under that 

17 ventilation until they were sold.

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Right.

19 CHAIR BEACH: That was just in a 

20 document, that SRDB? I tried to get to most of 

21 these SRDBs but I didn't get to that one.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, that's where we 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
93

1 found that.

2 CHAIR BEACH: It just basically 

3 explains that that's where they were stored?

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mm-hmm.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think I brought that 

7 one with me if you want to look at it.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: That would have been the 

10 chemistry department's. Okay. Let's go to the 

11 exposure bounding scenario on Page 10. In this 

12 scenario, exposure to the tritiated standard 

13 solution while handling and using the solution to 

14 test and calibrate the Model T329 urinalysis test 

15 kit and the tritium urinalysis model T449 is 

16 defined.

17 Initially in '59 small size bottles of 

18 standard solution, approximately 400 milliliters 

19 of the 250 microcuries per liter, were purchased 

20 from Sandia and stored under ventilation until they 

21 were used or packaged for shipment with the 

22 completed urinalysis kit.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
94

1 Although we do not know when the change 

2 occurred, we know that by 1964 the standardized 

3 tritiated water was purchased in one-gallon size 

4 units and repackaged at Kansas City into 400 

5 milliliter bottles. So they were doing a 

6 decanting operation.

7 In '64 we have records of two shipments 

8 of eight gallons of standardized tritiated water 

9 for a total of 16 gallons and a 400 milliliter 

10 bottle of the calibration standard solution was 

11 shipped with each urinalysis kit.

12 Decanting the gallon-sized units into 

13 400 milliliter bottles would've resulted in 150 

14 bottles of standard solution. Based on this, it's 

15 reasonable to assume that approximately 150 

16 decanting operations occurred in '64.

17 To ensure claimant-favorability we 

18 assume that some part of the decanting operation 

19 occurred every workday, for a 250-day work year, 

20 beginning in 1959 and ending in '75 in Kansas City 

21 Plant's chemistry lab.

22 Based on the care that went into the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
95

1 procurement process and cautionary notes about 

2 handling that were included in the purchase order, 

3 we assumed that the chemistry technicians that 

4 handled the tritiated water would've been careful 

5 with it due to its value and hazardous nature.

6 We know that the unopened bottles 

7 procured in '59 were stored under ventilation when 

8 not used, so we believe it is reasonable to assume 

9 that any process associated with the standard 

10 tritiated water, including decanting from one 

11 bottle to another, would've taken place under a

12 ventilated enclosure, such as a fume hood.

13 CHAIR BEACH: But we found no 

14 documentation, procedures, or anything to-date, 

15 correct?

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: No.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: No, we don't have a 

19 document that describes the work in the fume hood, 

20 the decanting.

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: I'm sorry, say that 

22 again.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
96

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: We don't have a 

2 document that describes the work of the decanting 

3 and the fume hood.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Well, or even it wasn't 

6 a fume hood, you're assuming it was.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, since it was 

8 stored --

9 MR. DARNELL: We have a historical 

10 basis for doing that. What we've seen in the 

11 record is that they did this stuff under fume hoods 

12 or under local ventilation with established 

13 controls.

14 I mean, I don't think it's a far reach 

15 to say that if we stored it in the hood, and that 

16 was very specific that it was stored in the hood 

17 --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: It's a founded 

19 assumption, because I think it's based on a 

20 programmatic --

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah. Okay. I just 

22 want to be clear.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
97

1 MR. DARNELL: Sure, I understand.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Reading from Page 11, 

3 although decanting could've occurred on a single 

4 day soon after a shipment was received, we could 

5 postulate a scenario in which each unit's small 

6 bottle is filled in a separate operation.

7 For our bounding scenario we assume a 

8 small unreported spill of one milliliter of 

9 tritiated water occurred during each decanting 

10 operation.

11 Spilled water spread over a 100 

12 centimeter squared area of the impervious floor of 

13 the fume hood, most of the water would've 

14 evaporated into the fume hood exhaust air and 

15 removed from the air. Some small fraction of the 

16 contaminated water would've exchanged and 

17 equilibrated with the water of hydration absorbed 

18 on the metallic fume hood surface.

19 The absorbed water would've persisted 

20 as a source of removable surface contamination, and 

21 the thickness of the water is a parameter that will 

22 be a function of the surface characteristics.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
98

1 A 1948 literature review provides 

2 insight into the thickness of a water layer 

3 absorbed on a glass surface. A glass wall exposed 

4 to air saturated with vapor had an absorbed film 

5 thickness of 1300 angstrom. We used this as a 

6 starting point in making the assumption that is 

7 almost certainly maximizing and favorable to the 

8 claimant that the hydration water thickness on the 

9 glove box floor is a factor of 100 times thicker 

10 than absorbed on the glass wall.

11 With this assumption the water of 

12 hydration thickness would be 1.33 times 10 to the 

13 minus 3 centimeters and the volume of water 

14 retained on the 100 centimeter squared area would 

15 be 0.13 cubic centimeters, which we round to 0.1 

16 cubic centimeters. Thus the volume of retained 

17 tritiated water would be 0.1 milliliter.

18 The activity in 0.1 milliliter of 

19 standardized tritiated water is 25 nanocuries, or 

20 56,000 dpm. A fully efficient wipe test of that 

21 area where the spill occurred would yield removable 

22 contamination of 56,000 dpm.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
99

1 The bounding scenario with tritium 

2 contamination is completely transferred to the 

3 skin of the hand of the chemistry technician, each 

4 day that amount of contamination.

5 So, to summarize it, we assume that 100 

6 centimeters squared of the same chemistry 

7 technician's skin is contaminated with 56,000 dpm 

8 of tritiated water on a daily basis and that 

9 activity has been completely absorbed as tritiated 

10 water through the skin, into the blood. And if we 

11 use the ICRP dose conversion factor the worker dose 

12 would be 1.68 minus 6 rem per day, or 4.2 E minus 

13 4 rem per year.

14 MR. DARNELL: Questions?

15 CHAIR BEACH: Anybody, questions? 

16 Okay.

17 MR. DARNELL: Mr. Copeland, we're 

18 discussing the tritium White Paper right now.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, just to 

20 respond, you know, this was just a reference in a 

21 weekly activity report this past summer and it's 

22 come a long ways in terms of just characterizing 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
100

1 a operation that we didn't have much information 

2 on. So I think, you know, it's certainly a 

3 yeoman's job of just putting this together.

4 Clarification. The only, and I think 

5 I read this right, the only hard data we still have 

6 is the smear sample beta for the high/low plates? 

7 I mean, actual measured data.

8 MR. DARNELL: Well, we also have the 

9 activity levels in the gallons of water that came 

10 --

11 MR. SHARFI: The concentration.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: We have certified 

13 concentrations of the Sandia-provided --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Of the 

15 Sandia-provided, so we have that.

16 (Simultaneous speaking.)

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. So that's not 

18 a reference standard, that's actual from Sandia of 

19 water.

20 CHAIR BEACH: And that's referenced in 

21 that SRDB --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
101

1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. DARNELL: And the workplace 

3 measurements that we have are in there.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think our only 

5 comment, and, you know, not surprisingly, I think, 

6 obviously, in this particular case we would have 

7 to make a number of assumptions in order to come 

8 up with some kind of exposure.

9 And, you know, because, again, the 

10 actual monitoring that you would like to have had 

11 wasn't done, or we haven't found it yet. But 

12 certainly the dose involved would be very, very low 

13 and that's the context of the analysis.

14 So, you know, and Jim and I were just 

15 talking about this before this session. You know, 

16 this question of balancing the leeway on the 

17 bounding analyses and the assumptions that would 

18 have to go into that is balanced against the dose 

19 that you're talking about. And before this 

20 meeting we had the same conversation, at least with 

21 Josie, just trying to figure out, you know, it's 

22 a judgment call based on, you know, the leeway on 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
102

1 the assumptions and the kind of doses that one is 

2 working with, since we're talking about tritium in 

3 this particular case, and whether the 

4 characterization is sufficient to give you 

5 confidence that it bounds it at that low level.

6 From a technical standpoint, I don't 

7 think we could offer, based on the documentation 

8 that was uncovered to date, any better way, 

9 necessarily, of how to come up with a bounding 

10 analysis. But it sort of still leaves you in a 

11 situation where I think the Work Group will have 

12 to consider, you know, the assumptions, 

13 particularly with the instrument. The high/low I 

14 have maybe less of an issue because you actually

15 have some contamination smears, so you really have 

16 some hard numbers.

17 On the instrumentation, all we could 

18 find was they bottled this stuff, and because of 

19 programmatic history we presume they bottled it 

20 under a hood so the ventilation would've been 

21 there.

22 But beyond that, you have to assume, as 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
103

1 NIOSH I think has done, that, you know, if you had 

2 a conservative estimate on the amount of spillage 

3 and the potential for absorption in the skin you 

4 could, you know, come up with a rather extreme level 

5 of uptake which still would result in only 

6 single-digit millirems per year.

7 So, again, it's sort of a keep that in 

8 context. Could you do better? Only if we could 

9 find actual hard data that we haven't found yet. 

10 Would it make a difference? I don't think so based 

11 on what we've seen so far.

12 So, again, it may be less a technical 

13 question than a question of, is this sufficient 

14 information to get confidence that, you know, 

15 there's a way to bound this and the level is going 

16 to be rather low, relatively low in terms of the 

17 potential dose?

18 And I think, as Mutty has pointed out, 

19 you have different ways you could deal with that 

20 dose. You could certainly make an argument to give 

21 it to everybody. I think you would have difficulty 

22 identifying a cohort in this case. I didn't see 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
104

1 any way, in the weeklies or anywhere else, where 

2 it said, you know, "X, Y, Z were involved."

3 MR. DARNELL: The only place it would 

4 be if you could actually find the words tritium in 

5 the medical records, and you may not get there.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: You may not get there. 

7 I don't know if they would see this as something 

8 that it could actually point to as being something 

9 that was worth pointing to in the medical records.

10 So, again, it's sort of a little fuzzy 

11 on that. But I think, for the Work Group's 

12 benefit, I think that's where we're at. You could 

13 look for, hopefully, more hard data on the tritium 

14 operations and you may or may not find it. So far 

15 we have not.

16 CHAIR BEACH: One of the comments I 

17 have is we found this almost by mistake just looking 

18 through records. So once we found the tritium 

19 water, Joe found it on weeklies just thumbing 

20 through some microfilm or fiche, right?

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Microfilm, yeah.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Microfilm. So looking 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
105

1 for this then NIOSH found a couple other things, 

2 so it leads to me to wonder what else is out there 

3 that we just haven't discovered. And I know it's 

4 a totally open-ended question and there's no answer 

5 to it, but there is just maybe a lot more we don't 

6 -- or a few things we still don't know, so on this 

7 one I agree with --

8 MR. DARNELL: I don't disagree with you 

9 at all, but it's a folly to sit here and think about 

10 --

11 CHAIR BEACH: I understand. I know 

12 we've worked hard on it, I'm not saying we haven't, 

13 but --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: The tree has been 

15 shaken quite a bit.

16 CHAIR BEACH: It has been, yeah.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: But so far, this is 

18 what's fallen out that's not been identified 

19 before.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah.

21 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, and I think we all 

22 realize that if we do find something --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
106

1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, we will, I agree. I 

2 probably shouldn't have even brought that up, but 

3 it just was something I was thinking about. 

4 Anymore questions?

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: You said tritium 

6 wasn't mentioned on the work cards, right? The 

7 department was mentioned --

8 CHAIR BEACH: The medical.

9 MR. SHARFI: I don't remember seeing 

10 the tritium on the medical cards. Thorium was 

11 specifically identified, but, you know, the 

12 department --

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 MR. SHARFI: So if they worked specific 

15 departments a lot of times you would see that 

16 department saying they worked under this 

17 department. But I don't remember seeing an actual 

18 tritium listed.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: And what makes it even 

20 more interesting, in the 1964 weekly activity 

21 report where they referenced the tritium bottling 

22 that was going into this instrumentation activity, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
107

1 they did indicate that Sandia was sending them some 

2 guidance on doing routine bioassays for tritium, 

3 which kind of made us feel like, uh, okay, we 

4 haven't seen that.

5 So, you know, there's a gap there in 

6 terms of if that guidance was sought from Sandia 

7 but didn't get followed through, or if it got 

8 followed through and the bioassay information is 

9 somewhere but we haven't found it yet.

10 To me, that's a bit of a gap, you know. 

11 It seemed like they were cognizant of the fact that 

12 they should be doing monitoring for this and asked 

13 for guidance, but we didn't find any bioassay 

14 records, nor did we find any further correspondence 

15 on that particular question. So that was a little 

16 bit of, you know, a head-scratcher.

17 Certainly the site was aware of the fact 

18 that they probably should've monitored for it, and 

19 actually was going to do it, it looks like. So I'll 

20 leave that with the Work Group, that we are kind 

21 of looking for one or the other, some information 

22 on what happened after that, and did not find it.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
108

1 CHAIR BEACH: And I have the weeklies 

2 here if anybody wanted -- I didn't know if anybody 

3 else had not seen it and wanted to look at it. 

4 Questions, any other questions? 

5 Loretta, do you have any questions on this topic?

6 MEMBER VALERIO: Actually I do, and I'm 

7 going back to my notes. On Page 3 in the memo it 

8 discusses the problems with handling the tritium. 

9 And I'm going back to that, give me just one second 

10 and I'll get there. And then it talks about -- it 

11 just seems as though there was a lot of 

12 communication back and forth between all the 

13 entities involved about the safe handling and 

14 requirements, but when you read through this it's 

15 a little confusing.

16 So on Page 3, the paragraph that starts 

17 on "May 28th, 1965," the last sentence discusses 

18 that Kansas City was faced with handling problems. 

19 Do you see where I'm at?

20 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

21 MEMBER VALERIO: Okay, so then I'm 

22 going to go down to Page 6 now. And this could be 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
109

1 the, you know, two separate campaigns. They talk 

2 about the work rules, you know, the requirements. 

3 And this goes back to do they know who handled it, 

4 do they know, you know, from the time it was 

5 received at the plant, through the whole process, 

6 do they have anything in the requirements that 

7 says, you know, this group of workers would have 

8 handled it, this group of workers would've shipped 

9 it, transported it, anything like that?

10 MR. DARNELL: There's pretty much a 

11 standard site requirement. You had to have the 

12 training, medical monitoring, and whatever other 

13 requirements were deemed necessary to work on any 

14 specific project. So the workers on this project 

15 would've had to have had medical monitoring, 

16 radiological training and so on to be allowed to 

17 work on it.

18 The thing is, is we don't have a list 

19 of who was assigned to do what things. So you kind 

20 of have to go search to see if a worker was either 

21 in the correct area and had correct training and 

22 monitoring, or the tritium was actually listed on 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
110

1 his medical records showing that he would have the 

2 correct training and monitoring. So we kind of had 

3 part of it, but not all of what you're looking for.

4 MEMBER VALERIO: I was breaking up, you 

5 were breaking up a little bit. Can you repeat the 

6 last part of that please?

7 MR. DARNELL: Basically, because of 

8 the site requirements for having radiological 

9 training and medical monitoring for any project 

10 onsite we know that the workers involved with the 

11 tritium work would've had to have the same.

12 We know where to go look for the 

13 information, we just don't know which workers were 

14 the ones assigned. There's no master list of who 

15 was doing what project. You have to go 

16 individually into medical records to find out. So 

17 for individual claimants we would be able to find 

18 out.

19 DR. NETON: This is Jim, and I think we 

20 discussed that the dose was so low that we would 

21 probably just assign this to every claimant and not 

22 try to establish who handled it with the claimants.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
111

1 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

2 DR. NETON: Because it's in the 

3 millirem range.

4 MR. DARNELL: That's true. 

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim, how many people 

8 worked in the lab, do you have any idea?

9 DR. NETON: I don't know.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: It maxed out during the 

11 Reagan Administration at 8,000.

12 MR. SHARFI: Onsite.

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: No, in the lab.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh.

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: That's a hell of a big 

16 lab if it's got 8,000.

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 MR. DARNELL: We don't have a number 

19 for maximum --

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Well, I mean, was it a 

21 big lab, small lab? I'm just trying to get a handle 

22 on what --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
112

1 DR. NETON: Probably small. I mean, 

2 based the number of plates that they handled, at 

3 least in '65, I'd say it's a pretty small operation 

4 for the people that handled tritium.

5 MR. DARNELL: The operation itself, 

6 but the laboratory was actually fairly large. 

7 They were involved in almost every project.

8 DR. NETON: Right, right, but we're 

9 talking about how many people we're going to assign 

10 tritium dose versus how many actually handled it. 

11 Again, you know, you're talking a millirem a year 

12 --

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: It doesn't make any 

14 difference, but I'm just trying to get --

15 DR. NETON: It doesn't make any 

16 difference in anybody's dose reconstruction.

17 MEMBER LOCKEY: And what about in 

18 Department 212, how many people worked in 

19 Department 212?

20 MR. SHARFI: I don't think we had 

21 numbers on per department.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: I mean, I'm not going 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
113

1 to say we can't find that, but I don't know.

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay, thanks.

3 MR. DARNELL: I don't know how much 

4 help it would actually give us to know those 

5 numbers.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Well, I'm just trying 

7 to figure out the number you're going to 

8 extrapolate to the whole workforce. You don't 

9 have any -- I was trying to get a ratio there.

10 DR. NETON: Yeah, again, you know, and 

11 if this were, you know, a rem-type range, 500 

12 millirem or 600 millirem, you might be a little more 

13 concerned. But, you know, talking about a 

14 millirem, and we've done that analysis already 

15 basically showing if you change any dose 

16 reconstruction by 100 millirem it doesn't move 

17 anybody's PC one way or the other.

18 CHAIR BEACH: And we've done that work. 

19 Pat, did you want to go into the nickel?

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Sure.

21 (Simultaneous speaking.)

22 MR. FITZGERALD: I was going to say, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
114

1 before you finish this, what's the sense of the Work 

2 Group? As far as direction, I mean, it's pretty 

3 important to us?

4 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I had listed as an 

5 action that they owe the change with the organic.

6 And then SC&A would develop a White Paper. Or are 

7 you looking for --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I'm not sure the

9 White Paper is going to say anything much different 

10 than that we've said at the table today.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: And I'm not sure we're 

13 that far apart, from the discussion. It's just 

14 sort of a question of, given the context of the dose 

15 involved, what leeway does one have on the bounding 

16 analyses, granted there's a lot of assumptions 

17 there.

18 The wild card in the deck is whether we 

19 would find any additional information, but in the 

20 end would that make any difference anyway? That's 

21 the kind of a thing we're up against. We could look 

22 for more documents, but in the end if it doesn't 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
115

1 move the needle any -- so that's kind of where we're 

2 at. And that's kind of a judgment call as to 

3 whether we want to try to find more documents that 

4 would make it a little bit more objective, or is 

5 this enough to give confidence that --

6 MR. DARNELL: Well, if I could make a 

7 suggestion? We're going to have to go back down 

8 to look for thorium stuff. While we're looking for 

9 thorium we'll do a minor search for tritium to see 

10 if we can find anything and just say that's our last 

11 effort.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

13 MR. DARNELL: And just go with that 

14 mindset --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Finding the Golden 

16 Grail of the weekly activity reports.

17 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Which is -- the 

19 original intent was to find more weeklies which 

20 would describe this and we did not.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Well, and then I 

22 think the Work Group is going to have to think about 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
116

1 if they're comfortable with that scenario. 

2 There's no bounding information, but the dose is 

3 low, and are we going to be okay with that?

4 There's no way to know who was exposed, 

5 how much they were exposed, we don't know if it was 

6 in a hood or not in a hood, we don't know if there 

7 was a gallon spilled or -- I mean, you can come up 

8 with some good estimates --

9 MR. DARNELL: One thing you need to 

10 recognize is the one milliliter spill assumption.

11 As far as costs go for the plant, that would've been 

12 a huge loss for the plant.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Huge, yeah.

14 MR. DARNELL: So you know it was not 

15 that high for that long.

16 CHAIR BEACH: And I'm not saying I 

17 don't agree with everything, I'm just saying we 

18 need to decide as a Work Group are we comfortable 

19 with that and assign the dose. So that's the only 

20 comment I had.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that sounds 

22 like a reasonable course. If we're going to go 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
117

1 down there anyway we'll take one last look and see 

2 if we can improve the document.

3 MR. DARNELL: Now, we've got a set of 

4 documents that are basically waiting on us. I hope 

5 I'm not mixing it up with INL, but we had asked for 

6 four tiers of documents and I think we have Tier 

7 3 and 4 waiting on us down there to go look at.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

9 MR. DARNELL: So we should be able to 

10 move in quickly to look.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. And I appreciate 

12 the work that's gone into this, I'm not discounting 

13 that at all, but as a Work Group I just want us to 

14 think about that for the next meeting. Once we've 

15 looked at whatever is left at Kansas City we're 

16 going to have decide as a Work Group where we're 

17 going to go and if we're comfortable with that.

