1 

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Los Alamos National 

Laboratory (LANL) Work Group, has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 

552a) and personally identifiable information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, 

however, has not been reviewed and certified by the Chair of the (LANL) Work Group for accuracy 

at this time. The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is 

subject to change.

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

 CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR

 OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

 + + + + +

 ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION

 AND WORKER HEALTH

 + + + + +

 LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY WORK GROUP

 + + + + +

 THURSDAY,

 APRIL 29, 2010

 + + + + +

 The Work Group convened in the

Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport Marriott

Hotel, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, Kentucky

at 9:30 a.m., Mark Griffon, Chairman,

presiding.

MEMBERS PRESENT:

MARK GRIFFON, Chairman

JOSIE BEACH

JAMES LOCKEY

WANDA I. MUNN *

ROBERT PRESLEY
2 

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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

ISAF AL-NABULSI, DOE *

ELIZABETH BRACKETT, ORAU *

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A 

ROBERT BURNS, ORAU *

ANDREW EVASKOVICH, Petitioner

JOSEPH FITZGERALD, SC&A

EMILY HOWELL, HHS 

JENNY LIN, HHS 

GREGORY MACIEVIC, DCAS

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A *

CHRIS MILES, ORAU

JIM NETON, DCAS

DONALD STEWART, ORAU *

*Participating via telephone
3 

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Los Alamos National 

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

2 (9:31 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, 

4 everybody. Advisory Board on Radiation and 

5 Worker Health. This is the Los Alamos 

6 National Laboratory Work Group first meeting, 

7 and we're all pretty much ready now here 

8 around the room.

9 Wanda, are you on the line?

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I am.

11 MR. KATZ: Great. Good early 

12 morning to you.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Good morning, I 

14 think.

15 MR. KATZ: All right. We'll begin 

16 with the roll call, and please state whether 

17 you have a conflict as part of 

18 self-identifying, beginning with Board members 

19 in the room, with the Chair.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Mark Griffon, 

21 Chair of the LANL Work Group. No conflict.
4 

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1 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, Work 

2 Group member, no conflicts for LANL.

3 MEMBER PRESLEY: Robert Presley, 

4 Work Group member, no conflict.

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey, Work 

6 Group member, no conflict.

7 MR. KATZ: And on the line?

8 MEMBER MUNN: Wanda Munn, member, 

9 no conflict.

10 MR. KATZ: All right. And then 

11 the NIOSH ORAU team in the room?

12 DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH, no 

13 conflict.

14 MR. MILES: Chris Miles, ORAU 

15 team, no conflict.

16 MR. MACIEVIC: Greg Macievic, 

17 NIOSH, no conflict.

18 MR. KATZ: And on the line, NIOSH 

19 ORAU team?

20 MR. STEWART: This is Don Stewart, 

21 ORAU team, no conflict with LANL.
5 

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1 MS. BRACKETT: I'm Elizabeth 

2 Brackett, ORAU team, no conflict.

3 MR. BURNS: Bob Burns, ORAU team, 

4 no conflict.

5 MR. KATZ: Welcome to all of you.

6 SC&A in the room?

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, 

8 no conflict.

9 DR. BUCHANAN: Ron Buchanan, SC&A, 

10 conflict with LANL.

11 MR. KATZ: And on the line?

12 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A, no 

13 conflict.

14 MR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, 

15 SC&A, no conflict.

16 MR. KATZ: Welcome to all of you.

17 HHS or other government officials 

18 or contract staff in the room?

19 MS. LIN: Jenny Lin, HHS.

20 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

21 MR. KATZ: No conflicts. And on 
6 

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1 the line?

2 MS. AL-NABULSI: Isaf Al-Nabulsi, 

3 DOE, no conflicts.

4 MR. KATZ: Welcome again, Isaf.

5 MS. AL-NABULSI: Thank you.

6 MR. KATZ: Very good. And then 

7 let's have public, members of the public, 

8 including petitioners and others, in the room?

9 MR. EVASKOVICH: Andrew 

10 Evaskovich, LANL petitioner.

11 MR. KATZ: And on the line? Any 

12 members of the public?

13 (No response.)

14 MR. KATZ: Very good. Then just 

15 let me remind everyone on the line, please --

16 you're all veterans, but use *6 to mute your 

17 phones when you're not speaking, please.

18 It's all yours, Mark.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We're going to 

20 start this Work Group meeting, and this is 

21 looking at the later SEC period proposed by 
7 

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1 the petitioner for LANL. And I think this is 

2 the first time, I believe, our Work Group has 

3 met. It was formed a little over a year ago, 

4 but there's been some ongoing work on that 

5 later period.

6 I know at this point, probably 

7 today, what is likely to happen is we're going 

8 to get SC&A to -- I thought it was worth 

9 having a meeting in person, especially since 

10 it's been a little while since we've looked at 

11 LANL, and I think it would be a good refresher 

12 for us to make sure we understand all the 

13 issues that are at hand here.

14 But I do think it's unlikely today 

15 that -- NIOSH hasn't had a lot of time with 

16 the SC&A recent document that I think we're 

17 all -- I believe everybody has the recent 

18 document put out by SC&A, which has their 

19 summary of their SEC findings. I believe this 

20 is April 2010, dated April 2010.

21 MEMBER PRESLEY: April 16th, 2010.
8 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. So we're 

2 going to work from that. And I think that, 

3 again, it was beneficial to have this to have 

4 SC&A outline the issues very well, maybe have 

5 some preliminary discussion. I am hoping to 

6 have some preliminary discussion. But I would 

7 also understand that NIOSH needs probably a 

8 little more time before they're going to have 

9 any concrete position on certain things.

10 So I want to do that. But then 

11 also I want to give Andrew a chance to, after 

12 we go through this document, the major issues 

13 identified in this document, let the 

14 petitioner have the floor to summarize 

15 anything.

16 I would like to hear also if there 

17 is anything in the petition that he feels 

18 wasn't addressed or needs further attention 

19 and then maybe some discussion after that. 

20 And then we'll wrap up, I think, unless other 

21 people have other agenda items.
9 

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1 That is a brief idea of where I 

2 wanted to get today with the meeting.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda. 

4 I'm sorry to interrupt and sorry to be 

5 apparently a little bit behind the curve. One 

6 of the things I was concerned about yesterday 

7 when I was beginning to review what I had 

8 before me was that I did not have anything 

9 recent with respect to LANL. So I must have 

10 somehow missed the SC&A document. Can we be 

11 more specific about when that was sent?

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Joe, can you 

13 help out? When was that circulated?

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Wanda, this 

15 is Joe Fitzgerald. That was created by DOE 

16 and was issued, I believe, last week.

17 MEMBER BEACH: On the O: drive.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: On the O: drive 

19 late last week.

20 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. So what I 

21 have on the O: drive ought to be --
10 

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1 MR. KATZ: A little more. It was 

2 the Friday before, I think.

3 DR. NETON: Yes. I think it was 

4 --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: The Friday 

6 before. The 16th of April was the -- should 

7 have been the date that's by the report. The 

8 report itself is April 2010, but it's April 

9 16th.

10 DR. NETON: It says April 8th on 

11 the cover page, but it was received on the 

12 16th.

13 MR. KATZ: And by the Board.

14 DR. NETON: Dr. Fitzgerald 

15 distributed it on the 16th.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Now, this 

17 went to the full Board, Wanda. So I think 

18 it's both on the O: drive as well as on email 

19 distribution.

20 MEMBER MUNN: The only thing I had 

21 noted on my O: drive was petition summary.
11 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If you need it, 

2 we can send it again right now.

3 MR. KATZ: It's definitely in your 

4 CDC email.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I checked my 

6 CDC email, but go ahead. Don't let me hold 

7 you up.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, we'll 

9 forward you one just in case, Wanda, if you 

10 can't find -- somebody can do that, right? 

11 Jim Neton is going to send it right away.

12 DR. NETON: If I can find it.

13 MEMBER MUNN: The petition 

14 documents that I am looking at aren't giving 

15 me the dates that I expected. All right. 

16 Thank you. I would appreciate it.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, Wanda. 

18 All right.

19 MEMBER MUNN: I just have an 

20 evaluation plan. All right. Thanks.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. So 
12 

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1 I guess, with that, I would like to -- I mean, 

2 I am going to mainly turn the floor over to 

3 SC&A to frame the issue, and then we can have 

4 some discussion after each major issue is 

5 framed, I guess, to open up the discussion.

6 And, Joe or Ron, I'm not sure what 

7 order.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll play tag 

9 team a little bit.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me just first 

12 say that I realize you have just received this 

13 document, and it's sort of been in DOE 

14 screening and whatnot, editing, and all of 

15 that, for about a month or so. But, in any 

16 case, we went about as far as we could go.

17 I want to emphasize they're 

18 preliminary findings because we went as far as 

19 we could go without the Work Group providing 

20 direction. We didn't want to actually dive 

21 into what I would call some definitive 
13 

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1 detailed analysis, quite frankly, without the 

2 Work Group at least advising where they wanted 

3 us to focus on.

4 I mean, I think what we did was 

5 the typical focus review, meaning we took the 

6 evaluation report, did some on-site 

7 interviews, some I would call initial research 

8 to establish what's out there in terms of 

9 documentation, looked at some of the 

10 documentation of Greg's group highlighted for 

11 us. We did a classified review and brought 

12 Mr. Burns with us, as I recall.

13 So we did a number of things early 

14 on just to, I think, provide a perspective 

15 that we wanted to bring to the Work Group on 

16 its first session, which is what we thought 

17 were the issues, effectively sort of the SEC 

18 matrix that we typically provide from the site 

19 profile. In this case, this is a little 

20 different. This is the second part of a 

21 broader SEC. So we really -- the original 
14 

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1 Site Profile is the one that we generated a 

2 while back.

3 So we had to glean from that as 

4 well as this preliminary review what we 

5 thought the issues were. And these are, in 

6 essence, the issues that we're going to get 

7 into.

8 What makes this, I think, this 

9 review, a little unique in a sense is that we 

10 don't disagree with some of the bottom lines 

11 necessarily that NIOSH provides, that, in 

12 effect, there were new procedures in place. 

13 I'm talking about mixed activation products, 

14 had new procedures in place, new technology 

15 came on the scene.

16 I think where we -- this is more 

17 of a general comment -- have more difficulties 

18 is whether in practice the technology and 

19 procedures were used in such a way as to 

20 improve the records, to improve the data in a 

21 way that would enable dose reconstruction with 
15 

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1 sufficient accuracy as compared with prior to 

2 70, 75.

3 There is where I think there is 

4 some ambiguity. And we have some questions, 

5 again, as a general comment about some of the 

6 use of surrogate nuclides. I think whenever 

7 we get into that realm of using surrogates or 

8 using these others to bound the doses, I think 

9 it raises some actual questions about the 

10 completeness and adequacy of the data to begin 

11 with, which if in fact, it is better after the 

12 first SEC period, then what is the reasoning 

13 for going through such lengths to use these 

14 surrogate bounding nuclides to get you where 

15 you need to go in terms of dose 

16 reconstruction? It's just not clear to us 

17 why.

18 And we have some questions about 

19 those techniques, but I think even before you 

20 get to this question, we have some questions 

21 as to the lengths that one goes to to find a 
16 

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1 way to bound the exotics and mixed activation 

2 products if, in fact, because of the 

3 technology coming on the scene, the data is 

4 that much better. It's sort of prima facie; 

5 why are we doing this?

6 And in our research -- and we'll 

7 get into this in better detail -- we also have 

8 found documentation -- and we did a number of 

9 interviews -- that kind of supports this 

10 ambiguity, this questioning that we're posing. 

11 And you'll notice I'm not declaring any 

12 conclusions because I think, like I said, we 

13 agree that there was the technology, we agree 

14 new procedures, but we don't find necessarily 

15 that technology manifest in vastly improved 

16 records.

17 So it does put us in the sphere of 

18 saying, okay, how good is good, and is the 

19 work-around justified or is the data itself so 

20 flawed that, no matter what you come up with 

21 as far as an approach, it's not going to be 
17 

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1 adequate.

2 And we found some findings. And 

3 it's troubling in a way. I'm familiar enough 

4 with the Department of Energy to know that the 

5 evaluations they tend to do are a bit like 

6 blunt instruments, not typically ones that 

7 would be inquisitive enough or probing enough 

8 to get into the bowels of the dosimetry 

9 program, not usually done by DOE, but we found 

10 an evaluation that dated back to January of 

11 2001, which was actually focused on the in 

12 vivo program. It was done out of the DOE area 

13 office.

14 And they only had a couple of 

15 findings, but one of the key findings was 

16 their questioning the in vivo program as to 

17 why they didn't have the reference standard or 

18 calibrations for the mixed activation products 

19 for LAMPF or LANSCE, for example, and 

20 thorium-232. Even though those are required, 

21 they weren't maintaining those capabilities 
18 

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1 and they dinged them for that.

2 The recommendation was the in vivo 

3 program accounting people needed to get 

4 together with the bioassay evaluation program 

5 and work out some kind of an agreement and 

6 because clearly there wasn't this 

7 communication of expectations between the two 

8 such that the in vivo program was aware of the 

9 need to maintain this capability to actually 

10 be able to do these in vivo analyses.

11 I could probably understand the 

12 232 because, again, that was sort of an 

13 intermittent activity at Los Alamos. But the 

14 mixed activation products at LANSCE, well, 

15 that was actually -- and this is acknowledged 

16 in ER and that was kind of a mainstream 

17 exposure pathway, albeit one that's relatively 

18 short-lived. You know, certainly it was an 

19 exposure pathway for workers.

20 And to not maintain the capability 

21 to analyze or evaluate the mixed activation 
19 

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1 products at LANSCE as late as 2001 and have to 

2 be reminded by DOE that that was a 

3 requirement, that was unsettling, and it sort 

4 of raised a question in my mind, how far back 

5 did that deficiency stand? I mean, they found 

6 it in 2001, said, you know, you need to do 

7 this, get together with bioassay and make sure 

8 you're doing it.

9 But, you know, so this raised some 

10 questions as to even though the technology was 

11 fully capable -- and I don't want to disparage 

12 that at all -- fully capable of discriminating 

13 these nuclides, it's not clear to me in 

14 practice that the lab was looking for or 

15 maintaining capabilities to always see it. 

16 And we didn't go any further.

17 Now I didn't ask the in vivo 

18 program to let me look at the library 

19 standards or then look over the history and 

20 try to get into some detail. This suggests 

21 you didn't have it in 2001. When did you have 
20 

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1 it? 

2 You know, that's a lot of work. 

3 And I think it's probably one that I didn't 

4 want to do before this Work Group met and 

5 wanted to certainly maybe get your reactions 

6 or perspectives as well. Maybe you actually 

7 do know what the situation was.

8 But, again, these are just 

9 indications of maybe some concerns or some 

10 questions regarding what I think is one of the 

11 hinge points to this question of where this 

12 breakpoint was going forward in time for this 

13 SEC and the capability to dose-reconstruct 

14 against these elements.

15 And you have the report. And 

16 we'll get into each issue, but now, certainly 

17 that is the over-arching question, and then 

18 there are some questions about if the data, in 

19 fact, didn't parallel the technology, they 

20 weren't collecting that much better data or 

21 maybe they weren't targeting it, is it 
21 

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1 suitable or adequate to use these surrogate 

2 nuclides derived, perhaps, from other 

3 operations at the plant?

4 And it may be very well 

5 conservative, you know. Look at cesium-137. 

6 That's pretty conservative. But it sort of 

7 evokes the surrogate data policy, in a way, 

8 because you are trying to establish some 

9 equivalencies. You don't necessarily have 

10 reliable data for the issue that you're 

11 dealing with.

12 So you're going to use other data 

13 that was derived from other operations, and 

14 you're going to bound those doses with this 

15 other information, which may be suitable, but 

16 it certainly has to sort of pass muster with 

17 the kind of discussions and criteria that this 

18 Board has looked at and, I'm sure, NIOSH has 

19 looked at as well. You know, is there an 

20 equivalency? Is there a representativeness in 

21 the operations such that you can use this 
22 

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1 surrogate information and apply it to bound?

2 So there are sort of two questions 

3 embedded in that. The first question is why 

4 are we doing it in the first place if, in 

5 fact, by 1975, the information is much better 

6 because we have better technology and better 

7 procedures.

8 And the second question is if 

9 we're applying this surrogate information in 

10 this fashion, does it satisfy the criteria --

11 and I won't go into all of that, that's a 

12 whole new work group -- but does it satisfy 

13 the criteria that would enable you to use that 

14 in a way which is acceptable.

15 And I think I have some questions 

16 on that, too, and they're laid out in a very 

17 preliminary way. And we have dived in to do a 

18 lot of validation, and this is something the 

19 Work Group has to think about, but that is the 

20 other question regarding how this works.

21 So I just wanted to give that 
23 

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1 introduction because I think a lot of this 

2 gets into the how-to part, but I think in 

3 general, that is kind of where we are coming 

4 from.

5 MR. KATZ: Before you go on from 

6 the overview --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes?

8 MR. KATZ: -- just quickly -- this 

9 is Ted Katz -- I think someone has joined us 

10 since we got started. And I have the volume 

11 down low here for the phone folks, but there 

12 is an awful lot of static on someone's phone.

13 So whoever might have joined us 

14 recently or taken themselves off mute, please 

15 use the mute for your phone when you're 

16 listening in, and if you don't have a mute 

17 button, please hit *6, which will mute your 

18 phone for us, because I'm just concerned that 

19 other people on the phone won't be able to --

20 they won't be able to cut out the static like 

21 we can here. Thank you.
24 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. On issue 

2 number 1, Ron, do you just want to walk 

3 through the particulars? I think that's sort 

4 of the introduction, but I want to get into 

5 sort of the particulars. Is there a question 

6 or any discussion on the Work Group's part on 

7 that preamble?

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Not from my 

9 standpoint at this point, yes, yes.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

12 Buchanan, SC&A.

13 Joe gave you the overall view. 

14 And I would l like to give a couple of 

15 clarifying points because I realize everybody 

16 is on different Work Group meetings and other 

17 agendas. So I want to make a couple of things 

18 clear.

19 Number one is that there are two 

20 issues, and they get tied together in the end, 

21 but two issues. Number one is mixed fission 
25 

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1 products, mixed activation products.

2 Mixed fission products, of course, 

3 come from the fission reaction fuel cycle. 

4 Mixed activation products come from, 

5 sometimes, around reactors. Mainly at Los 

6 Alamos, it was from the LAMPF accelerator 

7 producing short- lived activation products 

8 which could be inhaled or you could get 

9 external exposure. In this case, we're 

10 talking about internal intake.

11 And so we have what we call mixed 

12 fission and activation products on one hand, 

13 and then we have the exotics on the other 

14 hand. And in both cases, we are using what we 

15 call surrogate, if that's the correct word, 

16 data for these because there wasn't a lot of 

17 information on the details of these other 

18 isotopes.

19 Los Alamos processed -- most all 

20 their work was plutonium, americium, 

21 tritium-type work. And so they assayed for 
26 

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1 those on a fairly regular basis, especially in 

2 early years. We do come up with a problem in 

3 the `90s, and the bioassay went way down.

4 Anyway, they assayed for the 

5 primaries, we call them. Primaries are the 

6 americium, plutonium, uranium, tritium 

7 isotopes. And so we have a lot of data on 

8 that. And if there are any issues on that, 

9 that's mainly a Site Profile issue, rather 

10 than an SEC issue.

11 They also assayed for cesium-137, 

12 which is a fairly easy isotope to identify 

13 because it's higher-energy gamma in there. 

14 And so that is the main bulk of the data. 

15 They had some data on these other activation 

16 fission products and exotic radionuclides 

17 scattered through the data that they 

18 retrieved.

19 It's given in the NIOSH's ER. But 

20 according to ER, it was not data that was 

21 really too usable. And so that's the reason 
27 

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1 it isn't going to be used for dose assignment 

2 or coworker data, and NIOSH can comment on 

3 that later if that is not correct. That's 

4 where I read it.

5 And so we have the two issues, 

6 the mixed fission activation products. We 

7 have the exotics, which are usually the 

8 heavier transuranic-type alpha emitters.

9 And so what has been done was I 

10 just want to briefly cover where they're 

11 coming from is that OTIB-0062 and 0063 provide 

12 some data taken from these primary nuclides. 

13 OTIB-0063 gives a breakdown of the data, the 

14 databases available.

15 There's really no data in there 

16 that the dose reconstructor will use directly. 

17 The dose reconstructor when he --

18 DR. MAURO: Ron, this is John 

19 Mauro.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

21 DR. MAURO: I apologize for 
28 

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1 interrupting, but by way of orientation for me 

2 -- and perhaps others might be thinking this 

3 also -- apparently there is a transition. 

4 There is an SEC to this facility that, what, 

5 goes to 1976? 

6 MR. BUCHANAN: Seventy-five.

7 DR. MAURO: And I'm sorry if 

8 everyone is aware of this and I am the only 

9 one asking this silly question. Apparently 

10 there is a reason why the SEC was granted up 

11 to that date, and then there is a reason --

12 and what I am hearing is apparently something 

13 changed or might have changed.

14 And the problems that you -- the 

15 techniques that Joe referred to in his 

16 introduction and that you're about to go to in 

17 some detail somehow, in theory, resolve those 

18 problems.

19 In other words, whatever the 

20 problems were up to `76 that caused the SEC --

21 are you basically saying now we're getting 
29 

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1 into something by way of practice and 

2 techniques changed or are supposed to have 

3 changed that allows them to reconstruct doses 

4 beginning at this date using these new 

5 techniques? I just wasn't sure.

6 You know, I guess I would like to 

7 have heard a little bit about what was the 

8 reason for the SEC and how does all of this 

9 bear on why is it, now that there is no -- why 

10 that date was picked. I guess I was a little 

11 disoriented on that. Just a quick one on that 

12 if you could give me a 30-second sound bite on 

13 that?

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Would NIOSH like to 

15 address that?

16 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes. Well, the 

17 1975 date came up because of the first 

18 petition, that was the end date for that 

19 petition. We went to the end period of that 

20 time.

21 Post-`75, when you start getting 
30 

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1 into `76, `77, the reason that we are looking 

2 at that period is the data from the worksheets 

3 that are being filled out by people. What are 

4 the title --

5 DR. NETON: Checklists.

6 MR. MACIEVIC: The checklists. 

7 There's a set of checklists, a program that 

8 was developed during that period that starts 

9 to address the issues of where the worker is 

10 working, what radionuclides that worker is 

11 working with, and the techniques of the in 

12 vivo counting are more addressed to other 

13 problems and more accurate during that period 

14 in the mid-`70s and onward.

15 So it was a good cut-off point, 

16 but the reason for -- the `75 was picked was 

17 basically the petitioner end-date that we went 

18 with that said 1975.

19 DR. MAURO: And the reason, 

20 though, was the inability to reconstruct doses 

21 from these exotics and --
31 

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1 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

2 DR. MAURO: -- prior to `75 --

3 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

4 DR. MAURO: -- for whatever the 

5 reasons are, and then something changed.

6 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, what changed 

7 --

8 DR. MAURO: And now you feel you 

9 can do the exotics?

10 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

11 DR. MAURO: Okay. That helps me. 

12 Thank you.

13 MR. MACIEVIC: And the reason for 

14 it is pretty much the checklists coming in and 

15 the program getting more refined in how they 

16 do the surveys. Our approach was, going 

17 forward, as Joe pointed out, you have a way of 

18 doing analysis at the site that may not fit 

19 all criteria that you were talking about.

20 We're not trying to justify the 

21 site as being a perfect site for doing all 
32 

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1 this analysis, that they were suddenly 

2 radiologically perfect in how they were doing 

3 the approach. Our point is that, did we have 

4 enough information on people to be able to 

5 bound a dose using what data is there. And 

6 from the pre-`75 to the post-`75, we said, 

7 well, what is different in there.

8 And that is basically the 

9 checklists coming in to say we now are able to 

10 pinpoint more what is happening with people, 

11 where the radiological concerns are, how we 

12 would apply these surrogate data, which I 

13 don't like to use surrogate data, but how we 

14 would apply that is, now that you have areas 

15 that are being pinpointed more by the 

16 checklists and the surveys and the rad work 

17 permits, you can now say this material doesn't 

18 have the potential of being all over the site 

19 that we would have to somehow say, well, all 

20 missed doses for all people are going to have 

21 these radionuclides applied to them.
33 

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1 We can now say there is more 

2 specific information to say, if you're in this 

3 area, you would get this particular 

4 radionuclide applied with a missed dose. But 

5 you're not going to go apply all this data to 

6 everybody.

