THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


THIRTY-NINTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically on August 8, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S
 

August 8, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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NTS SITE PROFILE UPDATE AND DISCUSSION OF 

PATH FORWARD 

MR. ROBERT PRESLEY, WORK GROUP CHAIR 

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DISCUSSION OF NIOSH’S PROPOSED CONFLICT OF 

INTEREST POLICY 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, WORK GROUP CHAIR 

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PUBLIC COMMENT ON CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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CONTINUATION OF COI DISCUSSION 

DR JAMES MELIUS, WORK GROUP CHAIR 

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ROCKY FLATS SEC ISSUES 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORK GROUP CHAIR 

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SC&A CONTRACT TASKS FOR NEXT FISCAL YEAR 128 

DR. LEWIS WADE, TECHNICAL PROJECT OFFICER SC&A CONTRACT 


INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION AND TASK III 


REVIEW UPDATE 242 


MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORK GROUP CHAIR 


PLANS FOR SUBCOMMITTEE ACTIVITIES 253 


DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 


CONSTRUCTION WORKER ISSUES 261 


DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 


BOARD WORKING TIME 
 267 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 
 280 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

 

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


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 

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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

BARRIE, TERRIE, ROCKY FLATS 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MILLER, RICHARD, GAP 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 


STAUDT, DAVID, HHS 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(10:05 a.m.) 


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WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: We are, according to my clock, about 


five past the hour, so I think we should 


proceed. We do have a quorum. 


 DR. WADE: Yes, we do. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Again, officially, Dr. Wade, if 


you would take the roll call for the record, 


and then we will proceed. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Present. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Present. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Poston? 


 (No response) 


 Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Present. 


 DR. WADE: Bob Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Present. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Present. 


 DR. WADE: Mark Griffon? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Present. 


 DR. WADE: Mike Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Present. 


 DR. WADE: And Brad Clawson? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Present. 


 DR. WADE: And Lew Wade is on line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And the court 


reporter, Ray Green, is here and is in -- in 


action. 


 Thank you, everyone. This is the official 


August 8th Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health Conference call. The agenda has 


been distributed by e-mail. It is also on the 


web site for members of the public. I hope 


everyone that's involved has got a copy of the 


-- of the agenda. 


You will note in the agenda that there is a 


public comment session scheduled for this 


morning that will focus particularly on the 


issue of conflict of interest. We do want to 


hear from members of the public on that issue, 


if -- if they have such comments. 


We also have a lunch break scheduled at 12:15, 


and the other items on the agenda you see, 


presumably, before you. We will follow the 

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agenda, at least sequentially. The time 


schedules are always sort of estimates. We may 


reach a certain point sooner or later than we 


estimate, so we'll -- we'll just proceed in the 


order given and see where we end up in terms of 


the time. And we have the flexibility of 


adjusting the times if necessary. 


I do want to thank everyone, particularly the 


working groups that have worked very hard 


outside the meetings themselves -- that is 


outside our official Board meetings -- and 


worked since our Washington meeting just a 


little over a month ago, and we appreciate all 


that work. 


I'm going to ask Lew Wade, the Designated 


Federal Official, also to make some additional 


comments, particularly concerning our 


membership today. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. Let me begin by -- 


and this is Lew Wade. Let me begin by thanking 


the Board members and, as Dr. Ziemer so 


appropriately did, the working groups. It's 


been a very busy summer for the Board and its 


working groups, and we'll hear the results of 


much of that work on this call, and then 

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certainly more completely at our September 


face-to-face meeting. 


 As Dr. Ziemer mentioned, there has been some 


changes in the -- the make-up of the Board. 


was notified on August the 1st by White House 


personnel that they had taken action to retire 


from the Board Wanda Munn and Dr. DeHart. This 


was presented to me as part of the normal 


rotation that the Board is -- is and will 


undergo. At the same time I was told that the 


White House personnel had taken action to 


reappoint for another term Dr. Melius, Mike 


Gibson and Mark Griffon. I have asked 


repeatedly when we will receive notification of 


incoming Board members, and I'm told that that 


is to happen soon, but it hasn't happened 


certainly in time for this call. So we have 


now nine Board members, eight on the call right 


now, and that's the status of things. 


I would obviously be remiss if I didn't 


publicly thank Wanda and Roy DeHart for -- and 


I don't know if they're on the call, but we'll 


do this more formally in September in Nevada, 


but thank them for yeoman service. They've 


given unselfishly to the public through this -- 

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this round of their public service, and I 


personally can't thank them enough. I know 


Paul has thanked them personally, and I think 


we'll have opportunities for all Board members 


to do that when we get together in Nevada. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's right, although it's my 


understanding that Roy DeHart may actually be 


overseas at that time and may not be able to be 


with us, but we certainly thank them both for 


nearly five years of -- of really concentrated 


and appropriate service to the Board and -- and 


thereby to our nation. Certainly we'll miss -- 


miss them on the Board. 


 DR. WADE: And there are holes in -- you know, 


we'll talk about this when we get to the Board 


working time and our subcommittee activities, 


but there are obviously holes that have been 


left by their departure and we'll have to talk 


about how to deal with those in terms of 


subcommittee and working group assignments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Lew, just for the record, we 


officially at this moment have nine Board 


members. A quorum is -- I believe under our 


rules is one more than 50 percent, is that 


correct? 

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 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It'd be six, I guess. 


 DR. WADE: Right, if you round up, it's six. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And a majority on voting of 


course would be five. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Although at the moment we only 


have eight present and voting, unless Dr. 


Poston gets -- comes on the line. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. Paul and -- and 


Lew, when we get to the Board working 


discussion, I'd like to bring up a question 


about what is meant by the -- what you just 


said, the normal rotation. I'm not sure that 


any of us really know what that means, and I 


think some clarification on that would be 


beneficial to Board members. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we'll do that when we come to 


Board working time. 


DR. ROESSLER: All right. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Gen. Let's proceed 


then with the agenda as we have it before us. 


NTS SITE PROFILE UPDATE AND DISCUSSION OF 


PATH FORWARD
 

MR. ROBERT PRESLEY, WORK GROUP CHAIR
 
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The first item on the agenda is an update on 


the Nevada Test Site site profile and 


discussion of the path forward. The Chairman 


of the working group for Nevada Test Site is -- 


is Bob Presley, and Bob, why don't you kick off 


our discussion here and give us an update on 


Nevada. 


 DR. WADE: Could I interrupt just briefly? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, you certainly can. 


 DR. WADE: Just to have a very brief conflict 


of interest discussion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes. 


 DR. WADE: We do have one Board member who is 


conflicted at the Nevada Test Site, and that is 


Mark Griffon. The Board has been operating to 


rules that would say that a Board member with a 


conflict, as it relates to site profile 


documents and discussions, can participate in 


the deliberations but may not vote or offer 


motions pertaining to that site profile 


document. So while Mark is conflicted, he can 


stay involved in the discussion, participate in 


the discussion, but would not be able to make 


motion or vote. And that's the only conflict 


with regard to Nevada Test Site. Sorry, 

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Robert. 


 MR. PRESLEY: No problem. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. PRESLEY: First I'd like to thank Brad and 


Gen and Wanda especially for participating in 


this. We had a meeting three weeks ago in 


Cincinnati that I thought was excellent. We 


have 25 issues from SC&A that we went through, 


finished up around -- oh, 4:00 o'clock that day 


with the 25 issues. Out of the 25 -- or they 


called them responses, I'm sorry, the 25 


responses from SC&A -- we came up with three 


issues and the first one I'll go through is a ­

- is the response four of the items. It has to 


do with oro-nasal breathing in relation to 


inhalation. And what we plan on doing is the ­

- we're going to go back and NIOSH will 


continue discussions between SC&A and NIOSH and 


they're going to review the possibility of 


changing some of the guidelines on this, 


especially for hot particles in the NTS work 


area. And that's one of the issues. 


Comment five, or response five, had an issue 


with that, and that had to do, again, with the 


resuspension. And what -- the working group 

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has agreed with SC&A that they can bring Lynn 


Osbaugh (sic) on board to review parts of the 


papers that -- and the information that NIOSH 


and SC&A have, and he's going to go back and 


review this and give us a recommendation on 


this. 


And then the last issue was issue 25 of the 


comments, and the issue involves docum-- 


documentation of site expert interviews. And 


what we plan on doing with that is SC&A's going 


to review and make comments to the working 


group on this issue at our next meeting. 


Presently we have not got another meeting set 


up. 


 I just received Arjun's comments on the 2nd. 


As y'all know, we -- we have a new arrival in 


our family and we haven't been home a whole 


lot. She -- she came on the 3rd and I haven't 


-- I've sent Arjun's comments around to the 


committee members, but we have not incorporated 


them into the comment sheet yet. We will do 


that, send that on around to all the committee 


members, have one agreed response with each one 


of these comments or issues, and then we will 


come back and give the Board our recommendation 

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and the Board can take it from there. 


 How's that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much, Bob. 


Let me see if any of the Board members have 


questions or if -- if others in your working 


group have additional comment. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. Just for the 


official record, the person he referred to on 


the resuspension discussion is Dr. Lynn 


Anspaugh, A-n-s-p-a-u-g-h. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay, thank you. 


 MR. GIBSON: And this is Mike Gibson. What is 


his background? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Let's see, I might let somebody 


else --


 MR. GIBSON: Background and maybe history at 


the --


 DR. ZIEMER: On Lynn Anspaugh? Are you asking 


for Anspaugh's background? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, and his history at the site 


and -- and his credentials. 


DR. ROESSLER: I think Arjun and John Mauro 


have been in tou-- this is Gen -- have been in 

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touch with him, and I would assume that they 


have maybe asked for an official bio or know a 


little bit more about his background. I could 


tell some things off the top of my head, but it 


wouldn't be official. 


 DR. WADE: Well, if John -- is John Mauro on 


the line? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. This is John Mauro. 


I'll speak into the headset, make it a little 


easier for Ray. Yes, we've been in touch with 


Lynn. He -- he has signed up as an SC&A 


associate. We are currently going through the 


process of putting him through our conflict of 


interest program, our Privacy Act and quality 


assurance procedures, and we have not yet 


turned him on to actually review the work. 


That's going to happen shortly. 


 His background, bottom line, is he works as a 


consultant, researcher, for DOE but not as an 


employee in terms of working at the Nevada Test 


Site. And his major area of research is widely 


published, and cited heavily in the site 


profile, is resuspension factor at the Nevada 


Test Site. And -- and he has in the past been 


reviewing not only the site profile for Nevada 

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Test Site on his own, and al-- he has also 


reviewed, interestingly enough, our review of 


the Nevada Test Site, and he has opinions 


regarding both documents. 


And so very shortly we will be working closely 


with him to get his feedback on not only the 


particular issue related to resuspension 


factors and whether or not the site profile 


applies the way he -- his research intended, 


but also he probably'll have some observations 


and comments on perhaps other aspects. So 


he'll be bringing to the table quite a bit of 


expertise regarding the Nevada Test Site. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. I think -- it's my 


understanding that -- from the phone call, when 


he called in to our Board meeting, and that was 


very difficult --


THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, Dr. Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 


THE COURT REPORTER: This is Ray. I'm having a 


real hard time hearing you. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Maybe I -- I'm going to 


try walking -- I'm using a portable phone. Let 


me --


THE COURT REPORTER: Oh. 

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DR. ROESSLER: -- (unintelligible) the base and 


see if I might need to do that. 


THE COURT REPORTER: That might be better. 


DR. ROESSLER: Can you hear me better now? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Yeah, a little bit. Thank 


you. 


DR. ROESSLER: What about now? 


THE COURT REPORTER: That's -- that is better. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, I might need to just stay 


near the base. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. Thank you. 


DR. ROESSLER: But it's my understanding that 


Dr. Anspaugh could also speak about episodic 


events that might be appropriate in evaluating 


the less than 250 day rule. Am I right on 


that? 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I -- we did 


not discuss that, but certainly his vast 


experience there cert-- would bring -- possibly 


bring to the table that, but that was not a 


topic of our discussion, but it -- but 


certainly we will engage him on that, also. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John, this is Ziemer again. Do 


you have additional bio information you can 


share with Mike Gibson? I think Lynn used to 

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be at one of the DOE sites in California, did 


he not? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Ziemer, I believe -- this 


is Arjun Makhijani. I believe he was at 


Lawrence Livermore. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I believe that's correct. 


I'm -- I wasn't absolutely certain. I know 


he's done a lot of work on these -- these 


topics in Russia and Byelorussia in follow-up 


on some of the weapons and in the Chernobyl 


stuff out there, so he's considered a world 


expert in this area. But he does have -- have, 


in the past, some DOE ties. 


DR. MAURO: I will forward to the Board -- we 


have his bio here. It's part of the records we 


keep for -- for every associate and employee. 


And I will forward his bio on to the Board 


right aft-- perhaps at the break, at 


appropriate break, 'cause we do have it on -- I 


don't have it in front of me right now, but we 


do have it. It's part of the package that we, 


you know, create when someone joins up with us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have it. He was -- he was 


the scientific director of the Nevada Test Site 

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off-site radiation -- radiation exposure review 


project from '79 to '96, and -- so basically 


he's been involved in assessing the effects of 


-- of fallout for quite a long time, and then 


he was codirector of the Risk Sciences program 


at Livermore -- Lawrence Livermore National Lab 


from '92 to '95, and he's been involved with -- 


with the Nevada Test Site program for quite 


some time. And he's currently I believe at the 


University of Utah. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again. So -- and I ­

- I heard you, John, say that you would forward 


his bio, and maybe I missed this. Was he 


employed by the contractor, by DOE, or was he a 


consultant to either one of the two entities? 


DR. MAURO: My understanding, he was employed 


by DOE as a researcher, but not as a -- I guess 


an -- an employee at a site. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no --


DR. MAURO: Arjun, maybe you can -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- he was --


DR. MAURO: -- I don't have --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- he was at the Lawrence 


Livermore National Laboratory for quite some 


time. 

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DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: 1982 to 1992 -- yeah, 1976 -- 


so he both is -- his association with Lawrence 


Livermore I believe goes back to 1963 as -- as 


a biophysicist, so he would have been employed 


by the University of California, which was the 


contractor, of course, for the Lab. 


DR. MAURO: We will get the bio out -- and by 


the way, he will be filling out our conflict of 


interest forms, all of which will be, you know, 


including on our conflict of interest web site, 


so we'll have an op-- he's going through this 


process right now so he can get a -- know 


exactly what he can and cannot do -- do in 


terms of advising us, and perhaps even 


authoring certain materials, but we're not 


there yet. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mike, does that answer your 


question, at least for the time being? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I'll wait and see his bio, 


yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GIBSON: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments or 


questions on the report of the workgroup? What 

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-- Bob Presley, what will we expect then to 


occur at our Nevada meeting? 


 MR. PRESLEY: What I'm hoping to do is go ahead 


and get Arjun's comments on the web to the 


other two working group meeting members, to 


NIOSH and then back to SC&A. We will agree on 


those. We may have to have a conference call 


to talk about that. We were -- we were talking 


about having a face-to-face but we couldn't get 


mainly me together on those dates, so we'll try 


to have a conference call and, if at all 


possible, I would love to solve this thing off 


before our meeting at NTS and for the working 


group to give the Board a recommendation at NT­

- at Nevada. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mr. Presley, may I make a 


comment? This is Arjun. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, Arjun, go ahead. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The -- the three items that Mr. 


Presley mentioned are the items that were still 


-- the working group, SC&A and NIOSH are still 


discussing and -- and where some differences 


have to be ironed out. And there were these 25 


issues that Mr. Presley mentioned, and on the 

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rest of the issues basically NIOSH has agreed 


that they need to -- either they have gone away 


because of the SEC and they involve the 


atmospheric testing period, or NIOSH has agreed 


that they're going to review the issues and 


make changes to the site profile. So in terms 


of the working group, the action items are 


three. But in terms of NIOSH responding to 


SC&A's site profile review, there are -- there 


are a larger number of action items for NIOSH, 


but not for us at this time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's correct. And it -- and it 


may hinge on whether NIOSH can get the 


corrections and the changes into the site 


profile by then and get them out. As 


everybody's aware of, that's less than -- oh, 


somewhere in the neighborhood of about 35 days, 


so it's not -- there's not a whole lot of time. 


We can try. If we can't, we'll -- we'll go on 


down the road at the next meeting with it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments or 

questions? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, this is Mike. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike. 
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 MR. GIBSON: A question for Bob for his working 


group. Is the working group -- are you looking 


at whether the doses came from strictly the -- 


the U.S. weapon test sites or from -- from -- 


there may have been test sites at other -- in 


other places, other countries, as far as the 


dose. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Mike, let me -- as far as I know, 


the doses are coming from NTS workers in the 


United States. Yes, we had some test sites 


that were other than NTS, and I actually don't 


know whether any of the claimants are from any 


of those other sites or not. That's something 


that we're not privy to. But I would assume 


that all of the information's coming from the 


Test Site. Is there somebody from NIOSH that 


can answer that better? 


 MR. ROLFES: Bob, this is Mark Rolfes at NIOSH. 


We do have claimants from Amchitka and 


(unintelligible) nuclear explosion site, as 


well as Pacific Proving Grounds, but the issues 


that we're covering I believe are only for 


Nevada Test Site today. 


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, who was that 


speaker, please? 

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 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Mark, thank you very much. 


 MR. ROLFES: You're welcome, Bob. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Mike, did that answer your 


question? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, for now, but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer again. Mike, I 


thought at first you were asking perhaps about 


the contributions from other weapons tests to 


the Nevada workers or -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That is -- or are you asking if 


worldwide fallout had an additional 


contribution that either contributed or was not 


accounted for? I'm not sure which you were 


asking. Is it something along that line? 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, from -- from other sites 


that -- as being -- is that dose being 


attributed to... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, this is Ziemer again, and 


that -- let me insert a comment here, and then 


maybe NIOSH can -- one of the NIOSH staff can ­

- can respond to it, but as far as worldwide 


fallout is concerned, let's say -- 

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 MR. GIBSON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you talking worldwide? 

 MR. GIBSON: No, no, I'm sorry, Paul, on the -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

 MR. GIBSON: It -- it's my understanding from 

what I've been reading through that the British 


did some tests at Nevada also. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I see, other -- tests by other 


groups -- okay, I'm with you. 


 MR. GIBSON: Is that dose going to be 


attributed to their dose reconstruction by 


NIOSH? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu Hinnefeld. Yes, it 


would. Any -- any testing at Nevada Test Site 


would be included. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Regardless of who did it. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mike. Does that -- is that 


what you were asking? 


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


what I was... 


 DR. ZIEMER: I gotcha. Okay, thank you. Are 


there further questions or comments for -- on 


this topic? 

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 DR. MELIUS: Just -- Jim Melius, just a 


comment. We still have outstanding the follow-


up on the Special Exposure Cohort, the -- that 


Gen mentioned, the less than 250-day issue, and 


that's something we probably should talk about 


during our work time later in the meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. In fact we do 


have that 250-day issue as a kind of a separate 


issue that covers perhaps more than one site, 


but it certainly is one that's applicable to 


this location as well. 


 DR. WADE: Right, in the Board's decision -- 


this is Lew Wade -- in the Board's SEC 


recommendation on both Nevada Test Site and 


Pacific Proving Grounds it left open the issue 


of less than 250 days to be considered by the 


Board. So I think, Paul, while the 250-day 


issue is something we need to consider 


everywhere, I think there is some urgency to 


consider it for Nevada and Pacific Proving 


Ground. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, those two sites. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. But that at the moment is 


not part of what this workgroup is involved in. 

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 DR. WADE: No, this is the workgroup looking at 


the site profile. We --


 DR. ZIEMER: Site profile. 


 DR. WADE: We do have a workgroup that is to 


look at SEC issues, that workgroup chaired by ­

- let me consult my notes --


 DR. ZIEMER: By Melius, I believe. 


 DR. WADE: -- by Melius, Griffon, Wanda -- to 


be replaced -- and Lockey. And queued up for 


them is this Nevada Test Site/Pacific Proving 


Ground 250-day issue. 


Just so everybody can be thinking from the same 


base, we suspended activity as we dealt with 


the conflict of interest that appeared for 


SC&A. That issue has now been resolved. We 


can talk about that this afternoon some. SC&A 


is available for the Board to -- to use as it 


sees fit on this or any issue related to Nevada 


Test Site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I was just mentioning it as a -- 


sort of a -- put a placeholder for discussion, 


and also for anybody listening in who's 


interested in Nevada Test Site and wondered why 


we weren't talking about it now, so... 

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 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. Other comments or 


questions on Nevada Test Site? 


 (No responses) 


DISCUSSION OF NIOSH’S PROPOSED CONFLICT OF 


INTEREST POLICY
 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, WORK GROUP CHAIR
 

Okay. If not, let us move on to our next 


agenda item, which is the issue of conflict of 


interest policy. We have the most recent 


version of NIOSH's proposed conflict of 


interest policy. We've -- we have had a 


working group that was reviewing that -- that 


draft document and generating proposed comments 


for the Board to consider. Jim Melius chaired 


that and Jim, let me ask you to lead us in that 


discussion. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And also as you do that, Board 


members, there -- there is a draft of the 


working group's proposed comments that Jim 


distributed this past week and I want to make 


sure folks have copies of those. 


 DR. MELIUS: Also that draft is also available 


on the -- the web site under -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: For the public. Right? 


 DR. MELIUS: -- for the public under -- just 

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under the agenda for this meeting so that it's 


available, as -- as well as -- another place on 


the web site is the -- the NIOSH conflict of 


interest policy that we are referring to, which 


is the revised draft dated July 18th, 2006, and 


that is what we are commenting on. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And our document is called "Draft 


ABRWH Comments, NIOSH Statement of Policy, 


Conflict of Interest, July 18th Draft." 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Jim, do --

 DR. MELIUS: Lew, do you have any -- want to 

make any comments or introduction on the July 


18th NIOSH statement? 


 DR. WADE: Well, just a couple of -- one before 


then and then -- then some comments there. 


What we've -- the way we've arranged this 


morning's time is that the Board will have an 


opportunity to chat, then we'll hear public 


comment, then the Board will go back to its 


deliberations so that the Board can deliberate 


upon the things that it's heard in the public 


comment. 


With regard to the July 18th draft, I did send 


it to Board members with a note and pointed out 

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that two things -- there were a number of 


changes, and again, NIOSH heard the previous 


public comments at the last Board meeting and ­

- and received comments from the public, as 


well as individual Board members. Based upon 


those, it made some modifications. The -- the 


two things that -- worthy of note, NIOSH heard 


comments and accepted comments that the -- the 


conflict of interest policy that was in place 


for the Board's contractor -- that's SC&A -- is 


something that the Board had deliberated long 


and hard on, and the feeling was that that 


should remain in place and really not be 


superseded by this. 


The other was the Board itself, and what NIOSH 


is saying in this most recent policy is that 


the Board is certainly subjected to conflict of 


interest considerations as a result of their 


being Special Government Employees, as a result 


of the fact that this Board is a FACA, as a 


result of the fact that they are government 


employees. And that establishes a basis for 


what represents a conflict of interest or a 


perceived conflict of interest. 


 NIOSH felt that anything over and above that 

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really should fall to the Board to decide upon, 


so there is a floor that exists for the Board 


members. If the Board wanted to add over and 


above that, NIOSH is suggesting that the Board 


deliberate on that. NIOSH is offering its 


policy as something for the Board to consider, 


but is not suggesting that it imposes its 


policy on the Board. The NIOSH policy does, in 


its appendix, enumerate Board actions if a 


Board member is conflicted and -- and you know 


what they are. You've repeated them many 


times. 


Again, I don't find those in any way officially 


approved by the Board, but we have been using 


them and I think they make a fine statement. 


But I think the Board needs to also decide if 


it's comfortable with those rules that say if a 


Board member is conflicted, these are the 


resulting activities. 


So I think NIOSH would like to hear from the 


Board about whether it wants to add anything to 


the floor for Board conflict that's established 


by FACA or government employees, and then also 


what the Board would like to consider as its 


operational rules, whether it wants to sort of 

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ratify them or modify them in some way. And 


then in general, NIOSH is very anxious to hear 


from the Board as to its reaction to the policy 


as presented. Thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: The workgroup that was charged 


with preparing some comments for -- from the 


Board for -- on this policy, I chaired it. The 


other members included Brad Clawson, Mike 


Gibson and Paul Ziemer. We had a conference 


call a little over a week ago, I believe on 


July 31st, to discuss the NIOSH draft policy, 


as well as the draft set of comments that I had 


prepared. We -- the workgroup went over those 


comments and made a number of changes in them, 


and the resulting draft that's been circulated 


to the Board members, as well as posted on the 


web site, I believe I've reflected our 


discussions of -- of the workgroup in those -- 


those comments and the changes I made. And 


that is I think what is proposed for the -- the 


group to discuss and adopt, change or whatever 


today. 


I think -- I think for purposes of the public 


record and so forth, I think we need to go 


through this draft. Is that correct, Lew? 

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 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- and maybe the easiest thing 


to do is to -- to go through it sort of 


paragraph by paragraph. There is a series of 


11 comments there and I'll go through and I 


can, you know -- I can read it for the purposes 


of the public record and then give you a little 


bit of background on our discussions on that, 


then we can discuss each comment. 


Probably start with the -- the introduction and 


I'll go through the -- the first comment. 


Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 


has reviewed the most recent draft of the 


conflict of interest policy. In general we 


support NIOSH's efforts to improve and clarify 


the conflict of interest policy for this 


program and believe that it will improve the 


credibility of the program once this policy is 


implemented. The Board has several comments 


addressing our continuing concerns about 


certain issues that are not yet clearly spelled 


out in the most recent draft. 


 Comment number one -- footnote number 2, page 


1, the definition of conflict of (telephone 


transmission interrupted) appearance or 

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perception of a conflict of interest; i.e., 


this policy should be trying to avoid or 


minimize actions that would have the appearance 


of a conflict of interest. I believe that the 


use of the term "potential conflict of 


interest" fully addresses this concept. We 


suggest adding the following sentences to 


footnote 2: "In some cases there may be an 


appearance of -- of or perceived conflict of 


interest, even where no legal conflict of 


interest exists. To the extent feasible, NIOSH 


will seek to minimize the appearance of or 


perception of conflicts of interest." 


And -- and I think we -- the working group felt 


that it was important that we -- that conflict 


of interest includes more than just an actual 


conflict of interest, and then "potential" 


didn't quite capture that, that there are 


certainly many instances where one wants to 


avoid the -- the perception or appearance of -- 


of a -- of a conflict of interest and that 


that's -- is actually already captured in some 


of the rules for, you know, government 


employees and some of the issues related to 


contractors so -- and then we should -- should 

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reference it here. I think it's relatively 


straightforward. 


Any comments or questions on that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: And -- this is Ziemer -- Board 


members, I think it will be helpful to the 


working group if you indicate either agreement 


or disagreement with ideas as they're put forth 


here, just so we get some idea sort of what the 


consensus is as it -- you know, complete 


silence won't be too helpful. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. LOCKEY: Hey, Jim -- Jim Lockey. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. LOCKEY: I wanted to ask you a question 

about -- normally when I think of conflict of 


interest -- I -- I like your idea of a 


perceived conflict of interest, or potential 


conflict. I think that -- that's an important 


concept. If -- if somebody -- does the 


conflict of interest only run one way? Does it 


only run if somebody has a conflict of interest 


in that they were representing somebody from 


the Department of Energy? Or does it also run 


the other direction? Other words, if somebody 


is working for a legal firm in potential 

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lawsuits against the Department of Energy or in 


policy statements, is that a conflict of 


interest, or is that a perceived conflict of 


interest, or how would the general public look 


at that issue? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I -- I -- I think this 


section refers to the footnote -- it sort of 


refers to the introduction and purpose of the 


NIOSH statement of policy, so it -- it's making 


a more general statement about conflict of 


interest, and we thought that that general 


statement should -- you know, should also 


capture the idea that, to some extent, the 


policy would be to address, you know, the 


perceived or -- or appearance of a -- of a 


conflict of interest also. I think that your ­

- your comment I think goes more to the issue 


of the specific policy and -- and I think it's 


one of the reasons that we wanted to have some 


separation between the -- what the NIOSH policy 


now is was mostly intended for addressing their 


contractors who are doing work on this, and 


that -- that the policy would be specific to 


those contractors and that a policy for the 


Board members, for example, would be -- could 

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be based on different considerations; that the 


policy for the Board's contractor would be -- 


could be based on other considerations. To 


some -- some of those are to some of the 


statutes and regulations that govern those 


particular relationships, so they -- for 


example, there are statutes that relate to 


Special Government Employees and being a member 


of a Federal Advisory Committee. So I think to 


sort of -- we can address that maybe a little 


bit later, but this was intended just as a sort 


of a general statement about that and it -- not 


to talk about the -- the application of 


conflict of interest, if that's... 


 DR. LOCKEY: Oh, I understand. So in this 


case, conflict of interest is -- is a broad -- 


it's a broad -- if somebody has any dealings 


with any DOE sites, either one way or the 


other, that -- this was covered by that 


conflict of interest statement. 