18 MR. DARNELL: Sure.

19 CHAIR BEACH: It's assumptions.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: It's all assumptions 

21 and there's no -- I'm not saying that you guys 

22 haven't done due diligence or anything else like 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
118

1 that --

2 MR. DARNELL: I'm going to write that 

3 down.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, I hope that you 

6 guys always understand. We know what you're up 

7 against, but we also have due diligence to the 

8 claimants to make sure that we are representing 

9 what's best.

10 I'd just like a little bit more time to 

11 be able to feed through this because the amount of 

12 documents and stuff and we just by luck have found 

13 some of this stuff.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Mm-hmm.

15 MR. DARNELL: That is definitely true.

16 CHAIR BEACH: And I appreciate that. 

17 Maurice, do you have anything on tritium or what 

18 the topic is at this point, anything to add?

19 MR. COPELAND: No. The only thing I 

20 had to say was, and it may help you in some 

21 situation, talking about the lab. I was a 

22 supervisor at a lab, that was my lab.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
119

1 MR. DARNELL: Do you know about how 

2 many people were assigned there?

3 MR. COPELAND: No, but you should be 

4 able to find it through ES&H, the same department, 

5 through environmental health and safety, the same 

6 department that we were attached to, by talking to 

7 [identifying information redacted] the director 

8 and those people. It's very easy.

9 And, yes, I was the supervisor in the 

10 lab. I was the one that closed it up when we closed 

11 the lab down. I was the one that cleaned it up, 

12 myself, no workers, no one was allowed in.

13 I and another supervisor disposed of the equipment 

14 and cleaned the lab up personally.

15 CHAIR BEACH: What years?

16 MR. COPELAND: Ninety --

17 MR. DARNELL: Right before the move?

18 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

19 MR. DARNELL: Right before the move to 

20 the new building?

21 MR. COPELAND: No. No, we closed that 

22 lab before I retired in 2000.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
120

1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. COPELAND: And I closed the lab in 

3 ninety --

4 CHAIR BEACH: So, late '90s?

5 MR. COPELAND: Yeah.

6 MR. DARNELL: Which lab are you talking 

7 about?

8 MR. COPELAND: The model shop lab.

9 MR. DARNELL: Okay, we're talking 

10 about the big chem lab.

11 MR. COPELAND: The chemical lab?

12 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, the chemistry lab.

13 MR. COPELAND: I thought this was the 

14 lab that was attached to the model shop.

15 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, that's why I was 

16 kind of sitting here thinking it didn't shut down. 

17 No, we're talking about two different things.

18 MR. COPELAND: This lab was pretty 

19 secure. People that worked in this lab, to show 

20 you, I was a supervisor. I did not know who the 

21 people were that worked in the lab. My man 

22 [identifying information redacted], his name was 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
121

1 [identifying information redacted], I had no 

2 employees, model shop employees that were assigned 

3 to the lab.

4 The only thing I saw was overseeing 

5 cleaning up. And I wasn't a maintenance guy, I was 

6 the model shop supervisor.

7 MR. DARNELL: Sure.

8 MR. COPELAND: Cleaning it up, getting 

9 all the equipment out. It's pretty secure what 

10 went on in there.

11 CHAIR BEACH: All right. Well, let's 

12 go ahead and just finish out the rest of your report 

13 on the nickel.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay, sure. I think 

15 Brad and you guys were saying some of this 

16 information it seems like we got by luck.

17 Another thing we have working for us is 

18 Kansas City Plant employees currently are going 

19 through their records and they know, they're 

20 familiar with us, they know about our visits and 

21 their need to dig things out, and the nickel-63 came 

22 about because of that.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
122

1 I guess the health physicist there 

2 tripped upon this when he was doing some follow-up 

3 work for us. So in December, December 15th, 2014, 

4 not too long ago, he emailed us everything he had 

5 and everything that we now have. So from this 

6 section of the paper forward is just everything 

7 that we got right before Christmas. 

8 So the nickel-63 plating operations run 

9 right alongside with the tritium in-air and 

10 in-urine monitoring operations. The nickel-63 

11 was plated on small one-inch plates and placed 

12 inside the monitors as a check source. So, you 

13 know, your machine daily gets checked to see if it's 

14 responding to a beta so that when you need it, it 

15 works. Just something a lot of technicians do with 

16 all the radiation detection devices.

17 So we don't have a lot on it, but I'll 

18 just skip ahead to Page 12 there toward the bottom. 

19 The nickel-63 plating operations occurred in the 

20 small volume plating bath of the finishes 

21 development facility. And we have maps of those 

22 and they're reflected on the maps on the wall, as 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
123

1 well, where that occurred.

2 On the next page you can see some of the 

3 work controls that were specified for the nickel-63 

4 plating, pretty similar to the work controls we saw 

5 with, you know, any of the other nuclides that they 

6 were working with there.

7 And then, in summary, I'll go to the 

8 bottom, records show that both management and 

9 health and safety staff took careful interest in 

10 the procurement and use of the nickel-63 and 

11 material during plating ops.

12 Nickel-63 was handled in liquid form 

13 until it was essentially immobilized in the form 

14 of a durable and metallic nickel plating. The 

15 radiologic hazard was evaluating and judged 

16 negligible, similar to the general hazards of 

17 plating.

18 Other than waste management, spill 

19 response and material labeling, no special 

20 controls or personal dosimetry were required. 

21 NIOSH believes the workers exposure of nickel-63 

22 was appropriately judged to have been negligibly 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
124

1 small and the exposure will be plausibly bounded 

2 after the issuance of this paper for purposes of 

3 dose reconstruction.

4 And we just didn't have the time to get 

5 something out to you guys on nickel-63, so we'll 

6 do that next.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anybody have any 

8 questions on that?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: No. I think for that 

10 overall issue, obviously, we'll keep it open. I 

11 don't think we'll provide a written response 

12 pending looking for more information. So we'll 

13 keep that pending.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so at this point 

15 SC&A is not going to write up any --

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Not for this, no. 

17 We'll look for more --

18 CHAIR BEACH: No paperwork on either 

19 one of them.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: For?

21 CHAIR BEACH: For tritium or nickel.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no. Right, we'll 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
125

1 wait and make sure that we've had the opportunity 

2 to get whatever additional information is 

3 available and we'll see where it comes out.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right. And 

5 then you'll update your paperwork for the organic 

6 compound and then let the Work Group know what SRDB 

7 number that is?

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: SRDB number for?

11 CHAIR BEACH: For the organic compound 

12 information that you just received.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay.

14 CHAIR BEACH: I think you said there 

15 was an SRDB associated with it.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Or I'm assuming it'll be 

18 -- it'll be in the paper, yeah.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: The [identifying 

20 information redacted] memo, yeah.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, the [identifying 

22 information redacted] memo. Okay, anything?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
126

1 MEMBER LOCKEY: I got the impression 

2 they weren't going to change any, even though it 

3 was organic. Is that true?

4 CHAIR BEACH: No.

5 MR. SHARFI: The dose conversion 

6 factor changed.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: What's that?

8 MR. SHARFI: The dose conversion 

9 factor changed.

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Oh, it does change? 

11 It will change?

12 MR. SHARFI: Yeah, because the 

13 original assessment was like if it was 0.7 millirem 

14 and then -- on the plates.

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

16 CHAIR BEACH: So it'll go up a little 

17 bit.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: A factor of two, 

19 maybe, or something like that. Two and a half.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: So it'll be like a two 

22 or three sentences change. You know, we say 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
127

1 translocation of the tritium through the skin as 

2 a water is assumed to be 100 percent. We're going 

3 to add to that saying, you know, it would be much 

4 slower as an organic compound.

5 DR. NETON: I think there's a little 

6 more justification as to why we believe it's an 

7 organic material.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, we have that, 

9 too.

10 DR. NETON: Because there's that one 

11 reference to organic, but I think I saw on your note 

12 that there's some backup material that talked about 

13 it was tung oil and this kind of stuff.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, I'll just 

15 elaborate --

16 DR. NETON: Elaborate a little bit on 

17 why we believe this --

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, we'll put the 

19 [identifying information redacted] thing out there 

20 where he says it's organically bound and then we'll 

21 follow that up with some NRC, or some patent 

22 information.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
128

1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so site visit to 

2 look for more information and then NIOSH's White 

3 Paper. SC&A will just review at this point and no 

4 White Paper to be sent out. Okay, anything else 

5 on that?

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. We, again, 

7 don't have any technical issues.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Right. I understand 

9 that. We're very clear on that. 

10 Okay, so let's go back to the start of 

11 the agenda. What time is it?

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, we have time. 

14 Data completeness and adequacy, Issue 1, we're 

15 going to go ahead and -- I said action was NIOSH 

16 provide the QA/QC. Did you want them to go ahead 

17 and speak to that or did you want to?

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I can, you know, 

19 summarize this. We've kind of had them carrying 

20 them the ball for the first couple of hours.

21 I think the response was that Kansas 

22 City could not locate that QA/QC methodology 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
129

1 information. We were hoping to have that as a 

2 means to corroborate the fact that they had done 

3 that when they transferred the recorded data to the 

4 electronic database. And they recalled doing 

5 that, but they just couldn't find documentation.

6 And I think in the most recent response, 

7 NIOSH notes that they have the raw data, of course 

8 they do, the original raw data records which will 

9 always be available as backup.

10 And I guess my first question is, is 

11 NIOSH relying on the raw data records or the 

12 electronic records as far as a coworker model? I 

13 mean, I would assume you're basing that on the 

14 electronic records?

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: When there's a DR, we 

16 need to do a DR, we go get the raw data. That's 

17 what I'm told goes on.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: You go to the raw 

19 data?

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

21 MR. SHARFI: From the actual DR.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
130

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. But for a 

2 coworker, when we revise a TBD, I guess we'd want 

3 to first validate the database we would use on it.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the only 

5 question we raised originally, and we did this for 

6 every SEC, was just to validate the raw data, which 

7 I think has been done in terms of looking at the 

8 legibility, all those issues, that's behind us.

9 And the only question we had left was 

10 did anybody look at when the electronic database 

11 was put together making sure that that was 

12 transferred accurately and adequately? And since 

13 the site can't really corroborate that other than 

14 by recollection, the Work Group would have to 

15 consider, you know, what assurance would be 

16 reasonable.

17 In this case, what we've done in the 

18 past, there's a precedent, we've done some limited 

19 sampling just to, you know, provide some assurance 

20 that, you know, we can't find any reason to see any 

21 transfer problems as far as accuracy in terms of 

22 the raw data going to the electronic database.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
131

1 This would affect -- it sounds like it 

2 only affects the coworker models that you rely on 

3 the data for dose reconstruction, so the Work Group 

4 I think would have to consider that, what level of 

5 assurance do you want to have that the electronic 

6 database reflects accurately the raw data? And I 

7 thought, you know, we're comfortable, if the site 

8 could account for the fact they did that. And they 

9 thought they had done it, but we can't find that, 

10 they can't find that documentation. So the 

11 question is what does the Work Group want to do on 

12 that?

13 CHAIR BEACH: What percentage of a 

14 sample would you need?

15 MR. FITZGERALD: That's always the 

16 question.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it is the question.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, 

19 statistically or subjectively. Subjectively you 

20 could do a small sample; statistically might be, 

21 you know, whatever the statistics say.

22 But in this case we haven't had any 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
132

1 evidence of a problem with transfer. This is not 

2 because we had some issues.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Right, I understand 

4 that.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: It's just because it 

6 hasn't -- there isn't any way to corroborate this.

7 CHAIR BEACH: I think it would give us 

8 some assurance and put this one to bed.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Have you talked to Bob 

10 Barton on this? 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: We haven't talked to 

12 anybody. I mean, it's sort of we were hoping to 

13 see that the site had done it. But they can't come 

14 up with anything so now we're just saying, okay, 

15 what do you want to do?

16 I'm not proposing that you do a 

17 statistically pure approach, but, you know, is 

18 there any way to provide that assurance?

19 DR. NETON: I kind of lost the train of 

20 thought here for a second, but did I hear that we 

21 have the raw data that comes to us in the dose 

22 reconstruction?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
133

1 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: We have that 

3 available. If we wanted to get it, we can go get 

4 it.

5 DR. NETON: And we have an electronic 

6 database?

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, the question is --

9 DR. NETON: Why can't we just take and 

10 balance and look and see, the data that we've been 

11 getting, is it in the database?

12 CHAIR BEACH: That's what we were 

13 talking about, just doing a sampling of that.

14 DR. NETON: Yeah. I would say, yeah, 

15 that makes sense.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, if you 

17 remember, Jim, we've got into this before, and 

18 that's why I brought up Bob Barton on this, because 

19 we had the similar situation in one of my other 

20 sites and he just did a sampling of it to assure 

21 that we --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
134

1 DR. NETON: How many claims do we have 

2 from Kansas City? I mean, I don't know.

3 MR. KNOX: Six hundred fifty-one.

4 DR. NETON: So we presumably have 651 

5 sets of raw data. Well, not all of them are going 

6 to have data, but that's a pretty good sample size.

7 CHAIR BEACH: And out of those -- yeah.

8 DR. NETON: If we sampled 20, 30 

9 percent, I don't something in that number.

10 CHAIR BEACH: So is that something 

11 NIOSH could do?

12 DR. NETON: Yeah, I think so.

13 CHAIR BEACH: A percentage. And then 

14 SC&A could look at that?

15 DR. NETON: Yeah, I think it's 

16 incumbent upon us to validate --

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

18 DR. NETON: If we're going to do a 

19 coworker model, though, let's talk about that. Is 

20 that --

21 CHAIR BEACH: That's our next topic, 

22 yeah.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
135

1 MR. DARNELL: We had 721 total claims.

2 DR. NETON: Right.

3 MR. DARNELL: And nine have been pulled 

4 and --

5 DR. NETON: If we plan on doing a 

6 coworker model then we're going to have to do that. 

7 That's already written into the guide, is, you 

8 know, that's the first step almost is to be able 

9 to document that the database that you have 

10 actually helps you out.

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: I understand why you 

12 want to do it, but what are you going to accept? 

13 A priority, you probably should establish your --

14 DR. NETON: Well, it's hard to define 

15 that. You know, we've done things such as looking 

16 as monthly reports and comparing and making sure, 

17 you know, these months they said they picked, they 

18 collected 600 samples and this database had 600 

19 samples in that month, those are some methods we've 

20 used.

21 But as far as picking some raw, pure, 

22 statistical value, I don't think you really can do 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
136

1 that.

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: I guess what I'm asking 

3 was, if you do this analysis, which I think you 

4 should do, what's acceptable and what's not 

5 acceptable? You're going to have to deal with that 

6 at the end.

7 DR. NETON: Well, I think if we develop 

8 a plan we would put that in there, but I don't think 

9 I'm prepared at this point what the plan would be. 

10 But you're right.

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: A priori you should 

12 come up with a plan.

13 DR. NETON: Yes, a priori, you have to 

14 establish what you're going to look at and what you 

15 got, I agree with that.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: And it does come back 

18 to whether you're going to have a coworker model 

19 or not, right?

20 DR. NETON: Yeah, and if you don't have 

21 a coworker model then it doesn't matter.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: It goes away.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
137

1 DR. NETON: Yeah, it goes away. I 

2 would imagine we probably will have a coworker 

3 model because I'm sure a few sites would say that 

4 everybody was monitored, and --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Right, right. Okay, so 

6 for --

7 DR. NETON: But I agree, we're going to 

8 have to do that.

9 CHAIR BEACH: So for this one, then, 

10 the action is on NIOSH, and we're saying a 30 

11 percent sampling or is that sufficient?

12 DR. NETON: Let's not put a number on 

13 it right now. We'll put it on our plan, we'll do 

14 an evaluation plan and everything.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: And not to tell you 

17 guys, I was just going to say before you go into 

18 it, could you just kind of let us know --

19 DR. NETON: Exactly. Because I don't 

20 want to go down this path and develop this elaborate 

21 analysis and then someone say, well, that's, you 

22 know, not --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
138

1 (Simultaneous speaking.)

2 MR. DARNELL: -- and as things come 

3 along I'll be sending it out to the Work Group.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: There's no question 

5 on that, it's just sometimes things have changed, 

6 you may have passed a little bit with other sites, 

7 which I just want to make sure we're kind of all 

8 on board so we kind of know where we're getting to.

9 DR. NETON: Yeah, no problem. I think 

10 we'll provide you a plan.

11 CHAIR BEACH: So you'll provide us with 

12 a plan of the limited sampling of the records 

13 between the raw database and the electronic 

14 database.

15 DR. NETON: Right. Because I worry 

16 that what happens if we go in there 650 claimants 

17 and we have four people with bioassay? What does 

18 that mean?

19 CHAIR BEACH: And once that plan is in 

20 place then we can say, yea, go for it.

21 DR. NETON: Yes.

22 MR. SHARFI: You're just saying 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
139

1 looking at the claim data that we have, verifying 

2 that that claim data is in the database.

3 DR. NETON: Well, let's look at it and 

4 see how useful it will be and if there's a lot of 

5 them in there, yeah, then we'll develop a plan to 

6 cross-compare.

7 MR. SHARFI: Okay.

8 DR. NETON: And we've done this before. 

9 I have to go back and look at some --

10 MR. SHARFI: No, no, I just want to make 

11 sure I understand what we were saying we're going 

12 to do.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Mutty, can you say it 

14 again because I thought it sounded different than 

15 what I was saying, of what the plan would entail?

16 MR. SHARFI: That we were going to look 

17 at our NIOSH claim pool and see, the people that 

18 actually had bioassay, does that bioassay 

19 corroborate in our database?

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, between the raw 

21 data and the electronic? Okay, perfect. 

22 Anything else on the first one?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
140

1 MR. KATZ: Yes, just for the record 

2 Wayne Knox has joined us. He joined us about five 

3 minutes ago, two minutes ago. Welcome, Wayne.

4 MR. KNOX: Oh, thank you.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, anything else on 

6 one? So we know what's happening there. The next 

7 topic is Issue 2, coworker internal dose modeling. 

8 And the action, did you want to speak to that again?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let me just tee 

10 that up.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: This was on worker 

13 location job category in the coworker model. And 

14 I would propose to the Work Group that we combine 

15 two and three. Actually, three was held in 

16 abeyance.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: It was the chronic 

19 versus acute issue, and I think we decided that 

20 there wasn't an issue with chronic versus acute. 

21 It was accommodated by the model, you know, the 

22 models involved, including TBD-6000, anyway.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
141

1 But there certainly was a question on 

2 coverage in context with the coworker model, which 

3 is really Issue 2. So I would propose just 

4 combining two and three, making it a little 

5 cleaner, rather than have that separate acute one.

6 MR. DARNELL: I do have one question 

7 for Issues 2 and 3. They're not used in the ER, 

8 so is that something that the Working Group wants 

9 to pursue as part of the Evaluation Report or table 

10 it back to the TBD once we start working on the TBD?

11 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I know three was 

12 tabled to the TBD, so that goes back to -- I guess 

13 we should have the discussion on two, is that going 

14 to be the same case there?

15 MR. DARNELL: To me, it's fairly clear 

16 that --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think the 

18 question for the Work Group, is there agreement 

19 that it's a TBD issue? It went back to the coverage 

20 question I think, Brad, that you raised at the last 

21 Work Group meeting, and whether or not the coworker 

22 model would in fact encompass the right workers, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
142

1 or the workers that were in fact potentially 

2 exposed. That was kind of the hook point and I --

3 MR. DARNELL: But then again you've got 

4 to remember that that's a Technical Basis Document 

5 and the ER doesn't use that at all here.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Right, yeah.

7 MR. DARNELL: So, you know, while I 

8 think it's a very valid question and something that 

9 needs to be looked at, I just think that this is 

10 not the right venue.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and that's why we 

12 need to clear the table and decide, yes, that we 

13 agree it's a TBD issue and we'll couple it with 3 

14 and it gets put in abeyance. Is that the thought 

15 process, Ted? 

16 MR. KATZ: Sure. Not in abeyance, 

17 it's just tabled.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Well, like this one.

19 MR. DARNELL: We close it out for this 

20 Work Group --

21 CHAIR BEACH: For this and it moves to 

22 the other --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
143

1 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, just so the Work 

2 Group acts on it because I think it was carried over 

3 from the last Work Group meeting, not closed.

4 MR. DARNELL: Correct.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So on June 10th we 

6 were looking for additional bioassay records and 

7 --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Medical records.

9 CHAIR BEACH: And do you just want to 

10 speak to that, because I know you went down 

11 specifically --

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, we generated a 

13 list of names that we sent over to Kansas City and 

14 said we want to see their medical records. We got 

15 those names from looking at the access lists for 

16 the model shop for Project Royal.