7 And that was the problem with the 

8 earlier years, was that you did not have 

9 specificity enough, that you would have to say 

10 these exotics could potentially be everywhere. 

11 But as you move on in time, you find they are 

12 not. They are more localized.

13 And as you localize them, now you 

14 can say the techniques that are the -- this 

15 technique of using the intakes of the primary 

16 nuclides and then applying them to the 

17 exotics, that technique would work if you can 

18 start to localize more where this material is, 

19 and that is what we came to.

20 Our approach is a much more 

21 general, overall approach to the site. And I 
34 

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1 know we can be hit by saying the site was not 

2 perfect, and it wasn't by any means, but the 

3 point is are we missing something that there 

4 is some material out there that we in no way 

5 could apply a dose to it.

6 Now we'll get into the point 

7 whether or not our technique applies on the 

8 mixed fission products in that. And there are 

9 some data, some analysis that we would also 

10 have to do on that to show how that would 

11 apply. And that's why with this introductory 

12 meeting, we don't have that right there. But 

13 we need to go and show how we would apply all 

14 of this to answer these types of questions.

15 The `75 data -- and, as you move 

16 forward, there are obviously into the `70s, 

17 into the `80s and `90s, yes, the program gets 

18 more tight. But we're trying to say there 

19 isn't something there.

20 I mean, these are dose 

21 reconstruction questions, which is one thing. 
35 

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1 You have a -- how much to apply a dose to a 

2 person that, like on neutron correction 

3 factors and other things that you come up 

4 with, how much of a dose is different than 

5 saying, we had no clue that there would be a 

6 dose and we can't bound this dose.

7 So that is our approach is that, 

8 yes, there are dose reconstruction questions, 

9 but they're not unsolvable and you can't --

10 that we could not put a number to it and this 

11 would be some just wild guess as to what we're 

12 doing.

13 DR. MAURO: In fact, you know, 

14 that sets the context for me. I don't know if 

15 anyone else benefitted from it, but I 

16 appreciate it. I think I have better context 

17 now. Ron, again, I apologize for cutting in, 

18 but please continue.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, before you 

20 do that, I want to amplify, I think Greg kind 

21 of provided a nice highlight. Our particular 
36 

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1 focus is on the data itself. I mean, on one 

2 hand, you know, there are these new 

3 procedures. A new day was dawning, so to 

4 speak.

5 The question is, okay, does the 

6 actual data reflect that or not. Is the data 

7 better in some fashion, more specific for 

8 certain events? You know, if you have a 

9 number of events happening at LANSCE, do you 

10 see the corresponding data there? Just -- is 

11 the data actually better, which to me is a 

12 validation step of saying, does that marry up 

13 to what we're seeing in terms of changes in 

14 operations.

15 And, knowing DOE, there's not 

16 always a step function. It's a lag. I mean, 

17 maybe it gradually got better over 10 or 15 

18 years, but we're looking at `75 and later on 

19 and then looking at the ability of using 

20 checklists and RWPs and everything and being 

21 able to focus in on certain operations.
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1 There, and again, I think the 

2 validation step for us would be simply, you 

3 know, again, in practice, was the laboratory 

4 successful through its RWP process and 

5 checklists to providing the in-kind 

6 information that would enable you to kind of 

7 narrow this focus down or not or was it hit 

8 and miss and got better over time and that 

9 kind of thing? And I think that's what we 

10 were looking at.

11 Now I've got to tell you it's a 

12 considerable amount of work, and the only 

13 reason we didn't do that, I thought it was a 

14 leap that we would not take and maybe we 

15 shouldn't take, anyway. Maybe it's something 

16 NIOSH would do. But we just wanted to 

17 highlight what our concerns were and then stop 

18 there.

19 So when you look at the report, 

20 it's going to be a little general in the sense 

21 that we didn't go through and actually said, 
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1 you know, here are the 18 examples of where we 

2 thought maybe the checklists and RWPs didn't 

3 deliver the goods. We just wanted to say, I 

4 think that's what you would need to do if you 

5 wanted to hold this premise up. And we'll 

6 stop there.

7 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly. And I 

8 wanted to say that -- this is Greg Macievic --

9 that I agree in that what we did in doing 

10 this, our data capture, is they are basically 

11 a sampling. We went out there and said, okay, 

12 here is an idea of how -- we looked at the 

13 data on what we had. We have not collected 

14 everything that is out there.

15 So, I mean, we're -- you know, we 

16 looked at the data and said there's sufficient 

17 evidence to show that there was a programmatic 

18 way of containing this and based on what we 

19 collected so far.

20 But, you know, it still can be 

21 left open to interpretation because of the 
39 

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1 fact that you have not looked at all of the 

2 set of what is out there. And because these 

3 exotics were not a common thing, when you're 

4 hitting through files, you're not going to run 

5 into this very large set of data that's out 

6 for these particular things. You're going to 

7 have to look over lengths of time, more 

8 specific in time to pick out the information 

9 to just see what is actually there in a wider 

10 sense.

11 But from what we have seen, we 

12 feel we can cover it. But in your side, 

13 you're saying, you know, that you haven't seen 

14 enough essentially to justify the method.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: And, really, not 

16 to find the one exception to the many there, 

17 so much as just whether the characterization 

18 --

19 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: -- follows 

21 through in practice. So we're not looking for 
40 

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1 a gotcha. Here's one you missed. But more to 

2 say that, yes, in practice, the systems that 

3 were put in place at that time would enable 

4 confidence and relying on that information.

5 And we also see a bit of a sea 

6 change. Maybe that's too strong a word but 

7 certainly a change in the records themselves 

8 that would distinguish this period of time, 

9 after `75, from the prior period of time, for 

10 which the SEC was granted. So that -- and 

11 again, we can go through some of the details, 

12 but --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think Jim had 

14 a comment.

15 DR. NETON: Yes. Basically I 

16 think Joe kind of --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. All 

18 right.

19 DR. NETON: We adopted a weight of 

20 the evidence approach here. I think this is 

21 the first time we have actually -- or one of 
41 

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1 the few times we have gone out and we're 

2 relying on the quality of the radiation 

3 protection program to document that the 

4 exposures were maintained at a reasonable 

5 level and we can assess what that level is 

6 based on that documentation. That's something 

7 I always believed we had.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.

9 DR. NETON: And we have not been 

10 successful doing that. NTS is a good example. 

11 We had a lot of bioassays at NTS, but we 

12 couldn't come up with substantive 

13 documentation to support the rationale behind 

14 it. I think here we believe we do. And we're 

15 prepared to talk about what level of 

16 validation people might want for us to 

17 demonstrate that.

18 Just one other thing. I would 

19 like to bring up this issue of surrogate data. 

20 The point of confusion -- I prefer not to use 

21 the word surrogate data in this particular 
42 

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1 situation because, at least in NIOSH's 

2 perspective, our terminology for surrogate 

3 data, at least in IG-004, is data used from 

4 one site, picked up, and directly used at 

5 another site.

6 This is data within the same site. 

7 So if there are no objections, I would prefer 

8 to call this substitute data or something of 

9 that nature, just to avoid confusion. 

10 Especially in people's minds who read the 

11 transcripts and see surrogate data throughout 

12 will not be confused into thinking that we're 

13 using that type of data. It's just a 

14 suggestion.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Just to amplify 

16 on that, I think our concern, though, is 

17 somewhat --

18 DR. NETON: It's similar.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, similar, 

20 but it's just different.

21 DR. NETON: We have adopted our 
43 

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1 approach to --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

3 DR. NETON: -- define surrogate 

4 data from one site to another, and this is 

5 internal to the site, and certainly there are 

6 things that need to be looked at very 

7 carefully when you do that.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Thank you.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Before Ron 

10 continues, can I ask, for the `75 petition, 

11 usually we have a summary of the justification 

12 for that petition. Does someone have that 

13 available so I could read that part out? 

14 Like, we should not read a certain internal 

15 dose for exotic radionuclides and for -- maybe 

16 while you're looking for it, Ron can continue. 

17 I would just like to hear that just because 

18 it's --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you mean other 

20 Evaluation Report from the earlier period?

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The earlier 
44 

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1 period.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I have it. 

3 I have a hard copy.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We have the 

5 final Class Definition, right --

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- that would 

8 include that language? I just think it might 

9 give us context as we discuss the next period 

10 and this change that we have been talking 

11 about. You've got it? Yes.

12 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, I'll 

13 mention the Class Definition. There's going 

14 to be a change in the Class Definition, 

15 though.

16 DR. NETON: Yes, it's minor, but 

17 it's all employees now --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Right.

19 DR. NETON: -- rather than certain 

20 technical areas but justification for awarding 

21 the Class --
45 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's what we 

2 really want to get at. Yes. Thanks. Oh, 

3 yes. We did change it to all workers. That's 

4 right. I remember that.

5 DR. NETON: I have -- it may be in 

6 the Board's letter.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. In the 

8 Board letter, we always summarize why.

9 DR. NETON: Yes. Let me see if I 

10 can find that.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. That 

12 would be -- that is what I am looking for.

13 DR. NETON: I have an HHS letter 

14 to Congress here.

15 MR. KATZ: Sometimes an HHS letter 

16 is a little more robust than the Board 

17 letters.

18 DR. NETON: Yes. Well, I can 

19 maybe summarize a little bit. The NIOSH 

20 review of available monitoring data -- I'm 

21 reading from the letter of HHS to Congress. 
46 

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1 They found that they lacked adequate 

2 information necessary to conduct individual 

3 dose reconstructions for a number of 

4 radionuclides during a significant percentage 

5 of the time period. The Board concurred with 

6 that.

7 This is pretty -- oh, here we go.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is this --

9 DR. NETON: That's pretty big, 

10 yes.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is this for a 

12 number of radionuclides? It's stated that 

13 way. Okay.

14 DR. NETON: My recollection --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I thought it 

16 was more specific than that, but --

17 DR. NETON: It was mixed fission 

18 -- I thought it was fission activation 

19 products as well as the exotics.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

21 DR. NETON: It was both of those.
47 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That was what I 

2 was getting at, yes.

3 DR. NETON: Jenny has that 

4 somewhere at the end, Mark. You lack the 

5 information methods for bounding at least some 

6 of the internal doses for the more exotic 

7 radionuclides. But I thought fission 

8 activation products was in there as well.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I thought that 

10 was specified. That's what I wanted to ask.

11 DR. NETON: Part of the reason was 

12 if the whole body counter --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

14 DR. NETON: -- came into more 

15 prominent use in the 70s, the early 70s.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. That's 

17 what I thought. But the definition, it did 

18 include the exotics as well.

19 DR. NETON: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Part of 

21 the reason I was asking is I didn't know if 
48 

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1 the primary basis was for the inability for 

2 the mixed fission products and mixed 

3 activation products --

4 DR. NETON: I'm pretty sure it was 

5 both.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It was both. 

7 It was both. Okay. All right. Sorry for 

8 that sidetrack, but John did it to me, you 

9 know. He started it.

10 All right. Ron, you can continue 

11 on that item.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

13 Buchanan of SC&A again.

14 And, again, I want to kind of put 

15 everybody at the same point here. And this is 

16 really issues number 1, 2, and 3 in the report 

17 because you can't really separate them too 

18 well. And so that's what I'm trying to recap 

19 from my semi-technical point of view.

20 Where we left off was the fact 

21 that we have mixed activation fission product 
49 

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1 monitoring and we also have questions about 

2 it. And we also have the exotics, which was 

3 usually the alpha emitters, the heavier 

4 isotopes. And so how are we going to assign 

5 dose when we do a dose reconstruction for 

6 these isotopes?

7 And, as I said, there was some 

8 data. NIOSH didn't publish data for these 

9 exotics and mixed fission activation products 

10 which was substantial enough. And so they are 

11 using substitute data to assign dose.

12 And OTIB-0063 and OTIB-0062 was 

13 created to assist the dose reconstructor when 

14 they actually do the dose reconstruction. And 

15 so what the dose reconstructor does in dose 

16 reconstruction, they look at the bioassay 

17 records and the external records, of course, 

18 of the claimant and assign dose according to 

19 that unless there is some OTIB that they use 

20 to look at additional data.

21 And in this case, if the worker 
50 

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1 did not have bioassay or sufficient bioassay 

2 for the primaries or an unmonitored worker 

3 needed to be assigned primary -- doses from 

4 primary radionuclides, then they would refer 

5 to OTIB- 0062 and use the -- pages 21 and 23 

6 is actually where -- OTIB-0063 and 0062 boils 

7 down to about 3 pages. And that's pages 21 to 

8 23 for the primaries and also the exotics.

9 And so if they were lacking 

10 primary information, they would use this as a 

11 coworker data. If they were lacking exotic 

12 data, which I assume they would be since most 

13 -- we didn't have sufficient data for that. 

14 They would use one of the primary 

15 radionuclides to assign this bounding dose for 

16 the exotic.

17 And then if it was a mixed fission 

18 activation product, they would use pages 22 

19 and 23, the cesium 137 coworker data. Okay.

20 And so I guess SC&A's bottom line 

21 on this, other than Joe's question about using 
51 

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1 this approach, the technical questions that 

2 SC&A is posing in their reply to the ER is for 

3 the primaries, we have -- if you're going to 

4 assign primary dose using this coworker model, 

5 the data stops at 88 and so the SEC is through 

6 05.

7 And so our question is, what about 

8 using the 1988 data for up to 05 and for the 

9 primaries and for the exotics? And then how 

10 do you justify using the exotics, primaries 

11 for the exotics, if they operated in a 

12 different realm than the primaries?

13 And then the cesium 137 stops at 

14 93, and are we going to use that up through 

15 05? And then what about the equivalents? 

16 Both for the activation and the primaries, 

17 exotics, has there been any benchmark? Is it 

18 possible to do any benchmarks to compare what 

19 data do we have for the mixed activation or 

20 the exotics, and say, okay. Here is some 

21 correlation between cesium 137 and activation 
52 

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1 products or fission products. Here is some 

2 correlation between the plutonium and curium 

3 or whatever it might be to show that, yes, 

4 this person was monitored for both and we do 

5 have a correlation, do we have some 

6 benchmarking on that?

7 Joe talked about the technique. 

8 Did we have a correlation between events and 

9 recorded information in the worker's file? 

10 And I would also like to pose one of the ways 

11 to validate the proposed methods that NIOSH is 

12 proposing is, is there any benchmarking to 

13 show that, yes, there is a correlation in some 

14 of these instances where we do have data.

15 And so that gives you an overall 

16 kind of view of the technical question that we 

17 have raised.

18 MR. MACIEVIC: The question about 

19 the 1988; the updated internal, external, and 

20 the coworker have it up to 2005. So that data 

21 is all in there now for these radionuclides.
53 

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1 So the tables on the old document 

2 only went to 1988. They've been updated to 

3 2005. So we're covered in that range there.

4 DR. BUCHANAN: OTIB-0063 --

5 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: OTIB-0062 --

7 MR. MACIEVIC: Sixty-two, yes.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: -- 0062 will have 

9 through 05?

10 MR. MACIEVIC: Right, right.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

12 MR. MILES: Yes, the official 

13 document.

14 MR. MACIEVIC: When they came out 

15 -- I think it was in October of 09.

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Right.

17 DR. NETON: We have them?

18 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes. They've been 

19 approved through the system. So they should 

20 be out.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So they will 
54 

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1 go. Okay.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: So they're on the 

3 O: drive?

4 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes. You should 

5 be able to get them.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: They're on the O: 

7 drive at this time?

8 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

9 DR. NETON: They're on our 

10 website.

11 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: The last time I 

13 looked, I didn't find them, but I hadn't 

14 looked real recently.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And that was 

16 for the primary radionuclides, right? I'm 

17 trying to follow the three or four.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

19 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes. All of the 

20 radionuclides that went up to 88 have been 

21 extended, as you know, to 2005.
55 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. 

2 Okay.

3 MR. MACIEVIC: I'm trying to 

4 remember what the other points you had there, 

5 I want to answer your questions.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. Well, any 

7 benchmarking that shows --

8 MR. MACIEVIC: Oh, yes. On the 

9 benchmarking, we have not done any 

10 benchmarking with the actual data that we have 

11 found. There is stuff out there, but we have 

12 not done that.

13 What we have done is sample DRs to 

14 show that you have examples where using these 

15 models can produce compensable and 

16 noncompensable cases for a hypothetical worker 

17 under different criteria.

18 So to basically say that this is 

19 not unreasonable and does not give excessively 

20 high doses to people so that, depending on the 

21 cancer, you can have a compensable or 
56 

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1 noncompensable case.

2 But yes, verifying them through 

3 data from actual -- data from the exotics to 

4 apply our model and compare that has not been 

5 done.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Do you think that 

7 they're --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm sorry. I 

9 was trying to understand what analysis you 

10 did. You ran the coworker models to see --

11 MR. MACIEVIC: We did it on --

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- if it 

13 wouldn't be all over 50 percent for all 

14 candidates --

15 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- so high that 

17 --all right. Got it.

18 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly. Exactly.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Got it. Go 

20 ahead, Ron. I'm sorry.

21 DR. NETON: Just one. I just went 
57 

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1 up to our website. The OTIB-0062 is not 

2 listed on our outside website at this point 

3 because it's not compliant with -- what we 

4 call 508-compliant, it doesn't meet the 

5 Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. 

6 But it should be on the O: drive.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

8 DR. NETON: It's not on the public 

9 website.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: In your work, have 

11 you found, is there any possibility of some of 

12 the claimant files having both the primary and 

13 the exotics and/or mixed activation products, 

14 that benchmarks could be done?

15 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, that was 

16 going to be one of the things that, in looking 

17 at this as an extended answer to this 

18 question, we will go and look.

19 And I can ask Don Stewart, have 

20 you seen anything in the cases that you have 

21 seen so far of that potentially being there or 
58 

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1 not?

2 MR. STEWART: What potentially 

3 being there, Greg? I'm sorry.

4 MR. MACIEVIC: Of having data for 

5 the exotics in them as well as data for the 

6 primary nuclides so a comparison could be 

7 taken from a claimant's file, as opposed to 

8 going out and finding other data from Los 

9 Alamos to go and do the analysis.

10 MR. STEWART: I see what you are 

11 saying. Typically, no. The problem with 

12 exotics is that they are, well, exotic. And, 

13 you know, the time period we are talking 

14 about, post-75: work with these radionuclides 

15 was extremely uncommon.

16 So we're going to only get maybe 

17 30 percent of the people through our program. 

18 And it could be that a number of people who 

19 work with a given radionuclide, one of the 

20 exotics was very small, less than ten. And 

21 the chances that we are going to look at that 
59 

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1 case are very small.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: What about the --

3 this is Ron Buchanan.

4 What about the mixed activation or 

5 fission products? Are there any cases where 

6 you found both cesium 137 and an activation 

7 product in the record?

8 MR. STEWART: Off the top of my 

9 head, I could not tell you, Ron. I actually 

10 couldn't.

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

12 MR. STEWART: It's been some time 

13 since I worked kind of modern-era LANL claims 

14 because largely they have all been processed. 

15 Right now we are working the through-76 

16 partial dose reconstructions.

17 I am sure that it happened. I 

18 know that I have seen cesium 137 results. I 

19 have seen odd results in what I would call odd 

20 results in the in vivo stuff.

21 Typically at Los Alamos, you are 
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1 going to see a lot of plutonium bioassay. And 

2 we do see that. We do see both in vitro, in 

3 vivo. Typically what we'll do is see that. 

4 And the presumptive exposures are primarily 

5 composed of that.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: All right.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess my 

8 question would be -- I know cesium 137 

9 certainly would be intuitively bounding, but 

10 why was cesium 137 used as the substitute for 

11 the mixed activation products? I'm not sure I 

12 saw that explanation.

13 MR. STEWART: You have a lot of 

14 data. I think that was one reflection. I 

15 just have data on it.

16 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly. That's 

17 pretty much it.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: That's pretty 

19 much it?

20 MR. MACIEVIC: And we could --

21 yes.
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1 MR. MILES: Easy to see.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, easy to 

3 see, you have enough data.

4 MR. MACIEVIC: And that we felt it 

5 would be conservative to the numbers you're 

6 going to get. So we went with that and have a 

7 large database.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: And, you know, 

9 the one table in the ER where it's sort of the 

10 data points for each nuclide and I think it 

11 wasn't anything listed for mixed activation, 

12 but there were some other species that were 

13 listed early in 07 and some of the other --

14 probably LANSCE-related, short-lived nuclides. 

15 There were a fair number of hits.

16 But I think, even though that was 

17 compiled, I guess the conclusion was maybe 

18 some of what Don was saying. It wasn't 

19 particularly usable for purposes that would 

20 make it better than cesium 137 as a 

21 substitute.
62 

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1 MR. MACIEVIC: That's pretty much 

2 it because then you are into -- when you are 

3 dealing with these, some of these exotics, 

4 except for the cesium, you start getting into 

5 less and less data. And the trick was how do 

6 you cover that and cover it to a conservative 

7 way and to use this data. So that is why we 

8 went with that approach.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: So in a sense, it 

10 almost strikes me -- I don't know -- the 

11 substitute for cesium 137 -- I don't know, it 

12 was almost an intuitive substitute. I mean, 

13 it -- certainly it was more data and from a 

14 health physics standpoint, admittedly, a 

15 pretty conservative pick.

16 But beyond that, you know, I was 

17 looking for something more direct, but I 

18 think, does that character -- that was the 

19 pick because there was data.

20 MR. MACIEVIC: Let me ask -- Liz 

21 Brackett is the person who did the analysis on 
63 

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1 all the data --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

3 MR. MACIEVIC: -- to compare the 

4 different things together. Liz, do you have a 

5 -- can you chime in on that?

6 MS. BRACKETT: I don't know what 

7 comparisons you're talking about.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Why cesium 137 in 

9 particular, other than the fact there was data 

10 for it and sort of everybody knows cesium 137 

11 would be intuitively bounding because it, you 

12 know --

13 MS. BRACKETT: Well, it was chosen 

14 for the coworker study because that's where 

15 you have the most positive results. For the 

16 rest of the nuclides, you typically don't 

17 actually see anything. And so it's not much 

18 of a coworker study when all of your results 

19 are negative. So that's part of the reason. 

20 It's something that you see most often and 

21 that exceeds the MDA.
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1 So you can actually do some 

2 statistical analysis of the results. And 

3 that's why it was one of the nuclides that was 

4 chosen also for OTIB-0054, which was mixed 

5 fission and activation product analyses.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: But I guess, 

7 again, I'm just struggling with what its 

8 bearing is on like a facility like LANSCE. I 

9 mean, we are dealing with the off-gassing 

10 short nuclides. And if you had somebody who 

11 claimed that they worked there and was 

12 exposed, you would apply the substitute 

13 nuclide to which you actually -- maybe one of 

14 the few that you do have a positive reading 

15 for.

16 But it doesn't -- and this gets to 

17 -- you know, I won't use the surrogate, but it 

18 gets to this question of what the relationship 

19 is, what connection is there other than the 

20 fact that you have more data for it and it's 

21 intuitively more, you know, from a health 
65 

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1 physics standpoint, conservative.

2 I'm just kind of struggling with 

3 it. You know, you could probably have picked 

4 --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Plutonium.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Plutonium if you 

7 really wanted to take it even further out. 

8 And it just doesn't -- we just can't get 

9 there.

10 DR. NETON: I don't think we're 

11 assigning it to cesium, are we? Wouldn't we 

12 apply the data product mixture to this 

13 analysis? I mean, I know what you're saying, 

14 though. Some sort of scaling factors apply 

15 relative to the other. It wouldn't just be 

16 cesium people were exposed to.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes. I was 

18 just trying to figure out what the -- is there 

19 any relevance to a particular situation? In 

20 this case, mixed activation products, we think 

21 LANSCE or LAMPF because that's where a lot of 
66 

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1 it was generated. So you might actually have 

2 a number of workers that would fall into that, 

3 including guards that might have been there 

4 and that kind of thing.

5 And if it was strictly cesium 137, 

6 you know, and we're being a little facetious, 

7 but why not plutonium? You know, it's sort of 

8 like you could apply almost any nuclide if you 

9 had a lot of data for it and it was 

10 conservative.

