NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

135th Meeting

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

The meeting convened at 1:15 p.m., Eastern 

Daylight Time, via Video Teleconference, Rashaun 

Roberts, presiding. 
2 

Present: 

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Henry Anderson, Member

Josie Beach, Member

R. William Field, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

James E. Lockey, Member

David B. Richardson, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member

Phillip Schofield, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer, Member

Registered and/or Public Comment Participants: 

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

Barton, Bob, SC&A

Barrie, Terrie, ANWAG

Burgos, Zaida, NIOSH

Buchanan, Ron, SC&A

Calhoun, Grady, NIOSH 

Cisco, Jeanne, Worker Health Protection 

Program

Crawford, Chris, DOL

Fitzgerald, Joe, SC&A

Gogliotti, Rose, SC&A

Hicks, Stephen

Lewis, Greg, Doe

Lobaugh, Megan, DCAS

Naylor, Jenny, HHS

Palastro, John

Rutherford, Lavon, DCAS

Stiver, John, SC&A

Taulbee, Tim, DCAS

Tomes, Thomas, NIOSH 

Vinson, Kathleen
3 

Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 135th Meeting 

Wednesday, August 26, 2020 1

Roll Call/Welcome 4

NIOSH Program Update 6

DOL Program Update 11

DOE Program Update 19

Site Profile Review for W.R. Grace (Erwin, TN)

30

Superior Steel SEC Petition 247 (Carnegie, 

Pennsylvania; 1952-1957) 51

Public Comment 88

Adjourn 100
4

Proceedings

(1:16 p.m.)

Roll Call/Welcome

Dr. Roberts: Our court reporter is on the line, so I 

will officially open up this meeting.

So good afternoon and welcome, everyone. For 

those who may be on the line and may not know or 

heard, I’m Rashaun Roberts, and I’m the 

Designated Federal Official, or the DFO, for this 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health.

I took over as DFO from Mr. Ted Katz back in early 

June. And, again, I’d like to welcome you. This is 

Board Meeting 135.

So let me just -- uh-oh. Could someone put their 

phone on mute, please, everyone on mute? Thank 

you. So let me just get through some of the 

preliminaries for this meeting.

So this is the first full Board meeting that was 

actually supposed to occur face-to-face. And it’s the 

first one that I’ve done, so today will certainly be 

interesting, I’m sure.

So today is the first half day of this virtual meeting. 

And tomorrow will be the second and final half day. 

So like today, tomorrow’s session will start at 1:15 

p.m. Eastern Time.

If you are just on the telephone line, all of the 

materials for today, the meeting agenda, 

presentations, and other documents are all posted 

on the NIOSH website under Schedule of Meetings 

for August 2020. And you can go there and read all 

the materials and also follow along with the 

presentations. And these materials were provided to 

the Board members and to staff prior to this 

meeting.

If you do look at the agenda on the website, you’ll 

see that we have a fair bit to cover. So there’s at 
5

least one break built into the agenda for each day. 

And if there’s room to take more, we will assess at 

that time.

At the top of the agenda, there is a Skype link 

which will enable you to watch the presentation 

through Skype. But I do want to advise you that 

you’ll only be able to speak to the group and, I 

believe, to hear the presentations through the 

telephone line.

Speaking of telephone lines, in order to keep 

everything running smoothly for this virtual meeting 

and so that everyone speaking can be clearly 

understood, I ask that each of you please mute your 

phone unless, of course, you’re speaking. If you 

don’t have a mute button, press *6 to mute. If you 

need to take yourself off mute, press *6 again.

And also, because we’re unable to see each other 

for this meeting, and I think we’re all still trying to 

learn each other’s voices, I know that’s true of me, I 

would ask for the Board members, NIOSH staff, et 

cetera, please identify yourself by name before your 

comment or questions just so that we can all be 

aware of who is saying what.

Let me also mention that we do have a public 

comment session that comes at the end of the day. 

It’s from 5:15 to 6:15 Eastern Time. So I would 

encourage people to be ready at 5:15 Eastern Time 

for public comment because the way we work this is 

we go right to the public comments.

And if we run through all the public comments at 

that time, we conclude. So we won’t conclude 

before 5:15, but we could conclude at any point 

after that once we’re done with the commenters. So 

please join us at the beginning of the public 

comments session so that you’re assured to have 

your opportunity to speak. And I’ll remind you of 

this again later this afternoon.

So we’re getting toward roll call at this point. But 

before we get there, let me just speak to conflict of 
6

interest.

We don’t -- for today, we only have one agenda 

item that relates to a conflict, and that’s the -- for 

the Site Profile Review for W. R. Grace. And Jim 

Lockey is conflicted for that.

So, Jim, you will need to abstain from discussion, 

and vote, and any tasking matters concerning that 

site by disconnecting from the call between 2:30 

and 3:30 Eastern. And that should work.

When we get to that agenda item, I will note that 

you’re abstaining for the record, and I will remind 

you to disconnect from the meeting.

Other than that, there appear to be no other 

conflicts to address for today’s agenda.

So let me move into roll call now. I’ll start with the 

Board members in alphabetical order.

(Roll call.)

Again, you may periodically just have to check your 

phone and make sure that it is muted just so that 

we don’t have the interference. And again, just to 

keep things running smoothly. So again, if you don’t 

have that mute button, press *6 to mute and then 

*6 again to take yourself off.

So with no further ado, let’s have the program 

update from Mr. Grady Calhoun.

NIOSH Program Update

Mr. Calhoun: Hello, everybody. I think I, like most 

people, would rather see all of your smiling faces in 

person, but unfortunately, we can’t do that. So I’ll 

try to go through these as best I can. And I will also 

be doing the presentations for everybody else pretty 

much that’s on this call.

Okay. Let’s move. Okay. As far as our contracts and 

staffing go, we had a lot of retirements, and that’s 

why you have me here, and that’s why you have 
7

Tim here. And anyway, that kind of went up the 

ladder, and we ended up hiring two -- we are, hired 

three people, but one of them was present at the 

last Board meeting. We hired two new health 

physicists, Angelica Gheen and Madeline Cook are 

two new health physicists.

We had yet another health physicist retired since 

the last time that we met. I promise you it’s not 

because I’m the Director. But Chris Corwin retired. 

So we will be working to replace her here shortly as 

well.

As far as worker outreach, town halls, those type of 

activities, we’ve had the same issue with those as 

we’ve had our board meetings. And so as many of 

you are aware, we used to have in-person 

meetings, and we would try to meet near sites that 

are affected by the program. And we’ve not been 

able to do that.

But we did have, I believe, a very successful 

meeting in December or in July of, July 29th. And 

that was a virtual joint outreach group meeting. And 

that was attended by DOL, DOE, and NIOSH. We 

had many, many people on the line. They were able 

to ask questions. And aside from one audio glitch, 

that seemed to go, actually, way better than I 

would have thought. But that went well.

We don’t have any further outreach or workshops 

planned and finalized at this point. Although DOL 

continues to work on scheduling additional outreach 

meetings. And we’ll let you know about those as 

they happen.

Just case reports information. As of August 11th, we 

had 52,000 cases from DOL. We’ve returned 49,500 

of those.

We currently have about a thousand, little over a 

thousand, 1,048 at our place for dose 

reconstruction. And that seems to be pretty typical. 

We usually have right around a thousand in our 

coffers to work on on various states of completion. 
8

And we’ve had 944 cases administratively closed.

We’ve returned 45,430 cases to Department of 

Labor with dose reconstructions; 1,669 cases were 

pulled by DOL; and then -- for various reasons --

but for Special Exposure Cohort purposes, 3,547 

cases were pulled.

Right now, Department of Energy also faces the 

same difficulties that we all are facing. They’ve got 

limited staff. We haven’t really felt any significant 

pains from that yet. But the ways that could affect 

us is that there’s not enough staff working in the 

facilities to respond in the manner that we’re used 

to them responding. No fault of theirs. It’s just how 

the COVID is affecting everybody.

We’ve got 235 outstanding records requests. Those 

are individual dosimetry records. But only 44 of 

those exceed 60 days at this point.

Overall, Probability of Causations for our dose 

reconstructions completed. 45,430 dose 

reconstructions were sent for final adjudication: 

12,374 are greater than 50 percent; and 33,056 are 

less than 50 percent Probability of Causation.

Active cases, 1,048 cases active with us for dose 

reconstruction: 331 are in the dose reconstruction 

process itself; 179 of those we’ve already sent the 

initial draft reports to the claimants, and they’re in 

the process of reviewing those; and then we’ve got 

538 cases that are preparing for dose 

reconstruction. And what that means is that we’re in 

the process of acquiring the required dosimetry 

records to begin the dose reconstruction process.

This is the chart I started showing at the last board 

meeting in person. This one’s kind of a 

gobbledygook because it covers such a long period. 

But you can see how we had a significant spike in 

2013 and then again in the end of 2015, but for the 

cases that are six to nine months.

And those are really the cases I try to keep my eye 
9

on the most because we have a goal of getting all 

cases done within five months of receiving the last 

piece of information that’s necessary to complete 

the dose reconstruction.

And to see that a little more clearly just within this 

year 2020, you can see that we have about 55 

cases that are between six and nine months old. 

Those don’t fall outside of our goal of getting it done 

in five months because that time starts from the 

date of initial receipt of those cases.

And there’s various time periods such as the time 

that the claimants have a chance to talk to us and 

DOE has the chance to provide information to us.

So I just like to keep an eye on that, though. It 

keeps me in the know as to where we are in our 

production process. And I believe that is my last 

slide.

Any questions for me before I call up Mr. Crawford’s 

slides?

Dr. Roberts: Thank you, Grady. Any questions from 

the Board?

Member Ziemer: Yeah, Grady, this is Paul Ziemer.

Mr. Calhoun: Yes, sir?

Member Ziemer: Could you go back to, I think it’s 

Slide 2 maybe.

Mr. Calhoun: Yes, I can do that.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: Can you look --

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah, I’m doing it. But let me try it. 

Let me try to get back here. Let’s see. I don’t want 

to stop presenting. Oh, there I am. So which slide?

Member Ziemer: I think it’s Slide 2. Can you put 

Slide 2 on there?
10

Mr. Calhoun: Let’s see. Where is it? Hold on, hold 

on. I’m jumping around here. Something happened. 

Present now. Okay. Hold on. It fell off.

Member Ziemer: I’m not seeing anything.

Mr. Calhoun: I know. I’m not either. It’s going to 

happen. It’s just a little bit, I got out of it when I 

didn’t hear anybody. And let’s see it comes back.

Member Ziemer: Oh, you’ve lost it.

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah. It fell off of my screen here, at 

least. It says it’s loading right now. Okay.

Member Ziemer: Oh.

Mr. Calhoun: And you want, there’s 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 

the workshops and town halls?

Member Ziemer: Okay. Yeah. My question was, on 

the virtual workshops, are those only audio or are 

they, are you using something like Zoom on those 

as well or?

Mr. Calhoun: We had presentations like we are 

doing right now. We didn’t have --

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Mr. Calhoun: -- the people’s faces and cameras, 

yes, yeah.

Actually, I want to say was the platform was WebEx 

maybe. I may have that wrong. But DOL set it up, 

and it seemed to work relatively well.

Member Ziemer: Okay. So it’s --

Mr. Calhoun: And then --

Member Ziemer: -- basically --

Mr. Calhoun: -- we had a, we had -- go ahead.

Member Ziemer: -- basically graphs and slides? Is 

that the extent of it?
11

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah. We had slides. And then we also 

had a section where the audience, which was many 

hundred, could call in and, or type their questions 

in, and --

Member Ziemer: Oh.

Mr. Calhoun: -- we kind of a triage group that would 

forward those to either Department of Labor or 

myself. And we would answer the questions verbally 

and as they came to us. And so it was a pretty 

interactive session. I thought it was pretty good.

Member Ziemer: Oh, that’s good. I was concerned 

whether the participation would be as good as an 

open meeting would have been. But it sounds like it 

worked well.

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah. I thought it did. I thought it did. 

There was one, there was one audio problem, which 

I take full responsibility for. I think I pushed the 

wrong button. But besides that, I thought it went 

really well. And we got some pretty good feedback 

from it too.

Member Ziemer: Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Calhoun: Sure.

Dr. Roberts: Any other questions?

Mr. Calhoun: Anybody else before I switch? Yeah.

DOL Program Update

Dr. Roberts: Yes. Okay. I don’t hear any, Grady. So 

thank you so much for the presentation.

Let’s move on to the next. We’re onto the DOL 

Program Update, which will be shared by Mr. Chris 

Crawford. Are you still on the line?

Mr. Crawford: Still here.

Dr. Roberts: All right. Thank you.

Mr. Crawford: And Grady has once again graciously 
12

offered to turn the slides for me. Let me know when 

you’re up, Grady.

Mr. Calhoun: I can see it right now. So let me know 

if you can’t, and then just tell me next slide.

Mr. Crawford: Okay. I can’t anyway. I can never get 

WebEx to work on my DOL computer for some 

reason. But so let’s just launch into it.

First page we see. So let’s go to the second.

Now, some of my talk will be echoing Grady’s in 

terms of numbers. They’re always slightly different 

but very similar.

And here we see compensation expenses of all 

kinds. Part B Compensation, 7.1 billion; Part E 

Compensation, 5.2 billion, Medical Bills, 6.0 billion; 

and the total 18.3 billion. That’s compensation and 

medical bills. And that’s out of 215,067 cases filed. 

Next slide.

This is our NIOSH Referral Case Status. We have 

53,457 cases that were referred to NIOSH for Dose 

Reconstruction. Of those, 51,781 were returned to 

DOL from NIOSH: 47,270 with a dose 

reconstruction; and 6,511 withdrawn from NIOSH 

with no dose reconstruction.

And by our count, there’s about 1,676 cases 

currently at NIOSH. Next slide, please.

These are Part B Cases with dose reconstruction and 

final decision. And we see that the, graphically, it’s, 

it comes through very well. But we have, of 35,895 

cases in this category, we have 12,365 final 

approvals, and 23,530 final denials. Next slide, 

please.

Here we see Part B Cases Filed, a little bit complex. 

But NIOSH sees about 49 percent of these cases, I 

believe, because there are SEC cases that are never 

sent to NIOSH. And there’s a category of Other 

having to do with chronic beryllium disease, and 
13

silicosis, and those features of the act. Next slide, 

please.

Now, here we have all Part B cases with a Final 

Decision. Now, that will include SEC cases. There 

were 106,247 cases with final decisions under Part 

B, of which 56,533 were approved, 49,714 were 

denied.

Dr. Roberts: Excuse me. I’m not sure that, are we 

on the right slide?

Mr. Crawford: And I can’t see it.

Dr. Roberts: It’s not advancing for me.

Mr. Crawford: It should say Part B Cases with Final 

Decision, and it’s Slide No. 6.

Member Ziemer: That’s what I’m seeing. This is 

Ziemer. I’m seeing that one.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Mr. Crawford: That’s what I’m seeing.

Dr. Roberts: Maybe, okay, maybe my screen is 

frozen. Thank you. Okay.

Mr. Crawford: Of course. And I think we’re finished 

with this and can go to the next slide.

Here we have the Top Four Worksites. And this is 

for fiscal year two to three. We have the Nevada 

Test Site, the Y-12 Plant, Savannah River Site, and 

Hanford. No real surprises here. Next slide, Grady.

We had to divide to, divide these slides into two for 

these sites being discussed for compliance reasons. 

Here we see the SEC Petition Sites being discussed 

at this meeting.

Superior Steel with 52 cases filed, 35 returned with 

dose reconstruction, 48 final decisions. 

I’m not sure how best to do this. We could cycle 

through both of these slides, Grady, for each site or 
14

just do all the top ones and then the bottom ones. 

Let’s go to Slide 8 and then come back to 7.

To continue with Superior Steel, we had 19 

approvals. There is no Part E for an AWE site. And 

we had a total compensation plus medical bills of 

2.8 million. Back to 7.

For Hanford, 20,982 cases: 5,367 with a dose 

reconstruction completed; 9,707 with a final 

decision. And back to -- oh, sorry, 9, Grady, I’m 

sure you caught that.

Continue with Hanford, we have 5,845 approvals for 

Part B, 5,410 approvals for Part E, and 1.8 billion in 

compensation paid. Return to Slide 8 for the 

Reduction Pilot Plan.

Eight-hundred and eighty-seven cases; 83 dose 

reconstructions completed, 483 Part B final 

decisions. Back to Slide 9. There we have 22 Part B 

approvals, 32 Part E approvals, and 10.6 million in 

compensation and medical bills paid. Next slide, 10.

For W. R. Grace, which is a Site Profile discussion, 

we have 315 cases, 209 dose reconstructions 

completed, 299 final decisions under Part B. Let’s go 

to 11, then, and we’ll complete W. R. Grace.

One hundred and fifty-eight-Part B approvals. 