 DR. MELIUS: Could be. This policy could -- 


could addr-- cover that, and then -- then -- as 


I said, this is, you know, NIOSH's sort of 


footnoted definition that, you know, at least I 


viewed and I think other members of the 

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workgroup view as sort of a very general 


statement of how conflict of interest would be 


viewed in the document. And actually I think 


if you go through it, the document itself, it 


certainly implied that more than, you know, 


actual conflict of interest was what was being 


avoided. There was also issues of perception, 


you know, motivate -- perception of conflict of 


interest also motivated some of the specific, 


you know, procedures and steps that were set up 


in the document. 


 DR. LOCKEY: You know, I --


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. I don't want to 


interrupt Jim. Are you finished? 


 DR. MELIUS: Which Jim? 


DR. ROESSLER: I'd -- I'd like to sometime go 


back to Jim's question, but on this particular 


item I think it's a good addition and a good 


change. But I'm -- I'm really not sure how 


much substance this has because it seems it's 


going to be very difficult to define what is 


meant by appearance of perceived conflict. Do 


we have any rules or any guidelines to go on 


for that? 


 DR. WADE: Well, this is Lew Wade. I mean 

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Emily Howell did send to Board members, in 


anticipation of this call, several documents 


that really sort of frame what the conflicts 


would be for government employees or Special 


Government Employees, and she sent you a 


section that deals with impartiality. And that 


section of the Federal Code is intended to deal 


with issues of appearance, so there is 


something we can use as a guide, you can use as 


a guide, but clearly when you get into this 


area it becomes more and more subjective the 


further away you go from the actual conflict. 


But I would point you to subpart E of 26.35 of 


5 CFR that tries to deal with impartiality. 


And it starts by saying (reading) This subpart 


contains two provisions intended to ensure that 


an employee takes appropriate steps to avoid an 


appearance of loss of impartiality. 


So it's trying --


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, I have that -- I do have 


that in front of me, I just had not had a 


chance to study it yet. 


 DR. WADE: It's -- I mean, you know, the -- as 


I said, Gen, the further away you get from the 


touchstone, the more difficult it is, and yet 

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there is guidance. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I (unintelligible) some 


similar guidance that NIH has in addressing, 


you know, grant reviews and, you know, conflict 


-- potential -- appearance of a conflict of 


interest depending, you know, on your 


affiliation with the university or having 


coauthored documents, you know, articles with 


one of the people that you're reviewing and -- 


and so forth so -- I mean it's widely applied I 


think within -- certainly within government 


that -- but -- but I agree with you, Gen, it -- 


it's something that does get very subjective 


and I think it's the specifics of the policy 


that -- that we have to evaluate to -- this 


comment was only just to say that in -- in a 


general sense (unintelligible) policy also all 


-- should address and consider the appearance 


or, you know, of -- of a conflict of interest. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. I'm reassured. Emily's 


material just came through yesterday and I had 


not had a chance to look at it, but I 


appreciate, Lew, you pointing out that section. 


It's reassuring to see that we do have 


something in writing. I'm in agreement with 

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the proposed --


THE COURT REPORTER: Gen, I'm sorry, this is 


Ray. I'm still having a real hard time hearing 


you and I -- I'm sorry. 


DR. ROESSLER: I don't know what else I can do. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Well, that's better right 


there. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, I --


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry. 


DR. ROESSLER: When I talk I'll just face the ­

- the base. I'll try and --


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: Did you get my last comment? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Yeah, I'm getting it, but 


it's just sounding very muffled and everybody 


else is coming in pretty good. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer, if I might add a 


comment. The words that you see there in the 


quote are the words that I have suggested that 


be added, and I think the point is that in many 


of these cases there actually is not a conflict 


of interest in the legal sense, but it may look 


like there is. And to the extent that one is 

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able to avoid even the look, the appearance, 


you ought to take steps to do that. That's the 


intent. Even though it may not technically be 


a legal conflict of interest under -- under the 


variety of rules, to the extent that you can 


avoid even the appearance of that, that should 


-- should be pursued. But again, there are 


specific steps that you can take where it looks 


like there's a -- a conflict to address that 


and -- and -- and put all the facts out there 


and show what the situation is so that people 


from outside -- and I think the rules talked 


about what -- what a reasonable person would 


conclude from the facts of the situation. And 


you know, if a reasonable person is most likely 


to conclude that there really is a conflict, 


then you have to do something about that, under 


-- under the rules, not -- you know, it doesn't 


-- it's not prescriptive about what you do, but 


you -- it does say that you -- you have to do 


something. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Paul, I agree with that. I -- I 


read this as meaning total transparency. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. LOCKEY: And -- and if there's a potential 

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-- if there's a possibility it raises in your 


mind a potential conflict, just put it out 


there 'cause it's better to do it that way than 


to have somebody come back later and question 


you on it 'cause you didn't record it or didn't 


-- didn't let people know about it. 


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, who was that, 


please? 


 DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay, thank you. 


 MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I'm in --


I'm in agreement with it. Everything comes 


down to legal or somebody like that making the 


final decision, doesn't it? 


 DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. On one end, yes. 


I mean I -- I think there is the responsibility 


of all of us who -- who work under such 


policies to identify issues, so I think it 


starts with full disclosure identification by 


the party involved. Once that's done, then 


depending upon the particular entity within 


government, then there are procedures to be 


followed to make judgments. But I think we all 


have a responsibility in terms of complete 


disclosure. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: This -- this is Bob again. 


That's good. Thank you, Lew, that's good. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson, and I -- I 


completely agree with total transparency and -- 


and revealing conflicts of interest as far as 


your affiliation. But you know, on the other 


hand, given the lack of input from workers, 


whether they're salary or hourly, where they 


may have site knowledge, and given the point 


that -- and we're still waiting to hear how 


much site workers have been involved in doing 


site profiles -- they have valued knowledge 


that may -- it may not necessarily benefit 


themselves, but they have knowledge that could 


conflict with those who have been paid 


professionally, as in a management position, to 


write these site profiles. And I think that 


their knowledge should be able to be put on the 


table somewhere, whether it's -- you may have 


to recuse yourself and be a member of the 


public and address the Board, but it -- you 


know, there's just a lot of knowledge out there 


that -- to be fair and balanced, you know, I 


think that -- that that -- that knowledge and 


that experience and that ought to be heard. 

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 DR. LOCKEY: Mike, it's Jim Lockey, I -- I 


agree with you. I don't think that that type 


of knowledge should be excluded at all. I just 


-- I agree with that 100 percent. When I --


when I look at transparency, I always think 


it's better -- this is who I am, this is what 


I've done and this is my knowledge base, and 


then nobody can ever come back at any point in 


the future and try to use it -- try to say 


well, he didn't -- he or she did not reveal 


this conf-- potential conflict of interest, 


therefore we -- whatever they said may not be 


valid. I think it's better just to get it up ­

- get it out up front and then -- then use the 


knowledge that a person's able to provide, and 


the worker definitely is going to have a lot of 


knowledge to provide. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, I agree. I mean give --


give your full background and what you've done 


and your experience, but then be able to at 


least get your -- you know, your experience on 


the record. 


 DR. LOCKEY: I concur with that. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Jim, this is Brad Clawson. When 


we discussed this early in this meeting, it 

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wasn't -- it wasn't excluding anybody by using 


the term -- you know, we're -- we're trying to 


define here, it wasn't excluding anybody, was 


it? It was just that we were trying to bring 


forth this information up front. 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. I mean all we're doing 


in this comment is addressing, you know, sort 


of the definition of conflict of interest 


that'll inform (unintelligible) this policy. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: And so that definition -- all this 


comment I think really says is that definition 


(unintelligible) appearance or perceived 


conflicts of interest, not just potential or 


actual conflicts of interest. 


I think the next two comments really address 


some of the other discussion here, which was a 


point that we made at the last meeting and 


NIOSH has addressed in the latest draft is that 


it would -- it's better to sort of develop a 


policy that's specific for those situations 


that are -- you know, the particular group 


involved, so NIOSH has carved out what -- 


they're call-- referred to as exceptions, which 


would be the -- the last -- the previous draft 

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of the policy attempted to cover both the Board 


and the Board's contractor, for example, and I 


just think that would -- that was confusing, 


but it also was trying to get -- there are 


different considerations there. We get -- 


there earlier developed a policy 


(unintelligible) our contractor that at least 


at the time was more stringent than the 


conflict of interest policy for -- that was in 


place for NIOSH's contractor, at least in some 


ways. So I think we're -- how all of this gets 


applied I think it -- we -- we're -- it should 


be applied specifically and, you know, Paul, in 


the language he's proposed adding here that -- 


that he wrote, that we're proposing to add, it 


says to the extent feasible. There's some 


issues of feasibility we have to consider, 


also. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I think also something 


else, too, and we're -- we're kind of maybe 


getting a little off of this or whatever, but 


if we -- if we address these appearances right 


up front and everybody is on board, legal and 


everything else like that, I -- I feel like a 


lot of this is addressed because I agree with 

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Mike Gibson on -- that we have a lot of valued 


information out there and people that have a 


very good basis of it, these sites, that we -- 


we need their information. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, I suggest we continue with 


the next point then. I think you've gotten 


good feedback on this first one. 


 DR. MELIUS: Next point, this is -- refers to 


the exceptions, which is the new section on 


page 2 of the policy, section 2, exception 2.1, 


the exception for the --


UNIDENTIFIED: Hello? 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) Advisory 


Board. And the comment reads (reading) While 


we agree with the need to have a separate COI 


policy for the Board, we do not agree that the 


Board should, quote, create and administer, 


close quotes, its own policy, at least not 


independent of the COI provisions from FACA and 


other federal statutes that currently apply to 


the Board. The Board could supplement those 


requirements with additional requirements not 


in conflict with the FACA and other 


requirements currently in place. The Board 


does -- does support the three COI provisions 

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covering the Board's activities that are 


described in Appendix 1. The Board recommends 


discussion of this issue be placed on the 


agenda for a future Board meeting. 


What we're trying to get at here is the -- the 


previous draft of the policy, as -- as I 


mentioned, had included the Board, the Board's 


contractors and it felt that was awkward. They 


had included this exception. But the way it 


was written here, it's sort of implied that we 


would just create our own conflict of interest 


policy, you know, de novo, with-- without clear 


reference to, you know, some of the legal and 


other statutes that govern our activities as -- 


as, you know, FACA Board members. And there's 


two issues. One is we shouldn't be do-- I 


think trying to do it in -- without taking into 


account what we're legally or -- required to do 


and what -- the review that we all go through 


as -- as part of being part of a FACA 


committee. And secondly, sort of for the Board 


to sort of create and administer its own 


policy, de novo also, probably is not the 


correct approach. We, you know, sort of decide 


our own conflicts and then it -- it -- it makes 

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sense, so what we proposed doing was that -- 


one is we ought to discuss this at length 


ourselves as to what kind of policy we should 


want to develop that would be in addition to 


what the FACA and the other statutes that 


already, you know, govern how we -- our 


conflict of interest as -- as Board members, 


and that probably deserve, you know, fuller 


discussion at a Board meeting rather than 


having the working group try to devise a policy 


to recommend to the -- to the full Board at -- 


at this meeting. 


 But secondly that we were -- the three -- page 


12 of the July 18th draft in an appendix has 


these sort of -- I sort of refer to them as 


operational -- how has the Board been operating 


in terms of addressing conflict of interest 


issues. And they're very specific to actions 


that the Board commonly takes, the situations 


that commonly arise. The previous draft of the 


policy included them as part of the policy. 


They've now been moved to an appendix, and I 


thought that we should, you know, concur that 


those are, you know, appropriate ways of making 


-- sort of operationalizing conflict of 

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interest requirements for the Board members. 


We may want to add more, we may want to, you 


know, change these or clarify them for other 


situations, but certainly there was something 


the working group was comfortable having us 


utilize or continue to utilize as the Board 


functions. So the -- I guess the -- the gist 


of the comment is that we need to discuss 


further if we want to develop a more complete 


policy for the Board, that ought to be 


something to discuss at a future Board meeting 


when we're all together in person. Secondly, 


meanwhile, we would support the continued 


adoption of those three rules that are included 


in Appendix 1. 


Any comments or (unintelligible) on that? 


 (No responses) 


 Anybody disagree? 


 (No responses) 


I already miss Wanda. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think -- it sounds like there's 


no disagreement, Jim, so I think -- unless 


there is -- we should proceed. 


 DR. MELIUS: Section 2, the other exception is 


for the Board's contractors so let me read this 

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comment. Quote (reading) The same concept 


would apply to the Board's current policy for 


our contractor. Federal procurement and other 


statutes have COI requirements for our 


contractor, and these have already been 


supplemented in the awarding of their contract. 


At the time, those requirements are generally 


more stringent than the ones in place for 


NIOSH's dose reconstruction contractors. The 


Board recommends that these requirements be 


reviewed at a future Board meeting. End -- end 


of -- and again, it was just saying that the 


workgroup didn't feel comfortable trying to 


devise a new set of conflict of interest 


requirements for our contractor. That's 


something would be best done at a future Board 


meeting, but does that think we, you know, did 


have a policy in place. We discussed it at 


great length many years ago when we awarded the 


contract and -- or before we awarded the 


contract and so, you know -- appropriate to 


revisit them, let's do it at a future Board 


meeting. 


Any disagreements or comments on that? 


DR. ROESSLER: No disagreement. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: Jim, this is Bob Presley. 
I 


think that's great. 


 DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade, just to tip my cap 


to the Board. I mean I worked on the SC&A 


contract and I think the policy that you put in 


place serves that contract well and in fact has 


formed the basis of much of NIOSH's thinking 


for the document I brought to you. 


 DR. MELIUS: No comments, I'll move on to 


comment number four, which deals with section 


3.0 in the document, also page 2, and it's 


entitled -- that section of the policy's 


entitled "Disclosure and Exclusion, Individual 


and Corporate." Let me read the -- read the 


comment. 


 (Reading) The application of this policy to 


corporate entities is not clear. Though the 


introduction to section 3 references both 


individual and corporate disclosure and 


exclusion, the substantive sections, section 


3.1, et cetera, are confusing and often only 


appear to reference individuals, not 


corporations. Corporate conflict of interest 


provisions are important and this section 


should be modified to more clearly address 

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corporate COI issues. 


That's the end of the -- end of the -- the 


comment. Just the background, I think based on 


our comments and discussion of the previous 


draft of the policy, we raised the issue of -- 


of including corporate conflict of interest. 


NIOSH has stated in this current draft that it 


-- it does cover corporate conflicts of 


interest. It doesn't -- just sort of didn't 


carry that through very clearly into all the 


subsequent sections. And some of it is 


wordsmithing, but I think some of it is that -- 


I think is a little bit more thought to what 


are corporate conflict of interest provisions 


and -- and sort of the -- the series of 


questions that are asked. There may need to be 


some changes in those to more appropriately 


address possible corporate conflict of -- of 


interest. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Jim, this is Ziemer, if I -- I 


could add to that, Board members, if you look 


in the -- in the appendices at the questions 


that are asked to test for conflict of 


interest, such as Section C, disclosure 


questions, they're all -- very clearly pertain 

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to individual conflicts. And I think one of 


the questions we had is what -- what questions 


do you ask of the corporation to determine 


conflict of interest; is there a parallel set 


of questions. So it's -- certainly NIOSH has 


indicated the intent to apply it, and we're 


simply saying or suggesting that that be 


spelled out a little more clearly as to how you 


-- how you do that or what -- what are the 


tests on a corporate scale that parallel the 


tests on an individual scale. 


Is that a fair statement, Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that is. I mean it -- I -- 


I think it's -- it's a question of -- of some, 


you know, rewording that would -- would address 


this. And then it's actually in -- addressed 


here as comment number six where it says where 


the conflict of interest -- appendix to the 


conflict of interest disclosure form gets 


referenced in the document, but -- but as Paul 


just said, that also needs to be changed to 


more appropriately address this -- sort of -- 


so a corporation could fill it out and -- 


directly, as opposed to just an individual. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. I agree with the 

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item. I think the workgroup has identified a 


very important item to explore or to complete. 


 DR. MELIUS: I think we all certainly support 


the -- the need for NIOSH to address corporate 


conflict of interest and it's particularly -- 


I'll say troublesome, but -- but it -- I think 


it -- it's important in sort of how conflict 


can be perceived or appear -- there can be 


appearances of conflict of interest in this DOE 


world with many contractors, subcontractors and 


entities and so forth, and I think having some, 


you know, clearer questions and clearer on 


this, addresses, helps a lot in terms of 


disclosure and application of any policy. 


 Any other comments on that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I might add parenthetically -- 


this is Ziemer again -- that in cases where 


there do -- where there appear to be such 


corporate conflicts, then what -- one has to 


think carefully as to how you provide some sort 


of -- I think the term "firewalls" are used to 


-- within the -- within a corporation, for 


example, to -- to basically provide a barrier 


between parts of an entity that might be, on 


the surface -- or maybe actually -- in-- 

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involved with what appears to be a conflict. 


We've got to do this with our own contractor, 


to some extent -- provide appropriate 


safeguards that assure that the -- the 


conflicts are addressed. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, this is Mike. Paul, I 


agree. You know, I think there are -- there 


probably is a specific corporate conflict of 


interest provisions in contractors policies -- 


you know, ORAU and whoever else, you know, and 


I -- I think, you know, that -- that disclosure 


of these should be made to us. Is there any 


way the Board can receive a copy of the current 


COI corporate disclosure policy used by ORAU, 


for example? 


 DR. WADE: Certainly. This is Lew. I can make 


that happen. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: And I think that might be helpful, 


Lew, when -- you know, change the -- inclu-- 


sort of updated the policy, then clarify some 


of these corporate disclosure issues, I think 


it'd be useful to have that to reference. 


 DR. WADE: Right. I just -- speaking for 


NIOSH, Paul's comment of possibly also the 

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policy addressing remedy, such as firewall, if 


-- if that's the Board's pleasure then, you 


know, write that to NIOSH in your comments, 


that you would like to see such specificity in 


the policy. Or if you don't want it, then -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew, I'm not sure how specific one 


can be in the policy. I suspect that the 


solutions are very case-specific -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- although one might talk in 


general terms about the need for establishing 


appropriate firewalls in cases where there 


appear to be conflicts or -- but what is the 


remedy. In other words, how does one go about 


remedying these things. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So whatever the Board would 


like to see, just let us know. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again, and I was -- I 


-- I think all of us received an e-mail from 


Mr. -- Strout? 


 DR. WADE: Staudt. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- Staudt, and he addressed the 


issue of the firewall that was created between 


SC&A for their various contracts and, you know, 


I'm kind of interested in that term and how 

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they came up with that, and I would just like 


to see what that consists of, just for -- I 


think it would be beneficial for our 


clarification for -- possibly beneficial to us. 


 DR. WADE: Why don't I invite David Staudt, or 


whoever he would care to name, to come to our 


next meeting and make a brief presentation on 


that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Any other further comments on 


comment four? 


 MR. GIBSON: Jim, the only thing I would -- 


this is Mike again. You know, getting back to 


the COI policies of the -- the corporations, 


it's probably be beneficial, I think, to see 


the -- the forms, the corporate forms that the 


folks are presented with to fill out and not 


just the policy, so we can see what they're 


asked and not asked and -- and everything else. 


 DR. MELIUS: And that's -- Mike, I believe 


that's covered in Section -- comment number 


six. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, I'm sorry, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Oh, yeah --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that was the issue we were 


talking about. There -- there are questions 


asked on an individual basis. What -- what is 


it you ask a corporation. 


 DR. WADE: Right, but Mike's requirement of me 


is that I share the in-place policy for ORAU, 


for example, on disclosure. And then I'll also 


provide any forms that are filled out by ORAU 


employees toward that disclosure, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, thanks. 


 DR. MELIUS: Any other comments on four? If 


not, I'll move to five, which also references 


Section 3.0, and that series of questions is a 


relatively minor, but there is the -- the 


comment reads as follows: (Reading) There is 


also some inconsistency in the reference as to 


whether AWE work is included in some provisions 


of this section. 


That's the end of the comment. And basically 


they -- if you go through those series of 


questions starting with 3.1, in some of them 


they include DOE/AWE -- you know, were you 


employed, contractor, et cetera -- and they're 


not consistent in doing -- in a lot of places 


they drop the AWE and didn't seem appropriate 

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and I think someone just needs to read through 


and where including AWE is appropriate, it 


should be done. 


Any comments or -- I think it's minor. 


 (No responses) 


If not, number six, the one we just talked 


about, the corporate -- there should be a 


corporate disclosure form, I think this is 


further discussion on that. 


Number seven, Section 4.0 and actually refers 


to the Appendix 2, which is the individual 


conflict of interest disclo-- disclosure form 


and the -- that -- there's a section on that 


that refers to -- it's disclosure questions, 


and it has to do with the legal work. I'm 


trying to find the exact page for this. This 


is -- this is worded funny, but let me read the 


comment, then I'll look up -- (reading) The 


disclosure form for an individual should 


include a listing of the litigations -- cases 


that they participated in, not just the 


relationship with the attorney. The -- listing 


specific cases is common practice for expert 


witnesses. 


It -- what that question did -- if I can -- 

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 DR. WADE: Page 21. 


 DR. MELIUS: Twenty-one, okay. Thanks. The --


question 13 on page 21. It just says (reading) 


Do you have a relationship with an attorney 


that was representing EEOICPA claimant, DOE or 


site operator? 


And it's just that we thought it would be more 


useful if you just simply refer to the -- the 


actual cases that you were involved in rather 


than a relationship with an attorney since in 


many cases there are lots of law firms and lots 


of attorneys. And the common way of 


referencing those is usually to the case, not 


to the -- the law firm and -- to provide a 


little bit more transparency to the -- to the 


issue. 


Any comments or questions about that? 


 (No responses) 


If not, we'll -- moving on to the next comment 


is comment number eight, again refers to 


section 4 -- it's real-- it's the second 


paragraph under -- under 4.0. Let me read the 


comment. (Reading) The disclosure form should 


be updated, quote, within seven days, close 


quote, or some other specific time period 

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rather than leaving that open-ended. 


 The current way that -- that's worded is that 


it just leaves it entirely open. It says 


(reading) COI disclosure form should be updated 


as needed. 


And we just thought it was more appropriate to 


include some time period, whatever -- I don't ­

- there's nothing magic about seven days. I 


mean something -- you know, a reasonable time 


period shortly after there's been some change 


that warrants this, you know, updated 


disclosure would -- would be appropriate, so 


we're recommending that -- that some time line 


be in-- included in -- in that section. 


Any comments on that? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. If not, assuming agreement, we'll go to 


comment number nine, which refers to Section 


5.5, and actually also refers to the other 


owners here. It's a fairly long comment, let 


me read it. 


Section 5.5, (Reading) Portraying a site 


profile document owner as, quote, 


writer/editor, close quote, rather than, quote, 


author, close quote, appears to downgrade the 

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owner to a more passive role in the process. 


This person should not be just assembling 


sections written by site experts, et cetera, 


without critical review. As we've pointed out 


before, this is the weak link in this COI 


policy proposal to address the past practice of 


utilizing site experts who had an obvious 


potential conflict of interest as major 


contributors to a document. This new 


description of the owners' responsibilities 


does not help convince the Board that this 


person will actively and fairly manage the 


process. This concern also applies to owners 


of other types of documents described in the 


proposed policy. 


We discussed this at the last meeting, I 


believe, and maybe even the meeting -- previous 


meetings where we've discussed conflicts of 


interest. And it struck me that -- and others 


-- that tho-- so these word change where 


somehow they -- they went from being an author 


to a writer/editor did sort of imply that that 


person would be less actively engaged in doing 


the inform-- actually reviewing and being 


involved in the gathering of information and 

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they're really having a strong technical 


understanding of a -- of a particular document. 


And the way this proposed policy would deal 


with the utilization of site experts and -- and 


others who may have a, you know, potential or 


appearance of a conflict of interest on a site 


really is very dependent on having a strong 


owner of -- of a document that is actively 


involved and does actively, you know, seek out 


other sources of information or opinion and 


input on a particular issue. And this comment 


was basically -- not that that section is much 


-- necessarily needs to be changed, but the 


fact that it -- it really is going to be very 


important that we see, you know, active -- you 


know, technically involved owners of -- of 


these documents and that they -- that our 


interchange with them, you know, and when we're 


reviewing site profiles and SEC evaluations, 


you know, demonstrates that -- that they are 


knowledgeable and actively involved in the 


document, not simply somebody that just -- 


cutting and pasting, you know, the work of 


others and putting it in -- in a -- in a 


document. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: And Jim, this is Ziemer, if I 


might add, I think we agree that we don't think 


it was NIOSH's intent to -- to actually 


downgrade this position. We -- in fact, I 


think we believe, based on what they said, that 


their intent is exactly what Jim described and 


that is to have a strong author, leader, owner, 


whatever the word is, but that this terminology 


doesn't appear to -- to be in line with that. 


If -- if one could find some words that 


emphasized and underlined the idea of having 


the document owner being really someone who 


really knew what was going on and -- and wasn't 


conflicted, but could take full ownership and 


they weren't just cutting and pasting what 


others told them. So we -- we think NIOSH's 


intent is to -- is to do what we described, but 


we think they need to express it better. 


 DR. MELIUS: Any other comments or... 


DR. ROESSLER: I -- this is Gen. I think these 


are good comments, but I don't see a solution 


or a suggested remedy for -- for it. 


 DR. MELIUS: I think the -- the remedy is the ­

- is how this policy will get implemented. And 


I think we'll -- the -- sort of the test of a 

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policy and how it'll work will be in the 


future. I mean this is a change in approach 


and it's too early to -- to see and -- and I 


don't think we're -- we're agreeing with the 


approach, we just want to emphasize how 


important it is to this -- success of this 


policy and credibility of this program that -- 


that this part of it, you know -- these people 


are actively involved, so that that intent be 


followed through on. 


DR. ROESSLER: So you're not suggesting then 


that -- a change in the wording, but just that 


we understand better what the intent is? 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct, and that they -- they may 


want to consider some wording that would more 


clearly define what the role of this person is. 


The -- the activities didn't necessarily change 


from the previous draft, but some of the 


wording, you know, seemed -- seemed to indicate 


that -- a more passive role, and I think that ­

- we're saying that there can't be a passive 


role. It has to be a very -- has to be very 


actively involved. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and certainly what Jim says 


is true, the test is in the -- in the doing, 

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and you can have the perfect written policy and 


if it's -- you know, if it's not -- doesn't 


stand the real test of actual actions, then it 


doesn't mean anything. So you want the wording 


to be right, but ultimately the test is in how 


it's actually done. 


 DR. MELIUS: If they don't change the wording 


but they ac-- they do it well, we'll -- we'll 


be happy. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. If they do change the 


wording and don't do it well -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, then we're --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we haven't accomplished 

anything. 

 DR. MELIUS: Other comments? I'll go on. This 

refers -- next comment, number ten, refers to 


Section 6.4, which is un-- is the section that 


is starting to describe non-key program 


functions, and most of these were -- were 


straightforward, but the -- they do refer to 


one that's a complex-wide Technical Information 


Bulletin owner. Let me read the comment and 


then I'll sort of provide some of the 


background on this. 


 (Reading) The designation of the complex-wide 

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Technical Information Bulletin owner as a non-


key program function -- problematic without a 


clear definition of this type of document. For 


example, this type of TIB may apply to only a 


few sites and the owner of such a document 


should not be allowed to have the potential for 


a conflict of interest at one of these few 


sites. 


End -- end of comment. In our workgroup call 


we spent a fair amount of time, but -- on this 


issue because certainly one could see where 


something was a sort of very generic document 


that applied to many sites, there'd be 


situations where the -- sort of the non-key -- 


this could be considered a non-key program 


function with some of the conflict of interest 


issues would be somewhat less stringent in 


terms of development of this document. However 


there are other ex-- examples where I think one 


would have some concerns that the -- about the 


potential for appearance of a conflict of 


interest in someone where it really only 


applied to one site and that person was -- was 


-- you know, came from that -- came -- you 


know, worked for that site and would not be 

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allowed to be the owner of a document un-- 


under -- applied to that site was not 


considered a complex-wide Technical Information 


Bulletin. And we -- we thought that it really 


came down to what the definition was. There 


was no definition of that type of document in 


the -- document and the main thing was to 


clarify what they meant there. If they meant 


that it really was something that was complex-


wide, that the proposed approach was 


appropriate and we just need a better under-- 


understanding of that and they need to consider 


how to apply the policy in -- in various 


situations in terms of how it would apply and 


what would be the potential appearance of 


conflict of interest for the people involved in 


-- in writing that bulletin. 


Any disagreement, comments on that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is really a clarification 


issue I think. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. ROESSLER: We're still here. It sounds 


good. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, good. And the final 


comment, number 11, refers to section 7.2, it's 

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the disclosure -- actually it's come up 


earlier. Let me read the -- the comment. Let 


me preface it a little bit. The disclosure 


section refers to certain forms and so forth, 


how they'll be made available and so forth, and 


the -- the last sentence of that Section 7.2 


refers to some redaction of -- for trade 


secrets and business confidential information. 