11 So I don't quite understand the 

12 substitution with cesium except for those 

13 reasons.

14 DR. BUCHANAN: For example, let's 

15 put in an example. This is Ron Buchanan of 

16 SC&A.

17 Say you had an iron worker or an 

18 experimenter or something on LAMPF and he gets 

19 an intake of mixed activation products of some 

20 sort at LAMPF that has nothing to do with 

21 cesium 137. Cesium 137 is a fission product 
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1 which comes from the reactor fuel cycle.

2 And so we have data on that at Los 

3 Alamos from workers that had been bioassayed 

4 for cesium 137 that worked with fuel or some 

5 aspect of the fuel cycle. But that really has 

6 nothing to do with the electrician or the iron 

7 worker or the experimenter at the accelerator 

8 inhaling a mixed activation product of 

9 something short-lived.

10 So I guess what we're saying is 

11 how do we connect something that was from a 

12 fission reactor fuel cycle and that's the 

13 bioassay results we got that really has no 

14 relevance that we can see directly to a person 

15 working in the accelerator and takes it into 

16 -- that's what the product -- even though it 

17 might bound it, we can't see that the 

18 substitute -- there's a technical link that 

19 connects those.

20 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, that sounds 

21 like something we will have to show the 
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1 connection to in order to satisfy that 

2 question.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Ron and Joe, 

4 although obviously you have done nothing 

5 except just scan this document that you have 

6 presented to us last week, the burning 

7 question is the one that comes up over and 

8 over again that we don't very often address 

9 directly and that is not necessarily why do 

10 you choose one radionuclide over another when 

11 you're doing these calculations, but the real 

12 question is, how significant are the exposures 

13 that you're dealing with?

14 As you mentioned in your 

15 conversation, if you have short-lived isotopes 

16 that are a result of the accelerator 

17 activities, rather than the reactor 

18 activities, and those short-lived isotopes are 

19 none that have real in vivo measurements that 

20 you can point to, even given their potential 

21 existence, how much of an effect, how much of 
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1 an exposure can one really anticipate from 

2 that rare individual who was involved in that 

3 unusual circumstance?

4 The question is, how significant 

5 are these few exotics that we're talking 

6 about? If it's one that -- if it's addressed 

7 in your paper, I didn't see it, but, of 

8 course, as I said, I only just glanced at it. 

9 But that seems to be key when you're dealing 

10 with an individual dose reconstruction.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Wanda, yes. 

12 Yes. I know exactly what you're talking 

13 about. And we have for other SECs, it's kind 

14 of regular time. Now I'm just working through 

15 establishing exposure pathways as a prelude to 

16 doing anything else.

17 You're right. Certainly exposure 

18 pathway has to be identified before one starts 

19 working out the ability to dose-reconstruct.

20 However, in Los Alamos' case, I 

21 think we are in violent agreement because I 
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1 think the evaluation corps acknowledges mixed 

2 activation product as a potential exposure 

3 pathway. In fact, it's figured in the earlier 

4 SEC for the lab. So we just didn't spend time 

5 trying to establish or validate whether these 

6 provide an exposure pathway but acknowledge 

7 that the ER acknowledges that and moved on 

8 from there.

9 So yes, we don't disagree with the 

10 ER that these exposure pathways exist. Now, 

11 questions about how much dose in the end, I 

12 don't know if that's relevant to dose 

13 reconstruction.

14 I think the exposure pathway 

15 exists and workers would have been exposed. 

16 And the question is, is dose reconstruction 

17 feasible. I think that is what we're 

18 grappling with.

19 MEMBER MUNN: I guess it depends 

20 on how you are viewing that question.

21 DR. NETON: I agree with what is 
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1 being said here. We need to demonstrate some 

2 connection between the use of cesium and 

3 whether we use some scaling factors like we 

4 would in the TIB- 0052, I think we had, where 

5 we can focus the ratio of the fission products 

6 in a reactor setting versus an accelerator 

7 setting from the activation products and 

8 demonstrate that what we're doing would be 

9 valid.

10 I totally agree with that. I 

11 think we're just not prepared to come up with 

12 alternatives.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm sure. I've 

14 been trying to keep track of actions also 

15 through this meeting. And I'm sure that Greg 

16 will keep notes and Joe for SC&A.

17 DR. NETON: Yes. 

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But I have that 

19 one certainly that you'll look into the cesium 

20 question. The other thing, I think the 1998 

21 thing sort of goes back to SC&A to look at 
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1 this updated TIB-0062.

2 DR. NETON: Right.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But then this 

4 benchmarking question, I was a little unclear. 

5 It sounds like Don on the phone basically 

6 said that there's maybe nothing to look for. 

7 Do you want to investigate that a little 

8 further, I take it, Greg, or --

9 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes. We can look 

10 through the files and see if there is a case 

11 where we can benchmark.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

13 MR. MACIEVIC: But my concern is 

14 if we come up with one or two cases, will that 

15 show that it works and then come back and say, 

16 well, we need 40 more?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you know, 

18 it sort of speaks to -- you know, this is the 

19 interesting evaluation process because we're 

20 trying to, I think you said earlier, look at 

21 the lab's approach, which includes a lot of 
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1 things and whether that approach is reflected 

2 -- and this is where the validation comes in 

3 -- in the actual records and practice and that 

4 is all we're talking about.

5 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: And if one can 

7 see that reflected in the records and the 

8 practice, then I think there is some 

9 confidence that you can then go and apply 

10 these other approaches, which also need to be 

11 validated.

12 But, you know, to me there are two 

13 separate questions, one of which is, can you 

14 see it in practice and then is the approach, 

15 whether it is a substitute, like cesium 137 --

16 is that feasible to apply that or not? Can 

17 you validate that?

18 DR. NETON: I think I see two 

19 issues, two main issues, which is the 

20 benchmark to compare the exotic radionuclides 

21 to the primary radionuclides to monitor 
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1 somehow provides some better substantiation 

2 that they are indeed similar to the 

3 categories.

4 DR. MAURO: Jim, this is John. 

5 Usually the cesium 137, I presume that's chest 

6 count that you have lots of data for?

7 DR. NETON: Yes.

8 DR. MAURO: The discussion we're 

9 having right now is using that data as a 

10 substitute -- and correct me if I'm wrong --

11 for both activation products and fission 

12 products. I could see --

13 DR. NETON: Well --

14 DR. MAURO: -- or not?

15 DR. NETON: We need to look at 

16 that, John.

17 DR. MAURO: Okay.

18 DR. NETON: The question in my 

19 mind is whether cesium is appropriate to be 

20 used for an activation product.

21 DR. MAURO: All right. Because my 
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1 first reaction is the idea of using cesium for 

2 fission products seems to be a lot more 

3 intuitively --

4 DR. NETON: Yes, yes.

5 DR. MAURO: -- sensible, as you 

6 did in OTIB- 0054. But I have to say applying 

7 it for activation products, as Ron explained, 

8 seems to be pushing it a bit.

9 DR. NETON: Right. And not only 

10 do you have a problem with -- even if you 

11 applied it and it runs some sort of bounding 

12 dose, you end up with the issue of different 

13 cancers have different concentrations of 

14 different nuclides.

15 So if you have manganese 54, it's 

16 going to behave somewhat differently in the 

17 body than cesium, which is a whole body dose. 

18 So I can agree with that.

19 I think we need to go back and 

20 sort of look at the overall exposure potential 

21 for these activation products, which tend to 
76 

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1 be --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

3 DR. NETON: They're pretty low and 

4 somewhat episodic, I would think, although 

5 things like beryllium and stuff, I mean, they 

6 are probably site-wide issues because you 

7 can't contain them very well.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: I would like to 

9 clarify that OTIB-0054 is for fission 

10 products, not activation products. So 

11 extrapolating --

12 DR. NETON: Right. You're right. 

13 So basically the question is, what would we 

14 use for activation products.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: But, you know, 

16 stepping back from this, you know, looking at 

17 it as a two-part thing, I think that would be 

18 sort of the benchmarking or validation on the 

19 second part.

20 The first part, understanding the 

21 episodic nature of maybe exposure to these 
77 

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1 exotics and mixed activation products, sort of 

2 thinking this through and saying, how would 

3 you do it. Well, if you could marry up the 

4 episodes, whatever they might be defined as, 

5 and to establish that whether data was taken, 

6 you know, if -- I'm not talking about every 

7 single burp, but if the major ones 

8 corresponded to some data, then at least there 

9 would be some sense that, you know, if you're 

10 talking about checklists, RWPs, that was 

11 working.

12 And we didn't do that, but that 

13 would seem to be an approach to say that, in 

14 practice, yes, I mean, certainly you would be 

15 expecting to see these kinds of things 

16 happening if there wasn't release in advance. 

17 They would have sent some of the workers over 

18 to be counted.

19 If they did not, then I'm sort of 

20 saying, okay, that dose was missed, but then 

21 if you were to apply some kind of coworker 
78 

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1 model to that, the problem is that kind of 

2 event was missed and you don't have the 

3 workers. It kind of worked backwards in --

4 MR. MACIEVIC: The only thing we 

5 missed, it's a matter of -- if you've got the 

6 data from the incident --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 MR. MACIEVIC: -- and you have the 

9 actual mixed activation product data and 

10 things like that but somehow the health 

11 physics organization or the dose people -- the 

12 dosimetry group fumbled the ball and didn't do 

13 their part, the fact that you have the data, 

14 you could do a calculation from the data.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Exactly. That's 

16 what I'm saying. So --

17 MR. MACIEVIC: You would not 

18 necessarily find it in the records for 

19 dosimetry.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, right. 

21 And I think, you know, when you look at that 
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1 hit list that you have there, it's pretty 

2 clear that it's not reliable enough.

3 But the question is, is there any 

4 way to know? You know, if somebody says, you 

5 know, hey, I was at the plants and we had 

6 these burps every six months or something. I 

7 was exposed and I want credit for this. Just 

8 establishing this, in addition to who that 

9 person is and the exposure took place, to even 

10 get to the point where you could then assign, 

11 you know, some dose from the coworker to me 

12 would be a challenge. I don't know how you do 

13 that without --

14 DR. NETON: Coworker models are 

15 chronic-based models. They're not 

16 mission-based models. I think the approach 

17 was that, if you have a plutonium coworker 

18 model and you don't know if the person could 

19 have worked, say, with curium or something of 

20 that nature, you would assign an exposure to 

21 curium equivalent to the plutonium dose and 
80 

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1 determine which one ended up with a more 

2 claimant-favorable dose to the organ that 

3 you're reconstructing. I mean, that I think 

4 is the approach in a nutshell.

5 And so we're saying we don't know. 

6 We don't know. It's either plutonium, which 

7 is more likely, but it could be curium. It 

8 could be americium by itself. And so which 

9 one of those inhalation exposures are going to 

10 give you a higher dose to the organ that 

11 developed cancer? That was the fundamental -- 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But only 

13 event-driven. You're right on the chronic. 

14 Now, by definition, almost all of these are 

15 going to be event-driven.

16 DR. NETON: Right. But, see, that 

17 goes back to this original issue we had all 

18 along.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

20 DR. NETON: Is a chronic exposure 

21 model sufficiently adequate to bound the 
81 

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1 events they may have had over time? A chronic 

2 exposure is a series of very closely 

3 approximated acute exposures. I think that's 

4 true. So if a person is routinely sampled for

5 plutonium, it kind of covers all those 

6 incidents.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 DR. NETON: The question then is 

9 -- maybe it's a valid question -- were there 

10 more spurious events in these exotics than 

11 there could have been with the plutonium? I 

12 don't know.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Certainly 

14 operationally, as you suggest, that would be 

15 more likely, although I think at LANSCE it 

16 happened probably more often than not. You 

17 know, it's sort of like before you get to all 

18 of the things that we're talking about, cesium 

19 137 --

20 DR. NETON: Right.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: It kind of gets 
82 

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1 down to looking at the RWP system that was in 

2 place.

3 DR. NETON: Yes.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: And from what you 

5 saw and from what you've seen --

6 DR. NETON: Yes.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: -- it's a very

8 robust program, I mean, a very well matured 

9 program that would identify the hazard and put 

10 in place, at least on paper, the appropriate 

11 controls.

12 And it seemed to me that the 

13 potential for exposure to plutonium isn't just 

14 the sheer difference in the quantity of 

15 material processed and the nature of the way 

16 it's processed. It will generate a larger 

17 exposure potential than that for a smaller 

18 amount of material being handled.

19 And if you look at the RWP in a 

20 glove box under negative pressure, you know, 

21 all of those sorts of things, just by virtue 
83 

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1 of that they were smaller operations, I think 

2 it's incumbent upon us to go back and describe 

3 that.

4 DR. NETON: Yes. I guess what I'm 

5 concerned about in talking to the dosimetrists 

6 at Los Alamos, anybody you talk to probably, 

7 is that, yes, you're a plutonium lab 

8 essentially. This is an accelerator over here 

9 with a short life.

10 You know, it's just great. You 

11 know, it just wasn't a big deal from an 

12 exposure setting, at least relatively 

13 speaking, and was just sort of a shrug, you 

14 know, yes, we probably would have seen it if 

15 we had caught it soon enough type of thing.

16 But we haven't found this DOE 

17 review and the fact that they weren't scripted 

18 to find it for some period of time -- it's not 

19 clear how long -- I think just walking down 

20 and validating whether or not this new robust 

21 system was actually being applied uniformly, 
84 

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1 beyond the primaries, to things that certainly 

2 the HPs may have considered not a big deal 

3 would be very important because I think it's 

4 possible that because of the nature of the 

5 source terms at a glance, even though they 

6 were an exposure pathway, they might not have 

7 been sort of front and center to those kinds 

8 of controls and that kind of responsiveness.

9 And certainly one review as late 

10 as 2001 seems to suggest that it took DOE 

11 whacking the bioassay program and the in vivo 

12 program on the head to get their attention 

13 that they weren't doing what was prescribed in 

14 terms of monitoring LANSCE, being able to 

15 monitor LANSCE.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let me just 

17 ask, if we went to the who question more, how 

18 does one get assigned -- I mean, are there any 

19 cases from LANL for this time period that you 

20 are going to use individual dose data to get 

21 doses or is it all coworker-driven?
85 

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1 MR. MACIEVIC: From that period of 

2 time, we have -- do you mean do we have for 

3 individual --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, for 

5 individual dose reconstruction, are you --

6 MR. MACIEVIC: We have not used 

7 this, in as far as my talking with --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

9 MR. MACIEVIC: -- Don Stewart, 

10 used this technique on anyone that they found 

11 yet to give this extra dose to the exotics in 

12 that case.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

14 MR. MACIEVIC: Because we are also 

15 -- this is geared to the Class of the support 

16 workers in the lab, which in some of the 

17 discussion, it's for missed dose for that 

18 Class of people that is in there. If you are 

19 monitored and have the monitoring data there 

20 in sufficient quantity that you know you are 

21 going to use that data --
86 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. So that 

2 is my question. So it's not for all workers?

3 MR. MACIEVIC: No.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Certainly there 

5 are some who are going to use their own --

6 MR. MACIEVIC: Right. They're 

7 going to use what you have -- no. The thing 

8 that came up is with the security people, with 

9 the firefighters who go in periodically into a 

10 facility.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

12 MR. MACIEVIC: That might have had 

13 the exotics in it.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let me ask, out 

15 of that group of workers that you just -- the 

16 latter, describe them. How do you decide 

17 whether to apply the exotic exposures or not? 

18 Is it based on the actual checklist or --

19 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That level of 

21 detail? Whether they're signed into an area 
87 

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1 or not, you'll --

2 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, we're not 

3 going to have in there the checklists for all 

4 of the people.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No.

6 MR. MACIEVIC: But you will have 

7 an idea of where a person worked by the nature 

8 of what their activity was, like the 

9 firefighter or the --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I know we have 

11 gone down this path before.

12 DR. NETON: My understanding, and 

13 maybe I'm wrong here, but I think the idea is 

14 that if a person was judged as having 

15 potential to be exposed to radionuclides like 

16 plutonium or anything that would tend to have 

17 them potentially exposed internally and there 

18 is no monitoring data, no one has to make a 

19 judgment, well, we would normally use the 

20 plutonium coworker model to assign that dose 

21 because they could have been exposed.
88 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

2 DR. NETON: But there's also this 

3 combinant potential for exposure to these 

4 exotics.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

6 DR. NETON: So you thought first 

7 thing, determination, are you going to 

8 consider them a radiological worker, yes or 

9 no. If yes --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's one 

11 judgment, right. Right.

12 DR. NETON: -- is it the 50th 

13 percentile that would apply --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

15 DR. NETON: -- or 95th percentile?

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 DR. NETON: You make that 

18 decision. Let's say it comes out to 50th

19 percentile. Then you have to say, okay. I 

20 would apply a plutonium model, but it could 

21 have been potentially exposed to these 
89 

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1 exotics. Which of these chronic exposure 

2 scenarios would give me the highest dose to 

3 the organ that we're constructing?

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So based on 

5 what he could have been exposed to, these 

6 other exotics, based on what, a work history 

7 of where he worked in this building is what --

8 DR. NETON: I don't know that 

9 there's going to be that.

10 MR. MACIEVIC: If that's where the 

11 dose reconstructor -- you look at what the 

12 history of the person is, what they --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: What the job 

14 title is.

15 MR. MACIEVIC: The job title, the 

16 CATI discussions, the areas that the person 

17 would have worked in in the facilities. If 

18 they're working in a particular area most of 

19 the time that would have not had these 

20 radionuclides, you're not going to get --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So where does 
90 

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1 the use of the checklists and RWPs come into 

2 play other than to show that you -- go ahead.

3 DR. NETON: You have a decent 

4 radiological monitoring program.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's sort of 

6 what I --

7 DR. NETON: I don't think you 

8 could have that information. I mean, you sort 

9 of take it in totality, you can't work these 

10 in a vacuum.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right, 

12 right.

13 DR. NETON: The more information 

14 you have, the more finely tuned you could be. 

15 But clearly in cases where you have a minimal 

16 amount of information, you have no checklists, 

17 you have no RWPs, the person could have been 

18 exposed to plutonium, you're going to go with 

19 the highest, most claimant-favorable scenario 

20 you can come up with.

21 MR. MACIEVIC: And the checklists 
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1 are used also in determining --

2 DR. NETON: Big difference in what 

3 we do -- I'm sorry.

4 MR. MACIEVIC: No, no.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You're not 

6 using to using it to make individual decisions 

7 on --

8 MR. MACIEVIC: No. They help you 

9 out in that when you have the checklist 

10 listed, they're going to be listing for 

11 different facilities and what the potential 

12 radionuclides were for those facilities 

13 because a person going in -- or you have a 

14 listing of all these checklists that they went 

15 through this. You will know the facilities 

16 that would have had these exotic radionuclides 

17 through that checklist.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Have you 

19 summarized that in any way to match like 

20 here's Building 2's exotics?

21 MR. MACIEVIC: No, no. That's --
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That might be 

2 very useful for --

3 MR. MAKHIJANI: Mark?

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes?

5 MR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I 

6 had a question for Jim Neton, if I might?

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Go ahead, 

8 Arjun.

9 MR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, is there sort 

10 of a process by which you establish that, you 

11 know, the plutonium exposure conditions are 

12 similar in process or more claimant-favorable 

13 than whatever work was being done with 

14 something like curium when you applied it in 

15 other than quantities?

16 DR. NETON: That's a good 

17 question. That's what we just talked about, I 

18 think, a little while ago, Arjun.

19 MR. MAKHIJANI: You mentioned the 

20 quantities. I did hear that.

21 DR. NETON: Yes. I think there's 
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1 some benchmarking that needs to be done in 

2 that area.

3 MR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry?

4 DR. NETON: There's some 

5 benchmarking or validation, whatever you want 

6 to call it, that needs to be done in that 

7 area. 

8 MR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, okay.

9 DR. NETON: We would agree with 

10 that.

11 MR. MAKHIJANI: All right.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's an 

13 action item, yes, yes.

14 DR. NETON: You're right because, 

15 I mean, there could have been different 

16 processes out there that wouldn't make this 

17 totally appropriate, but --

18 MR. MAKHIJANI: So it will be just 

19 like the cesium that you were just talking 

20 about?

21 DR. NETON: Exactly. That was the 
94 

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1 second point I never got to. There were two. 

2 The cesium, the mixed fission, the activation 

3 product benchmarking as well as the cesium 

4 benchmarking for the mixed fission product and 

5 the benchmarking of the primary to exotics.

6 MR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Thank you.

7 DR. NETON: I totally agree we 

8 need to provide all that.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And on the 

10 question of use for activation product, the --

11 DR. NETON: Well, the activation 

12 products in general, what we are going to do 

13 there.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right.

15 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Before I lose 

17 this --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. Go 

19 ahead.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I thought -- I 

21 may have to go back and check here, but I 
95 

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1 don't think the safety checklist as a, you 

2 know, systemic lab-wide application really got 

3 into force until later than 75. I thought it 

4 was maybe -- do you remember? I thought it 

5 was in the 80s.

6 MR. MACIEVIC: Seventies.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Was it actually? 

8 Mid-70s. Okay.

9 MR. MACIEVIC: Which is why it's a 

10 --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. Thank 

12 you.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Yes. I had 

14 one clarification here, Jim. On the exotics, 

15 are you saying that, okay. One of my concerns 

16 was that if a person was going to be assigned 

17 an exotic dose or plutonium dose to see which 

18 was the highest he would be assigned -- that 

19 would be taken from the coworker's overall 

20 general laboratory bioassay data, like we see 

21 in OTIB- 0062.
96 

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1 DR. NETON: Right, correct.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. And are you 

3 saying that you're going to do, try to do some 

4 benchmarking to show that these exotics did 

5 not exceed the plutonium? Because what is 

6 bothering me is that if you have a plutonium 

7 intake over the whole lab and you've got one 

8 guy working with exotics over here, the 

9 plutonium-to-exotic ratio might not -- you 

10 might have very little plutonium but a lot of 

11 exotic if there's --

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's what 

13 they've got to look at. That's what they've 

14 go to look at, yes.

15 DR. BUCHANAN: I want to clarify 

16 that.

17 DR. NETON: My feeling is that is 

18 probably not the case, but I am certainly --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You've got to 

20 validate it, right, right.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Thank you.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes?

2 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob 

3 Presley. I have a question. I would like to 

4 see something else added to that, and that's 

5 the dates.

6 Should we not -- when we go in and 

7 look at these things, there are certain areas 

8 that the dates of projects were done in 

9 certain areas and the dates that the areas 

10 were cleaned up and projects and the materials 

11 were gotten out of them.

12 Would it not help to go back in 

13 and look at some of this stuff by date, too, 

14 as to where it was done and what was done in 

15 that area?

16 MR. MACIEVIC: That should be part 

17 of it, yes. I mean, it should be with the 

18 data itself. So yes, the --

19 DR. NETON: Part of the problem 

20 is, as I think it said in the report, there 

21 are some 100 problems in these health physics 
98 

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1 records. I mean, how far are we going to need 

2 to go through these? I mean, at some point --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

4 DR. NETON: I don't know what 

5 level of --

6 MR. MACIEVIC: And that's one of

7 the things I'm doing right now is I've got an 

8 Access database that I'm developing to take 

9 all of the surveys of the data capture data, 

10 go through all those reports, break the 

11 reports out, to talk about such things as the 

12 RWPs, the checklists, and other information to 

13 put it in so you can get the kind of picture 

14 you want to see --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

16 MR. MACIEVIC: -- so that you can 

17 go over time, see what kind of things are 

18 being looked at, what period of time were they 

19 covered hard-core, and where is the lightest 

20 to where are they now. Everything is being 

21 looked at.
99 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I see. I can 

2 remember previous Work Groups where we have 

3 had -- I'm trying to think of -- you know, 

4 Mound is an obvious example, but, yet, a good 

5 starting point there with the Wayne King 

6 stuff, right? I mean, it was the table of the 

7 --

8 MEMBER BEACH: The roadmap?

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, the 

10 roadmap, the roadmap.

11 DR. NETON: Part of the problem 

12 with this is you get into these later years 

13 where, if the protections that were in place 

14 were pretty solid, the absence of bioassay 

15 samples doesn't necessarily mean much.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 MR. MACIEVIC: I mean, you don't 

18 use people as human air samplers, obviously. 