There’s no Part E again. And $27 million in 

compensation and medical bills paid. Then we’ll 

retrace to Slide 10.

Mr. Crawford: And this under the Site Profile 

discussion. Idaho National Laboratory, 6,618 cases 

filed; 2,067 have had a dose reconstruction 

completed; 2,931 final decisions under Part B. Slide 

11.

Continuing with Idaho National Laboratory, we have 

1,085 cases approved under Part B; 1,411 cases 

approved under Part E; $396 million in 

compensation and medical bills paid. Onto Slide 12.
15

Grady has already covered this from one 

standpoint. We, of course, have had to switch to 

virtual webinars instead of in-person meetings. And 

as Grady indicated, these seem to be working fairly 

well.

We’re doing quarterly medical conference calls. 

We’re doing authorized representative workshops. 

And we’re doing town hall meetings. Go to Slide 13.

You’re all familiar with this. The members including 

DOL, DEEOIC Group, Department of Energy, 

Department of Energy Former Worker Medical 

Screening Program, NIOSH, the Ombudsman to 

NIOSH for the EEOICPA-Part B, that’s Denise Brock, 

and DOL’s Office of the Ombudsman for EEOICPA 

itself, Malcolm Nelson. And the members have 

monthly conference calls.

Now, we had what was an upcoming event and it is 

taking place today. That is, the topic is Site 

Exposure Matrices and Former Worker Programs. 

That’s the part, Part E program, essentially. That’s 

today between 2:00 and 3:30. We’re DEEOIC and 

DOE are discussing the SEM and the FWP/BTMed 

factor in the adjudication of claims. Sounds pretty 

technical. But go to the next slide, 15.

And then we recently had an outreach event as a 

virtual webinar, which I believe Grady discussed. 

There was one on July 29th. This includes, included 

both Part E presentations, and dose reconstruction, 

and SEC presentation. That’s the last of our nonboilerplate slides.

I have more to discuss in a second part. But 

perhaps we should take questions on this 

presentation first?

Dr. Roberts: Sure. That sounds good. Any questions 

from the Board?

Member Ziemer: This is Paul Ziemer. Chris, I have 

one question. It actually relates to Part E, which this 

board is not involved in.
16

But could you remind me, is there not a parallel 

Board that’s handling the chemical hazards and so 

on? Do they deal with the beryllium and so on?

Mr. Crawford: Unfortunately, I’m not the person to 

ask. Yes, there is an advisory board now at DOL 

primarily dealing with Part E issues, certainly.

I haven’t heard beryllium specifically mentioned. I 

think that’s more cut and dry than the rest of the 

party, let’s say, the toxicology for, for other 

chemicals.

Member Ziemer: Right, right.

Mr. Crawford: But that’s, that’s somewhat nonofficial coming from me. I will jot down --

Member Ziemer: Okay.

Mr. Crawford: -- the question, though, and --

Member Ziemer: But, but they are operating or, or 

handling the party activities I assume, right?

Mr. Crawford: That is my understanding as well, 

yeah.

Member Ziemer: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Crawford: You’re welcome, Dr. Ziemer.

Any other questions? All right.

Now, last December, believe it or not, seems like 

only yesterday, we had two questions. I think Dr. 

Richardson may have supplied one of them. The 

first question I think I’ll get out of the way first 

because, it’s unfortunately, not very satisfactory.

But we were asked if DOL did any predictions on 

incoming claims. And the truth is, we don’t, 

certainly not under Part B. They’ve been pretty 

steady. They seem to follow more across a straight 

line. And we haven’t done anything with that.

Under Part E, we have no official estimates yet. That 
17

program is still expanding. And I think it’s just a 

little hard to make a straight-line progression at this 

point. So I don’t know have anything to report on 

that question.

The second question, which is more in my bailiwick, 

had to do with technical objections, which -- and 

there is a form reply that I think you all have now. 

It was sent out by Dr. Roberts.

What I did was to look at five years of the technical 

reviews, as we call them, or technical objections 

from 2014 through 2019. And that I thought was a 

good sample of what we have.

There were 265 reviews in the sample that I looked 

at, but only 21 resulted in rework request to NIOSH. 

Fourteen cases were quite complicated involving 

both methodology objections and application 

objections. And those we sent to NIOSH for a 

special review because we can’t count on a 

methodology at all. And these were well-reasoned 

and had a lot of information in them.

None of those --

Mr. Calhoun: Chris?

Mr. Crawford: -- however --

Mr. Calhoun: Hi, Chris; this is Grady. Am I going 

through slides? I, I hadn’t been advancing.

Mr. Crawford: Not, not as far as I know. There, 

there is a, there was another --

Mr. Calhoun: I’m just, I’m still at -- okay. All right. I 

just, I’m at, I’m at Department of Labor’s handout 

slide, and I haven’t moved since you haven’t said 

anything. So --

Mr. Crawford: Right.

Mr. Calhoun: -- a couple people just asked me. 

Okay, thank you.
18

Mr. Crawford: Exactly. Unless you happen to have 

that document, which is the ABRWH Analysis of 

Tech Reviews, if you see it on your desktop, then I 

think we’re just going to have to it verbally.

Then to continue a little bit. This is only about a 

page document, by the way. It’s, the 14 cases that 

were sent to NIOSH for special review did not result 

in reworks. And I thought the Board would be 

interested in what happened to the cases that DOL 

sent back to NIOSH for rework as a result of a 

technical review. It’s only about eight percent of the 

technical reviews, by the way.

Of the 21 reworks requested, ten cited new 

evidence in the objection documents. And that’s 

why there sent back, so that NIOSH could consider 

the new evidence.

Three involved changes in accepted employment. 

That’s fairly straightforward also.

Three were related to work locations, that is, on the 

site where the claimant or employee were able to 

give us information that was perhaps new to the 

case. They said, well, I didn’t work there. I worked 

in this particular location for six years at this time 

and so forth. We thought that was enough new 

information to return those to NIOSH as well. And 

also those, that included time periods where they 

may have worked with a, with a particular hazard 

present and so forth.

Another three returns were made because I felt that 

NIOSH didn’t explain adequately some of their 

decisions on the application issues. There’s no, 

there was no necessary error in the case. The 

claimant asked, “Why did they make that 

assumption?” And I couldn’t be sure, so I asked 

NIOSH to clarify.

One was a change in cancer diagnosis. And the final 

one was an IREP 5.8 issue, which is pretty rare.

Of the 21 reworks, five cases were then accepted 
19

under Part B. Sixteen cases were rejected under 

Part B. And of those, two cases were later accepted 

under Part E. I thought the Board might find that 

interesting.

Well, if there are any questions on this, I’ll be happy 

to take them. And if you want to hear these 

numbers repeated, I’ll be happy to do that.

Dr. Roberts: Can, can everyone just make sure that 

their phones are on mute? I can hear some typing.

But are there any questions for Chris?

Okay. I’m not hearing any at this time. So why 

don’t we move onto DOE? So Mr. Greg Lewis, you’ll 

be presenting. Awesome.

DOE Program Update

Mr. Lewis: All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Can, 

can everyone hear me okay?

Dr. Roberts: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: Yes? Okay. And I’m still looking at Chris’s 

slides.

Mr. Calhoun: I’m -- it’s getting, it’s starting to load, 

Greg. I’m trying.

Mr. Lewis: And I could just start any. So, so my 

plan, I, I was going to go over the first four or five 

slides, which are really kind of the update and the 

status of DOE’s operations with respect to the, the 

COVID pandemic. The, the rest of my slides --

Mr. Calhoun: Coming next.

Mr. Lewis: --are -- now, there we go. And I see, I 

see that the first slide’s up.

As I was saying, the rest of my slides are really 

pretty boilerplate. They’re kind of my routine slides. 

So I don’t think it’s necessary to go over them. I’d 

be happy to do it, though. But first, so I’ll give a 
20

little bit of an update about our situation under the 

COVID pandemic.

As Grady alluded to, our operations have been 

pretty significantly impacted. And that’s for a 

number of reasons. You know, primarily due to 

people not being able to be on site, although there’s 

kind of other factors as well.

The bottom line is, we’ve been doing everything we 

can to try to produce the records that we can, you 

know, both with respect to individual claims as well 

as research projects, you know, the, the NIOSHSEC research or the, the DOL is, is doing some 

additional digging for information related to their 

SEM database.

So we are doing the best we can to respond to that. 

But I’ll kind of talk a little bit about some of the 

things, some of the reasons why that’s a challenge.

You know, and I’ll also say that -- so you can go to 

the, sorry Grady, you can go to the second slide, 

which, yeah, there we go.

So many DOE sites are still -- and I’m at the third 

bullet there. I kind of already covered the first two -

- many DEO sites are still in a maximum telework 

situation where, you know, all but essential 

employees are working remotely.

So and that, you know, that really depends on the 

site, how many staff are on site versus off site, you 

know, at some of the, their production facilities, the 

National Security facilities, they have to have more 

people on more people on site than at some of the 

more, more science-based facilities where they can 

do much of their research and, and work off site.

So it, it’s not the, you know, there’s no really hard 

and fast number or percentage of people that are on 

site versus off site. That varies significantly from 

site to site. Grady, you can go to the next slide.

So, you know, again, it’s, it’s very different at 
21

different sites. And these are decisions that are, you 

know, site-wide decisions depending on well, you 

know, a number of factors. One being the rates of 

COVID in the area, the trends of COVID. Is it going 

up? Is it going down? That kind of thing, so it’s 

different depending on the area of the country.

It’s also, again, different depending on the mission 

of the site. Can the work be done remotely? Does 

the work have to be done on site? Can the work be 

delayed? Or is this, then you have to have guards at 

nuclear facilities. You have to, some of this stuff has 

to be monitored or have, some of the work just has 

to be done and people have to be physically on site 

to do it. But where that’s not necessary, a lot of 

folks are working remotely.

So because of this, we do have backlogs at many of 

the DOE sites for claims. In some we have hundreds 

of claims that they’re just waiting to be able to do. 

And when, as soon as we are able to complete those 

or are able to start work on them, we are going to 

start working down those backlogs.

However, that’s not the case at all sites. Some sites 

were able to process these remotely or to have, the 

skeleton crew on site are able to process these 

claims, so, again, it really varies widely by site 

where we have backlogs or where we, some sites 

were completely up to date, have zero claims over 

60 days, and are processing everything as usual.

So, it depends on a few different things. Grady, you 

want to go to the next slide?

So, when I’m talking about the key staff on site, it’s 

not just are there people in the records vault? With 

these claims, for NIOSH, it’s more rad although it 

can be the rad plus the medical that they’re looking 

for, sometimes even other types of records.

But if we need the right staff to be in in the Medical 

Department, the Radiological Control Department, 

Industrial Hygiene, HR, the records storage area, 

warehouse, there can be -- and even more at some 
22

of these other sites.

So, at some of these sites, we might have a few of 

those groups able to respond but then a few of 

them not able to respond. So we are sending partial 

responses where it makes sense.

And I’m also really leaving that up to the site to 

work with their contacts at DOL and NIOSH because 

if they’re sending a very small portion, it may just 

confuse things. We want to make sure that NIOSH 

and DOL know, if it’s a partial response, they know 

it’s a partial response. They’re not going assume, 

oh, that’s everything we’re going to get from DOE.

So we, in some cases, we are sending partial 

responses. Mostly when we feel like we have most 

of the record package assembled, but we’re just 

missing one or two minor parts, then we may be 

sending that partial and then following up with a 

complete once they’re able to.

Yeah, so again, some of these sites are able to 

produce those different parts because they have 

some people on site or they’re able to pull it 

remotely with electronic records.

But as you might imagine, for claims for workers, 

the further back you go, the less able we are to do 

that in a general sense. Again, that’s, I don’t want 

make any blanket statements across DOE, but for 

the older workers, that’s more challenging because 

more of the records tend to be in paper, microfilm, 

microfiche, whatever, some type of hard copy 

records. Next slide.

So, and another issue that’s tripped us up is the 

Federal Records Centers. My understanding is the 

Federal Records Centers are not, still, as of today, 

not sending records out or they may be sending 

records out but only in very specific emergency 

cases. So there are, some of their sites, some of our 

sites, one example being Y-12, that gets a 

significant amount of the records used to respond to 

NIOSH and DOL request, they get them from the 
23

Federal Records Centers.

So the Federal Records Center is not shipping 

records. We are accumulating a fairly significant 

backlog at Y-12. And again that’s a decision out of 

DOE’s hands and certainly out of my office’s hands.

As soon as they start shipping records again, I’ve 

had conversations where we’re ready to authorize 

overtime, possibly bring in additional staff, I mean, 

we’re gonna wait and see once we’re in a position to

start responding.

Again, and this goes for the other sites that have 

backlogs as well, whether it’s related to a Federal 

Records Centers or just their site staff being in 

maximum telework status.

As soon as they are back, we will be reviewing the 

number of cases outstanding and, and which 

portions of the record we’re missing or we need to 

get. And we’ll be trying to bump up staff to the 

extent possible.

Again, once they come back, I don’t know that we’ll, 

they may still be in some form of, they may be 

incrementally ramping up staff, so it may not be 

possible to then bring in additional staff. But we will 

be authorizing overtime and anything else that we 

can do and is allowable based on site policy, given 

the pandemic, to start to reduce these backlogs.

And then another issue that we face that doesn’t so 

much have to do with the individual claims is the 

classification reviewers. On occasion, we will have 

to review individual claims records for classification 

information. But that’s not usually the case at most 

sites, and it’s usually sort of a cursory review.

Where the classification reviewers comes into play is 

more so with both DOL and particularly NIOSH, the 

NIOSH, and SC&A, and the Board, their requests for 

information related to the SEC research or, say, 

profile reviews, that kind of thing.
24

I know there’s recently, there was an issue at 

Sandia, and I think Los Alamos as well, and I’m sure 

there are other sites because, again, classification 

review is something that has to be done physically 

on site.

And I know most sites do have at least a few 

classification reviewers still on site. But many of 

them are not there, particularly if the individuals 

have health issues or are older, in one of those 

categories where they’re at higher risk.

So we have struggled with the classification 

reviews. And I think that has held up some things 

relative to responding to SEC research. But again, 

that’s, as soon as those folks are back on site, we’re 

going to be putting in place a plan and timeline to 

get those completed as soon as we can. So I think -

- you can go to the next slide -- I think that’s really 

it.

The next slide I think should be the, yeah, the 

DOE’s Core Mandate. And that’s kind of my usual 

presentation. I don’t have any new information 

there. So unless anyone wants me go through the 

rest of this, I probably prefer to stop and take 

questions.

Member Ziemer: Greg, Paul Ziemer here. I know 

this is pretty standard for the Board members. But 

we do have the new DFO. So I’m wondering if it 

wouldn’t be worthwhile for you to step through. 

These may be the first time that she’s seen them.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, good point. I’d be happy to do that. I 

guess before I --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: Ms. Roberts, unless you think 

otherwise.

Dr. Roberts: No, I appreciate the thought.

Mr. Lewis: Sure. Well, and before I do that, does 
25

anyone have any specific questions on our status, 

our ability to respond, anything, because I may not 

know the answer offhand, but I could certainly 

provide you with more specifics if anyone’s 

interested?

No? Okay. Well, I’ll go through. So DOE’s core 

mandate is to work on behalf of the program 

claimants to ensure that all available worker and 

facility records and data are provided to DOL, 

NIOSH, and the Advisory Board. Essentially, our role 

in the program is to provide records. Next slide.

We provide records in three different ways. We 

respond to individual requests. If someone applies 

to the program, both Department of Labor and 

NIOSH typically are going to send us request for the 

records. So we respond to individual-level requests.

We also help NIOSH and DOL with larger-scale site 

characterization-type information, those research 

projects.

And then the third is smaller, but equally important. 

We do research into covered facility designations for

both DOE and AWE facilities. We actually do the 

designation for AWE. DOL makes the determination 

for DOE facilities. But we, of course, help provide 

records and information to, to make those 

decisions. Next slide.

So with the individual records request, claimants 

often worked at multiple DOE sites. Within a site, 

there are, of course, some folks that may have been 

on site for just a year or two or even for 

construction subcontractors that might have only 

been there for a month or two or a week or two. But 

there are plenty of career folks that may have been 

on a DOE site for 30 years.

So some worked at multiple DOE sites. Even if they 

worked at one site, if they were a long-term 

employee, they could have been in different 

divisions, different jobs, different locations within 

the site. So, we may have to go to a number of 
26

different places and types of records to pull their 

information.

One site I think we have, each site has kind of a list 

of the places that they might go for an individual’s 

record, and there’s one site that routinely checks 

about 40 different places for response of records. 

And when I say places, I mean, some of those are 

actually physical, this collection, or that binder, or 

this set of microfilm, but also it’s this database, this 

search tool, this records database again.