And our comment is (reading) We question the 


need for redaction of information on corporate 


COI forms. This should at least be limited to 


specific types of information. An overly-broad 


interpretation could undermine the credibility 


of this disclosure. 


End -- end of the comment. And I -- I guess 


our concern was that -- partly I guess this 


"business confidential" is put in quotes and it 


wasn't clearly defined. And while we certainly 


would see the need for certain kinds of 


financial and other information that might be 


appropriately considered business confidential, 


we would much rather see it -- have a better 


understanding of what was covered by that and 


so that it did not become an excuse for, you 


know -- for us having a completely redacted, 

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you know, corporate disclosure form. And I 


think this also goes back to, you know, our 


comment that we didn't have a corporate 


disclosure form to review and so, you know, it 


may very well -- business confidential could be 


defined within that. There may -- actually may 


be some government definitions of it, but we 


just thought that needed to be -- part of it 


needed to be clarified and this shouldn't be an 


excuse for, you know, redacting all 


information, claiming it to be business 


confidential. 


 MR. GIBSON: Which -- this is Mike -- which I 


think most of the working group -- will speak ­

- I'll speak for myself as part of the working 


group -- strongly agree with. 


 DR. MELIUS: Other disagreements, agreements, 


comments on that? 


 (No responses) 


I take the silence to be agreement. And those 


were our -- our comments of our -- our working 


group that we're proposing for adoption by the 


Board as a set of formal comments to NIOSH. As 


per our custom, these will be subject to Paul's 


editing. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think the next step will 


be to get -- we -- we want to have some public 


comment, and then we can decide whether we want 


to adopt these today or have a final version at 


our next meeting. But let's first start -- if 


it's agreeable, move to the public comment 


period and give opportunity for members of the 


public to comment specifically on the conflict 


of interest policy. 


Now what -- what we're interested in here is 


comments on the NIOSH draft, as well as any 


comments that pertain to the -- the Board's own 


comments on the draft and -- and related issues 


to what the Board's own policy might end up 


being. Clearly we will end up at some point 


with another separate document which will, as 


has been suggested, incorporate existing 


requirements for the Board and maybe any 


additional requirements that we may wish to 


impose. 


PUBLIC COMMENT ON CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

But now I'd like to open the discussion for 


public comment. Members of the public, if you 


would identify yourself by name and location, 


or name and affiliation, for our court reporter 

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and then make your comments. I don't have a 


specific time limit, but it would be in 


everyone's interest if -- if we gave due 


consideration to the fact that there may be 


others who wish to make comments and not to 


monopolize the time. 


So are there any members of the public who wish 


to comment on the conflict of interest policy, 


the draft NIOSH policy or the Board's emerging 


policies? 


 MS. BARRIE: Good morning. This is Terrie 


Barrie with you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, Terrie. 

 MS. BARRIE: How are you, Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Good. 

 MS. BARRIE: Good. Yes, I do have a short 

comment to make. Because of the late notice on 


this public comment period, I was unable to 


circulate a draft of our comments to the 


members and receive input back from them, so 


today I'll only be speaking as an advocate for 


some of the Rocky Flats claimants. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MS. BARRIE: I thank the Board for addressing 


your policy on NIOSH's proposed conflict of 

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interest. It's evident that the Board is very 


concerned about this issue and addresses the 


concerns many share with this draft policy. It 


is also evident that the need for this new 


policy arose in part from the Rocky Flats site 


profile and SEC petition. 


I wish to draw your attention to comment number 


nine in your draft. I agree that the document 


owner should be responsible for more than just 


collecting the information provided by site 


experts. The author should validate the 


science and allegations made by the site 


expert. In other words, the author needs to 


ascertain the truth of what occurred at the 


site. 


My main concern of course is the Rocky Flats 


SEC petition and the conflict of interest 


problem there. As you are aware, at one point 


in time Roger Falk was considered the author of 


the internal dosimetry site profile document. 


He's now listed as a site expert. Mr. Falk, as 


you all know, was also the administrator of the 


health physics department at Rocky Flats. 


 I have listened to many of the Board's working 


group discussions on the Rocky Flats petition. 

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Invariably when a question arose from the 


working group on a particular scenario, it was 


often Mr. Falk, the man with the conflict of 


interest, that answered the questions, not the 


author of the document. It appears that NIOSH 


is assuming that Mr. Falk's assertions are the 


truth and the only truth, without independently 


verifying them. 


In contrast, members of the SC&A team have 


never to my knowledge requested one of their 


site experts to respond to a question raised by 


the working group. SC&A appears to own the 


report submitted to the Board. 


I will leave you with a question. Since the 


Board is very concerned with this conflict of 


interest issue, how will you apply this problem 


when you deliberate the Rocky Flats SEC 


petition? 


Thank you for the time for allowing these 


comments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, 


Terrie, for those comments. 


 Are there other members of the comment who wish 


to provide input or comment? 


 MR. MILLER: Hi, Dr. Ziemer, it's Richard 

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Miller. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, Richard. 


 MR. MILLER: Good morning. Very briefly I'd 


like to thank the Board for its considered 


comments. They're -- they're quite detailed. 


I had really just three very brief ones. 


One has to do with sort of taking off from what 


Terrie Barrie had said, which are what are 


precisely, if conflicts are found that were 


either not appropriately disclosed or which 


were considered to be impermissible conflicts 


under the policy, and yet, you know, key 


program documents were produced and the 


conflicts exist, whether it be with an 


individual dose reconstruction or with an SEC 


evaluation or whatever, what are the 


consequences in terms of that document? Does 


that document still get used for decision-


making? Is it subject to being vacated and 


redone? How -- how exact-- what -- what -- I 


mean I guess sort of the question is what are 


the consequences? And this policy spells out 


clearly the consequences in terms of 


administrative actions that NIOSH has the 


discretion to take in terms of disallowing 

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costs and so forth with respect to a contractor 


who breaches the policy. The question is, what 


is the consequence slash (sic) and/or remedy 


with respect to the claimant or claimant 


population that would be impacted by such a 


conflict. And I -- I think that that's a 


difficult question and it probably will have to 


be taken up on a case-by-case basis. But I do 


think it opens -- that it does open a question. 


What -- what's the remedy? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. MILLER: The second comment has to do with 


the question when a conflict is identified and 


whether it be the one such as the Falk conflict 


which -- which Terrie Barrie raised, or several 


others that are out there at a number of other 


sites, including Idaho and Hanford and Pantex 


and elsewhere, what rigor of review would be 


applied when a conflict is identified? And 


this goes sort of to the comment that the Board 


raised, which is what -- what -- you know, so 


okay, here -- here -- you -- you -- you expect 


that -- that the document owner's going to 


really own the document, that they're going to 


actually have technical fluency in it and 

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they're going to be able to communicate and 


respond and really vet the inputs from some 


site experts who may be conflicted. What is 


the issue of the rigor of review? What 


specifically becomes triggered? And this may 


be helpful in terms of this whole question of 


intent to, maybe in the preamble to the COI 


policy, spell out this intent issue which was 


discussed during this Board call. I think it 


would be helpful to spell out that expectation 


in the policy in order to make it more three-


dimensional, rather than leaving it buried in a 


transcript that somebody's going to have to go 


back and find if this issue arises in the 


future about whether there's genuine ownership 


and whether site experts are conflicted and 


whether the person who really owns the document 


genuinely is the author. So that would be a 


second comment. 


And the third issue I guess is more of a 


question. If -- if the Board is going to be 


taking up a COI on its own policy, will that be 


done as a separate set of deliberations for 


which you'll be soliciting comment? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Richard, for -- 

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as usual -- thought-provoking comments. With 


regard to the third one, certainly if the Board 


develops a separate policy, that would be done 


in the framework of our Board meetings in open 


session and opportunities for input, as well. 


 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Thank you, 


members of the Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 


 (No responses) 


 Again, other members of the public who wish to 


comment on conflicts of interest? 


 (No responses) 


CONTINUATION OF COI DISCUSSION
 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, WORK GROUP CHAIR
 

It appears that there are not additional 


comments. Then if not, we can return to our 


Board discussion, and let me frame this out in 


the following way. 


You have -- you have the document that Dr. 


Melius and the working group have prepared. 


You've had some -- Jim, there's been some 


comments. I guess I'll ask you, Jim. Do you 


think there are any revisions needed to this at 


this time that would preclude adoption today, 


either wording-wise, additions, deletions on 


any of these items? 

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 DR. MELIUS: I don't believe so. I think there 


are some issues that we have discussed among 


the Board, as well as some of the public 


comments that we just heard, that probably are 


-- should -- should be addressed in the future 


'cause I think they're -- they're important 


comments. But I -- I think we should also keep 


in mind that -- one is I think NIOSH would like 


to go ahead and implement a policy. I don't 


see -- or heard or anything that really would 


change that. I think there are some changes 


that NIOSH would -- would make (unintelligible) 


our comments, but those would be things that 


would clarify and, you know, things we could, 


you know, review and should review and -- at a 


later point in time, but I don't think they 


would preclude NIOSH from starting to implement 


this policy. And I think that's particularly 


important, I -- my understanding is ORAU's gone 


ahead already and starting to work on this, but 


they -- there are issues of sort of how do you 


-- what do you do about documents that have 


already been prepared under the old policy 


which -- where there would be concerns about 


conflict of interest under the -- the new 

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policy. And I think that -- that's an 


important question, but again, that can be 


addressed at -- should be addressed at a later 


meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Board members, let me 


ask if there is any objections to proceeding to 


act on this document today. Anyone feel that 


there is information you need before you are 


ready to act or vote? 


 (No responses) 


If not, this comes as a recommendation from the 


working group and therefore doesn't require a 


second, and basically becomes a motion from the 


working group for the Board to approve this 


document as our set of comments to NIOSH 


relative to their proposed conflict of interest 


policy. So with that in mind, let me -- so 


this is basically a motion before us to adopt 


these comments --


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer, this is Mike -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible) them to NIOSH. 


Yeah, Mike Gibson. 


 MR. GIBSON: Question on the motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GIBSON: If this is adopted today, are the 
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public comments made -- I think I heard Jim 


right and I just want to clarify this. The 


public comments that were made today, they will 


be reconsidered even if we adopt this motion. 


They (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: My -- my interpretation of this is 


as follows: That, number one, these public 


comments are also available to NIOSH to react 


to in any way that they feel is appropriate. 


And number two, some of the questions, such as 


-- well, both Terrie's and Richard's questions 


are questions on how the Board will deal with 


very -- in some cases very specific issues, and 


so I -- I don't think there's anything here 


that precludes that, those -- for example, when 


a conflict of interest is identified, what 


rigor of review will be applied. So that's --


that's almost an operational question. But 


certainly as the Board develops its policy, it 


may incorporate an ans-- a generic answer to 


that question, what will we do to assure that 


the review of the validation of the documents 


that have the necessary rigor. 


 DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. I also heard 


Richard Miller mention that he would -- he was 

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suggesting that in the -- the introduction to 


the policy possibly we deal with some of these 


issues up front as to the rigor of the review, 


and also what the remedy would be if there was 


a conflict discovered. And I've duly captured 


those -- those points, Mike, and will -- will 


ensure that NIOSH considers them, you know, in 


its redraft. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Dr. Wade, it -- I mean 


that's -- I don't mean to get back on my 


bandwagon. That's just my concern, that, you 


know, the author of these documents or however 


they want to term it are many times a manager 


of a program, and what has been considered by 


the worker that's had their nose out there in 


the field, and I just want to make sure that 


somewhere that can be addressed and captured 


and -- and those comments from workers taken in 


-- taken into consideration rather than town 


hall meetings. 


 DR. WADE: Understood. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, this is Jim Melius. If I 


can comment on that, I mean I -- we've actually 


discussed it at previous Board meetings when 


we've discussed this concept of a document 

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owner, and -- and the way I interpret that 


person's job is they -- they -- I think it says 


something to the effect they have an 


affirmative duty to go out and, you know, 


quietly collect the information that's -- and 


consider the information that's available and ­

- and that would -- that duty would in-- 


include, you know, I'll call it verifying or 


seeking out information from worker 


representatives and others of that, you know, 


particular set of facts or issues that are, you 


know, raised in a site profile or -- or other 


owned document. And so at least in -- as this 


policy gets implemented that one would think 


that when we were reviewing a site profile we 


were discussing it with the owner and there was 


a particular set of information included in 


there about a particular part of the site or 


program, we would be asking them where did they 


receive the information about that and also as 


of my understanding is that -- that all of that 


will now being, you know, referenced in the 


documents themselves, so we'll see what the 


sources of information were so -- be able to 


judge that and make an assessment of that as we 

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move... 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other comments? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Wade, this is Brad Clawson. 


One -- one of the questions I had, and this 


kind of came up when Richard Miller was 


commenting there, I know as a Board -- and 


being a new member, maybe I don't understand 


how this all works, but I know that as a Board 


member when there arose a conflict of interest, 


we had legal counsel that looked into it for 


us. What I'm wondering is when -- when a 


conflict or possible conflict arises, say with 


ORAU or -- or NIOSH, who are the people that 


look into that conflict? Who are the 


independent people that are away from NIOSH or 


-- or ORAU that look into this? Is -- is there 


an avenue set up for this? 


 DR. WADE: Brad, this is Lew Wade. I mean it ­

- there are many answers to your question. In 


terms of our contractor, you would have not 


only the NIOSH people involved, but then you 


would have the contracting officer and then you 


would have the legal staff that support the 


contract office would look into these issues. 

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It wouldn't go beyond that. There are ethics 


people, you know, within the Department that 


would look at those issues. And the same would 


hold for NIOSH. There is no body outside of 


the organizations looking at it, save for this 


Board, for example. But it would normally be ­

- it would normally be the supervisors, then it 


would be the contracting officer, and then it 


would be legal staff that would support the 


contracting officers. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. So then they would be the 


ones that would -- would look into this further 


then. I just -- you know, in the appearance of 


-- that we want to be able to have complete 


clarity of everything, I just -- I just wanted 


to make sure we all knew how this was going to 


take place. 


 DR. WADE: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But I think in cases such as that 


described by Terrie Barrie with -- with -- 


particularly with the Nevada Test Site issue, 


then it -- it really comes down to NIOSH 


developing a remedy for that and the Board 


basically accepting that remedy. If there --


you know, it's -- it's -- in a sense, it 

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doesn't help us very much to have some attorney 


come in and say this person is not conflicted. 


I think we're -- we're looking at some issues ­

- you know, and they're typically not financial 


issues. They are issues of both perception and 


-- and -- and sometimes reality, or both, that 


we have to establish a -- a remedy that is able 


to make use of -- of information from site 


experts while assuring that there's not a one-


sided, biased input to the process. 


 MR. CLAWSON: And I agree fully with you. I 


just -- you know, I'm still learning the steps 


and everything so far. I just want to keep the 


perception that, you know, we're not having the 


fox watch the henhouse, so to speak. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: You know, on the -- to be a little 


bit more specific, Brad, on the -- on a 


contract, particularly -- there would be a 


technical project officer -- that would be me, 


for example, on the SC&A contract -- and then 


there is a contracting officer who really has 


the legal authority. These judgments would be 


taken in consultation between the technical 


project officer and then the contracting 

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officer, and we would seek legal input as 


appropriate. And that's really where the 


judgments would be made as to whether or not 


there was a conflict and what the remedy would 


need to be for a conflict. All the time the 


Board would have the ability to -- to oversee 


our actions and critique them. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, that -- that's what I 


wanted to make sure. When we -- when we have 


some of these conflicts like this, you know, it 


-- it's -- it's kind of been interesting to me 


that -- I don't want to be the first time to 


hear it in a public meeting. I'd like to have 


been able to have addressed it earlier on. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh, right. 


 MR. GIBSON: And -- this is Mike. You know, 


just an additional comment to this discussion. 


You know, it -- aside from the conflict, you 


know, it could be financial. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. GIBSON: Because I mean the person was paid 


by the contractor to do a job and now they're 


paid -- a DOE contractor to do their job to 


head up the program, and now they're working on 


the government's money and being paid. If they 

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dispute their own work that they've done in the 


past and somehow -- how can I say it -- maybe 


jeopardize the decisions that are being made, 


they may not be on this government contractor's 


employment anymore, so it could be a financial 


interest to it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: And I -- you know, I think that's 


very important. 


 DR. WADE: And then in those situations, just 


to add a little bit to my answer, when you 


start to look at the financial issues, then the 


ethics office will get involved and, you know, 


there are statutes that need to be adhered to 


and they would also review such situations. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let me ask, Board members, 


now are you ready to vote on this document? If 


everyone's ready to vote, I think we'll have to 


vote by roll call here, so Lew, if you would 


take the roll call, we'll get the votes here. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All in favor, vote by saying "aye" 


as your name is called. 


 DR. WADE: (Unintelligible) 


 (No response) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Brad, are you --


 DR. WADE: Brad Clawson? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did we lose Brad? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Oh, I'm sorry, I've got a problem 


with my mute button. I said aye. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Griffon? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Poston? 


 (No response) 


No Dr. Poston? Okay, that's it. I count one, 


two, three, four --


 DR. ZIEMER: The Chair is voting aye. 


 DR. WADE: You're voting aye? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, one, two, three, four, five, 

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six, seven, eight ayes and those are all 


present. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries. Okay, thank you 


very much. 


 We are actually a little bit ahead of schedule, 


but I think it would be appropriate if we went 


ahead and had our break at this time. We -- we 


-- even though we're early, we will still 


reconvene at the stated time, 1:15. That is 


the published time. Lew, do you have any 


comments before we recess? 


 DR. WADE: Just to -- by way of focus in terms 


of I think it's a very good discussion and I 


appreciate Dr. Melius and the working group's 


effort. I think for the Board, in terms of its 


own considerations, you know, as I said, there 


is a floor that exists in terms of what 


represents a conflict or the appearance of a 


conflict. Emily sent you the documents you can 


look at and establish that in your mind as a 


floor. If the Board wants to add to that, then 


we can have a session in September to consider 


other provisions you might want to hold 


yourself to or -- or let yourself be held to in 


addition to that floor. 

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And then the second part of it is the remedy, 


and in the appendix that Dr. Melius mentioned 


the Board has sort of evolved into a code of 


behavior that said this is what will happen if 


a Board member is conflicted. I think it's a ­

- it's a very right and appropriate set of 


rules. I would like the Board to consider that 


and vote on those rules next time so that we 


can have a record of the fact that the Board 


has adopted them. 


When I came into this position they were 


presented to me and I think they're very 


reasonable, but I can't find a record of a 


Board vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, now are you talking about 


the three items in the appendix? 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think in the action that we just 


took -- looking for the number, but Jim, didn't 


-- didn't we (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) them in number -- 


comment number two. 


 DR. WADE: So do I take that as --


 DR. ZIEMER: Comment number two basically 


adopts those three. 

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 DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. Then this'll be 


the vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. That's all I had, Paul. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: Paul? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. For the people who 


have access to their internet during the lunch 


break, you'll find that Dr. Mauro's office has 


sent Dr. Anspaugh's resume. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, thank you very much, Gen. So 


you --


 MR. GRIFFON: And Paul --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- can find the resume -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, this --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- for Lew (sic) Anspaugh on -- on 


your web site -- or on your e-mail. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, this is Mark Griffon. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mike (sic). 


 MR. GRIFFON: One -- one more thing for -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Mark, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: One more thing for lunchtime 

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reading. I e-mailed this morning a draft 


letter for the second and third -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- set of cases, so if -- it's 


only I think two pages, but -- very similar in 


format to the first letter that we developed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, I had actually -- let's 


see, actually it's more like four pages, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but you can -- folks, if you 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's a quick read. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- haven't already got that, Mark 


sent that out this morning. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Hey, Mark, this is Brad Clawson. 


I'm just looking at my e-mail right now and -- 


and I -- I didn't get it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You didn't get it? All right, 


I'll re-send, Brad. I -- I assume -- you've 


been getting my other e-mails, correct? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I've got a couple. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I must have -- I'll resend. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Mark, this is -- 

 DR. LOCKEY: It's just four pages long, right ­
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-


 MR. PRESLEY: -- Bob Presley --


 DR. LOCKEY: -- four pages? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Mark, this is Bob Presley. 


What's the name of that again? 


 MR. GRIFFON: The name. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the -- it's case -- 


individual dose reconstruction case review 


progress report --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- for review of cases 21 through 


60. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think the file is called cases 


21 through 60 report rev. 1. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Correct. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Okay, I got it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right, I'll send that to you 

again, Brad. Sorry. 

 MR. CLAWSON: I appreciate that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: Be back at 1:15 then. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then we are recessed until 1:15. 


Thank you very much. 

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 DR. WADE: Thank you all. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:00 p.m. 


to 1:15 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: So maybe we should get a roll 


call. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, I'll start. Dr. Ziemer is 


here, obviously. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Poston? 


 (No response) 


 DR. WADE: Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Robert Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Mark Griffon? 


 (No response) 


 DR. WADE: Mike Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Brad Clawson? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Here. 


 DR. WADE: We're waiting for Mark, and we need 

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to wait a minute or so because he's -- he's 


batting lead-off. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. And we have not heard 


anything from Poston, I guess. 


 DR. WADE: Have not. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Wade, this is Brad Clawson. 


I was wondering if -- if LaShawn's on the line, 


I still haven't received this file that Mark 


sent out. I'm looking on my computer now. 


(Unintelligible) that if she could forward it 


on to me. 


 DR. WADE: LaShawn, are you on the line? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Dr. Wade, this is Ray. 


LaShawn is in her office and I can go tell her 


that if you'd like. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, why don't you do that, Ray. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Brad, I'm sorry, could you 


repeat what you need? 


 MR. CLAWSON: It was -- Mark sent out -- just 


this morning he sent out a copy of a -- what do 


they call -- a matrix or whatever -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I don't think it was a 


matrix. It was a report -- it was a draft of 


the individual dose reconstruction case 


reviews, it's a summary statement. 

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 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, yeah, that's -- that's the 


one that I needed there. Appreciate it. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. And he just sent it 


out this morning? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, he did. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: The draft letter for the second 


and third series of cases, is that what you're 


talking about, Brad? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Let me just say that I'm 


going to be gone for a moment but y'all can go 


ahead and start. I'll go on autopilot here. 


 DR. WADE: We won't start without you. 


DR. ROESSLER: I've got it here, I can forward 


it --


 DR. MELIUS: We don't really need you, Ray? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Not quite. 


 DR. MELIUS: We could have been on autopilot 


all this time. 


 DR. WADE: Gen, are you saying you have it in 


front of you? 


DR. ROESSLER: I have it in front of me. Let 


me find -- I'm going to put down the phone for 


a minute and find his -- well, you know why he 

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didn't get it? He's not on the list. Okay, 


I'll do it, I'll forward it to you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Who didn't get it? I just --


 MR. GIBSON: I just -- this is Mike, I just 


sent it to Brad. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I -- I sent it to Brad, too. 


I sent it separately to Brad. It didn't go 


through? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Apparently it didn't --


 MR. CLAWSON: I've got two different e-mail 


addresses and we've been having trouble with my 


government one, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I got the inel.gov one in 


here, that's why probably, Brad. I'm sorry. 


 MR. CLAWSON: That's no problem. I've -- I've 


got a couple of Gen's and Mike Gibson's e-mails 


have been coming through, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. Yeah, I sent it to the 


inel.gov --


 DR. ZIEMER: It sounds like Gen is forwarding 


it anyway -- or Mike is -- Mike, did you say 


you forwarded it? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I sent it to the inel.gov 


site. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We got music on here. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Why are we getting music? 


 DR. WADE: I don't know. 


 (Whereupon, music, recorded messages and static 


were on the line, with some Board members 


continuing to speak but whose comments were 


largely unintelligible.) 


 MR. PRESLEY: Ray, this is Bob Presley. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think Ray is not back yet. 


We're just waiting --


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm back. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we'll wait for him, and we 


have this music problem. 


THE COURT REPORTER: LaShawn said she didn't 


receive that this morning. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. We have other people sending 


it. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. 


 MR. CLAWSON: And just to let you guys know, I 


just received the one from Mike Gibson. I 


appreciate that, Mike. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: You're probably going to get 


quite a few more. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I think we're ready to go 


now. 

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 DR. WADE: If somebody just came back on the 


line that had put us on hold, while you were 


away there was music and messages and things, 


so if this means anything to anyone, don't do 


that again, please. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Hey, Brad? 

 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just for clarification, I got 

this gobigwest is the one I've been sending to. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Right, that's my own mail one. 


When I get done, Mark, I'll send you my new 


updated one --


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, all right, I want the 


-- yeah, most current one I should have on my 


list. Sorry about the confusion. 


 DR. WADE: Ray, are you back with us? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir. 


 DR. WADE: Well, just to complete the record, 


I'll do the roll call again. 


 Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Poston? 


 (No response) 

105

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 DR. WADE: Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Robert Presley? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Jim Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Mark Griffon? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Mike Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Here. 


 DR. WADE: And Brad Clawson? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Here. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So Dr. Ziemer, we have eight, 


which is a quorum -- more than a quorum, so 


we're ready to begin. 


ROCKY FLATS SEC ISSUES
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORK GROUP CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's then proceed. The 


first item on our afternoon agenda is the Rocky 


Flats SEC issues, and Mark Griffon has been 


heading up the workgroup that's been dealing 


with that. And Mark, if you'll give us an 


update and report from that workgroup. 


 DR. WADE: If I could very briefly interrupt, 


this is Lew, there is no one on the call with a 


conflict on Rocky Flats, so there is no 

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adjustment we need to make. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Yeah, this is Mark 


Griffon. I think I can give a brief update of 


where we are. We had a workgroup meeting 


recently and someone can help me out with the 


date -- a couple of weeks ago. 


DR. ROESSLER: The 27th. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The 27th, thank you, in -- in 


Cincinnati. And we went through the matrix. 


I've updated the matrix since then and there 


might be a -- a few minor things that Brant 


Ulsh has pointed out to me that -- that I will 


correct, but they don't really affect the 


overall matrix too much. I think there's a 


couple actions which ac-- or -- or items which 


actually are -- are duplicate in the matrix. 


We -- we captured them in an earlier section, 


then we repeated them later in the matrix, so 


they're -- they're very much the same issue. 


But overall, the new matrix that I forwarded to 


everyone -- also I tried to highlight in yellow 


the sections where there is outstanding action, 


so as you look through that matrix if you find 


yellow highlighting, that's kind of where we're 

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at with the workgroup process. 


And I'll just summarize -- if I can take a few 


minutes, I'll summarize the main issues where 


we're still working. 


The super S plutonium question -- I -- I think 


really where we're down to on that one is we're 


-- we're looking -- we've asked for a final 


look at the design cases and whether they are 


the -- the appropriate cases were selected for 


this -- for this model. And to do that, NIOSH 


has provided us with the Hanford-1 case, which 


we hadn't had till the la-- I believe it came 


right before the last workgroup meeting, and 


also 25 of the ca-- of the individuals that 


were involved in the 1955 fire, and we -- we 


just want to -- the workgroup and SC&A want to 


crosswalk that information to make -- to -- to 


assure that the -- the bounding cases were 


actually selected for the -- the model. I 


think there's large agreement right now that 


the model looks -- the methodology -- if the -- 


if the correct design cases were -- are there, 


the methodology looks -- looks reasonable, and 


SC&A has -- has reviewed that and assessed that 


and they're in agreement with that, I -- I 

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believe. At this point that's where we're at. 


For -- and -- and other workgroup members, at 


any point feel free to -- to follow the matrix, 


but -- but these are sort of major topics 


within the matrix. 


Second major topic is other radionuclides. 


We've kind of captured it as other 


radionuclides. At the last workgroup meeting 


we had a extensive review. Mel Chew and the 


Oak Ridge team went back, much as they did with 


the Y-12 facility, back to the material -- the 


counting records, and they identified these 


other radionuclides and the amounts on site, 


and I guess they have some information on where 


those might have been over time on the site, 


what buildings, what facilities. These other 


radionuclides include thorium-232, uranium-233, 


curium-244 and neptunium-237, plutonium-238 and 


242 and californium-252, and americium-241. 


Now for most of these isotopes, some of them 


have been identified certainly as -- as on-site 


but probably in -- in sort of tracer amounts. 


They were used, but they were as tracers in the 


weapons and therefore the overall amounts would 


have been low. Others have been identified -- 

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I don't think -- what we've asked NIOSH to do 


is follow up on how -- or -- or where these 


nuclides were used and to what extent or -- or 


the approach they would use for reconstruction 


of dose, but it -- it -- there's -- there's 


some question as to whether in the early years 


there would have been nuclide-specific analysis 


for many of these. They would have likely had 


a gross alpha. So then we need to know the 


location and the -- and who was involved in 


those operations. We have to put -- put people 


and time together -- people and locations 


together to make sure there is a 


scientifically-plausible model for these 


nuclides. 


So we -- we've got more information on the 


source term quantities. We -- we still have 


questions on how they're going to reconstruct 


doses from gross alpha if that's all they have 


available. That would be the early years, 


primarily. 