19 And if they had CAMs in place and breathing 

20 zoners and the whole nine yards and nothing 

21 shows up in any of those workplace indicators, 
100 

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1 you might not have a bioassay program 

2 necessarily.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: There is 

4 certainly a reduced one, yes.

5 MR. MACIEVIC: A reduced one. 

6 You've got to look at it in that context. I 

7 think that is what we are trying to say here. 

8 This program appeared to have some pretty --

9 MR. STEWART: This is Don Stewart.

10 I would just point out that with 

11 respect to corrosion and activation products 

12 as well, the first line of defense there, of 

13 course, is the paper filter, where you take 

14 samples of the ambient contamination levels.

15 DR. NETON: And it may be that 

16 there was airborne activation products, but it 

17 resulted in a dose needing so many millirem or 

18 whatever, especially in this era. We're not 

19 likely to see any kind of bioassay.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Just as a general 

21 comment -- this is Ron -- did you find when 
101 

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1 you looked at Los Alamos bioassay data, that 

2 it decreased sharply in the 1990s?

3 MR. MACIEVIC: Let me ask Liz on 

4 that one since she did a lot of the analysis. 

5 I can say from the external dosimetries that 

6 what you do see is that in looking at, even at 

7 this data, where you talk about the beginning 

8 lithium fluoride dosimeter that they use with 

9 the MPA, what you end up seeing is that the 

10 neutron doses they go up.

11 And the dose in general for sites 

12 will then start to peak out as the Cold War 

13 period goes -- like in the 89-90 period. And 

14 the doses when they get into more of the 

15 cleanup, they start dropping off tremendously.

16 So I would bet that is how this 

17 data is going to be is that you're going to 

18 see this like in the early years, it goes up, 

19 comes up. And as you start going out into 

20 later periods, the data is going to drop down, 

21 number of surveys done goes down because now 
102 

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1 the site's doing more restricted work. The 

2 whole site got better containment controls and 

3 that.

4 Liz, can you address that?

5 MS. BRACKETT: I don't recall. I 

6 think Bob Burns might be a better person. 

7 He's the one who last worked on the document 

8 that summarizes the data in the database that 

9 we have.

10 MR. MACIEVIC: That's not a good 

11 response.

12 MR. BURNS: The external data in 

13 the database?

14 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, I rambled off 

15 into the external, but he's talking about the 

16 --

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Bioassay seemed to 

18 decrease rapidly in the 1990s at Los Alamos. 

19 And I was wondering, did you see that same 

20 picture, and did you have an explanation for 

21 it?
103 

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1 MR. BURNS: I don't have an 

2 explanation. Those are the data as provided. 

3 I guess there could be additional data but 

4 probably not. That probably just reflects the 

5 nature of the work and the nature of their 

6 monitoring program, is my guess. But we need 

7 to look into that to say something more 

8 confirmatory.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think this is 

11 what we have seen at a lot of sites, yes.

12 DR. MAURO: Jim, as it relates to 

13 -- this is really an over-arching suggestion. 

14 When we review your coworker models and we're 

15 making a judgment of data adequacy and 

16 completeness, as you know, we look at the 

17 bioassay data, for example, as a function of 

18 any facility now, as a function of time and 

19 also as a function of different campaigns, 

20 different buildings.

21 And very often you may have a lot 
104 

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1 of data, but when we start to sort the data, 

2 we find that, well, there were certain time 

3 periods and certain buildings, for example, 

4 where there's a paucity of bioassay data, 

5 let's say uranium bioassay as the simplest 

6 example.

7 And one of the things that we 

8 often look for -- and this goes to what we're 

9 talking about right now -- is if you could 

10 make an argument, you're making an argument 

11 very often that, well, one argument is process 

12 knowledge. Well, we know -- and when you get 

13 into this time period, this particular 

14 building, there really, really wasn't very 

15 much of this type of activity going on.

16 I would say that that is certainly 

17 one line of argument to say that the fact that 

18 we don't have a lot of data for that time 

19 period for that location and, therefore, any 

20 coworker model would bound that, but I would 

21 go a step further: that you could make that 
105 

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1 case, but you had mentioned air sampling data.

2 One of the things I have not 

3 noticed that applies here but applies many 

4 other places is, if you also have air sampling 

5 data that is sort of just part of the routine 

6 and you could show that the levels of the 

7 airborne activity, even though it may be a 

8 general area monitor -- I realize, you know --

9 where you could see that we're just not seeing 

10 the airborne activity there in those years at 

11 those locations or if we are seeing anything, 

12 it's really well below the levels we're seeing 

13 at other locations, you start to build the 

14 weight of evidence why it's okay.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, supports 

16 the argument.

17 DR. MAURO: I have not seen that. 

18 And I think that could go a long way to 

19 building the basis for your coworker models.

20 DR. NETON: Yes. I hear you, 

21 John. That's a good suggestion. I don't have 
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1 a sense for how difficult it is going to be to 

2 obtain all of those values and look at it. 

3 And then if we pull a representative sample, 

4 then the question is going to be, well, did 

5 you pull enough?

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

7 DR. NETON: So we need to go back 

8 and look at that, though, and talk amongst 

9 ourselves. I've learned not to make 

10 commitments without talking to the -- that 

11 really know the data. But I 100-percent agree 

12 with you there.

13 Getting back to the 1990s, though, 

14 it seems to me that that was in 1992, when 10 

15 CFR 835 came into place, where you had to only 

16 monitor -- the requirement was that you had to

17 monitor workers who had the potential to 

18 receive 100 millirem exposure annually, and I 

19 think that was CEDE.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

21 DR. NETON: So there's a lot of 
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1 people went and reevaluated their bioassay 

2 programs during that era and particularly 

3 since 835 was -- I don't know about Los 

4 Alamos, but it was at least commercially 

5 punishable by civil and criminal penalties if 

6 you violated it.

7 So I have a sense that they must 

8 have reevaluated the need for the monitoring 

9 programs if --

10 DR. BUCHANAN: But there was 

11 sufficient bioassay data to extend that. You 

12 stated that OTIB-0062 was brought up to date 

13 to 05.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, right.

15 DR. BUCHANAN: There was 

16 sufficient bioassay data --

17 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: -- to create that. 

19 Now we have not seen, one of the things in 

20 our report here, is that we have not seen --

21 there were intervals, like five-year 
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1 intervals, to take us from OTIB-0063 to 

2 OTIB-0062. And so it appears in three- or 

3 four- or five-year intervals. We have not 

4 seen the data on a yearly basis to determine 

5 if there were any years that were missing or 

6 anything.

7 Would it be a reasonable thing to 

8 provide us with what the yearly data was to 

9 create OTIB- 0062? Because, you know, like I 

10 say, they were like three- to five-year 

11 intervals. Is that somewhere available that 

12 wouldn't be a major undertaking to provide 

13 that information? That was a point made in 

14 our report.

15 MR. MACIEVIC: I wouldn't think 

16 that would be a big thing, but, as Jim has 

17 said, we'll take a look and see what exactly 

18 we've got there.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

20 MR. MACIEVIC: But I don't think 

21 that would be a problem to break that out by 
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1 year.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Just so that we 

3 know there was adequate information for each 

4 time period.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. This 

6 might be a good break point.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I say we take a 

9 ten-minute break. Is somebody on the phone 

10 asking?

11 MR. KATZ: No.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let's take 10 

13 to 15 minutes. And when we come back, I'm 

14 going to try to summarize actions. I think we 

15 covered, like, the first two topics, really.

16 MEMBER BEACH: First three. 

17 Three.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. You're 

19 right, three, because coworkers are, yes.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Coworkers up 

21 there, right. I'll try to summarize the 
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1 actions because I get a little -- yes, a lot 

2 of things are flowing around. So we'll try to 

3 summarize when we come back. So take 15 

4 minutes on the phone, and we'll come back.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Around 11:15, 

6 then, Eastern time, folks on the phone.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you.

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

9 matter went off the record at 11:03 a.m. and 

10 resumed at 11:18 a.m.)

11 MR. KATZ: We're starting back up 

12 after a short break. Ted Katz. Advisory 

13 Board on Radiation and Worker Health. It's 

14 the Los Alamos National Lab Working Group.

15 Let me just check and see. Wanda, 

16 are you with us? Wanda Munn?

17 (No response.)

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, we may 

19 have some phone stragglers.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. I 

21 just wanted to take a few minutes to summarize 
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1 the actions and went over them a little during 

2 the break. But what I have is -- the first 

3 one is this benchmarking question or 

4 validation question for both the exotics to 

5 the primary nuclides and also the cesium to 

6 the mixed fission product. So that's the --

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Activation 

8 products.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- fission 

10 products. And then the second part is using 

11 the cesium at all for the mixed activation 

12 products.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I kind of 

15 broke it out that way.

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. They're 

18 all related there.

19 The next item was a better 

20 description of the episodic nature of 

21 exposures to exotics and the mixed activation 
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1 and fission products. And I think Joe sort of

2 raised that as a, do you have a sense of these 

3 events. Is that what you were looking for, 

4 Joe, when you --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes. I 

6 think the notion there was if, in fact, the 

7 monitoring practices and just the control 

8 practices improved quite a bit mid-70s. Can 

9 you see evidence of being able to see events 

10 occurring knowing that they were occurring and 

11 at least being able to know who might have 

12 been involved and that kind of thing?

13 I agree with what Greg was saying. 

14 It doesn't necessarily mean you always see a 

15 bioassay.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: But you would see 

18 certainly that because of the site checklist, 

19 whatever, there would be some awareness of --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Then 

21 that may be tied in with this. I separated 
113 

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1 these, but I think these go together, which is 

2 a demonstration that there was a more robust 

3 system in place. So I think they are one and 

4 the same, those two items, just the -- and -- 

5 MEMBER PRESLEY: Mark?

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- again, that 

7 --

8 MR. MACIEVIC: -- start showing 

9 that, you'll be showing --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right. 

11 And I think that gets back to -- I mean, 

12 certainly my opinion is you guys build your 

13 case on that. And like Jim did say, you know, 

14 sometimes we'll come back with six or seven, 

15 ten reports. And a worker might say, we want 

16 to see 40.

17 I think it might be a little 

18 iterative, but, you know, I think just take 

19 your best stab at that the first time through.

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: Mark, this is Bob 

21 Presley.
114 

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1 That's about the time that DOE 

2 came out with new orders on industrial hygiene 

3 and rad safety and stuff like that and the 

4 overall program for all the design labs and 

5 the manufacturing facilities really started 

6 getting tighter. I think you'll find that.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. I think 

8 we definitely have that sense. And we just 

9 wanted to sort of validate that it was 

10 actually, you know, not only in paper but in 

11 principle working.

12 And like Joe was saying, there 

13 might be -- sometimes there is a lag between 

14 --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: A transition 

16 time.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: I agree it was a 

19 transition time, but you had a pretty 

20 established culture. So the question in my 

21 mind was in practice, did they actually change 
115 

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1 their spots as quickly as the procedures and 

2 program and descriptions suggest or not? And 

3 can you find some way to characterize that to 

4 validate -- 

5 MEMBER PRESLEY: Evolution.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think we 

9 can agree that Los Alamos was one of the more 

10 stubborn sites, so I just, you know, sort of 

11 healthy skepticism.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. The next 

13 item was one that I sort of brought up. And I 

14 think Bob also mentioned the yearly 

15 information, providing a matrix of some sort 

16 to show sort of cross-walking this information 

17 on the checklist RWPs, the idea of -- you had 

18 exotics and mixed fission products in certain 

19 areas.

20 So can you sort of lay that out in 

21 a matrix, the areas these things were likely 
116 

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1 in over certain time frames, too? You know, 

2 certain campaigns might have ended by the 

3 1980s or whatever. So I think that was as 

4 well. So location and time frames for --

5 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is the early 

6 90s.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. And 

8 I think you have already been working on the 

9 database. Hopefully there will be something 

10 that you could pull out of your work.

11 The next item I have was to look 

12 at the -- if what Ron was indicating is true, 

13 it seems to be that the bioassay dropped off 

14 in around 1990. And can you justify why that 

15 was happening?

16 And, again, it might have been the 

17 implementation of 835. So if you would just 

18 have an explanation for why the drop-off and 

19 what was the change in practice at that time?

20 MS. BRACKETT: Mark? This is Liz 

21 Brackett.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Liz might have 

2 an answer now.

3 MS. BRACKETT: Yes. I looked this 

4 up during the break, and there was not a 

5 drop-off. For plutonium there's -- up through 

6 2008, there are still more than 2,000 samples 

7 a year collected. And there's nothing really 

8 much higher than that.

9 Uranium was a little bit lower but 

10 not a significant drop. It's still in the six 

11 to eight hundred samples per year.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. So I am 

13 going to turn that back to SC&A and ask them 

14 to look further at -- maybe it's --

15 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. The data I 

16 took from was what they supplied. But I can 

17 look at that and send you the plot. I don't 

18 know if I have it. I might be able to find it 

19 --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: -- by the end of 
118 

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1 the meeting. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: There was nothing 

3 in the report that was actually sent in.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This may also 

5 dovetail into the next one, which is Ron's 

6 request for yearly breakout of the OTIB-0062 

7 coworker data. OTIB-0062 relates to which 

8 coworker model --

9 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, that's the 

10 plutonium, the primary.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The primary. 

12 Right, right, right.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Cesium-137.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So if you get 

15 that annual breakout, you'll have another --

16 that data now extends up to 2005. So I don't 

17 know. Maybe you'll be able to reassess that 

18 in --

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Right, right.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Anyway, I'll --

21 DR. BUCHANAN: I'll get back with 
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1 them on that comment, then.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I'll 

3 leave that as SC&A can look into that as well.

4 DR. BUCHANAN: Right.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So thank you, 

6 Liz.

7 MS. BRACKETT: You're welcome.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the last 

9 one I have was what John Mauro mentioned, 

10 investigate -- and I think it's careful, the 

11 phrasing here -- investigate whether air 

12 sampling or other data might be available to 

13 sort of demonstrate the magnitude of some of 

14 these exposures, especially the mixed fission 

15 products, mixed activation products.

16 You know, in other words, if you 

17 don't have bioassay but you have a lot of air 

18 sampling data indicating that there is very 

19 little exposure, it's just another weight of 

20 the evidence that demonstrates that.

21 MR. MACIEVIC: That's one of the 
120 

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1 things that you will see is that during this 

2 period because there wasn't a lot of it, 

3 there's not going to be a lot of monitoring 

4 data for those particular things and --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right, 

6 right. So yes, there may not be a lot, but if 

7 there's some, it might be another piece of the 

8 puzzle that it would help us --

9 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. And I 

11 don't, like I said, investigate whether -- I 

12 don't expect, you know, extensive pulling of 

13 data and trying to build a database out of 

14 this. I think the first step is to see how 

15 much is out there and maybe give us a flavor 

16 of what is there and what you found as far as 

17 levels as a result.

18 And that is the items that I had 

19 for actions. I think I captured --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Just one 

21 additional item. I mean, we talked about it, 
121 

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1 but I don't know if we -- you know, the in 

2 vivo technology, the counter figures in the 

3 evaluation report.

4 I was a little unsettled to find, 

5 again, this DOE finding as late as 2001 that 

6 the capabilities to actually even use or do 

7 the counting for LANSCE and for thorium-232, 

8 at least those two examples, wasn't available 

9 to Los Alamos.

10 I mean, even though it was 

11 required, this finding -- and I have the memo 

12 here if anyone wants to look at it -- this 

13 finding by the Albuquerque operations office 

14 was that the in vivo program wasn't doing it, 

15 didn't have the capability, and was required 

16 to have it.

17 Now what Jim was saying earlier, I 

18 think this was event-driven. I mean, clearly 

19 they were not claiming that there were people 

20 being exposed and they weren't being 

21 monitored. What they were saying was the 
122 

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1 capability wasn't being maintained by the in 

2 vivo program.

3 And what was recommended was they 

4 needed to get together with the bioassay 

5 evaluation program and reach an agreement that 

6 those expectations would be conveyed and that 

7 they, in fact, would maintain a capability.

8 So, you know, this whole thing of 

9 the technology does figure, I think, as part 

10 of this weight of evidence, I think, better.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But this is a 

13 little bit unsettling that as late as that 

14 date, they weren't maintaining the capability. 

15 So one thing I think would be helpful -- and 

16 I was just joking with Greg.

17 You know, you sort of don't want 

18 to dive in at Los Alamos and try to -- you 

19 know, this was 2001. It would be useful to 

20 know. Did they maintain the capability to be 

21 able to in vivo count? Were they calibrated 
123 

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1 to do that for LANSCE, going back in time?

2 I mean, maybe it was just 

3 something that they dropped in the cracks, and 

4 it was kind of a little trouble, you drop in 

5 the cracks, but -- drop in the cracks in the 

6 late 90s, and they were dinged in 2001 and 

7 restored it.

8 I would be worried that, maybe, 

9 how long did they not have that capability.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Were they 

11 not maintaining it then --

12 MR. MACIEVIC: Let's look at all 

13 of it because we had talked to them. In 

14 talking with them, the idea is that they did 

15 have capabilities but they didn't apply them 

16 basically in our talking --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, this says 

18 they didn't have capability because they 

19 didn't calibrate their -- they didn't have the 

20 reference.

21 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes, but it wasn't 
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1 calibrated but that the material itself, the 

2 counters itself --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

4 MR. MACIEVIC: -- would have seen 

5 any stray radionuclides that would have been 

6 out of the ordinary and do it. They don't say 

7 they were calibrated to it and working at it. 

8 But that if it was something unusual in the 

9 spectrum, they would have been able to see it.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. But I guess 

11 my concern would be that -- and I talked the 

12 same. I got the same answers. So I am not 

13 disagreeing with you on that sense from them.

14 This was actually -- they were 

15 required to maintain that capability if, in 

16 fact, for example -- thorium-232, an operation 

17 came about, they would do it. That is less 

18 troublesome because I think they weren't doing 

19 232. So it's no big deal.

20 But for LANSCE, which is 

21 continually operating, to sort of not have the 
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1 capability because they didn't get the 

2 calibrations, what have you, that is 

3 unsettling because then you sort of say, well, 

4 you're required to do it and you're not doing 

5 it.

6 If there were some people sent 

7 over, for example, to be run through, unless 

8 somebody said, well, wait a minute. We don't 

9 have that, we have to go over and get that, it 

10 wouldn't be picked up necessarily unless 

11 somebody was really looking for it.

12 So I'm just saying that, you know, 

13 we didn't really go through and systematically 

14 establish whether their library references 

15 were kept up to date and whether they, in

16 fact, were doing it.

17 What they told me in interviews 

18 was that we have the technology that would see 

19 it, but it's rare. And if it came out, we 

20 would find it. It's just kind of fuzzy.

21 MR. MACIEVIC: Sure. And, well, 
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1 the thing is, is I, in my approach in looking 

2 at some of these problems, I'm not looking at 

3 the dosimetry people as much as in the field 

4 if someone has measured something.

5 And if the dosimetry people 

6 screwed up and didn't bother with something, 

7 we need to show that if it occurred, that our 

8 model will fit what occurred with the numbers 

9 that we see if there is monitoring data to 

10 show something and that us applying our 

11 technique to it will cover it, that that is 

12 okay.

13 And if you don't find the data, 

14 like --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. What you 

16 are saying is upstream.

17 MR. MACIEVIC: That's right, that 

18 if they missed it or didn't bother to compute 

19 it, that to me is not as bothersome as if 

20 there is nothing at all that you can see 

21 something happening or you can show something 
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1 was not happening or however you are going to 

2 prove it. But if the dosimetry people didn't 

3 catch it, that's another matter altogether.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, again, 

5 we're just saying that, you know, certainly as 

6 weight of evidence the technology figured in 

7 this time frame. I'm not saying this is 

8 conclusionary. I'm just saying sort of --

9 well, it raises sort of the question about --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Or maybe it was 

11 an --

12 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: -- what the 

14 practice was that --

15 DR. NETON: I would like to get a 

16 copy of --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's what I 

18 was going to say. Maybe as an action I can --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: That's an 

20 excerpt. I mean, I made copies of relevant 

21 pages but I have the whole thing.
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1 DR. NETON: I'm looking at it. 

2 For instance, the thorium-232, it should be 

3 noted at this time there are no personnel 

4 who've been identified -- requiring routine 

5 monitoring for thorium.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

7 DR. NETON: They're basically 

8 saying, in case it happens, you should be 

9 ready.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

11 DR. NETON: And they had all the 

12 appropriate phantoms, equipment. They just 

13 didn't feel the need at this time to have it.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Maintain it.

15 DR. NETON: That's sort of a 

16 preparedness issue, as opposed to a --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I agree with you 

18 on 232, but there's --

19 DR. NETON: LANSCE wanted 232 to 

20 be a little more of an issue, where they 

21 weren't aware of what the -- you know, they 
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1 didn't have an idea of what the potential 

2 radionuclide of exposure were at LANSCE. With 

3 thorium I think I --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: I agree with you 

5 on thorium. I just found it unsettling that 

6 for LANSCE, which, you know, I think as -- if 

7 you're an internal dosimetrist, I mean, you 

8 know where you're going to see something. And 

9 not to be aware of potential nuclides at 

10 LANSCE, I would have to wonder what happened 

11 on that one.

12 DR. NETON: And Greg is absolutely 

13 right. Most of these systems are a peak 

14 search-driven routine where a good internal 

15 dosimetrist would look for depending on --

16 unidentified peaks would show up in part of 

17 doing an investigation.

18 You would have a giant peak for 

19 manganese-54 popping up there and say, well, I 

20 saw a peak. I have no idea what it was.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Joe, this is Wanda. 
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1 Have you shared that with -- have you shared 

2 that document with the Work Group? Is that 

3 another thing I have missed?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I'm sorry. 

5 We referenced it and discuss it in the 

6 report. I have an excerpt here.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I heard the 

8 discussion.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Actually, none 

10 of us has it, Wanda, other than Joe.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Like I 

12 said, it's discussed in the report and it's 

13 referenced.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is this 

15 something in the -- I mean, we can circulate 

16 this or --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: This is a DOE 

18 memorandum. So it's a public memorandum, yes.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Maybe you can 

20 make it available to everyone, and NIOSH can 

21 push it on the O: drive, yes. That would be 
131 

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1 great.

2 MEMBER MUNN: That would be nice.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: The relevant 

4 piece is that which you've quoted.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: So it's about one 

7 paragraph, which is one of the findings that 

8 here are two things you missed, no big deal, 

9 on thorium-232. We're not doing anything. 

10 But then the LANSCE part is a little --

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I think 

12 you're right. Yes. So I just have that NIOSH 

13 will look into that question of the in vivo 

14 capabilities being maintained and vis-a-vis 

15 the 2001 audit report. Okay.

16 Any other items on the -- I think

17 we covered the first two. We sort of touched 

18 on the third big issue, which is the coworker 

19 stuff, but I think I had a couple of questions 

20 on that, too.

21 MR. STEWART: This is Don Stewart. 
132 

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1 I just had one thing I would like to put in 

2 the record that goes back to our earlier 

3 discussions and that is that I am going to 

4 summarize some sample dose reconstructions 

5 that we did for people who may not have been 

6 involved in this project.

7 What happened is we evaluated 

8 these so-called exotics -- and I will list 

9 them for you -- in some dose reconstructions 

10 where we reconstructed doses to various organs 

11 using the coworker dose intakes and this is 

12 kind of a proof-of-concept exercise for our 

13 exotics approach for the ER.

14 So what we did is we looked at 

15 actinium-227; protactinium-231; curium-244; 

16 californium-252; neptunium-237; thorium-230; 

17 plutonium-238, which really isn't an exotic; 

18 and then we also compared that with our models 

19 for plutonium- 239.

20 People who are familiar with our 

21 practices have no doubt heard about our 
133 

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1 assumptions for highly insoluble plutonium. 

2 What we have done is we have acknowledged that 

3 the type S model may not model all plutonium 

4 behavior within the complex. So we developed 

5 some dose modification factors for plutonium 

6 type S bioassay that increases the dose to 

7 model what is commonly called Super type S.

8 We routinely evaluate cases for 

9 applicability of Super type S. And in the 

10 dose reconstruction process, applicability may 

11 be based upon what results in the higher dose. 