So it can be, it can be a fairly complex process. And 

our records searches can yield, sometimes nothing, 

unfortunately, but also I’ve seen responses that are 

over 3,000 pages for an individual. And, again, 

that’s probably rare, but there can be quite a 

significant amount on some of these folks. Next 

slide.

So for the large-scale, records research projects, 

they vary. Some of them are larger than others. But 

we do the best we can to accommodate all requests. 

Some of these projects can take years and years, 

particularly if SEC research for the bigger DOE sites.

But we do everything we can to respond in a timely 

manner. And at least, work with NIOSH, SC&A, and 

the Board to come up with a time frame. So, well, 

it’s X number of pages or X number of boxes or 

whatever it is that you want, here’s how we can 

respond to that. Here’s how long it’s going to take 

us. And, we try to meet the needs of the requester. 

Next slide.

So classification review is an important part of most 

of these large-scale research projects, less so at 

some of the science facilities for DOE, but 

particularly at the NNSA, the weapons production 

sites, and the weapons labs, there’s quite a bit of 

classification information that may be involved in 

this.

And so we review, the final reports are reviewed at 

DOE headquarters. And those typically take about 
27

eight working days. That’s kind of the easy part.

The harder part is the source documents because to 

put together the different final reports at large sites 

like Savannah River, and Hanford, and Los Alamos, 

places like that, NIOSH, and SC&A, and the Board 

are requesting hundreds of documents, thousands 

and thousands of pages, or they can be requesting 

that much. And that presents a much greater 

challenge.

And that’s kind of where we get into what I was 

talking about with working with the requester to 

come up with a reasonable time frame based on the 

volume of records and the number of reviewers that 

we have available. So we try to come up with a time 

frame that’s doable on our end and works with the 

needs of NIOSH and the Board to be able to make 

the decisions they need to make.

Of course, that’s more challenging now, but we’re 

continuing to try to do everything we can to meet 

your needs even with these challenges. Next slide.

Facility Research, just, there’s a link to our covered 

facility list. We’re actually working on an updated 

website for that covered facilities list. I’ll certainly 

be sending that out when we do change it. The 

update is just to the look and feel of the website. 

None of the facilities will be changing. Or if they do, 

that will be a whole separate issue.

But the facility will be the same, the website will be 

the same with the same facilities. But we’re going to 

give it a new a look and I think a little bit more 

user-friendly. So we’re working on that. And we’ll be 

sending it to DOL and NIOSH before we go final just 

for their input. Next slide.

And then our Former Worker Medical Screening 

Program, I always mention it because it’s sort of a 

partner program. It’s not directly associated with 

the compensation program. But the Former Worker 

Program is all former workers at DOE sites. This is 

not AWE, but at the DOE sites, all former federal 
28

contractor and subcontractor staff are eligible for 

these free medical screenings.

If the screening results in a finding, we’ll refer the 

individual or we’ll suggest that they follow up with 

their physician and/or the relevant specialist.

And if they do have a condition that comes out of 

this, we’ll suggest that they go on and apply to the 

DOL for the compensation. And they’ll have a letter 

from the Former Worker Program that, where 

possible, ties whatever condition was found to their 

work, if the former worker doctors think it is 

relevant. So next slide.

Yeah, this just has a link to the website and a 

brochure on the program.

Now, given the pandemic, our Former Worker 

Programs have not been offering screenings for the 

last couple of months just due to the risk of getting 

people in there. But we are just this month starting 

to start those back up.

But again, similar to the DOE sites, a lot of where 

we’re offering screenings have to do with the local 

rates of COVID, the numbers. Are they increasing? 

Are they decreasing? Are clinics able to, the clinics 

that we use, when we use clinics able to handle the 

additional individuals given the different policies and 

requirements. They don’t want people waiting, they 

don’t want backups, that kind of thing.

So we’re certainly not operating at full capacity, but 

we are starting to do screenings based on the ability 

to do it in the different areas where there’s demand. 

Next slide.

Yep. And that’s it. So any questions on either that 

or what I started off with with our operating status 

under COVID?

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Thank you, Greg. I just wanted 

to say that the second part of your presentation was 

really helpful, in that it helped your COVID update 
29

to kind of fall into place, so to speak. So I do 

appreciate that.

Are there any questions?

Okay. Well, hearing none, the next item on our 

agenda is the Site Profile Review for W. R. Grace. 

And that is scheduled to start at 2:30. So I am 

wondering if we could take a break and come back 

at 2:30 to get started with that item?

And again, Jim Lockey, you have a conflict of 

interest for that site. So you can go ahead and 

disconnect from the meeting now.

Following this agenda item, we do have a break 

scheduled. And that will end at 3:45. So you can 

rejoin at that point. But I will go ahead and note 

your disconnection now.

Member Lockey: Great, thank you. I will do that.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, great. So how do people feel 

about taking that comfort break and coming back at 

2:30?

Member Beach: That works for me. This is Josie.

Member Ziemer: Sounds like a plan.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Let’s go.

Member Kotelchuck: Fine, thanks.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Good. Okay. Meet you at 2:30.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 2:18 p.m. and resumed at 2:31 p.m.)

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: All right. We’re going to give 

Richardson and Valerio some time to come back. I 

think we have enough to go ahead and get into the 

agenda item.

Before we do that, I just want to say thank you to 
30

Grady, Chris, and Greg for your presentations at the 

opening of this meeting. Everything was very clear.

So we’re moving on to the Site Profile Review for W. 

R. Grace. Dr. Henry Anderson is the Chair of the 

Uranium Refining AWE Work Group, which covers 

W. Grace. However, Mr. Ron Buchanan will be the 

presenter for this particular agenda item.

So if you’re ready to get started, Ron? 

Dr. Buchanan: Yes. Can you see the screen okay 

and hear me?

Dr. Roberts: I can.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. And do you --

Dr. Roberts: I can hear you and see the screen.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. 

Mr. Breitenbach: Just to let you know, Andrew 

Breitenbach from Fernald. I tuned in a little late, but 

I’m on here.

Dr. Roberts: I’m sorry. Who was that?

Mr. Breitenbach: Andrew Breitenbach from Fernald.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Breitenbach: Yes.

Site Profile Review for W.R. Grace (Erwin, TN)

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. This is Ron Buchanan with 

SC&A. And today I’ll present the current status of 

the W. R. Grace TBD Finding for Dr. Anderson, 

which is a Work Group Chair.

And so everybody see the second slide okay?

Dr. Roberts: Yes.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. So the W. R. Grace and 

Company was, is located in Erwin, Tennessee. And 
31

it’s an AWE facility from 1958 through 1970, and as 

a residual period ‘71 to 2011.

Now, the W. R. Grace and Company was changed to 

the Nuclear Fuel Services, NFS, in 1964. And it had 

been --

Mr. Anderson: I don’t think the slide advanced.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. You don’t see two?

Mr. Anderson: No. There we go.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Calhoun: I just advanced that. Am I advancing 

those for you, too, Ron? Right?

Dr. Buchanan: Yeah, right.

Mr. Calhoun: Okay.

Mr. Anderson: I do remember all of these. All right. 

Go ahead.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. Everybody sees Slide 2 now.

And so they processed weapons-related and nonweapons-related uranium, plutonium, and thorium.

All right, three we have the TBD for W. R. Grace 

was issued in 2011. And SC&A conducted on-site 

interviews in October of 2012. And we issued a 

review of the TBD in January of 2013. And in that 

review, we identified seven findings and four 

secondary findings, which today we would call 

observations.

So we will go through those findings individually 

since a lot of you maybe are not familiar with WRG 

or it’s been a while since you’ve reviewed it. And 

then I’ll try to keep it as condensed as possible. And 

you can ask me questions at the end of each finding 

or at the end of the presentation, whichever you 

prefer.

So we’ll start with Finding 1. And that was 
32

concerned with the accuracy and completeness of 

recorded bioassay data that had not previously been 

addressed as part of the routine verification and 

validation, V&V, database review.

And in August of 2019, NIOSH issued a White Paper 

addressing this finding. And they went through all 

the previous claims. And they just had three claims 

yet to be resolved at that time.

And so we evaluated their V&V White Paper and 

issued an evaluation report in November of 2019. 

And in that review, we found that NIOSH’s analysis 

of the W. R. Grace claimant bioassay data in NOCTS 

was inclusive and covered the many time periods at 

the various facilities for the uranium and plutonium 

radionuclides of concern.

We found that, in general, our workers were 

bioassay, and those that should have been, weren’t. 

There was a, NIOSH provided a coworker, or we call 

co-exposure or environmental intakes for the dose 

reconstruction purposes. And these are outlined 

more in Finding 2, 3, and 7, okay, and in the TBD.

So in the January of 2020 Work Group meeting, 

NIOSH presented resolution of the three remaining 

claims. They found two claim files were located and 

the third one was compensated using other records.

In that meeting also, the finding was discussed by 

the Work Group, and we found it was satisfactorily 

addressed and Work Group wanted to close that 

finding. That was Finding 1.

Finding 2 was concerned with what appeared to be 

insufficient uranium bioassay and intake data, and 

we questioned the appropriateness of using a 1961 

air concentration data for operating period at W. R. 

Grace and then suggested additional investigation of 

this data for the longer time period.

And so the AWE operational period was 1958 

through 1970, and residual ‘71 to 2011. And 

NIOSH’s approach was to, in resolving these intakes 
33

for these two periods were discussed during the 

August 2015 Work Group teleconference and 

accepted by the Work Group.

And but since the NIOSH resolution was a bounding 

approach, which would cover all possibilities of 

workers and intakes, the Work Group recommended 

NIOSH provide further breakdown of the intakes by 

the worker category. And in other words, some of 

the workers could not necessarily receive this 

maximum amount. And so NIOSH did that. They 

issued a resolution for the Findings 2 and 7 in July 

of 2019.

And that White Paper provided inhalation and 

ingestion intakes by worker categories. And so 

Table 1 of that White Paper covered the operational 

period, and Table 2 covered the residual period.

And so we analyzed NIOSH’s White Paper in 

conjunction with TBD-6000 or AWE’s, and we 

evaluated that report and issued our evaluation in 

November of 2019.

And now SC&A concurs with the intake values listed 

in Table 1 of the White Paper for the operational 

period. In addition, the SC&A analyzed the 

derivation of NIOSH’s intake values in conjunction 

with TBD styles and then concur with those listed in 

Table 2 of the White Paper for the residual period.

So conclusion was we found that NIOSH sufficiently 

addressed Finding 2 concerning insufficient uranium 

bioassay and intake data. We had no further issues 

concerning that. The issue was discussed during a 

January 2020 Work Group meeting and was closed. 

That was Finding 2.

Finding 3 was plutonium. And we found that the 

plutonium was not the reason for the SEC. Doses 

should be assigned in other periods, not just during 

the operational period and also was needed for nonbioassayed workers for plutonium. And so not doing 

this wasn’t consistent with a SEC because SEC was 

based on thorium. And so in January of 2019, 
34

NIOSH issued a White Paper addressing this 

finding.And SC&A evaluated the White Paper and 

found that NIOSH used the recommended methods 

per approved appropriate procedure documents to 

derive reasonable co-exposure data from available 

recorded bioassay and air monitoring data. And 

SC&A issued a report on August of 2019. And we 

did not identify any findings, but we did have three 

observations.

And that Observation 1 was the need to address the 

extension of 1967 data back to ‘65 and ‘66 through 

‘67.

The reasoning for doing that, Observation 2 were 

the use of 30 percent and 3.9 percent factors in 

deriving data and the dose is unclear. We suspected 

it was because of the number of days in the year. 

But we want to clarify that.

And Observation 3 where the question were in vivo 

bioassays required or performed for the D&D 

workers?

So NIOSH responded to the three observations. 

Number 1, the plutonium inventory was much less 

in ‘65 and ‘66 than in the years the bioassay data 

was available. Therefore, extension of ‘67 back to 

‘65 and ‘66 was reasonable. We looked at that data 

and the invoices and such and agreed with that.

Observation 2 was the difference in the plot data 

and the table data is due to 365 days versus the 

250 days as we suspected. And, but we wanted to 

clarify that.

And Observation 3 says that although the wording 

concerning the bioassays is not clear in one of the 

documents concerning the D&D phase, NIOSH did 

found urine, fecal, and in vivo data during the D&D 

phase. And we looked at that data and agreed.

So during the January 2020 Work Group meeting, 

they discussed this finding. And the Work Group 

found it satisfactorily addressed and the issue 
35

resolved. And the Work Group closed Finding 3.

That brings us to Finding 4, lack of neutron dose 

assignment, Slide 20. SC&A questioned the lack of 

neutron dose assignment in the TBD. We did not 

locate any recorded neutron doses in the claimant 

files that we reviewed and we suggested further 

investigation of the potential neutron exposure and 

appropriate methods to assign neutron dose were 

needed.

NIOSH agreed that further investigation was 

necessary. In the August 2015 Work Group 

meeting, it was discussed, broached this situation, 

and SC&A agreed that the proposed neutron-photon 

ratio method was reasonable and would evaluate 

the data and recommended a method when it 

became available.

And in May of 2017, NIOSH issued a Neutron Dose 

Assignment for Plutonium Fuel at W.R. Grace. And 

in that White Paper, NIOSH analyzed the N:P ratios 

at other DOE sites that processed plutonium in a 

similar manner and similar composition as at W. R. 

Grace.

SC&A evaluated their White Paper and issued a 

memorandum in September of 2017. And we 

reviewed the N:P ratios at other DOE sites that 

processed similar plutonium and found them to 

range from 0.2 to one for non-glovebox workers, 

and from one to 1.7 for glovebox workers.

SC&A had previously reviewed the NUMEC site 

profile in 2017 and concurred with NIOSH’s 

recommended N:P ratio geometric mean of 0.34 for 

non-glovebox and one for glovebox workers and 

since NUMEC had similar operating conditions as W. 

R. Grace.

Now, while we used, we concur with using that N:P 

radio, our main concern was choosing the workers 

that might be exposed to neutrons. And so we have 

three concerns here.
36

And we did not find that NIOSH’s recommendations 

for the determination of potential neutron exposure 

to be applicable to W. R. Grace because there was 

no significant AWE neutron monitoring at W. R. 

Grace.

There wasn’t anything later on that we could backextrapolate to because there was no neutron 

monitoring at W. R. Grace.

And the detailed dosimetry information is not 

available in early years at W. R. Grace. In other 

words, they didn’t separate out the low energy 

photons from the higher energy photons. And they 

certainly couldn’t really determine if the worker was 

exposed to the low energy photons from plutonium 

or not.

And so we found also that criteria for selecting 

neutron exposure to some of the other sites is not 

very useful for W. R. Grace. W. R. Grace is a small 

site, few facilities, few workers, and so it really 

didn’t, couldn’t use something like the Savannah 

River site or something.

And so Concern 2 was the potential for neutron 

exposure from plutonium needs to be addressed for 

other periods, such as the D&D phase.

And Concern 3 was that neutron exposures from 

uranium was mentioned in the TBD, but it was not 

included in NIOSH’s White Paper and how that 

would be addressed.

So that was the three concerns we had with neutron 

N:P dose assignment.

Now, this finding was discussed during their January 

2020 Work Group meeting and resolved as 

following.

For Concern No. 1, NIOSH will use worker 

categories to assign neutron dose, not the method 

suggested in the White Paper. And they had 

previously done a worker category analysis that can 
37

be used.

Concern No 2, NIOSH had neutron monitoring 

requirements and data for the D&D phase. So it 

answered that question, and we reviewed that as 

true.

And Concern No. 3 is that NIOSH would use the 

ratio values in Report 60 to estimate neutron dose 

for enriched uranium, which had briefly been 

covered. And so we found that that was 

satisfactory.

So the conclusion was that NIOSH will revise the 

TBD to reflect these three areas of concern and 

their resolution. Work group found them 

satisfactorily addressed and decided to close this 

Finding 4.

Finding 5 is lack of neutron higher dosimetry 

calibration knowledge. And this was discussed 

during the during August 2015 Work Group 

meeting. And essentially, as I alluded to before, 

there wasn’t a lot of details in the earlier dosimetry 

records separating out the different types of 

radiation that the worker might have been exposed 

to.

And in the August 2015 SC&A performed some 

additional searches on the SRDB and did not identify 

any additional relevant information concerning 

dosimetry calibration.

And the same month, NIOSH reviewed several 

claims to see if there was a noticeable change when 

they switched from the older fighter in to the 

Landauer, which began service in 1961. Claims did 

not indicate, seem to indicate that there was a 

sudden change in doses and so would indicate a 

difference in actually reading the dose to the 

workers, just that there was, wasn’t as much 

information in the earlier dosimetry records, but the 

doses were still there.

So in March of 2016, SC&A contacted the NSF and 
38

former Landauer dosimetrist in attempt to 

determine the calibration of the badges during the 

earlier periods. And SC&A did not find any additional 

definitive information.