They did answer a question -- NIOSH answered a 


question on americium-241. We had an 


outstanding issue on the separations process 


with americium-241 and it -- it appears, based 

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on the materials counting logs and the sort of 


process knowledge or -- or the knowledge of 


what was going on there at the site and when it 


was going on that americium-241 separations 


pre-1963 would have likely been very small-


scale squa-- small-scale quantities when they 


were trying to research the method by which to 


do the americium separation, and they were 


small-scale because basically at that point the 


plutonium that they had was described as 


basically young plutonium with -- with no 


appreciable ingrowth of the americium-241, so 


therefore there was likely not much of the 


americium around to -- to do these pilot runs 


on. So the -- certainly the source term is -- 


is very low pre-'63. And the pre-'63, the 


reason that was so important was prior to that 


there was only gross alpha data. After that 


they did have americium-specific measurements. 


So we think that that's a pretty good answer on 


-- on the americium. If it was pilot stu-- it 


seems like it was pilot studies and very small 


quantities of americium during that time 


period, pre-'63. 


The third primary issue was a question -- 

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there's still some follow-up questions on the 


calculation and assignment of neutron doses for 


the early -- again, early periods. And I 


believe NIOSH and SC&A -- even as early as 


yesterday I think I saw an e-mail indicating 


that they're going to try to have a conference 


call to clarify some of these points in the 


next several days. Some of it revolves around 


this question of neutron-to-photon ratios and 


how they were derived and whether the most -- 


the highest potentially exposed people to 


neutrons were monitored, and if not, how are 


they correcting that from the badge data. So 


that's a -- that's a follow-up item that we're 


working on. 


And then a -- a fourth large topic -- well, let 


me skip that one for now. I'll go to the fifth 


topic, the D&D worker question. And this 


question arose at the last Board meeting in -- 


in Washington. And the real question here was 


-- was the question as to whether the type -- 


type of monitoring and therefore the type of 


data available for dose reconstruction would be 


different for these workers during when the D&D 


activities started, when the cleanup started. 

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And we've -- NIOSH has suggested that -- that 


all workers remained on routine bioassay 


program. We've asked them to check that 


against the database as best they can, 


including looking at subcontractor workers to ­

- to give some level of assurance that in fact 


the routine data is available to reconstruct 


doses for -- for those workers. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What's the starting date on that ­

- on the D&D --


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know when the -- I think 


it's the --


 DR. ZIEMER: It's fairly recent, is it not? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I --


UNIDENTIFIED: '93. 


 MR. GRIFFON: '93. And -- and then the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And --


 MR. GRIFFON: Go ahead. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- are we having trouble finding 


the information, even though it's that recent? 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's not a matter of -- of 


finding the information. It's a matter of 


matching individuals with -- I -- I don't think 


they've looked at the database data really -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- so they -- they've indicated 


that procedure would have said that -- that if 


they were an RW-2 worker, they would have been 


required to be on routine monitoring. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But we haven't confirmed that is 


what you're saying. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but -- yeah, but we -- you 


know, so they have to crosswalk that list of 


individuals that likely were rad worker-2 


trained and -- and determine if they were 


actually -- and determine if they were actually 


bioassay monitored. And you know, part of this 


is raised by some of the testimony at the 


meeting where they indicated that they had 


breathing zone air samples, and they were 


relying a lot on the breathing zone air 


samples, and -- and there's some -- you know, 


there's certainly -- there was certainly a 


shift to that on a lot of the D&D sites during 


that time period, so we want to just make sure 


that -- that the urinalysis program was robust 


enough to allow for reconstruction -- or else ­

- or else do they have an alternative way to do 


it with air sampling data, you know, so that's 


sort of where we're going with that. 

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 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike, if I could add in -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, Mike, go ahead. 


 MR. GIBSON: There was -- at that time period ­

- at the end when Bush one announced the end of 


the Cold War and we went into D&D mode, there 


seemed -- at least at Mound and at Rocky had a 


lot of similar contractors between Mound and 


Rocky, there was a big shift in policy and 


routine meant one thing prior to, in production 


years, than it did in D&D years -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- as Mark has kind of indicated, 


and -- and there was just -- there was just a 


big difference in monitoring employees and who 


met the 100 millirem threshold. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GIBSON: So you know, there could be a lot 


of unmonitored dose, potentially. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and that's -- that's what 


we -- you know, we just want to see exactly -- 


you know, we -- we understand that -- basically 


what NIOSH has offered thus far is procedures 


indicating what was happening, but you know, if 


we -- if we crosswalk that with the database 

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and -- and it seems like it matches up pretty 


consistently, then -- then I think we're done 


with that issue. But if we have a large 


discrepancy, then I think we -- you know, we 


may have a -- a -- more questions on that. 


 DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I've reviewed 


some of the beryllium screening data from Rocky 


Flats, and during that time period there was a 


lot of flux in where people worked and how they 


were assigned and which employers they may be 


listed under and so forth. And so just the 


logistics of tracking people and making sure 


that you -- you know, whether or not they were 


monitored and who has the data and so -- I mean 


it can be quite I think confusing there and so 


it's certainly worth some more effort into 


that. And my recollection from the Denver 


meeting was that -- that NIOSH agreed they had 


to do more work on that era of -- at the plant, 


also. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah, and I -- I think 


though, Jim, from the workgroup, they -- they 


still -- they just hadn't had -- they're still 


looking into, you know, how to crosswalk this. 


I think part of it is getting these roster 

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files and the rad worker-2 files to crosswalk 


with the dosimetry files, you know, so they're 


-- they're in the process of that. But --


UNIDENTIFIED: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I agree, that's why we went 


down this -- the -- we had these questions was 


people falling through the cracks during this 


time period. 


 MR. GIBSON: And this is Mike again, if I can 


just add -- for example, prior to the D&D era 


you may have had 15 or 20 classifications of 


workers, and due to the renegotiating of 


contracts -- to closure contracts, you may have 


went down to three or four classes of workers ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GIBSON: -- which --

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh, yeah, they weren't 

operational workers. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- they may have encompassed, you 


know, instead of looking at electricians, pipe 


fitters, you may have to look at maintenance -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- instead of looking at D&D 


worker, janitors, you know, a host of other 

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titles, you may have to look at demolition 


technicians and at -- so it's -- it's not 


really clear to us, you know, how that was -- 


you know, how that was merged. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So -- so -- yeah, that's 


-- that's an ongoing action and -- and -- as 


well, and we haven't had -- as we go along, by 


the way, I should point out that NIOSH has -- 


is trying their best now to sort of post things 


on the O drive in real time -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- as they find these things -- 


or assess them and come to conclusions, they're 


posting them, even though we -- we still have a 


tendency to -- to have a lot of things posted 


right before the meetings, but I do that as 


well, so we're all trying to get the data out 


there as quick as we can. 


The last large item is -- fall -- fall into the 


category of data validation or data 


reliability, and there's sort of -- as I have 


in my notes -- five sort of sub-topics within 


that and -- and we -- these -- these prongs, as 


I call them, to assess the reliability of data 


are all sort of -- we had a little more clarity 

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on them in this last meeting of -- of how -- 


how these things are coming together. 


One item is sort of what I'm calling log book 


analysis, and thi-- this is basically to look 


at some of the log books, the -- the -- 


obviously the ones likely to have more 


pertinent data such as the decon log books or 


the radiation technician or HP log books that ­

- that have, as we've seen already, some 


information on either measurements or a note 


that an incident occurred and someone was sent 


for a -- you know, in vivo count or a 


urinalysis count, and -- and then those -- 


those log books can be sampled and -- and 


compared with the electronic database, the HIS20 database. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And we're hoping -- at the last 


meeting NIOSH did -- did present a -- an 


analysis of one of the log books, the Kittinger 


log book. I think it was from 1969 -- I might 


have the wrong year on that, but -- where they 


went through in depth and went back actually to 


individual files for these individuals and 


crosswalked the data and actually found fairly 

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good corroboration with the -- with the log 


books. But I think what we've asked for going 


forward is let's select -- randomly select some 


of these log books over the decades extending 


from the '70s through the -- 2000, into the D&D 


period, and also try to cover the various sort 


of production areas, the -- the different 


production areas. But then also I think we've 


-- we've said, you know, instead of going back 


to every individual rad file, you know, we're 


asking for NIOSH to randomly -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- go through these books and 


select some data points and compare them to the 


electronic database and -- and -- so that -- 


that's one sort of tool is look at the log 


books, and this is a way to -- to check the 


reliability of the database. 


 The other part of this, which I -- I sort of 


outline as a separate item is the urinalysis 


log books. Same sort of approach, find some 


over the decades and compare it with the HIS-20 


database. These urinalysis logs were 


identified in the site profile document. 
I 


think really the hold-up was the retrieval of 

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them. They had been put back to the Federal 


Records Center or something like that, so 


they're in the pro-- NIOSH is now in the 


process of recovering -- or retrieving some of 


those urinalysis logs for comparison. 


Third item is -- SC&A had brought up a question 


about a gap in the data in 1969, and they did 


the -- they found this through assessment of 


the HIS-20 electronic data. And I believe 


NIOSH has also now provided us with -- they -- 


they looked at the claimants and found that 


there was a large percentage of the claimants 


that actually, in their records, were missing 


at least a portion of their 1969 data, either 


all four quarters or -- or one quarter was 


missing, and there was a large percentage of 


individuals, so they're -- they've found the 


raw data for that time period and they're in 


the process of crosswalking the raw data with 


the HIS-20 data for that year, for 1969, 'cause 


there appears to be some -- you know, some -- 


some potential data gap there in the electronic 


form, at least. And there -- there are several 


explanations or possible explanations were 


offered during the workgroup meeting, but 

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really the bottom line is they're going to go 


back to the external raw records and -- and 


compare for 1969 and -- and determine why we 


have that gap or apparent gap in -- in the 


electronic form. 


Then the fifth -- or fourth item is the -- 


several safety reports were identified as 


apparently related to dosimetry or dosimetry 


deficiencies, and at the last workgroup meeting 


or the last Board meeting, I forget, we -- we 


had requested that NIOSH go back to the -- back 


to the Records Center and ask for a whole 


listing of safety reports over the life of the 


facility. I think they found a listing that 


started around 1970, and from that they -- they 


looked -- based on the titles, they tried to 


identify reports that they thought could have 


been related to dosimetry issues. They've 


identified some and they're in the process of 


retrieving those. 


We also asked SC&A to look at that same listing 


and identify whether they had any above and 


beyond what NIOSH had identified that they 


would -- would think would be of interest, and 


SC&A is still -- they're in the proc-- I think 

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they have a draft listing, but they're in the 


process of working on that list now to share 


with NIOSH. And once they have the -- the -- 


these reports, they'll -- you know, the ones 


they think are pertinent, they'll -- they'll 


post them on the O drive and -- and follow up 


on those reports as well. 


And then the last item is follow up on 


individual -- individual cases or -- and these 


were basically -- there's -- there's quite a 


few listed in the matrix, and a lot of these 


come out of the petition itself. The 


petitioners raised through affidavit several -- 


many different instances or items that they 


believe -- and -- and we sort of captured a lot 


of these under this -- this question of data 


validation or data reliability. Some relate to 


mishandling of TLDs, some related to "no data 


available" questions, questions along those 


lines. And NIOSH has already followed up on 


many of these, and they continue to -- to -- 


and this -- they have not provided this yet, 


but they say they have a draft of a listing of 


all the -- any allegations or af-- you know, 


made in the petition and they're cr-- they're 

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walking this through -- they're checking each 


individual one to determine whether -- you 


know, the merit of -- of each and -- and, you 


know, we want to make sure they have an 


explanation of each, if there is a good 


explanation. 


So those are -- those are five separate items 


that all sort of fall under this category of -- 


of the data validation, so that's clearly one 


of our --


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- big topics and -- and there's 


still a lot of raw data that's, you know, under 


review -- log books, external dose records, et 


cetera, but we're moving forward on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That sounds like a pretty 


extensive group of -- or sets of work and jobs 


that you guys have been tracking, Mark. Can 


you give us an estimate of where you will be by 


the time of our September meeting? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well --


 DR. ZIEMER: What -- what should we expect at 


that point? It sounds like -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the data validation issue may 

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not yet be closed by then. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we're -- I -- I think we're 


still -- you know, everyone's trying to move 


toward that end. I -- I -- you know, we did 


set up another workgroup meeting for August 


31st and, you know, really I guess we'll -- 


we'll know a lot more then, but we -- we may -- 


you know, even if NIOSH has responses on all 


these fronts, I think we probably still need to 


give SC&A a chance to give us a review. SC&A 


has held back on a review, or we haven't asked 


them for an official review of the petition 


evaluation report because it was pending this 


sort of work -- ongoing work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I think we need to still give 


them an op-- you know, a chance or -- or time 


to -- to assess what NIOSH comes back with and 


-- and -- and report on our -- a review of the 


evaluation report. So it's going to be -- it's 


going to be -- it's going to be tough to meet 


that September deadline, in my opinion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: But we're tr-- you know, we're -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- deadline, but we --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- still want to have some feeling 


for whether we would be at a point where we 


could take specific action, since we are 


meeting out there, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that's also an opportunity to 


get some additional local input and -- as well, 


so that will be -- be of value. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we're meeting in Nevada. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, in Nevada, right, I'm sorry, 


yeah. 


DR. ROESSLER: That's sort of local. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, no -- no --


 MR. GIBSON: Paul, this is Mike, and as part of 


the working group, you know, I think -- you 


know, I -- I want to kind of back what Mark 


says, that we really don't know how long this 


is going to take because -- and at least from 


my perspective on the workgroup, these things 


that are being checked into as, quote, 


allegations of workers, as opposed to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- taking for gospel what these 


site experts have written down is a big 

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concern, at least to me -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- and I think to the rest of the 


working group and, you know, to make it fair 


and balanced, I just -- you know, we need to 


make sure that -- are they truly allegations or 


-- you know, let's -- let's give a -- let's 


give a fair balance here to the site expert and 


to what someone that's actually been out in the 


field has said. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, you -- and Mike, I may have 


misspoke. I mean I think where these people, 


you know, put a written affidavit out there, I 


think they take that pretty seriously and -- 


and I think we should, you know, weigh it bef-- 


you know, you're -- you're absolutely right, we 


should give it a fair account. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, I (unintelligible), yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not a rush to judgment. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. So that's why -- 


and I think -- to that end, I think NIOSH has 


received that message because they have gone 


through the entire petition and -- and -- and 


are -- we -- we want to make sure we can answer 

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all these -- these questions. When -- when you 


look at them in aggregate, too, there's -- 


there's many questions that related to this, 


you know, quest-- overall question of data 


validation, so we want to make sure that we -- 


you know, we don't take that issue lightly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Any other of the working 


group have comments on this report or anything 


to add? 


 MR. PRESLEY: No, I -- this is Bob Presley. 


I'm in good shape with the report, no problems. 


 DR. WADE: We also might have petitioners on 


the line and they're free to make comment if 


they would like. 


 (No responses) 


Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And other Board members have any 


questions for Mark? 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. Not just a 


question, I just want to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Further comment, yeah. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- comment that, you know, Mark 


has been doing a heck of a job on this and, you 


know, I'd just like to applaud him on that. 


He's really -- he's -- he's digging into the 

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weeds, which I think we need to do, and you 


know, I think he's done an excellent job. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Very -- very good, and I ­

- I think you speak for the rest of the Board 


when you applaud that. Mark, we do thank you 


very much. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Are there any other 


comments on the Rocky Flats status then? 


 (No responses) 


SC&A CONTRACT TASKS FOR NEXT FISCAL YEAR
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, TECHNICAL PROJECT OFFICER SC&A CONTRACT
 

If not, we can move ahead to our next item, 


which is the SC&A contract task for the next 


fiscal year. Lew will lead us in that 


discussion, and Lew, you have -- or -- yeah, 


you have distributed to the Board some 


documents, I assume everybody got those, 


dealing with the proposals for this next year. 


 DR. WADE: Right, these were individual task 


proposals we had received from SC&A, as well as 


a summary sheet. 


Before I begin, I'll walk -- and I'll walk you 


through this quickly. I think David Staudt is 

probably on the line. David, are you with us? 

 MR. STAUDT: Sure. 
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 DR. WADE: David is the contracting officer, so 


if there are any particular questions, you can 


raise -- and I think we'll be depending on John 


Mauro -- John, I assume you're with us as well? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. 


 DR. WADE: -- to -- to expound. But let me --


let me try and paint a very general picture and 


then we can fill it in. Those gentlemen can 


help me, and then we can have as much 


discussion as you would like. 


 The SC&A contract, we put money into it on a 


fiscal year to fiscal year basis, and the 


fiscal year starts on October 1st again. I 


would assume we would have about $3.5 million 


available for this contract; one never knows, 


with the vagaries of the federal budge, as well 


as just the -- the workings within the 


Administration. Who knows what the funding 


levels will be, but I'm operating towards a 


target of $3.5 million. 


What I would like to do is leave this call with 


the Board voting through the ability for David 


to put in motion contract modifications that 


would amend the contract, add money to the 


contract to start work for next fiscal year. 

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While we have a meeting in September before the 


end of the fiscal year, given the deadlines 


that -- that David faces in procurement, it 


would be much better for him to have the 


Board's okay to begin to move forward on this 


call. 


Now it's not necessary that we reach agreement 


on everything. If you remember, last year we ­

- we agreed on some things in general and in 


some things we -- we came up with sort of 


stopgap solutions, and that's possible today as 


well. So -- but I would like to get some 


marching orders from the Board that would allow 


David to take contract actions that would 


extend the SC&A contract into next year. 


Now let me go through very quickly what SC&A 


has given to us. And again, remember this is a 


contract that really has six tasks, although 


five of them are active now. Task I is where 


site profile work is done by SC&A, and to this 


point SC&A has started and/or finished on 16 


site profiles. This proposal for next year 


asks for funding to take on five new site 


profile reviews, as well as to allow for the 


Savannah River Site to be re-- re-evaluated. 

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Since SC&A did its evaluation of Savannah 


River, a new version of the site profile has 


come out. And while we're actively involved in 


reviewing that, it's necessary for SC&A to -- 


to take a more detailed look at the new site 


profile. So the proposal we have are for five 


new and a redo of Savannah River. We don't 


have to define what the five are at this point. 


SC&A has given us a generic proposal for five 


new plus a redo of Savannah River. You have 


the workup and you have the rollup of the cost 


for that. 


Task II is behind us. That was a task to 


develop some tracking systems and things, but 


Task III is really where we do the procedures 


review, and that sort of morphed into the 


review of workbooks. SC&A has given us a 


proposal to review 30 new procedures and 


associated workbooks. Again, we don't have to 


identify exactly what they are at this point. 


John Mauro has provided us all with a sort of a 


list of what the candidate procedures are for 


review, but he's prepared, at our instruction, 


a Task III proposal to look at 30 new 


workbooks. 

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Then we -- I'm going to skip Task IV for a 


minute because it's the most complex and go to 


Task V, which is the relatively new SEC task. 


And there we've asked SC&A to give us a 


proposal for their doing six reviews of SEC 


petitions. Again, we're -- we're moving away 


from now the expanded or the -- the quick 


review, and they've given us a proposal to look 


at six additional SEC petitions. Again, we 


can't define what they'll be now because we 


don't know what they'll be. Probably the 


petitions they'll be reviewing haven't been 


qualified, or possibly even submitted yet. So 


you have a proposal there for six SEC 


petitions. 


Task VI is a project management task we broke 


out as a new task. It used to be buried in the 


others, and for reasons of transparency we felt 


it better to break it out as a separate 


proposal, and you have those materials in front 


of you. 


Let me go back to Task IV. That's where we do 


the review of individual dose reconstructions. 


And based upon our last discussion, we asked 


John to come up with several alternatives. And 

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to try and understand the alternatives, there 


are three variables I'd want you to keep in 


mind. The first is the number of DRs that 


would be reviewed. The second variable is 


whether the review would be a line-by-line item 


of every line, or whether we would grant some 


discretion to the SC&A reviewers -- in this 


case Hans and Kathy -- to focus their attention 


on lines that they feel are the most fruitful 


to review. So again, granting discretion to 


the reviewer. And the third variable is will 


we be looking mostly at these min/max cases, or 


will we be trying to focus on realistic cases ­

- and I think you all know the distinction, 


we've talked about this often enough. 


So SC&A has given us four proposals, four 


alternatives. The first, their alternative 


one, is 80 cases that encompass a line-by-line 


review and would likely be mostly min/max 


cases. For the same amount of money they can 


do 110 individual DR reviews with discretion 


given to the SC&A team -- again, mostly min/max 


cases. Also for the same money they would do 


55 reviews, with discretion granted to the SC&A 


team, but there would be a greater 

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concentration of realistic cases, and the cost 


there is roughly $600,000. 


They give us an alternative 2B for $890,000, 


which would be 80 cases, discretion to the SC&A 


team, trying to focus on realistic cases. And 


I hope that comes through. John can -- can 


better clarify. 


So again, what you have in your possession are 


SC&A proposals for the work that I've just 


outlined. You also have a rollup sheet that 


would amount to $3,200,000 roughly for the work 


I outlined for the -- the $600K alternatives 


for Task IV, and then if we were to look at the 


80 cases with bias towards more realistic, the 


overall SC&A proposal then is approaching $3 


and a half million. 


So again, what I would like to see us do today, 


after discussion and further elaboration on 


this, is to give David Staudt the authority he 


needs to move forward to implement SC&A's work 


for next year, 'cause I don't think anybody 


that I could imagine talking to would want to 


see a break in the -- the quality service that 


SC&A has been providing to the Board and the 


program overall. 

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I'll stop at that and, you know, turn to John 


to -- to say what needs to be said to make what 


I said more understandable or more complete. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, thank you, Lew. Lew, by the 


way, you did a excellent job in digesting and 


communicating the -- the concepts. What I can 


do -- certainly (unintelligible) any questions 


(unintelligible) through with this -- if you 


folks have in front of you each of the 


proposals, we could go through the -- the work 


hour allocations and how I came to where I came 


for each one of these tasks. If you could open 


up to Exhibit 1 in -- for our Task Order I 


proposal, this is the task order dealing with 


site profile reviews -- 


 DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius, if I can 


interrupt a second. Wouldn't it be best if we 


talked first about the scope of what's included 


in the task orders rather than trying to 


estimate the hours and so forth, 'cause -- 


DR. MAURO: Sure. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- I -- I think we need to discuss 


certainly the issue with the individual dose 


reconstructions and it -- I mean I hate to have 


us, you know, later on talk about scope and 

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make changes that -- that affect the hours, we 


go back -- go back over those. 


 DR. WADE: Right, I think that's a good 


suggestion, Jim. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I agree, and I think maybe what -- 


what we should do here -- this is Ziemer -- is, 


you know, take each one, see whether or not we 


agree with the scope. Once the scope is 


established, I think the rest becomes more pro 


forma anyway. There may be some details the 


Board wants to dig into, but the scope's going 


to be the key issue on each of these. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: Before we get into the 


individual scopes, I'm looking at the Task IV, 


the two different options. There's one -- 


really includes 1, 2A and 3, and the other's 


2B. Do those two options depend on what money 


actually does come through, or is there 


something else in there that would lead us to 


pick one over the other? 


 DR. WADE: No, what -- I mean I would hope -- 


this is Lew -- that -- I think both options are 


available to the Board under the target funding 

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that I think we would have. Granted, the more 


expensive option would leave us with less of a 


margin to work with. But again, I -- I would 


rather the Board start by, you know, deciding 


what it thinks is appropriate and right, and 


then we'll try and deal with the money after 


then. But I think there is funding to cover 


either of the -- the cost options under Task 


IV, as I look at it right now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Task IV, Gen and Board members, is 


-- really you can always adjust the numbers up. 


I think the key thing there is -- is more the ­

- the kinds of dose reconstructions you want to 


do, the -- the -- the best-estimate cases or 


the line-- and you know, allow some discretion 


on the others. For example, if you pick option 


2B and you don't get enough money, you can 


always lessen the number of cases and keep 


still the same philosophical approach on what 


you're doing. 


 DR. WADE: Right. Or even adjust between 


tasks, say --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: I think the -- right, I think the 


talk today, Gen and Paul, would be what's the 

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sense of the Board as to the kind of work it 


would like to see done, and then we'll deal 


with the money as we go. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, good. That clarifies it. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I'd just 


like to ask Dr. Wade, is the money -- could you 


briefly describe -- is the money limited to 


what we can authorize SC&A to -- or vote on 


SC&A to do, as opposed to -- and kind of give 


us a comparison as far as what NIOSH 


contractors -- are their -- are their monies 


limited or -- you know, if SC&A gives you a 


proposal and ORAU gives you a proposal, are the 


monies limited and who controls those monies 


and who -- who grants and allows those monies? 


 DR. WADE: To give you a -- the short answer, 


Mike, the money that we're talking about 


historically, and I assume in the near future, 


flows to HHS/NIOSH from the Department of 


Labor. So again there would be negotiations 


between the Departments as to the funding 


required, and then the Department of Labor 


really controls the funding. Once the money 


comes to NIOSH, then we act consistent with the 


-- the proposals we had made, with limited 

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amounts of discretion. 


The question of whether or not NIOSH should ask 


for more money for review and less money for 


ORAU is an internal NIOSH decision that we've 


taken. Certainly the Board could weigh in and 


offer guidance on that. There is always 


flexibility in these things, and there's always 


uncertainty in them, as well. So the $3.5 


million number for SC&A has been a number that 


we've grown to over the last years to, I think, 


provide adequate funding for the scope of the 


review activity as the Board has outlined it. 


If the Board wants to push for more, then I can 


take that as an instruction and see what I can 


do in terms of securing more. But that's --


this -- that's where we are right now. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. And as far as -- as far as 


a percentage, could you give me an idea of the 


amount of money, percentage-wise, for NIOSH 


contractors as opposed to our contractor? 


 DR. WADE: Boy -- I mean I would ask NIOSH 


people on the phone to help me with that. Jim 


Neton, are you on the line? 


DR. NETON: Yes, I am. 


 DR. WADE: What do we spend in terms of the -- 

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the doing of dose reconstructions and site 


profiles in a year that would include the 


principal contractors and NIOSH? Do you have a 


number off the top of your head? 

DR. NETON: You know, I really don't. I don't 

have it off the top of my head. 

 MR. GIBSON: Is your -- I think your 

contracting --

DR. NETON: I can certainly get this. 

 MR. GIBSON: -- officer's on the line. Does he 

have an idea of that? 

 DR. WADE: I don't know if -- David, do you 


know the cost of the ORAU contract per year? 


 MR. STAUDT: No, I -- I think they had a -- 


probably ran like $4 million a month, but I'd 


have to get that exact number for you. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we can get the number, Mike. 


The number that I will get back to the Board 


will be -- it will look at the principal NIOSH 


contractors that are involved in the doing of 


dose reconstructions, the development of site 


profiles and SEC petition reviews, as well as 


NIOSH's own staff, contrasted to the $3.5 


million that we spend on the SC&A contract. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, and I -- you know, I only 

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ask that because, you know, we're not all 


professionals on the Board and we rely on SC&A, 


and you know, I would just like to see the 


distribution of -- I know that the dose recons­

- ORAU's overall dose reconstructions and stuff 


take a lot of work and a lot of money, but I 


would just like to see kind of a -- a 


percentage or a cost of the overall contrast 


between the two. 


 DR. WADE: Right. I think it's reasonable for 


any group who's -- who's reviewing work to 


decide what percentage of the -- the cost spent 


in doing the work should be spent in reviewing 


the work. And I'm sorry I don't have that 


number at my fingertips. It's not the part of 


the business that I'm most intimately involved 


in. I know the SC&A numbers, but not the 


others. 


 MR. STAUDT: Mike, this is David Staudt. When 


we get proposals in from SC&A, we -- we are 


obligated to look at the statement of work and 


the hours proposed, and we analyze that and we 


confirm other direct rates that are applied to 


that, so when you're looking at dollars, we -- 


we have to look at a specific statement of work 

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and -- and go from there. Although you may 


want to compare the total dollars against ORAU, 


we -- I'm obligated to look at those individual 


task orders and make sure that they are priced 


reasonably, so that's -- that's our main job. 


 MR. GIBSON: I understand that, David, and all 


I'm saying is when you go to the Department of 


Labor and request funds, I would just like to 


know overall what you request and see how that 


flows down to SC&A and -- and the others. 


 DR. WADE: Yes, Mike, we can get you that. I 


don't know if we can get it before the end of 


this call, but I can certainly get it before 


the next meeting. 


 MR. GIBSON: That's fine, Lew. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe just to clarify that 


further, the request itself is usually tied in, 


is it not, with something similar to a work 


statement in terms of what is being -- it's not 


just a blank check. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In other words --


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I -- I understand that. I'm 


-- I'm just saying -- you know, I just want to 


make sure that we have the thorough review that 

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we need from our contractor as opposed to the 


work done by the other contractors. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, are we 


ready to proceed then on the individual tasks? 


 DR. WADE: Right, we could begin, as Dr. Melius 


proposed, by looking at the -- the scope of 


work of each task. And so Task I is site 


profile reviews. And there, if I'm not 


mistaken, John, it's five new reviews and a 


redo of Savannah River Site. 