12 In fact, that is usually the case, as people 

13 will bear me out, I think. Rather than 

14 looking at a possible absorption type based on 

15 workplace considerations, we'll simply apply 

16 the most claimant-favorable dose.

17 This helps us in our approach of 

18 overestimating all of the doses that we can 

19 for non-compensable claims. And, of course, 

20 we also have the option to underestimate 

21 compensable claims.
134 

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1 A little bit of background there, 

2 but what we found was when we took the same 

3 intake for each one of these radionuclides, of 

4 those, type Super S plutonium was limiting in 

5 most cases, was limiting for all non-systemic 

6 organs. So the one that came closest was 

7 actinium-227, but those doses are still a 

8 small fraction of the type Super S dose, which 

9 we would routinely apply in most cases.

10 For some of the systemic organs, 

11 actinium- 227 was slightly larger than the 

12 type Super S dose, specifically the bone, red 

13 bone marrow, and liver. The difference was 

14 not huge in this case.

15 Actinium-227 is one of those that 

16 we can limit to a certain extent by facility 

17 and time frame. I think people are mostly 

18 aware that it was a hazard at Los Alamos in 

19 the early days when it was used for atomic 

20 weapons initiators, but that program closed 

21 out in the mid-50s.
135 

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1 I just wanted to get that in the 

2 record that, when we talk about exotics, we 

3 typically already apply a bounding model and 

4 that is a plutonium, highly insoluble 

5 plutonium, model.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank you, Don.

7 Yes. That's a question I was 

8 going to ask, if SC&A reviewed these. All of 

9 those are in your cases, right, that you 

10 provided along with the ER evaluation?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Sampling of 30 

12 cases, which is as far as I think we thought 

13 we should go at this stage to try to get a 

14 representative sampling of --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But SC&A looked 

16 at these sample dose reconstructions that he's 

17 talking about?

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, the sample 

19 dose reconstructions? Not the sample.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No. No. 

21 That's what I'm asking. I think you should. 
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1 That's an action item that I just put for you.

2 And, Don, are those --

3 MR. STEWART: These are dated 

4 December 2008.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. So those 

6 are available on the O: drive, I imagine, 

7 right? They usually are. All right. So 

8 that's --

9 DR. BUCHANAN: How many cases were 

10 there, Don?

11 MR. STEWART: Well, it's not 

12 discrete cases necessarily. We have some 

13 summaries. I'd have to go back and actually 

14 look at the data that we posted up there. 

15 What I did was for my own reference put 

16 together a table, just to see what the doses 

17 were.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

19 right. If we can't find it, we'll get back to 

20 you.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. If we could 
137 

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1 get the reference location on the O: drive, 

2 that would be really helpful, make sure we --

3 DR. BUCHANAN: It would be under 

4 Los Alamos.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It should be 

6 under the LANL folder, right?

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, just make 

8 sure we have that --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. All 

10 right.

11 MEMBER MUNN: But that bears very 

12 directly on the question that I was asking 

13 earlier so thank you, Don. I appreciate it. 

14 I thought I remembered seeing something at 

15 some time, but it's been a long time since 

16 we've visited this.

17 MR. STEWART: You're very welcome.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think that 

19 takes us through 1 and 2. Ron or Joe, if you 

20 have other things that we are missing?

21 MR. FITZGERALD: I think -- no. 
138 

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1 I've heard a lot as well, but I think, 

2 actually, 3 was more on the coworker model.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, 3 --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: We had spent --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Three I wanted 

6 to stop for a second at least to --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. That 

8 certainly is 1 and 2, yes, sir.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And maybe you 

10 can just -- I'll turn this over to you, but 

11 the one question I had on 3 was -- SC&A, it 

12 seems like you reviewed and found that there 

13 appeared to be sufficiently accurate bioassay 

14 data available for primary radionuclides. But 

15 you say with some qualifications, so I 

16 wondered. You know, that phrase caught my 

17 eye.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I just wanted 

20 to hear what you have done on your review of 

21 that.
139 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron.

2 Yes. The qualification we 

3 discussed in that -- the two qualification 

4 points that I wanted was what happens after 88 

5 and they've addressed that. They now have it 

6 available up to 05.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: So that's not an 

9 issue. And then the other was the yearly. 

10 Instead of intervals, what's the yearly data 

11 points? And he said he would -- could supply 

12 that. And so those two qualifications have 

13 been addressed.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Have we -- I 

15 don't know that -- I mean, as the Board's SEC 

16 review policy -- you know, we talk about the 

17 data, the quality of the data. And from the 

18 standpoint of, sort of, validation and 

19 verification, did you look at all at the 

20 database data compared to any hard-record data 

21 or is there any available even? I don't even 
140 

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1 know.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: No, SC&A did not 

3 perform --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You didn't go 

5 down that path, right?

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Right. No, we 

7 didn't. We had not went down that path yet. 

8 On just a preliminary basis, I looked for 

9 validation and verification indications. And 

10 the documents that I looked at indicated --

11 and it's in my summary sheet in the appendix. 

12 I listed -- on those charts I listed some of 

13 the validation and verification that was done 

14 that I found in the literature.

15 SC&A did not do any of their own 

16 validation, like we did some at Mound and 

17 stuff. We did none for Los Alamos. I simply 

18 summarized where I'd seen statements 

19 concerning validation and verification. I 

20 listed them as, you know, they validated so 

21 many log books and then found a certain 
141 

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1 percentage and that sort of thing, but we did 

2 not perform any ourselves.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But NIOSH did 

4 do --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, NIOSH did 

6 it --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: -- because this 

9 was the most recent compilation over the last 

10 several years as part of that process of 

11 working with the lab. The V&V was done in 

12 conjunction with putting that -- I mean, 

13 literally putting the database together.

14 MR. MACIEVIC: That was much 

15 earlier.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Now this was a 

17 question that was raised earlier -- I can't 

18 remember the gentleman's name -- on the first 

19 SEC. This guy is now in Oak Ridge.

20 MR. EVASKOVICH: Silver? Ken

21 Silver?
142 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: I know there was 

2 a question certainly whether the verification 

3 and validation of the data was adequate for 

4 data going back into time. But this is a 

5 slightly different issue, which is the most 

6 recent database compilation that was put 

7 together on the bioassay, whether the V&V --

8 we looked at that and haven't independently 

9 validated and verified the V&V that was done, 

10 but certainly that was done recently on this 

11 latest compilation.

12 So the question for the Work Group 

13 is whether we would want to actually do an 

14 independent V&V of the V&V that was done on 

15 this database that was put together in 

16 conjunction with the lab.

17 We didn't see it as a priority per 

18 se, but I think the issues that we thought 

19 were most prominent on this latter SEC period 

20 were the ones we just discussed.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I didn't 
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1 realize that this was a database that was 

2 constructed recently. So it's --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, it is.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So it was 

5 pulled from hard copy data and constructed 

6 from the ground --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Log books as 

8 well. And V&V was done -- V&V was done in 

9 conjunction, putting that together recently. 

10 So it's a little different issue than we 

11 traditionally get into, which is going back 

12 into time. This is a relatively recent 

13 pedigree. And it was just done.

14 We looked at the process that was 

15 done. And it was, in fact, done, but it's up 

16 to the Work Group whether there is any need to 

17 --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Was there any 

19 comparison? I mean, I admit that I haven't 

20 looked at this, but was there any comparison 

21 of, as this was being put together, the log 
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1 book information going into the database?

2 I think you mentioned earlier that 

3 the individual claims have records of their 

4 own. Would they have -- has there been any 

5 comparison of those? Would they be a 

6 different data -- I don't -- they might be 

7 coming from the same exact source. I don't 

8 know.

9 MR. MACIEVIC: I can't say right 

10 off the top of my head.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That would be 

12 my one question. I'm not necessarily tasking 

13 SC&A. Maybe if we can find that out? If not, 

14 I should --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: When we 

16 interviewed at Los Alamos and talked to the 

17 internal dosimetrists that worked on the 

18 database, that was one of the questions we had 

19 as to what extent they validated that the log 

20 book data was matching up with the bioassay. 

21 Sort of that process.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: And certainly we 

3 were told it was done in conjunction with the 

4 NIOSH -- I can't remember the NIOSH person 

5 that was there but working hand in glove with 

6 the NIOSH individual. That was one of the 

7 issues, was to make sure that that was 

8 validated.

9 So from that standpoint, got 

10 feedback that they did -- apparently did a 

11 rigorous job. But, again --

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I guess I am 

13 asking you if the log book had, you know, Joe 

14 Smith -- bioassay sample, and then you pulled 

15 Joe Smith's claim and you have a different 

16 number for that time, you know, that's my 

17 question to you.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: It all ended up in 

19 the Los Alamos bioassay repository.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: And that is the 
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1 main database they're using now.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. So it's 

3 the same records that --

4 DR. NETON: Our claimant data is 

5 coming out of the --

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You're 

7 comparing the same source, yes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Same source.

9 DR. BUCHANAN: And there was 

10 verification from the log book to some of that 

11 and they give percentages and stuff. I'm 

12 trying to see where I read that. I thought I 

13 had summarized it.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: It is summarized 

15 in the --

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. I think it is 

17 summarized somewhere in here.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: In our review.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: In our review.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, it is.

21 MEMBER BEACH: I remember reading 
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1 it, too.

2 DR. BUCHANAN: And so there was --

3 and they can speak to it better that I can. 

4 SC&A understands that there was verification 

5 from the log book to the present database 

6 which is used for DR. And as it got further 

7 later in time, more present, it was better and 

8 better.

9 The original -- any differences 

10 was like maybe with non-dose data, you know, 

11 like Z numbers and that sort of thing, not 

12 things that would affect the dose 

13 reconstruction.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Now here on --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The coworker 

16 model --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: -- page 17 of our 

18 report, we quote what was done on verification 

19 and validation. And I think the only question 

20 that we raised, which is at the very end of 

21 this on 17, page 17, was for the early part of 
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1 the relevant SEC period question, the 70s to 

2 the 90s, it should be clarified by NIOSH what 

3 V&V, verification and validation, has been 

4 accomplished for the radionuclides in 

5 question, particularly for the mixed 

6 activation, mixed fission products and the 

7 exotics.

8 So, you know, certainly the V&V 

9 that was done was done for the whole shooting 

10 match, including plutonium and whatnot, but I 

11 think the question we had was just going 

12 specific to the exotics; was that data 

13 validated as well?

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So that 

15 question remains, but the other -- I think you 

16 answered my -- at least for now I'm satisfied 

17 with -- I didn't understand that it was 

18 constructed from the ground up on this.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And it sounds 

21 like --
149 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: It's pretty 

2 extensive.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It sounds like 

4 the records in the individual files are the 

5 same ones that you used to build the database, 

6 so there's no sense --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- really 

9 comparing yet.

10 DR. NETON: When we found them, 

11 originally as found, these databases were all 

12 over the place. There were several different 

13 ones. And they were not really matching. So 

14 we invested a fair amount of effort to --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: And we spent a 

17 lot of time talking to the people that 

18 actually worked with NIOSH to understand 

19 better the lengths they went to to extract 

20 this information. And they did a lot of 

21 validation against log books, pulled 
150 

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1 information from Jim Lawrence's log books. So 

2 it really sounded pretty comprehensive. It 

3 was all over the place, and that was the 

4 process of pulling it together.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So the only 

6 outstanding action, then, really, to come away 

7 from this is the question on the exotics. 

8 Right, Joe? Is that --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, then 

10 there's a matter -- we certainly had this 

11 information. And we got from the people at 

12 Los Alamos the sense that it was pretty 

13 comprehensive and rigorous.

14 But every time we got to the 

15 exotics -- understandably, this is a small 

16 sliver. And most of this was plutonium data, 

17 the americium data, and you're asking them 

18 almost half a percent.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: And no one really 

21 had a good answer as to how good that data was 
151 

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1 and are you comfortable or confident about it. 

2 So that was the lingering question we had 

3 since we were really focused on this -- sort 

4 of the tail on the dog more or less -- is this 

5 data good data. The same questions we have 

6 been asking.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Is this data good 

9 data, and how do you know it's good data?

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: And if we were to 

12 -- wanted to look at V&V, I would say no. I 

13 don't think it would be worthwhile to look at 

14 the whole shooting match. I think that looks 

15 like a rigorous process, but it would be 

16 useful to know if there's any way to validate 

17 what we do have.

18 And some of this is log books for 

19 these exotics. It's not necessarily in the 

20 printouts. It's somewhat in the log books, 

21 but is that data good data?
152 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: But it won't do any 

2 good if we're not going to use it. You know, 

3 if we're not going to use the data --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That really 

5 goes back more to the benchmarking, you know, 

6 is the other --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Which is one 

8 reason the --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Are the primary 

10 models still bounding? Yes.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: We can put that 

12 in there, but the emphasis is still on the 

13 questions we just covered, which is really 

14 where the action is, so to speak, on this.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. I 

16 agree. So that doesn't --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: So yes. In a 

18 way, we almost involved the --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sort of the 

20 same --

21 MR. FITZGERALD: -- started with 
153 

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1 the validation, the pedigree of the data 

2 first. In this case, it's almost because of 

3 the history. In fact, it was just put 

4 together in what was done. It seemed like 

5 these other questions were actually more 

6 paramount.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I agree, yes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Does anybody on 

10 the Work Group have anything else on that item 

11 3?

12 I'm just wondering if you want to 

13 get into the external -- or break for lunch.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. This is 

15 going to be --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This could be a 

17 little --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: This is going to 

19 be very familiar ground.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: But it's probably 
154 

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1 going to bear some discussion.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right, 

3 right. If everybody is okay, let's break for 

4 lunch and try to get back at a quarter of 

5 because I know a couple of the Board members 

6 are trying to get at least earlier flights. 

7 And I want to make sure Andrea has some time 

8 to make some statements.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Bob actually 

10 leaves at 1:30.

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: I'm going to 

12 leave here. The plane leaves at 

13 2:50-something.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. But if 

15 we come back at a quarter of 1:00? Is that, a 

16 quarter of 1:00, okay with everybody? Yes. 

17 You'll hear the meat of the discussion, I 

18 think. All right.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. So was that 

20 clear for folks on the phone? A quarter of 

21 one o'clock Eastern time.
155 

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1 MEMBER MUNN: All right, and I'll 

2 try to remember to take myself off mute when 

3 we're back.

4 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Wanda.

5 MEMBER MUNN: All right.

6 MR. KATZ: Thanks, everyone else 

7 on the line. And we'll break the line now. 

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

9 matter went off the record at 11:54 a.m. and 

10 resumed at 12:54 p.m.)

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 
156 

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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 

2 MR. KATZ: Good afternoon. This 

3 is the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

4 Health Los Alamos National Lab Work Group. 

5 And we're just reconvening after a lunch 

6 break.

7 So let me just check to see. 

8 Wanda Munn, have you rejoined us?

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I have.

10 MR. KATZ: Great. And I think 

11 we're ready, then. Yes.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. We're 

13 going to move ahead in the SC&A issue paper. 

14 And I think, Joe and Ron, the next item is the 

15 neutron exposure, of course, external dose 

16 neutron exposure. Start there?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think 

18 this is sort of a division point already 

19 reported. It first gets down to sort of the 

20 basis for the fundamental questions. These 

21 are issues that weren't necessarily expounded 
157 

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1 upon in the evaluation report but have a 

2 bearing for maybe a relatively small period of 

3 time. I think TLD came into being in 1980. 

4 And so there are some questions.

5 And these are sort of conventional 

6 questions we've raised in the past on other 

7 sites on NTA film and fading, some of the same 

8 issues and certainly Ron, who has worked the 

9 same issue for Mound and Pantex and kind of 

10 outlined some of the questions that we have on 

11 that.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

13 with SC&A. We're on item 4 in the report.

14 A little background here, this is 

15 a neutron monitoring question. Los Alamos 

16 used the NTA film there in this SEC period 

17 from 1976 to 1979 and then used the model 7776 

18 TLD system from '80 to '97 and then started 

19 using the model 8823 TLD system from '98 to 

20 2005 or up until today.

21 And so what we looked at was the 
158 

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1 ability for the neutron dosimetry system to 

2 detect the full energy of neutron doses in all 

3 of the different facilities at Los Alamos. Of 

4 course, we have the standard problem of the 

5 neutron NTA film threshold of around 500 keV 

6 or 700 keV or so, which does not see the lower 

7 energy neutrons.

8 And so everyone is aware that in

9 the TBD, they recommend using an N/P ratio to 

10 replace the neutron data in the dose records 

11 for the dose period. And this has been an 

12 acceptable practice if certain qualifications 

13 are met.

14 And so we have a couple, three 

15 issues here. One is that the N/P ratio, which 

16 is being used for the 1976-1979 period, being 

17 taken from the TLD data from 1980 to 2004, I 

18 believe it was. Anyway, it covers a range of 

19 about 25 years or so, including both the '76 

20 model TLD and the model 8823.

21 And so we have two areas, items in 
159 

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1 this usage of this N/P data. I guess number 

2 one is is it representative for the earlier 

3 year, '76 through '79, if you're using '80 

4 through 2004 data? Was it representative of 

5 the N/P values in these later years for this 

6 earlier period?

7 And the second each year is that 

8 the model 7776 had some issues in itself, 

9 which we will talk about a little later in 

10 this response function. So neutron 

11 calibration factors as a function of a 

12 facility had to be used.

13 And so we questioned the accuracy 

14 of the data represented, that it is identified 

15 by the data for the later years to this 

16 earlier period and also the accuracy of using 

17 the 7776 for determining the N/P ratio. In 

18 addition, the 7776 used during the period of 

19 '80 to '97, as I say, used a neutron 

20 calibration factor, NCF, which was, the way I 

21 understand it, determined for each facility 
160 

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1 depending on the average energy of the 

2 neutron.

3 If there was -- now, TLDs have the 

4 opposite characteristics of NTA film. NTA 

5 film has no response for a certain threshold 

6 of about half MeV or so, a good response up to 

7 about 10 to 14 MeV. And then it starts to 

8 drop off. And so that is its energy range of 

9 good use.

10 TLD is kind of opposite of that. 

11 It has a high response, low energy, and drops 

12 off very rapidly at higher energies around one 

13 to two MeV. It starts to drop off at 

14 sensitivity.

15 And so if a facility has a lot of 

16 low-energy neutrons, TLDs are fairly 

17 responsive, has a good portion of 

18 higher-energy neutrons, its response is lower.

19 And so the way Los Alamos did it 

20 was they assigned neutron calibration factors 

21 for each facility. If it was a highly 
161 

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1 moderated low-energy neutron source, then the 

2 calibration factor was low. If it was 

3 high-energy, the calibration factor would be 

4 higher.

5 And so this is the way the 7776 

6 TLD dose of record was recorded. The way I 

7 understand it was the reading that came off 

8 the TLD reader was multiplied by this 

9 correction factor. So the dose of record 

10 doesn't contain the raw reading plus 

11 adjustment factor. It just contains the end 

12 result. So you don't know what the 

13 calibration factor was. And so SC&A is 

14 concerned about using this data in determining 

15 the N/P values. And so that is the '76 to '79 

16 N/P issues.

17 Now the other segment is 1980 to 

18 1989. When the TLDs were being used, there 

19 was a problem with detecting the high-energy 

20 neutrons, especially around LAMPF, where you 

21 had more high energy than you would the rest 
162 

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1 of the facilities. The plutonium and such 

2 usually have a fairly moderated spectrum. So 

3 TLDs were good dosimeters for those.

4 And so between '80 and '89 was 

5 kind of a transition period in that the 7776 

6 saw the low energy. So they attempted to use 

7 the NTA film to detect some of the 

8 higher-energy neutrons.

9 However, NTA film has fading. Any 

10 they found out in about '90, then, that they 

11 could seal these. It was in an oxygen 

12 atmosphere in a plastic pack. And about 1990, 

13 they got this.

14 And I gave a reference in our 

15 write-up in the lot, I think, in 1990, that 

16 indicated that they solved this problem at Los 

17 Alamos. And from about 1990 to 1995, they 

18 used sealed NTA film, which did away with a 

19 lot of the fading.

20 And so there was some NTA film 

21 used at LAMPF during 1980 to 1990. However, 
163 

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1 from what I could find out, there was only 

2 about 40 or less than 40-some NTA films 

3 issued. And so this would not cover the 

4 workers that might have been the spokes to 

5 higher-energy neutrons in much of a fashion 

6 during this period of time.

7 Now they used the sealed NTA film 

8 from '90 to '95; in '95 started using the 

9 track etch dosimeter, the TED, and the 8823 

10 TLD dosimeter, which we're not questioning it. 

11 If there are any problems there, it's more of 

12 a Site Profile issue, not an SEC issue, from 

13 about 1998 onward.

14 And so our main concern is we did 

15 feel that as far as dose reconstruction goes,

16 that there was support for the fact that the 

17 N/P values that were derived were 

18 representative of the earlier '76 to '79 

19 period.

20 There's a big question mark on '80 

21 to '89 on NTA film use at LAMPF or what was 
164 

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1 used if NTA film was used or how the fading 

2 problem was addressed. And we don't have SEC 

3 issues, really, after the 1990s.

4 And so our period is '76 to '89 

5 that we're concerned about the adjustment 

6 factor using N/P and also the high-energy 

7 neutron monitoring at LAMPF during that 

8 period.

9 MEMBER PRESLEY: Can you just not 

10 find records? Is that one of the reasons that 

11 you're saying what you did use during that 

12 time, what correction factors were used, and 

13 things like that? 

14 DR. BUCHANAN: I don't have any 

15 details on, number one, the correction factor. 

16 Apparently there was one correction factor 

17 used for all of LAMPF. LAMPF has wide energy 

18 and neutron energy. So they're outside the 

19 moderated field, a 500 keV would be fine. In 

20 experimental areas and such, you can have up 

21 to 20 MeV, even occasionally in a beam line or 
165 

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1 something 50 MeV.

2 And so I don't see that it has 

3 been documented that the neutron calibration 

4 factors were appropriate for LAMPF. And 

5 number two is if there were high-energy 

6 neutrons, how are those monitored during this 

7 period?

8 The 7776 was not seeing the 

9 high-energy neutrons. Was NTA film used? If 

10 so, how was the fading problem addressed? And 

11 if only 50 NTA or 40 NTA films were issued 

12 during this period, that would cover, 

13 sufficiently cover, the workers.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean, for me, 

15 this, unlike the first couple of things we 

16 discussed, has a lot more specifics in it, 

17 some more details. I'm not sure I could have 

18 kept up with all your actions items or at 

19 least questions, but one thing that caught my 

20 ear was the correction. Apparently the data 

21 in the database right now is the end result, 
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1 right? It's the --

2 DR. BUCHANAN: As far as I can 

3 tell.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The calibration 

5 factors rolled in so you can't even tell --

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Back them out.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. You 

8 can't back them out.

9 DR. BUCHANAN: No.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Do we have the 

11 raw data that could be backed out if they were 

12 --

13 MR. MACIEVIC: I don't think we 

14 have the raw data to go back to the actual 

15 light curves and all the other and the track 

16 counts at this time. I'm sure the track --

17 that information does go, but in our limited 

18 capturing of data, we didn't go back to the 

19 original signals from each dosimeter to 

20 calculate this out. We do have the correction 

21 factors for each facility.
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1 As far as an SEC issue, to me that 

2 says that the dosimeter itself or the use of 

3 that combination of dosimeters that is 

4 completely off, that the numbers -- that you 

5 aren't measuring the fields at all. I think I 

6 would go along with the idea that you could 

7 look into fading effects, apply correction 

8 factors based on that to the particular data.

9 But to essentially say you are 

10 running blind during that period because for 

11 the period of ten years, you didn't have a 

12 dosimeter where you have lithium fluoride, 

13 lithium-6 and lithium-7 fluoride, you've got 

14 NTA film, and although the matching up for 

15 each facility may be imperfect, it's not 

16 saying that there isn't some dose 

17 reconstruction method that you could go and 

18 correct or look to see that the number is 

19 accurate enough that to say that though that 

20 period would be in SEC would imply that that 

21 data is totally useless essentially, that 
168 

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1 neutron doses could be well well over the 

2 values that are being recorded.

3 I have looked at -- before I got 

4 here, I just started to pull some data up from 

5 -- we made a database of all the neutron doses 

6 for LANL and for other sites, but for LANL 

7 from the claimant file.