So conclusion and closure, in 2016, SC&A did not 

find indication that further research would 

significantly alter the external doses assigned and 

suggested closing this issue, that the doses could be 

assigned accurately without the additional 

information in the early days. And this issue was 

discussed in July of 2016 Work Group meeting and 

closed. An older issue that I just wanted to be 

inclusive in all these years.

Okay. This is an older issue too. Finding 6, onsite 

medical x-ray exams. And so this is discussed 

during the 2015 Work Group meeting. And 

essentially what this boils down to is there’s no 

documentation that the X-rays were performed off 

site, neither was the documentation that they were 

performed on site. And since they could have been 

performed on site, would apply the WRG TBD and 

the OTIB-0079. And we found this was resolved and 

the status was changed to closed for Finding 6.

Finding 7 was that we felt that the TBD did not 

adequately cover environmental dose. In 2019, 

NIOSH issued a White Paper addressing Finding 7. 

And SC&A evaluated White Paper and analyzed that 

data and was used to derive the recommended 

annual environmental intakes for various time 

intervals throughout the ‘58-2011 period. And we 

issued a evaluation report in November of 2019. 

And the following is a summary of our analysis.

We analyzed the data to derive annual uranium 

environmental intakes as listed in Table 7 of the 

White Paper for the full period. And we concur with 

the methods used and the results.

Same way with plutonium. We analyzed the data 

and the values in Table 6 of the White Paper for the 

period that plutonium was perhaps an exposure 

pathway, ‘65 to ‘78. And we’re concerned, and we 
39

concur with the methods used and the results.

And now in Finding 7, the third part was in external 

environmental doses. We analyzed the methods 

used in the annual environmental doses listed in 

page, or in Table 15 of the White Paper. And we 

found that they were correct and agree with the 

results and had no issues with that.

So Finding 7, resolution was this January 2020 

finding which was discussed during the 

teleconference. The Work Group found it 

satisfactorily addressed and the issue resolved. And 

the Work Group closed the finding.

So that’s the seven primary findings and what we 

called observations, which at that time was termed 

as Secondary Finding A. And that was that the TBD 

tables based on 365 instead of 250 days, again, this 

is someone back related to one of the previous 

findings.

That’s the TBD Tables 3-15, 5-2 and 5-3 are based 

on 365 days. However, that wasn’t made clear. And 

this was discussed during the August 2015 meeting 

and decided that that was the problem. The tables 

are correct. It’s just the dose reconstructor needs to 

be aware that that’s the way they’re based.

And so during the January 2020 meeting, it was 

discussed again. And NIOSH agreed to revise the 

TBD to reflect changes necessary to reflect, to 

clarify this issue so that the dose reconstructor will 

do the procedure consistently. And the Work Group 

closed this finding.

Okay, next finding, B, was AEC material. The AEC 

material was buried and removed from the ponds 

and grounds. But there wasn’t a lot of 

documentation presented about that time period 

and the material as discussed during a 2015 

teleconference.

And during the January 2020 teleconference, again, 

this was discussed among the Work Group and 
40

SC&A. And NIOSH has stated that they would revise 

the TBD to reflect changes necessary to clarify this 

issue in this, and so it was closed by the Work 

Group.

Okay. And this Secondary Finding C is somewhat 

related to the burial ground workers and definition 

issue because that, again, was discussed in a 2015 

Work Group meeting and again during the January 

of 2020 teleconference.

And NIOSH stated that it would revise the TBD to 

reflect changes necessary to clarify this issue. In 

other words, the workers might have been exposes 

to that area where they had the burial grounds.

Okay. D is methods used to derive the older Table 

5-5 in the original TBD and was not clear in the 

original TBD. And so that was discussed during the 

August 2015 Work Group meeting.

And SC&A, as I say, issued a, their response to 

environmental dose section in Finding 7. We 

evaluated NIOSH’s White Paper concerning this. We 

verified the revised calculations of the beta dose on 

Page 26, which had changed since the original TBD, 

and then in the entries in total in Table 16 of the 

White Paper.

And this was discussed, and then on November of 

2019, SC&A evaluation report concurs with the 

methods used and derived values in that section of 

the White Paper. And it discussed during the 

January 2020 teleconference the finding was found 

to be satisfactorily addressed and that NIOSH will 

incorporate the revised external dose data into the 

revised TBD and the Work Group closed the finding.

Okay, thank you for listening. And have any 

questions, I’ll attempt to address them at this point.

Member Ziemer: This is all, anyone have a 

question? Someone else has something. Go ahead.

Dr. Buchanan: Go ahead.
41

Member Ziemer: Which one? Ziemer go ahead?

Dr. Buchanan: Yes, Dr. Ziemer go ahead.

Member Ziemer: I have two questions. One is the 

terminology question. You talked about secondary 

findings. Is that a new terminology?

Do those have the same impact as what SC&A 

normally called observations? I was a little puzzled 

by the terminology secondary findings.

Dr. Buchanan: Yes. It’s the other way around. That 

was originally what we used previously and now we 

replaced that with observations.

But I didn’t change the slide to observation in case 

somebody was following along on the old script. And 

so, a secondary finding has been changed in the 

terminology to observation at this point.

Member Ziemer: Okay. So, that’s the same thing 

basically then, okay. I just wanted to clarify that. 

One other question now. I was trying to track here 

Finding Number 4 is still open, is it?

Dr. Buchanan: No. That was a neutron issue.

Member Ziemer: Yes. It looked like there was some 

follow up NIOSH was to do and it wasn’t clear to me 

whether Finding 4 was closed or there is still more 

to do there.

Dr. Buchanan: No. It has been closed. All the follow 

up has been done. Okay, neutron okay and then 

they agreed.

They did the, okay, the only follow is that they 

would change the TBD wording so that the 

designation of who would be assigned neutron dose 

was clarified and details provided on that. And then 

also that they would use the N:P ratios in that 

report 60 to estimate neutron dose for uranium, risk 

to uranium workers. And so --

Member Ziemer: Okay. So, the finding is basically 
42

closed but they still have some things they have to 

do?

Dr. Buchanan: Well, yes. Several of these we’re 

taking on revising the TBD to reflect. None of them 

had to do really with incorrect doses or anything 

within the TBDs.

If I remember right, all of the changes were 

clarifications so the dose reconstructor was clear on 

who got what, when.

Member Ziemer: Yes. Maybe someone who is on the 

Procedures Committee, maybe, Josie, you can help 

me on this. But don’t we usually put these things in 

abeyance until NIOSH actually does them and close 

them?

Member Beach: Yes, that is correct.

Member Ziemer: When they get entered into the, 

what’s the name of the big database?

Member Beach: The BRS.

Member Ziemer: Yes. It doesn’t get entered as 

closed until NIOSH actually does that. Isn’t that 

correct?

Member Beach: That is correct. Yes, that’s correct.

Member Kotelchuck: This is Dave Kotelchuck. I just 

ask that if there is nothing left for the AWE Working 

Group to do.

Member Ziemer: No. I think --

Member Kotelchuck: It’s closed or in process of 

being closed.

Member Ziemer: Well, I think the terminology 

they’ve been using is that it’s in abeyance which 

means you’re basically done with it but NIOSH 

hasn’t actually implemented, they haven’t done the 

changes, yes.
43

Member Kotelchuck: Okay, all right. Good, thanks.

Member Beach: On that, Paul, Ron does anybody 

know if the BRS for W.R. Grace has been uploaded?

Dr. Buchanan: Yes, it’s been updated as of our, 

after our January 2020 Work Group teleconference, 

I updated the BRS to reflect all of what the slides 

show.

Member Beach: And are those denoted as in 

abeyance or how did you --

Dr. Buchanan: I did what the Work Group stated 

and closed them. But I can go back into the BRS 

and put them in abeyance until NIOSH issues the 

revised TBD and then I can review it and make sure 

that the clarifications have been done and then go 

back in the BRS.

Member Ziemer: Yes, I think that’s probably a good 

thing to do in that was the method we had for sort 

of tracking things that were sort of promised to be 

done just to make sure that at some point we take 

a look and make sure they actually happen.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, Dave, good, good. I 

agree.

Member Ziemer: Yes. The in abeyance category 

provides a way for us to do that and make sure that 

we go back and look at it at some point in time.

Member Anderson: We can blame this on Ted.

Member Beach: Good catch, Paul.

Dr. Buchanan: Sorry about that.

Member Ziemer: Well, the terminology is a problem 

in all of these things.

Dr. Buchanan: Well, and if it goes back to 2011 and 

so, I mean, there is a lot of moving parts that have 

been added since then.
44

Member Ziemer: Right. And terminology has 

changed.

Dr. Buchanan: We’ve got all of the written parts 

together. It’s just a matter now of someone at 

NIOSH actually doing the update.

But there’s kind of asterisks on it that a dose 

reconstructor can follow. That’s what we were 

concerned about that there could be dose 

reconstructors saying --

Member Ziemer: Right, right.

Dr. Buchanan: -- they wouldn’t know that what 

they’re following is not absolutely correct. So, I 

think that’s what -- all we have. I don’t recall, I 

don’t know if the Board votes on this or not.

I thought it was we were just giving you an update 

on this. It’s been quite a while since this has been 

discussed.

Dr. Roberts: It is on the agenda with a potential 

vote. But first of all, are there more questions or 

comments from anybody on the presentation before 

we move to that?

Member Schofield: This is Phil. I’ve just got one 

comment to make.

For people who are looking, going onto to DCAS’ 

website there and taking a look and stuff, if we had 

a definition so when they see some of this 

information, you know, well this is in abeyance or, 

you know, whatever particular terminology that 

we’re using that they can find that terminology 

defined so they understand what we’re saying. 

That’s just a thought.

Dr. Roberts: So, you’re recommending that the 

NIOSH DCAS website be updated to somehow 

describe what’s meant by terms like abeyance and 

perhaps other things?

Member Schofield: Correct.
45

Dr. Roberts: I see.

Member Ziemer: This is Ziemer again. Phil, I think 

those may have been defined in the main document 

itself, the -- Josie, help me again on this. Didn’t we 

have those definitions in that, in the primary?

Member Beach: I believe they are, Paul. But I’m not 

exactly sure where at this point. I suspect --

Member Ziemer: I haven’t looked at it for a long 

time. If somebody needs to pull it out, whoever the 

caretaker is could pull it up.

I think the definitions are in there because we have 

a number of them in process and in abeyance and 

there’s, I think there is about four or five different 

terms for that particular.

Member Schofield: Yes. I know a lot of the other 

terminology is defined. But some of the stuff you 

almost have to dig out sometimes.

Member Kotelchuck: But, Phil, I mean in abeyance -

- the person who really has to know are the dose 

reconstructors.

Whether it’s in the text or not, whether it’s on the 

website or not as soon as the things are taken out 

of abeyance and completed my understanding is 

that folks go back and have to look at, see that all 

of the previous dose reconstructions that they had 

engaged in are changed to reflect any changes, 

right, or any updates.

So, I don’t know that it has to go on the site, on the 

website. It may be premature in some ways 

because we’re still working.

Member Schofield: Right. But it’s just for people 

when we’re having these discussions they can look 

it up and understand what is the Board saying?

What do we mean when they use this terminology? 

It’s just something to help the public.
46

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. If we put it on the 

general website the difference between in progress, 

in abeyance, et cetera as a general thing not 

associated with a particular company.

Member Schofield: Right, as a general thing.

Member Kotelchuck: In fact, we have the list of 

terms that we use, the glossary. And we could put 

that in the glossary easily and that would be nice.

Member Schofield: That was my whole point, 

thanks.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay, got it. Okay, I thought 

you were talking about it for the individual work 

site.

Member Schofield: No, no. Just so they can look at 

the glossary and understand what our discussion is, 

you know, what do they mean by this, you know.

Member Kotelchuck: Good, good. I agree with that. 

In fact, I think that’s a very good idea. So, I’m 

supportive.

I don’t know if that’s something that we mandate or 

something that actually Grady and the NIOSH folks 

just simply have to say, yes, I think it’s a good idea, 

we’ll do it.

Mr. Calhoun: This is Grady. We’ll take a look and 

see, you know, how often you can find items like 

that on the website to begin with and then see if 

there is a good way to put that definition in there.

I’m not sure there is. But we’ll take a look.

Member Kotelchuck: That sounds good to me.

Member Schofield: Okay, thanks.

Dr. Roberts: Any other questions? Now, did the 

Working Group want to make a motion in regard to 

W.R. Grace?
47

Member Anderson: I would say other than the 

terminology of in abeyance, we would like to say 

our recommendation would be that this had been 

thoroughly reviewed. The committee has gone 

through it.

SC&A has done their review. There are multiple 

White Papers that were developed, have been 

looked at and accepted.

So, we’re done with our work and we would suggest 

that now it’s a matter of implementing this and 

getting the changes and the references and the 

verbiage changed in the site profile TBD.

So, whether the Board needs to accept that our 

Committee is done that’s what I would say we 

would recommend. The Committee has completed 

its review and task and NIOSH understands what 

needs to be done and is in agreement with the 

interpretations we’ve made of all of these things.

We think it’s ready to go to be now implemented 

into the final updated site profile. So, I guess that’s 

it. If there needs to be a motion it would be that the 

Board accepts that we have done the review and 

completed all of the identified --

Participant: Hello. Are you there?

Dr. Roberts: Hello.

Member Kotelchuck: Hello.

Dr. Roberts: Hello. Sorry, it sounds like he hung up. 

I’m sorry, go ahead.

Member Kotelchuck: This is Dave Kotelchuck. So, I 

think what we’re saying is that if it’s desired then 

we can say that the Board accepts the report of the 

Committee and the Committee has reported that, as 

will be shown in the transcript, that its work is done 

on W.R. Grace.

And the, certainly the Board can accept. I don’t 

think it’s a question of approving. But obviously, we 
48

make a report to the Board.

If there was something wrong and the Board wants 

to change something of course it can and should. 

So, maybe it’s an acceptance. What do you think, 

Henry?

Member Anderson: That’s fine, yes.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, the Board will accept our 

report.

Member Anderson: It’s basically, it’s a report.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So, do we need to take a vote 

on that? We can do it by alphabetical order.

Member Beach: I think that’s usually just a roll call 

and everybody aye or nay on this.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Then, okay, so --

Participant: We’ll just have to do it by roll call on a 

telephone call you can’t --

Dr. Roberts: Yes, it’s hard to do.

Member Anderson: Everybody raise their hand.

Member Beach: Aye or nay.

Member Schofield: Higher, I can’t see it.

Member Ziemer: So, the motion is to accept the 

report of the Work Group.

Dr. Roberts: Right.

Member Ziemer: Is that correct?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. And do we need a second or can 

we just move into the vote?

Member Ziemer: You don’t need a second since it 

comes from a Work Group.
49

Dr. Roberts: Okay, great. Okay. So, let’s start with 

Anderson.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Beach?

Member Beach: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, Field?

Member Field: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Kotelchuck?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Richardson?

Member Richardson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Roessler?

Member Roessler: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Schofield?

Member Schofield: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: And Valerio?

Member Valerio: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: And Ziemer?

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So, it sounds like the motion 

carried and it’s pretty much unanimous that the 

report of the Committee will be accepted and I 

guess we’re good.

Member Kotelchuck: Actually, probably the technical 

formalities are the vote is unanimous but the 

decision is not unanimous until you speak to Brad 

and if there is anybody else missing because they 

do have to vote.
50

Dr. Roberts: That’s right, yes. Thank you for 

reminding me, okay. So, I will contact them via 

email and get their votes as well.

Member Ziemer: Well, it doesn’t matter -- it doesn’t 

have to be unanimous. The motion passes is all that 

we need.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Member Ziemer: Even if the others are no, all we 

require was the motion to pass or fail and it’s 

passed.

Member Anderson: And a question for Grady. Does 

something like this to update site profile TBD, is 

there a process for that or what kind of a potential 

time line do we see because otherwise it kind of 

goes into a black box of it’s in abeyance and nobody 

really calls up to see what have we removed from 

abeyance?

Mr. Calhoun: Right. I’ll have to check into that to 

see what, if it’s just the issues we discussed maybe 

not terribly long. But we’ve got a project plan with 

everything on it.

I just have to make sure that it’s not caught up in 

whole co-exposure model. But I’ll try to figure that 

out before the end of the meeting here and get an 

answer back to you.

Member Anderson: Because right now it’s kind of off 

our table.

Mr. Calhoun: Right.

Member Anderson: The Committee -- unless we’re 

going to every time we get together ask what’s the 

status of all these old ones that we’ve completed 

but are waiting to be updated.

Mr. Calhoun: Right. And I’m going to check into that 

one real quick and see if there is anything else that 
51

may be in the way for that. But I’ll try to get you 

some kind of answer here before the end of the day.

Member Beach: And, Grady, and this is Josie. 

Doesn’t SC&A track those on the work coordination 

document they send out before every meeting?

I know John Stiver usually keeps track of the TBDs 

and where they’re at.

Mr. Calhoun: Yes, we do as well. And again, I have 

to go back and look at that to see what our 

document said. There were several on there.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, very good.