DR. MAURO: That's correct, and the five new 


reviews includes the OTIBs and other procedures 


that are site-specific. One of the things 


we're finding out is the site profile very 


often has accompanying it a variety of other 


documents, including workbooks and including 


OTIBs and procedures that are specific for that 


site -- specific aspects of that site, so what 


we did is say that when we do the review we 


will review the -- the full suite of documents 


that are associated with the site profile. So 


we're basically doing five of those, and we 


estimate it's about 1,300 work hours per site 


profile review with its accompanying documents 


to deliver that first draft report, the large 

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document that shows up. And then separate from 


that, we've allocated 150 work hours for the 


closeout process for each one of those site 


profile reviews. And so those are the -- 


that's the -- the way we've cost this out. We 


 DR. ZIEMER: John, this is Ziemer. Didn't you 


have some money in there to close out also some 


of the current ones? 


DR. MAURO: That's correct. We assume that we 


are going to need to close out in that fiscal 


year 11 of the site profiles, that is -- that 


would -- that would include of course the -- 


the new five, and six additional ones that are 


still in the hopper, so to speak. We -- we 


expect that we are -- I know we're in the 


closeout process of many of the -- for example, 


Nevada Test Site -- but there are others that 


are -- have been -- are completed and will be 


completed by September. By the way, we will 


complete by September all 16, and you will have 


the draft reports in your hands for all 16, but 


by no means will we be in a position to -- and 


-- and we -- our -- my expectation right now is 


that we will have exhausted, or close to 

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exhausted, all of our resources for Task I by 


the end of September, and we will have 


delivered the major products. Namely, all of 


the site pro-- draft site profile reviews and 


all of the workbook reviews that are within the 


current fiscal year 2006 site profile -- 2006 


budget for -- and scope for Task I, but we -- 


well, what I've done is ask David and -- and 


Lew -- that is, we are probably going to need 


some additional resources in fiscal year 2007 


to continue the closeout of the site profile 


reviews that will carry over into next year. 


You know, the 16 that are part of fiscal year 


2006. I believe that there will probably be -- 


approximately, I believe, five of those are -- 


five or six that will carry over and I've asked 


for 1,000 work hours specifically -- that -- 


that's a request over and above what was in the 


scope of work that was requested. So 


altogether, in effect, you can think of Task I 


as consisting of three types of activities: 


the re-- the review of the new site profiles 


and the delivery of these draft reports, then 


the -- and then the expanded review of those 


very same documents, and the third element is 

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the support of the closeout of the previous 


fiscal year 2006. Total bottom line is 8,750 


work hours to perform that work. 


The thing that's a little bit new here is that 


we've added in the workbooks and the OTIBs and 


any associated procedures that are associated 


with it, because in reality is we find that we 


do that anyway, so we wanted to make it -- you 


know, formalize it, incorporate it into the 


process. 


So that's Task Order I, if there are any -- any 


questions? 


 DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I have some 


questions regarding site profile revisions, 


specifically to Hanford, but this may refer to 


some of the others that I'm not familiar with. 


We found when we went into -- started to get 


into comment resolution on Hanford that NIOSH's 


most common response to a SC&A comment was 


well, we'll address that in the revised site 


profile document, either underway or, you know, 


is in some-- someplace in the process, and 


we're still trying to figure out exactly where 


we are with -- in terms of trying to review 


that site profile and where we are in the 

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process. I -- I just am concerned that -- you 


know, of these that we've done or have been 


completed so far, how many that when we go to 


resolve the comments we're going to find that 


there's a whole new set of revisions that 


haven't been reviewed yet. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I understand your concern. In 


fact, that's exactly what happened with 


Savannah River. Enough time passed between our 


completion of Rev. 2 -- I believe it was Rev. 2 


of the Savannah River site profile, and then we 


went to the close-- closeout process. By the 


time we actually entered the closeout process, 


there is a Rev. 3 out, which requires -- which 


is really a redo. So as a result, we asked for 


additional 500 work hours over and above what 


we -- so that we could review Rev. -- Rev. 3. 


 Now, right now we are -- I do not believe we're 


in that position on any other -- except perhaps 


Bethlehem Steel, if -- we should talk about 


that for a minute, but let me first answer your 


question. 


 With let's say Hanford, it's our understanding 


that there is a revision of the Hanford site 


profile, but since it's not in place right now, 

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my -- my assumption is that we're going to 


treat each of the existing site profile review 


reports as if it's going to enter the closeout 


process as we planned. Namely, we will hold 


one or two meetings. We've allocated 150 work 


hours to participate in those meetings and 


close out those issues. It's certainly 


possible that that closeout process could 


expand. It could expand if -- if a -- if a new 


-- between now and say INEL, as an example. We 


haven't really started the review closeout 


process for INEL. If an INEL revision is -- 


emerges, a major revision, not -- not some -- 


not some OTIB or other document, but a major 


revision to the document, and we are -- it's -- 


we're -- SC&A's requested to re-- well, let -- 


before we enter into the closeout process, 


let's first review this revision. Well, all 


bets are off on the 150 work hours that we set 


aside for the closeout process for INEL. So 


yeah, there's some vulnerability here, and I -- 


and my intent is to keep you all very much 


apprised of when it's being sought to develop 


in a way -- and this is our greatest 


vulnerability is the closeout process. As you 

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probably are aware, setting aside 150 work 


hours for a closeout is a relatively modest 


budget. 


Now we could be very optimistic and assume that 


the closeout process will go quickly. I was 


very impressed with what transpired with the 


Nevada Test Site. The last meeting we had, by 


and large -- except for I believe a few items ­

- there's -- there's general agreement what 


needs to be done, and there really isn't very 


much more. Once -- I think there are a few 


open items regarding resuspension factors, et 


cetera, but I -- it's -- it certainly seems 


feasible to be able to go through the closeout 


process for Nevada Test Site within the 150 


work hours. 


 Now whether or not the Board is going to ask 


SC&A to issue a final version -- we really have 


never talked about this, and I'm glad you 


brought this up because right now we have our 


matrix and we have a documentation of the 


closeout process for each issue, and so it does 


represent a record of how each issue has been 


closed out. But to date we have not gone back 


and revised a site profile review report in 

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light of the closeout process. And I guess as 


it stands now, it is not my expectation that we 


would be doing that, and our budget does not 


include anything to go back and really rewrite 


the -- the -- the site profile review to 


reflect the -- to the -- what -- what 


eventually occurs at the closeout process. So 


yes, I hope that answers your question, kind of 


late in the answer. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, it does and it doesn't. I 


mean I've just been concerned that -- not about 


as much your estimate of hours, but that we go 


through a closeout process that by the time we 


go through it, it's meaningless because there 


are very significant changes that have been 


made in the -- the site profile. And my 


impression from the -- the Hanford review and 


NIOSH's response to your Hanford site profile 


review was that certainly significant 


proportion of the major issues were being 


addressed in a new document and that somehow we 


need to take that into account in -- in how 


we're, you know, budgeting our review time. 


mean that -- to me it doesn't make any sense to 


have a site profile review that -- where you 


I 
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comment and the comments back from NIOSH are 


entirely well, we've already changed that, or 


we're in the process of changing that. 


DR. MAURO: The way I've been looking at that 


is that's -- that's good news. What that means 


is that the issues that we put before NIOSH 


expressing our concerns have been looked at by 


NIOSH and NIOSH has taken some action on these, 


and perhaps some other matters that they feel 


is necessary to make a revision, so we sit 


quietly. In other words, we don't burn up 


hours. Basically -- let's say the -- for a lot 


of comments, such as the Nevada Test Site, the 


statement is made that yes, we concur and we 


plan to make these revisions. And then our 


role is not to take any action until those 


revisions are made. So if -- it's -- it's 


entirely possible that then once those 


revisions are made, it -- it is not going to be 


-- it's a matter of just -- now we really 


haven't talked very much about this, but I 


presume the Board would want us to go and take 


a look and see in fact -- if in fact those 


revisions have in fact been made. But right 


now we've never reached that point. 

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 I think we might be at that point right now 


with Bethlehem Steel. I noticed that -- you 


know, we -- the very first site profile that 


went through this process where we identified a 


number of issues and -- and we went through the 


issues closeout process, all the issues were 


closed out on the matrix, most of which were 


closed out in terms of -- there were six major 


issues, and NIOSH's position was yes, we will 


address those issues in -- in the revised 


Bethlehem Steel site profile. I noticed on the 


web that there is not in fact a revised 


Bethlehem Steel site profile on the web. 


Now my understanding is we are to take no 


action on that. And if we are to -- requested 


to take some action to check the Bethlehem 


Steel revised site profile that has recently 


come out and crosswalk it against the -- the 


six major issues that were discussed during the 


closeout process, right now we don't take any 


action on that because it is not within the 


budget of this proposed scope of work, nor was 


it within the budget of our original fiscal 


year -- original -- I think this was 2005/2006 


time period scope of work. So yeah, we do have 

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a little bit of a hole here in terms of how do 


we really achieve closure on the back end of 


this process. And -- and then right now the 


way we've laid out our budget -- really our 


budget, in terms of closeout, is really to 


engage NIOSH in a limited dialogue after we 


submit our site profile review report, and then 


we just set aside 150 work hours -- which 


basically allows us to have one, perhaps two 


meetings, work off -- build up and work off a 


matrix closeout document and get to the point 


where we say okay, by and large, we all agree 


that this needs to be changed, this needs to be 


changed and NIOSH would say yes, we -- we are 


in the process of changing that. And/or we say 


-- or we understand NIOSH's position and we 


know -- we concur in their position and we 


withdraw that particular comment and close it 


out -- and so that represents the closeout 


process. 


And we really haven't taken the next step to 


say okay, once that's accomplished, is there 


anything more that SC&A might need to do to 


truly achieve closeout on these issues, and -- 


and I guess we could use some guidance 

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regarding that matter. Right now our budget 


for fiscal year 2007 for Task Order I does not 


include let's say the very last step in this 


closeout process, which would be to review the 


revised documents when they emerge, 'cause I 


don't think 150 work hours that we set aside is 


-- is sufficient to actually do that final 


review and then revise let's say our site 


profile review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. Let me, though, 


comment on this issue. If in fact a revised 


site profile emerges on the scene after you've 


made your review of the previous version, and 


there would be presumably a matrix developed as 


part of the regular closeout process, then it 


seems to me that NIOSH's response in the matrix 


could include something from the revised 


document. Even though you haven't reviewed the 


revised document, they could show that as their 


response and you, as a matter of course in 


assessing whether you think the response is 


adequate, would be in fact, as part of the 


closeout, reviewing in a sense a part of the 


revision --


DR. MAURO: That would be a very efficient -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- because you would be reviewing 


that response. 


DR. MAURO: I agree entirely, so that would 


avoid having to let's say reread and re-review 


an entire document, but we just -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: You would be reviewing the issues 


that were raised in the original document. Now 


it's quite true there may be some new issues in 


a revised document that you have not even 


thought about. But at least the ones that 


arose from the original one, if -- insofar as 


they've been addressed in the new one, would 


have been taken care of. 


 DR. WADE: Right. This is Lew Wade. I think 


it's a matter of degree. I mean Dr. Melius 


raises a fundamental problem that -- that 


exists in the way we've designed the system. 


think it's incumbent upon each workgroup when 


it's -- when it begins its review, to sort of 


assess the state of play and determine if we 


have a situation where there is no reissued 


site profile and therefore the review stands 


and we can proceed forward. Or, on the other 


end of the spectrum, there is a drastically 


altered new site profile that might require 


I 
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going back to ground zero and review from the 


beginning. Or, if we're somewhere in between, 


as Dr. Ziemer just mentioned, there has been a 


revision --


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) and on a 


workgroup to make a recommendation on what to 


do in that case. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and if -- remember Dr. 


DeHart, when he began the Savannah River 


process, said he thought that going back to 


ground zero was the appropriate action. If -- 


if Dr. Melius feels that's the case in Hanford, 


then we'll adjust contractually. I think in 


each case a judgment's going to be -- have to 


be made as to just where we are. 


 DR. MELIUS: But my -- my point is, is there an 


adequate number of work hours in this task to 


be able to do that? 'Cause 150 to, you know, 


resolve these is not a lot of hours. And Han--


if Hanford's an example -- I mean we've got 


LANL, we've got some other very big sites. 


They're complicated sites. I don't think we 


can expect the original site profiles to be 


comprehensive, and there will be revisions, 


additions and -- and so forth, and we need to 

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plan our reviews accordingly. And that's why I 


have concern about the proposed scope of this 


task. I just don't think it's adequate to 


address that and I -- I don't want to get us in 


the position of having to put this off -- you 


know -- you know, if the revisions of the site 


profile are ready, I don't want to have to put 


it off a year till we review it because, you 


know, we -- we don't know this, but we could 


have SEC petitions, so forth, coming in from 


some of these sites, in which case -- we do, 


actually, for -- for LANL, one that's in 


process somewhere -- that -- that's going to 


sort of -- that need to speed up the review 


process, and I'm concerned that -- make sure 


that we have enough, you know, hours and time 


in this proposal to address that. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, the -- the mechanisms 


available to us now, if we were to find that 


there were several more like Savannah River 


that would require an extensive review, then 


the mechanisms open to us would be to -- to 


look into this task and possibly not initiate 


several new reviews of the five new reviews, 


and replace them with re-reviews. Or we could 

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look for other money within the con -- 


(telephonic interruption) spending funds. 
I 


think we do have to keep our eye on this issue. 


I think the proposal as written gives us some 


flexibility, but again, I think it -- it's 


judgment that has to be made on a case by case 


basis. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. John Mauro, did ­

- is the 1,000 hours of additional work to 


close out the six cases based on -- pretty much 


on your -- is -- well, basically it's about 150 


per --


DR. MAURO: Exactly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- cases. That's based on 


previous years experience with (unintelligible) 


DR. MAURO: Well, we really ha-- no, as a 


matter of fact, it's -- it's what I would 


consider to be an optimistic -- it would be 


more based on if things go as smoothly as they 


did with Nevada Test Site and that site 


profile. The reality is the only -- the only 


case that we really went through the entire 


process would be Bethlehem Steel. And as you 


probably know --

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 DR. ZIEMER: That took more. 


DR. MAURO: -- that took -- there was just as 


much time involved in the closeout as there was 


in the original document. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: So -- so we held -- we have two 


extremes. We have one where the closeout 


process could be as expensive as the initial 


preparation of the draft report, and the other 


extreme is we might be able to do it in 150. 


The proposal that you're looking at right now 


is -- is the -- is optimistic. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I suspect that Jim's discomfort is 


an intuitive one, and I think I would share 


that intuitively -- 150 hours doesn't seem like 


very much to close out a big site. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike, I would tend to 


agree with you, Dr. Ziemer and Jim, that these 


SECs come in for the different sites -- we're 


going to find issues where they may have to go 


back to ground zero. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Ziemer, could I say 


something? This is Arjun. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, we -- John just mentioned 

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the Nevada Test Site, and it is moving rapidly, 


as Mr. Presley informed you this morning. But 


as we noted in his worksheet from the meeting, 


there are -- one of the reasons it's moving 


very quickly is that NIOSH has said it's going 


to -- you know, in 20-odd items that it -- some 


of them were resolved by the SEC. There are a 


significant number of items where NIOSH is 


making major revision to the site profile. 


Now one of the questions I think that -- come 


up in this discussion just a few minutes ago 


was we're closing out this matrix, but then 


NIOSH is revising the site profile. For 


instance, beta doses. It said it is going to 


produce a method to calculate beta doses up to 


1966 when -- even though there were no 


measurements of beta dose. That will remain as 


an unreviewed item at the closeout of this 


matrix. So there's -- there's a procedure at 


the back end of the matrix because NIOSH has 


not yet published a revised site profile by the 


time we finish the matrix. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: See, and the other issue is SC&A's 


role versus the Board itself's role in terms of 

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accomplishing some of these verifications. 


That's something we have to work through as 


well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, Lew, your point was that as 


we get into it we can readjust if necessary -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the allocation of -- of these 


tasks in terms of time and effort and different 


sort of subsections. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Increase the closeout time, 


decrease the main time and so on. 


 DR. WADE: But I mean I don't doubt what -- 


what Dr. Melius is saying to be true. It's 


quite possible we'll have to reserve one or two 


of those five new slots to accomplish a major 


re-review. I just don't know that yet, and 


won't know until the workgroups start to look 


into it. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- this is Jim -- I 


guess I'm concerned that we're going to get 


into -- partway through the year and not have 


adequate resources to address some of the 


revisions, changes and, you know, et cetera to 


some of the major sites. And whether we're -- 

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the pressure's from an SEC petition or the 


pressure's from the fact that NIOSH has already 


completed a number of dose reconstructions, you 


know, based on the original site profile, 


whatever -- I mean there -- lots of issues that 


are -- or holding off on doing dose 


reconstructions pending completion and -- and 


review of -- of some of these documents. I --


I just don't think we should try to put 


ourselves in a position not having adequate 


resources to do the technical reviews that are 


required. And it doesn't seem to me that we've 


-- and maybe it's not possible to do. I -- I 


know John's been trying to work on getting 


additional information on -- on Hanford and 


it's hard with, you know, summer vacations and 


so forth to do that, but -- whether we've put 


enough thought into how we're estimating what 


our needs are for this particular task. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me ask a related 


question and again maybe address John Mauro on 


this. John, suppose that instead of 1,000 


hours on -- on this closeout process, suppose 


it was 10,000 hours. What would that mean in 


terms of your ability to do the other site 

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profile work? Are we talking about shifting 


the hours amongst a limited number of people, 


or would you have to expand your staffing in 


order to accommodate more effort on that back 


end? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I've -- I've been expanding 


my staff to -- to deal with the growing nature 


of the project. We -- we have brought aboard 


one additional person, and quite frankly, I'm 


hoping that Lynn Anspaugh, after he goes 


through the vetting process, would be available 


to help out on site profile reviews of site 


profiles other than the site that he -- you 


know, he would be precluded from working on. 


So -- so yes, the answer is our -- our 


intention is to add staff. 


 DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. Lew, how much 


leeway do you have for adding money to this 


type of budget halfway through the year? 


 DR. WADE: Oh, it -- if I had -- if the money's 


available, it's not difficult. The question is 


the availability of funds. And again, that 


really depends upon our ability to shift money 


between the different contracts, depending upon 


our assessment of need. So I don't think it's 

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out of the question that we could adjust 


resources. It's just a matter of not knowing 


at this point what that adjustment would have 


to be. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- Lew, this is Jim. 


think if the original estimate is so optimistic 


-- I -- I think -- I think we're fooling 


ourselves if we think that, you know, that's 


going to be adequate. 


 DR. WADE: Well, the question on this one is 


the five new reviews. We don't have to do five 


new reviews. If we were to determine, you 


know, part-way into the fiscal year that the 


re-review and closeout function was to consume 


significantly more resource than we estimated, 


we would have the ability to adjust within that 


task. And I just don't know at this point 


whether we should say no, it's not going to be 


five new reviews, it's going to be three re-


reviews and three new reviews. That I don't 


know at this point. I mean we could write that 


into this task, that there -- there's 


flexibility there, but I just don't know at 


this point what we find when we look at Hanford 


or when we look at LANL, when the working 


I 
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groups really start to put their shoulder to 


it, whether the budgets are adequate or whether 


we'll need to forestall a new review and 


replace it with a re-review. 


 MR. GIBSON: Lew, this is Mike, and that -- 


that kind of gets back to what I originally 


started out asking. When you guys go to the 


Department of Labor to request funds -- maybe 


this is a different way to phrase is -- is 


there -- do you have funds available under 


NIOSH or CDC or whatever at -- are they 


specifically allotted for SC&A and for ORAU, or 


can you reroute money that -- from ORAU to SC&A 


if they need additional funds or -- 


 DR. WADE: We would need to frame that in our 


proposal to the Department of Labor and there ­

- there are always flexibilities. You know, 


NIOSH has taken the position in the budgets 


that it's submitted that the allocation of 


funds between the doing of the work and the 


reviewing of the work is -- makes sense to it 


and is consistent with the instructions we've 


been getting for the -- from the Board in terms 


of the level of work that the Board is 


requiring in terms of review. Those issues can 

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always be revisited. But you know, our view of 


the balance of money spent on doing work versus 


reviewing work is that we're at a reasonable 


place. Now I can give those numbers to the 


Board and the Board can decide what it thinks 


about that, but within the management of the -- 


the program, that's the judgment that we've 


made. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Well, I just -- I just see 


this as -- I mean it -- it's a growing process 


and -- and we're all learning more and we're 


all -- it's just getting deeper and, you know, 


I share the concerns of Dr. Melius and -- and 


Dr. Poston and others that -- you know, I don't 


want to see -- well, and I'm not speaking for 


them, but to me, if they have to -- if they 


have -- if SC&A has a allotted amount of money 


and they have to shift it to SC&A reviews as 


opposed to dose reconstruction reviews, you 


know, I don't think that's fair. I think 


that's -- you know, that's robbing Peter to pay 


Paul. 


 DR. WADE: Well, the alternative is you take 


the money from the people who are doing the 


dose reconstructions to the people who are 

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reviewing it, and those are all very difficult 


judgments that have to be made. 


 DR. MELIUS: And the other alternative is to 


get more money. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, thank you, Ji-- thank you, 


Jim. 


 DR. WADE: But that's not something I control. 


Or that's not something we control. 


 DR. MELIUS: But there -- if we don't indicate 


what the need is, then I think we're not 


adequately doing our job as an Advisory Board. 


 MR. GIBSON: Uh-huh, absolutely. 


 DR. MELIUS: And I would point out that simply 


shifting money from new site profiles I don't 


think adequately addresses the need that there 


are site profiles left that have not been 


reviewed, there are dose reconstructions that 


have been done on those. In some ways we sort 


of defer to the site profile review when we're 


doing individual dose reconstruction reviews 


of, you know, dose reconstruction based at 


those sites, and I think it's important that we 


get these site profiles done, and I -- I have 


concerns about deferring on -- on the new ones. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me insert as an additional 

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comment in here, an additional limiting factor 


outside of our contractor is our own Board. 


And it's going to be very important -- this is 


-- I'm preaching to the choir, but it's going 


to be very important that we get these lost 


positions replaced fairly soon because Board 


members, in terms of workgroups among all of 


these, can only handle so much material, too. 


And you know, we -- we can ramp up the 


contractor and do all sorts of things, but 


ultimately we have to be able to handle all 


this material, review it, have our working 


groups and make decisions. And that becomes a 


kind of limiting factor in itself. 


 DR. WADE: It's become a pacing factor, 


certainly, and it leads to the problems that 


we're talking about. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, the number of -- of issues 


we can handle in a given period of time. 


 DR. MELIUS: But can I point out two other 


factors that I think weigh against that. One 


is the SEC process. It's certainly been 


extremely helpful to our SEC evaluation reviews 


to have a site profile review already done. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, uh-huh. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Secondly -- actually my original 


set of questions on trying to delve into this 


issue on Hanford was trying to see whether we 


really needed to have a meeting to closeout a 


site profile review when it seemed to me that a 


good proportion of the major issues were being 


-- were in revision. You know, it was a -- a 


new revision of the site profile was being 


worked on or some other -- other document that 


would address the concerns that were raised by 


SC&A. And to me, the question was, you know, 


do we get a work -- try to get a workgroup 


together and spend the time and effort, or was 


our time better spent, you know, working on 


other issues. We're all -- all have multiple 


workgroup assignments and jobs to do, and so 


this whole issue of the revisions and so forth 


is also a question of how does the Board most 


efficiently --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) its time, 


also. And I agree they're all linked and it's 


a -- it's a hard -- hard balance and we can't 


predict what SEC petitions are coming in at a 


given point in time. But I also -- concerned 

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that if we don't address these issues up front, 


we get halfway through the year and we've lost 


our ability to modify the contract without 


having to, you know, rob it from some other 


place in the -- the contract. 


 DR. LOCKEY: I'd like -- this is Jim Lockey. 


Maybe we can make a proposal to you, Lew, that 


the Board is in a position that we suggest that 


you make -- you make whoever you have to make 


aware that at some point the Board has a 


concern about adequate funding for perhaps 


additional reports that may be needed in the 


near future and a mechanism has to be put in 


place to address that, if in fact that happens. 


 DR. WADE: Certainly I can do that. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would just suggest that -- I'm 


not sure there's much more we can say on Task I 


at this point. I think if we go through the 


other tasks, let's see where we are at the end 


and -- and -- and then we might have a better 


idea of are the overall resources adequate. 


What Jim Lockey just said may be something we 


can follow up on or -- or -- or some other 


mechanism, but we -- we need to -- you know, we 


may find that they've overestimated some other 

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place. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and -- and if they have or 


even if they haven't, at some point on this 


issue of the closing out of these things, if 


1,000 hours for -- I think it's for six, 


roughly 150 hours per site -- is not adequate, 


or if we think it's marginal, it -- it may be 


that we should indicate what we think it ought 


to be and then the financial implications of 


that will -- will appear. It may be that SC&A 


would come up with a new number and -- and 


maybe we end up going over the $3 and a half 


million, but at least you can go on record as 


indicating what you think needs to be done. 


 DR. WADE: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any more on item one then? Let me 


ask this and maybe ask David Staudt, do we -- 


do we need individual Board actions on each 


task, or how -- what do you need to proceed? 


 MR. STAUDT: Well, I just think a consensus at 


the end on which ones we can move forward to 


and whatever directions, that's all we -- 


that's all I need. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So Board members, you want 


to hear the total picture and then we can go 

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back and -- and take an action or a group of 


actions. Is that agreeable? 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's fine, Paul. This is Bob. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's go ahead with item two 


then, John --


 DR. WADE: Well, there's no -- then this -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I guess you'll (unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, Task III is the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: -- review of the procedures and 


workbooks, and here we have a proposal from 


SC&A to look at 30 additional generic 


procedures and associated workbooks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And John Mauro, this -- you've 


defined -- you identified these pretty well 


already. Right? 


DR. MAURO: Well, I prov-- yeah, I provided -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: You have exhibit -- in there -- 


DR. MAURO: No, in a separate package, under 


separate cover, I provided you with a list -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- of all of the procedures that we 


have not yet reviewed or have been asked to 


review. So it becomes a matter of choosing 

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from the existing generic procedures that are 


alive and well which ones -- which of those you 


would like us to review. I'm basically 


estimating that would require us about 50 work 


hours to review each procedure, and that 


includes if there's a workbook with that 


procedure. We're finding that they go hand in 


glove. Then I've set aside ten work hours for 


the closeout of each review procedure. I think 


this is a lot more manageable situation than 


let's say what we just talked about under Task 


Order I because, as you may have noticed, the 


review process for the procedures that we're in 


the middle of right now is much more -- in 


other words, in one fell swoop, through one 


matrix, we're able to capture the fundamental 


issues on each of the procedures and go through 


the matrix and get them closed. And I think 


that we're dealing with a much more manageable 


problem here and -- as opposed -- so I guess 


I'm -- I'm much less -- and my experience has 


been that we are doing very well in terms of 


meeting our budgets, getting our deliverables 


done on the review of procedures. We -- we've 


been -- we've been good predictors of what we 

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think it will cost to get the product. Now of 


course we're still in the process of -- of 


closing out our previous set of orig-- of 30 


procedures or so, I believe there were 30, the 


first set -- but we -- and we're -- we have the 


second set of procedures in your hands, but 


we're well within budget. And so I feel as if 


we've got this thing -- this is -- this doesn't 


have as much uncertainty. It's not like the 


site profiles --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- which are very complex 


documents. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


DR. MAURO: The procedures deal with usually 


very narrow issues, very well formulated -- as 


you may have noticed in my previous 


presentation, they were clear and quite fav-- 


quite frankly, in the last set, quite favorably 


reviewed. We only had a few minor points. So 


I don't -- I -- I think the budget we have here 


for Task Order III for fiscal year 2007 we'll ­

- we'll be able to meet, perhaps even come in 


under budget. 


 DR. LOCKEY: John, how many procedure books are 

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there --


DR. MAURO: Oh, the --


 DR. LOCKEY: -- all together? 


DR. MAURO: -- workbooks? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: I didn't count them all up. Kathy 


Behling, are you on the line? 


 (No response) 


I don't know if Kathy's on the line. She's 


sort of our records person. 


 MS. BEHLING: John, I am on the line --


DR. MAURO: Oh, fine. 


 MS. BEHLING: -- and quite honestly, I don't 


have a number at the tip of my fingers here. 


It -- it's a dynamic system and it does change, 


and with the procedures and -- I know with the 


procedures -- the ORAU procedures are up to at 


least in the 60s -- no, in the -- in the -- 


yeah, the TIBs are in the 90s and the 


procedures are in the numbers of the -- like 


61, 62 range, but I really don't have an exact 


number on my --


DR. MAURO: We're talking about 150 documents, 


and to date we have reviewed 60, if that's 


where we are, and now we're saying there's 

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going to be another 30 to add on to that. So I 


mean we are -- we are reviewing -- I mean after 


this next round, this -- the two -- this fiscal 


year's round, let's say we will have completed 


approximately 90 or so procedures out of the 


approximately 150. 


 DR. WADE: Okay on III? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Uh-huh. 