8 Now obviously it's just a claimant 

9 file, not from the entire site, all the 

10 readings that are there. But when you look at 

11 the readings as a function of time for the 

12 years, you see that as you're running from the 

13 mid to late '70s, you start hitting where the 

14 TLD data comes in, the neutron doses jump.

15 And to me, that says that this 

16 badge is seeing something beyond what was the 

17 year before, from '79, '78 time period. You 

18 now see an increase in the values.

19 So that dosimeter is seeing a 

20 wider variety of the field and reporting the 

21 number. Now correcting those numbers to say, 
169 

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1 well, how close that is is one thing, as 

2 opposed to saying, to me it would not have 

3 recorded anything.

4 If you were going to say an SEC 

5 issue, you would say this dosimeter is missing 

6 it completely. But it obviously looks like 

7 from that data there is a spike in the number 

8 of readings in the low end from the above zero 

9 and recordable up to as you start getting into 

10 the higher doses.

11 But that number jumps when you 

12 head into the '80s. So it's seeing something. 

13 And it is correcting or giving you a higher 

14 dose based on use of that dosimeter.

15 So the question is, how much do 

16 you kick those numbers by, as opposed to, 

17 what, those numbers are all invalid. And 

18 that's how I see an SEC issue, that there is 

19 no way I can figure out how to work that 

20 number to make it accurate.

21 And if it's a dosimetry issue of 
170 

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1 we need to apply a factor of one or one and a 

2 half to those numbers, that's more a dose 

3 reconstruction issue, which we can work out 

4 and come to a justification and show you what 

5 we're basing it on. But I don't see that as 

6 an SEC issue.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Between '80 

8 and '89, when they're using the TLD -- and 

9 TLDs will taper off. They don't see 10 and 20 

10 and 30. I don't see that there is dose 

11 recorded for the high-energy neutrons between 

12 '80 and '89 because it states that the NTA 

13 film, they tried it and made a calibration of 

14 TLD invalid. So they took it off after six 

15 months.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can you stop? 

17 I read that, too. You said that it made the 

18 other invalid.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Right.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can you explain 

21 that? What does that mean?
171 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Invalid data, the 

2 calibration of the '77, '76 TLD badge because 

3 I guess it created scattering or interfered 

4 with or something.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, okay.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Physically being 

7 present with it --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right. 

9 Okay.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: -- caused a 

11 problem.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. All 

13 right.

14 DR. BUCHANAN: They quit using it. 

15 And then they had -- and to put it on the 

16 other collar or something, they found out it 

17 had humidity problems that they didn't really 

18 solve until '90. And so I guess my question 

19 is, do we have data for high-energy neutrons 

20 between '80 and '89 that has any relevance to 

21 what is being received.
172 

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1 TLD tapered off where it wouldn't 

2 see the high-energy neutrons. And then NTA 

3 wasn't there, from what I can gather, I mean, 

4 unless there are documents showing that 

5 there's more than 40 TLDs, I mean, NTA films, 

6 during that period.

7 Did we have data? I mean --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That might be 

9 one clear follow-up. I'm trying to keep my 

10 mind on action items, too. That might be one 

11 clear action item, as '80 to '89.

12 MR. MACIEVIC: Right. That period 

13 you --

14 DR. BUCHANAN: How will the NTA 

15 film --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. What was 

17 the NTA film? It was badged. We have enough 

18 information --

19 MEMBER PRESLEY: The other thing 

20 to go along with that, is there any backup 

21 where that you can say that maybe you got a 
173 

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1 high count somewhere but you can go back in 

2 and look at an industrial hygiene or an HP 

3 report and see if it backs up this thing?

4 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly. We have 

5 one of the things that, again, sorting out, is 

6 that there are tons of quarterly reports. And 

7 we're going through. I have a person going 

8 through the quarterly reports to look at what 

9 is being reported.

10 And there are several things that 

11 talk about the dosimetry, about bioassay, 

12 survey results, and the whole bit. And I 

13 think that is going to be a key in pointing 

14 out all of the problems but also numbers 

15 involved in what was going on through periods 

16 of time.

17 So I think that will be a helpful 

18 aspect of approaching this question, how the 

19 NTA was used with that badge through the '80s.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And maybe I'm 

21 incorrect, but along with this question on the 
174 

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1 high-energy neutron being measured and whether 

2 they were using this NTA film or whatever, 

3 isn't there a matching question then? You 

4 know, assuming you find some NTA films, don't 

5 you then still have a question of whether you 

6 can match those?

7 MR. MACIEVIC: Pair them.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Pair them up, 

9 yes.

10 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

12 right.

13 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, you can do 

14 almost like -- I'll have to look at the data 

15 and see, but, as I was doing with the software 

16 Attila and doing the glove box analysis where 

17 you're looking at the exposures in the chest 

18 and the lower torso to get a correction 

19 factor, if you run some kind of Monte Carlo 

20 with all your numbers to look at bounds on 

21 ratios between --
175 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

2 MR. MACIEVIC: -- the measurements 

3 that you got to see what kind of ranges are 

4 you looking at so that you're not just picking 

5 and choosing. You would have to look at the 

6 whole thing and get some kind of distribution 

7 --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

9 MR. MACIEVIC: -- to more 

10 accurately reflect what you want to -- 

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It's a factor. 

12 There are different ways you can get there 

13 maybe, but yes.

14 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

15 DR. BUCHANAN: I just didn't want 

16 -- the high-energy neutrons during this period 

17 seems to be kind of vague right there. And 

18 that's where the SEC issue came in, is --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: -- are we missing 

21 something. That's what I'm thinking now.
176 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But then 

2 another piece I think of your presentation --

3 I'm trying to pick out the main actions -- was 

4 the use of the N/P ratios from those later 

5 years --

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Right, the 25 years 

7 follow-on.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- applying it 

9 back to --

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Five-year period, 

11 yes.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Application to 

13 '76 to '79.

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Right, yes.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I'll just 

18 ask Greg if they have -- I mean, you probably 

19 have looked into that. I don't know if you're 

20 not expecting a full response to it, but the 

21 --
177 

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1 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, let me ask --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I guess this is 

3 the time to clarify it, but if you don't 

4 understand what SC&A is asking for --

5 MR. MACIEVIC: Sure.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, at least 

7 --

8 MR. MACIEVIC: Don?

9 MR. STEWART: Yes?

10 MR. MACIEVIC: On the application 

11 of the N/P ratios from the '80 to '89 data for 

12 the period just before, from '76 through '79, 

13 --

14 MR. STEWART: Right.

15 MR. MACIEVIC: -- is that just a 

16 straight extrapolation back to that period?

17 MR. STEWART: No. We don't use 

18 the ratio in the '80 to '89 time frame if I am 

19 understanding correctly.

20 MR. MACIEVIC: No. I mean, how do 

21 we use -- because we're talking about N/P 
178 

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1 ratio to use during that period of '76 through 

2 '79.

3 MR. STEWART: Right. Actually, 

4 all years prior to 1979.

5 MR. MACIEVIC: And that is based, 

6 that N/P ratio, is based on data from the '80 

7 to '89 time period or on N/P ratio?

8 MR. STEWART: Right.

9 MR. MACIEVIC: So is that just a 

10 straight extrapolation back to that period 

11 based on looking at what the N/P ratios are 

12 and saying you're just going straight back and 

13 saying that would apply for that period or how 

14 --

15 MR. STEWART: I believe that is 

16 correct, Greg, but I didn't do that work. So 

17 that was accomplished prior to my --

18 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes. And that goes 

19 back to the original before I, "I swear to God 

20 I wasn't involved."

21 (Laughter.)
179 

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1 MR. STEWART: I'm sorry. That's 

2 just a weak answer for you.

3 MR. MACIEVIC: That's fine. I 

4 think it was a straight extrapolation back 

5 saying you've got three years based on the --

6 DR. NETON: Right. But, I mean, 

7 the obvious question is are there processes in 

8 --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Similar, yes.

10 MR. MACIEVIC: Exactly. The 

11 assumption was made that they are.

12 MR. STEWART: I still think there 

13 is a valuation of the processes in 

14 consideration of a likely neutron energy 

15 ranges.

16 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes.

17 MR. STEWART: Once again, I'll 

18 just make a plug for our process, which 

19 typically assigns claimant-favorable values, 

20 rather than --

21 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes, yes. We'll 
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1 get to that.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We'll get into 

3 that.

4 MR. MACIEVIC: Right.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: I think one 

6 clarifying thing to look at would be if you 

7 use any lower N/P values from 1980 through the 

8 end of the 7776 era and then looked at, which 

9 is in '97, and then looked at the N/P values 

10 derived from the newer 8823 TLD --

11 MR. MACIEVIC: Oh, we didn't do 

12 that.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: -- from '99 to '05, 

14 see if we get consistent or if it's 

15 claimant-favorable to use one or the other.

16 MR. MACIEVIC: Right, right.

17 DR. BUCHANAN: And that would help 

18 eliminate some of the --

19 MR. MACIEVIC: That's true.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: -- NCF, neutron 

21 calibration factor, questions.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Now those are 

2 the two main actions that I captured from what 

3 you were talking about, but I know I missed 

4 some. Other main points, Ron? I know he's --

5 DR. BUCHANAN: No. I think those 

6 were the two, the representativeness of the 

7 N/P value using an earlier period and the 

8 '80-'89 high-energy neutron detection.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The two, yes.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. The NCF 

11 factor --

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, yes, that's 

13 --

14 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. It bothers me 

15 to use that for the N/P. I don't think that's 

16 an SEC issue for itself that when you start 

17 extrapolating that back to '76 to '79, then I 

18 -- and so that's the reason I asked them to --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because you're 

20 not sure what your raw data was.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Right. That's all 
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1 that's stable. And so that's why I asked him 

2 to look at that when they didn't have to use 

3 that and in the later TLDs and see how those 

4 compare and just see if we have a problem here 

5 at all.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. So I 

7 think those are the main two actions.

8 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But you have 

10 the subtext of the full, you know, finding. 

11 Yes. All right. Anything to add on neutrons, 

12 Joe?

13 MR. FITZGERALD: No. Again, this 

14 is familiar turf.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Right, 

16 right.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: This is issue 5.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Issue 5, 

19 then.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Let me give 

21 you a little background on this. You know, we 
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1 got the tasking to do this focus review. We 

2 did start out doing a couple of on-site visits 

3 for interviews. We currently interviewed a 

4 number of petitioners, guards, firefighters, 

5 also a lot of support workers to see, again, 

6 in the context of this particular petition and 

7 to glean both their experience as well as any 

8 issues that may have been not addressed 

9 adequately in the Evaluation Report.

10 We did pick up one specific issue. 

11 And, again, a lot of the issues we have just 

12 discussed have a direct bearing on the guards, 

13 firefighters, and support workers. But one in 

14 particular that was facility-specific had to 

15 do with LANSCE.

16 And we talked to some individuals 

17 who had worked at LANSCE and, in particular, 

18 were support workers at LANSCE. In their 

19 peculiar situation, they were there at the 

20 very advent of the conversion of the facility, 

21 were very actively involved in constructing 
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1 additional shielding in the early '90s.

2 And, as they would do with support 

3 workers, construction workers, what have you, 

4 in this case iron workers, they stationed 

5 these workers in temporary trailers that were 

6 located -- I'm not sure I would have picked 

7 this location. They were located right behind 

8 the beam stop in target area A.

9 And it turned out the trailer was 

10 also adjacent to the retention pond or the 

11 evaporation pond for the tritium. And, again, 

12 not necessarily in ALARA, good ALARA planning, 

13 but that's where it was.

14 So their concern was, quite 

15 frankly, what are the implications? I mean, 

16 they weren't bioassay. They certainly did 

17 have a badge.

18 The question was would you expect 

19 any scattering that may not have been 

20 detectable or adequately detectable with the 

21 external badging dosimetry that they had? And 
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1 what are the implications for being adjacent 

2 to this retention pond where there was 

3 apparently, based on some evidence, some 

4 fairly hefty tritium concentrations on a 

5 regular basis.

6 This was more on the environmental 

7 side that attention was being paid to these 

8 retention ponds. Here's a case where it's an 

9 occupational exposure to something that was 

10 being focused on from an environmental 

11 standpoint.

12 So we took that issue. Ron talked 

13 about the external dosimetry cases. I'll talk 

14 about the internal. But we wanted to kind of 

15 burrow in on that a little bit because it was 

16 sort of a specific case, did involve support 

17 workers, and it was a situation where there 

18 wasn't bioassay monitoring and there was some 

19 question, some question regarding whether the 

20 external dosimetry was adequate to what may 

21 have been a scatter that could have existed 
186 

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1 but, again, did not have any information.

2 This wasn't addressed in the ER, 

3 but, again, this had to come up in an 

4 interview. So we did go through this kind of 

5 systematically.

6 Ron, maybe you can talk about what 

7 we did on the external side to run this 

8 through. We also looked at the internals as 

9 well.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. First of 

11 all, we needed to look at what the accelerator 

12 could produce. And just to give all of you a 

13 little background, LAMPF, Los Alamos Meson 

14 Physics Facility, or LANSCE, the Los Alamos 

15 Neutron Science Center, is an 800-MeV proton 

16 accelerator, accelerates protons up to 800 

17 MeV.

18 It's a target, a half a mile long 

19 linear accelerator in a tunnel, partly 

20 underground. And at the end, you have 

21 experimental areas with stack blocks and that 
187 

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1 sort of thing or the beam impinges on 

2 different targets or they can steer to 

3 different targets with experimental areas and 

4 then concrete blocks over and around it.

5 And so you have to look at the 

6 overall picture of what can be produced and at 

7 what dosimetry people -- these people were 

8 wearing. And so when it impinges upon the 

9 target, it creates a variety of particles and 

10 radiation, but the main thing you're going to 

11 see outside of any reasonable shielding, which 

12 it obviously had, is neutrons of different 

13 energies, which we spoke of a little earlier, 

14 and photons, gamma rays.

15 And so the accelerator cannot 

16 produce anything over 800 MeV obviously, and 

17 it doesn't produce that. Obviously on the 

18 target, if you do the physics, it might 

19 produce something in the 100 MeV range. By 

20 the time it gets outside the shielding, you're 

21 limited to about 20 to 30 MeV in neutrons and 
188 

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1 then anywhere down to thermal, of course.

2 So this is the very issue we have 

3 been addressing here, is dosimetry in general. 

4 Can you see them or not? And so the number 

5 one issue at LAMPF is it's not creating any 

6 exotic particles or any cosmic rays that 

7 aren't normally present and stuff. That's 

8 what we want to clarify to begin with.

9 And so we are producing the 

10 neutron and gamma rays that we see at the rest 

11 of the lab, however somewhat in higher energy 

12 as possible at certain areas.

13 And so the question comes down to 

14 was a person badged? Was a person wearing a 

15 badge that was calibrated to the field that he 

16 was exposed to? And was that dose recorded 

17 properly?

18 And so at LAMPF -- and I call it 

19 LAMPF because it's easier. LANSCE was 

20 essentially the same thing. Whether you are 

21 doing LAMPF or LANSCE or whatever, you are
189 

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1 producing essentially the same radiation. You 

2 might produce more at one time, but that 

3 doesn't bear on its detection ability.

4 And so our main issue is we found 

5 out that there weren't any exotic things or 

6 unusual things being produced at LAMPF or 

7 LANSCE as it changed or they added any 

8 equipment. The question was was the person 

9 badged? Was it calibrated correctly? And was 

10 it recorded correctly?

11 This was what we addressed in our 

12 issue 4 that we just got through addressing. 

13 And so it boils down to the same issue. Were 

14 we badged properly?

15 And so we didn't find anything, 

16 like I say, exotic or anything at LAMPF that 

17 wasn't addressed in item 4.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me interject, 

19 though. There is certainly during the -- I 

20 can't think of the official name, the Star 

21 Wars era. The facility did have a role and 
190 

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1 some of that work, the military applications 

2 work.

3 You know, we were also concerned 

4 from an operational standpoint to understand 

5 that, in fact, if there were operations that 

6 would raise some implications of things that 

7 were not in the routine, experimental.

8 And certainly we established that 

9 while that stuff was not actually done at 

10 LANSCE, there is another facility on -- I'm 

11 trying to remember. But that technical error, 

12 there was another facility where a lot of that 

13 work was done. But it wasn't at LANSCE per 

14 se.

15 They did modify LANSCE but within 

16 the parameters, I think, that we were talking 

17 about in terms of energies and everything like 

18 that.

19 So we did go through some trouble 

20 to at least figure out whether we might be 

21 talking about maybe a different species of 
191 

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1 scatter radiation or something that we would 

2 be concerned about from an external 

3 standpoint. But it certainly falls within the 

4 range of the TLD that people were wearing.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: And this is the 

6 reason we brought up the 1980 to '89 NTA film 

7 and stuff --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

9 DR. BUCHANAN: -- because we want 

10 to make sure that if there was higher energy 

11 because of changing and shielding and stuff, 

12 that the person was badged or were they badged 

13 or can we reconstruct that dose?

14 And so there was the ground test 

15 accelerator, it's GTA, I think. But it was 

16 not connected to the LAMPF accelerator. It 

17 was a separate --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Separate 

19 facility.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: -- building. Yes. 

21 And so now on internal in the LAMPF, now, he 
192 

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1 will talk about the lagoons internal. The 

2 internal LAMPF internal construction, that's 

3 why I brought it up a while ago was that is 

4 the mixed activation product. That's 

5 activation products monitoring.

6 And so the other issue that the 

7 craft workers were concerned with was 

8 inhalation of material coming from any LAMPF 

9 operation, LAMPFs, of experiments and stuff. 

10 And that would fall under the realm of the 

11 mixed activation products issue that we 

12 discussed earlier in the day.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. In 

14 addition, because of the tritium retention 

15 pond, this is sort of a question of how do you 

16 deal with a missing source-term in a way, but 

17 it's not so exotic that you had access to 

18 concentration information, you know, maximum 

19 concentrations or measured concentrations.

20 These retention ponds were 

21 measured quite regularly for obvious reasons, 
193 

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1 environmental and otherwise. So the strategy 

2 was is there, in fact, that data? If that 

3 data does exist, certainly that could be used 

4 for modeling an immersion dose and their 

5 concentration data.

6 We did meet with the LAMPF/LANSCE 

7 operators, the health physicists. We did 

8 include them in interviews. The data does 

9 exist. I was just telling Greg at the break 

10 this is when you start getting optimistic. 

11 The individual said, "I'll get you that data 

12 right away." Wow. This is great. And I got 

13 a call a few weeks later saying, "We're not 

14 going to be able to give it to you."

15 So that's partly where we're at, 

16 that on the internal side, we do think -- John 

17 is on the phone. I'll say the word. We think 

18 it's trackable, but certainly to satisfy the 

19 issue, though, I think one has to get access 

20 and establish that this data exists and show a 

21 dose reconstruction approach that does derive 
194 

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1 a maximum bounding immersion dose for workers 

2 that were being located.

3 These workers -- I have a 

4 photograph. I can show you later. But they 

5 were located right next to the ponds. Again, 

6 I think it's horrible from an ALARA 

7 standpoint, but, nonetheless, they were right 

8 there next to the pond.

9 So I think it's conceivable that 

10 given the amount of tritium that was going 

11 into that pond, that -- and there were some 

12 questions about prevailing winds. But it's 

13 certainly possible that they were getting --

14 and they were there for several years. An 

15 immersion dose of tritium that could be 

16 calculated, that would certainly put this 

17 issue to bed.

18 Again, the data does exist, I can 

19 report.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I guess --

21 MR. FITZGERALD: It has to be 
195 

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1 obtained.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Just sticking 

3 to my --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- action list, 

6 I guess the first part of the neutron stuff 

7 that Ron was mentioning, I think a lot of it 

8 goes back to item number 4. So the one thing 

9 that I think might need to be at least 

10 demonstrated would be -- especially since this 

11 was an issue brought forward by the 

12 petitioners. I think we should be responsive 

13 to the petition. Were they badged?

14 You said that as your three 

15 things. Were they badged? Did they use the 

16 correction factor? The last two I think fall 

17 back to the item number 4, but the first 

18 question, were they badged, I think we're 

19 asking specifically about the crafts and the 

20 other security folks and other people that are 

21 in that area.
196 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Anybody, yes.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Anybody in that 

3 area. Yes. So we might need an action to --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: We did ask that 

5 question, but we can verify that every --

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You asked it 

7 through interviewing.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I mean, the 

9 question is --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: They were 

11 badged.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: They weren't 

13 monitored. They were not monitored.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: They were not 

15 monitored?

16 MR. FITZGERALD: They were not 

17 bioassayed.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: They were badged, 

19 not --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: But they were 

21 badged.
197 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh. They were 

2 badged.

3 DR. BUCHANAN: Badged but not 

4 bioassayed.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Badged but not 

7 bioassayed.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Do we have a 

9 history of what happened to those ponds? Did 

10 they mediate them?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. They had to 

12 mediate them, and they did.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Do you know what 

14 year that took place?

15 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, I can give 

16 you a little background if you are interested. 

17 This is Ron.

18 When LANSCE operated, they had 

19 four drains and stuff that drained into a 

20 retention pond. They had three retention 

21 ponds out to the south of the beam stop. And 
198 

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1 the trailers were kind of between the beam 

2 stop and the retention pond. Retention ponds 

3 originally were just ponds that they drained 

4 all of the experimental areas into.

5 And so I would like to clarify 

6 that it had sometimes more than tritium in it. 

7 It would have any other activation products 

8 or anything that might be in there.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Sure.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: And so what they 

11 did, they would get one full. Then they would 

12 put some in another. Then they would build 

13 another. And so finally they said, you know, 

14 EPA or whoever came down and said, "This isn't 

15 a good practice."

16 So they quit using those. But 

17 when they dried up, then you had some airborne 

18 stuff.

19 MEMBER BEACH: We had the same 

20 issue at Hanford. And that's why I was 

21 curious what the year was that they --
199 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: They finally 

2 stopped using the older ones before 1990. And 

3 then they stopped -- they started filling 

4 them, covering them over to keep wildlife and 

5 wind, in the '90s. And so I think they were 

6 all fairly well closed by 2002 or something 

7 like that.

8 But you had two problems. Number 

9 one, when there was water in the retention 

10 pond, you had evaporation that can take place 

11 and carry emerging cloud of tritium or 

12 anything else that would evaporate, probably 

13 mainly tritium in that case.

14 And then when they dried up -- Los 

15 Alamos is very arid. And it would blow the 

16 dust and stuff. It could become airborne. 

17 And so you would have tritium. And any other 

18 radioactive material could become airborne.

19 And so somebody working in a 

20 trailer or a bystander, so to speak, would 

21 just be exposed to inhalation. Now, like I 
200 

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1 say, it's badged. It would pick up any badge, 

2 any external exposure. And there was no 

3 neutron. So that wasn't a question.

4 Now if a person worked on that, 

5 you know, this would be a separate group if 

6 they -- and probably the crafts weren't 

7 involved in that. If you actually got down 

8 and dug in the mud and played with it and did 

9 the remediation, then you would have more of 

10 an exposure. And I would think those people 

11 would be bioassayed, but I don't know that.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Do we know when 

13 they dug those out?

14 DR. BUCHANAN: It was in the '90s, 

15 I think --

16 MEMBER BEACH: It was the '90s? 

17 Okay.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: -- or 2000. I 

19 would have to look it up but somewhere in that 

20 area.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I know we had 
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1 a trouble with tracking the animals and having 

2 contamination out of our ponds.

3 DR. BUCHANAN: They did some of 

4 that there. And then I think they finally 

5 covered it up with special stuff. It's in the 

6 report here. You keep the animals and the 

7 dust down.

8 MEMBER MUNN: But from your 

9 report, it doesn't look that the measured 

10 exposures were extremely high. We're working 

11 on the assumption, are we not, that the 

12 individuals -- did I misunderstand the 

13 discussion? The individuals that are of 

14 concern here are people who work out of those 

15 trailers, not in them, on a routine basis?

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, they were 

17 stationed in the trailers and worked around 

18 LAMPF facility.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Right, right.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: And so they spent 

21 some time in the trailer, some time around the 
202 

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1 beam stop, around the shielding and that sort 

2 of thing.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. They were 

4 based in the trailers but worked on the site.