Member Anderson: It’s nice to clean up as much of 

these as we can.

Dr. Roberts: Exactly. Okay, well with that we do 

have a break next on the agenda from 3:30 to 3:45.

We could have more of an extended break and then 

come back at 3:45 to talk about Superior Steel SEC 

Petition if that is agreeable. So, 3:45.

Member Lockey: Sounds good.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. See you back.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 3:16 p.m. and resumed at 3:46 p.m.)

Superior Steel SEC Petition 247 (Carnegie, 

Pennsylvania; 1952-1957)

Dr. Roberts: So, let’s go ahead and get started. So, 

we are at the SEC, Superior Steel SEC Petition.

And let’s see, Dr. Paul Ziemer is the Chair of the 

TBD-6000 Work Group of which Superior Steel is 

covered and is a part of. And he, I believe, will be 

the main presenter for this one.

Member Ziemer: Thank you very much. This 

presentation covers the activities of the TBD-6000 

Work Group relating to Superior Steel. I don’t 
52

believe we’ve talked about Superior Steel before.

So, I will give some background information in a 

moment. And let me indicate, that although I’m 

presenting this as Work Group Chairman, I want to 

acknowledge the fact that the main contribution to 

preparing the slides and the lead person was Dr. 

Megan Lobaugh.

She prepared the PowerPoint slides that we’re using 

here today. And my narration really is adopted 

largely from her presentation to the Work Group 

earlier this year.

Unfortunately, Megan is on leave although I noticed 

during the initial roll call that she was on the phone. 

And, Megan, if you’re still there I would be glad to 

have you make the presentation. But I know that 

you’re on leave.

And if you’re still listening at least you are there to 

help out if I run into major snags.

Dr. Lobaugh: Hi, Paul, yes. This is Megan. I’ll help 

you out. But I would prefer if you took the lead 

because it has been a while since I have been 

working full-time.

Member Ziemer: Yes. Well, I’ll go ahead. But just so 

everybody knows, this is largely Megan’s 

presentation.

So, I notice here in Slide 2 and this gives really an 

overview. Today I’ll provide a brief review of the 

Superior Steel Company and what they did and the 

AEC contract.

And then we’ll discuss the Evaluation Report that 

NIOSH produced for SEC-00247 and also then the 

evaluation of that, the Evaluation Report review by 

SC&A. I also am covering NIOSH’s responses to the 

SC&A review of the ER.

So, we’ll begin with the review of Superior Steel 

Company. On Slide 4 here this presents a general 
53

review of the site. Superior Steel is located in 

Carnegie, Pennsylvania. And in this picture you’ll 

see the five interconnected buildings that make up 

this facility.

They had a contract with the AEC to do uranium 

rolling because they already were doing metal 

rolling. And the covered period for the contract, that 

is the AWE period is January 1, 1952, to December 

31, 1957.

That’s the petition period as well. And we’ll talk 

more about that later. There is also a residual 

radiation period which means the site was not 

cleaned up at the end of the AEC contract.

The residual radiation period starts January 1, 1958, 

and continues through the present day. There was 

some clean up apparently at the site.

But the total site has not been remediated. So, 

that’s why the residual period continues through 

present time.

On Slide 5 here you see two diagrams 

demonstrating the flow of work and the rolling 

stations that were used at Superior Steel. In the top 

picture there is a layout of the former Superior Steel 

facility that shows the area designations and the 

approximate locations of the process line 

machinery.

There is Area C, which is in the left of the upper 

diagram, that has the storage shed, the rolling area. 

And then Area A and B, contain the finishing stands, 

the roughing mill and the salt bath.

The bottom picture is a layout of the actual uranium 

mill operations at Superior. The process starts on 

the right side of the drawing with the salt baths and 

proceeds through the left side.

After the salt bath it goes to the mill run out table 

and the roughing roll. The salt would then brush the 

plate at the brushing station and then put through 
54

the finishing stand and the roll conveyer.

In general, the rolling started with about a one inch 

thick slab of uranium anywhere from about 61 to 89 

inches long and anywhere from five and a half to 

seven inches wide. And then you ended up after the 

rolling with a slab that was about 182 to 191 

millimeters thick.

So, that’s a pretty thin slab when they finished. The 

slab was typically passed through the roughing roll 

about five times and then sent through the finishing 

stand and then was cut and transferred to the 

cooling area.

Next, let’s go on to the next slide then. I’ll 

summarize SEC-00247 which is the Evaluation 

Report.

NIOSH had received a Form B Petition or an 83.13 

Petition on May 1, 2018, with an F.1 basis that the 

radiation exposures potentially incurred by the 

members of the proposed class were not monitored 

either through personnel monitoring or through area 

monitoring.

NIOSH qualified the petition for review on July 19, 

2018. The class that was actually under review is all 

atomic weapons employees who worked in any of 

Superior Steel Company in Carnegie, Pennsylvania 

during the period from January 1, 1952, through 

December ‘57 as you see delineated here.

Let’s go on to the next slide. The petition actually 

emphasized two different statements. The first one 

here is on this slide. We’re going to come to the 

second one in a second.

But the first statement, as you see at the top here 

individual uranium urinalysis data are unavailable 

for Superior Steel workers and none are known to 

exist.

In the NIOSH review of this basis, they provided the 

following response that when personnel internal 
55

monitoring data are unavailable NIOSH uses their 

monitoring data from worker breathing zones and 

work areas in accordance with our implementation 

guide, that is the NIOSH implementation guide, 

Internal Dose Reconstruction Implementation 

Guide.

NIOSH pointed out that specifically for Superior 

Steel air monitoring data and process data and 

information are available to estimate uranium 

doses.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is that in addition to 

the uranium rolling at Superior that they did on the 

AEC contract, NIOSH found in their evaluation that 

this petition for Superior Steel also had a 

commercial contract to do thorium rolling.

So, for the thorium internal dose NIOSH proposed 

to use airborne mass loading calculations from the 

uranium air monitoring data to estimate the internal 

thorium doses.

Slide 9 shows the second statement in the petition, 

namely that no external dosimetry results are 

available for Superior Steel employees. Again, 

NIOSH’s response to this is that when personnel 

and area external area monitoring data are 

unavailable NIOSH uses workplace information.

That’s typically the source term and process 

information for estimated dose and that’s in 

accordance with NIOSH OCAS-IG-001, External 

Dose Reconstruction Implementation Guide. Stay on 

that slide just a moment.

There is site-specific information in conjunction with 

Battelle-TBD-6000 to be used to model external 

uranium exposures and site-specific information, in 

conjunction with Battelle-TBD-6000 that could be 

used to also model the external thorium exposures.

Now, we can go ahead to Slide 10. So, here on Slide 

10 is a summary of the feasibility findings for 

Superior Steel for this SEC-00247. You’ll notice that 
56

for the uranium internal dose, the thorium internal, 

uranium external and thorium external as well as 

occupational medical, NIOSH believes that dose 

reconstruction is feasible.

Slide 11. The Evaluation Report also provided 

proposed dose reconstruction methods. So, let me 

go through those quickly before we get to issues 

that were raised by SC&A.

Okay. So, the slide shows the applicable years that 

would be covered by the proposed dose 

reconstruction methods.

The AEC contract covered uranium rolling. And so, 

starting with uranium the operations period for that 

contract period is June 27, 1952, to December 31, 

1957, with a residual contamination period from 

January 1, 1958, and to present, as I had previously 

indicated.

And then -- that’s specific to the uranium rolling 

that was done for the AEC. But as I mentioned 

earlier, NIOSH found evidence that thorium --

Member Beach: Paul, we can’t hear you.

Member Ziemer: Okay. Is that better? I’m off mute.

Dr. Roberts: That’s better.

Member Ziemer: How are we doing? I’m pulling the 

phone a little closer. I’m hearing some background 

noise from somewhere.

Dr. Roberts: Yes, if people could mute their phones.

Member Ziemer: Yes, something is interfering I 

think.

Dr. Roberts: Yes, there is something there.

Member Ziemer: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: I don’t hear it anymore.

Member Ziemer: So, well as I mentioned earlier, 
57

NIOSH found evidence of thorium rolling that 

occurred at least one day. And for this the 

operations period would be March 27, 1956, to April 

20, 1956.

And this time agrees with the time of an AEC 

licensing that Superior had for thorium work. That 

work was done during an AEC contract period. So, 

even though it wasn’t done for the AEC, the doses 

would be covered.

It was commercial non-AEC work. I’m still hearing 

the background noises. Can you still hear me okay?

Dr. Roberts: I can hear you.

Member Ziemer: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Again, everyone check your phones for 

mute, please.

Member Ziemer: So, this commercial non-AEC work, 

the dose from the thorium contamination would only 

go through the end of the AEC contract period. And 

there wouldn’t be a residual period for that since it 

was not AEC related work. Slide 12.

On Slide 12, we have a summary of the proposed 

dose reconstruction methods that would be used for 

the SEC petition period which is 1952 to 1957.

So, let’s look first at the uranium. There are two 

different specific -- Dr. Roberts: You’re fading again.

Member Ziemer: Fading again. Well, let’s see. I’m 

on a cell phone. So, I’ll shift positions here a little 

bit and see if that helps. How is this?

Dr. Roberts: That’s better.

Member Ziemer: Okay. So, there’s two different 

specific intake times for the different intake types. 

One is for rolling when the actual uranium rolling 

was occurring and that’s in the first row under 

uranium.
58

The proposed dose reconstruction method here 

assumed at 500 hour per year exposure to the 

uranium air concentration results that NIOSH has 

for Superior Steel. You’ll notice a teal colored box 

around the 500 hours per year.

Megan put that in there to help us remember to 

emphasize the fact that this is actually a proposed 

change to the actual TBD that NIOSH was originally 

using to reconstruct dose.

Remember, there -- I think we got the report earlier 

from either, I think it was DOL and I think they told 

us that there was something like 50 dose 

reconstructions had already been done for this site.

But anyway, under the proposed dose 

reconstruction methods here this 500 hours is a 

change from the methodology that had been used. 

The current TBD assigns 800 hours per year. So, 

this is a reduction from the current TBD.

Continuing with the uranium and going to 

resuspension, this refers to the resuspension of 

uranium contamination when they were rolling nonuranium, when they were rolling the non-radioactive 

materials. So, the resuspension time that NIOSH is 

proposing you’ll see here is 2,000 hours per year.

Using these resuspension methods that are 

currently in use the way this comes about is that 

NIOSH is assuming 2,500 hours a year of work, that 

is as overtime. But if you subtract then the 500 

hours per year from rolling you get the 2,000 hours 

per year for the resuspension.

So, the resuspension is calculated then by the total 

hours, 2,500 minus the 500 hours for rolling. So, 

that’s also in the teal colored, teal outlined box to 

remind us this is a change from the existing 

approach.

Also, this material would be assessed as U-235. It 

includes recycled uranium contaminants. And this is 

because it’s known that recycled uranium could 
59

have been used during this time period.

Next, let’s go through the thorium column. Starting 

with rolling there is evidence, again we indicated 

that NIOSH found commercial thorium rolling was 

done.

So, NIOSH assumed ten hours of exposure during 

the March/April time frame. That’s when this outside 

thorium work was to have been done.

And it appears from the records likely that there 

was just one day of thorium rolling. So, it’s in here 

as ten hours.

NIOSH assumed ten hours during that period. And 

then the March to April date comes from the AEC 

license that actually, that gave them permission to 

use the thorium. The thorium air concentration that 

NIOSH would be assuming would be calculated 

based on mass loading approach from the air 

samples.

The next row here is the resuspension. Again, this is 

commercial work resuspension that would only be 

assigned through the end of the AEC contract 

period. So, that’s the remainder of ‘56 through ‘57.

In this case, the material would be assessed as 

Thorium-232, including the daughter products in 

secular equilibrium. Again, I want to emphasize the 

teal boxes shown there were changes from the 

current TBD.

So, we have what is being proposed, 500 hours per 

year rolling, 2,000 hours per year for uranium 

resuspension. Let’s go on to Slide 13.

So, this is for external dose now, the previous slide 

was internal. These slides look sort of the same. But 

this now is external.

So, here again we see for external rolling you see 

500 hours per year proposed for the direct rolling 

and then you see, well there’s really four different 
60

exposure types, right because there we see what is 

called submersion rolling.

I should mention first the 500 also again is in the 

teal covered area, outlined box that reminds us that 

this is different from the original TBD. For the --

well let me mention one other thing about it.

The current TBD uses a surrogate site which was 

Simonds Saw and those doses NIOSH thought 

would be better or more appropriate to use rather 

than Simonds Saw modeling to use a TBD-6000. 

That’s why it shows 500 year, 500 hours for TBD600 or 6000, rather.

Now, submersion rolling there would be 

contamination that goes up into the air and causes 

a cloud. So, in this case for external you’re talking 

about exposures that would be calculated for a 

person submerged in the cloud for 500 hours per 

year.

The third row is for direct storage. And that would 

be the time that the material was on site but not 

being rolled. You see this is supposed to be a red 

box outlining the 500 hours there.

That again represents a change in methodology. 

The -- calculating those dose rates again would 

come from Battelle-TBD-6000.

And then for post-rolling this would be the time 

period after rolling was completed, the time period 

outside the uranium rolling when other metal rolling 

was going on. And this assumption would again be 

2,000 years of submersion or direct exposure using 

that EPA reference that’s shown there.

For thorium direct exposure, the right-hand column, 

all of this thorium information would be a change 

from the current TBD because at the time of the site 

profile NIOSH didn’t know about the presence of 

commercial thorium work.

So, starting with the direct rolling the proposed 
61

method would be to assume ten hours of direct 

rolling. I’ve mentioned that before. And here NIOSH 

would use MCNP modeling and distance guidance 

that’s provided in Battelle-TBD-6000.

For the submersion rolling again, this -- the time is 

the same as direct rolling because this is just a 

contamination from the cloud and the cloud 

contamination would occur during the rolling itself. 

Ten hours’ exposure for the same time period with 

doses calculated using the EPA reference noted 

there.

And then since Superior was really only licensed to 

have thorium to the end of April ‘96, 190 hours 

represents the exposure time that would occur for 

storage during that two month period.

For post-rolling, this is the time period outside the 

thorium rolling when normal metal rolling would 

have occurred. So, NIOSH would assume exposures 

for the remainder of ‘56 and all of ‘57 for both 

submersion and direct exposure.

Now, let’s -- we come to NIOSH’s responses to the 

SC&A review of the environmental report. And I 

would like to point out that our Work Group, at our 

Work Group meeting Rose from SC&A, Rose 

Gogliotti led the discussion on this and covered 

SC&A responses as well.

So, just kind of summarizing here what Rose 

covered in the Work Group meeting. So, SC&A 

reviewed the ER that NIOSH had produced in June, 

that is they issued a review of it in June of 2019.

It included two findings and four observations. Then 

you see that in October NIOSH provided their 

responses and in January 2020, SC&A provided 

responses to that. The Work Group met in February 

to discuss the issues and the responses.

At that time, the Work Group voted to close one of 

the findings and all four of the observations. So, I’ll 

go through these quickly here.
62

I’ll summarize the two findings and their 

resolutions. Finding 1 was failure to justify process 

similarities. Let me see if I’ve got the right slides up 

here now. There it is, okay.

Here we are. Finding 1, failure to justify process 

similarities that support the use of Vulcan Crucible 

billing rate. There’s four slides that are going to 

cover this.

So, let me talk for a minute about what is going on 

here. This issue really pertains to both the internal 

and external dose. And it has to do with the use of 

billing rates for contracts as a method for estimating 

working times and hence exposure times.

And so, it’s the billing rates from Vulcan Crucible 

billing rate is so much per mill-hour. And based on 

the contracts you can figure out what the rolling 

times might be.

You see this sort of laid out here on the slide. And 

NIOSH, actually what was, what the issue here on 

the Vulcan was, this was raised by SC&A, why not 

use this one.

And NIOSH indicated that the billing rates that they 

used met the five criteria on the use of data from 

other facilities. This issue of using billing rates as a -

- go on to the next slide there for a moment.

So, the -- under this issue of using the billing rates 

to determine really the source term, if you use a 

billing rate and you figure out how much time was 

used you can come up with exposure times.

So, there’s some data shown here for different 

companies, what their billing rates were. And the 

temporal consideration issue has to do with whether 

or not this was an appropriate billing rate for that 

period of time.

It was the 1948 billing rate. So, it’s handled in a 

similar manner to what we do with source term data 

to say is it appropriate to the time that we’re using 
63

it sort of as surrogate data.

This billing rate data becomes kind of a surrogate 

data type of issue. Let’s go on to the next slide.

So, this is looked at here as a bounding scenario. In 

other words, we’re going from a billing rate to say 

can we get bounding based on starting with the 

billing rate and ending up with exposure times and 

making certain assumptions on how long people 

worked with the material.