DR. MAURO: That's -- that's Task Order III. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just one question I -- this is 


Mark Griffon. Just a point -- I think, John, 


you said this but I just want to emphasize 


this, that the first set of procedures reviews, 


as we'll see on my upcoming presentation -- I 


mean a lot of the -- this question of 


resolution, and I think we've gone over this 


with the site profile issues, too, but a lot of 


the resolutions on these are "this issue was 


revised in a subsequent procedure" or the -- 


you know, so --


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so we have -- again, we have 


this question of, you know, does SC&A review 


the next procedure, and I think in this -- at 


least in -- in our workgroup we've sort of said 

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we wanted SC&A to review the part of that 


procedure that addresses that particular 


finding --


DR. MAURO: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but not maybe the whole thing, 


but in some cases I think, you know, it ends up 


being a majority of the procedure has to be 


sort of looked at again -- 


DR. MAURO: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so that -- you know -- I -- I 


know -- I know it's going probably quicker, but 


I just want to --


DR. MAURO: Yeah, there's no doubt that the 


back end of the process we're in, on all of 


these tasks, is -- has been a -- a fuzzy edge. 


The only place that seems to be -- have a 


fairly clean edge has been the review of the 


cases under Task IV. But you're right, the 


back end of the review process of Task I, that 


has been extremely fuzzy. I mean we -- we --


it's open-ended. We don't know where it's 


going to take us. It's dynamic because these 


site profiles are being revised periodically. 


 Procedures are similar, but you know, I feel as 


if they're more manageable because they're a 

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smaller level of effort. That is, to review a 


procedure or a revision to a procedure is -- 


we're not talking about a large effort. We're 


talking 50 work hours. And so even if there's 


a new proce-- you know, a new procedure comes 


out or major revision to a procedure, it's -- 


it's sort of a manageable situation, unlike 


when a new site profile comes out. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


DR. MAURO: It becomes a -- a -- quite of -- a 


pulse moving through the system. You're right 


-- you're right, though, Mark. The back end of 


the procedures -- I guess I just perceive it as 


cleaner and easier to manage. But you're 


right, there's still a lot of fuzziness about 


the closeout also. 


 MS. BEHLING: This is Kathy Behling again, and 


if I can just correct something. I pulled out 


a document and we're actually up into about 


Procedure -- maybe 97 or so procedures, and 


about 50 or so Technical Basis Docu-- or 


Technical Information Bulletins. And if I can 


also add to the issue of the procedures review, 


when we first started -- when we did the first 


selection of procedure reviews we were looking 

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at some generic procedures and some procedures 


that were a crux of the dose reconstruction 


process. Where now as we're starting to look 


at procedures, the new TIBs and the new 


procedures are much more specific to a certain 


issue or so -- a certain to res-- resolution 


process from either the site profile review or 


the review of other procedures. So they're a 


little bit more manageable, like John is 


saying. But the issues resolution process is 


still a fairly extensive process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Okay on Task III? 


DR. MAURO: Okay, that -- that was Task III -- 


II -- yeah, as you know, II is -- we skip over 


because II is completed and it has not been 


reactivated again. 


 DR. WADE: Task IV is the individual dose 


reconstructions with the -- with the -- the 


different alt-- alternates. 


DR. MAURO: That's the -- that's Task Order IV, 


and -- yes, and I -- and now you -- you 


characterize it very well. I think to -- to go 


back to it, we -- we are now -- think of it 


like this. The -- the -- if we continue 

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business as usual, we were doing basically 60 


reviews each year and the Board would submit to 


us, you know, packages of 20. We believe if we 


stay doing business as usual, we probably -- 


for the same price -- can do 80, by noticing 


that we're getting a lot better at it, so 


you're -- so therefore if you look at our Task 


IV proposal and you go to the exhibits page 


where the Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 is -- Exhibit 


1 is -- basically is our starting point. It's 


sort of like the rock we stand on. Well, we 


believe for basically the same price that we 


did 60 last year we can do 60 this year -- I'm 


sorry, we can do 80 this year for the same 


price. And -- and when I say the same -- we're 


talking about procedures that are predominantly 


min/max. We're only -- out of each set of 20 


there may be -- we have been -- you know, there 


may only be two or three realistic cases that ­

- that's what's been coming through the 


pipeline and up -- up through the fourth set. 


Okay? Whereas we see -- that's what we're 


seeing. And -- and -- and -- but we -- one of 


the -- so therefore I think that we are now 


getting more efficient at putting out these 

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reports. So we're saying we can do 80 as 


opposed to 60, which we did last year, if 


everything stays as-is. 


But we're saying -- one of the things that came 


up at the last meeting is that boy, it would be 


great if we could increase the through-put 


because I know that you -- you're shooting for 


two and a half percent of the total number of 


adjudicated cases undergoing auditing, and at 


the pace we're going that's not going to 


happen. And one of the questions that came is 


the-- is there any way we could pick up the -- 


you know, keep -- keep the price the same, but 


-- but -- perhaps -- and still be -- do a 


quality job, but maybe move out some more 


audits. 


Well, we -- we talked -- we got together and 


talked that -- about that a bit and -- and 


Hans, Kathy and myself were talking about well, 


what can we do. And it turns out right now, as 


you know, the audits that we're doing are 


really very, very I guess meticulous in terms 


of going through each and every item, every 


number, you know, as you would like an IRS type 


audit. We just look at everything. 

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We feel that it's probably certainly places 


where what we've learned we could sort of reap 


the benefits of a lot we've learned and -- and 


perhaps zero in on areas that we feel are more 


important and use a little bit discretion on 


where we're going to really apply our resources 


and where we'll back off a little bit based on 


our experience. And if we're -- we're -- you 


know, if we're given that flexibility, we 


probably could do 110 ca-- cases for the same 


price. So in other words, we could kick it up. 


But that's still assuming that only a 


relatively small percentage of them are these 


realistic cases. 


My sense is there probably aren't that many 


real-- I'm not sure. I mean we -- we don't 


know how many there are out there, and Kathy, 


maybe you could help me out a bit, but at least 


out of the first four sets that we've -- we -- 


we're -- you know, we finished three, we're 


well into set -- we finished four, we'll well 


into I guess set five, and we're not seeing 


that many realistic cases coming through. That 


doesn't mean they -- now the sixth set, the 


last set that we just received, Kathy, do you 

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have any idea if -- are we starting to see a 


lot more realistic cases? 


 MS. BEHLING: Well, the Board is making an 


effort to select the realistic cases, and in 


this last set, the sixth set, there's 13 of the 


20 are best-estimate or realistic cases. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, so that -- that is -- that is 


moving that way. Well, where -- where I'm 


going with this is that if things -- in effect 


I have created a series of options here which 


says that we could probably push it up to 110, 


but that -- ca-- in other words, we could do 


110 as opposed to 80 for the same price if we 


were given a little discretion on backing off 


on the level of detail. 


Now if it turns out, though, that -- that we're 


seeing -- what comes through the pipeline are 


predominantly the realistic cases, for the same 


price we could probably only do 55. In other 


words, that first table, Exhibit 1, is probably 


mislabeled a little. It really should say work 


hour allocation for completion of 80/110/55 


audits, because what they -- what that price is 


is -- what we're saying, for the same price -- 


for the same price, we can do 80 of the same 

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kinds of things we've been doing all along. We 


could do 110 of the same kinds of things we've 


been doing all along except we're going to give 


Hans and Kathy a little bit of discretion on 


where they're going to put their efforts. And 


finally, if in fact all of a sudden we start to 


see a large percentage -- let's say two-thirds 


-- of the -- of the cases are in fact 


realistic, well, we probably are only going to 


be able to do 55 cases for that price. Okay? 


That's a good way to look at it. So that's 


what Exhibit 1 does. It really gives you for 


the -- for the same price -- I feel like I'm 


selling fruit -- for the same price, we -- we 


can do 80 versus 110 versus 55, where we're 


playing off the degree of discretion and we're 


playing off how many realistic cases might be 


contained in the batch. 


And that -- there brings us to Exhibit 2 


whereby we say okay, if you do want 80 and you 


give us a certain amount of discretion, but we 


are saying that 60 of them are realistic and 20 


are min/max, well, then the -- the price to do 


those 80 goes up to this 8,200 work hours that 


you're -- that's on the exhibit there. 

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Basically that's 120 work hours per case. 


So -- so we created these options. I think 


that was one of the things I was requested in 


one of our last meetings. And so you can get a 


feel for, you know, where we can go and really, 


you know, we're looking for guidance from -- 


from you folks on -- you know, on -- on how 


you'd like to proceed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. The Board has 


already kind of indicated that we want to move 


in the direction of best-estimates as much as 


we can. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Does everybody agree that that's 


where we were moving anyway? Mark, I think 


you've been kind of championing that right 


along, too, have you not? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: It is a question of the ca-- case 


availability, too, though. I know that we -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Case availability comes into play 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 


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says "mostly" here, it sounds like he's talking 


about 25 percent of them would only be best 


estimates. He said 20 and 60 -- 


DR. MAURO: No, no, the opposite. In other 


words --


 DR. ZIEMER: Or -- yeah --


DR. MAURO: -- it would be --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- 75 percent would be -- 


DR. MAURO: Right, other words, it would be -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: But whether -- whether we have 


that many available would be a question. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And one other -- one other thing 


I'll just point out in terms of our own 


pattern. For example, there is an 


intermediate point here that one could go to 


and that is 60 cases, mostly best estimates. 


Be a little less than the 80 case and a little 


more than the 55 case, and that might be 


another option you haven't included, and I 


assume that proportionately the cost would be 


somewhere --


DR. MAURO: Yeah. 


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that might be an option the Board could 


consider, too. It would give us some savings 


over the 80 case, but would still meet the 


intent of the Board and would stick with our 


number pattern. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. Yes. And I think the 


costing is pretty straightforward. I've almost 


got it down -- everything's really a unit cost, 


we --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- so yeah, we could -- I mean if ­

- if that -- if you'd be interested enough to 


revise this --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I just put this in the 


hopper for the moment for the Board to think 


about, as well as --


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- maybe another option. 


DR. MAURO: Sure. 


 DR. MELIUS: John, I think you're trying to 


sell us 110 rotten fruit. 


DR. MAURO: You don't like my --


 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) go for that one. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have a -- a separate concern I 

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want to raise and -- and that's sort of who has 


the discretion. I'm a little concerned that -- 


about the Board delegating the discretion on 


what needs to be reviewed in cases to -- to our 


contractor totally 'cause I think that sort of 


leaves us uninvolved and I think also I'm not 


sure we should be giving them that discretion 


'cause I think we're some way expected to, you 


know, certify that (unintelligible) of this 


review was proper and that we've -- fully 


addressing the program. I understand that -- 


the concept and I understand the -- the amount 


of time that can be productively spent if it's 


spent, you know, going in detail through a set 


of calculations, you know, that -- you know, 


where you're really not likely to find any 


particular issues are not really helpful to 


auditing that. I -- I would just think that if 


we want to implement that concept that we need 


to have a mechanism for the Board to have input 


into what gets reviewed (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me comment on that, too, Jim. 


I think it's a good point and I was thinking 


that the reviewer would make that -- it becomes 


a discretionary thing because it's as he gets 

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into the case he'd say okay, I will sample -- I 


don't have to sample every year but I'll do 


every other year, whatever -- whatever it is he 


decides to do to sort of shorten the process. 


But then when it comes time to present that to 


the review team of Board members for that case, 


he would basically say -- or she would 


basically say -- this is what I've done. I 


haven't looked at these years or I have looked 


at these years; is that okay or should I go 


back and do some -- some additional things or ­

- in other words, I think the Board members 


could input that, even sort of after the fact, 


because they have that opportunity during the 


review process. 


 DR. MELIUS: I was thinking the same thing as a 


potential approach, Paul. I -- I think what we 


have to then keep in mind is that in some ways 


that would be -- you know, same thing we do 


with a site profile, sort of a revision -- time 


involved there. We may be asking them to go 


back and -- and spend more time than they, you 


know, probably do now responding to Board 


comments about the individual cases. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but the alternative is that 

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you get them in advance and say okay, here's -- 


here's what we want you to look at, and that's 


 DR. MELIUS: That's hard, and I was thinking 


well, as an alternative, put sort of a priority 


set of -- of types of things that need to be 


looked at. But I think that that is -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, my understanding -- if I 


understand this correctly on -- and this only 


applies, I think, to the min/max cases, does it 


not? The -- the shortened stuff? Is that 


rather than look at every line of every year, 


you would -- the reviewer would, you know, may­

- maybe if there's 30 years of data, they would 


look at 15 years of that or something, and if 


everything matched up they'd say okay, I don't 


have to look at every line. Hans or Kathy, is 


that what we're talking about on this 


discretion? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I would say perhaps there 


are any number of areas where discretion would 


come into play. You're just touching one of 


them. But let me also point out a couple of 


other instances. 


For instance, we will possibly be getting dose 

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reconstructions that were performed let's say 


two years ago when in fact a -- the TIB 8 and 


10 revisions had not yet been made and we would 


identify problems that we've already 


encountered in the first 80, in which case 


we've already resolved many of the issues by 


having a dialogue through the resolution 


process with -- with NIOSH and therefore we 


would only be wasting our time to regurgitate 


areas of concern that have already been 


identified in previous dose audits and have 


also been possibly resolved by this time, 


except that we may be getting dose 


reconstructions that are two or three years old 


and therefore we would find recurrent problems 


 DR. ZIEMER: Things you've already identified. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, that have already been 


identified, have already been resolved, for 


that matter, because of revisions to TIBs, et 


cetera, and we would simply not want to waste 


an awful lot of time in writing up findings 


that have no meaning at this point in time. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. It seems to me, 


though, also -- and I agree that, you know, the 

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best estimate dose reconstructions should 


probably be the priority, but even on the 


min/max, that's still based -- at least as far 


as my understanding -- basically on the site 


profile, too. And if there's still some 


questions about the site profile, what does 


that do about the bounding dose estimates? 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, oftentimes, Mike, some of 


the maximized dose reconstructions are 


oftentimes employee -- complex-wide procedures, 


so the use of the TBD is frequently limited to 


only select areas. For instance, occupational 


medical exposures are different from the -- the 


TIB that is a complex-wide one they would -- 


might use. But generally speaking, when you 


talk about a maximized dose reconstruction, 


overestimates are obviously the rule here and ­

- and frequently they don't necessarily involve 


very -- very specific information that is 


commonly found in site profiles. 


 MR. GIBSON: So if I'm understanding you right, 


it -- there could still be -- if the site 


profile is -- is flawed in some way, there 


still could be missed dose. I mean --


 DR. BEHLING: There's no doubt, Mike. In fact, 

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what happens oftentimes is that when we get a 


dose reconstruction, the first thing I usually 


do is to look at the reference slip and define 


even which site profile or TIB was used and 


then match the values against that one, and if 


it turns out we're at zero, we naturally go 


back to the particular revision of a TIB or a 


TBD that was used during the dose 


reconstruction, and if there have been 


subsequent revisions, we don't really look at 


that necessarily unless we see that there was a 


significant change to that TIB or TBD. But 


generally speaking, we -- we -- we audit 


against the references that are cited in the 


dose reconstruction and the revisions that 


those particular documents involve. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. And I'm not trying to be 


argumentative with you, Hans, I -- I appreciate 


your work. What I'm saying is if the site 


profile document does not include all items or 


-- or actions or isotopes throughout the site 


because the people in charge of running the 


program created the document and there was not 


input from the workers, then how do we know 


it's a bounding estimate? 

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 MS. BEHLING: Mike, this is Kathy Behling. 


Maybe I can answer the question. I think what 


NIOSH is doing, and NIOSH can respond to this, 


but as we find significant issues that are site 


profile type issues, if they're going to impact 


cases, NIOSH will go back to those cases -- and 


in fact I believe they've been issuing PERs, 


Program Evaluation Reports -- and they will go 


back and -- and pull out all of those cases 


that may be affected by any significant change 


that is being introduced into the site 


profiles. Is that correct, NIOSH? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu Hinnefeld, and yes, 


that's correct. 


DR. MAURO: Kathy, I think Mike is saying that 


what -- what do we -- where -- where do we -- 


how do we deal with the fact that we're looking 


at a case -- let's say it's a Hanford case. 


Now right now we have a number of issues 


related to neutron dosimetry related to 


Hanford. We do a review of a Hanford case and 


we -- we have our report -- now we have a lot 


of those. And -- but meanwhile there is some 


question related to the adequacy of neutron 


dosimetry at Hanford in the early years. The 

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question becomes -- I -- I think it's a -- a 


really good question -- can we provide 


meaningful critique of a particular case, say a 


Hanford case --


 DR. BEHLING: Let me respond to that. 


DR. MAURO: Sure. 


 DR. BEHLING: As you know, John, I was very 


much involved in reviewing the Hanford TBD with 


regard to neutron doses and I found certain 


things that we identified as findings. Right 


now we're not necessarily making a major issue 


out of -- out of these kinds of TBD findings, 


even though I'm aware of them, because we 


cannot hold the dose reconstructor accountable 


for things he's not even aware of. Now I would 


hope that when the findings are addressed by 


means of a dialogue between us and -- SC&A and 


NIOSH and we prevail in our findings, that they 


would again issue a PER that would once again 


look at those cases where neutron doses were a 


critical component in the person's dose 


reconstruction and therefore make amendments in 


those instances where these deficiencies would 


in effect have some impact on previous dose 


reconstructions that were done at a time when 

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these findings were potentially existing. 


 DR. WADE: And then -- that's correct, Hans. 


 DR. BEHLING: So in order to -- to finalize my 


-- my point to Mike, our dose audit -- dose 


reconstruction audit will not necessarily deal 


prematurely with findings until those findings 


have been reviewed by NIOSH and we come to some 


form of resolution which, if it turns out that 


SC&A prevails in our findings, then it is 


really NIOSH's obligation to go back and see 


which potential dose reconstructions might have 


been adversely affected. Not saying that 


necessary all dose reconstructions will be 


reviewed, but -- for instance, let's assume 


that a prostate cancer has a POC of ten 


percent. They may, on a judicious basis, 


decide that even if the finding prevails, the ­

- the likelihood of converting that ten percent 


POC to 50 percent is improbable or highly 


improbable and therefore not necessary go back. 


But at least there will be some attempt on the 


part of NIOSH to look at those cases that could 


potentially be impacted and perform a -- a reevaluation of that dose reconstruction. 


 MR. GIBSON: So Hans, this is Mike again -- 

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Hans, do you guys or does NIOSH -- do you have 


a list of the sites -- of all the sites where 


there is a Program Evaluation Report? 


 DR. BEHLING: We get the PERs as they're being 


issued and -- and we have looked at those and 


at this point they're -- we have not done 


anything about that in the sense where we have 


the -- the lead in revisiting dose 


reconstructions that might be impacted. I 


believe that's really something that NIOSH has 


to address. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, let me ask NIOSH that 


question. Is -- is there a -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can -- Lew, can you or -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, this is Stu. Was the 


question is there a list of Program Evaluation 


Reports or sites with Program Evaluation 


Reports; is that the question? 


 MR. GIBSON: Right, and are they issued -- are 


they made available to the public or is it -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, there have been a couple 


that have been issued and -- 


DR. NETON: They're in our list of completed 


documents that SC&A would have access to 


because they're part of our document control 

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system. We don't normally make them available 


to the public. In the very early goings they 


contained essentially Privacy Act-related 


information, although we certainly can -- can 


do that with some judicious redaction or 


writing of those documents. 


 MR. GIBSON: And -- and obv-- I mean they've 


not been made available to the Board. Right? 


DR. NETON: I believe we have discussed a few 


issues related to PERs with the Board, such as 


the -- the change in the lymphoma target organ 


and the change in the cancer risk models for 


lung cancer that we did. Those are Program 


Evaluation Reports under -- under way and we do 


present those to the Board as they arise. But 


those reports have not been completed as of 


yet. 


 MR. GIBSON: So there is or is not a list of 


the sites where these things have been issued? 


DR. NETON: There is in our controlled document 


set a -- the completed PERs are there. They're 


a list -- they're issued as part of our normal 


controlled document system. We've only brought 


to completion -- I don't recall exactly, but 


several. They are there. We have not provided 

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hard copies to the Board, if that's the 


question. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. But does SC&A have all of 


those? 


DR. NETON: SC&A, through our controlled 


procedures system, should have access to those 


documents, yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Can -- can I ask a question about 


this task? What happened to basic, advanced 


and blind reviews? Is this proposal replacing 


those or what are we doing? 


DR. MAURO: Blind reviews have sort of 


disappeared from the horizon. We have not been 


requested to perform any blind reviews, and as 


you may notice, that -- this document is silent 


regarding blind reviews. Second, regarding 


this thing of basic versus advanced, I think 


the distinction is -- is not real between a 


basic and advanced, even though -- when you -- 


in the end, the types of audits we're doing 


probably represent everything you really can do 


in an audit. I mean -- and the distinction 


between a basic and advanced review -- I think 


it's -- it was one that was -- in theory, but 

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in practice, to carry an analysis to an 


advanced review would mean doing things that 


are more akin to what you do in a site profile, 


which are very large investigations. So in 


effect, I think -- I mean to be very frank, I 


think that the reviews we're doing right now 


represent everything you can do in an audit 


without carrying it into a point where you're 


effectively doing something that is more 


appropriately done under a site profile review. 


So --


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but John -- John, part of 


the reason for that distinction early on was 


that a lot of these sites -- a lot of the cases 


that you're going to come across may not have 


site profiles, the smaller sites. We're going 


to get -- you know, we select these and part of 


the reason we select them is that, you know, 


this is, you know, basically going to end up 


being the site profile review for these sites 


because there's no site profile. So if we want 


to know how they did recon-- reconstructions -- 


DR. MAURO: Well, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- at a certain small facility, 


then --

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DR. MAURO: Well, you know --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- this is it. This is your --


DR. MAURO: You know, Mark, you're right. I'll 


tell you why, 'cause I'm -- I experienced it 


first-hand. I am currently reviewing a case 


from MIT, and I'm -- and I'm in the funny 


position that there really is no information 


readily available regarding the -- the site, 


what was going on there, there's no -- I was 


unable to track down any references except for 


a book that written by -- I guess it was a 


professor, a Professor Hardy. I think this is 


a good -- a -- really this is important. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, you're doing drill-downs, 


basically. 


DR. MAURO: So I -- I'm getting my hands on 


that book. I'm -- I -- I made a request to the 


-- I guess it was through MIT, there was 


actually a web site where I could order the 


book, which would give me the history of this 


particular operation that took place in -- at 


MIT where they were handling uranium for 


research for fuel rods for submarines. And to 


get to the point, I think you're right and I 


guess I'm wrong, there -- there are sites where 

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there are no site profiles, where that's -- I 


think I -- that's where the advanced reviews 


make sense to me. That is, where you really -- 


where the digging has to be done because 


there's -- the only person that's going to do 


the digging is the guy reviewing the case. 


There's no digging going on on a -- on the site 


profile and -- and so from that respect, I -- I 


-- I stand corrected. And I am in fact doing ­

- I guess you have to say I am doing an 


advanced review on that particular case because 


I have no alternative. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. And on -- on the other 


ones, I think we're -- we're hoping and -- and 


it doesn't always work out that way, but part 


of the hope of the process was that, you know, 


by doing these things in parallel that you -- 


the dose reconstructing -- the dose 


reconstruction reviewers, Hans and Kathy 


primarily so far, but -- and -- and you, could 


benefit from the site profile reviews that were 


already in process, you know, that -- 


DR. MAURO: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- they're -- they're doing the 


drill-down sort of and you -- and what the DR 

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teams would benefit from that so we don't need 


to duplicate efforts. But you know, you're 


getting at the same kind of subtask there. 


DR. MAURO: I have to say that I've always been 


stressed by -- geez, how am I going to deal 


with the blinds, the -- the two blind cases 


that we've never really done -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- and we haven't been asked to do 


one, and second, you know, we're really not 


doing this advanced versus basic. I mean we --


we talk about it. We've even had sessions on 


it during one of the full Board meetings, but ­

- and -- and it wasn't really -- in other 


words, the case -- and I've always been sort of 


scratching my head saying what will we do, here 


we're doing -- let's say we're doing a Hanford 


or Savannah River and with -- and you know -- 


and we're saying well, you know, what more 


would we do here that might be worthwhile. And 


I had mentioned this at one of the meetings, 


it's not until you're into it that you think 


here's a place where we've got to do a little 


bit more advanced work. And if -- if it's -- 


if there's a site profile review going on on 

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that one, well, then the answer is you say 


well, let's go -- you know, that's where the 


hook is. But now, I'm in the middle of many 


AW-- well, this is not an AWE, but there are 


AWEs and there's also this MIT case that I just 


did a couple of days ago and -- and I'm 


digging. I mean I have to go get some more 


books that normally I wouldn't have to do. It 


would be on the O drive or would be a document 


available on one of the procedures. Here's a 


case where the document -- I have -- I'm trying 


to chase it down. I'm not sure --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- whether it's going to be 


productive or not and I don't know -- and 


here's a case where yes, without even realizing 


it I'm moving into an advanced review mode. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think we've had these 


conversations before, and at one time I think 


we determined that probably we never did 


anything that -- that matches to what we 


originally thought a basic review would look 


like, and most of the things that you've done 


are closer to what we thought of as an advanced 


review. In order to do a blind review, we have 

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to change our selection process because you 


can't know in advance the POC. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we've never given you any 


cases where you were -- that that wasn't part 


of the selection process, I don't believe. So 


if we want to do the blind cases, then I 


certainly think that's a question we still need 


to ask, whether we want to do that. We need to 


select some where -- where the outcome is not 


known in advance for the contractor to work 


with. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, this -- this proposal does 


not contain that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. BEHLING: And let me also make a comment on 


that issue. However, for us to do a blind dose 


reconstruction, we're going to need an awful 


lot of training that we have never had. And 


that is basically training involving how to use 


some of the available information that is used 


currently by dose reconstructors who've had the 


benefit of extensive in-house training and -- 


and at this point in time I would only want to 


warn everyone that we are at this point not 

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prepared to do blind dose reconstruction 


without the benefit of extensive amount of -- 


of training how to use some of the tools 


available and the computer methods used to 


generate these -- these different models, 


everything from statistical -- Crystal Ball 


methods, et cetera. So if blind dose 


reconstructions are to be appropriate in the 


future, we're going to need an awful lot of 


training. 


DR. MAURO: I'd like to add a little bit -- 


some thing to that. This is an interesting 


perspective, which is a little bit different 


than yours, Hans. A blind dose reconstruction 


could be one where -- you know, we're provided 


with all of the records of -- for a case, 


here's all the -- the dosimetry and -- for this 


worker. And then we are given the freedom -- 


or SC&A's given -- that's it. We're given the 


freedom to do it the way we think is the best 


way to do it --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, you don't need to know what 


the --


DR. MAURO: Right --


 DR. ZIEMER: In fact, shouldn't know what the 

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dose reconstructor did. 


DR. MAURO: Right, but -- you know, so the fact 


that there may exist some sophisticated Monte 


Carlo workbooks for dealing with the datasets 


and dealing with the bioassay records or -- or 


whatever, I would argue that -- this is 


something we should talk about now, I think 


it's important. I would say that blind dose 


reconstructions can go forward whereby we're 


giving our lead -- listen, here's this guy's 


case. You've been doing audits now for a 


couple of years; do a dose reconstruction for 


this guy and use all the skills you have at 


hand and all the knowledge you have in-house 


based on those two years of experience. You 


don't necessarily have to follow every 


procedure that was ever written or use every 


work-- I'm more -- more concerned about the 


workbooks, 'cause we're familiar with all the 


procedures but we're -- we're certainly not 


familiar with all the workbooks. You don't 


have to necessarily use the workbook tools that 


let's say draw upon sort of sophisticated Monte 


Carlo treatment of a problem. Do it the way 


you feel is the way that will give you -- that 

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will meet the intent of the rule. Okay? And 


it may be something different than the way in 


which NIOSH is doing it. And I think that 


that's certainly doable. So Hans, I'm looking 


at it a little different than you are. 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, the question I have, John, 


is what is the objective of doing it then? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, what's the worth of that? 


 DR. BEHLING: I think the objective, at least 


from my point of view, would be to essentially 


do an independent dose reconstruction using the 


various procedures -- in fact the exact 


procedures -- that a dose reconstructor would 


use and make use of since they've been approved 


and reviewed and scrutinized and looked at. If 


we do a very independent one and a simplistic 


one and we end up different, what is the -- 


what is the benefit for doing this? 


DR. MAURO: I think that's where the value 


lies, quite frankly. 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, that's (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. If I could just 


enter here. To me, the blind audit -- it would 


not only do away with -- I mean this whole 


program was set up because the government 

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admittedly did not correctly monitor workers, 


so a blind audit would be to go back to the 


basic documentation and the basic, you know, 


bioassay data and everything else, it would go 


beyond the site profile that was written by 


these professionals that worked at these sites, 


and it would be for you guys, SC&A, to not 


audit NIOSH, but audit the Department of Energy 


and how they monitored their peop-- their 


workers, their cold war workers. And I think ­

- I mean that's -- to me, I think that's the 


Board's duty -- I mean is to see that the -- 


the intent of the overall legislation, and -- 


and where applicable, compensation to the 


worker, is -- is due. It's not necessarily to 


audit specifically NIOSH and their contractor. 