17 Project Royal is the natural uranium 

18 machine operations that occurred in 1951 and '52. 

19 The reason we decided to this was because they 

20 uncovered some records, Kansas City did, where we 

21 didn't think we had.

22 The first thing we do with this, even 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
144

1 what you guys did a long time ago, is give us all 

2 your internal monitoring records, and they said we 

3 had them all and then subsequently they found more.

4 So we found a new method to go look for 

5 them and Mutty sat in that room in October and we 

6 put in a lot of hours looking through all of those 

7 names and we generated 164 new medical examination 

8 and hospital cards that we put in the SRBD.

9 So that'll help build our case in the 

10 TBD going forward.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Now, out of that list, 

12 and, Mutty, we were both down there at the same 

13 time, but when I left we kind of had a gap in there, 

14 too.

15 You've taken a list of names of the 

16 claimants that you have and you were trying to tie 

17 the medical records to their name, correct?

18 MR. DARNELL: It was a list of names of 

19 people that had access to these projects, not 

20 claimants.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

22 MR. DARNELL: So some of them could've 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
145

1 been claimants, some of them were not claimants, 

2 and we looked for them all.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: What did we come up 

4 with percentage-wise? Did we find them all or did 

5 we just, 30 percent, 50s?

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: So they handed us over 

7 all of the files for all of the employees that we 

8 asked for. I mean, we got a high percentage of the 

9 names of the people that we asked for. There might 

10 have been a few that were missing.

11 And then now you're asking what 

12 percentage of those had internal monitoring 

13 records?

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, first of all, I 

15 wanted to find out did we -- we gave them all these 

16 names and you said we got a high percentage, what 

17 would that high percentage be? Would it be --

18 MR. DARNELL: We don't have that 

19 actually with us.

20 MR. SHARFI: Yeah, I don't know if I 

21 have it either.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, I was just 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
146

1 wondering.

2 MR. SHARFI: Every box they gave me I 

3 got through.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right, but I was just 

5 wondering, because at one time, you know, you were 

6 telling us that we were getting a lot of good 

7 records, but if we had like 100 names I was just 

8 wondering if we got --

9 MR. DARNELL: We didn't bring that data 

10 with us. We can't answer your question.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

12 MR. DARNELL: Do you want us to dig that 

13 up for you?

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: No. I was just 

15 trying to get a feel for how good they were, and 

16 then, also, I wanted to see how good the medical 

17 records were as far as being able to tie them to 

18 internal data.

19 MR. DARNELL: It's specific to data 

20 itself. We didn't find a lot of medical data in 

21 the medical records.

22 MR. SHARFI: Bioassay data.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
147

1 MR. DARNELL: Yes, bioassay data in the 

2 medical records, thank you. What we found were the 

3 requirements to do all that stuff, but not the 

4 specific data itself.

5 So what we thought we were going to be 

6 able to find in those records we were not able to 

7 find.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

9 DR. NETON: Requirements to do what, 

10 take bioassay samples?

11 MR. DARNELL: Yes, the way the medical 

12 --

13 MR. SHARFI: Medical classified a type 

14 of worker, then the ES&H actually recorded the 

15 bioassay, other than the Project Royal, which we 

16 found that those bioassays were actually in the 

17 medical files, not in the health records, the ES&H 

18 records.

19 So we were finding the urinalysis for 

20 the uranium for the Project Royal in the medical 

21 records.

22 DR. NETON: And that's where we 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
148

1 normally get them?

2 MR. SHARFI: No, that's what drew us to 

3 the medical records, was we found a situation where 

4 they had a -- they're through LANL, I believe, AND 

5 they did the bioassay.

6 DR. NETON: So that was the early time 

7 when LANL was doing the bioassay?

8 MR. SHARFI: Yes.

9 MR. DARNELL: Yes, but we didn't find 

10 the corresponding to be true with other workers on 

11 known radioactive projects, finding their bioassay 

12 data on those cards.

13 We found the requirements for the 

14 medical monitoring program that went with that, but 

15 not the actual data.

16 DR. NETON: Do we get the medical 

17 records when we do a dose reconstruction?

18 MR. SHARFI: They scan them. Well, 

19 when I talked to -- they actually scan it, both the 

20 medical, the S&As, the external, they scan 

21 everything and they provide it.

22 DR. NETON: So if there were bioassay 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
149

1 date on this we would get it if it was only in the 

2 medical record?

3 MR. DARNELL: Correct.

4 MR. SHARFI: Yes, those we should get.

5 DR. NETON: Okay.

6 MR. DARNELL: But we did a very limited 

7 scope. We looked at a set of cards. You get a 

8 whole medical record, we looked at the cards 

9 looking for the data and we didn't find it specific 

10 to those cards, except the Project Royal.

11 MR. SHARFI: Those were the only 

12 bioassay that we saw on the cards, or in the medical 

13 files.

14 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

15 CHAIR BEACH: So, for the Work Group, 

16 do we agree that this is likely a TBD issue and can 

17 be coupled with three and taken off the SEC matrix?

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: I agree.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Loretta, how 

20 about you?

21 MEMBER VALERIO: I agree. I'm fine 

22 with that.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
150

1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Brad?

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: I don't, but that's 

3 just a personal thing, so I'll go with the Work 

4 Group on this.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So I agree with 

6 that also and the SC&A's recommendation is clear 

7 and we'll add that with 3. In one case, yeah. So 

8 no action required here and this does not go away, 

9 it's just going to move to the TBD.

10 MR. KATZ: It's postponed.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Which we do have a matrix 

12 for that.

13 MR. DARNELL: Yes, ma'am.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

15 MR. KATZ: Who is the keeper of that 

16 matrix?

17 CHAIR BEACH: I think Joe is.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I have the TBD 

19 issues. I haven't looked at it lately, but we'll 

20 start, I'll start updating that.

21 MR. KATZ: And, Joe, can I just check, 

22 are we putting this on the Board Review System, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
151

1 since we have that capacity now for Work Groups, 

2 because I think we really should be here, too.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: That's a good point. 

4 How do I -- well, we can talk --

5 CHAIR BEACH: We can talk offline.

6 MR. KATZ: Yeah, Steve Marschke's the 

7 one to chat with.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: All right.

9 MR. KATZ: He can guide you. But I think 

10 it would be great to put this stuff there. It's 

11 makes everybody's job easier down the road.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: All right.

13 CHAIR BEACH: That's a great idea. 

14 Make a note of that.

15 MR. KATZ: And give me a call if you 

16 have any issues with it and I'll help out.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Steve Marschke is the 

18 one, you're right.

19 So Issue 3 is in abeyance pending 

20 further discussion for TBD. Issue 4 we closed on 

21 June 10th, as well as Issue 5.

22 That moves us to Issue 6. This one I 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
152

1 think we should be able to deal with relatively 

2 quickly. It was dealing with the DU ballast, that 

3 was the last action of the Work Group that we gave 

4 to NIOSH to get some more information on that.

5 If you remember, the DU ballast we found 

6 on a SWIMS data report and we wanted to know more 

7 about it. So did you want to just tell us what you 

8 found?

9 MR. DARNELL: Basically we looked and 

10 the indications that we have and information from 

11 the plant was these were parts that were machined 

12 offsite sent onsite basically to use as ballast 

13 weight to make the assemblies that they were 

14 putting together weighed correctly and balanced 

15 correctly.

16 Almost no exposure to the workforce. 

17 There's really nothing here that we can add --

18 CHAIR BEACH: The ballasts are all 

19 sealed, right?

20 MR. DARNELL: Yeah.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, wait a minute. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
153

1 The ballasts was for a GTA so they'd go out there 

2 and drop it so you'd have the right balance and 

3 everything else.

4 MR. DARNELL: Right.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: But that was depleted 

6 uranium, correct?

7 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, that's what we're 

8 talking about.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. And that's 

10 great because once that's machined it starts to 

11 corrode. We've already been through this on --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But that's the 

13 unalloyed version.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: So this was a sealed 

15 depleted uranium source?

16 MR. DARNELL: As far as we know, it was 

17 some --

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't think we have 

20 a corrosion issue in this type of case.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. That's what I 

22 was wanting to get to, because especially after 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
154

1 they drop it down and it does its thing that's --

2 MR. DARNELL: But that doesn't have 

3 anything to do with Kansas City. Kansas City 

4 installs these parts in the telemetry unit, it's 

5 sent someplace else, whatever testing is done, this 

6 stuff that's sent back is supposed to be free from 

7 contamination, from other discussions that we've 

8 had on that.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, our concern was 

10 whether it was fabricated or handled onsite in 

11 terms of grinding or anything, and we have 

12 established it was not.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: So we're okay with 

16 that. And we're satisfied there wasn't any other 

17 depleted uranium source terms. I think the 

18 ballast item stood out as the one that wasn't 

19 covered by the --

20 MR. DARNELL: That was really the only 

21 question, a source term, and then we found that it's 

22 not a source term.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
155

1 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, and I think you ran 

2 that down and I think SC&A's happy with that. I 

3 read the reports and I recommend closing this item 

4 as well, if everybody agrees. Loretta?

5 MEMBER VALERIO: I agree.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So on that we'll 

7 close Item 6. 

8 Now, I think the next item is going to 

9 take some time, so I'm proposing that we stop for 

10 lunch. Is everybody okay with that? How much 

11 time do we need, an hour?

12 MR. KATZ: For what?

13 CHAIR BEACH: For lunch.

14 MR. KATZ: They're slow here, so if 

15 you're eating at the restaurant here it's just hard 

16 to get it done quickly.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, I would say we go 

18 from 11:30, which it's close to that, to 12:30.

19 MR. KATZ: Yeah.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Take a lunch break. Okay. 

21 So let's go off the air.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay. So thanks everyone. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
156

1 We'll be back online at 12:30.

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

3 went off the record at 11:33 a.m. and resumed at 

4 12:31 p.m.)

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N

21 (12:31 p.m.)

22 CHAIR BEACH: All right, so we'll just 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
157

1 carry on. We are going to talk about Issue 7, which 

2 is the radioactive waste handling, storage and 

3 transportation.

4 NIOSH didn't give us a White Paper, but 

5 there is a lengthy response in the matrix. So if 

6 you have a copy of the matrix, that is there. And, 

7 Pat, are you going to go ahead and take that?

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: I'll be happy to.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, great.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: So there were 

11 documents that we wanted to go find during our 

12 October site visit, SWIMS records, basically that 

13 stands for Site Waste Information Management 

14 System, that's an acronym.

15 So we did get a lot of good information 

16 there, maybe not as many of the documents as we were 

17 hoping to find, but we learned more about their 

18 waste management practices there.

19 It helped corroborate some stories that 

20 we had heard in interviews about the Red X Lot, that 

21 lot outside, where they kept some of the waste prior 

22 to it being shipped. And it gave us a map and 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
158

1 showed us what it looked like.

2 And we had some of their waste 

3 management plans that talked about how little waste 

4 was actually shipped, a lot of years where there 

5 was none at all.

6 Let's see, the records indicate that 

7 Kansas City's routine waste generation was minimal 

8 and the waste shipments were typically made every 

9 two years.

10 There were some years where shipments 

11 weren't necessary, but there were some years at the 

12 close of the primary DU machining operations where 

13 there were some bigger shipments like you would 

14 expect.

15 We have records of 122 drums, 55-gallon 

16 drums, being shipped in 1963 and another separate 

17 shipment of another 127 drums being shipped. So 

18 there's some indications of some large shipments 

19 when you would expect them, but for the most part 

20 there were not a lot of waste, radioactive waste 

21 created.

22 I think we talked last time about those 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
159

1 pictures that you guys found in your December visit 

2 of the back of the truck where they had some leaking 

3 drums and you wanted to hear more about that.

4 That report is available in SRDB Number 

5 123835. I don't have that listed here, but there's 

6 a big rundown there if you want to go --

7 CHAIR BEACH: What was the number 

8 again?

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: 123835. So they think 

10 some of those drums leaked in transport from Kansas 

11 City to Los Alamos. But there's good survey data 

12 in that SRDB, in that document, and there is a 

13 corrective action that took place afterwards. And 

14 that's the only indication that I saw of drums in 

15 shipment, or waste in shipment, being found 

16 leaking. 

17 So as part of that review, we did not 

18 discover any new information that suggests that 

19 Kansas City's waste generating disposition 

20 activities presented exposure pathways that were 

21 not bounded by our methodology.

22 So any questions on waste management?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
160

1 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, if I can 

2 comment?

3 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: This came up 

5 originally because of that one instance where they 

6 did find contamination at Los Alamos, in '62, and 

7 that was the genesis of trying to figure out, well, 

8 does that somehow exemplify some broader question 

9 on how waste was handled and could you go back to 

10 Kansas City, the originator of the waste, and find 

11 similar issues when they packaged and handled 

12 waste, in terms of any contamination?

13 And I agree, we went back and looked at 

14 all the records and did not find any other instances 

15 reported. And Los Alamos was pretty worked up 

16 apparently with the contamination they had from 

17 that one shipment and there was a corrective action 

18 that was pretty stringent. And I think Kansas City 

19 was on warning that they had to, you know, tighten 

20 up their operation.

21 Los Alamos did not want to receive 

22 anything that had any evidence of contamination.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
161

1 And there was a number of memos on Kansas City's 

2 part which, you know, put methods in place and QA 

3 in place to make sure that didn't reoccur. And I 

4 think they took it pretty seriously and no other 

5 instances that we could find.

6 The only thing I would say we differ 

7 from the response is you acknowledged in the '60s 

8 there were, you know, more shipments. We found 

9 that pretty much throughout the '60s, from about 

10 '61 through upwards to the late '60s and maybe even 

11 1970, in sort of tracking the DU timeframe, where 

12 we had hundreds of drums per year, sometimes every 

13 month you had almost 100 drums going to Los Alamos. 

14 And turns out, toward the low-level landfill, 

15 Kansas City was one of the major contributors 

16 during that timeframe, both classified waste as 

17 well as, you know, sort of standard laboratory rad 

18 waste.

19 So it was a fairly large scale drumming 

20 operation and shipping operation and it involved 

21 depleted uranium, laboratory waste, and on one 

22 occasion a thorium-232 oxide was mentioned, but

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
162

1 basically it was DU and laboratory waste.

2 And, again, that one instance was the 

3 only instance that was highlighted by Los Alamos, 

4 who was tracking it from their end, and Kansas City 

5 from their end, so as far as contamination it seemed 

6 that that was the one instance that was identified.

7 The only thing that I would I guess 

8 mention is that given the scale of the drumming 

9 operation, you know, it was hundreds of drums, 

10 55-gallon, 30-gallon, 20-gallon containers from 

11 that 10-year period. We're almost sort of 

12 backdooring this because of that one instance at 

13 Los Alamos. I don't know if we found anything that 

14 spoke to any monitoring of the actual drumming 

15 operation.

16 We knew where it took place, I forget 

17 the name of the location, but they would move the 

18 drums stacks -- test pit or something. They'd move 

19 the drums there and they would be held there until 

20 they had enough drums for a shipment and they would 

21 ship them out.

22 What I was kind of interested in was any 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
163

1 monitoring that would've taken place while they 

2 staged the waste at Kansas City before it got 

3 shipped.

4 It gives me some confidence, the fact 

5 that they put in these QA controls after the '62 

6 incident, that it be unlikely they would've had 

7 much in the way of contamination. They were afraid 

8 to have those go to Los Alamos, so there was a lot 

9 of concern about that.

10 So from a programmatic standpoint, it 

11 looked like they were much more stringent after '62 

12 in taking a look at the waste making sure there was 

13 not contamination, but we couldn't find any data.

14 You know, you would think they would've 

15 done smears, they would've done some monitoring, 

16 to assure themselves before the shipments were 

17 made, but I don't think we've seen that yet.

18 So that's the missing piece on this 

19 whole thing. Otherwise, I'd say the waste issue 

20 is really a 1961 through '70 issue, and as you were 

21 saying, Pat, it's pretty much intermittent, if at 

22 all.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
164

1 It was mostly the DU turnings and some 

2 laboratory waste that figured in the '60s, and then 

3 after that it was pretty intermittent.

4 MR. DARNELL: Well, the one thing we 

5 have to remember is this, like all the other 

6 projects onsite, you had to be medically monitored, 

7 radiologically monitored and the whole bit.

8 I don't see this as any different than 

9 working on the machining part of the DU project. 

10 Those guys were doing that DU project, they would 

11 carry the waste through the end.

12 So I wouldn't necessarily expect to see 

13 dosimetry badges that said "waste," you know, that 

14 they were associated with a waste operation. I 

15 would expect that the project workers be part of 

16 the people that took care of this waste.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I am just commenting 

18 that I know we did a lot of looking. Well, I don't 

19 think we've actually uncovered the monitoring 

20 information on how they actually monitored those 

21 shipments going out.

22 I see more on the other end where Los 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
165

1 Alamos was checking on their end, rather than 

2 Kansas City --

3 (Simultaneous speaking.)

4 MR. FITZGERALD: I almost think that 

5 that information may reside somewhere.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Now, this document I 

7 just gave you all the number for a minute ago, and 

8 I'm sure you've read it, it's the one with the 

9 pictures of the --

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Trailer?

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah. There's rad 

12 levels on all 127 drums in the one shipment and 122 

13 on the other and they're all mostly under two 

14 millirem per hour readings. It would be like a 

15 DOT-required rad survey before you ship it. So we 

16 have that. But I think, aren't you asking for like 

17 routine contamination surveys --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm just wondering, 

19 you know, they apparently did put a program in 

20 place, the QA requirements were written about, but, 

21 like some other issues, we just didn't find any 

22 records of what the results were.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
166

1 I think indirectly the fact that Los 

2 Alamos was happy thereafter, I didn't see any 

3 correspondence that strikes me that, you know, I 

4 don't think they got anything that was crapped up 

5 after '62.

6 So, you know, from that basis I think 

7 there is some comfort level. But given the scale 

8 of, again, a fairly intense program of shipping 

9 lots of drums, hundreds of drums, in that 

10 timeframe, that seems to be the only thing that, 

11 you know, is missing, is just any record on the 

12 Kansas City side of how they managed the staging 

13 area, whether they, you know, did any contamination 

14 control, what the results were.

15 The only thing I found was the QA 

16 process they were proposing to put in place because 

17 of Los Alamos's complaints. So that's one element 

18 on Kansas City's side I found.

19 And as you were saying, there's some 

20 DOT, I guess, I'm not sure if records, but for that 

21 one instance they had some exposure data for the 

22 drums, right?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
167

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, a serial number of 

2 the drum. Drum X, Y, Z, has this millirem per hour.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: But that was just for 

4 that shipment, right?

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: For two shipments in 

6 that SRDB document, they're all provided.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: So, I mean, I'd look 

9 further, but if you saw frequent shipments 

10 throughout the '60s I would expect to see the same 

11 information.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. I thought 

13 SWIMS would provide a lot more than it did. I don't 

14 know if we have all the SWIMS or not, but I don't 

15 think we got all the SWIMS, I think we got some of 

16 them.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Did you find any 

18 inventories or anything for anything of these, 

19 anybody?

20 MR. FITZGERALD: No. The only thing I 

21 found was numbers of drums, size of drums, some 

22 information on what was in the drums. And even 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
168

1 this was incomplete, because in '62 you had a 

2 January shipment and an April shipment, but, you 

3 know, that was the first half of the year. It's 

4 unclear what happened after that.

5 '64, May had 160 drums. August, 112 

6 drums. 1965, 111 drums for one shipment. '66, 240 

7 drums in one shipment. '67, 124 drums in one 

8 shipment. 1968, 187 drums on two shipments. And 

9 '69, two truckloads of classified rad waste. 

10 Whatever that means, two truckloads. And '70 was 

11 two truckloads. So, you know.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: I found some 

13 descriptions of inventory for drums, and that was 

14 part of the thorium issue that we're going to come 

15 up to. We'll talk about the thorium that was in 

16 there.

17 But for the 1960s, you know, all of it 

18 was classified, and the best I can see it was solid 

19 or liquid, you know.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah. So it sounds like 

21 there's more work that needs to be done here. I 

22 guess I'm curious of where --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
169

1 MR. DARNELL: And I'm trying to figure 

2 out what work needs to be done. You know, we've 

3 got to look at it from the dose consequence. You 

4 know, how much dose, the workers, and have we 

5 bounded that dose.

6 CHAIR BEACH: True.

7 MR. DARNELL: My thought is, if we're 

8 going to look for anything, the only thing we really 

9 actually need to see is who was handling the waste.

10 If it were the people that were 

11 generating the waste and part of that project, 

12 we're covered, because we already have that 

13 monitoring. We already know what's going on with 

14 those folks.

15 If there was a separate group ,we need 

16 to find out about the separate group. But right 

17 now ,from all indications that we have, it would've 

18 been the folks that generated the waste.