And ultimately, what -- going through all this NIOSH 

said that they would, they stood by the use of the 

Vulcan billing rate to determine the number of 

rolling hours. Next slide.

So, SC&A at that point agreed with NIOSH that 

annual milling hours can be bounded. Go back 

again. You see here the final approach to calculate 

billing hours using a certain rate and a certain 

amount of uranium.

They could estimate the bounding time as 253 

hours per year. The Work Group did request 

additional information on this whole thing because 

there is a lot of uncertainty in using annual billing 

rates to determine annual rolling hours.

So, there is an action item here for NIOSH to 

provide some additional information for the Work 

Group to clarify this further. So, this particular 

finding was not closed.

Okay, next slide. Well, this is basically part of the 

same thing. I think we can just, you can read that 

over for yourself. This talks about the 95th 

percentile.

You can think of this in terms of as we, as a 

distribution issue and where do you select the 

distribution to represent what is going on. Let’s go 

on to the next slide.

So, Finding 2, this had to do with the possibility that 
64

the 1955 survey distributions may not bound air 

concentrations. Hang on a second here. I’ve got to 

get some more water. Maybe the rest of you need 

water too. This is a long presentation.

Okay. So, the issue relates here to internal dose. 

SC&A pointed out that the intake rate was based on 

the results of four HASL, that’s the health and 

safety campaign.

The Evaluation Report used two intake rates as you 

see here from ‘53 data and ‘55 data. And SC&A 

actually questions whether this would be bounding.

And so, NIOSH’s response was that they would 

remove the ‘55 data and use the other three data 

sets to determine intake rates and that was agreed 

as being probably a better bounding approach. And 

SC&A recommended that the Board accept that and 

they agreed to remove the May ‘55 data from the 

data set.

And there on this particular one the Work Group 

agreed to close that issue. Then there were a 

number of observations. And these were mainly 

points that needed clarification.

Observation 1, I sort of referred to this before. It 

has to do conceptually with whether or not it’s 

proper to use billing as a bounding source.

Does that violate NIOSH’s approach where they say 

if you don’t have data you can use other information 

such as air sampling and area monitoring to bound 

data? Can you use billing to bound data?

Well, NIOSH really said really we’re not using billing 

to bound data. We’re using the billing to determine 

work times and therefore dose rates.

So, after it was basically clarified that we’re not 

using the billing rate as a source term then that was 

agreed to and that observation was closed.

Observation 2 -- still good? So, Observation 2 had 
65

to do with the fact that NIOSH said they were going 

to use the same methods for determining thorium 

air concentrations as they were uranium.

And those were based on air sample masses. And 

typically, there is a thorium-to-uranium ratio that’s 

used to make that determination.

In an example here, Bridgeport Brass was an 

example. The thorium intake rates were found to be 

10 percent of uranium. And the question was, why 

wouldn’t you use those kind of ratios?

Well, the fact is there was no air sampling for 

thorium. There was only air sampling for uranium.

So, the assumption here would be that the amount 

of mass for uranium air samples would be also 

provided and are used for thorium air sample 

masses and using proper conversion tactics there 

you would calculate thorium concentrations. And 

that was agreed to.

Observation 3, well, yes, that one we voted to close. 

Observation 3, this was the issue of whether or not 

the 500 hours a year storage time is adequate to 

capture the length of time the material was on site.

The ER, as I indicated before, proposed 500 hours a 

year. SC&A was questioning whether that was 

adequate.

In the meantime, NIOSH got comments from 

petitioners and reviewed the referenced documents 

and other information. And SC&A proposed 500 

hours per year and that issue was closed.

Then finally, Observation 4 had to do with whether 

or not the medical x-rays were done on site or off 

site. This was similar to the case we had earlier 

today where if you don’t know the, use the default 

assumption and assume that there was preemployment and annual x-rays and that was closed.

I think that’s the last slide. What’s that? Okay. So, I 
66

think we’re open for people to ask questions of 

Megan.

Member Anderson: This is Andy. I don’t recall, have 

we ever used billing hours as an exposure surrogate 

before? Certainly not from another facility.

Member Ziemer: I can’t answer that. I don’t know, 

Grady, if you’re able to answer that. I don’t recall 

any, but certainly I know there were cases that 

people have looked at billing hours to gather 

information.

Member Beach: GSI comes to mind. Doesn’t it, 

Paul?

Mr. Calhoun: I’m not sure. I would have to refer to 

LaVon or Tim on that one.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, this is LaVon. I was trying to 

think of that myself. I know that Megan, she might 

be able to answer part of this too because when she 

researched the billing hours she looked back into a 

couple of different sites. But I can’t remember.

Dr. Lobaugh: This is Megan. So, specifically for 

Superior Steel in the current TBD we actually quote 

this billing rate and calculate the exposure time for 

using this billing rate for Superior Steel.

But what, we don’t use that exact exposure time in 

the current TBD. So, this information was used in 

the TBD as more, to prove it was bounding.

I can’t speak for certain. But I think typically when 

we use a billing rate it’s more as, to bolster other 

assumptions we’re making, if that makes sense.

I think this will be the first time that we proposed 

using it to actually calculate exposure time and not 

just support other assumptions.

Member Ziemer: Yes. The bounding number was 

bigger than you calculated from exposure rate, as I 

recall.
67

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes. So, the bounding number that 

was quoted here in this presentation and in the 

responses came from other information.

So, in this case for Superior Steel we were using the 

billing rate as the main assumption. And then we 

looked at the other information we had in terms of 

uranium shipments, other information about 

uranium rolling, data that we have from like the 

technical areas versus actual radiation safety areas.

We (audio interference) in Table 7.1. And we use 

that information to kind of say hey, we’re bounding 

it better with this billing rate approach.

Member Anderson: I was just looking. Is there some 

other site or information we can use just as a 

validation exercise?

And I just don’t have any familiarity with how 

different billing rates would be from different 

companies, how competitive the billing rates would 

be.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes. So, if we could go back to the 

chart.

Member Anderson: Do they charge more for 

uranium than -- most of these are rolling facilities 

and they’re rolling a lot of steel or other metal. And 

--

Member Ziemer: Well, there is one other part to it, 

you know. And, Josie, when you mentioned that it 

sparked my memory.

For general steel industries we did have a look at 

some billing rates. And one of the issues is 

sometimes these are contract amounts and you 

can’t tell what is, how much of it is covered or what 

they’re paying towards the rolling, what they’re 

paying towards some administrative charges.

There is, the contract may not spell out exactly or 

tell you exactly how many hours people are 
68

spending doing this or that. So, it gets a little, it can 

get a little bit nebulous in terms of trying to do a 

one to one relationship between hours spent doing a 

particular task and the price of a contract.

Member Anderson: Right. Well, that’s the concern.

Member Ziemer: But see, in the sense you could 

bound it by saying well let’s assume that all of the 

work was, you know, you didn’t have any 

administrative charges and so on.

In a sense, you could bound it and say okay, I’m 

paying this much money and the amount of time it 

takes to do that job is a certain amount based on 

the billing hours or the bill you could attribute it all 

to the work that you do.

Member Kotelchuck: Dave, this is Dave.

Member Ziemer: In that sense, I think you could 

bound.

Member Kotelchuck: Paul, Dave. You showed a slide 

where you had the billing rates for four different 

companies. I don’t remember which slide it was.

If we can go back to that slide. Were all of those, 

let’s see, there we are.

Member Ziemer: There it is. There it is.

Member Kotelchuck: Were all of those for uranium 

and thorium? They didn’t include billing rates for 

just regular roll, iron rolling?

Member Ziemer: I don’t know the answer to that. 

Megan, do you know?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, I can answer that. So, here on 

Slide 17 for those who aren’t on Skype, we found 

four billing rates that are for radioactive material 

billing, specifically uranium rolling.

So, if you see the first one here is Simonds Saw and 

Steel at $110.53 per rolling hour. So, for each of 
69

these we found enough information to know kind of 

how they were charging or how they were being 

paid either by rolling or per pound, for example.

So, we found only four of all of our searches. So, we 

searched several different databases through 

Hanford, all of our Site Research Database and we 

did data captures, any billing rate we could get.

Member Kotelchuck: Very good. So --

Dr. Lobaugh: These four are the ones we have, yes.

Member Kotelchuck: -- all four, sorry. All four were 

for uranium, were uranium rolling?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: I just want to point out that the 

Superior Steel at the bottom was found after the 

initial ER was reviewed.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, thank you.

Ms. Gogliotti: When we went back and looked at it 

they found this additional billing rate. So, it kind of 

invalidates some of the finding because the actual 

billing rate was found.

And this was an early contract and it was probably 

modified.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, can we -- can you use 

that here to modify the number? We know, because 

we know the size of the rolling, the pieces that were 

rolled and therefore the weight.

Dr. Lobaugh: So, this is Megan again. So, as part of 

our response to the Work Group, the Work Group 

requested additional information on this finding.

As part of our response to the Work Group we 

pulled together information we had to be able to use 

the Superior Steel Corporation modification 

numbers. So, this dollar and one penny per pound.
70

So, that would mean information on the pounds that 

they rolled as well as the money that they were paid 

and actually let me pull up the document. It will be 

easier to speak directly from the document.

So, we provided a document to the Working Group 

March 19. That went through all of the data that we 

had to answer that exact question.

And then actually our, the statistician that, one of 

the statisticians that works at ORAU actually pulled 

together and came up with the distribution. So, if 

we go to, let me find this slide. I think it’s the next 

two slides, so Slide 19, no, Slide 20.

So, this is just a summary of our March 2020 

response. So, we pulled together all that data and 

used the statistical simulation to actually review 

available slab weight and rolling through-put data 

because those were the two kind of variable inputs 

to this calculation.

And from that we proposed using the 95th 

percentile.

Member Ziemer: And I didn’t mention this. I, in fact 

forgot to mention that particular slide, Slide 20. We 

did not have that information when we met in 

February. I’m hearing echoes.

Anyway, that is, that particular slide that’s new 

information to the Work Group, actually.

Member Kotelchuck: Very good, okay. It certainly 

validates going down from 800 to 500 and this 

calculation is significantly less than 500. So, when 

you review that or will the Working Group review 

that at upcoming?

Member Ziemer: Well, we haven’t yet. And here’s, 

there is -- I suppose we need to have a response 

also from SC&A.

But at this point, what we really have before us and 

we didn’t have a formal motion on this from the 
71

Work Group because at least this issue was open. 

But in essence we have an SEC petition for which 

NIOSH has said we can reconstruct dose.

And that, and the NIOSH Evaluation Report has 

been reviewed by SC&A. And everything was 

basically closed except this final thing here which is 

that uranium rolling hours per year.

So, that’s the only change. But I think if there is a 

Board action, the action and this wouldn’t change 

the action per se, the Board action would be to 

agree that NIOSH can reconstruct dose and in effect 

that would say that the SEC would not be accepted.

Member Kotelchuck: Right, right.

Member Ziemer: But I think also we need to hear 

from, if the petitioner is online --

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Ziemer, this is --

Member Ziemer: -- we probably need to hear from 

the petitioner.

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Ziemer, this is Lavon 

Rutherford. Just a little clarity here. I wanted to 

remind a couple that from the Work Group meeting, 

we had actually, NIOSH had actually proposed the 

rolling number.

SC&A came back with another rolling number and 

then both parties agreed and the Work Group 

agreed that this was a TBD issue, that what the 

right number came down to whether it was 267 or 

253 is what, you know, SC&A proposed or the 500, 

either way it was a TBD issue.

Ultimately, Megan went back and looked at this 

closer and did some additional calculations and we 

came back with the 267 which was very near the 

SC&A. So, as for an SEC issue this was not an SEC 

issue.

All parties had agreed during that Work Group 

meeting that this was a TBD issue which is the right 
72

number to use.

Member Ziemer: Yes. And that’s why I say that part 

doesn’t matter because the issue before us is 

whether or not we accept that dose can be 

reconstructed.

Dr. Roberts: Right. And as you pointed out though, 

we do need to open it up to hear from petitioners 

maybe before we get to that point.

So, are there any petitioners that would like to 

present at this time? I believe you’ve been, 

petitioners are given about ten minutes or more to 

make a presentation.

Member Beach: Rashaun?

Dr. Roberts: Yes.

Member Beach: I don’t think they’re limited to ten 

minutes during this portion. It’s during the public 

comment session that they’re limited.

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, all right. Well, presentation by a 

petitioner if present.

Mr. Palastro: Yeah, my name is John Palastro.

Dr. Roberts: Hi.

Mr. Palastro: I’m the son of John A. Palastro who 

worked at Superior Steel. I don’t think you’ve given 

any consideration to the contamination of the 

equipment.

You said earlier in your presentation that you still 

got readings in the buildings. Well, right after rolling 

that, the shell would fall through the conveyer.

It would go through the mill. It would go through 

the shearers. It would be cut off. I was in that mill 

many, many times. I’m a first-person witness, okay.

That was picked up by a magnet and put into a 
73

gondola car. That car set there until it was full. 

When they weren’t running uranium or thorium, 

they were running other steel.

That went on the car too. I can even give you the 

name of the person that bought the scrap from 

Superior Steel. That sat right there.

Plus the shell that fell through the conveyer was 

there until it got full enough to be shoveled out by 

hand, put in a hopper and loaded in the car. Now, if 

you’ve still got readings today in those buildings, 

I’m sure that all that equipment was contaminated 

forever.

The other thing is there is an awful lots of 

assumptions and I listened to all of them. This is 

probably the third call I was on.

And a lot of them are really incorrect. I just think 

that if Superior Steel is a good quality company, 

and as far as ventilation goes they had the same 

fans with the windows when they were running any 

other metal.

There was no special ventilation. My father worked 

there. He never had a badge. I never remember 

him having x-rays before or after. So, some of your 

information is questionable.

If you have any questions for me, you’re welcome 

to ask them.

Member Ziemer: Yes, thank you for those 

comments. This is Paul Ziemer again. Let me 

mention on the medical x-rays what the assumption 

there is that NIOSH will actually assign dose as if 

the person had medical x-rays even though they 

may not have.

In other words, they will credit them with radiation 

exposure for that. There is air sample data that will 

be used.

I guess I need to ask, Megan, if there is any new 
74

information that you’ve heard from this petitioner 

that you didn’t already have in terms of residual 

contamination?

Dr. Lobaugh: Thank you. This is Megan. So, I would 

like to provide a little more information on how 

we’re doing the residual contamination calculation.

So, specifically with terms to the storage of the 

scrap in the rail car, for this we would be calculating 

external dose from anything that was stored on site. 

And this is actually closely related to Observation 3 

that SC&A provided in their review.

And this was regarding the uranium storage time 

assumptions that we had in the, had proposed in 

the ER, the Evaluation Report. So, in our (audio 

interference) what we had initially proposed to year 

round minus rolling times.

So, Dr. Ziemer discussed that a little bit when he 

was going through the slides that we have an 

assumption of the total amount of time worked per 

year, so 2500 hours per year is our TBD-6000 

assumption for overtime work.

And then we would subtract the rolling hours from 

that to come up with the amount of time that we 

think the employees would have been exposed on 

site to either residual contamination or 

contamination from work that had been done during 

the operation period and storage of uranium on site 

during the operation period.

So, how we specifically assign dose from that is we 

use the one meter external dose rate from the TBD6000 site profile or the information that we have for 

establishments.

So, we used the one meter external dose rate to 

calculate the dose for the storage of uranium metal 

on site and that’s what we are assuming is the 2500 

hours per year minus the hours actually spent 

rolling uranium.
75

So, here that would be, you know, this is still kind 

of hasn’t been finalized because of the discussion of 

the hours, the uranium hours per year for rolling 

that has to do with Finding 1 that you can see here 

on the slide actually.

So, just to reiterate. We use a specific dose, 

external dose rate that has been agreed upon in 

TBD-6000, specifically one meter from any uranium 

that would be stored on site. And we’re going to 

apply that dose rate for the number of hours, 2500 

minus the rolling hours.

In terms of other contamination that we can think 

about. So, there is the submersion dose that we 

talked about for external and other surface 

contamination like uranium falling from the 

conveyer to the floor.

What we typically do here is we are, we do assign 

dose from that from the post-rolling surface 

contamination. And we use specifically the EPAFGR-12 dose conversion factors for that.

So, again the kind of discussion that we’re having 

here is more specifically about the exposure time 

and how many exposure hours we’re applying for 

that. And again, it’s that same discussion of the 

2500 hours minus rolling will be assigned.

And that exposure time will be used to assign dose 

from that post-rolling surface contamination. So, 

the uranium (audio interference) equipment itself 

being contaminated after the uranium rolling.

Mr. Palastro: I would have to question that. That’s 

pretty much all I have to say. My father died of 

cancer and his older brother worked in the mill as a 

shear man and he died of cancer.