5 MEMBER MUNN: So that the 

6 assumptions that we're discussing about 

7 immersion would be limited in time in any 

8 case.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

10 MEMBER MUNN: You're assuming that 

11 the lagoons really and truly were operating at 

12 their very worst.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I mean, 

14 there were some real variables involved. 

15 First off, the workday, the --

16 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. Just wanted 

17 to make sure I understood that.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think the 

19 starting point is maybe a maximum immersion 

20 for an eight-hour workday, but you did 

21 definitely know that that would be bounding 
203 

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1 because it would be less than that.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

3 DR. BUCHANAN: And in the example 

4 I gave on page 34 of the report, which is just 

5 a snapshot, this is all the data that I could 

6 easily come by showing the concentration of 

7 some activation products there, and the date 

8 was 1989.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: And there's kind of 

11 a snapshot in time to get a rough idea of what 

12 might be there. And it showed that tritium 

13 was, I think, the only one that exceeded the 

14 discharge limits.

15 But we really don't have a good 

16 way to answer the petitioners in saying, you 

17 know, "This is the maximum you could have got 

18 there in this 20-year period" or something.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. But your 

20 primary radionuclide that you're looking at, 

21 though, is low energy-emitting beta, right?
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1 DR. BUCHANAN: No. Well, they're 

2 beta and gamma. They're cobalt, standard 

3 activation products.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. But you were 

5 talking about tritium.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. Tritium is 

7 the one that exceeded the discharge limit by a 

8 factor of eight.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: Low energy base.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So as far as 

12 the actions, is there any action about the 

13 badging? The people you interviewed were 

14 pretty affirmative that everyone was badged.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: LAMPF was a 

16 radiological area.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Okay.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: So they would 

19 have been externally badged. We did ask them 

20 questions, but because of their status, they 

21 weren't bioassayed.
205 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So the 

2 follow-up would be on the tritium holding pond 

3 would be one action and whether there is data. 

4 I mean, currently there is some data.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Currently there 

6 is data.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: I would propose 

9 that maybe on an agency-to-agency basis, it 

10 can be obtained because we already tried the 

11 contractor-to-agency basis.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: At least 

13 attempt --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: We attempted to 

15 put it to bed before even having this 

16 discussion but weren't successful. So I 

17 wasn't quite sure where to go from there. But 

18 I just want to report that I think the data 

19 exists. I think, again, it can be done, but 

20 we have not.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. We just need 
206 

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1 to look at the data through the 20-year period 

2 or so -- I think it's '80 to 2000 or so -- and 

3 look and see if there is a plausible route of

4 exposure there and what magnitude would it be. 

5 Is it something that we should be concerned 

6 with and do dose reconstruction for, or is it 

7 something that falls below a minimum amount 

8 that's important?

9 MEMBER MUNN: Get better data and 

10 put it to bed.

11 MR. KATZ: Sorry, Wanda? Repeat 

12 that.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Get better 

14 data and put it to bed.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The other item 

16 I have was you mentioned something about mixed 

17 activation products. I assume that was in the 

18 facility. The question of --

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. That's what 

20 we talked about this morning. I just want to 

21 make sure the petitioner understood that we 
207 

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1 addressed the inhalation problem at LAMPF in 

2 this morning's session.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh. Okay. So 

4 that was --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: And there is 

6 actually an external component as well, but, 

7 again, it calls this --

8 DR. BUCHANAN: The badging.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the badging 

10 issue. They had actually monitored for 

11 external radiation ponds. And there actually 

12 was a reasonable field, I guess.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So the other 

14 item is reflected back in our earlier action?

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. So it 

17 looks like just the one follow-up on that.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think the 

19 key is that it's a source that has been 

20 identified as addressed -- the data appears to 

21 be available. And that was one question we 
208 

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1 had that --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

3 right.

4 DR. MAURO: This is John.

5 One question regarding the ponds. 

6 I understand that the tritium issue and when 

7 the pond was filled with water. I guess I am 

8 a little bit more concerned about once the 

9 pond was dry. It sounds like it's going to be 

10 pretty challenging to have some information on 

11 what the Becquerels per gram were of various 

12 radionuclides in this dried sediment.

13 If you have handle on that theory, 

14 you could go ahead and do some scoping 

15 calculations on what might have become 

16 airborne. But if there's no handle on that, 

17 you've got yourself a difficult scoping 

18 calculation to do.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, John, this is 

20 Ron. When they did the cleanup, they should 

21 have taken samples. And I think they took 
209 

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1 sludge samples, even when there was water in 

2 it.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay. Good. That's a 

4 critical fact. If you've got that 

5 information, you're in pretty good shape.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank you, 

7 John. Good point.

8 MEMBER MUNN: And your report 

9 indicates that the environmental surveillance 

10 reports that were done at the time indicated 

11 2,000 millirem and 3,000 millirem yearly 

12 exposures from what was there. So it gives 

13 you a good feel at least. The magnitude of 

14 what you are looking at is not an enormous 

15 exposure.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think 

17 that's reasonable. I think, really, we're 

18 close -- parameters that can be used. And I 

19 think this one could be put to bed, we were 

20 hoping to have it today, but we didn't quite 

21 get there.
210 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Then 

2 let's go on to item number 6, which wasn't 

3 read into the --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. This is 

5 sort of a carryover to some extent from Mound 

6 because we did a lot of sort of complex-wide 

7 look at stable tritium compounds because it 

8 was what interconnected the sites.

9 And as part of that review, we did 

10 establish that some of the more insoluble 

11 tritides, including hafnium tritide, was 

12 handled at Los Alamos. I really can't get 

13 into too much detail because of the 

14 sensitivity, but, frankly, some of the same 

15 issues that we have grappled with at Mound, 

16 which is what was handled, where it was 

17 handled, who handled it, what time periods, 

18 would be germane to in a way what the 

19 implications are for dose reconstruction.

20 We did not go any further than 

21 just establishing by review of documentation 
211 

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1 that it was present. We didn't go into some 

2 of the parameters, which I think is probably a 

3 reasonable next step. I think we have laid 

4 this all out here, as did some of the issues, 

5 implications for dose reconstruction.

6 Again, I think -- and we can go 

7 over that in some detail, but I would just say 

8 that we have covered this quite a bit at some 

9 of the other sites. I think if we establish 

10 it's present in terms of the handling, then 

11 the rest of it is just really trying to figure 

12 out if one can bracket it by understanding 

13 time frames, locations, and what workers were 

14 involved and, frankly, pinpointing insoluble 

15 compounds in particular, whether it's 

16 dose-reconstructible using OTIB-0066 and other 

17 documents that talked about it on the sites.

18 And that's where we left it 

19 because, again, I think it is paramount of 

20 just establishing these parameters that would 

21 be a way for the guys to make sure they didn't 
212 

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1 do that.

2 I guess for people on the phone, I 

3 don't want to leave it too brief. The 

4 implication on this thing is that some of the 

5 particular tritium compounds -- we call them 

6 special tritium compounds -- are highly 

7 insoluble -- not insoluble, a lot less soluble 

8 than the other compounds in the body. And, 

9 therefore, unlike tritium, which tends to be 

10 excreted rather readily, detectable in 

11 bioassay, which makes it much easier to 

12 monitor and to dose-reconstruct.

13 In these cases, you have to take a 

14 much different approach. It's retained in the 

15 body to a much higher degree. And if you're 

16 not sensitive to that insolubility and you 

17 don't adjust your bioassay and dose 

18 reconstruction to reflect that, then you're 

19 going to be certainly potentially missing dose 

20 from the individuals that are taking this in.

21 So what we're saying here is that 
213 

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1 it certainly appears to have been handled at 

2 Los Alamos. And the question now is to review 

3 the information at the Site and to establish 

4 whether there is enough information to adjust 

5 some of the tritium values if necessary to 

6 reflect these compounds that might have been 

7 retained in the body that may not have shown 

8 up in bioassay as routinely as the normal 

9 tritium.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So the 

11 checklists and the RWPs in the later years, do 

12 they reflect any --

13 MR. MACIEVIC: Not for things that 

14 I've seen. I mean, talk about tritium, not 

15 necessarily tritides.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's right. 

17 Just curious.

18 DR. NETON: You've established, 

19 definitely, that hafnium tritide is present at 

20 Los Alamos. I mean, once that is on the table 

21 --
214 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think we have 

2 got similar issue here. Yes.

3 DR. NETON: We're going on a 

4 parallel path around this.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Right.

6 DR. NETON: And some part of me 

7 says Mound is much further along in that 

8 analysis. It might behoove us to wait to see 

9 how some of the --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right.

11 DR. NETON: -- ethical and/or 

12 policy factors that arrive there are handled 

13 --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. For this 

15 issue I was saying action is too finding and 

16 kind of on hold.

17 DR. NETON: I would think so.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

19 DR. NETON: You know, it's the 

20 same --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, same 
215 

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1 issue.

2 DR. NETON: -- exact rationale.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: And there's every 

5 possibility that the sources involved were 

6 completely sealed, in which case the exposure 

7 pathways would not exist. So this is to say 

8 that --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the same 

10 challenges of identifying the personnel, yes. 

11 Right.

12 DR. NETON: Even if you can't 

13 identify the personnel, that is this --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

15 DR. NETON: -- proposed material 

16 plausibly bounding given the fact that they're 

17 measuring it in the large signal of other 

18 tritiums.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

20 DR. NETON: Those are issues that 

21 are on the table.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: And the backdrop 

2 of the tritium noise might be much different 

3 at Los Alamos because of the fact that you 

4 have a production facility at Mound. You have 

5 a lot of tritium. In this case that --

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sure. Yes.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: -- may have been 

8 handled without any tritium background. So it 

9 might be actually more manageable.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: It does bring up 

11 the question, though, at Los Alamos. I 

12 noticed that in OTIB-0062, it only gives 

13 tritium dose. It doesn't give tritium a 

14 bioassay data. Is that traceable back to 

15 bioassay data or did they only assign dose at 

16 Los Alamos after tritium.

17 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, there should 

18 be bioassay data as well for the tritium. And 

19 you can correct me, Liz, if that is incorrect, 

20 but there should be bioassay data back, too.

21 MS. BRACKETT: The way that we 
217 

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1 have been doing tritium coworker studies is 

2 taking the bioassay results and converting 

3 that into dose because that really is the best 

4 way to do a coworker study.

5 And because tritium is very 

6 short-lived in the body, it is possible for us 

7 to do dose calculations en masse. You know, 

8 you don't have to look at the individual and 

9 figure out when the intakes occurred and look 

10 at their entire history. You can take the 

11 results and convert them to dose. And so 

12 that's the way we've been doing any tritium 

13 results that we have.

14 So we would have the bioassay 

15 results to go with those.

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. So if there 

17 was a different type of tritium, that could be 

18 reworked to reflect --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It is there. 

20 Right, yes.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Very good. 
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1 Thank you, Mark.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. All 

3 right. So I don't think there's much further 

4 to go on that. And we'll --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: No. And I agree.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It's on the 

7 table. Yes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: It's worked 

9 rather rigorously. So it's something that 

10 could benefit from whatever happens --

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

12 right. I think we're at the last issue in the 

13 matrix.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. And this 

15 issue borrows directly from the tradition. I 

16 mean, we did the interviews, and we did the 

17 original analyses. Of course, we focused on 

18 the issues that were the subject of the 

19 petition.

20 We wanted to interview the guards, 

21 firefighters, and support workers. We wanted 
219 

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1 to look at the question of how monitoring was 

2 done and this question of lack of, in 

3 particular, bioassay monitoring, the 

4 implications of that, and to really question 

5 the health physics staff as to just issues 

6 such as the guards were not bioassayed when 

7 they patrolled facilities, like TA-55, and how 

8 is that all right given that certainly the 

9 operators and the staff in those facilities 

10 were bioassayed routinely and just really 

11 probing the question of how these decisions 

12 were made and more so lately because, actually 

13 in TA-55, which is the plutonium facility, 

14 they do now bioassay guards over the last 

15 what, two or three years now? I think it's a 

16 couple of years that they react.

17 MR. EVASKOVICH: No. It's only 

18 been a year.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: A year? Okay. 

20 So they have actually reversed that and are 

21 now I guess providing bioassays for the guards 
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1 in TA-55. So these are just some questions 

2 about okay. What is the basis for the 

3 dosimetry afforded these support workers in 

4 regards to firefighters?

5 And what is the rationale for 

6 making those decisions? And was the data 

7 collected and valid over that time frame I am 

8 talking about? Because of the preliminary 

9 nature of our review, you know, sort of the 

10 question of how far we would go in, I think we 

11 decided to do a sampling.

12 Again, we interviewed. We got a 

13 lot of feedback. We wanted to do a sampling 

14 of the actual data that was collected from a 

15 bioassay standpoint. And Ron actually 

16 performed a cross-section.

17 And, again, this is a sampling of 

18 30, which I thought was a reasonable number at 

19 this stage, but just to get some sense of what 

20 the bioassay record was during that time 

21 frame. So do you want to outline that?
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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. To try to 

2 look at what the bioassay policy was for 

3 workers during this SEC period that may have 

4 been involved in tryouts because we're still 

5 looking at the LAMPF situation and security 

6 and other type of people that maybe weren't 

7 involved in production or experimentation, I 

8 went through the period, the SEC period, and 

9 looked for this type of person who had a 

10 claim. That's what I have access to, is the 

11 claim data.

12 And so I went through and did the 

13 sort and found 30 workers that worked during 

14 this period that could have been exposed to 

15 the radiation but maybe weren't bioassayed 

16 because at that time, they didn't bioassay 

17 everybody.

18 And so I looked at those. And I 

19 selected the 30. In fact, that's about all 

20 that came up that fit the category, was 30. 

21 That's the reason I chose 30.
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1 And so then I looked at the data. 

2 I didn't look at it beforehand. I looked at 

3 it after I sorted those 30 out as far as job 

4 title and period that they worked. And I went 

5 through, and I looked at their bioassay data 

6 to see how they were bioassayed.

7 I looked at a couple of lab 

8 assistants in there and a couple researchers, 

9 too, to compare them by focusing on the craft 

10 security. And so that is what I, in the 

11 report, I looked at in table 4 there.

12 I looked at the number of years on 

13 page 43 of SC&A's report that you just 

14 received. Table 4 on page 43 shows the 

15 workers. It should be 30 of them listed there 

16 from A to DD and the position title and the 

17 number of years worked during this period and 

18 then the number of years bioassayed during 

19 that period. And "bioassayed" means 

20 urinalysis or whole body count or chest count 

21 or whatever or a number of them in that year, 
223 

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1 was bioassayed at all during a particular 

2 year.

3 And so, as you can see there, it 

4 varies quite a bit. For example, you know, 

5 some chem techs were bioassayed 100 percent of 

6 the time and others were like 27 percent of 

7 the time and custodians the same way and 

8 security and inspectors and firefighters and 

9 such.

10 So during this period of 1976 to 

11 2005, what it indicated was that the bioassay 

12 appeared to be by need rather than by title or 

13 craft. Now, this is a limited sample, this 30 

14 sample of claims. Okay? Because I didn't go 

15 through and do the whole database.

16 And so when I looked at that, I 

17 said, "Well, you know, that's the kind of 

18 conclusion you reach, is that it's by 

19 necessity as opposed to job title." And so I 

20 said, "Okay. Let's look at security-related 

21 personnel because that's what the petition was 
224 

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1 named in.

2 And so table 5, then, on the next 

3 page, page 44, I went through and there were 

4 six of those that might have had security 

5 guard-type responsibilities. And I went 

6 through and looked at their bioassay. And was 

7 it on a routine or just event-driven?

8 And, as you can see, I looked at 

9 both areas. And you can see the number of 

10 years they have bioassayed out of the total. 

11 And did it appear to be -- and that's kind of 

12 hard to judge.

13 I considered routine as if they 

14 were monitored periodically through the year. 

15 And that doesn't necessarily means they were 

16 monitored every week or every month, but did 

17 it look like it was spread out through the 

18 year or was it just maybe one data point 

19 during the year? I consider that an 

20 event-driven special; whereas, if there were 

21 several right out through the year, some sort 
225 

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1 of routine basis.

2 As so I find that for this period, 

3 that five out of six had routine, one did not, 

4 some sort of routine indication. And I said, 

5 "Okay. What period?"

6 And so Joe suggested, "Well, what 

7 period was that for?" '76 to '05 is a fairly 

8 long period, 20, 30 years, or 25 years. And I 

9 couldn't get too specific. Because of Privacy 

10 Act, I couldn't, put down what years and 

11 stuff.

12 So then if you look at figure 3 on 

13 page 45 -- and this is where I come from this 

14 morning on the ending of the bioassay. We see 

15 that most of this bioassay for these six 

16 security people -- okay. This was for figure 

17 3 on page 45. It's for the six security 

18 people that worked during this SEC period.

19 And you see that the bioassays are 

20 more prevalent before 1990 or so, 1990-1991. 

21 And so recent security force up to '05 has had 
226 

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1 less bioassay in by urine, by uranium, 

2 plutonium, americium and whole body count, and 

3 tritium count than the previous 15 years.

4 And so this is where we arrived 

5 at, was that generally looking at the 30 

6 cases, it looked like they were bioassayed by 

7 the job they performed, rather than the job 

8 title. However, it looked like the security 

9 force did have some routine bioassaying up to 

10 about 90. And then it tapered off a lot. And 

11 so that's the point we reached.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Which actually 

13 tracks with our interviews, which suggested 

14 that the guard force was pulled off routine 

15 bioassay about that time frame.

16 I think Jim mentioned earlier 

17 there was a decision made pretty much across 

18 the Department with the new reg, 

19 100-milligram, to actually take people off of 

20 monitoring. It was deemed not cost-effective 

21 or needed. And so I think that was a decision 
227 

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1 that was made. And it clearly shows up in 

2 some of these analyses.

3 Again, this is a relatively small 

4 sample given the preliminary nature of what we 

5 are doing, but that sort of tracks with what 

6 we got from the interview, "Yes, we were not 

7 bioassayed."

8 But we talked to some of the 

9 people that go back a long time. They do 

10 remember a time when they were. So this kind 

11 of evoked this question about, you know, can 

12 one get one's hands on a missing dose? And is 

13 there a distinction that can be made?

14 Now, certainly talking to health 

15 physics staff, there was a judgment that they 

16 met the regulatory threshold of 100-millirem 

17 or less and, therefore, did not have to be 

18 monitored, but we wanted to probe that. And 

19 that's where we came out. Clearly there's a 

20 question of whether, in fact, everybody was, 

21 in fact, at this level of a missing dose could 
228 

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1 be covered that way or not.

2 MR. MACIEVIC: Have you looked at 

3 the -- Jim Lawrence has several emails and 

4 procedural directives over time that show you 

5 the decision levels as to who and when and how 

6 they were going to be monitored throughout

7 time. And I don't have that.

8 There is a sequence that you can 

9 match that up with --

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

11 MR. MACIEVIC: -- whether 

12 decisional values were made to do this and for 

13 what reason they were made at that time.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. This is 

15 reported. We wanted to really look at the 

16 data to understand the implications of not 

17 having this monitoring going on and to look at 

18 sources that the crafts and guards would be 

19 exposed to and then try to conclude whether or 

20 not this is a dose reconstruction issue.

21 I think our conclusion is we're 
229 

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1 reporting it, but it goes back to the earlier 

2 issues that discussed whether or not you could 

3 put a coworker dose application for these 

4 kinds of workers. And that would address 

5 these issues but understanding, of course, 

6 that while these workers had very broad access 

7 to things like firing areas, to LANSCE, to the 

8 waste management facility, it's much broader 

9 than some of your typical workers. So that 

10 would be the implication, that the coworker 

11 model would need to be applicable.

12 So this one here doesn't lead to 

13 an action, but just so --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, I guess 

15 that's sort of the action, just what you said.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It's coworker 

18 model bound this particular class of worker.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

20 MR. MACIEVIC: How it applies in 

21 the --
230 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right, 

2 right.

3 MR. MACIEVIC: And that is the 

4 main gist of the whole ER --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.

6 MR. MACIEVIC: -- is the worker.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, right. 

8 But, again, we wanted to show you what we kind 

9 of went through to walk this down and to 

10 understand exactly the history, the 

11 operational history, of what happened with the 

12 bioassays and to look at the implications, 

13 actually look at it, as Ron has pointed out.

14 MR. MACIEVIC: And, I mean, there 

15 might be some obvious places to go here. I 

16 mean, I think you have at least, well, six 

17 cases, although they have mixed job title 

18 stuff.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes.

20 MR. MACIEVIC: You know, you do 

21 have data for those. And it might be possible 
231 

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1 to demonstrate that the coworker model's 

2 bounding it. I don't know.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we almost 

4 have --

5 MR. MACIEVIC: We have some real 

6 data.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: You have to walk 

8 through the coworker issues first.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: First. Yes, 

10 yes, yes.

11 DR. NETON: I think a lot of you 

12 have got to go back to the rad tech program 

13 itself, though. And, as we talked about 

14 earlier this morning --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

16 DR. NETON: -- restrictions were 

17 in place. So any worker who had these large 

18 potentials for exposure were actually 

19 monitored to begin with.

20 I mean, you've got the workers 

21 that are in radiological areas being 
232 

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1 monitored. And it's sort of a leap of faith 

2 to suggest that, all of a sudden, these other 

3 workers were not even considered or they were 

4 unaware of the fact that there were these 

5 large characterized exposures out there. I 

6 think it's sort of a --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that's not 

8 what I'm saying. Actually, I think our line 

9 of reasoning is the same, that we were looking 

10 certainly independently to judge whether or 

11 not the program did encompass these workers in 

12 a way which would be the confidence that --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It would sort 

14 of validate the decision --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: The decision to 

16 validate.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.

18 DR. NETON: You know, if the 

19 coworker model -- how do I say this? If the 

20 coworker model sufficiently encompasses all 

21 categories of more highly exposed workers than 
233 

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1 by definition, it would bound the people who 

2 had the --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. That is 

4 true, right.

5 DR. NETON: -- for us access to 

6 other areas as --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. That's 

8 true.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think 

10 that's where we're going. It's a separate 

11 issue, really. It just is back to the other 

12 one.

13 DR. NETON: It's actually been the 

14 entire basis for the core monitored to begin 

15 with. Workers who have no monitoring data, 

16 could they have been exposed to a ten-coworker 

17 model?

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Still bound.

19 DR. NETON: Or been more heavily 

20 exposed bound.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.
234 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Okay. I 

2 think so, yes. And that goes back to the 

3 coworker model because the main action, I 

4 don't think there's any specific action for 

5 that one.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we just 

7 wanted to lay out what we had done to look at 

8 this question.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Is there 

10 anything else out of your report, Joe or Ron, 

11 you think we should explore now? That comes 

12 to the end of the issues, right, the items?

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. And, again, 

14 this was quite without core groups involved 

15 and just doing some initial baselining against 

16 some of the issues raised in the ER.

17 So this is what we had come up 

18 with as sort of questions. A lot were just

19 clarifying questions, but some of them --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Right.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: -- are issues 
235 

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1 that we wanted to put on the table in a 

2 preliminary way.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I'm just 

4 going to ask for like a five-minute comfort 

5 break.

6 MR. KATZ: Before we do, let me 

7 just remind a process that we're doing with 

8 all of the Work Groups is if DCAS and SC&A 

9 would just send out after this meeting a 

10 confirmatory, "Here are our action items as we 

11 heard."

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I was actually 

13 going to --

14 MR. KATZ: I mean, we can run 

15 through the --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I have been 

17 keeping track of those.

18 MR. KATZ: -- transcript, but 

19 transcript doesn't come for another --

20 DR. NETON: Option of the Chair to 

21 maybe generate the action item matrix and 
236 

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1 comment on it.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

3 DR. NETON: I mean, I did more. 

4 It would be --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I have been 

6 doing that myself usually.

7 DR. NETON: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So I would --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: We were all 

10 hoping you would do that.

11 (Laughter.)

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I will. I 

13 will. Yes, I will. Before I circulate it 

14 widely, sometimes what I do is send it out to 

15 make sure that we have agreement from -- yes. 

16 Sometimes it --

17 MR. MACIEVIC: I know I scribble 

18 things down on --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. And 

20 I think in our debrief this morning, I think I 

21 got most. That was the bulk of them, 
237 

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1 actually. So I think we're in agreement on 

2 most things.

3 But I'll circulate those soon 

4 because if I wait more than a week, they'll be 

5 out of my head.