19 They're already a part of the program. We've 

20 already bounded their dose. There is no more work 

21 to do.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Well, there seems to be 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
170

1 a discrepancy between what NIOSH is saying was 

2 happening in the waste world and what SC&A has come 

3 up with. So, to me, that goes back to the projects 

4 and what was being done and the volumes of waste 

5 being --

6 MR. DARNELL: But I don't care how much 

7 waste is being generated if I've got the workers' 

8 doses bounded --

9 CHAIR BEACH: But we don't, so, for 

10 that waste.

11 MR. DARNELL: Well, that's the only 

12 question that we have to ask.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

14 MR. DARNELL: Not what was going on 

15 with the waste or how much was being generated or 

16 which project was leading which. If the project 

17 personnel were the ones handling the waste, which 

18 that's every indication that we have from the site, 

19 then that's what we need to nail down, to me, and 

20 that's just my opinion. I throw that out for that 

21 table, but --

22 DR. NETON: So you have interviews or 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
171

1 documents that suggest that the people that were 

2 machining the uranium were the same ones that 

3 drummed the waste then?

4 MR. DARNELL: As far as the way the 

5 projects were set up, yes.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I would tend to 

7 agree that they were putting the shavings in the 

8 drums. As far as beyond that point, it's unclear, 

9 you know, who was actually moving the waste to the 

10 staging areas and then putting them into trucks.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and then this 

12 gets into another point, and this is when you start 

13 to get into the classified waste. That's a whole 

14 different set of people there.

15 MR. DARNELL: Now, you're making an 

16 assumption that it's a whole different group of 

17 people.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Wait. I think I can 

19 make an assumption because you're making an 

20 assumption.

21 MR. DARNELL: No, we've got 

22 programmatic data that shows that's the way they've 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
172

1 handled these things. We've got to nail it down 

2 to make sure that that is the way they handled it 

3 this time.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Got to nail it down. 

5 So until it's nailed down it's an assumption, 

6 bottom line. And this is why with our Issue 2 that 

7 I said that I had reservations on it before you 

8 could put the people where it was at, because when 

9 we get into the metal shavings, the uranium 

10 machining, I can understand that, but when we get 

11 into these other classified ones, I have a hard time 

12 really saying that we have captured all the people 

13 per the program. Because there were many 

14 different ones going on and it could've been a lot 

15 of different aspects of it.

16 And my personal opinion is we need to 

17 be able to put our hands around this a little bit 

18 better, because the machining part of it, okay, 

19 when we get into classified waste, no.

20 You know, you've even got the other 

21 incidences of how they got rid of radioactive 

22 clothing and so forth, and that ended up getting 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
173

1 changed around because of an incident that happened 

2 there.

3 So I think, personally, that we need to, 

4 there is a little bit more there to be able to do. 

5 And I understand what you say about, well, if we've 

6 got all these people there, it's a programmatic 

7 bull, and so we're covered by it, but I don't think 

8 so.

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: Can I ask for a couple 

10 clarifications? So, everything went to Los 

11 Alamos, right, all of the drums?

12 MR. FITZGERALD: All of the 

13 classified, the laboratory waste, and the DU 

14 shavings all went to Los Alamos, the low-level

15 landfill there.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: And the incident in 

17 '62, it was Los Alamos receiving something that was 

18 leaking or contaminated, correct?

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: So what was the 

21 communication, do we have communication in 

22 response? They must've gotten back to Kansas City 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
174

1 --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: They went back and 

3 forth and Los Alamos, you know, brought this to 

4 Kansas City's attention, insisted that Kansas City 

5 take action. Kansas City took action, put new 

6 procedures in place, practices, and they went back 

7 to Los Alamos.

8 MEMBER LOCKEY: I understand that, but 

9 did Kansas City have any response to that 

10 particular incident as to when it got its status?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: They just put new 

12 procedures in place, but there wasn't any 

13 documentation that actually showed results per se, 

14 okay? What we didn't find was any more complaints 

15 or concerns expressed by Los Alamos.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: I understand that. 

17 Los Alamos received the contamination and they were 

18 in communication with Kansas City.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Did Kansas City in any 

21 way explain themselves, when that shipment went 

22 out, what the status of it was?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
175

1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, actually that 

2 was in there, where they were saying that the tops 

3 weren't necessarily always seated well and there 

4 were some leakage off the top of the drum, the seam 

5 of the lid on the drum wasn't secured and there was 

6 leakage at the top.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: These were Kansas 

8 City's statements?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Kansas City 

10 investigated and established that there was some 

11 weaknesses in their program, one of which was 

12 assuring the QA process, securing that the lids 

13 were on top of the drums adequately, that was one 

14 issue.

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Using more absorbent.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: They upped the level of 

18 absorbent they put into liquids after that.

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: So the leakage did not 

20 occur --

21 (Simultaneous speaking.)

22 MR. KATZ: Can you hold one second? 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
176

1 Excuse me --

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: -- it wasn't sealed 

3 right before it was shipped?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: It was sealing as well 

5 as not enough absorbent in the drum to secure or 

6 stabilize the liquid.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: I got you.

8 (Simultaneous speaking.)

9 MR. KATZ: Okay, can you hold a second, 

10 please? On the line, somebody is not muted on the 

11 line, and while it's not really in the way of our 

12 conversation here, it's certainly getting in the 

13 way of other people on the line being able to hear. 

14 So anyone who's on this line should have their phone 

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

16 to mute your phone. Much thanks.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: And, Jim, it wasn't 

18 anything exotic, it was just really kind of 

19 standard QA type of things you would do when 

20 shipping waste. And they just weren't as tightly 

21 procedurized as they should've been and they went 

22 back and really, you know, applied these new 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
177

1 procedures and they had to check these after they 

2 secured the lids.

3 And what I was kind of looking for, 

4 along those lines, was any evidence that they, you 

5 know, recorded, yeah, okay, we okay we checked 

6 these drums before the drums were shipped. And the 

7 presumption is they did because, again, the 

8 procedures call for it but there's not much in --

9 DR. NETON: It seems like these 

10 procedures they put in place really didn't 

11 necessarily affect the worker exposure that were 

12 doing the drumming. These were shipment 

13 transportation, so you're not --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

15 DR. NETON: It's not like they said, 

16 well, my gosh, your workers need to be using remote 

17 loaders or --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: No. 

19 (Simultaneous speaking.)

20 DR. NETON: So it's really not a worker 

21 exposure change there at all.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: No.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
178

1 CHAIR BEACH: Other than, up to that 

2 point, that was the first indication that they had 

3 a contamination issue on the outside of the 

4 containers.

5 DR. NETON: Right, but it seems like it 

6 got contaminated during transit.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Possibly, yeah.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, originally we 

9 were backtracking it to see if it was in transit 

10 or whether it was actually problems at the site.

11 DR. NETON: Right.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But as it turns out 

13 from the documents and records we couldn't see any 

14 problem at the site.

15 DR. NETON: Right.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: So the idea was, okay, 

17 well, when they loaded these drums and handled them 

18 as they were being shipped somehow some of this 

19 started getting out, or in transit.

20 DR. NETON: Right.

21 MR. DARNELL: I think it's pretty close 

22 to an idea that it was in transit when --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
179

1 (Simultaneous speaking.)

2 DR. NETON: That leaves us Brad's 

3 issue, though. I'd like to talk about this special 

4 nuclear material --

5 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, I want to make sure 

6 I understand exactly what you're looking for, Brad.

7 DR. NETON: Now, their operations 

8 there --

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: The shipment that 

10 they're talking about right there is depleted 

11 uranium shavings and that changed that.

12 DR. NETON: Right.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: But then we've got the 

14 classified, those classified for certain products 

15 that are in there and so forth like that, which are 

16 totally different than the uranium ones were.

17 DR. NETON: Okay.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'm sitting here, we 

19 have, because of this incident, we have monitoring 

20 data for all of those drums and stuff, so we know 

21 that.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Well, no, we don't.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
180

1 (Simultaneous speaking.)

2 CHAIR BEACH: He said we need to see if 

3 we have the monitoring data and who did the waste. 

4 So we don't know for sure if the people that 

5 actually were doing the machining were also 

6 handling waste, that's something we need to track 

7 down.

8 MR. DARNELL: But the people 

9 themselves should have been monitored the way the 

10 programs were set up. As far as monitoring of the 

11 drums, I don't think we have any of that data at 

12 all.

13 DR. NETON: So let me ask this 

14 question. I know this is classified information, 

15 but is this material different than the source 

16 materials that we've been talking about this 

17 morning?

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

19 DR. NETON: So it's another source term 

20 --

21 MR. DARNELL: The radionuclide isn't.

22 What radionuclide are you, we don't have --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
181

1 MR. FITZGERALD: It's just form.

2 (Simultaneous speaking.)

3 DR. NETON: So it's a chemical form of 

4 the same materials we've been talking about? Okay. 

5 So then I think we do need to go back and research 

6 what Pete talked about, which is to see if the 

7 people that were working with this material were 

8 also the ones that packaged the waste for this --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think that's 

10 fine. I think that's where we're at, just making 

11 sure that there's not an exposure potential that's 

12 not covered.

13 MR. DARNELL: Or a group we've missed.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: A group we've missed.

15 MR. DARNELL: If there's waste 

16 handlers we definitely need to capture what the 

17 exposure --

18 DR. NETON: Right. If there's a waste 

19 processing team out there and --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, what gave me 

21 pause was is sort of the description that you 

22 provided. It seemed to suggest it was 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
182

1 intermittent or not at all, but in the '60s I would 

2 say no. I would think it's much more active in the 

3 '60s.

4 And there you might actually have some 

5 exposure if it were a different group of people.

6 MR. DARNELL: I don't think we're 

7 talking about it being a large plant exposure in 

8 terms of where the waste was stored and how that 

9 was basically separated. What we're talking about 

10 is the folks that handled the drums.

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yeah, that's fine, 

13 but I just want to caution us because I really 

14 haven't seen a site yet that we've been able to 

15 place people in their jobs and select them down to 

16 just, you know, being able to say, oh, yeah, we've 

17 got this all covered. I don't think we've seen a 

18 site yet that we've been able to really make sure.

19 MR. DARNELL: Well, we've got access 

20 lists already on who was assigned to what project 

21 and --

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Pete, and I can blow 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
183

1 that right out the water because it's like Area 20 

2 for the machining of the uranium. We've already 

3 come to find out that, yes, the people that were 

4 doing the machining were fine, the QA, the 

5 engineering, they didn't need that access.

6 MR. DARNELL: I don't agree with you 

7 though, Brad, I'm sorry.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and that's 

9 fine, but I just wanted you to know when push comes 

10 to shove it'll be there because there's already 

11 been documentation of that and the changes to it. 

12 So I just want caution us on that.

13 MR. COPELAND: Could I help you out a 

14 little bit on that? Those people --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Hang on just a sec. Does 

16 anybody else with the Work Group have questions or 

17 comments on this?

18 MR. DARNELL: I'm actually curious 

19 what documentation Brad is talking about, so I can 

20 --

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we'll get to 

22 you, Maurice, hold on to that. And I did add it 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
184

1 for the site visit as though we need to continue 

2 looking for waste records for the '60s and waste 

3 handlers.

4 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, sure.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Part of the 

6 documentation that came in to this was from the 

7 quality assurance department in one of their 

8 reports that they were going in there, because the 

9 parts that were being machined and run were going 

10 into there and the comment was was that only people 

11 that have access badges, with these certain badges, 

12 could go in there. Well, the quality assurance 

13 people didn't.

14 And then there was the building they 

15 were adding on at I believe it was the north end 

16 of Area 20, to be able to give a bigger area to be 

17 able to put the product for them to be able to test 

18 and to be able to check these parts.

19 So from my aspect of saying that we have 

20 all these access controls and only those people can 

21 go in there, I say that's not so.

22 DR. NETON Yeah.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
185

1 MEMBER CLAWSON: And the engineering 

2 of going in there and doing ventilation upgrades 

3 and looking at this, I'm sure that the people that 

4 were on the project had access.

5 We've talked about the badges for Area 

6 20 and so forth, but the other departments that 

7 supported them, I don't think that we really can 

8 say that.

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 MR. DARNELL: What we saw in the 

11 medical records when we went and looked, those 

12 various support people that you're saying you don't 

13 think had the training, had the training. That's 

14 what is listed in their medical records.

15 DR. NETON: I don't think that we 

16 decided yet. I think we've agreed that we're going 

17 to pursue a coworker model here. We're going to 

18 go look at the data to see.

19 So I think -- I'm not convinced that 

20 everybody that needed to be monitored was 

21 monitored. I agree, you could never prove that 

22 people like maintenance folks didn't go in there 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
186

1 and stuff even though the supposedly had access 

2 control. But that's what the coworker models are 

3 for.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

5 DR. NETON: And I think we're going to 

6 pursue that, at least we're going to pursue the 

7 option, when we go back and look at the electronic 

8 database and match it up with the records we have.

9 So I don't think we're saying that, you 

10 know, no one else is going to get dose but just the 

11 monitored workers. So I think that's okay. 

12 The key question here, though, is were 

13 the people that were monitored the same people that 

14 actually handled the waste. If there's a 

15 different group out there that handled waste that 

16 weren't monitored then we could have a problem. 

17 That's what I think we're saying.

18 MR. DARNELL: I feel like I'm missing 

19 something and I want to make sure that I have the 

20 right information so that Brad can be happy with 

21 what he's hearing, and I'm not understanding is all 

22 I'm saying. I just don't understand where you're 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
187

1 coming from with this, so that's why I am asking.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: And that's fine. For 

3 you to tell me that everybody was monitored that 

4 should've been monitored, I don't agree.

5 MR. DARNELL: Well, I don't think I'm 

6 actually saying that.

7 CHAIR BEACH: I don't think he -- he 

8 said that we need to go, he thinks they know who 

9 was involved, but we need to go and make sure that 

10 the other areas are covered, meaning the waste 

11 workers --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Meaning, you know, 

13 the DU workers were bioassayed, routinely 

14 bioassayed.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: If they were the same 

17 workers that handled the waste, we have the records 

18 then. If they're not, then we may not have those 

19 records. And so that's pretty much the --

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, so we're going to look 

21 for more --

22 MR. DARNELL: And the other thing is, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
188

1 the way it's supposed to happen and the real world 

2 of how it happened, we all know are two different 

3 things, and I understand that.

4 I just know that the site was set out 

5 to work one way and that's the path I have to follow. 

6 And then we've got the coworker model when you get 

7 to the TBD to capture those folks that may not have 

8 fit in the mold that we have going for the ER right 

9 now. So am I catching, getting what you need?

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

11 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, you are. And 

13 see I have to go back to what we found and some of 

14 the areas programmatically it looks very good to 

15 say that this is how we did it. But in all reality 

16 the way, as you already said, the way it was done 

17 differs, and that's why I'm coming back to you.

18 I just want to make sure that when we 

19 make an assumption like what we are, that we're able 

20 to back it up. And, you know, you're right, we'll 

21 see with that, but I don't think that you're ever 

22 going to see something that says these people took 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
189

1 this waste and moved it to here and be able to put 

2 your hand on exactly who took care of that.

3 It may have sat in Area 20 for a little 

4 while till somebody else could take care of it. We 

5 don't have that good of information, in my eyes, 

6 to be able to say that, really.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. We do have some 

8 information that says that it did sit in Area 20 

9 with a lid on it until it was full and then it was 

10 moved out.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

12 CHAIR BEACH: But we don't know if they 

13 let five gather or one gather, I don't remember that 

14 level of detail.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: And we don't know who 

16 got it from there back to the engine storage.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, correct. Okay. 

18 So I think we're all circling around the same thing. 

19 Maurice, did you have something to add 

20 to this discussions?

21 MR. COPELAND: Yeah. And when you're 

22 looking, I want to help you. I want to help you 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
190

1 pinpoint who the people were that were doing that.

2 And you will find out that they have a 

3 program at Honeywell, AlliedSignal at that time, 

4 that disqualified all of those people that had been 

5 doing that job for 20 or 30 years because they 

6 weren't able to read and get training. And they 

7 started a training program and it should be very 

8 easy for you to find that out.

9 Those people were disqualified and some 

10 were put into custodian positions and they started 

11 a new position called waste management and 

12 hazardous waste management.

13 CHAIR BEACH: What was it called before 

14 that, before they disqualified all of them, do you 

15 remember?

16 MR. COPELAND: Well, it was waste --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Handlers?

18 MR. COPELAND: Handlers, yeah.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Waste handlers, okay.

20 MR. COPELAND: Waste handlers. And 

21 those people were disqualified, put into reading 

22 programs --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
191

1 CHAIR BEACH: What year was that, can 

2 you give me an idea?

3 MR. COPELAND: It was in the '80s.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

5 MR. COPELAND: In the '80s sometime.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

7 MR. COPELAND: So these people had been 

8 doing that job for years, 20, 30 years, and they 

9 find out they were incompetent, couldn't read, and 

10 so that would help you. And you said that you 

11 interviewed people, well, you ought to have some 

12 names.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: [Identifying 

14 information redacted] was the manager.

15 MR. COPELAND: I know [identifying 

16 information redacted].

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah. He was one of 

18 our best resources for waste --

19 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, our main resource 

20 for finding out information about this.

21 MR. COPELAND: He was what?

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: He was one of our best 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
192

1 resources for waste management.

2 MR. COPELAND: And what was his title?

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Manager of -- I'm not 

4 positive what his title was.

5 MR. COPELAND: Yes, but the actual 

6 workers, [identifying information redacted], I 

7 forget [identifying information redacted] last 

8 name, but they've got the roster there.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Can you tell me, do you 

10 know how many workers we're talking about? Was 

11 there five, ten?

12 MR. COPELAND: It was a gang.

13 CHAIR BEACH: And that was their only 

14 job?

15 MR. COPELAND: In that waste 

16 management group, may have been 20, 30 guys.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

18 MR. COPELAND: Because they handled 

19 all the waste in the whole plant.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

21 MR. COPELAND: The skidwash people, 

22 they handled the barrels, the staging area of where 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
193

1 you put the barrels, where the barrels were stacked 

2 outside.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Red X Lot.

4 MR. COPELAND: Outside. And for 

5 months and years, I mean we had barrels running over 

6 the place, we had all around the plant, we had 

7 barrels all around the plant --

8 MR. DARNELL: We haven't heard 

9 anything at all --

10 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

11 MR. DARNELL: We have not heard 

12 anything at all about a group of waste handlers.

13 MR. COPELAND: You didn't?

14 CHAIR BEACH: No, Wayne brought it up 

15 before. He mentioned it.

16 MR. COPELAND: Yeah, I think they heard 

17 it before because I mentioned it in meetings that 

18 we had back in 2004.

19 MR. DARNELL: I just don't remember it, 

20 sorry.

21 CHAIR BEACH: It might not have been 

22 one of your interviews, but, yeah, I remember him 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
194

1 bringing it up.

2 MR. SHARFI: They do have bioassay for 

3 handlers. There is a category and we do have --

4 CHAIR BEACH: Waste, yeah.

5 MR. COPELAND: Yes, the supervisor was 

6 [identifying information redacted], that's one of 

7 the supervisors, [identifying information 

8 redacted]. [Identifying information redacted].

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: Say that first name 

10 again?

11 MR. COPELAND: [Identifying 

12 information redacted]

13 MR. DARNELL: In Table 13 of the TBD 

14 there's 145 bioassay results for people called 

15 handlers: handlers, laborers, helpers in that 

16 group.

17 MR. COPELAND: Those are different 

18 groups. Helpers were machinist people, those were 

19 people that worked in the machine shop.

20 MR. DARNELL: Well, in our table we put 

21 them altogether, handlers, laborers, and helpers.

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: What's the date on 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
195

1 that?

2 MR. DARNELL: This is from '59 to 1970.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: '59 to '70.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Table what?

5 MR. DARNELL: Table 13.

6 (Simultaneous speaking.)

7 MR. KNOX: I think they were also 

8 involved in this waste reclamation, the same group 

9 of people.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So can we agree 

11 that there's more work that needs to be done in 

12 trying to nail this down?

13 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

14 CHAIR BEACH: And then if we're ready, 

15 any questions, Jim? Loretta, how about you?

16 MEMBER VALERIO: I think that there's 

17 a lot more clarification that we need as to who was 

18 handling this, what building were these, you know, 

19 was it Department 20?

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah.

21 MEMBER VALERIO: Was that ever 

22 deconned were there -- there's just too many 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
196

1 unknowns, I'm not comfortable with this. I think 

2 we need a lot more clarification on this, on who 

3 was handling the waste.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Agreed. Okay, so it 

5 sounds like we're going to -- so, actions I have 

6 is just to go in and look at more waste records. 

7 As far as SC&A, do you need anything from SC&A on 

8 what they found that varies from what you guys found 

9 if there's a discrepancy?