And I sent a letter in to my attorney and he 

presented it to NIOSH from the doctor who treated 

my father. But I don’t know what type of cancer 

that my uncle died from.
76

I did, I told her I disagree with the hours. That train 

car could have set there for forever. Who knows 

how long it sat there?

Well, you had -- I think you had 12 hours a day. Am 

I right, on there, Megan? Megan?

Dr. Lobaugh: Sorry, yes.

Mr. Palastro: Didn’t you have 12 hours a day --

Dr. Lobaugh: What was the question?

Mr. Palastro: -- or something like that?

Dr. Lobaugh: So, how we assigned, yeah, how we 

assigned dose is typically on a per year basis. So, 

we have the 2500 hours per year that we assumed 

the employee worked.

Mr. Palastro: Well, that’s a little over a 40 hour 

week. Is that correct? Approximately, 28 is 40 hours 

a week. They worked, oftentimes they worked three 

shifts.

There is a good many inaccuracies in there. And I 

would just like to correct the record, that’s all. 

Anybody has any questions for me I was in that mill 

many, many times.

I did projects for school and the people that worked 

there would explain what they were doing to me in 

great detail. So, I know exactly what I’m talking 

about. Thank you for listening to me.

Dr. Roberts: Are there any questions for the 

petitioner?

Member Schofield: The labor rate for the Vulcan, 

does that come from another facility that is doing 

the same thing or very, very similar or is that from 

their actual records?

Mr. Palastro: Are you talking to me?

Member Schofield: I’m asking about the Labor rate 
77

so that they calculate the hours. I was wondering if 

they actually have any records anywhere they found 

where they billed AEC?

Dr. Lobaugh: This is Megan. I can --

Mr. Palastro: Go ahead, Megan.

Dr. Lobaugh: Go ahead. So, as Rose pointed out, 

the Vulcan Crucible billing rate actually will not be 

used anymore because after the discussion with the 

Work Group in February, we are actually using the 

Superior Steel billing rate.

So, on the previous slide it showed that billing rate 

of a dollar and one penny per pound. And so, in 

response to the Work Group and to provide 

additional information to the Work Group we, 

NIOSH, reviewed all of the data that we had to be 

able to use that billing rate, Superior Steel’s specific 

billing rate and calculate the number of hours using 

that.

So, the (audio interference) proposed exposure time 

of 253 or 267 hours which is still being discussed 

with the Work Group is calculated using the 

Superior Steel billing rate.

The initial Evaluation Report did not, proposed 

method did not use that. So, that’s -- does that 

make sense?

Member Schofield: Yes, it does. Thanks.

Mr. Palastro: This is John Palastro again. Did that 

take into consideration at all the radiation from the 

equipment?

Dr. Lobaugh: The, so the dose that would be 

assigned does take into account the contamination 

of the equipment. So, if we can go let me pull up --

I have to find the specific slide.

The way to kind of look at this is on Slide 13. So, 

Slide 13 lists the different external exposure types 

that we’re talking about. So, direct rolling. So, 
78

exposure from handling the uranium as it’s being 

rolled or prepared to be rolled.

Submersion rolling is the submersion within the 

contaminated air that occurs from the actual rolling. 

Direct storage includes the storage of material on 

site as well as if it’s a one meter dose rate it also 

includes any kind of exposure that would be 

received from material, you know, falling to the 

floor or sitting around the work site there.

And then post-rolling is that time -- is the time after 

the radioactive material happens when there is still 

potential for radioactive material to be in the air. 

So, this accounts for submersion in that 

contaminated air after rolling.

So, this kind of is just a quick summary of the 

different exposure types that we considered in our 

review.

Mr. Palastro: Most of that is an assumption though. 

Am I correct?

Dr. Lobaugh: The assumptions are based on, so the 

assumptions that we’re talking about here are the 

exposure time, so the amount of time that an 

employee would be working doing specifically the 

rolling of the uranium.

And then the other assumptions are really the 

exposure rate. But that’s set. We have a 

programmatic set exposure rate in this Battelle 

TBD-6000. Does that answer your question?

Mr. Palastro: It did. But I’m not satisfied with the 

answer.

Member Kotelchuck: Dave Kotelchuck. Can I ask a 

question?

Mr. Palastro: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Sure.

Member Kotelchuck: I’m actually, with Dr. Ziemer in 
79

his report our, what we have to fundamentally 

decide is whether it’s an SEC or it isn’t. If it isn’t an 

SEC then there are a lot of individual aspects of this 

that could possibly be changed later, I don’t know.

But so, Paul, Dr. Ziemer said that the Union and the 

Working Group had met. You mentioned before that 

you had talked with the Union and there was an 

agreement that this is a TBD.

I wondered if you could just clarify a little bit or 

someone could?

Member Ziemer: Well, the Work Group hadn’t 

actually made a motion on it being a TBD or I’m 

sorry, being an SEC or not partially because of the 

way things were developing. We originally didn’t 

have this last piece of data.

And the Work Group or the Board was going to 

meet in April, you may recall. And our April Board 

meeting got cancelled. So, in April we were going to 

present this as more of a progress report.

Then in the meantime the information on the actual 

billing rate was discovered and that basically is new 

information. But I think everything else had been 

closed.

And the only open issues in this sense are TBD 

issues and not SEC issues. So, I believe it’s 

appropriate that we have a motion, if the Board is 

ready for it, a motion to -- and this doesn’t come 

from the Work Group directly because we didn’t 

make this motion.

But it would be appropriate if it’s okay with the 

moderator to ask for a motion to approve this as --

or to deny the SEC I think would be.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. But the Working Group, 

that was not, okay. I thought we were, I thought 

the Working Group had asked for a determination 

on the SEC today. And you’re, on behalf of the 

Working Group, suggesting that it’s time.
80

Member Ziemer: I’m suggesting the motion could 

be made by the Board. The Working Group hadn’t 

made that determination because at our last 

meeting we didn’t have all of this information.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. I would say why not let 

the Working Group finish its task and then bring it 

the Board as a request for an SEC.

Member Ziemer: Or not.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. That would allow a little 

more time if there are any other issues to be 

thought about or this last one dealt with. Well, we’ll 

hear from other Board Members.

Member Ziemer: This last one is only an issue of 

which number on the, based on the billing rate is 

the right number and they don’t differ by very much 

as Megan pointed out.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Calhoun: This is Grady. Let me just ask a 

question to clarify here. It’s my understanding from 

listening to all this that the Work Group and SC&A 

and DCAS, we’ve all kind of agreed that all of the 

issues are closed with the one exception of which 

number to use.

It’s not an issue of whether or not we have a 

number that’s usable. And so, it seems to me that 

this is clearly a TBD issue at this point.

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Calhoun: And it’s just a matter of which number 

of hours to use. I don’t think there is any other --

somebody has got to turn their phone off.

It’s not a matter of whether or not we can do dose 

reconstruction. It’s just what number to choose. 

And I don’t know if any additional time for the Work 

Group is needed other than to clarify the TBD issue.

I just want to make sure I’m understanding that 
81

correctly. Is that right?

Member Ziemer: That would be my understanding, 

Grady, that we have dealt with all the SEC portions 

of this.

Member Beach: Yes, Paul. This is Josie, and I agree. 

Our last Work Group meeting although it was quite 

a while ago was that we were going to recommend, 

I believe that all the SEC issues were taken care of.

Dr. Taulbee: This is Tim Taulbee. If I may interject 

here. I just pulled up the transcript from that 

February meeting and there was a motion at the 

end by the Work Group to bring this before the 

Board.

And it says, I’m reading here from Chairman 

Ziemer. We can certainly bring to the Board an 

action on the petition itself at the Board meeting.

Mr. Katz, yes, we haven’t made a motion on the 

petition in its entirety. But you made a motion 

basically that it’s feasible. So, you’ve made a 

motion that corresponds to the findings that would 

have related to our basis to add a class.

It goes on and there is an actual motion here to add 

or to deny the SEC. If you read from Pages 54 and 

55 in that in that transcript.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay, thank you. That’s 

helpful.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So, Paul.

Member Ziemer: I didn’t recall that either. And 

since it wasn’t on the slides, okay.

Dr. Roberts: So, Paul, I just wanted to circle back 

around to the motion and go from there. So, did 

you want to restate?

Member Ziemer: That doesn’t even require a second 

then. That can become a motion from the Work 

Group to, TBD-6000 Work Group to deny the SEC. 
82

Is that the proper terminology to use?

Member Kotelchuck: The actual terminology in the -

- is to not accept an SEC.

Dr. Roberts: Right.

Dr. Taulbee: The actual terminology used during the 

discussion was to concur with NIOSH’s 

recommendation that dose reconstruction be found 

to be feasible for the period covered by the petition.

Member Ziemer: That’s exactly my motion.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, perfect, perfect.

Member Schofield: Sounds good.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. And therefore, do we need to 

have further discussion of it? Are we ready to do a 

roll call vote?

Member Anderson: Just a clarification. We’ve had 

quite a discussion here about using the surrogate

billing information and I think that’s a method that I 

have concerns about.

But it sounds like NIOSH is saying they’re not using 

that billing rate to calculate the numbers using the 

Vulcan data. If that’s the case, you’re using only 

data from Superior Steel then that would fit with 

how we’ve done it in other cases so I’m comfortable 

with that.

I just want to confirm that’s the case.

Member Ziemer: I think it removes that.

Member Anderson: It was in the original, got more 

information. So, now you’re really -- you presented 

that because it was there.

But it’s not going to be a method, you know, that 

we’re setting a precedent for future just using 

somebody else’s billing rates to try to bound 

something with confidence in how -- you can always 
83

bound something but is it a realistic bound or not 

becomes the issue.

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Member Anderson: So, I’m happy if we’re not going 

to use that billing rate from Vulcan to come up with 

a number.

Member Ziemer: Right. Did you hear the motion?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. Okay. Are we ready to vote by roll 

call?

Member Ziemer: So, let me mention that, on this 

vote we have to get, we have to obtain the votes of 

the persons who are absent from the meeting.

Dr. Roberts: Right.

Member Ziemer: And this information would go on 

to the Secretary of HHS.

Dr. Roberts: That’s correct, okay. Well, starting with 

Anderson.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, Beach?

Member Beach: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Field?

Member Field: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Kotelchuck?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Lockey?

Member Lockey: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Richardson? Richardson? Roessler?

Member Roessler: Yes.
84

Dr. Roberts: Schofield?

Member Schofield: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, Valerio?

Member Valerio: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: And Ziemer?

Member Ziemer: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. All right. And as was pointed 

out, I will need to get the votes for Clawson, and 

also Richardson was missing.

All right. I think okay, so the -- it looks like the next 

thing on the agenda is the public comment period 

which is supposed to start at 5:15.

I think what I’ll do since we do have a few minutes, 

if no one objects, is I’d like to go ahead and read --

I can hear background. If we can get back on mute, 

please.

The Board received some correspondence ahead of 

this meeting that I would like to read. The first is 

correspondence from Joe Kennedy, III, the 

Congressman’s office. And I will go ahead and read 

that into the record.

It concerns Metals and Controls. And this is a 

correspondence that was distributed to all Board 

Members and also was posted on the NIOSH DCAS 

website before the meeting.

So, the correspondence is dated August 11, 2020. 

It’s addressed to Ms. Josie Beach who is the Chair of 

the Metals and Controls Special Exposure Cohort 

Working Group.

And it reads as follows. Dear Ms. Beach, I represent 

the Fourth Congressional District of Massachusetts 

which includes the City of Attleboro.

Since the 1950s and 60s, Metals and Controls 
85

Corporation performed government sponsored work 

as a nuclear fuel plant and some of that work 

included Atomic Weapons Employer operations.

Texas Instruments Incorporated merged with the 

Metals and Controls Corporation in 1959. Work on 

nuclear fuel and AWE operations continued until 

1967 and work on nuclear fuel in a small area of 

one building continued for a government research 

reactor until 1981.

As the government contracts ended, the radioactive 

materials were removed and the plant was declared 

decontaminated. Further records show the M&C 

facility was not properly decontaminated until 1997.

For 30 years during the so-called residual period, 

and that’s 1968 to 1997, M&C repurposed the 

buildings where the nuclear operations had 

historically been performed for non-nuclear 

manufacturing activities.

Consequently, many non-nuclear M&C workers were 

exposed to high levels of residual radioactivity 

during the residual period and have had or still 

experience cancers due to their exposures.

In 2001, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program Act or EEOICPA was created 

by the federal government to compensate qualified 

workers or worker’s families for their exposure to 

radioactive materials and for their related cancers.

Under the standard individual claim process, each 

worker’s claim is evaluated on the basis of a dose 

reconstruction to determine if the Probability of 

Causation of the illness suffered is greater than 50 

percent, more likely than not caused by one’s 

occupational exposures.

Under the Special Exposure Cohort provision no 

dose reconstruction is required to show the 

Probability of Causation. The worker is eligible if he 

or she can demonstrate that they are a member of 

a class of workers recognized under the SEC and 
86

have developed one of the covered cancers.

The enabling statute specifies that the Advisory 

Board on Radiation and Worker Health under 

Section 7384 of this title shall advise the President 

whether there is a class of employees at any DOE 

facility, AWE facility who likely were exposed to 

radiation at that facility but for whom it is not 

reasonable, it is not feasible to estimate with 

sufficient accuracy the radiation dose they received.

Now, that’s the first page. Moving on to the second 

page. Since taking office in 2013, I’ve sought to 

assist in the distribution of benefits to former TI 

employees who have fallen ill as a result of working 

at the site in Attleboro.

I have met several of these employees and have 

heard many stories about the pain they and their 

families have experienced as a result. My office 

organized the resources to improve outreach to 

former employees, and thanks to our efforts, an 

additional $45 million was awarded in individual 

claims submitted after 2013.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of this claim 

submitted by former workers whose exposures 

occurred exclusively during the residual period.

As I understand it, the problem is that the standard 

residual period dose reconstruction model which 

assumes that exposures are lower and diminish at a 

predictable rate after the end of the operational 

period is entirely inadequate for certain classes of 

residual-period workers at the M&C site.

I’m aware that a group of former M&C maintenance 

workers filed an SEC petition in August 2016 for 

exposures they received during the residual period. 

I can hear interference, if you could mute.

1968 to 1977 these workers came in direct contact 

and disturbed high levels of radioactive materials 

that had been released during the operational 

period into subsurface drains, soils and trenches 
87

and to overhead areas and had gone undetected 

until the site was fully characterized and 

decommissioned between 1992 and 1997.

During the entire 30-year residual period these 

workers were exposed without knowledge of or 

training for the hazards to which they were 

exposed. Their exposures were never measured or 

monitored and they were not compensated when 

they became sick from their exposure.

As I previously stated in my letter of November 20, 

2018, it is my hope that the Work Group and by 

extension the entire Advisory Board takes a broader 

view and considers the original purpose and intent 

of the EEOICPA when considering the SEC petition 

for M&C maintenance workers under evaluation.

Thank you for your work and consideration of this 

request. Please do not hesitate to let me know if I 

can at all, if I can be at all helpful. Sincerely, Joseph 

P. Kennedy, III, Member of Congress.

So, that is the end of the letter. I did want to point 

out that we do have a work, an M&C Work Group 

session scheduled for next week. It is scheduled to 

occur September 2nd, which I believe is next 

Wednesday, at 10:30 a.m.

And that will give the Work Group an opportunity to 

talk and process in more detail this particular 

correspondence. The other correspondence that I 

did want to mention is that there was a petitioner 

who submitted a report in anticipation of this 

meeting of the Advisory Board.

And it’s in support of SEC-00250, the Y-12 plant in 

Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And she had co-authored the 

report and that report was forwarded to all the 

Members of the Board in advance of this meeting.

And I do again, I want to note like I did with the 

Metals & Controls Work Group that there is a 

meeting of the Y-12 Plant Working Group currently 

scheduled for September 24, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. 
88

Eastern Time, again where that report can be 

discussed in more detail.

Okay. So, it is about 5:15 p.m. So I wanted to go 

ahead and open it up to the public for any 

comments that they wish to speak at this point.

Public Comment

Ms. Barrie: Hi. This is Terrie Barrie.

Dr. Roberts: Hi, Terrie.

Ms. Barrie: Hi. Thank you so much. And good 

afternoon, Members of the Board and welcome, Dr. 

Roberts.

Officially, my name is Terrie Barrie and I’m with the 

Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups. I’m 

also the co-petitioner/authorized representative for 

SEC Petitions 192, 250 and 257.

I would like to provide the Board with a few 

firsthand observations from someone who is active 

in the petition process and strives to work by the 

rules. Recently, NIOSH did not qualify the Rocky 

Flats Petition 257.

I don’t think the Board is privy to NIOSH’s internal 

deliberations or communications about petition 

requirements, the qualification process, providing 

advice for corrective action and so forth.

But I think it’s important for the Board to 

understand these steps and I believe it’s well within 

their purview to assess and provide 

recommendations in these matters.