It's to go back to ground zero, forget the site 


profile, forget what -- what -- you know, TIBs 


and everything else the dose reconstructors 


did, but to see if you guys' blind audit -- to 


see if you guys can go back to DOE's stuff and 


come back with a legitimate and a -- an 


accurate dose -- dose reconstruction. 


 DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. I think that's an 


issue that the Board is going to have to 

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discuss, you know, when it has time. I mean 


you are an advisory board to the Secretary of 


HHS. You have to decide what role you want to 


take in your advice to HHS Secretary. Mike 


lays out a very clear path. I don't know that 


there's time to discuss that to closure. We 


can certainly put that on the agenda for the 


next face-to-face meeting. That's not what 


SC&A has been doing to this point. If it is 


the Board's desire to cons-- to consider that, 


then I think we need to take that up as a 


separate discussion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly a different line audit 


than we had talked about originally, and maybe 


something that could be considered. It would ­

- I think would be a different name. We had 


definitely talked about a blind audit of the 


NIOSH dose reconstruction procedures, and I 


think Jim Melius's question is have -- are we 


going to do that or not. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Mike's question needs to be 


addressed, but I don't think we can do it here 


in this time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kind of a separate issue, I think. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Blind audit of the cases, I think 


we have different interpretations of how you 


would do a blind audit of a case. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean even John and Hans are -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Lew, I might offer -- maybe we 


can -- maybe the dose reconstruction 


subcommittee can -- can look at this scope and 


bring back something to the Board -- flesh out 


a poss-- you know, some possible approaches. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, certainly I mean --


 MR. GRIFFON: That may be something we can do, 


you know. 


 DR. WADE: I think that's the appropriate place 


to do it. You know, my goal was to try and be 


able to -- to do something to keep the contract 


running on October 1st, and I don't know if 


we're going to get there or not, but we could ­

- we should push on and see where we get to. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, perhaps that can be 


considered as a modification at -- at some 


point 'cause I think it's -- it frankly should 


have been in this proposal and it wasn't, and 


I'm not sure quite why, but I think we need to 

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-- it's a little late now and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, don't want to hold up work, 


but we want to get that in there. 


 DR. MELIUS: Need to get that in there and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Actually the way this is 


written, it doesn't exclude blind audits. It 


just doesn't speak to them. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so John Mauro'll have a 


heart attack or something, he -- especially if 


we hold them to the price here or something. 


DR. MAURO: Well, you know --


 DR. MELIUS: And they will be more expensive, 


but to get back to this -- 


DR. MAURO: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- whole approach they're taking 


and conversation that -- back and forth that 


you and I were having, Paul, about the -- how 


to go about managing what they're proposing, 


and I guess I'm not -- I guess I can see the 


value of them doing, you know, sort of their 


selective review and then -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, at least on the sort of 


things Hans is talking about. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right, but -- but I would really 


like to see a proposal for doing that, that -- 

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I think we need to have some -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we know exactly what that 


means. 


 DR. MELIUS: What they're doing, at least with 


the -- I hate to use the word scope, but -- but 


with something that outlines the process, what 


-- what will they be, you know, doing so that 


we -- sure that the breadth and depth of the 


audit is appropriate. Then they apply that and 


bring it back. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MELIUS: At least we would put some 


guidelines on -- on what that -- what's being 


done and I -- I think it would -- you know -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think the dose 


reconstruction subcommittee could develop a 


recommendation on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it's funny, Jim, that you 


should say breadth and depth 'cause that's 


exactly what -- I mean I almost see the ap-- 


the approach moving forward as possibly less 


breadth but possibly more depth and -- you 


know, 'cause I -- I agree that -- I think one 


example that was used earlier was that, you 


know, we don't want to have to check every 

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number and make sure, you know, it comes out -- 


you know, go down the whole list of IREP values 


and make sure every one is in agreement. On 


the other hand, you might want to chase back 


something further than has been done in past 


audits and -- you know, to -- to -- basically, 


for example, to -- not only to see what 


assumption was used, but to -- to question the 


assumptions, you know, and -- especially on 


those where there's no site profile document. 


I see that would be, you know, useful, so -- 


so... 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- exactly, I agree. Mark. 


think that's (unintelligible) we need to get 


and still having a -- but having some sort of 


guidelines for how that would be done, and I 


think certainly that would be something that 


SC&A could propose to the -- you know, do a 


draft of how they view the process and then to 


the -- that workgroup and -- or subcommittee, 


whichever it is by then, and then, you know, 


work it up from there to the full Board for 


discussion. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That sounds good. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Can we go on to Task V? 


I 
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DR. MAURO: Yes, I have it in front of me, and 


-- and let me just say a quick word. 


UNIDENTIFIED: John --


DR. MAURO: I like -- I like the idea that 


we're having this conversation. I'm glad these 


proposals are stimulating -- you know, we're 


really being very introspective right now about 


-- and this is a (unintelligible) function, so 


this is good. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, let me -- let me make one 


more point here and I'll try to make it short. 


I -- I appreciate Mike's recommendation that a 


blind dose reconstruction should start without 


any bias towards what is currently being done 


by NIOSH. On the other hand, you could never 


completely divorce yourself from documentation 


that is in place. And let me give you an 


example. You couldn't, for instance, assess 


bioassay data without knowing what the MDA 


values are for -- for a given bioassay that 


involves uranium or plutonium and the 


methodologies that were used to come up with 


those numbers that DOE has available for us in 


terms of a bioassay data or in terms of -- of 


film or -- or TLD. If you don't know what the 

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LOD values were, how do you deal with missed 


dose if you don't know which film dosimeters 


were used and what the values were, and so you 


could never completely remove yourself from DOE 


documents -- I mean NIOSH documents, whether 


it's a TIB or a TBD, you just -- no matter how 


far you want to remove yourself from bias, 


somewhere along the line you still have to use 


documents that are part of the dose 


reconstruction process used by NIOSH. 


 MR. GIBSON: And -- and Hans, this is Mike. 


understand what you're saying, but -- and I -- 


I'm certainly not criticizing you guys. All 


I'm saying is the -- and I know it would take a 


lot more resources to do this, and again, as 


Dr. Wade brought up, this would have to be 


brought -- brought up before the Board or 


whatever else, as maybe another task or 


whatever, but you guys could go in and learn 


what the -- the level of detection was. You 


guys could learn -- you know, seek the 


documentation. I know it's not divorcing 


yourself from NIOSH, but it's -- it's kind of 


circling NIOSH and just going back to what you 


can find from the raw data, and especially 


I 
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leaving what the site experts put in the site 


profile behind and seeing what you could find 


out about the site, because that, in my opinion 


-- and my opinion alone -- is that's where 


there's a lot of flaws is in -- is in the site 


profiles and things that are assumed to be true 


and that workers allege to have happened. 


That's all I'm saying. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Paul, this is Bob Presley. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I've got a doctor's appointment 


at 4:00 o'clock --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- I've got to go to. If you 


need me for a vote could you call me on the 


cell phone at 865-216-9013? 


 DR. ZIEMER: 865--


 MR. PRESLEY: 216--


 DR. ZIEMER: 316 (sic) --


 MR. PRESLEY: I'm sorry, 216-9013. 


 DR. ZIEMER: 216-9013. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Got it. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you, sir. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

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 DR. WADE: Okay. Well, let's try and deal with 


Task V and VI and then see what we have at -- 


at the end of this. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I'll move out real quick on 


this. On Task V, which is SEC petition 


reviews, basically SC&A was requested to 


provide a cost estimate to review six SEC 


petitions. In our -- in the request, a 


distinction was made between ones with and ones 


without a site profile. I did something -- 


something very simple here. We have experience 


now with the SEC petition reviews. We did 


Ames, Y-12 and -- and we're in the middle of 


Rocky, and the -- and the existence of a site 


profile or not is -- is not a key factor. It 


sounds kind of crazy, it's certainly helpful, 


but it -- there's so many uncertainties that 


drive the cost of these things. We -- we did 


Ames in under -- under 400 work hours and Rocky 


is pushing I believe 2,000 work hours right now 


on SEC. So I mean -- and there's -- and 


there's no predicting that it was going to go 


that way. I think the reason it went that way 


is Ames was one that was -- it was -- the 


evaluation part in the end came out in favor 

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and -- and at Rocky is -- is a much more 


complex problem. And so what I've done is 


something very simple. I simply said we're 


going to allocate 1,000 work hours per SEC 


petition review report, and just keep it that 


simple. And -- and then as the site profiles 


move through the process -- well, you know, of 


course we -- we keep track of what things cost 


and -- and over the six that are done, there's 


no doubt some of them are going to be 


relatively inexpensive and others are going to 


be a lot more complex, and there's just no 


predicting and so I just went ahead and used 


1,000 work hours based on the experience we've 


had with Ames, Y-12 and Rocky. So that's what ­

- that's how we did that price. 


In the letter that we received from you folks 


you also asked us to support four full Board 


meetings and to support I believe for working 


group meetings. For the full Board meetings I 


assigned no level of effort, no cost, because 


all of the Board meetings are a part of project 


management so they're covered in the project 


management cost and -- but I did set aside some 


resources to support the subcommittee meetings 

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that would be certainly associated -- four 


subcommittee meetings I believe you requested 


for the -- to support the SEC closeout process, 


so that was 240 work hours. So the -- the 


bottom line is to -- to provide the Board with 


the support of SEC -- six SEC petitions and -- 


and associated closeout meetings. For -- for 


working group meetings I -- I've allocated 


6,240 work hours. And the -- the -- a lot of 


uncertainty in terms of how much -- and the 


individual ones would come -- will -- will 


cost, but I think that there's always going to 


be some trade-offs between -- so they would be 


-- average out and -- and I feel comfortable 


that this is a good place to start. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And then Task VI is your 


(unintelligible) --


DR. MAURO: Task VI is the same as it was last 


year. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: So nothing new there, same type of 


support, same level of effort. And it turns 


out that that budget is working out right on -- 


right on the button. That is, our actuals are 


coming in right where we predicted and so there 

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is no reason to make much of a change to the -- 


the budget to do the same thing next year. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Jim Lockey, I'd ask a question 


about the four subcommittee meetings. Is --


you think that's adequate? Is that what it's 


been historically or -- sounds like -- it feels 


like, to me anyway, the scope of work of this 


committee is increasing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's four for each case? 


DR. MAURO: No, a total of four -- or six. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun, these -- John 


might be referring to the subcommittee meetings 


that happen just before the Board meetings, and 


not working groups. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Is that what you're referring to? 


DR. MAURO: Unfortunately, I priced these out 


as if they were separate meetings, not part of 


the Board meetings. If they were part of the 


Board meetings, they would not have any cost. 


What I --


 DR. ZIEMER: You're talking about the 


workgroups then, not -- 


DR. MAURO: I'm talking workgroup, yeah. Yeah. 


Although Arjun's correct, it's labeled 


subcommittee. When I priced this out, I just 

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simply assumed that the -- there would be 


meetings separate than the four -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: These are four meetings, for 


example, in Cincinnati then. 


DR. MAURO: Exactly. I priced out that we 


would -- to support the six SEC petition 


reviews there would be -- that this is what 


would -- how I interpreted the instructions. 


Perhaps I should have given you folks a call. 


That there would be four working group meetings 


to support those six -- that would be held in 


Cincinnati and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Sometimes these overlap -- you can 


cover a couple --


DR. MAURO: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- of topics in one trip and -- 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, and you'll notice in Exhibit 


1 I -- I did them subcommittee meetings because 


that's what they were called in the request, 


but quite frankly, I priced them out as -- 


whether you call them subcommittee or call them 


working group, I priced them out as a separate 


trip. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And basically using 


Cincinnati in each case for the -- 

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DR. MAURO: Exactly, just for pricing purposes, 


right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions on any of the -- 


any of the tasks now? 


 (No responses) 


Now Lew, I think you were hoping that we would 


at least get some preliminary actions -- 


 DR. WADE: Well, I have a proposal to make -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead. 


 DR. WADE: -- if you would allow me to. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 


 DR. WADE: You know, hearing and appreciating 


all of the discussion, I guess I would ask the 


Board's concurrence on Task I to allow David 


Staudt to go ahead and put a task in place that 


would allow SC&A to pursue its -- its re-review 


of Savannah River Site and also to proceed with 


all of the closeout activities that's underway, 


but we'll leave open the issue of other site 


profiles and other re-reviews until we can make 


a more complete evaluation and present it to 


the Board of where we stand in terms of ongoing 


closeout activities and what that might do to 


affect the budget. So we would -- we would be 


really doing nothing but Savannah River Site 

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and continuing with all the closeout 


activities. That's on Task I. 


On Task III I think there was general agreement 


with letting SC&A move forward. 


On Task IV, this is the most complex, I would 


ask that the Board allow for SC&A to begin 


another group of 20 reviews. There would be no 


discretion built in, unless and until the 


subcommittee decides what that discretion would 


be. We would be asking SC&A for a proposal as 


to how it would exercise its discretion, but at 


this point we'd be -- we'd be empowering them 


to do another batch of 20, and it would be 


biased towards full dose reconstructions, not 


min/max. 


And Tasks V and VI I think are -- there was 


general agreement. 


So we would back off on Task I and Task IV, but 


I would like there to be some activity there so 


we don't stop, for example, what's being done 


on Savannah River or the closeout activities. 


And I would like to be able to have SC&A start 


the year with another batch of 20 individuals. 


And my compromise there would be without 


discretion until there's agreement between SC&A 

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and the -- and the subcommittee on what 


discretion is, and let's bias this group 


towards full dose reconstructions. 


So that's a proposal at the 11th hour to try 


and get a sense of the Board that I don't think 


limit any of the Board's options on the 


important questions that it's raised. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You've heard the suggestion. Is 


there any Board member want to make a motion 


that we adapt this suggestion? 


 DR. MELIUS: I have a question first. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. MELIUS: And maybe a modification to that, 

to the -- what Lew was proposing. The question 


is like -- I don't know if Dave Staudt's still 


on the Board --


 MR. STAUDT: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) but on the 


call -- (unintelligible) we've been on the call 


a long time -- but will this -- if we only 


approve what Lew -- Lew has mentioned so far, 


is that going to get us into any -- if we then 


wait until our September meeting to flesh out 


the rest -- is that going to get us into any 


problems with delaying -- 

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 MR. STAUDT: No, no, not at all. I mean --

 DR. ZIEMER: What about budget requests 

overall? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. STAUDT: If it was me, I would -- I would 

take the opportunity to, you know, within the 


available funding, it's anticipated 


(unintelligible) happens and get -- get it 


pretty much under contract, and then that way 


Lew can, you know, go forward and ask for some 


additional funds. We can always change the 


scope and -- and I -- I would -- I would alter 


a little bit what Lew suggested. This is mine. 


If you wanted to put some more hours into Task 


I, because I think the consensus was that there 


definitely was not enough hours in there, 150 


wasn't going to cut it, but you would like Lew 


and I to work with SC&A to put some more hours 


in there, and then we could shift some of the 


funds away from Task Order IV if you want to. 


That's just something to think about until we 


can figure out exactly what we want in Task 


Order IV. That's kind of your call. But you 


do whatever you want right now. We can make 


whatever changes, we can get revised proposals 

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back from SC&A and -- and allow Lew and I a 


little bit of discretion to -- to get these in 


place. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Considering the fact that we can 


always do revisions in any event, I'm wondering 


if it wouldn't be prudent to do what David 


suggested and -- and take Task I, up it by some 


number of hours, and then -- and then select 


one of the options for Task IV, with the 


understanding that, you know, we can modify 


that, too. 


 DR. WADE: That would be preferable if you guys 


are ready to do that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- what I was going to -- 


I'm not going to put this in a motion yet, but 


let me see if I can talk --


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: -- talk through it. One -- one is 


that we -- we -- assuming that if I have -- 


Lew's math here is correct, that -- assuming we 


-- we have three -- roughly $3.5 million -- 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- put in -- put in this contract, 


the -- that we take the -- approve -- you know, 


move some more money up to Task I for fully 

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funding that with -- with -- plus some 


additional money that we would take from really 


Task IV under option 2B, and I think Dr. 


Ziemer, you had a -- mentioned that we'd 


probably want to get to 60 ca-- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I was going to suggest 60 cases, 


reviewer discretion with -- would hold -- we'd 


hold off on that until the workgroup defined 


that, but best estimates and I -- I think we 


could ask that it be at least funded on a 


reviewer discretion basis -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- with the idea that we're going 


to define what that is so that that number is 


going to be a little bit larger than the 55, 


but there -- it would be enough different from 


80 that you could carry money up to Task I. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that -- that -- that was 


what I was thinking, too. I -- I think the -- 


the discretion issue I don't think has to be -- 


I don't think we need to go through a prolonged 


discussion on that, and I actually think it 


would -- would be informed by actually applying 


it and, you know, getting some feedback from 


them -- from SC&A actually doing it on a set of 

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cases, so I don't think we should hold it up 


until we have a completely approved procedure. 


But I think we can, you know, work with SC&A on 


getting that implemented. And we also have 


open the issue of blind reviews, also, but -- 


but I -- I agree with what you've just 


proposed, Paul, that we -- we sort of save 


enough -- keep enough money in Task IV that 


would do roughly 60 cases as you outlined, and 


then move the additional funding up into -- to 


Task I and -- and really better consideration 


of how we should -- if we have adequate hours 


in there for all the revisions and so forth 


that need to be addressed. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So -- this is Lew again. So 


-- and thank you for that clarification. So 


starting at the bottom, Task VI as proposed, 


Task V as proposed; Task IV we would take 


option 2B but set the target at 60, with the 


understanding that this issue of discretion 


will need to be worked out, we'll realize 


certain savings there; Task III we would fund 


as is; Task I we would redo by putting some 


additional of the saved monies in from Task IV 


and try and make more realistic estimates of 

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what it takes to close out and build that into 


Task I, understanding that once we do this and 


the money's in place, the Board will always 


have the opportunity to adjust as it -- as it 


sees fit. And then in September we'll try and 


have a discussion -- a holistic discussion of 


funding that might lead to the Board 


recommending increases or decreases or level 


funding as it sees fit by addressing some of 


the broad issues. 


 DR. MELIUS: And I would also add to that that 


we should start in September a process to look 


particularly at Task I in terms of -- see if we 


could plan that pro-- that task out a little 


bit better in terms of where NIOSH is with site 


profile revisions, new site profiles that 


haven't been reviewed yet so we can have a 


better understanding how to distribute the 


money in there and what's the, you know, proper 


mix of -- of old and new and how we're going to 


handle that whole area of site profile reviews 


'cause I -- I don't think we've planned it out 


(unintelligible) moving target, it's difficult 


to do that, but I think some discussion in 


detail on where NIOSH is with its contractors 

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in terms of site profile revisions would be 


helpful. 


 DR. WADE: Right, we'll work on that. I mean I 


accept that as -- as a very positive suggestion 


and we'll -- we'll aim for that presentation in 


September. 


So David, if the Board agrees to what was just 


discussed, then you have what you need? 


 MR. STAUDT: Absolutely. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then let me ask for a motion to 


that effect, which would -- the motion would be 


to proceed as -- basically as just summarized 


by Lew, which includes taking Tasks III, V and 


VI as they are; on Task IV agreeing to 60 cases 


with discretion and best estimate; and then 


moving the saved funds up to Task I to increase 


the number of hours available for the closeout 


activities. 


Is there a motion to that effect? 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer, could I ask -- ask one 


more question? 


 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. Lew, I know the -- 


the fiscal year ends October 1st and you've got 

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to, you know, get your budget proposals in and 


all that. If during the next fiscal year 


whatever case arises, whether it's dose 


reconstructions, SECs or anything else, can we 


as a Board request more money for our 


contractor or are they -- are we tied to $3.5 


million or how -- how does that -- can you 


explain to me how that works or -- 


 DR. WADE: You can -- the Board can certainly 


request more money. I would think 


realistically the -- the possibility of getting 


more money would always be best as you approach 


a new fiscal year than in the middle of a 


fiscal year. But again, the Board could, you 


know, ask me to seek additional funding for the 


contract and then I would do the best that I 


could. I would tell you honestly that I would 


likely be more successful aiming for funding 


for the next year than I would be seeking 


funding in the middle of a fiscal year. But 


it's a very political process, obviously, Mike, 


and it involves -- it would involve our 


negotiations with DOL. It would also involve, 


you know, appropriations action and it's not a 


trivial activity. But the Board certainly can 

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make its voice clear on this. 


 DR. MELIUS: What was the appropriations for 


this year, Lew? Do we have a number? 


 DR. WADE: I -- I don't have it in front of me, 


Jim. I mean I can certainly get it, but I 


don't have it in front of me. 


 MR. GIBSON: So -- so once -- this is Mike 

again --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- yeah, go ahead, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: Once you make your -- your budget 

request to DOL and they make the request to OMB 


or whoever they do, Congress, the 


appropriations committees, then that's a -- 


that's a one-time shot. And then during the 


year you would have to (unintelligible) funds 


within your Department or the Department of 


Labor if we needed more funds for our 


contractors. 


 DR. WADE: Within the discretion of what the 


appropriators have said. I mean we don't have 


unlimited discretion to do that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And if -- if -- it's really very 


difficult because once those funds get 


earmarked for -- in a certain way, a lot of 


times you can't go back and just shift them 

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around without involving the -- the Hill 


committee, so it would not be -- I think the 


bottom line is, Mike, mid-year is not easy to 


change a budget by any significant amount. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Well, I guess -- I guess 


what you're saying --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- at least that's been my 

experience. Lew? 

 MR. GIBSON: -- right, and I --

 DR. WADE: Sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- I kind of understood that, I 


just wanted to make sure. But I just -- I'm 


just very uncomfortable with the level I've 


heard that's -- that the Board is taking on and 


our contractor's taking on that this shifting 


funds from one task to another -- I just see 


somewhere there being a shortfall or someone 


getting short-changed or work not being done, 


and that (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: But -- but I think, Mike, in terms 


of even our contractor's current ability in -- 


in -- you know, ramping up even is -- is not an 


overnight process, so I think the ability to 


proceed -- and this is a good chunk of work, 


and I think it's reasonable for us to proceed 

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on this basis. Keep in mind that originally 


our budget was less than $1 million per year, 


when we started out five years ago. 


 DR. WADE: Right, we've ramped up considerably, 


and if -- if it's the Board's wishes to 


consider further ramping up, that's fine. You 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, actually it wasn't even five 


years ago. I'm talking about when we added our 


contractor. We were -- we were talking about 


$3 million over a five-year period. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we have ramped up considerably. 


 MR. GIBSON: No, and I -- it'd probably be 


better for me to talk to Dr. Wade after this 


meeting off the record on this issue, but that 


$3.5 million figure came about in an odd way, 


let's just put it that way, and I'd like to 


talk to Dr. Wade after the meeting about that. 


 DR. WADE: Sure. But I'm certainly -- and I 


look forward to that, Mike, but I'm certainly 


open to the Board's suggestion as to what 


funding we should pursue for the Board and its 


audit contractor, and the Board is free to make 


those recommendations. 

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 DR. MELIUS: I just checked my old e-mail and 


my understanding's right. The actual 


appropriations for this year is $4.5 million. 


 DR. WADE: Right, I think that's right, and 


generally it's a million for the Board and 3.5 


for SC&A. The reason I hesitate is I don't 


know exactly the state of play of things, but I 


think that's what -- what we were targeting 


for, a million for the Board's operation and 


3.5 for SC&A. Again, if the Board thinks, with 


reason, that a higher level is appropriate, 


then it needs to make those arguments and I 


need to take them forward. 


 DR. MELIUS: I -- I think if our -- discussion 


at the next meeting we can address... 


 DR. WADE: Right. But again, for the public 


record, we've -- we've worked very hard to grow 


the audit effort as I sense that the Board 


required it or thought it necessary. And 


again, we've -- we've more than tripled it, 


quadrupled it over the last several years. And 


again, if the Board thinks more is appropriate, 


it can make those recommendations. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did -- did somebody make a motion 


to adopt this recommendation? 

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 DR. MELIUS: I thought I did, but maybe I -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Melius did? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And who seconded it? 

 DR. MELIUS: I don't think we got as far as a 

second. 

 MR. CLAWSON: I'll second it. This is Brad 

Clawson. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any further discussion? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yes, just a question. I don't 

know if it's appropriate according to Roberts' 


Rules or whatever --


 DR. ZIEMER: A question is always in order. 


 MR. GIBSON: Would it -- would it be 


appropriate to ask for a motion to increase the 


amount of money allotted to SC&A if needed? 


 DR. ZIEMER: You can certainly request that we 


amend this motion. I -- I would suggest that 


if we do that, we tie it into something more 


specific, like if the Board can identify how 


many hours you want to add to Task I and let 


them cost that out and if it goes over to -- 


you know, if it comes out $3.6 million, so be 


it. Or are you -- is that basically what 


you're asking? 

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 MR. GIBSON: I'm -- I'm just asking -- I would 


like to make a motion that in the event SC&A 


needs more money, whether it's from incoming 


SECs or dose reconstructions, blind dose 


reconstructions at -- I think -- it's my motion 


that the Board should request NIOSH to seek 


more money this fiscal year -- this next coming 


fiscal year for our contractor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask the question in this 


way, and maybe David Staudt can help answer it. 


I think -- I think we -- we certainly have to 


tie it in with a specific statement of the work 


task. Right? 


 MR. STAUDT: That's correct, I mean this -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And they have to cost that out. 


If -- if the Board were to determine, for 


example -- I mean we've -- we've spelled out 


everything except the number of hours to be 


added in option one. If we said we want that 


to be, at a minimum -- and pick your number, 


1,000 or 2,000 hours -- and then let them cost 


it out and if it comes over three and -- I 


think the motion is if it turns out that they 


need more money, we should -- the instruction 


would be to ask for more. But I don't think 

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open-endedly we can just -- 


 MR. STAUDT: No, absolutely not, this is a cost 


plus fixed fee, it's basically best effort, so 


you're identifying a scope and they're doing 


their best efforts within the available 


funding. And you can't, for example, just say 


well, we'd like to have them do $500,000 more 


of work, but they're really not -- that 


$500,000 hasn't been identified. You're not 


supposed to put that on a contract. 


 DR. MELIUS: This is Jim. I think -- the 


procedure, we're fine. One is we were making 


recommendations for this current contract based 


on past orders that were put in front of -- the 


draft task orders put in front of us and from 


our -- from our contractor, and I think that's 


one motion -- sort of separate motion to 


address that, and I think we have that pending. 


And my understanding is that we were going to 


discuss at our next meeting -- more fully 


discuss some of these scope issues, and I think 


it would be -- you know, may be appropriate at 


that meeting to discuss, you know, do we need ­

- given -- when we've more fully explored the 


scope and what the Board needs, that -- for us 

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to discuss should this total amount be modified 


or should the contract be modified some way. 


Then there would be an issue of -- of whether 


the funding is available. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Well, I -- I just -- you 


know, I -- earlier, you know, I heard that it 


can't -- it's nearly impossible it be done in 


the middle of the year, so if we don't do it 


today -- if we don't do something today, you 


know, I just thought we'd lost it for a year 


and I don't want to see one task cut down to 


ramp up for another one. But okay, I'll -- 


never mind, I'll --


 DR. WADE: Thank you. This is Lew. I think in 


all honesty that the difference between today 


or the September meeting is not critical in 


terms of the ability to get funds. I don't 


believe it to be. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Those appropriations have already 


been set and -- but -- so I don't think we're ­

- you're surrendering anything, at least in my 


-- in my considered opinion. 


 DR. MELIUS: And I think it’s important that we 


have a -- a good a full -- full justification 

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for the need for additional funding beyond 


what's already been put in front of us. 


 DR. WADE: Right, I mean again --


 DR. MELIUS: But I don't (unintelligible) 


adequate information to be able to do that 


today. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and just because the Board 


asks for it doesn't mean NIOSH is going to seek 


it. And just because NIOSH seeks it doesn't 


mean NIOSH is going to get it. I mean so the 


stronger the arguments, the -- the more likely 


we can succeed at whatever it is that the Board 


desires. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, understood. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so we have the motion as it 


was stated. It's been seconded. Any further 


discussion? 


 (No responses) 


Then let's vote and we need to vote -- all in 


favor will say aye when your name is called. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, here we go. Clawson? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Gibson? 


 MR. GIBSON: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Griffon? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Is Presley still with us? We can --


 DR. ZIEMER: If we don't need his vote, we 


don't need to (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: We don't need his vote. Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Aye. 


 DR. WADE: Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: And Poston, not with us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so it -- it passed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries. Thank you very 


much. 


INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION AND TASK III 


REVIEW UPDATE
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORK GROUP CHAIR
 

We need to move ahead here, we're a little 


behind schedule. It's currently 4:00 o'clock. 


We have individual dose reconstruction Task III 


review update. Mark Griffon chaired that 


workgroup and Mark wanted to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- pick that up at this point. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, hopefully I -- I can be 


fairly quick with this one. We have -- I sent 


around matrices. I hope everyone got them. 