10 MR. FITZGERALD: No, it states it in 

11 the SRDB. It's just waste inventory from the '60s, 

12 it's all there.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I'm just 

14 clarifying if we needed anything.

15 MR. DARNELL: I just wanted to make 

16 sure that I meet what the expectation is. I wasn't 

17 really going so much to look at waste records, but 

18 personnel handling, who was touching the stuff.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: As long as we're in 

20 agreement that the '60s were a fairly active period 

21 of shipments. That's the only thing I didn't quite 

22 get in the description that was provided. Other 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
197

1 than that, yeah.

2 MR. DARNELL: Okay. So we will be 

3 going back to look for who handled it and find this 

4 group.

5 CHAIR BEACH: The waste gang in the 

6 1960s.

7 DR. NETON: It sounds like we also need

8 to look at the bioassay database because it appears 

9 that waste handlers were monitored.

10 MR. DARNELL: Right. We've got that 

11 in the TBD already.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess it only gets 

14 touchy if they're not in that cohort, because then 

15 you'd have to decide if you were going to 

16 extrapolate that data or not, you know, it gets a 

17 little --

18 MR. KNOX: If you want to put 

19 [identifying information redacted] on this, 

20 [identifying information redacted] could, he is 

21 the one --

22 MR. DARNELL: Could you say the last 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
198

1 name again?

2 CHAIR BEACH: [Identifying 

3 information redacted].

4 MR. KNOX: [Identifying information 

5 redacted].

6 MR. SHARFI: He was a waste handler?

7 MR. KNOX: Yeah, and was involved in 

8 the waste reclamation also. And [identifying 

9 information redacted] was there.

10 DR. NETON: We got him.

11 MR. COPELAND: It should be very easy 

12 to find the roster of those people that worked in 

13 that group. I mean, they had all the 

14 classifications --

15 MR. DARNELL: I wish I could say that 

16 you are right.

17 MR. COPELAND: Go through the union. 

18 They have the roster of every paid number and what 

19 their occupations were.

20 MR. DARNELL: Well, we have had a time 

21 finding documents.

22 CHAIR BEACH: All right. So let's 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
199

1 move on to Number 8. I am going to push a little, 

2 because I know we're not going to get through this 

3 and I want to give you guys a few minutes to talk 

4 about petitioner's issues at the very end.

5 So Number 8 is our metal tritides 

6 exposure potential, and Joe has agreed to kick that 

7 off for us.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, this will be 

9 roughly brief. We originally noted the degree to 

10 which metal tritides, particularly at KCP -- and 

11 it would've been a potential source, exposure 

12 source -- really hadn't been defined as well as it 

13 needed to be. And we had some interviews back last 

14 year that indicated there were several types of 

15 metal tritides that were likely handled with, you 

16 know, limited evidence of leakage.

17 There was a couple of incidents, but 

18 after the additional research we did onsite it 

19 became pretty clear, that unlike Mound, unlike Los 

20 Alamos, metal tritides came to Kansas City 

21 universally as sealed components, okay, and that's 

22 the key thing as compared with other SECs.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
200

1 And they had acceptance criteria and, 

2 you know, with the many, many field containers 

3 there were maybe a couple, two or three instances, 

4 where those acceptance criteria exceeded. And 

5 we're not talking about a very high level of 

6 contamination, and I think 100 dpm per 100 square 

7 centimeters was typical. No evidence of uptake. 

8 And there were a couple of situations in '87 and 

9 '90 where they in fact heightened their procedures 

10 based on feedback from Sandia and the design 

11 laboratories trying to make sure that these 

12 acceptance criteria were met.

13 So I guess where we came, we originally 

14 were concerned that it wasn't characterized as much 

15 as we'd like to see in the ERs. The research didn't 

16 show that there was any recurring issues if there 

17 were acceptance criteria in place, that these were 

18 sealed components and that if there were any 

19 contamination it was intermittent, maybe a couple 

20 of times in the history of the handling.

21 So without really any exposure 

22 potential consequence, we recommend closure to the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
201

1 Work Group on this particular one. You know, we've 

2 been on metal tritides for five or six years, so 

3 we certainly, I think, are pretty familiar with 

4 when we have a pathway of concern, and I don't see 

5 one here.

6 MR. DARNELL: You know, reluctantly, 

7 NIOSH agrees that we should close this.

8 (Laughter.)

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Does the Work Group 

10 have any questions on that one?

11 CHAIR BEACH: I don't.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

13 CHAIR BEACH: There was one incident, 

14 right, that we know of?

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, there was one 

16 erbium tritide release that was investigated. The 

17 rest of them, a couple of times the acceptance 

18 criteria were exceeded, but there wasn't any major 

19 release.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Loretta, do you have any 

21 questions on Number 8?

22 MEMBER VALERIO: No.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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

1 CHAIR BEACH: And you agree with 

2 closure?

3 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Brad?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Jim?

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I agree with that 

9 also, so we'll close Number 8.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: I could suggest 

11 something for the Work Group. Issue 9, 10, 11, 

12 12, had to do with external dosimetry, or external 

13 exposure issues that we raised which were the 

14 subject of a technical conference call that was 

15 held last year and I thought it was a pretty good 

16 call and if people don't mind I'd like to get Ron 

17 Buchanan just to walk the Work Group through that.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Before you do that --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes?

20 CHAIR BEACH: -- any issues on tritides 

21 from the petitioners? I don't think it was on your 

22 list, but Number 10 I wasn't sure.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
203

1 No, okay. Thank you. Go ahead.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: So I was just going to 

3 have -- Ron, are you on the phone?

4 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, I am.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, if you could walk 

6 through maybe the issue, what was the exchange on 

7 the conference call and where we've come out 

8 starting with Item 9.

9 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Nine, ten, 11, 

10 and 12, like Joe said, has to do with external 

11 exposures and nine was concerned with coworker, it 

12 started out as external coworker and what that 

13 boiled down to was that we found that in 1969 the 

14 records were all zeros for external exposure.

15 And so we looked around to see was this 

16 reasonable or not or was something missing and what 

17 we have arrived at to date is the fact that it 

18 appears that from what we can find out, and we 

19 worked with the present SRO at Kansas City and such 

20 to see if he could find any records for '69 that 

21 showed any positive doses and so far we have not 

22 found any.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
204

1 Now we have to look at this in the light 

2 that Kansas City normally had a lot of zero doses. 

3 If you had say 500 dosimeters you might have 50 with 

4 some positive dose, a small amount of dose on it.

5 So we did not find any evidence that 

6 showed one way or the other that '69 was missing 

7 any data. Now NIOSH did send out a recent 

8 reference number that showed zeros for '69 and that 

9 was the Reference Number 137215, Page 19, and that

10 was just for a couple of departments though, that 

11 was not the whole plant.

12 So that was an interoffice memo that 

13 wanted to know the doses for '59 through '72 or 

14 something for Department 20 and some other 

15 departments, and it did show '69 as being zero, but 

16 it also showed other years as being zero, which we 

17 know there is some positive doses according to the 

18 TBD in other years.

19 So at this point what we have found is 

20 nothing concrete one way or the other that '69 

21 should be all zeros and so that's where we're at

22 on that.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
205

1 So it's kind of up to the Work Group 

2 whether they'll pursue it further, or we really 

3 don't know what to pursue further. SC&A doesn't, 

4 and I don't know if NIOSH does, and so we kind of 

5 open that up to the Work Group to discuss the fact 

6 that 1969 shows all zeros on the external dosimetry 

7 section.

8 And if NIOSH wishes to input anything 

9 in there that, I welcome them to put in there, talk 

10 on it.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: The only thing that I 

13 heard the RSO say while we were there is that, you 

14 know, they were involved with some 

15 inter-comparison studies and there's a small 

16 chance that when they were sending their records 

17 out they sent the originals and didn't get them 

18 back, but I did a search for inter-comparison 

19 studies from that timeframe and found nothing, and 

20 even if I did I mean I don't know that it would say, 

21 well I don't know what it would say, but, no, I don't 

22 really have anything more to add to that other than 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
206

1 that.

2 MR. COPELAND: Did it do --

3 (Simultaneous speaking.)

4 DR. NETON: This is Jim, I'm wondering 

5 if --

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. I guess that, 

7 you know, we kind of defer to the Work Group on 

8 whether they feel that '69 should be investigated 

9 further and we don't, I don't know what we'd 

10 suggest.

11 One suggestion is that, if you look at 

12 the years around it, '68 and '70, you'll find some 

13 small positive doses. That could be, you know, 

14 assigned to '69, except there isn't any indication 

15 that there would be large doses in '69, but, you 

16 know, that's up to the Work Group what they'd like 

17 to pursue from here.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And, Ron, Jim was 

19 going to make a comment.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

21 DR. NETON: Yes, I would just, I didn't 

22 know if this was specific to 1969 but I was going 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
207

1 to suggest that, you know, we talked about the 

2 completeness of the data earlier on Number 2 I think 

3 it was.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

5 DR. NETON: And we need to go back and 

6 compare the raw data with the time database, and 

7 I think we were talking about internal at that time, 

8 but it might be something we could do in parallel 

9 and do some sort of a validation as best we could 

10 with the external results, the electronic database 

11 at the same time.

12 CHAIR BEACH: That was for one, but so 

13 basically validating and verifying the records?

14 DR. NETON: Well, you know, if we at 

15 least see, if we had the records, we had the raw 

16 records, we compared, and they are in the database, 

17 and there are no positive values in the raw data 

18 that show up as zeros in the regular database.

19 I mean it wouldn't be definitive, but 

20 it would certainly be one more thing to look at.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Well and then it 

22 would be up to -- I know, Ron, you made a suggestion 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
208

1 about other doses from other years, but that would 

2 be up to NIOSH to say this is how they're going to 

3 do it and then --

4 MR. DARNELL: That is the actually 

5 current approach. We used 1968 for 1969, since 

6 it's the higher of '68 versus '70.

7 So we actually used the higher of the 

8 years around it to bound the dose for 1969.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that's 

10 already, so that suggestion, Ron, that you made is 

11 already being done, or it sounds like that's how 

12 you're doing it.

13 MR. DARNELL: It's currently in the 

14 TBD.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So is everybody 

16 in agreement with that, to kind of add nine to what 

17 we discussed on one?

18 DR. NETON: Yes, and I think we're 

19 probably going to do that anyway, so we may as well 

20 formalize that.

21 MR. DARNELL: So we're going to combine 

22 them or add them?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
209

1 CHAIR BEACH: No, not combine them, but 

2 --

3 DR. NETON: No, no, no.

4 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

5 CHAIR BEACH: -- the same verification 

6 of the, the same process we're going to do.

7 MR. DARNELL: Okay, yes.

8 DR. NETON: Okay, but I wouldn't say 

9 it's a definitive analysis, but it's certainly 

10 another piece of the, weigh the evidence sort of 

11 thing.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and we're going to 

13 probably find that on all of these externals, that 

14 we're going to have to do that, so okay. Everybody 

15 okay with that suggestion and in agreement?

16 (Simultaneous speaking.)

17 MR. DARNELL: Was that for '69 alone or 

18 for the whole --

19 DR. NETON: No, it would be for the same 

20 years we're doing for, the same analysis we're 

21 doing for the internal.

22 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
210

1 DR. NETON: I mean the records should 

2 be there. It shouldn't be that hard to pull out 

3 the internal records as well.

4 MR. DARNELL: Right.

5 DR. NETON: I mean external records, 

6 and crosswalk them. It's easy for me to say that.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Easy for you to say 

8 you're going to have them do it, yes.

9 DR. NETON: I don't have to --

10 CHAIR BEACH: That's okay, that's how 

11 you get things done. Okay. So, Ron, if you're 

12 ready go ahead and go to ten.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Issue Number 10 

14 was non-penetrating dose and this was more of a 

15 clarification that it was being done correctly.

16 Prior to 64, the handwritten records at 

17 the Kansas City Plant, had several columns, and it 

18 wasn't clear which column the DRs were using, they 

19 had the rad, a roentgen, and a rem, and some of the 

20 later ones had a beta rad.

21 And so I wanted to clarify that and we 

22 had a phone call in July of last year to do that 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
211

1 and we learned from NIOSH that they weren't using 

2 it correctly, that the rads was the total dose, the 

3 roentgen was the deep dose, and the rem dose column 

4 was not being used, and that is correct and that 

5 the non-penetrating was the rad minus the roentgen.

6 And so the nomenclature wasn't clear on 

7 there on their handwritten cards and so we 

8 clarified what they were using and we agreed that 

9 that was being used correctly and they will make 

10 a clarification in the TBD that that's the way it 

11 should be used so there won't be any controversy 

12 since there is a column listed as rem.

13 If they did use the rem column it would 

14 be an overestimate because it's the sum of the rads 

15 and roentgens and I don't why Kansas City did that 

16 in the early years, but, anyway, it's not to be used 

17 in DR.

18 And so if that clarification is made in 

19 the TBD we have no further issue with that.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So what you're 

21 suggesting is this becomes a TBD issue with a 

22 clarification needed on those columns?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
212

1 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. How does the rest 

3 of the Work Group feel, or, NIOSH, I guess we'll 

4 let you --

5 MR. DARNELL: Reluctantly once again 

6 we agree.

7 CHAIR BEACH: You were involved in that 

8 phone call that discussed this.

9 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

10 CHAIR BEACH: I know I had a chance to 

11 listen in but wasn't available. Brad, anything on 

12 that for you, do you agree with that?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, I agree with it.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Loretta?

15 MEMBER VALERIO: I agree.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we're going to 

17 move that over to --- we're going to close it on 

18 the SEC and we'll leave it over to the matrix for 

19 the TBD issues, which Joe is now handling.

20 Okay. So, Ron, if you're ready go 

21 ahead and walk us through 11.

22 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Eleven and 12 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
213

1 are both to do with neutron dosimetry and, of 

2 course, we brought up the regular concerns about 

3 neutrons at the Kansas City Plant about using NTA 

4 film and their response to the neutron field plus 

5 the TBD and the DR both quoted a ratio of 1:1 using 

6 the NP method where you take the photon dose and 

7 you assign it with a neutron dose.

8 Well that was very claimant-favorable, 

9 we felt that there wasn't any real technical basis 

10 behind that and that OTIB-24 wasn't applicable in 

11 this case and so NIOSH readdressed the neutron 

12 issue and have removed the use of OTIB-24 and the 

13 use of N/P value of one and had went to looking at 

14 what the actual NTA film results were.

15 Now the reason that we can probably use 

16 the NTA film results in that situation, as opposed 

17 to some of the other sites that we discussed the 

18 NTA film at, is that Kansas City used a high energy 

19 neutron generator, DT reaction, which generates 14 

20 MeV neutrons, which are high energy, and also to 

21 use some PuBe sources, which generate about 4-1/2 

22 meV, and they did not have a lot of heavy reactor 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
214

1 shielding and stuff like you'd find around reactors 

2 or heavily-shielded accelerators and stuff, so you 

3 don't have a semantic and a low-energy neutron 

4 component that would add significantly to your dose 

5 that you would be missing like you would on some 

6 production lines.

7 And so we find that the NTA film results 

8 probably were representative of the doses at Kansas 

9 City. However, one thing is they didn't have very 

10 many positive.

11 They had about 2100 neutron 

12 measurements using NTA film and only 35 positive 

13 results. And so what NIOSH is suggesting is to use 

14 a 95th percentile of those 35 results, which really 

15 comes up to the top three results determine your 

16 dose and they suggest assigning 154 millirem a year 

17 to potential workers, workers that were 

18 potentially exposed to neutrons.

19 And so we, while that isn't a large 

20 statistic, it is a reasonable assumption. What we 

21 would like to see, we have so far no real problem 

22 with their approach, we would like to see the 35 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
215

1 data points and the years those were taken, the 

2 magnitude and the year and the location if they have 

3 a department.

4 We would like to look at that data 

5 before we sign on off on Item 11. So that's where 

6 we stand at this point. If NIOSH can provide us 

7 with those 35 data points, as much information they 

8 have on them, we would like to look at those and 

9 evaluate them.

10 CHAIR BEACH: That seems reasonable to 

11 me. NIOSH?

12 MR. DARNELL: Will do.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So it sounds 

14 like, Ron, that they will make that available. And 

15 then on 12 for me, on the last paragraph, I think 

16 was a NIOSH, it talked about a bounding assignment 

17 of 0.154 rem a year, neutron could be assigned for 

18 unmonitored workers who worked with neutron 

19 sources or neutron-generating devices as indicated 

20 in the CATI or other DOL/DOE information.

21 I guess I'm concerned about that 

22 covering all employees because it's not always 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
216

1 clear, unless you tell me it is clear in the CATI, 

2 that you wouldn't miss people with that.

3 So how do you not -- I mean I know it's 

4 an open-ended question, how do you not miss 

5 individuals? I mean what are you using so that you 

6 don't?

7 MR. DARNELL: I'm sorry. I was 

8 writing my notes and I didn't catch the beginning 

9 of what you were talking about.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Well it just says you're 

11 going to assign, for individuals you're going to 

12 assign a dose and you're going to use the CATI or 

13 other available DOL/DOE information.

14 MR. DARNELL: Right.

15 CHAIR BEACH: I guess to me that leaves 

16 a question of missed employees.

17 MR. DARNELL: Well the employee would 

18 know if they were working with the PB source. I 

19 mean this is a fairly significant piece of 

20 equipment.

21 DR. NETON: The employee might know, 

22 but the survivor might not know.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
217

1 MR. DARNELL: The survivor may not 

2 know.

3 CHAIR BEACH: The survivor might not.

4 MR. DARNELL: That is true.

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 DR. NETON: This is a tough one because 

7 I, you know, unlike other sources of exposure 

8 where, you know, okay, you could assign to 

9 everybody, there were probably very few people 

10 working with this and in our experience with 

11 external monitoring has been that most people that 

12 were exposed to external were monitored unlike the 

13 internal.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Were monitored, okay. 

15 So you're telling me it's going to be a really small 

16 percentage?

17 DR. NETON: I think it would be a very 

18 small percentage of people that had received 

19 coworker doses.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I think that’s

21 what, I was looking for more of a reassurance there 

22 and I'm not looking at a large dose.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
218

1 MR. DARNELL: I can't give you 100 

2 percent --

3 CHAIR BEACH: No, and I'm not asking 

4 for a 100 percent.

5 DR. NETON: That would be my guess is 

6 that --

7 CHAIR BEACH: Whenever I see the CATI 

8 then I start thinking about survivors and --

9 DR. NETON: Yes. No, I agree with you.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we're going to 

11 hold 11 and 12 open with viewing of the 35 data 

12 points and then we'll hear back from SC&A after 

13 that?

14 DR. NETON: I think 12 might be a 

15 different issue though.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Is it. I thought it was 

17 combined.

18 DR. NETON: It's about fading, which is 

19 a little different than --

20 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay, so there's a 

21 little difference, okay.

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
219

1 CHAIR BEACH: We covered them 

2 together, 11 and 12.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Given the 

4 energy levels involved, which is almost 

5 universally higher, the NTA film issue we typically 

6 have actually doesn't apply to Kansas City.

7 DR. NETON: No, but this is about 

8 fading though, which is different --

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 MR. DARNELL: This one actually should 

11 be closed.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Which one?

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Twelve. Twelve 

14 could be closed. We combined it because it sort 

15 of deals with neutrons generically, but 12 could 

16 be closed on the NTA side.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: The inapplicability 

19 of NTA for low energy neutrons wouldn't apply at 

20 Kansas City, it's all hard neutrons.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So the data 

22 points we're looking at actually belong to 11.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
220

1 MR. FITZGERALD: You can close 12 and 

2 we'll keep 11 open for the 35 data points.

3 CHAIR BEACH: All right. Ron, are you 

4 good with that?

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

6 CHAIR BEACH: And NIOSH will make those 

7 available to you and, of course, the rest of the 

8 Work Group will know when that comes out.

9 MR. DARNELL: I'll do it like I 

10 normally do, send it to everybody.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Is that good with Loretta 

13 and --

14 CHAIR BEACH: I'm going to ask. And 

15 then so we're proposing leaving 11 open with the 

16 viewing of the 35 data points, closing 12. 

17 Loretta, are you okay with that or do you have 

18 questions or comments?

19 MEMBER VALERIO: No, I'm fine with 

20 that.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Jim?

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: Fine.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
221

1 CHAIR BEACH: Brad?

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Good.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And I'm fine with 

4 that as well, so that's out of where we're at. 

5 Everybody got their notes up to date? Where are 

6 we at time wise?