An official request for administrative review of that 

decision was placed in the mail and received by 

NIOSH this week and it also has been uploaded to 

the docket for today’s meeting. However, I thought 

I would use some of these examples from NIOSH’s 

letter to help you better understand the problem.

The documents I reference have been provided as 
89

exhibits in the petition and in the request for 

review. First, the petition qualification notification 

letter was extremely difficult to understand.

It was so difficult it literally took me days to 

compose these comments in the hope that I could 

adequately explain the problem clearly to you. Allow 

me to elaborate on the content on the letter.

For background, the original petition was based on 

lack of monitoring for metallic U-235 during the 

periods from 1984 through 1989. Shortly after the 

petition form was filed, I received an incident report 

that I requested from Department of Energy 

through FOIA a couple of years ago.

After consulting with NIOSH, I added that incident 

report as another example of inadequate monitoring 

and possible falsification of records. Now, this is the 

easy part for me to explain.

Despite that I mentioned this verbally and twice in 

writing, the notification letter ignores the possible 

falsification of records. The letter simply does not 

give a reason for the denial.

They could have just as easily said NIOSH has 

carefully reviewed the possibility that records were 

falsified but found this was not true. They didn’t do 

that.

The notification reads like the reason the petition 

didn’t qualify was because I checked the wrong 

boxes on the form. There was no real explanation 

why the evidence supplied was not sufficient.

For instance, NIOSH said that using Line E-5 of the 

form as the basis for the petition did not qualify 

because E-5 must be, and I quote, discrete 

incidents likely to have involved exceptionally high 

level exposures such as the criticality, end quote.

When I first read that I assumed they were talking 

about the incident report, which involved a glovebox 

explosion releasing plutonium. And by the way, that 
90

section of the regulation deals only with health 

endangerment and not whether the petitioner 

provided the minimum amount of documentation to 

qualify a petition.

I continued to read the entire paragraph and NIOSH 

states that, quote, the basis was provided in the 

form of the cover letter submitted with the SEC 

Petition Form B and pertained to the inability to 

reconstruct uranium doses with sufficient accuracy, 

end quote, and that NIOSH found Rocky Flats did 

monitor for uranium exposure.

I didn’t understand what they were talking about. 

You go from glovebox explosions to uranium. There 

was no coherent explanation whatsoever.

But, and it took me days literally to finally figure out 

what NIOSH meant. This next item is one that may 

be an issue with other petitions that did not qualify 

for the Board’s review.

Submitted with the Rocky Flats petition was one 

page of a 174 page DOE document which supported 

one assertion that NIOSH cannot reconstruct dose 

with sufficient accuracy for uranium.

What was NIOSH’s response? We have that 

document in our database. It doesn’t provide new 

information.

But there was a specific reason for submitting this 

one page. It supported the fact that U-235 was 

found on a lathe which is used to machine metals 

during that time period.

NIOSH failed to respond to the petitioner’s 

arguments and explain exactly why this particular 

document was not relevant. Instead, they dismissed 

it outright because they had that entire document in 

their database.

How many times has NIOSH used that explanation, 

excuse me, for other petitions that did not qualify? 

My request of the Board is to review past and future 
91

petition qualification denials and provide 

recommendations to facilitate communication with 

petitioners.

I could not find anything in the statute or the 

regulations which prevents the Board from creating 

a Work Group to review the documentation 

submitted for petitions which did not qualify and 

review NIOSH’s explanations why they did not 

qualify.

A report similar to the one sent to the Secretary on 

dose reconstruction reviews could be submitted to 

the Secretary too. I think this should be done.

Ten years ago Dr. Howard, NIOSH’s director, 

initiated the ten year review. Recommendation 

Number 21 states and I quote, NIOSH should 

continue and expand its efforts to cooperate with 

petitioners. Such efforts increase petitioner’s 

knowledge of what is needed to gain SEC approval 

and should aid NIOSH in more quickly obtaining 

what information petitioners have about exposures 

of practices at potential SEC sites. End quote.

This potential Work Group should also assess the 

formal and informal guidance provided by NIOSH to 

the petitioners and the value of that assistance.

Lastly, one final issue. I’d like to comment on 

NIOSH’s new or HHS’s new redaction policy. I only 

heard bits of the Argonne-West Work Group 

meeting in July.

But I did read SC&A’s report and saw how it was 

overly redacted. The Board Members, as I 

remember, requested the unredacted version. The 

petitioners need that version too.

Both NIOSH and SC&A have years of experience 

with protecting the privacy of the individuals. And I 

believe this new policy inhibits the transparency of 

the process.

Thank you again for allowing me to call in my 
92

comments. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you so much. Are there other 

members of the public that would like to issue a 

comment?

Mr. Hicks: Yes. My name is Stephen Hicks.

Dr. Roberts: Welcome.

Mr. Hicks: Hello.

Dr. Roberts: Yes, yes, can you hear me?

Mr. Hicks: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Mr. Hicks, you can go ahead with your 

comment.

Mr. Hicks: Okay, thank you. Hello, Members of the 

Board. My name is Steve Hicks, and I am the SEC 

petitioner for Y-12 Petition Number 250.

Thank you for your time to submit these public 

comments. I filled this petition on November 1, 

2018, to include all workers employed at Y-12 from 

1980 and who worked in the uranium areas.

NIOSH qualified the petition on March 25, 2019, but 

extended the class to include all workers employed 

between 1977 through 1994. However, in their 

Evaluation Report issued July 2019, they 

determined they could not reconstruct dose for only 

18 months.

January 1, 1977, through, and this was only 

thorium exposure, I still don’t understand that. But 

I am thankful for the Board recommending that the 

18 months was included in the SEC and that they 

will still investigate the uranium issue.

It has been a year since I last addressed the Board 

about this petition. There has been zero Work Group 

meetings.

I have read all the reports issued so far by NIOSH 
93

and SC&A on this petition including NIOSH’s 

response to SC&A’s comments on the Evaluation 

Report issued on June 3rd of this year.

Right off the bat, I noticed that the introduction of 

this response, this statement, and I will quote, 

NIOSH determined that dose reconstruction was 

feasible for potential uranium, external metal x-ray 

exposures for the entire evaluation period.

There was no mention of NIOSH could reconstruct 

dose for internal exposure. Why is that? NIOSH 

admits in the report that the uranium coworker 

model is flawed as mentioned in Finding 3 on Page 3 

of the report.

And actually they meant the same thing for internal 

thorium exposure after the third quarter of 1981, or 

could the reason NIOSH did not mention internal 

exposure in the introduction of the June 3rd 

response is because I submitted DOE documents 

which showed that Y-12 bioassay program was 

deficient in many respects, including the fact that 

before 1999 Y-12 did not routinely monitor fecal 

samples for the exposure to insoluble U-235?

This petition is almost two years old. NIOSH already 

admits in the June 3rd response they do not have 

all the data they need.

In fact, during the June 24, 2020 Board 

teleconference, NIOSH informed the Board that they 

discovered a data glitch which with regards to how 

Y-12 pulled the data, pulled its data.

In a following up email on June 29, 2020, NIOSH 

mentioned something about amend them and how 

it’s now undergoing the evaluation process. I don’t 

understand, why is there another evaluation 

process?

NIOSH also explained that the pandemic is slowing 

down the record retrieval process. But they already 

issued an Evaluation Report in July of 2019, more 

than a full year before the pandemic, and should 
94

have had all the relevant records before they 

reached the July 2019 Evaluation Report.

Is this going to be another fiasco like Savannah 

River Site petition? The one that’s over ten years 

old? I urge the Work Group to immediately schedule 

a meeting and get some answers.

Thank you for your time and the opportunity to 

bring these concerns to your attention. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you, Mr. Hicks. Thank you so 

much for those comments. And I don’t know if 

you’ve heard before, but there is a Y-12 Plant 

Working Group scheduled for September 24th at 

1:00 p.m. should you care to join.

And the information, the meeting details and 

information for that Work Group will be posted in 

advance of the meeting on the NIOSH website.

Mr. Hicks: Okay, thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you. Would anyone else like to 

comment from the public?

Ms. Cisco: Yes, I would. My name is Jeanne Cisco. I 

work at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

And I was just listening to Mr. Hicks and I’m 

wondering why Y-12 is having, they have all of 

these records when the three gaseous diffusion 

plants did not and they were SEC from the 

beginning, from the 50s, the very early 50s?

It’s hard for me to believe those people were 

monitored at Y-12 and they weren’t at the Oak 

Ridge Plant or Paducah or Portsmouth. That’s just a 

comment there.

I know they caught them zeroing badges. That’s 

how we got legislated to be SEC and it’s very sad 

that Y-12 has to fight like they do to get an SEC 

from the beginning.

I just feel that I need to say that. And I also want to 
95

commend Terrie Barrie for representing all of us in 

her comments. And we support everything that she 

said. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you so much. Anyone else like 

to comment?

Ms. Vinson: Yes. My name is Kathleen Vinson.

Dr. Roberts: Hi, welcome.

Ms. Vinson: Thank you. So, I am a resident of Oak 

Ridge, Tennessee and I’m an EEOICPA Y-12 survivor 

claimant. My mother, Elise Meadows, worked at Y12 from 1981 through 1994 as an outside laborer 

and died in 2016 of pancreatic cancer.

At risk of repeating information that has already 

posted to the docket and that is available to all the 

Board Members, I would like to read a bit of a 

summary statement into the record just to make 

sure we cover all bases.

So, after my mother’s death I resubmitted her 

longstanding EEOICPA claim and it was denied again 

with the probability of causation at six percent. This 

didn’t make any sense to me because I had heard 

all of the stories that she had told me about working 

without training or protection or monitoring, either 

external or internal.

And she, as an outside laborer, was required to 

work in dirty and contaminated conditions in every 

building at Y-12 including the enrichment areas, the 

protected area, doing work that made it possible for 

skill trades to come in after the labor crews and for 

management to avoid submitting incident reports.

In other words, she was doing the jobs that were 

too dirty for more skilled workers to do and she was 

not protected or monitored. And then after I sought 

out coworkers and wanted to get more information 

about what her experience had been, I found out 

that it was way worse than she had even conveyed 

to me.
96

I submitted an SEC petition that did not qualify and 

because apparently it was redundant to other 

petitions that had been filed on the same issue. So, 

apparently as the previous commenter had 

mentioned, the Y-12 workers had been fighting for 

years to get SECs established to no avail.

So, we persist. I then began working with Steve 

Hicks who had commented previously and together 

we produced a report called the Analysis of Working 

Conditions, Worker Exposures and Monitoring 1980 

through 1994, Y-12 Plant, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 

August 15, 2020, which has been distributed to the 

entire Board.

I just wanted to touch on a few highlights that are 

in that report that would indicate that NIOSH is 

prohibited from binding dose for uranium and 

thorium for 1980 through 1994.

Number one, there were discrepancies found 

between the hard copy filed for worker exposure 

records that were produced for the Center of 

Epidemiological Research for the purpose of 

studying exposures and eventually for use to 

perform dose reconstructions.

There was a study done to rectify this discrepancy 

that was found in 1991. But there was only a small 

sample of workers, 210 worker records used even 

though the population at Y-12 numbers in the 

thousands.

This was never reconciled and I wanted to bring to 

the Board’s attention that in the report referenced 

there is an attachment copy of the memo that was 

sent in 1991 that outlined the discovery of this 

discrepancy.

And this also ties in with the change in standards for 

computing bioassay data in 1999. And so, this 

memo refers back to that.

Number two, thorium work was conducted at Y-12 

through 1999. However, routine lung count testing 
97

was only used at Y-12 and was discontinued in 

1984. And the test that was used to monitor 

Thorium-232 and 230 did not meet ANSI standards 

that was used at Y-12.

Number three, in spite of the adoption of DOE Order 

5480.11 to mandate the implementation of the DOE 

Rad Con Manual in 1989 and the issuance of ICRP 

3054 and 78 in 1979, ‘88 and ‘97 respectively, Y-12 

was not able to implement any routine and soluble 

bioassay monitoring program until 1989 and then 

soluble and fecal monitoring later on in 1999.

This means that workers who were in continuous 

risk of contamination as a result of normal 

operations were not internally monitored.

Number four, external on site monitors were 

installed in 1983 and discontinued in 1994. It has 

been determined that the ambient air monitoring at 

Y-12 to 1983 does not represent a representative 

measure of air concentrations and cannot be used 

to estimate on site doses.

Number four, inside building air monitors were not 

placed near the machinists and machining areas 

because of large cranes over the machines. 

Thereby, smoke from the daily uranium chute fires 

which were inhaled by the machinists were not 

monitored.

There were inconsistencies in the collection and 

reading of filter cards from the building air monitors 

where high readings were ignored, especially when 

the exhaust fans had been turned off for those 

buildings. Because there were no bioassay weekly, 

particle size readings from the filter cards were the 

only way to identify exposures.

Number six, prior to 1989 DOE regulations did not 

require computation of E50 and HT50 values from 

bioassay and workplace monitoring data, and was 

expressed in fractions of maximal permissible body 

burden or MPBB.
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There was no simple and straightforward general 

method to convert MPBB values to E50 values and 

therefore it is impossible for NIOSH to reconstruct 

dose for uranium prior to 1989 at Y-12.

Number seven, there are at least ten radionuclides 

processed and worked with at Y-12, according to 

site experts, which are not included in the current 

NIOSH dose reconstruction models for unmonitored 

radionuclides.

They are Helium-3, Strontium-90, Polonium-210, 

Thorium-232, Plutonium-241, Uranium-233, 

Americium-241, Uranium-232, Plutonium-238 and 

Plutonium-240.

Number eight, Y-12 has been out of compliance with 

DOE monitoring standards up to at least the time of 

cessation of operations in 1994 and possibly after.

This was noted by senior DOE Oak Ridge Field Office 

and Martin Marrietta Energy Systems Radiological 

Controls managers and the Defense Nuclear Facility 

Safety Board in various reports submitted in the 

1990s.

It was stated by DNFSB in 1994 that although the 

Y-12 management appears willing to change the 

existing operational structure they clearly have not 

implemented the changes effectively.

The DNFSB staff believes it is a clear indication of 

an institutional culture that lacks the appropriate 

level of rigor and formality associated with conduct 

of operations.

Despite the DNFSB recommendations, site-specific 

reporting requirements, publicly issued trip reports, 

and numerous staff reviews, recent events indicate 

that the personnel at the Oak Ridge Y-12 plant still 

have not integrated several fundamental concepts 

supporting safe operations into their daily routines.

These fundamental concepts include providing 

adequate procedures, ensuring the workplace is 
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properly trained, expecting compliance with 

requirements, and conducting nuclear facility 

operations formally.

All these concepts are necessary in an integrated 

systems engineering based health and safety 

management strategy required of a modern DOE 

defense nuclear facility. This long term, persistent 

state of non-compliance eventually necessitated the 

cessation of operations at Y-12 from 1994 through 

1998.

And then finally, the EEOICPA claimant is 

responsible for proving their cancer was at least as 

likely as not to have been caused by their work at a 

DOE facility. Many times, the only way to prove this 

is by accessing employment records, which have 

proved almost impossible to obtain either through 

Y-12, NNSA or FOIA.

This puts an undue burden on the sick workers who 

provide to the outside quasi-government agency 

NIOSH what exactly was the worker experience at 

Y-12, what areas of the plant they worked in, what 

was the nature of their work and most importantly, 

were they given adequate protective gear and were 

they adequately monitored internally and externally.

Given the fact that dose reconstruction assumptions 

used by NIOSH return many denied sick worker 

claims, in spite of the worker communicating 

essential information about their experience to them 

in verbal interviews that indicate NIOSH is using 

inaccurate assumptions in their dose modeling.

I urge the Board to review the report posted on the 

docket for this meeting. It will provide detailed 

information and references the highlight these 

unacceptable circumstances with the intent to 

illustrate to the Advisory Board the current and 

historical problems that indicate the impossibility of 

reconstructing dose for Y-12 workers for uranium 

and thorium from 1980 to 1994.

I appreciate the time of the Board and everyone 
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present today. Thank you very much.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you, Ms. Vinson. And I feel that 

your report needs to get the attention that it 

deserves.

So, both SC&A and NIOSH as well as the Board 

Members in anticipation of the Y-12 meeting next 

month will have the opportunity to look at that 

report in more detail.

Ms. Vinson: Thank you. Thank you very much. I 

appreciate your consideration.

Adjourn

Dr. Roberts: Sure. Okay, anyone else from the 

public here to comment at this time? Is someone 

wanting to comment?

Okay, hearing none, I think we’ve heard from 

everyone that I was aware wanted to comment 

today. So, I want to just go ahead and close out the 

meeting and thank everyone for your hard work and 

for a good meeting.

We do have our session beginning tomorrow again 

at about 1:15 p.m. Eastern Time. So, please join us 

at that time and we will work through the rest of the 

agenda.

So, without further ado, I will go ahead and adjourn 

the meeting.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 5:41 p.m.)