Brad, I can send them to your new address if 


you didn't get those. But I have the Task III 


procedures matrix and the second and third set 


of cases matrices. And we, at the last 


workgroup meeting -- I think it was the 27th -- 


we went through our review process. And 


basically at that meeting we merged my version 


of the matrix with -- with NIOSH's -- Stu 


Hinnefeld's -- to incorporate the final column 


of the matrix, which was the program actions. 


And I think we -- we -- the agreement with 


everyone at the workgroup, NIOSH and SC&A, that 


the program actions captured were accurate. So 


I think those at this point are -- are in final 


form. Does everybody agree with that on the 


workgroup? I think those are in final form. 


 (No responses) 


And since then I tried to draft -- and I sent 


this around and I hope now everyone has it -- 


sent around a draft letter, which is formatted 


in similar fashion as the letter that we had 


for the first set of 20. So it's supposed to 

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be -- the front end will look very familiar, 


but then the -- the conclusions I reformatted a 


little bit to -- to sort of highlight different 


sections of the letter report here. The method 


for ranking is highlighted. The summary of 


findings impacting estimates of individual 


doses, that's the -- the SC&A ranking. And 


then if you recall, we have this -- this 


program-wide or site-wide ranking as a separate 


column in the matrix, and that's really based 


on not only the individual case finding but 


also, you know, whether that finding would have 


applied to several different cases because it 


would have been carried through for -- for 


instance, if -- if there was something that 


would likely carry through many dose 


reconstructions for that site, or DOE-wide, 


then it would have a larger impact or -- or may 


have a larger impact. And then the section -- 


I'm on page two now, halfway down or so, the 


summary of audit contractor findings. I do 


have a comment on that. I'll come back to that 


paragraph. And then the process followed in 


the review. That's the six-step process that 


we've often referred to. And then the last 

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part is the conclusions and recommendations. 


And some of these, I should point out, are 


similar to findings in the first set, the first 


letter that we wrote. The DR report on-- you 


know, once again we found several findings 


related to concerns about the DR report and the 


fact that it may -- may not have captured 


information identified by the claimant in their 


CATI interview and -- and that would be wise to 


do so, some other items like that. Also the --


the ability to -- to audit the DR report, that 


it was very difficult to crosswalk the DR 


report unless you had all the -- the records 


that go behind it, which are on the O drive but 


ma-- you know, are often not available to the 


claimant. 


 Internal quality control came up in several 


different findings, and that was a finding 


before, also. Procedural issues, the highlight 


of this is the TIB-8 and TIB-10, which we've 


heard about at several meetings now. And then 


a -- a sort of a new category in the letter is 


the external dose issue. This is related to 


primarily -- or solely, actually, to the dose 


conversion factor that was raised and -- and -- 

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and it -- it actually came up in several of the 


cases out of these 40 and it -- it remains 


unresolved, though. There is -- NIOSH has an 


interim strategy for being claimant favorable 


in place. 


And then the ongoing concerns are -- are 


similar as in the last one. They -- the -- the 


CATI interview, this -- this has come up in 


these cases as well as in the procedures 


review. And the validation and verification of 


-- of records. And the final one is the -- 


considered one of the efficiency approach that 


the -- and the last line there indicates that 


NIOSH has modified or clarified their policy, 


indicating that overestimating approaches are 


warranted only when there is clear efficiency 


advantage to them. In other words, if -- if 


the data's there and it -- there's no benefit 


to using that efficiency approach, then use the 


data that you have. 


So that's -- that summariz-- you know, that's ­

- that's the summary letter. I hope people had 


time -- I'm sorry for getting it out just this 


morning, but that is a summary of the second 


and third set of cases -- doesn't address the 

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procedures review at all. I've -- I've left 


that separate. 


Just to -- go ahead, Paul. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I was just going to ask, Mark, do 


-- is this ready to take action or did the 


Board members -- since you only got it this 


morning, do you wish to defer action till our 


meeting or are you -- are you ready to act on 


it now? We do -- we will need to get -- on 


page one we will need to get some numbers, 


perhaps from Stu Hinnefeld -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and he -- he did provide 


those to me. Just this morning I got some of 


those numbers from him. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And maybe you can give us those 


numbers. This first -- I guess it's the second 


paragraph, the XXX, and then the third 


paragraph --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think Stu said it was 


thirty -- around 3,900 -- I think he had a 


specific number, but around 3,900 is what I've 


filled in now for cases. 


DR. ROESSLER: What is the down side of waiting 


until the September meeting? This is a lot to 


go through because --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. ROESSLER: -- we didn't get until we --


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think there's a particular 


problem in waiting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, although I would -- I mean I 


-- I don't -- I certainly don't mind waiting to 


vote on the whole package, the matrices and 


this, you know, 'cause the matrices'll be 


attached, so I think it would be beneficial for 


all Board members to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Have the whole package. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- look close-- look closely at 


it, yeah. The only thing I would ask, Paul, is 


that if we do vote on it in September, that it 


be delivered shortly after. I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I don't know where the first 


letter stands. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This will be pretty much ready to 


go I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- by the time you're ready in 


September, and if we have all the -- if we have 


those numbers from Stu, it just -- everything 


in electronic form, we can shoot it right in, 

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so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I'll send out a -- a 


revision two in a couple of days. I actually ­

- the -- the -- the -- one thing I wanted to 


discuss briefly is the summary of the audit 


contractor findings. I think I -- I -- I've 


already edited it on my copy here, but I put 


down 38 of 40 and two cases that may have been 


affected, and I think really at this point -- 


or -- or -- I think conclusion's more likely 


that one case, case number 49, could be 


affected. And that's a lymphoma case which has 


the new policy in place for -- for dose 


reconstruction. The -- there are four other 


cases, though, that -- in our -- out of the 40 


that are -- that NIOSH and SC&A have agreed 


need further evaluation, so they've -- so I've 


re-- I've re-worded that paragraph a little to 


reflect that, that one -- one has insufficient 


information --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but there's four --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that need re-evaluation -- 


yeah. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- paragraph, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so I'll -- I'll forward a 


rev. 2, and then you'll have the two matrices 


and -- that are -- you know, I think we can 


take it up for a vote at the September meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let me ask if there's any 


questions on this at the moment? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: This is -- this is Stu 


Hinnefeld. Well, the -- the comment that, you 


know -- the one that is insufficient, that case 


number 49, since that is the result of the 


change in the policy for target organ rather 


than any kind of error in the dose 


reconstruction, will those words kind of be 


reflected in the letter? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we'll have to put 


something -- yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it probably --


 MR. GRIFFON: We have to clarify that, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- clarify that it --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- make sure it's not shown as a 


deficiency then. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld again. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

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 MR. HINNEFELD: Up on page two there's a second 


insert, Tables -- 21 to 60. Are those the 


selection -- the tables that are essentially 


the selection tables that I -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. I'll provide those, as 


well. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and Stu, what -- what are 


the correct numbers on the first page? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I e-mailed it to Mark. 


didn't keep them --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you don't have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It wa-- yeah, it wa-- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark'll insert those -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it was actually 3,892. I 


was just going to put approx-- since I have 


"approximately" in the -- in the letter, I 


thought I'd put approximately 3,900. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, approximately, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: And the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- that was as of the selection 


for the third set. That was February of '05 


I 
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when the third set was selected, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we need to put the date in ­

-


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- the second set was selected 


a couple of months earlier. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I thought that would be the -- 


since we're talking about them sort of together 


here --


 DR. ZIEMER: And the second number -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- is what then? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- that other date. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In the next paragraph, the 40 


cases covered in this report, selected from an 


unrepresentative pool of -- what is that 


number? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's the same number. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, that's the same number? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's referencing the same 


number, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. I see. 


 DR. WADE: So we can get those numbers in rev. 

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2 and get --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any --


 MR. GRIFFON: And I'll cla-- I'll clarify that 


wi-- yeah, I think that's the same number, 


though, Paul, but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, good. Any other questions 

on this? 

 (No responses) 

PLANS FOR SUBCOMMITTEE ACTIVITIES
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

If not, I think we can move on to the issue of 


subcommittee plans. Let me remind you, at our 


last meeting we talked about sort of modifying 


the structure of the subcommittee so that it 


looked and acted more like a subcommittee 


rather than a full Board. And the -- the idea 


there was to have a four-person subcommittee 


with two alternates, and to revise the charter 


bec-- this would become the Subcommittee on 


Dose Reconstruction. Currently it's called 


Subcommittee for Dose Reconstruction and Site 


Profile Reviews. I think we have distributed 


the existing charter, and it's on the web site, 


as well. Did we -- Lew, I think you 


distributed to --

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 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the Board members the charter. 


What I was going to suggest and -- and based on 


our discussion at the last meeting, it had been 


agreed that Mark would chair this. The other 


members identified for this subcommittee were 


Mike and John Poston and Wanda. Since Wanda no 


longer will be on that subcommittee, the next 


person -- we had two alternates identified. 


One was Bob Presley and the other was Brad, and 


so I'm suggesting that we move Bob Presley up 


into the membership position and we need a 


second alternative (sic) in addition to Brad, 


and I -- according to Lew's notes, Gen had also 


volunteered but we didn't use her so we -- 


'cause we had our two alternates. But if Gen 


is still available, she could become the second 


alternate then. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that agreeable? 


DR. ROESSLER: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And now -- so that subcommittee is 


the one that, if we have a subcommittee meeting 


prior to the meeting, that's the group that 


would be meeting. Those are the four 

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individuals, and the alternates of course could 


attend if they wished, as well, and Mark would 


lead that. 


And in terms of the charter itself, if you 


would turn to that charter, I'll just point out 


a couple of items, and then I -- I think we can 


 MR. GRIFFON: Paul --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- just a question on that. If 

we -- we now have nine members. If the two 


alternates attend, don't we have a quorum of 


the Board? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see -- yeah, I guess it's 


going to depend on whether some new members are 


named --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but --


 DR. WADE: I'll try and manage --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we may --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we may have to --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- alternates out of there. 


Right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I'm just --


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) but -- a good 

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point, but in any event, if you look at the 


charter, the changes -- and again, I think we 


can operate next month under the existing 


charter. That wouldn't be a problem. But what 


I'm going to propose is the adoption of a new 


charter at our next meeting. I just want to 


point out what changes would be made. 


The -- on the very first page, the name of the 


subcommittee would become the Subcommittee for 


Dose Reconstruction, so we would be dropping 


the site profile reviews. And then the 


membership, if that -- wherever that "site 


profile reviews" appears again, that would be 


dropped. 


It says the membership shall be selected from 


the attached roster of Board members, and what 


we would do would be to say that the membership 


shall be as shown on the attached roster, and 


we would simply name the individuals, not being 


the full Board. So those changes would occur 


on page one. 


On page two, which has the subcommittee 


charges, as I see it now -- and again, we'll 


have a revision copy for you to act on at the 


next meeting, but as I see it now, items one 

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and two would disappear because those are some 


items that are now handled in different ways 


and actually have really nothing to do directly 


with -- with the issue of dose reconstruction, 


per se. The third item would become item one, 


but we would drop the words "and site profile 


reviews". Item four would drop out. Item 


five, six, seven -- five and six would remain. 


Item seven would be the same except for 


dropping "and site profile review reports." 


Item eight would remain the same except for 


dropping "site profiles and." And then I would 


say that we would --


 MR. GRIFFON: Paul --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- just -- just a question on -- 


on dropping number four. I thought earlier in 


the budget discussion we just -- I -- I 


understood that we were actually going to maybe 


work on some of that to -- clarifying scope. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the way this is written is 


it was looking at all of the contractor tasks 


at that point, and I think -- I think we would 


handle it differently here, and I have -- I 


have a -- a new item to add -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- at the end. Let's see --


 DR. MELIUS: Paul, this is Jim Melius. I've 


got to sign off. I have to get to another 


meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, we -- we're not going 


to take action on this -- 


 DR. MELIUS: I understand, that's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. The Board would still -- 


this group would still have some 


responsibilities to -- to make recommendations 


relative to such things as the scope of the 


dose reconstruction reports, the issue that we 


talked about earlier -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and then I have an item added 


which I'll just read to you here and you'll get 


it in writing for the next meeting. (Reading) 


Review findings of the Board's audit contractor 


regarding dose reconstruction cases that have 


been reviewed by the contractor in conjunction 


with the Board's review panels, assure that 


these findings are considered by NIOSH, and 


oversee the development of findings. 


That really has to do with the -- the matrices 

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that are developed --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in the final findings. And 


then we would have to have some words to cover 


those one item that we talked about today in 


the --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But basically what we would be 


doing would simply be modifying the charter to 


reflect the specific group and the focus on 


dose reconstruction activities. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and with your permission 


then, I'll work with the subcommittee chair to 


-- to bring a proposal to the September meeting 


as to the charter. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and what I was going to do, 


and I'll make this available and the 


subcommittee can review the proposed charter, 


I'll just provide you a rewording of this stuff 


that I have here and you can use that as a 


straw man to work from. And then we -- we need 


to make sure that it includes these issues that 


we talked about earlier today in terms of -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- defining things like the -- the 

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issue of the blind reviews and those kinds of ­

- sort of policy issues. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and Mark and I can work -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And keep in mind now, in the 


framework of our meeting, insofar as it may 


work out, we can have other workgroups meet 


during that morning hour. Now obviously they 


can't all because there's an overlap in 


membership. But if we have -- have this 


subcommittee meeting, it might be possible for 


a couple of the other workgroups to also meet 


prior to the Board meeting. We'll have to look 


at the specific membership and see how that 


would work out. 


 DR. WADE: Right. And just for the record, 


Mark, subcommittee meetings would be noticed, 


and we don't have to worry about the quorum 


issue. We've often had a quorum of the Board 


present at subcommittee meetings. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's correct, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and since those meetings are 


announced and open, it's probably not a -- an 


issue. 


 DR. WADE: Right, it's only the workgroups that 


we have to. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Correct, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that sort of outlines the plan 


there, and there will -- we'll be prepared to 


take specific action then and implement it at 


the -- at the September meeting. 


CONSTRUCTION WORKER ISSUES
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

Now on the construction worker issues, which is 


the last main item on the agenda today, there 


was a letter which I distributed to everyone 


several weeks ago -- I'm looking for my copy 


here. Here it is. This is -- was a letter 


from Pete Stafford*. Pete's the director of -- 


what they -- group is called, it's CPWR -- 


 DR. WADE: Center for Protection of Worker 


Rights. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Center for Protection of 


Worker Rights. And he referred to comments 


made by Knut Ringen at our meeting and some 


issues relating to the development of -- of a 


model for reconstructing doses for construction 


workers and so on. Did everybody get a copy of 


that letter? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Anyone that didn't? 


 (No responses) 

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Subsequently -- and I asked Larry Elliott to 


also comment and -- and see where they were 


'cause we know they're developing some models 


for -- for construction worker dose 


reconstructions. And we got -- Larry did 


provide some information relative to the 


information in -- in Pete's letter, and -- is 


Larry or -- or Stu, are you handling -- 


 DR. WADE: I think Jim -- Jim is on, Jim Neton. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I'm on. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can you kind of give us an update 


on where we are in terms of the -- the 


construction worker dose reconstruction models 


and related issues? 'Cause I'll need to 


respond to Pete's letter and I'll need some 


input on that. 


DR. NETON: Right. First I -- I could -- I 


should clarify that when we speak here of 


construction workers, we're -- we're speaking 


specifically of what we call second tier 


construction workers. That is -- and -- and I 


prefer to call them building trades workers, 


but those building trades workers who were not 


employed by the prime contractor at the site. 

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In other words, this wouldn't include people 


who were electricians, pipe fitters, plumbers 


who worked directly for the DOE prime 


contractor because we have been doing those 


dose reconstructions all along and we believe 


that the sites' monitoring program adequately 


can be used to bound their exposures. 


For this sort of separate set of workers we are 


-- we have developed a site profile. It's on 


its probably third revision right now, and the 


release of it is -- is very close. In fact, 


I'm meeting tomorrow morning with the ORAU team 


that developed some of the -- this document to 


go over the final details. It has been through 


a number of revisions. It's been late in 


coming, but we feel that it's going to be 


released very shortly. That's about all I can 


offer, I guess. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, in any event, we -- 


we need to -- and perhaps what I should do is 


volunteer to draft a letter for the Board to 


review at our September meeting which will 


provide an update on where NIOSH is on -- on 


their process, and also I think Larry has 


provided some information on -- there -- there 

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is some information in -- in Pete's letter 


which appears to be incorrect in terms of the 


numbers of claims of -- or dose reconstructions 


of construction workers and so on and we need 


to provide the -- the correct numbers there. 


 But would that be agreeable if I simply drafted 


a letter and brought it to the Board to review 


before we send it out? 


 DR. WADE: I would point out, Paul -- this is 


Lew -- that Pete also ends with some very 


specific requests. I think it would be worth 


your considering at least putting forward a 


possible answer. For example, he says in his 


first request he'd like to see the Board 


arrange to have the Technical Basis Document 


reviewed. Well, you know, that's something the 


Board could assign to SC&A as a -- as a task 


within that Task I we've been talking about. 


think -- as you go through these I think there 


are possible responses the Board could make. 


You know, possibly you could consider them and 


then bring some alternatives or recommendations 


for the Board to consider on Pete's 


recommendations. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, they -- these are identified 


I 
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in his letter on the second page as "issues" -- 


we raise these issues and ask that the Board 


consider them as -- and these are -- it says 


since OCAS expects to consider the Technical 


Basis Document soon, please consider 


establishing a subcommittee to address it. We 


heard from Jim as to where they are, so that 


will be on the street -- hopefully very 


shortly. 


OCAS has completed a large number of 


construction worker DRs, and actually the 


numbers are -- according to Larry, are nine. 


So I don't know if that's a large number, but 


it says we requested SC&A (unintelligible) its 


expertise in construction worker exposure 


estimations, check the random sample 


construction worker DRs for audit, and so on. 


So we have that request. And then this third 


one -- OCAS should investigate and summarize 


cases of past DOE and concern-- and this is 


sort of a task for -- he's asking, I think, 


NIOSH to do. 


Then we ask the Board to add a program 


performance evaluation of its overall Q and A 


procedures and so on. 

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 DR. WADE: I think all of those deserve some 


consideration. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: I think they're -- I think they're ­

- they're -- they're presented I think in the 


spirit of improving things and I think we need 


to consider them as such. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Now all of these may 


require a fair amount of discussion time, and 


we had hoped originally, when we set up this 


meeting, that we would have that time. But we 


actually are at our official adjournment point 


here and so it may be, Lew, that we will have 


to put these individual items on the table for 


specific discussion --


 DR. WADE: At the next meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- at our Board meeting. 


 DR. WADE: I agree. Makes sense. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think in terms of those 


specific actions, anything -- well, we actually 


will have to defer responding till we see what 


the Board wishes to do on each of these items. 


 DR. WADE: I think you're correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In the meantime, I -- I could -- I 


could write Pete and simply indicate to him 

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that we plan to do so, and that would be -- I 


think I can just do that on my own. 


 DR. WADE: And invite him to -- possibly invite 


him to the meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. So in the -- without 


objection, we'll do that and indicate to Pete 


what the plan is. 


BOARD WORKING TIME
 

Let me ask if there are any other items that 


need to come before us? 


 DR. WADE: I have two that are very important 


to me, if I might, Paul. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 


 DR. WADE: We -- there is a meeting scheduled 


on the 22nd of August in Cincinnati to look at 


the Savannah River site profile. That was a 


workgroup to be chaired by Dr. DeHart. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Roy DeHart was the chair. 


 DR. WADE: It had Gibson, Griffon and Lockey. 


I'd like some sense as to how to proceed. I --


you know, I would like to -- to keep the 


momentum going, but we are currently without a 


chair. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Gibson, Griffon, Lockey, we 


really need to add a person to that group... 

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 DR. WADE: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- first meeting of that group, I 


believe. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we did have one phone 


meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You had a phone meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I think we all set that 


date aside, I -- it would be good to -- 


 DR. WADE: To keep it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- stick with it, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- yeah, I'm just thinking 


we -- we need to -- we need to perhaps add one 


more person, and then we need to designate a 


chair. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Paul, this is Brad Clawson. I 


would -- I would help out with what you want, 


but I really don't want to chair it too bad. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're volunteering not to chair 


it, is that --


 MR. CLAWSON: I'm volunteering to help, but I 


don't want to chair it. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: I understand. 

 MR. GIBSON: Paul --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GIBSON: -- this is Mike. I'll volunteer 

to chair the meeting if -- if -- if the other 


members agree. 


 DR. LOCKEY: I agree to that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's appoint you -- and I'm going 


to change phones here. My -- my battery is 


going dead. 


 DR. WADE: Well, thank you, Mike, very much for 


that. You -- you've -- you've watched Mark and 


I think you're in wonderful position to chair, 


so we would add Mike as chair and add Brad to 


the working group, and the meeting would 


continue --


 DR. ZIEMER: And Brad was already on the group, 


so we could still use one more person. 


 DR. WADE: Brad is -- Brad is not. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Brad is not? I thought I had 


him down. 


 DR. WADE: It was Gibson, Griffon, Lockey and 


DeHart. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I gotcha, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: So Brad joins and Mike -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Brad as a volunteer. 


 DR. WADE: -- moves in as the chair. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. All right. 


DR. ROESSLER: And if you need an alternate for 


some reason, I just checked my calendar, I'm 


free. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, we'll proceed with 


Mike chairing then, and Mark and Jim Lockey and 


Brad Clawson. 


 DR. WADE: Right. The other issue I would 


raise -- Dr. Melius is not here, but there is 


also a -- a workgroup that was to look at SEC 


issues, with Melius chair, with Griffon, Wanda 


and Dr. Lockey. Two things about that. One is 


we have the hole created by Wanda. We also now 


have SC&A unencumbered to look at Nevada Test 


Site, and particularly that issue of the 250 


days. So I just want to let everyone know that 


-- I think Dr. Melius was going to tell you 


that he's going to engage SC&A on that issue, 


and so I'll say that for him. We do need, 


though, a replacement for Wanda on that 


workgroup, chaired by Melius, Griffon and 


Lockey, and we need someone else. 


DR. ROESSLER: When does that meet? 

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 DR. WADE: It's not been scheduled yet. 


DR. ROESSLER: I'd volunteer, depending on the 


meeting date. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, and the meeting date 


will be determined by common consent amongst 


the members. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: But I'll also let the Board know 


that Dr. Melius intends to contact SC&A through 


me to -- to get them turned on to this 250-day 


issue. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. So this now will be 


Melius, Griffon, Roessler, Lockey. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we have -- we have some 


others. We have the Nevada Test Site, which 


was Presley, Roessler, Wanda and Clawson. Now 


we have to replace Wanda. Again, Bob Presley, 


I don't know if you feel you desperately need a 


replacement or how that's going or what your 


thoughts are. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew, Bob is off the phone. 


Remember, he had a doctor's appointment. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so we can leave that one 

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opened. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we'll fill it if needed. 


 DR. WADE: I think then we're in decent shape. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Great. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Sorry to rush through those. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other business to come 


before us then today? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, Paul, this is Brad Clawson. 


I just mentioned the -- Mike Gibson on this 


Savannah River, if -- if I could get some of 


the information and stuff that it started out 


or whatever, I'd -- I'd appreciate it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike, can -- can you make 


sure that he gets copies of everything? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I'll get everything that -- 


I'll get everything that was sent to me and try 


to send it out and try to get up to speed on 


this a little bit more and get in touch with 


everyone. 


 DR. WADE: All right, Mike, maybe you and I can 


talk. We have several issues to talk about and 


maybe we could figure out how to get some of 


that matrix construction and stuff done and I 


might be able to assist you in that. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, great, Lew. 

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 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then I think we've concluded 


our business. I look forward to seeing 


everybody in Las Vegas --


THE COURT REPORTER: Dr. Ziemer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

THE COURT REPORTER: -- this is Ray. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Ray. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Could I ask a question? 


It seems like last week in Cincinnati we 


scheduled -- did we schedule a teleconference 


workgroup for August 31st? Am I correct on 


that? 


UNIDENTIFIED: This is (unintelligible), yeah, 


we did. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see -- Lew, do you have that 


on your schedule? 


 DR. WADE: Boy, it rings a bell, but I don't 


have it on a piece of paper in front of me. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Ray -- Ray, that's a face-to-face 


workgroup. I was wondering why nobody heard 


me; I was on mute. 


 DR. WADE: So that's your workgroup? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it's the Rocky Flats and 


we're going to be in Cincinnati. We're -- we 

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agree that those are better to be in person. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. So then am I 


correct that what we have left in August is the 


22nd face-to-face in Cincinnati and the 31st, 


also in Cincinnati face to face? 


 DR. WADE: Right, and possibly something coming 


from Dr. Melius on Nevada Test Site 250 days. 


THE COURT REPORTER: In August? 


 DR. WADE: I don't know. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Oh, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We don't know on that one yet. 


We'll have to find --


 MR. GRIFFON: At least those two, yeah. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other business? 


 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans Behling. Regarding 


the 250-day issue, that was also brought up in 


behalf of the Ames, Iowa SEC petition and was 


never resolved. Is there any status on that 


issue? 


 DR. WADE: No, I think -- I think Dr. Melius's 


workgroup will take on that issue, as well as 


Pacific Proving Grounds. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A couple of -- two sites at least, 

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or more. 


 DR. WADE: I think all three of them, Hans, 


will be brought to you, but it was -- it was 


awaiting a resolution of the Nevada Test Site. 


 DR. BEHLING: Okay, thanks. 


DR. ROESSLER: Paul, since we haven't been cut 


off yet -- this is Gen. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


DR. ROESSLER: I did want to bring up something 


that I think at some time maybe needs some 


discussion, and this goes back to the beginning 


of our discussion today -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you were asking about terms. 


 DR. WADE: Let me try and do that, if I can -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- well, until they cut us off. The 


charter -- when the Board was rechartered in 


2005 the modification was made that Board 


members would serve terms and there would be 


rotation. Before that, there was no thought of 


rotation. The rules that are being used by 


NIOSH and the White House Office of Personnel 


are that one-third of Board members will rotate 


off each year. The initial rotation was 


determined alphabetically. The White House 

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Personnel will decide, on a case by case basis, 


of who stays and who goes. So that the plan 


was with 12 Board members there would be four 


rotating off each year starting in 2005. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or four per year? 


 DR. WADE: Four per year. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Four per year. 


 DR. WADE: Excuse me, four per year or a third 


of the -- of the membership. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, a third of the membership, 


right, okay. 


 DR. WADE: A third of the membership, four per 


year. There again, the annual rotation is 


subject to the timing of when the White House 


actually does it, and so I mean -- it can't be 


rigid that it's one year, but the target was 


each year four members would rotate and the 


order was selected alphabetically. It doesn't 


mean that everyone would be rotated off. Some 


members could be re-upped, and that's a 


decision made by the White House. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, this last statement we got 


said that three were going on four a four-year 


term, so that was a little confusing. 


 DR. WADE: Well, and they say -- it was up to a 

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four-year term --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- because that's the wording in the 


charter. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 


 DR. WADE: The charter says up to a four-year 


term, and that's to allow for a little bit of ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: Overlap. 


 DR. WADE: -- elasticity in the three years. 


DR. ROESSLER: So does the -- I think what I'm 


really getting at is that most appointments by 


agencies, you have a clear understanding as to 


when your term ends, and that allows a person 


to plan for other appointments to other things 


that might come up. I guess personally I feel 


at this point I'm -- I'm really unclear as to 


what my appointment might be. I'd be unclear 


if something else -- if I had another 


opportunity as to whether I could take it or 


not. 


 DR. WADE: You need to consult with me on that. 


Alphabetically, you would be in the third 


group. The second group has just been dealt 


with in terms of this announcement, so next 

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year your -- you would be one of the four 


members under consideration. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, that -- that helps. 


 DR. WADE: I can't speak beyond that, Gen, as 


to what the decision would be. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. I think in answer to the 


question, for this year then the rotation has 


been determined. 


 DR. WADE: That's my understanding. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Okay. 


 MR. CLAWSON: And Lew, this is Brad Clawson. 


Being one of the newer members, if you remember 


right, it took over a year for me to be able to 


get put on line and going, from the time they 


made the announcement to me. I think it'd be 


very beneficial -- you know, there's a lot to ­

- to learn on this. If there's any way they 


could bring these new members in, let them 


learn from some of the previous -- I know it's 


just a suggestion, but I think they should 


really look at it. 


 DR. WADE: That's a good -- good suggestion. 


You know, personally, for the record, I'm not 


in favor of the rotation because I do believe 


that there is such a tremendous learning curve 

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and there's such a value in knowledge, and yet 


I do understand the value of, you know, fresh ­

- fresh faces, fresh minds. But you know, it's 


not my decision. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Lew, Jim Lockey, one question. 


The S-- SEC review, is -- at the last face-toface meeting there was going to be a review 


process also for petitions denied. Is that --


is that what you were talking about? 


 DR. WADE: Yes, as part of the task of that 


working group, yes. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Okay, good. Thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Sorry to rush at the end, but Gen, I 


wanted to get you your answer. 


DR. ROESSLER: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. So I'll 


declare the meeting adjourned. We'll look 


forward to seeing you all next month. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 4:45 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

280 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of August 8, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


24th day of September, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102