7 MR. KATZ: It's 1:30.

8 MR. DARNELL: If we really push we 

9 might make it.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, let's carry on. I 

11 don't want to --- Item 14, so adequacy of post-1993 

12 monitoring.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, let me tackle 

14 that one.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Our original review 

17 we noticed that the '93 cutoff point for the SEC 

18 was, you know, sort of founded on some sampling of 

19 case files and in discussions at the Work Group 

20 meeting last year I think there was some discussion 

21 that, you know, perhaps more validation was needed 

22 on the cutoff date.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
222

1 And on the October visit that we did at 

2 the site we and NIOSH went through a lot of 

3 programmatic documentation and actually this time 

4 we did find the documentation that tracked with 

5 their coming into compliance with 835 and showing 

6 what they were doing in terms of making sure the 

7 monitoring programs were in place.

8 I would also add DOELAP took effect in 

9 November of '92. So we interviewed the RSO, who 

10 actually was there at the time, so we've got a lot 

11 of data points as far as their coming to compliance 

12 and tying this thing with a bow by '93.

13 So we're pretty satisfied that beyond 

14 the sampling of case files there's a lot of 

15 programmatic compliance records that seemed to 

16 point to a rather rigorous program to assure 

17 compliance at KCP by '93.

18 So I think that kind of was the missing 

19 component that we were looking for, so we would 

20 recommend closure of that issue.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any discussion on 

22 that? Loretta, have you had a chance to review 14 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
223

1 and do you agree with SC&A's recommendation to 

2 close?

3 MEMBER VALERIO: I have reviewed it and 

4 I do agree.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Brad?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: I agree.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: I agree.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I also agree with 

9 that, so 14 we'll call that closed. Next item is 

10 15, the thorium oxide exposure potential.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, let me tackle 

12 that.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: On thorium oxide we, 

15 I think we scanned the NMMSS database, which is the 

16 inventory -- Pat's holding up the sheet that I made 

17 notes on. I made it very imprecise, because 

18 otherwise it would be classified.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: But in any case, from 

21 the NMMSS database it was clear they had what they 

22 called non-alloyed thorium identified in kilogram 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
224

1 quantities at Kansas City, which kind of raised my 

2 eyebrow because I knew there would be alloyed 

3 thorium, but un-alloyed thorium sort of pointed to 

4 something else.

5 And that something else is what we've 

6 actually rigorously looked for ever since to no 

7 avail, so we got a disconnect between the inventory 

8 and the operational accounts for this material.

9 We've seen laboratory quantities of 

10 thorium, but we haven't seen kilogram quantities 

11 that seem to be sitting there. And there may be 

12 some rather straightforward explanations of that, 

13 you know, you could hold thorium in a vault and 

14 never have it go into operations and that could 

15 account for the inventory totals.

16 However, it looks like there is some 

17 stones that need to be turned over. We started 

18 talking to the materials accountability people and 

19 we think that may be the pathway where we can 

20 establish how that got into NMMSS in the first 

21 place, and we were successful at Hanford doing 

22 that, but we have a new person at Kansas City so 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
225

1 it's a little harder there.

2 But I think if we can reconcile what 

3 seems to be a fairly notable entry in that database 

4 to what's actually at Kansas City we can put this 

5 one to bed.

6 It may just be an anomaly, but it's kind 

7 of hard to ignore the kilogram quantities listing 

8 for about ten years at Kansas City and, you know, 

9 so far we haven't found the operational reference 

10 for that.

11 So it's a matter of just kind of making 

12 the accounts add up and that's the one area where 

13 we haven't done so, but, you know, again, I think 

14 turning to the materials accountability side of the 

15 house I think we might have more luck and we'll 

16 pursue that.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Not that there hasn't 

18 been work done because there's two pages of NIOSH's 

19 work here that tried to account for --

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, I mean I don't 

21 know how precise the NMMSS kilogram quantities 

22 would be, I mean when you got a half a kilogram here 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
226

1 and a half a kilogram there, I think pretty soon 

2 you're talking about kilogram quantities.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I thought 

4 though maybe this is the part we need to discuss, 

5 which is they were trying not to exceed 500 grams, 

6 weren't they at the lab?

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: It wouldn't have to be 

8 accounted for and wouldn't --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. It wouldn't 

10 have to be accounted for if it was less than 500.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.

12 DR. NETON: With the density of 

13 thorium, even if it's thorium dioxide powder are 

14 pretty high, so a kilogram quantity could be a 

15 couple hundred milliliters which would be enough 

16 to fit in a reagent bottle.

17 It might have been, you know, I'm 

18 speculating, of course, but it sounds to me like 

19 it's conceivable it could've been used as a reagent 

20 to be used to develop calibration standards and 

21 that sort of thing.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
227

1 DR. NETON: Because I mean kilogram 

2 quantities you think of a lot of material but it's 

3 really not. Volume wise it's a pretty small amount 

4 of material.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

6 DR. NETON: And I've worked in 

7 chemistry labs where you have uranium, a kilogram 

8 of uranium in a bottle on the shelf. MR. 

9 FITZGERALD: And maybe it'll turn out to be a, it's 

10 just a --

11 DR. NETON: Yes, we don't know.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: We don't know for 

13 sure, but I think it's something that one more level 

14 of look I think we'll be able to put it to bed.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Well I put it on the list 

16 for a more look at at KCP for the next site visit 

17 and I also think that SC&A probably should take some 

18 time to digest --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. We just saw 

20 --

21 CHAIR BEACH: -- what's in the matrix 

22 here because we got this with not really enough time 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
228

1 to kind of --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: It occurred to me the 

3 same issue, I said well if you got these 500 gram 

4 quantities, well you only have to add three or four 

5 them and you got over a kilogram.

6 CHAIR BEACH: I know, I was doing the 

7 same thing highlighting different --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: And the other 

9 frustration is at Hanford we also worked backwards 

10 from the headquarters NMMSS and got a whole lot of 

11 information from what the site submitted.

12 The information comes from the site, so 

13 their input stuff is where you get the details and 

14 we haven't been able to do that at Kansas City yet, 

15 but we haven't actually had a chance to turn that 

16 rock over either.

17 So I think that we will find, one way 

18 or the other we'll find that one out, just haven't 

19 done so.

20 CHAIR BEACH: So the action is on SC&A 

21 to, or where's --

22 MR. DARNELL: Either. Yes, we'll --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
229

1 This is going to be part of the next --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, the site. So I'll 

4 add that as a combined --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: I think what we'll do 

6 is make a stop at materials accountability and 

7 actually spend some time trying to figure out. 

8 This person was new and didn't really understand 

9 I think a lot of what we were trying to get.

10 MR. DARNELL: Yes, and I'll tell you, 

11 Pat has been in touch with her on and off several 

12 times and it's difficult because she is so new.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: It's hard.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

15 MR. DARNELL: She's willing to give it, 

16 she just --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: She doesn't know.

18 MR. DARNELL: -- doesn't know.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: It's hard.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Jim, are you in 

21 agreement?

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: I am.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
230

1 CHAIR BEACH: Loretta, agree?

2 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you. Brad?

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Wayne, did you have 

6 something on this item?

7 MR. KNOX: No.

8 CHAIR BEACH: No, okay. I wasn't 

9 sure, and so that takes us to 17. Do you know what, 

10 should we, 18 should be fairly quick.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me talk to 17.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Let's go ahead.

13 MR. DARNELL: It's 16.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Sorry.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Well I'm going to, 

16 with the Work Group's agreement skip over 16 for 

17 a second and go back to 16 afterwards.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Fundamentally we 

20 don't have an issue on 16. You've read the White 

21 Paper and, you know --

22 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
231

1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

2 MR. DARNELL: We pretty much are in 

3 agreement. We had some --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: On 17, which is D&D, 

5 our issue there was that the ER acknowledges the 

6 '84 and '86 D&Ds performed by Rockwell, but our 

7 concern with it didn't seem like it addressed, well 

8 it didn't address, but we felt were likely other 

9 D&D activities over the 50, 60-year history of the 

10 plant.

11 That was kind of our concern was, you 

12 know, making more a complete picture of D&D at the 

13 plant and we went back in June of last year to see 

14 if we could find weekly activity reports and other 

15 documentation that might point to these other D&Ds.

16 And I would call them small D&Ds, not 

17 the major D&D in '84, '86, and I think NIOSH's 

18 matrix reflects what we found, which is these other 

19 instances which were small area D&Ds, equipment 

20 D&Ds, and phasing out of operations D&Ds onsite, 

21 and so there was a number of those going on as 

22 expected.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
232

1 And the only question we have left, and, 

2 again, I'll throw this out on the table, is that 

3 are we sure that the '84, '86 D&D would envelope 

4 all of the other D&D activities at the plant?

5 I think the assumption is that the 

6 monitoring information out of that big D&D was, you 

7 know, was bounding of those activities, but would 

8 they be bounding of other D&Ds at the site as well? 

9 That was kind of the question I had.

10 MR. DARNELL: Why would they need --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Well I'm saying in 

12 terms of the cleanup of the equipment, the area 

13 where they took 20D and cleaned it up, you know, 

14 those are the same workers that were actually the 

15 workers that were running the machines and we 

16 assume that they were monitored.

17 I mean how would one handle those kinds 

18 of activities? Were they, you know, and this is 

19 sort of a similar question we had before.

20 MR. DARNELL: Correct me if I'm wrong, 

21 the big D&D had workers from Rockwell come in --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: From Rockwell come in 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
233

1 from the outside.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

3 MR. DARNELL: -- and do the 

4 decontamination and decommissioning.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

6 MR. DARNELL: It wasn't site people.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 MR. DARNELL: The small D&Ds, the lower 

9 case D&Ds were site people.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Were site people.

11 MR. DARNELL: They would've had to been 

12 on the project and have the monitoring that were 

13 required at the site for those projects, so I'm 

14 missing where the D&D from Rockwell has to 

15 encompass the other ones.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: The piece that I was 

17 looking for was when 20D was cleaned up in the late 

18 '60s were those the operators who did the cleanup? 

19 I couldn't find any confirmation on who actually 

20 did any of the cleanups.

21 MR. DARNELL: Yes. I don't have any 

22 idea.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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

1 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean I can envision 

2 the operators, you know, being told well now you 

3 have to wipe down the wall, but, you know, that 

4 wasn't clear to me that they were in fact the folks 

5 that would do all the cleanup as well.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: So there's a memo from 

7 the IH person to somebody and I think we can use 

8 that document that's referenced here and see who 

9 he sent the memo to, but he said, you know, this 

10 is how you have to clean it, soap, water, what kind 

11 of wiping, some painting involved, and then my 

12 folks have to survey it when you're done.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: So one shot we can take 

15 it that it's to see which department he sent the 

16 memo to, and I didn't really think about that when 

17 I was looking at this previously.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Well it came to mind 

19 when they looked at the, Rockwell is easy because 

20 they came from the outside, they cleaned up, they 

21 got the monitoring data, they left.

22 These other D&Ds, if it turns out it's 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
235

1 the operators are the same people that were in the 

2 department that did the cleanup well they're 

3 already monitored, so that's straightforward, but 

4 I couldn't distinguish whether those were the same 

5 people or not.

6 (Simultaneous speaking.)

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Certainly exposure 

8 will be different if you're trying to pick apart 

9 a machine and clean it down.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. There's 

11 specific instructions there for like when you go 

12 into the hopper to clean out the turnings you'll 

13 put a respirator on and how deep, you know --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I saw the 

15 procedures I just couldn't figure out who they're 

16 talking to.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh, I'm sure it was a 

18 site, I mean someone that's in the program already, 

19 but --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Well that was the 

21 comment I had, but I think the listing of the D&Ds 

22 that we identified in the document review is pretty 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
236

1 complete.

2 It's a pretty good list if one can 

3 establish all those workers are already monitored 

4 and, you know, that's it.

5 CHAIR BEACH: So you're talking about 

6 the list that --

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the ER right now 

9 -- the only thing on D&D in the ER is '84, '86, and 

10 it's Rockwell.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: I think this last 

13 review kind of identified a number of, not 

14 unexpectedly, a number of cleanups that occurred 

15 over the history of the plant and all I'm saying 

16 if you can establish that those cleanups were done 

17 by the operators, the workers that were already 

18 monitored, then that monitoring encompasses 

19 whatever they were exposed to, but it's not really 

20 clear yet.

21 Well we just did the research that 

22 showed these other D&Ds, but it's not clear who 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
237

1 those workers were, that's pretty much it.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: For action go find out 

3 who did these lowercase D&Ds.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: The lowercase D&Ds, 

5 exactly.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, and then the memo. 

7 So I have NIOSH doing a little bit more work there. 

8 And then do you -- Maurice you were talking about 

9 some D&D that happened in the later years, was that 

10 considered D&D in your department?

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 MR. COPELAND: In my department?

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Didn't you talk to 

14 us about it before lunch? No?

15 MR. COPELAND: I don't know.

16 CHAIR BEACH: So nothing on D&D, 

17 nothing to add? Okay.

18 MR. KNOX: Well I have a couple of 

19 things on D&D.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, nothing. Jim, 

21 anything from you?

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: NIOSH is going to find 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
238

1 out whether they're the same workforce though, 

2 right, that's what you're doing, yes?

3 CHAIR BEACH: Well there's a 

4 disagreement between --

5 MR. DARNELL: Well, yes, it's I'm 

6 trying to figure out what product we can actually 

7 get for you that'll mean something.

8 Actually finding out who did the D&D as 

9 far as the specific plant personnel with the state 

10 of our records I can say with almost complete 

11 assurance, or as Brad would say my gut will tell 

12 me, that there's no way you're going to get an 

13 answer.

14 So I think shooting for that might be 

15 unrealistic.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Even by talking to 

17 people who were actually involved with D&D? I 

18 don't know if that question was posed that way.

19 MR. DARNELL: I mean we can -- I don't 

20 remember ever asking anybody who did what as far 

21 as D&D goes.

22 CHAIR BEACH: I remember asking a lot 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
239

1 about Rockwell D&D, but that's what we were focused 

2 on.

3 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

5 MR. DARNELL: But we never asked about 

6 the small --

7 CHAIR BEACH: The in-house, yes.

8 MR. DARNELL: We can go back and do 

9 another round of interviews, but as far as finding 

10 some type of documentation I think we're on a wild 

11 goose chase here.

12 Maybe we can, is there another way we 

13 can get the answers that the Work Group needs? 

14 Yes, no offense, I don't want to throw the towel 

15 in on any issue at all, believe me, but I don't see 

16 us finding anything like what you're asking for.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

18 DR. NETON: Well what about this one 

19 memo that Pat just alluded to.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

21 MR. DARNELL: I'm reading it. It 

22 basically says it's a report of the survey that they 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
240

1 did and what needed to be done for D&D.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Was it a post or pre?

3 MR. DARNELL: It was a pre, October 1st 

4 '64 [identifying information redacted] monitored 

5 the walls, light fixtures, bus bar and piping, in 

6 all of Department 217-22.

7 A radiological survey was made with a 

8 PAC 3G. It gives maximum readings of 125 counts 

9 per minute alpha, 0.1 mR per hour beta gamma, and 

10 a [identifying information redacted], asked that 

11 all walls, light fixtures, piping and other 

12 equipment be wet washed and the walls painted to 

13 remove or fix any loose particulate.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Who's he asking --

15 DR. NETON: Who's he asking to do that? 

16 I mean did --

17 MR. DARNELL: It's a general --

18 CHAIR BEACH: It's not addressed to 

19 anybody?

20 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Who's it to up here?

22 MR. DARNELL: Just [identifying 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
241

1 information redacted].

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: So he's from 

3 department -- it's from this guy, [identifying 

4 information redacted], to [identifying 

5 information redacted] --

6 MR. DARNELL: It's from Industrial 

7 Hygiene to the guy who did the survey saying the 

8 guy who did the survey asked for this stuff to be 

9 done.

10 It's a circular. You've got an IH guy 

11 talking to a monitor, the guy that did the 

12 monitoring, and the guy that did the monitoring in 

13 the memo from the IH guy is stating that he wants 

14 this other work done.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right, so 

16 what I would propose, because I know SC&A didn't 

17 focus on this, your write-up in the matrix, I'd like 

18 to take another look at this and the SRDBs and then 

19 come back if there's any more work that we need to 

20 do.

21 I mean, we can put it on the list to try 

22 to track down at our site visit, but I'm having a 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
242

1 hard time pinpointing --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Why don't we just make 

3 this pending, give us more opportunity to review 

4 the list, the SRDB list --

5 CHAIR BEACH: This list here, yeah.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and decide what's 

7 a reasonable course.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Does that work for --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: And we'll do that in 

10 concert with the Work Group and NIOSH.

11 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, I think we need to 

12 really sit down and figure out what it is that we 

13 need to do to answer --

14 CHAIR BEACH: And I just don't think 

15 we've had time to focus on what you wrote here and 

16 look at all of the SRDB numbers that you put here. 

17 I know I haven't. I've read your response but I 

18 haven't been able to go down back and look through 

19 all of it.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: We've scanned them, 

21 but, you know, again, it's been five days, six days, 

22 so, you know, certainly I agree that planning this 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
243

1 carefully so that we make good use of the time makes 

2 sense.

3 MR. DARNELL: Now, based on the second 

4 SRDB reference, or the second item in that SRDB, 

5 there's a list of four names: [identifying 

6 information redacted], people we can follow up with 

7 to see.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Yeah, great. 

9 And that SRDB is listed in the matrix, right?

10 MR. DARNELL: It is listed in there.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. SHARFI: The interviews, that's 

13 about it.

14 CHAIR BEACH: And then, Wayne, you said 

15 you had something on -- or, Maurice -- D&D?

16 MR. COPELAND: Yeah, the department 

17 that we closed up, the lab that was connected to 

18 the model shop, it was directly under the model 

19 shop. I would like to know myself what was I 

20 cleaning up?

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: So that's in the 

22 basement underneath the model shop?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
244

1 MR. COPELAND: Basement, no. No, 

2 there aren't any basements in that building

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, he's trying to find 

4 out what room you're talking about, what was --

5 MR. COPELAND: Directly under the 

6 model shop adjacent to the cafeteria.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: The cafeteria.

8 MR. COPELAND: On the basement level, 

9 if you want to call it the basement.

10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah.

11 MR. COPELAND: It's directly under 

12 there and we called it the lab. Everything in 

13 there was top secret. I only caretook the room. 

14 I had no personnel. I would send someone down to 

15 run a machine every once in a while. What they did, 

16 I don't know, I didn't care, but --

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Radioactive material?

18 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Was there radioactive 

20 material down there?

21 MR. COPELAND: You tell me. You tell 

22 me. No, and I would like to know.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
245

1 (Simultaneous speaking.)

2 MR. COPELAND: When we shut that 

3 department down, I was assigned no union personnel, 

4 no nothing. There was two supervisors assigned to 

5 clean the place up, to take the machines, stack the 

6 machines, place the machines where they could be 

7 shipped out, to clean up the residue and everything 

8 else that was in there. I did that. So I would 

9 like to know what --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Pat, do you have kind of 

11 a room number or do you kind of know where that's 

12 at?

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think so.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And, Wayne, you 

15 said you had something else on D&D?

16 MR. KNOX: Yes.

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 MR. COPELAND: Well, there's the model 

19 shop. Right here. And it would be directly under 

20 the model shop on the west side of the aisle. The 

21 cafeteria is directly under the model shop on the 

22 west side of the aisle. It would be the department 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
246

1 at the end of the cafeteria directly under the model 

2 shop, it's called the lab.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

4 MR. COPELAND: And you could ask the 

5 ES&H director, the people assigned to ES&H, what 

6 the number of the department was directly under the 

7 model shop, called the lab, simply called the lab.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thank you. And 

9 then, Wayne, on D&D?

10 MR. KNOX: Yeah, on D&D, of course, 

11 everything focuses on the promethium-147 spill. 

12 It's very dear to me since I was responsible for 

13 cleaning up Building 325 after a big promethium-147 

14 spill.

15 MR. McCLOSKEY: That's at Hanford, 

16 right?

17 MR. KNOX: At Hanford.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, yeah, could

19 you pertain your comments strictly to KCP so we 

20 could -- please?

21 MR. KNOX: Okay, yeah. Okay. What I 

22 did was to do some analysis here. That's the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
247

1 report I found on some contamination on boxes and 

2 containers. And this sort of feeds back into what 

3 Maurice was saying.

4 They were shipping material here that 

5 was contaminated, or it got contaminated within 

6 this facility, but they were not opening boxes 

7 under the hood like they were supposed to do, and 

8 apparently they were not properly surveying the 

9 shipments.

10 But the old nuclear flea issue came up 

11 --

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so does this have 

13 to do with D&D, what we're talking about right now, 

14 the D&D of the different rooms? That's what we're 

15 looking at right now.

16 MR. KNOX: Well, this was the --

17 Rockwell came in, as I recall, and performed this 

18 D&D of the promethium-147 spill.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, that's very well 

20 documented.

21 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, that's not exactly 

22 what we're talking about.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
248

1 CHAIR BEACH: No, that's not. We're 

2 looking at just D&D when they were finished with 

3 the project, how that area was deconned and 

4 decommissioned.

5 MR. SHARFI: The post-operation 

6 cleanup.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Post-op, yeah. So we're 

8 trying to focus just on that right now, Wayne.

9 MR. KNOX: Okay.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so hold on to this 

11 for later topics. Unless you have something that 

12 talks about one of these rooms that can add to the 

13 D&D of one of these rooms at KCP.

14 MR. KNOX: Okay. The only comment was 

15 that you can't just go in and clean up 

16 promethium-147. They have nuclear fleas and it 

17 will keep coming back up on you.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

19 MR. KNOX: And I have some other data 

20 I will pass around.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So then you were 

22 going to take on, what are we at now?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
249

1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I can finish the 

2 last two issues, which is 18 --

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, before we do 

4 this, I just want to say one thing. We went down 

5 to Kansas City and we're trying to tie Rockwell into 

6 this thing because we've found -- there's a common 

7 denominator someplace with Rockwell and actually 

8 all these other sites.

9 They've got some players in this. We 

10 had a whole lot of a group of people that have come 

11 in there and done this D&D that really don't even 

12 fall into this.

13 I just don't want us, as we're looking 

14 through all this paperwork, something might come 

15 up, because I'm trying to understand the 

16 relationship of Rockwell to these sites, 

17 especially in the early years.

18 If you remember right, in the beginning 

19 of it we had a fire in Area 20, everybody was 

20 assigned to a different area, Rockwell came in and 

21 cleaned it up, boom.

22 MR. DARNELL: Well, we had that from an 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
250

1 interviewee. We have yet to find any 

2 documentation that Rockwell was there at any time 

3 except for the D&D.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: They did pursue that 

5 issue, yes.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: You have, and I 

7 understand that. And what I'm getting from you is, 

8 well, because we haven't found anything it didn't 

9 happen or whatever. All I am saying is we have an 

10 interviewee who was actually there and actually was 

11 a part of this program telling us this.

12 If we run across something with 

13 Rockwell, because we've been looking at contracts 

14 with them, I'd sure like to know how they end up 

15 coming to these places. Because in the early years 

16 it went to KCP, it's gone to Hanford, it's gone to 

17 all of this. And, now, I don't know if it's because 

18 they were out of Rocky Flats or that they had the 

19 area of expertise, but we have a whole other group 

20 of people out here that we have no data for or even 

21 understand how they worked.

22 So, just in the back of our minds, keep 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
251

1 that open, of if we run across something, because 

2 it's really interesting to me that they keep 

3 showing up at all these sites. There's got to be 

4 a reason why.

5 MR. DARNELL: Well, is that actually, 

6 though, a Work Group issue?

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Actually, Pete, it 

8 is, because if you can't tell me what happened in 

9 Area 20 there with those -- because that was part 

10 of Kansas City then -- you don't have any data 

11 there, you don't have anything there, I think 

12 you've got to --

13 MR. DARNELL: What if we tell you -- I 

14 don't understand.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

16 MR. DARNELL: Tell you what about 

17 Department 20?

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 CHAIR BEACH: The clean-up of the fire.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Tell me about the 

21 fire.

22 CHAIR BEACH: We're going to talk about 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
252

1 that in 18.

2 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, that's coming up.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Is that okay? Hold 

4 that. I think Joe's going to go back to 16. Oh no, 

5 I'm sorry, you're going to go to 18 first.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: We're going to go 18 

7 then 16.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Eighteen then 16, so 

9 we're right there.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. Our original 

11 issue on 18 was just, you know, the accident 

12 incidents, there were two that were cited in the 

13 ER, the '87 erbium tritide, which we mentioned 

14 earlier, and the 1989 promethium-147, which was a 

15 big one.

16 Those two were cited, and no question 

17 those were two fairly major incidents. But we were 

18 concerned about what, you know, seemed to be a lack 

19 of maybe a broader accounting of incidents that 

20 fell somewhat lower than those but still were 

21 significant enough to be reported at the site.

22 And so the subject of the October 2014 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
253

1 visit was to really start shaking the tree and see 

2 if we could find a file that was a little more 

3 complete, maybe more extensive on incidents and 

4 accidents during the operational history of the 

5 plant from the '50s, and we didn't find everything 

6 we wanted.

7 I mean, the weekly activity reports we 

8 were hoping would be a real source and we only found 

9 a rather narrow range of those. But we did find 

10 a number of radiation incident documents, a folder 

11 for '63 through '75 that was pretty extensive, it 

12 had I think a fair number of incidents reported.

13 So I think it's a more complete listing 

14 now. Whether it's as complete as it could be we 

15 don't know at this point, but it's much more 

16 complete than it was before. There's nothing that 

17 has come out yet that approaches a major release, 

18 a major exposure, something that would've been 

19 unusual from our standpoint.

20 So the Work Group wanted us to go back, 

21 take another look and see if we could find more 

22 documentation. More documentation has been 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
254

1 found. In reviewing that, we haven't found 

2 anything that would stand as a major release or a 

3 major exposure sort of along the lines of 

4 promethium-147, something in that universe.

5 It would have been better to find more 

6 weekly activity reports than we did, but, you know 

7 --

8 MR. DARNELL: And we're still going to 

9 look for them.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll still look for 

11 them, so it's up the Work Group. I mean, it's just 

12 sort of a work in progress. It's a much better 

13 listing than it was before. Whether it could be 

14 better, it's possible that we might be able to find 

15 some more information at the site. So that's kind 

16 of where that stands.

17 MR. DARNELL: Hey, Brad, just to let 

18 you know, on SRDB Reference 123895, Page 45, a 

19 beautiful memo discussing not only who was at the 

20 fire, what monitoring was done, results of the 

21 monitoring, what medical personnel responded, what 

22 IH personnel responded, urinalysis, yeah, the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
255

1 whole bit.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: That was 123895?

3 MR. DARNELL: 123895, Page 45.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: They even went up on 

5 the roof and checked to see what bypassed the 

6 ventilation system and would've been --

7 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

8 CHAIR BEACH: And I know SC&A was 

9 recommending closure of this one, but I would like 

10 to leave this one open pending the Work Group to 

11 have time to look at all of these and feel 

12 comfortable with the list that you guys put in here.

13 That's what I think, because, again, I 

14 scanned this, but I didn't have time to read all 

15 the SRDBs.

16 MR. DARNELL: Sure. There's no way 

17 you could get --

18 CHAIR BEACH: I was focusing on a 

19 couple and this wasn't one of them.

20 MR. DARNELL: But I just wanted to 

21 point that out to Brad because he's very interested 

22 in it.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
256

1 CHAIR BEACH: No, I agree, I'm glad you 

2 did.

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Is that the fire, Brad? 

4 '63, is that the --

5 MR. DARNELL: That's the one you're 

6 worried about?

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'll need to take a 

8 look at the report of this because I'm trying to 

9 think --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'm trying to think of 

12 that interview. But the point that, the part that 

13 bothers me is that we have this whole other outside 

14 group that comes in. It's like they just ride in 

15 on their white horse and then leave. We have no 

16 idea of what --

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: I can see perfect sense 

18 why KCP used them for the promethium spill, because 

19 they were just there for their major D&D from '84 

20 to '86, right.

21 They were just, they have a good 

22 relationship with the site, they're their client, 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
257

1 and so they're still writing the report for the D&D 

2 and then they have a promethium spill.

3 So they had a relationship. So that 

4 makes sense to call, you got my number on speed 

5 dial, you know.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: I understand that 

7 one. I just have a hard time understanding, 

8 because this goes clear back into the early years.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Keep in mind that the 

10 Albuquerque Operations Office had the weapons 

11 program, had Kansas City, Rocky Flats, Sandia, Los 

12 Alamos, all of them were under the Albuquerque 

13 umbrella. So it's not overly surprising that, you 

14 know, perhaps with that influence that Rockwell may 

15 have made the stops within the Albuquerque complex 

16 because they were all sort of this one weapons 

17 family.

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, they all need to 

19 be Q-cleared.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: I mean, once you find 

22 a D&D group that has this level of --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
258

1 MR. FITZGERALD: They might have been 

2 the ready source of D&D for the Albuquerque weapons 

3 complex, which would've been all those weapons labs 

4 and the weapons plants, in which Kansas City and 

5 Pinellas were actually part of.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: So we have this whole 

7 group out there, we have this group that does this 

8 all over there --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- and we have no 

11 information on them.

12 CHAIR BEACH: All right, so I put as an 

13 action that we're going to continue looking for new 

14 incident reports and report back to the Work Group, 

15 and then give the Work Group time to review this 

16 list. And we'll leave this open until the Work 

17 Group convenes again. Jim, are you okay with that?

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Loretta?

20 MEMBER VALERIO: Yeah, Josie, would 

21 you repeat that reference number of the SRDB?

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah. Loretta, if you 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
259

1 look in the matrix on Page 27, it's the second 

2 paragraph. It's in the 1963 fire for D22. And 

3 it's listed, the reference for the SRDB and the page 

4 numbers are there.

5 MEMBER VALERIO: All right.

6 CHAIR BEACH: But I would say, yeah, if 

7 you have time look at all of them and just feel 

8 comfortable with those and that they were covered 

9 appropriately. 

10 Wayne, did you have something?

11 MR. KNOX: Yes. The Dotty Troxell 

12 event was a very serious one in which people, 

13 particularly on the roof, would've gotten a lot of 

14 exposure.

15 MR. DARNELL: Okay, Mr. Knox, we 

16 covered this one with you before. We cannot 

17 discuss the court case, okay?

18 MR. KNOX: The court case? The lady is 

19 dead. There are no privacy rights afforded her. 

20 The lady --

21 MR. DARNELL: This Working Group 

22 cannot discuss the litigation. We have gone 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
260

1 through this --

2 MR. KNOX: It's not the litigation, 

3 it's the exposure. She ended up with cataracts in 

4 both eyes that was internal hemorrhaging and she 

5 was sent down to New Mexico to the hospital and 

6 everything.

7 MR. DARNELL: I'm going to give you a 

8 website. May I suggest that you go actually learn 

9 what the Troxell case was about before you come back 

10 here, okay?

11 MR. KNOX: Okay.

12 MR. DARNELL: I'll write it down for 

13 you. We've discussed this before. We covered 

14 this in the last Working Group meeting with you.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so while you do 

16 that, Pete, we're going to start on 16 --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Just to wrap up the 

18 matrix, it's the last item.

19 CHAIR BEACH: The last item on the 

20 matrix.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: And then we can turn 

22 this over for petitioner discussion.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
261

1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: This one, we did 

3 submit the White Paper last, I think it was July 

4 or August, and fundamentally we found no fault with 

5 the approach and felt it was conservative and 

6 bounding, as well as for the residual period in 

7 terms of TBD-6000. So the conclusion is that we 

8 really did not have any issues per se.

9 Now, the only proviso was that, you 

10 know, there weren't other operations. This is 

11 really a TBD-6000 proviso. There were no other 

12 operations, rad operations, going on at the same 

13 time that, you now, would confound to the 

14 application of TBD-6000.

15 We're not aware of any, and we think the 

16 rad mapping will help, you know, ensure that 

17 nothing like that was happening in the '50s. We're 

18 not aware of any other operations, so, frankly, we 

19 would recommend closure of that particular issue.

20 The specific comments that were 

21 provided in your latest response we had no problem 

22 with. I think that certainly they're all well 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
262

1 taken and we find acceptable.

2 So unless the Work Group has any 

3 particular questions or issues on that particular 

4 White Paper from last year, we're okay with the 

5 natural uranium in the '50s.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. For me, because 

7 we did want to look at the mapping and we are short 

8 of time, I, again, would like to hold this one open 

9 until the next Work Group meeting. And then I'd 

10 like to go through and look at the mapping, maybe 

11 not as part of this meeting, but just as we close.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: You could probably 

13 take that. I could roll it up and you could take 

14 it with you and they do FedEx shipping around the 

15 country, if that would help you.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Perfect. Yeah, I was 

17 going to take a picture but I just haven't got to 

18 that point yet.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY: And I'll have a 

20 discussion with you afterwards, give you an 

21 orientation to help you.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And then, John, I 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
263

1 just wanted to make sure that, SC&A brought up a 

2 couple of points, I know there was a couple of them 

3 that were okay. Did you want to provide any 

4 feedback? I know Joe said you were okay, so no 

5 feedback on the comments that --

6 MR. FITZGERALD: These are the four 

7 specific comments that were provided, John.

8 CHAIR BEACH: And John might not be on 

9 the line.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: John might not still 

11 be on.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, because of 

13 those comments, I don't want to rush closing it.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

15 CHAIR BEACH: And I know there's a 

16 couple of them that don't need comments, but there 

17 was a couple I thought might.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, just so it's 

19 clear, John did review all of those specific 

20 comments, did not have any objections to those.

21 CHAIR BEACH: He was okay with them?

22 MR. FITZGERALD: He was okay with them. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
264

1 So, but, you know, certainly your --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. For me, that's 

3 just my opinion. What do you think?

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: Take your time. You 

5 want to look at the map.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, I kind of want to 

7 have a feel for the map and I don't -- how are you, 

8 where are you --

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- get a better 

11 feeling of it.

12 CHAIR BEACH: He said I could take the 

13 maps with me.

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: You're not flying out 

15 tonight, right?

16 CHAIR BEACH: I am.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh.

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 MR. DARNELL: We'll get them mailed to 

20 you.

21 CHAIR BEACH: We'll have them at the 

22 next one. Maybe there will be more time.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
265

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: We can mail you copies 

2 if you'd like.

3 MR. DARNELL: We'll make copies and --

4 CHAIR BEACH: I'm going to take 

5 pictures of them, so it's fine. I just, I think 

6 I'm pretty comfortable with it, but --

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 MR. DARNELL: We're still going to make 

9 copies and send them to all the Work Group Members.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Perfect, let's do that 

11 then. All right. So, yeah, I just don't want to 

12 rush closing stuff if I'm -- I agree with it, but 

13 I want to have time to look at the areas.

14 So, that is done. Actions, we'll do 

15 the same thing we always do. I'll either send a 

16 list out or, I don't know, I was capturing most of 

17 them, send it around and --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll send it around 

19 like we usually do and make sure everybody's on 

20 board.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Like you usually do, 

22 okay. Now, before we get to petitioners, do you 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
266

1 have some dates in mind for a site visit?

2 MR. DARNELL: Actually, if we want to 

3 have Pat, it needs to be very much sooner rather 

4 than later. He's got some stuff coming up in 

5 March.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

7 MR. DARNELL: Personally, I want Pat 

8 there, but I don't think we absolutely need his 

9 presence, because we're doing so much in looking 

10 through boxes. So the timeframe can be pretty much 

11 open.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Do you want to 

13 just send around some dates and we'll do it that 

14 way?

15 MR. DARNELL: Well, I was just thinking 

16 the second week of February.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: It starts with the 8th.

18 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, it would be the 

19 week of February 8th.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you think the site 

21 can host us that soon? That's usually the 

22 determiner.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
267

1 MR. DARNELL: I'm not sure, but if we 

2 come in with a date that's, what, three weeks from 

3 now?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, three weeks.

5 CHAIR BEACH: How many days are you 

6 talking?

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: We have to put together 

8 a list.

9 MR. DARNELL: They already have Tier 3, 

10 Tier 4 boxes pulled for us.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, we've added some 

12 words to the search.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, I'd rather wait 

14 till the last week of February.

15 MR. DARNELL: The last week of 

16 February, okay.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Would that work?

18 MR. DARNELL: That works for me.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I have a wedding 

20 I'm planning on the 14th and I would really rather 

21 not go the week before that, and I would like to 

22 go. So let's shoot for the last week if we could. 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
268

1 Does that ace you out, Pat?

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: I have to look at my

3 budget plan for delivering another ER on another 

4 site and see how long I can be away.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right. And 

6 the next Work Group meeting, we'll send around 

7 dates after that. I think I will report to the full 

8 Board in March, regardless of what we do, with just 

9 what we've done so far, what we've closed, and where 

10 we're headed. So, we'll do that.

11 MR. KATZ: So maybe I'll send around 

12 -- to try to schedule no matter what since we know 

13 when the Board meeting is at the end of March --

14 maybe I'll send out for sort of two weeks before 

15 that, those two weeks, available dates for another 

16 Work Group meeting?

17 MR. DARNELL: If we pick up anything at 

18 all we have to have time to review it before we have 

19 the next meeting.

20 MR. KATZ: You will not?

21 MR. DARNELL: Yeah. Not in that short 

22 timeframe.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
269

1 MR. KATZ: Oh, okay.

2 CHAIR BEACH: We can still report out 

3 where we're at without having another Work Group 

4 meeting.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay.

6 MR. DARNELL: If we pick up stuff at the 

7 end of February, we're looking at the earliest the 

8 end of March before we'll get it from the site.

9 MR. KATZ: Oh, I see, okay.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, Maurice, I 

11 wanted to give you a few minutes for petitioner 

12 issues or your personal issues to address the Work 

13 Group.

14 MR. COPELAND: Yeah, I'll think I'll 

15 send an email out. It was an incident, of course, 

16 we all know about. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: If you send it to Ted, he 

18 will make sure that we all get it.

19 MR. COPELAND: Well, it had the 

20 question that I'm going to ask now, so I'll read 

21 it.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
270

1 MR. COPELAND: And I'm sure that 

2 everybody is familiar with the incident of where 

3 I received a package.

4 MR. DARNELL: Yes, sir.

5 MR. COPELAND: Okay. It seems to be, 

6 and this was an incident of exposure to some type 

7 of radioactive device, right?

8 MR. DARNELL: Well, you --

9 MR. COPELAND: Okay. I guess I don't 

10 know when we can't get an answer, it's either yes 

11 or no.

12 MR. DARNELL: We have no records that 

13 have shown, that for any unusual event, that a 

14 package showed up like that on anybody's --

15 MR. COPELAND: You have no records?

16 MR. DARNELL: We have no records of it.

17 MR. COPELAND: Okay.

18 MR. DARNELL: We have records of other 

19 packages that we've discussed before about how 

20 things changed with the way things were shipping. 

21 NIOSH views those as two separate things.

22 MR. COPELAND: My concern with those 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
271

1 records, if you have nothing that you found 

2 nothing, it's very strange how you can do any type 

3 of investigation when the person that was directly 

4 involved in this incident is [identifying 

5 information redacted]. He was the [identifying 

6 information redacted] at the time that this --

7 MR. DARNELL: We have sent to the 

8 Kansas City Plant --

9 MR. COPELAND: I can't hear you.

10 MR. DARNELL: We have sent to the 

11 Kansas City Plant asking of [identifying 

12 information redacted], I forget his name --

13 MR. COPELAND: [Identifying 

14 information redacted].

15 MR. DARNELL: Yeah, [identifying 

16 information redacted], through the ES&H folks, we 

17 have asked them to ask that question and we've got 

18 no information from them.

19 MR. COPELAND: Good. Well --

20 MR. DARNELL: Excuse me, we got a 

21 response that said they have no information for us, 

22 make sure I got that right.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
272

1 MR. COPELAND: Good. So, in essence, 

2 they're saying the incident did not happen. He was 

3 directly involved. I gave it to him. I put it on 

4 his desk. He said he would take care of it.

5 I have other witnesses to that and we 

6 have other people that were exposed. Now, if you 

7 can't get a simple answer from [identifying 

8 information redacted], how can you be sure that the 

9 information that you're getting for the dose 

10 reconstruction is proper?

11 So if they're saying that this incident 

12 that happened, this was 16 years ago or more --

13 well, I guess I'm fabricating all of this.

14 MR. DARNELL: Well, nobody's trying to 

15 say that at all.

16 MR. COPELAND: I can't get an answer 

17 after 16 -- one of the questions that you had on 

18 the SEC Report, what did the employees know about 

19 radiation exposure? That was number one. Yeah, 

20 of course, you want to know what did the employees 

21 know about exposures of radiation.

22 Look, what do I know after 16 years? 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
273

1 You can't even make a phone call and call 

2 [identifying information redacted] to get an 

3 answer from him yes or no. Either the incident 

4 happened --

5 MR. DARNELL: I just told you we did 

6 that.

7 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

8 MR. DARNELL: I just told you we 

9 contacted the --

10 MR. COPELAND: What did he say?

11 MR. DARNELL: He said there is no 

12 exposure. There's no information to give on the 

13 incident. He's not remembering any exposures.

14 MR. COPELAND: He's not remembering 

15 that incident?

16 MR. DARNELL: It wasn't a big deal to 

17 him.

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: Can I ask you a 

19 question?

20 MR. COPELAND: It wasn't a big deal?

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: Does he remember the 

22 incident?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
274

1 MR. COPELAND: He said it wasn't a big 

2 deal.

3 MR. DARNELL: We pushed him about it 

4 and pushed him about it and talked several times 

5 to try to get him to remember.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: So he doesn't remember 

7 it, that's what he said?

8 MR. DARNELL: Doesn't really remember 

9 it, doesn't -- he says he would've remembered it 

10 if it was a big deal.

11 MR. COPELAND: If it was a big deal. I 

12 would like to take a radioactive part and stick it 

13 up someone's ass and wonder if they think it's a 

14 big deal just because it was a low level deal.

15 Look, he doesn't think it was a big 

16 deal. I don't think it was a big deal that the 

17 train hit his ass either.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, you're still on the 

19 record, just so you know.

20 MR. COPELAND: Oh, yeah. I don't 

21 care.

22 MR. DARNELL: I apologize if this is --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
275

1 MR. COPELAND: But, look, it's me, it's 

2 me and my body and we want to know about the people 

3 who worked at Bendix and the exposures of 

4 radiation.

5 Do you think it's any big deal that 

6 we're going through this process to find out if 

7 anybody was injured because of this? Do you think 

8 it's any big deal?

9 I think it's a big deal on the radiation 

10 exposure that I had and I think it's a very big deal 

11 that I cannot get an answer after 16 years and now 

12 I'm hearing that the guy that was directly involved 

13 doesn't think it was a big deal.

14 He can't remember, and I have five or 

15 six witnesses, plus we have other people that were 

16 exposed to this stuff that have not been told.

17 MR. DARNELL: I will glad to query him 

18 again.

19 MR. COPELAND: What?

20 MR. DARNELL: I will be glad to 

21 question him again when we go down there. I'll 

22 make an appointment to talk to him directly 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
276

1 face-to-face.

2 MR. COPELAND: Make an appointment for 

3 me and him.

4 MR. DARNELL: I doubt he'll see you for 

5 all the other reasons.

6 MR. COPELAND: He has asked to see me.

7 MR. DARNELL: Well, okay, that's --

8 MR. SHARFI: You can ask.

9 MR. DARNELL: I will be glad to go down 

10 there and I will make you this promise, I will ask 

11 him directly face-to-face instead of going through 

12 the groups that we usually go through, because 

13 that's our standard operating procedure.

14 I am so sorry that this information has 

15 made you angry that they're not thinking that this 

16 is a big deal. I really am sorry that you're angry 

17 about that. I will go and --

18 MR. COPELAND: Wouldn't you be angry 

19 about it?

20 MR. DARNELL: My level of education and 

21 expertise in this --

22 MR. COPELAND: Oh.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
277

1 MR. DARNELL: Now, listen to the whole 

2 response. My level of education and expertise in 

3 this field, if I got that response, I wouldn't think 

4 twice about it, because of the experience I have 

5 with it and my knowledge in radiation, okay?

6 Your experiences and expertise are much 

7 different than mine, so I wouldn't expect you to 

8 know the ins and outs that I know, just like I don't 

9 know the ins and outs that you know.

10 So I truly value your input and truly 

11 value what you have to say. I value it enough to 

12 go and approach the guy again, this time directly 

13 face-to-face.

14 MR. COPELAND: This time approach 

15 [identifying information redacted].

16 MR. DARNELL: I don't know who 

17 [identifying information redacted] is.

18 MR. COPELAND: I'm giving you her name. 

19 She worked for him, also, and she's one of the 

20 people that handled the device first.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Maurice, have you been 

22 assigned any dose for this incident, do you know?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
278

1 MR. COPELAND: No, I haven't had any, 

2 but isn't it -- from what I'm understanding, the 

3 incident did not happen. If the incident had 

4 happened, it would be a procedure, a written 

5 procedure, in your records of what's to take place 

6 afterwards. I should be examined. I should be 

7 told what the source of the radiation was. So, 

8 evidently -- also the [identifying information 

9 redacted], I can give you ten names, but I'm not 

10 going to give you all the names, I'm going to tell 

11 the people themselves, because they remember the 

12 incident.

13 They will remember the incident and 

14 I'll let them know that they haven't been told. And 

15 a couple of the people are dead, so, you know, I'll 

16 tell their families so that they can start 

17 inquiring about and he can tell them that it's no 

18 big thing.

19 MR. KATZ: Although just what I heard 

20 Pete say is that he doesn't recall the incident and 

21 he's assuming it's no big deal because he doesn't 

22 recall it. It's not the same as him telling you 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
279

1 it was no big deal. It's just --

2 MR. COPELAND: Him not recalling the 

3 incident means that after the incident happened he 

4 did not follow the procedure.

5 MR. KATZ: Or he just doesn't remember 

6 all of it, which is also possible many years later, 

7 right? I mean, he may just not remember it, right?

8 MR. DARNELL: Mr. Copeland, do you have 

9 a --

10 MR. COPELAND: That's not true. I 

11 questioned this incident for years, so how can he 

12 not recall when I kept questioning this for years.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, I see. I didn't know 

14 that history.

15 MR. COPELAND: We know what happened, 

16 they screwed up and they did not follow the process. 

17 What incident takes place after a radiation 

18 exposure? What happens? What does ES&H, what do 

19 the atomic people tell people to do after an 

20 exposure incident?

21 CHAIR BEACH: Document it.

22 MR. COPELAND: Document it.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
280

1 DR. NETON: It depends on what 

2 happened. And I don't want to take a lot of time 

3 here, but could you just briefly recount what 

4 happened? I might have heard this, but I've 

5 forgotten exactly. The package I remember that 

6 you received.

7 MR. COPELAND: A box was brought to me. 

8 And the box was sealed, was closed, brought to me.

9 DR. NETON: I remember this part.

10 MR. COPELAND: I was told to look in the 

11 box. I looked in the box, it was popcorn, the 

12 packing material. I took some of the packing 

13 material out and then there was a device in the box. 

14 And it wasn't a small device like someone put in 

15 there. I don't know what you consider small as 

16 compared to what. I took the device out, looked 

17 at it, I sat it down. The young lady told me you're 

18 not through yet.

19 I took the rest of the popcorn out of

20 the box and there was a red tag, a red label in there 

21 that says "radioactive material inside." Well, 

22 that's not a good thing to do, I don't think.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
281

1 So I looked at it, radioactive material 

2 inside, thank you very much. Check this out, I 

3 passed it around to a lot of different people. I 

4 said, what are we going to do?

5 CHAIR BEACH: So it was a source? Was 

6 it a source, a sealed source? Did you --

7 MR. DARNELL: He didn't know what it 

8 was.

9 CHAIR BEACH: I was just asking if you 

10 determined -- did you determine what it was? Was 

11 it a source or --

12 MR. COPELAND: A source? It was a --

13 MR. SHARFI: Was it a solid material?

14 MR. COPELAND: It was a device --

15 MR. SHARFI: Without getting too much 

16 into --

17 MR. COPELAND: Yes. It was a solid 

18 material.

19 MR. SHARFI: I don't want to get too 

20 much in describing it --

21 MR. COPELAND: Okay. I kept it 

22 overnight. We kept it overnight in the 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
282

1 department. And the next day I took it to 

2 [identifying information redacted], to his desk. 

3 I sat it on his desk. I told him to do the same 

4 thing, open the box.

5 He opened the box and went through the 

6 same process, got it, looked at it, put it back in, 

7 and said "I'll take care of it." That's it, "I'll 

8 take care of it."

9 DR. NETON: No one did any surveys on 

10 this? You don't know if it was emitting any 

11 radioactive material at all? You have no idea what 

12 was --

13 MR. COPELAND: I'm telling you nothing 

14 came to me after that day.

15 DR. NETON: Well, you no knowledge if 

16 this actually had any radioactive material it was 

17 emitting or anything like that? You're just going 

18 on the fact it said "radioactive material," you 

19 believe you were exposed?

20 MR. COPELAND: Yes, right. Right.

21 MR. SHARFI: Were you badged? Were 

22 you wearing an external badge the entire time?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
283

1 MR. COPELAND: No.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: So you kept it in the 

3 department overnight. Which department was that, 

4 do you remember?

5 MR. COPELAND: Model shop.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Model shop, okay.

7 MR. DARNELL: Mr. Copeland, do you have 

8 a claim?

9 MR. COPELAND: Do I have what?

10 MR. DARNELL: A claim with NIOSH?

11 MR. COPELAND: Yeah.

12 MR. DARNELL: Do you remember the 

13 number, by any chance?

14 MR. COPELAND: No. No, that's not 

15 relevant to what we're talking about.

16 MR. DARNELL: Well, I want to check to 

17 see if the incident is in your report so that --

18 MR. COPELAND: Well, if he doesn't 

19 recall it, evidently they didn't make a report of 

20 the incident. Why would it show up?

21 DR. NETON: Did this come through the 

22 mail?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
284

1 MR. COPELAND: Huh?

2 DR. NETON: Did this come through the 

3 mail, or how did it arrive on your desk?

4 MR. COPELAND: A young lady received it 

5 in her department.

6 DR. NETON: From where?

7 MR. COPELAND: She was a [identifying 

8 information redacted] in the shipping department.

9 DR. NETON: So it came in through the 

10 shipping department?

11 MR. COPELAND: Shipping and receiving.

12 Yeah. She was a [identifying information 

13 redacted], she brought it to me because she said 

14 that I would know what to do with it. And I didn't 

15 know what to do with it, I took it to [identifying 

16 information redacted], that knows all the 

17 processes and the procedures, that seemed to have 

18 followed none and it's out of his head now.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

20 MR. DARNELL: You see, one of the 

21 things about radioactive material --

22 MR. COPELAND: About what?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
285

1 MR. DARNELL: One of the things about 

2 radioactive material, I can go to the store right 

3 now and --

4 MR. COPELAND: I know that. I know 

5 that. Those little watches and stuff like that, 

6 that's elementary.

7 CHAIR BEACH: I know you want to get 

8 through this, but I have got to leave at 2:45 so 

9 we only have a few minutes and I wanted to move on 

10 to Wayne.

11 I know however briefly it is and I do 

12 apologize for that. So, Pete, you're going to look 

13 into Wayne's incident and try to give him a more 

14 satisfactory answer.

15 MR. DARNELL: I'll look into it again. 

16 Yes, Mr. Copeland's.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Mr. Copeland, sorry.

18 MR. KNOX: And I'm still not satisfied 

19 with the development and testing of small reactors 

20 at that facility. I looked at the Detroit, 

21 Michigan license. It was a byproduct material 

22 license that they had.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
286

1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. KNOX: Now, if you're telling me 

3 that they operated, build, and tested those 

4 reactors up, there they have a problem.

5 MR. DARNELL: I'm not telling you 

6 anything about reactors up there.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Before you jump into 

8 that, Wayne, you sent us a list which I sent -- I 

9 mean, we all looked at it and we've come to the 

10 conclusion that most of the things on your list, 

11 some of them we've already discussed, but we need 

12 more information -- I'm going to just speak for 

13 myself -- of what specific questions you are asking 

14 in order for us to go through this and to get you 

15 the answers that you need on this list.

16 So I don't know how NIOSH feels about 

17 it, but I'm wondering if you could take some more 

18 time -- some of them don't pertain to this Work 

19 Group at all and we can't answer them. Some of them 

20 I know Josh has sent you some answers.

21 So, for things that we have not 

22 discussed that you have questions on, can you give 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
287

1 us more details of what you're looking for, if you 

2 don't mind?

3 DR. NETON: Yeah, if you ask specific 

4 questions on those general areas and provided them 

5 we would address them.

6 MR. KNOX: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, you'll do 

8 that for us and then --

9 MR. KNOX: Can you identify the --

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yeah, you need to 

11 identify the ones you want --

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yeah, they're all 

14 general, so all of them. Maybe you can respond to 

15 the ones that this Work Group -- because I think 

16 one, two and three we can't answer at all.

17 MR. DARNELL: Actually, what I'll do is 

18 make a response on that list once my management is 

19 happy, if they are happy with it, and I'll send it 

20 to the Work Group and they'll send it back down to 

21 Mr. Knox.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
288

1 MEMBER LOCKEY: And includes the things 

2 that we can respond to and things we can't.

3 MR. DARNELL: Right.

4 CHAIR BEACH: We need just more 

5 information of what you're looking for.

6 MR. DARNELL: Well, actually, this, 

7 I'm not going to be responding, I'm going to be 

8 asking for what kind of a clarification we need to 

9 respond.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, you're going to do 

11 that, okay.

12 MR. DARNELL: Yeah.

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: He's going to do that 

14 and then we can work with that.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, then he can work 

16 with that.

17 MR. DARNELL: Is that okay with you, 

18 Mr. Knox?

19 MR. KNOX: Yeah.

20 CHAIR BEACH: And then let us know 

21 what's not within our purview and maybe what we've 

22 already discussed.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
289

1 And some of the answers you're not going 

2 to be satisfied with, Wayne, and at some point we'll 

3 have to maybe agree to disagree. Then you'll have 

4 to go to other channels to get those answers.

5 MR. KNOX: Yeah.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So with that 

7 said, if there's something else you want to address 

8 the Work Group -- and I'll take that back because 

9 some of my other stuff is on it.

10 MR. KNOX: I just want to quickly say 

11 that I have generated a lot of this data here. It 

12 was not meant to be dissected the way you're doing 

13 it now.

14 The data that we generated was not 

15 complete. It was not such that you could determine 

16 accuracy from precision on anything. None of 

17 those five data quality measures were able to be 

18 performed with the data that we had.

19 MR. DARNELL: I'm actually glad you 

20 brought up the data quality objectives. We are 

21 actually not required by the EPA to follow DQOs. 

22 What you're looking for with data quality and how 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
290

1 the statistics come together is not applicable to 

2 us.

3 MR. KNOX: No, I agree with that, 

4 because you can't do it.

5 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

6 MR. KNOX: It completely -- you're 

7 talking about completeness, which isn't their 

8 quality objective.

9 MR. DARNELL: It doesn't matter 

10 whether we can or cannot do it, it's not applicable. 

11 Every time you bring up data quality objectives 

12 you're not talking about this program, it's not 

13 something that applies to this program.

14 MR. KNOX: Okay. I just want to get 

15 through this one quick, because I spent a lot of 

16 time doing it. I'll be over with it, about the 

17 nuclear fleas here. Here is the indication of 

18 nuclear fleas. Again, based upon experience, they 

19 keep coming back out on you.

20 They said they were no big deal, but 

21 even after you've deconned they will come back out. 

22 I took that, those swipes right there, and did an 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
291

1 analysis of them.

2 MR. DARNELL: What is this from?

3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Hanford.

4 MR. KNOX: No.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh, sorry.

6 MR. KNOX: No, that's from the 

7 promethium spill that lasted over a 12-year period 

8 at that plant. It was finally detected not by the 

9 Kansas City people, it was detected at Sandia. 

10 That material went to Mound lab and even to 

11 Amersham, England. 

12 MR. DARNELL: Okay. And as we 

13 discussed in the last Work Group meeting with you, 

14 it doesn't matter the other places it went to. The 

15 only place that we are responsible for and can 

16 answer to is the Kansas City Plant.

17 MR. KNOX: Okay. I agree.

18 MR. DARNELL: So you're wasting what 

19 little time that you have talking about all the 

20 other issues.

21 MR. KNOX: Okay. If you just take one 

22 of the nuclear fleas that you identify here and do 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
292

1 the analysis on it, based upon ICRP-68, you'll see 

2 that it represents some sizeable doses.

3 One nuclear flea would produce large 

4 radiation doses to the liver and other parts. And 

5 it's not in -- look, if you were to just take that 

6 smear that they have and do it as a technician, 

7 analyze it as a technician, what I did was to 

8 baseline the uranium with a Fiestaware cup. I 

9 looked at the -- that was --

10 MR. DARNELL: Hey, Mr. Knox, you're 

11 wasting your time talking about Fiestaware.

12 MR. KNOX: Okay.

13 MR. DARNELL: And I'm not trying to 

14 interrupt you or be smart-alecky, I'm trying to 

15 help you so you have more time.

16 MR. KNOX: The bottom line is that if 

17 you analyze that smear it appears to be three 

18 different types of alpha emitters. This is in this 

19 bottom chart here.

20 One appears to be depleted uranium from 

21 one. Another one, and I don't have, quite frankly, 

22 a lot of confidence in the low count, but they did 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
293

1 do it with a counter because you get odd numbers. 

2 You got 121 percent alpha emitters on that shipping 

3 can and we shipped plutonium in shipping cans here.

4 Now, on boxes, you see Box 7, for 

5 example, it looks like that might have been a 

6 combination of the promethium and samarium, its 

7 daughter product, because samarium is a decay 

8 product of promethium-147, but it is an alpha 

9 emitter. And it suggests that you had this 

10 contamination in the facility --

11 DR. NETON: What's the half-life of 

12 samarium?

13 MR. KNOX: Huh?

14 DR. NETON: What's the half-life of a 

15 samarium?

16 MR. KNOX: I've forgotten.

17 DR. NETON: Pretty long I think, isn't 

18 it?

19 MR. KNOX: Yes, it's a long half-life.

20 DR. NETON: So it wouldn't grow in with 

21 its own half-life.

22 MR. KNOX: Yes, well --

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
294

1 DR. NETON: You'd have almost no 

2 samarium there. It would be impossible.

3 MR. KNOX: Well, I don't know what it 

4 is. I know that, based upon the preliminary 

5 analysis, it appears as though there are three 

6 different classes, if you will, of radioactive 

7 material there in 1989 in this facility.

8 I know that the inhalation of one 

9 nuclear flea represents some large doses, and it's 

10 not to be ignored. And I know that you cannot come 

11 in and clean it up. They went in and cleaned up 

12 this lady's house in 45 minutes that tracked 

13 promethium in there.

14 MR. DARNELL: Okay. Mr. Knox, excuse 

15 me for interrupting, but we've sent you a letter 

16 on this topic discussing promethium-147, what 

17 NIOSH's point of view is and the dose consequence 

18 from the daughter activity.

19 Again, I'm not trying to be a smart 

20 aleck, I'm trying to help you get as much time for 

21 your issues. This is one we've already covered, 

22 so if you want to waste time on it, the answer is 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
295

1 not going to change.

2 MR. KNOX: I'm through.

3 MR. DARNELL: Okay. Do you remember 

4 receiving the letter?

5 MR. KNOX: Yes. I received it, it was 

6 a lot of technical talk that I could've read out 

7 of a textbook.

8 MR. DARNELL: Okay, as long as you 

9 received the letter.

10 MR. KNOX: I received the letter, yes.

11 MR. DARNELL: All right. Just from 

12 that point of view, this is the same data that 

13 you've given us before, the same handouts that 

14 you've given us before. Our comments are not going 

15 to change.

16 MR. KNOX: You say that the promethium, 

17 it was only promethium that was spilled. There 

18 were several other leaking sources that --

19 MR. DARNELL: Again, we discussed that 

20 in the letter, and you're wasting your time. If 

21 you want to get to other issues -- the response to 

22 this is not going to change, because there's 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
296

1 nothing new that you've given us.

2 And, again, I'm trying to help you so 

3 that you can get as many issues as you can in front 

4 of Ms. Beach before she has to leave.

5 MR. KNOX: All right, okay. No, okay.

6 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so the action at 

8 this point is the list that Mr. Knox gave us, you're 

9 going to go through it and send it out to the Work 

10 Group and to Wayne for clarification, and what we 

11 can address within the Work Group that's --

12 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, that we have not 

14 addressed. Okay.

15 MR. KNOX: Okay.

16 MR. DARNELL: Was there something else 

17 that you wanted to cover that was new?

18 MR. KNOX: I don't see where I'm 

19 moving, so forget it.

20 MR. DARNELL: You don't see where 

21 you're moving?

22 MR. KNOX: It's not worth it.

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
297

1 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

2 MR. KNOX: The report misrepresents 

3 the promethium-147 spill. It misrepresents 

4 others. It ignores a lot of detailed, technical 

5 data that is needed in order to properly assess the 

6 exposures.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Can I make a suggestion?

8 MR. DARNELL: Go ahead.

9 CHAIR BEACH: I would like to close the 

10 Work Group meeting. I know you guys are local and 

11 can stay and if Wayne wants to continue maybe 

12 clarifying some of his issues, that's up to you 

13 guys.

14 MR. DARNELL: Sure. I would be glad to 

15 discuss with you.

16 CHAIR BEACH: But if there's no 

17 objection, I'd like to close the Work Group 

18 meeting. Brad, are you okay with that?

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, fine.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Loretta?

21 MEMBER VALERIO: I'm fine.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Jim, you okay?

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
298

1 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

2 CHAIR BEACH: All right, so that at 

3 this time we are closed. The next Work Group 

4 meeting will be sometime maybe after the next Board 

5 meeting. And we're going to look for some dates 

6 the last of February for the site visit.

7 Okay. Thank you for all your hard work 

8 in short time, again, for this rushed day. I 

9 appreciate all your patience. So we'll go ahead 

10 and close. Thank you.

11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

12 went off the record at 2:38 p.m.)

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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