6 MR. KATZ: And if you'll copy when 

7 you do that?

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I will. 

9 I will. Just five minutes, and then we're 

10 going to let Andrew take over.

11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

12 matter went off the record at 2:07 p.m. and 

13 resumed at 2:18 p.m.)

14 MR. KATZ: We are reconvening 

15 after a short break. It's the Los Alamos 

16 National Lab Work Group. And we're going to 

17 hear from Andrew, the petitioner.

18 MR. EVASKOVICH: My name is Andrew 

19 Evaskovich. I filed the port service workers 

20 petition following the general petitions to 

21 LANL that [identifying information redacted] 
238 

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1 filed.

2 To kind of review, the reason the 

3 petition was qualified was because of the 

4 exotics. And that was mentioned at the Board 

5 meeting in Denver of '07, when the first 

6 petition was qualified. Basically Greg and 

7 LaVon Rutherford had stated that they wanted 

8 to look at further years. And that was the 

9 reason why my petition was qualified.

10 In reviewing a few petitions, I 

11 did find a discrepancy between them in section 

12 7.1, particularly 7.1.1 on page 39 of 77. It 

13 says on the -- and this is for the 7605 

14 evaluation-- TUPo data from notebooks, the 

15 former records prior to 1980. It specified 

16 the year 1980. However, in the 43 to 75, in 

17 7.1.1 on page 67 of 117, it says the TUPo data 

18 from notebooks is from years prior to 1990.

19 So there's a ten year difference 

20 in the record sets. So I'm just curious if 

21 that affects the data sets and what the reason 
239 

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1 was for the discrepancy.

2 DR. NETON: Could you go through 

3 that again because I didn't quite catch the --

4 MR. EVASKOVICH: 7.1.1 from the 

5 7605.

6 DR. NETON: Okay.

7 MR. EVASKOVICH: And that's on 

8 page 39 and 7.1.1.1 on page 67. There's a ten 

9 year discrepancy in the years. The later 

10 report says 1980. And the earlier report says 

11 1990.

12 DR. NETON: Thank you.

13 MR. KATZ: Before you go on, is 

14 there someone who can answer the question 

15 right off the bat or --

16 DR. NETON: No.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. I just didn't 

18 know if there was someone on the line who is 

19 actually familiar who --

20 MR. BURNS: This is Bob Burns. I 

21 ended up, I inherited OTIB-0063. My 
240 

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1 recollection without looking at it is that 

2 TUPo data did go through 1990. So if there is 

3 a 1980, I'm not sure. That could simply be a 

4 typo. But that's something that we will need 

5 to look at.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

7 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes. That's what 

8 I was wondering, whether or not it would be a 

9 typo because '8 and '9 are next to each other.

10 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

11 MR. EVASKOVICH: When we're 

12 talking about the validity of the coworker 

13 data, some issues come up concerning, well, 

14 for one thing, the firing sites. My question 

15 is, what is the intake based on, what workers? 

16 Because it seems, looking at the data, it is 

17 all generalized either for the whole Site, Los 

18 Alamos, or maybe it's broken into technical 

19 areas, but I haven't really seen it broken 

20 into technical areas in the OTIBs.

21 But when you're dealing with the 
241 

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1 firing sites, you have the detonation of 

2 explosives, but they're also using 

3 radiologicals there. And I believe, Bob, you 

4 told me at the LAHDRA meeting that they did 

5 use exotics at the firing site.

6 So I think that does raise an 

7 issue concerning the exposure to exotics and 

8 whether or not support service workers were 

9 monitored because it's not just the explosion, 

10 but it's also the clean up afterwards and 

11 potentials for fires because firefighters did 

12 have to respond to these areas and put out 

13 fires.

14 So my question is, what data are 

15 you using in order to determine dose? Because 

16 it would seem to me that the dose of firing 

17 site from resuspension would be different, 

18 say, from the dose for a glove box worker, you 

19 know, entirely different environments, 

20 entirely different types of exposures.

21 As far as dealing with also I 
242 

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1 believe in the LAHDRA report or at least in 

2 the LAHDRA meeting, it was discussed that 

3 recent tests and files were scattered and not 

4 compiled concerning the explosives areas. So 

5 there is a question of the quality of the 

6 records at the explosive or the firing sites.

7 Concerning worker records and 

8 episodes, you know, you're going to have to 

9 question who had access to the areas. I'm 

10 trying to get a little clarification here. I 

11 think it just depends because we handled a lot 

12 of the access to the areas, but guards weren't 

13 per se on the badge readers. I know there are 

14 some areas that we go to that we use keys to 

15 access, as opposed to badging, just like 

16 regular lab personnel.

17 Additionally, I think you have to 

18 question whether or not the electronic data is 

19 present from the badge readers because some 

20 badge readers, you run the badge to determine 

21 whether or not a person has access. You have 
243 

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1 to question whether or not that system records 

2 the fact that the badge was read so that the 

3 person could enter the area.

4 And in the earlier days, badge 

5 readers weren't present. And I think it's a 

6 question of whether or not paper logs were 

7 maintained of when people went into the area 

8 or was the person's badge just looked at, 

9 handed back to them, and say, "Yes, you have 

10 access to the area."

11 And, of course, we control that, 

12 but there are some areas even now -- like 

13 LANSCE is a big example. In order to gain 

14 access to the area, you have to present a 

15 badge. The guard looks at it. They go in, 

16 but there's no record of them actually 

17 entering the area because the gate is open. 

18 It's just the guard controlling access.

19 So how do you determine as far as 

20 who is in the area working unless different 

21 buildings? I haven't worked LANSCE that much 
244 

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1 to know whether or not there is badge reader 

2 access into those areas.

3 But you have to look at the 

4 earlier days and determine what type of 

5 records are present or workers or just people 

6 in general and how they have access to the 

7 areas.

8 One of the other issues that comes 

9 up is the checklist. And I'm not too sure 

10 which checklist Greg is referring to, but I 

11 know there is one that we fill out annually 

12 for, I believe -- I'm not sure it's to put us 

13 in the bioassay program but it is part of the 

14 occupational health program as to exposures to 

15 radionuclides.

16 The thing is if you're asking a 

17 worker what they're exposed to, you either 

18 say, "Yes" or "No." And if you don't know, 

19 generally people mark "No," that they -- you 

20 know, whether or not they have been exposed.

21 So it is kind of a catch-22. 
245 

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1 They're saying if they're using this to 

2 determine who they are going to monitor or put 

3 into the bioassay program and if the person 

4 doesn't know themselves, then they aren't 

5 going to be included into the bioassay 

6 program.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: What is this --

8 let me stop you there a minute -- tool they're 

9 using? This is a questionnaire?

10 MR. EVASKOVICH: It's part of the 

11 occupational health program.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

13 MR. EVASKOVICH: And they question 

14 radionuclides.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So it's not 

16 from the health physics dosimetry side? It 

17 was the --

18 MR. EVASKOVICH: I'm not sure if 

19 they use it or not.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. Yes.

21 DR. NETON: I suspect there are 
246 

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1 two separate --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Two separate 

3 things.

4 MR. EVASKOVICH: Possibly, yes. 

5 There is that but, then, you know, as far as 

6 the dose reconstructions go because I know 

7 they access the health records.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

9 MR. EVASKOVICH: So would that be 

10 included as well? And if HRP is looking at it 

11 and says, "Well, he checked here 'No'"? So 

12 there is an issue there. And if the 

13 individual doesn't know what they're exposed 

14 to, generally they can just mark "No."

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I've got 

16 it.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Andrew, who 

18 maintains those records? Do you know?

19 MR. EVASKOVICH: I believe that 

20 would be part of occupational health. I'm not 

21 too sure if those are included in the records 
247 

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1 that are submitted for a dose reconstruction, 

2 though, but I know that they are used.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: Was that question 

4 asked about occupational exposures or medical?

5 MR. EVASKOVICH: I think it deals 

6 with occupational exposures, but it's part of 

7 the medical survey.

8 MEMBER LOCKEY: All right. Does 

9 the person get some kind of medical test? Is 

10 that how the question -- that's what I'm 

11 trying to figure out.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Based on the 

13 questionnaire, do they get certain testing? 

14 Is that what you're saying?

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Medical diagnostic 

16 testing. They use some kind of radioactive 

17 material?

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, yes. Yes.

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: That was the 

20 question. It was a medical questionnaire 

21 based on their personal medical care or was it 
248 

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1 based on their occupational exposure?

2 MR. EVASKOVICH: I think it just 

3 deals with occupational exposure.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: Just occupational? 

5 Okay.

6 MR. EVASKOVICH: They also look 

7 for chemical exposure as well or heavy metal 

8 exposure. And they also list those.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

10 MEMBER BEACH: So do they use that 

11 to base your physical, annual physical, on?

12 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, that is 

13 part of the annual physical. I think they 

14 look at it to determine the health aspect of 

15 it. I think primarily with us, that just 

16 deals with the HRP program.

17 Now, I'm not too sure if workers 

18 that are not HRP are included in that because 

19 we have security guards that don't go to 

20 manual physicals. So I'm assuming that they 

21 don't fill out those questionnaires --
249 

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1 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

2 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- the security 

3 officers because they're not armed and they're 

4 not part of the HRP.

5 I still question whether or not 

6 all the source terms environmentally have been 

7 examined and identified. There are still 

8 issues with the areas of concern and potential 

9 release sources. And I don't feel that those 

10 were addressed in the Evaluation Report.

11 Additionally, the New Mexican 

12 Environment Department and Los Alamos National 

13 Laboratory are supposed to be issuing a joint 

14 report concerning contamination at the 

15 laboratory. It's a new report that they have 

16 compiled. And they have determined that they 

17 do need to do a federal investigation to 

18 determine whether or not it's compensable to 

19 the surrounding lands, such as Bandelier 

20 National Monument and Santa Clara Pueblo and 

21 San Ildefonso. So I think those issues need 
250 

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1 to be addressed as far as the environmental 

2 because you're still dealing with resuspension 

3 issues and passive exposure.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You said source 

5 term issues that haven't been addressed yet.

6 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Do you have 

8 specific ones or --

9 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, I do. I 

10 relate them in my report. I especially there 

11 list a large number of --

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So going back 

13 to the petition itself?

14 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right.

16 MR. EVASKOVICH: And then talking 

17 about LANSCE and the activation product 

18 issues, well, in my petition, there is a 

19 discrepancy between that and I believe the 

20 latest update to the environmental exposures 

21 in the TBD because basically they say the 
251 

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1 winds going to TA-72 are three percent. And 

2 in the petition, I provide documentation that 

3 says the winds going towards TA-72 are 26 

4 percent.

5 So depending on whether or not you 

6 can do those for the activation products, 

7 you're still going to have a discrepancy as 

8 far as what the guards are going to receive 

9 because TA-72 is basically operated by the 

10 guards. That is our firing range.

11 And, as I stated in the petition, 

12 the hours of operation at LANSCE for the 

13 highest outputs are the same hours that we are 

14 generally at the firing range shooting. So 

15 the exposure potential for guards is pretty 

16 high in that area. And you've got that 23 

17 percent discrepancy in your wind values. So I 

18 think the wind values have to be looked at.

19 I cite Bowen long-term tracer 

20 study in my petition. They used a different 

21 report from '84. And mine was a later study 
252 

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1 that was done actually concerning wind 

2 releases on site and the monitor.

3 As far as -- I'm not sure that 

4 it's actually an action item, but it was 

5 discussed -- concerning the regulatory rules 

6 and policy changes, the fact that LANL was 

7 slow to respond, I did also address that in my 

8 petition as well. And I referenced GAO 

9 reports.

10 The issue developed in the late 

11 '70s, actually. And it took several years 

12 before a response came around. The documents 

13 that I cite actually kind of give a history of 

14 that as far as the whole complex, responding 

15 to those issues. The big concern for us would 

16 be the Sierra Grande fire and the monitoring 

17 that took place during the fire.

18 I think they cited one air monitor 

19 in Mortandad Canyon, which data that they 

20 would use in order to determine dose for 

21 firefighters and guards and other people who 
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1 were on site during the fire.

2 The issue with the fire, it goes 

3 more than just the actual air monitoring and 

4 the burning during the fire because of 

5 remediation and overturn, which deals 

6 primarily with the firefighters.

7 But during the fire itself -- and 

8 this was documented in the RAC report, and I 

9 cited it -- for three days, the air monitors 

10 were shut off when the fire was burning most 

11 on Los Alamos property.

12 Prior to that and after that, the 

13 particulate matter that was in the air clogged 

14 up the filter so that the accuracy of the 

15 filters was changed by an order of magnitude. 

16 I believe that's referenced as well as far as 

17 the accuracy of what was done.

18 Additionally, they also changed 

19 the changeout parameters from the filters 

20 because normally it's a two week parameter. 

21 But there's so much particulate in there they 
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1 had to change them out every day.

2 So I think you have to question 

3 the accuracy of the data for the air 

4 monitoring for those of us who were present 

5 during the fire.

6 And, further, the soil is affected 

7 by the fire because the heat tends to 

8 evaporate all the moisture out of the soil. 

9 It dries it out even more. Plus, it changes 

10 the chemical composition of the soil. So it 

11 doesn't hold moisture. Moisture just tends to 

12 run off. And that's why you have a big fear 

13 of flashlighting. But it also affects the 

14 resuspension aspects of it.

15 And for firefighters, it's a big 

16 issue because they're going back after the 

17 fire has burned through the area. And they're 

18 turning soil over. They're looking for fires 

19 that are in roots underground that could flare 

20 up and then release burning embers. So they 

21 go back. And they try to turn stuff over in 
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1 order to make sure the fire doesn't come back.

2 The fire actually took place until 

3 the middle of July. It was not out until 

4 July. It was contained. And it took a number 

5 of weeks to even contain the fire. So you're 

6 looking at a longer term after that.

7 Plus, you're still dealing with 

8 the resuspension issues in those areas, even 

9 if the fire is out. If people are working in 

10 those areas, say laborers or whoever, then you 

11 still have the resuspension issues. 

12 All right. And, last, I would 

13 kind of like to refer to the similarities 

14 between us and NTS considering that NTS has 

15 just been adopted or included into the Special 

16 Exposure Cohort.

17 And these issues did come up 

18 today; as you recall, the sampling rationale 

19 consistency, the data gaps in the fission 

20 products and the number of records. And if 

21 you look at the data set for the in vivo, 
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1 you'll see that there are gaps in that data. 

2 There are not a large number of records in 

3 there.

4 One portion of the NIOSH rationale 

5 is, "Well, we've got the in vivo data, and we 

6 can do dose reconstruction." But you've got 

7 such a small data set for a number of items 

8 you have, you know, I think a better 

9 explanation needs to be made about how those 

10 are going to be used in order to reconstruct 

11 dose.

12 We also discussed the nature of 

13 work, which was another issue of NTS, the 

14 short-term campaign-driven. And here we're 

15 talking about episodic issues at LANL, 

16 episodic exposures and then the nuclide source 

17 term. And I've kind of touched on some of 

18 those issues there.

19 I feel that a lot of the action 

20 items that were discussed today pretty much 

21 cover the issues that I have just raised. So 
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1 this is basically just a summary of what was 

2 discussed today. But I still think that the 

3 firing sites and the fire need to be addressed 

4 a little bit better because of the materials 

5 that were handled there and the way that the 

6 monitoring was done.

7 And I think as far as -- I think 

8 Joe has pretty much captured the issue of 

9 worker records, but I think those have to be 

10 looked at as well because in my position, for 

11 a large number of years since I -- probably 

12 about the first eight years, all we recorded 

13 was a pay code, four hours work. We didn't 

14 record locations that we worked at. We just 

15 recently started including those a few years 

16 ago on our time sheets, which are, you know, a 

17 record of activity.

18 For the other crafts workers, a 

19 lot of times they are working different job 

20 sites during the day or it just depended on 

21 where they were because theirs was episodic in 
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1 nature as far as the work that they had to do, 

2 "Well, we need you to go over here and fix 

3 this." And it may take a period of weeks or 

4 it may only take a day.

5 So it depended on the nature of 

6 the work that they were doing how long they 

7 were in a particular area. And I think that 

8 needs to be looked at if you're going to tie 

9 -- to do dose reconstruction, you're going to 

10 have to tie exposure to exposures, and that is 

11 how you're going to do it. The question is, 

12 are those records adequate in order to tie a 

13 person to a particular area in order to 

14 determine their dose?

15 I believe that's all that I have 

16 to say today. Thank you for the opportunity.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank you for 

18 your in-depth comments. I really appreciate 

19 it. I think I captured most of it. I will 

20 certainly work with Joe and with you guys and 

21 with you, Andrew, to make sure I captured 
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1 everything correctly.

2 One followup I had so I understand 

3 it is the question on the badge access or the 

4 badge readers that you were talking about. I 

5 guess I'm trying to figure out what the issue 

6 here is. Is the issue that the guards, in 

7 particular, could access areas without having 

8 dosimetry --

9 MR. EVASKOVICH: No, not 

10 dosimetry. The identification --

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The ID badge.

12 MR. EVASKOVICH: Not dosimetry.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So you wouldn't 

14 know that they were in that area. Is that 

15 sort of the --

16 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, yes, --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

18 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- because a lot 

19 of it is key access.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

21 MR. EVASKOVICH: We have key 
260 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 access --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You have to 

3 have a security badge, not necessarily a 

4 dosimetry badge, right?

5 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes, security 

6 badge, identification, security badge, because 

7 they had the magnetic stripe on them. And you 

8 run the stripes through a reader, just like 

9 the readers on the doors for the hotel room. 

10 You run the badge on there. And you can 

11 either release the turnstile or release the 

12 lock on the door or in some cases --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

14 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- it just 

15 flashes a red or a green light in order --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So they could 

17 be in and out of buildings and there would be 

18 no necessarily record of it. Is that what 

19 you're getting at?

20 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I have 
261 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 the issue.

2 MEMBER BEACH: They don't collect 

3 that data?

4 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, that's what 

5 I'm -- I don't know whether or not on some of 

6 these badge readers to some of these areas, I 

7 don't know whether or not the badge readers 

8 actually capture that data because it's more 

9 to determine whether or not they're trained.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm not sure 

11 you're going to use that anyway. But yes, I 

12 just wanted to clarify what the --

13 MR. EVASKOVICH: For access into 

14 areas because it seemed to be a question 

15 today, you know, tying a person to an area in 

16 order to determine whether or not they were 

17 exposed. So that is a possibility, but if it 

18 is kept, it is going to be a lot of data. 

19 It's going to be a lot of information there.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think --

21 MR. EVASKOVICH: Electronically, 
262 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 if it's kept paper, even paper data is very 

2 large because we have logging where I work out 

3 now. And we go through several pages a day 

4 now because we have extra people working in 

5 the area because of construction.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I think 

7 NIOSH's approach is going to be you may have 

8 to tie workers to areas but not necessarily --

9 because I asked that question earlier on the 

10 checklist and those things -- not necessarily 

11 place by place, individual by individual. 

12 They're going to look at I think job 

13 categories and other --

14 MR. EVASKOVICH: Right.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

16 DR. NETON: It would be rare to be 

17 viewed as an area-specific dose reconstruction 

18 unless it's very obvious from the data that we 

19 had in --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And then for 

21 guards, they'll have to make a certain 
263 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 criteria of how --

2 DR. NETON: Right.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- how 

4 conservative to be since they went in and out 

5 of a lot of buildings. I think that will be 

6 your assumption. I don't want to put words in 

7 your mouth, but --

8 MR. EVASKOVICH: Right, right. 

9 Even probably to develop the data set or 

10 whatever for your model, I still think that 

11 information -- you know, it might be very 

12 large depending on what is available. And 

13 then in the earlier years, I'm not too sure 

14 how the -- if everybody was logged in and out 

15 of areas or not or if was just a badge check 

16 to access the area --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

18 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- before 

19 electronics or the electronic badge readers. 

20 It's a paper log. Was it maintained or was it 

21 just a badge check?
264 

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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. Okay. 

2 And I think I captured most of your other -- I 

3 mean, the two big ones that you reinforced 

4 with, the question of the exotics and the 

5 firing range. I don't know if there's anyone 

6 at NIOSH that has any -- you're going to look? 

7 Okay.

8 And then the other as far as the 

9 issues that you very well-articulated on the 

10 fires --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: I had just a 

12 comment on fire. You know, I saw that 

13 mentioned petition needing review. DOE or the 

14 Site obviously came up with in a sense almost 

15 probably a bounding dose to assign the 

16 firefighters, the people that are involved in 

17 the fire.

18 And I think your concern is 

19 whether that was conservative enough given 

20 what everybody had to do in turning over soil, 

21 being exposed to contaminants that you weren't 
265 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 being given credit for or something. So the 

2 sense was that it wasn't in the dose record 

3 for those involved, but it may not have been 

4 as conservative as you believe it should be.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the 

6 question on the accuracy of the monitoring 

7 data, you --

8 MR. EVASKOVICH: There is that. 

9 And you really can't use coworker data for 

10 that because the laboratory was shut down. 

11 And Los Alamos was evacuated. So the people 

12 that were on the bioassay program probably the 

13 majority of them, they weren't present during 

14 the fire in order to have anything show up in 

15 the bioassays.

16 MR. MACIEVIC: Well, one thing 

17 that I can tell you is that were are currently 

18 working on a White Paper on the Sierra Grande 

19 fire to try to --

20 MR. EVASKOVICH: Okay.

21 MR. MACIEVIC: -- look at the 
266 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 doses from that particular incident and see 

2 how they jibe with what other activities were 

3 going on.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: Was there virtual 

5 sampling going on in firefighters?

6 MR. MACIEVIC: No.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: No?

8 MR. MACIEVIC: There was air 

9 sampling, not from the individual.

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: There was air 

11 sampling?

12 MR. MACIEVIC: Yes, air sampling. 

13 And there was some other sampling going on, 

14 but --

15 DR. NETON: There was no bioassay 

16 quantifier?

17 MR. MACIEVIC: That I can't say 

18 for sure, but there wouldn't have been.

19 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, I say that 

20 based on, you know, just from talking to the 

21 firefighters. And they said, no, they didn't 
267 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 bioassay after the fire.

2 MR. STEWART: Actually, we had 

3 found that out, too, in some outreach meetings 

4 with them. And the other problem is even if 

5 they did bioassay a few of them, they had very 

6 large numbers of departments that responded, 

7 have a very large cross-section of people, 

8 representative.

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: What was the air 

10 sampling done? What would be your sample?

11 MR. MACIEVIC: They had air 

12 samplers around. They had what? Don, didn't 

13 they have air samplers upwind and downwind of 

14 the fire? And they had them at several of the 

15 facilities depending on the direction the fire 

16 was going to be moving.

17 So there are several locations 

18 where the --

19 MR. STEWART: There are a number 

20 of locations. And I think our approach for 

21 the White Paper was just simply take the 
268 

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1 largest concentration from all the results.

2 MR. EVASKOVICH: I think some of 

3 those were EPA air models. So, from what I 

4 understand from the RAC report, there are 

5 different standards or different things that 

6 they were looking for in the air monitoring.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

8 MR. EVASKOVICH: So there were 

9 some issues concerning that as well as far as 

10 the accuracy of the air monitoring during the 

11 fire because of that.

12 I think you're going to need to 

13 reference the RAC report for sure. And it 

14 discusses the fire and the air monitoring in 

15 there. I kind of picked out the little 

16 nuggets to apply or at least I think applied. 

17 There is a lot of information in that report.

18 MR. STEWART: Yes. That is our 

19 basic reference for that White Paper. 

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. 

21 Great.
269 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 MEMBER LOCKEY: We just finished a 

2 study on urban firefighters of Underwriters 

3 Laboratory. And 100 percent of the 

4 particulates won't get found. So unless 

5 you're sampling for it, you don't see it.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess the other 

7 question, just skipping over to the firing 

8 sites, that's maybe perhaps a Site Profile

9 question, where you wanted to at least 

10 acknowledge that beyond the uranium, you have 

11 the potential for the exotics to be as well in 

12 that location.

13 It sounds like Bob -- was it Bob 

14 Burns?

15 MR. MACIEVIC: Bob Burns and Don 

16 Stewart.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: It sounds like he 

18 was the source of that information. I think 

19 the only issue there would be simply to make 

20 sure that that wasn't along with the --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Where you would 
270 

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1 use that sort of coworker approach, right, 

2 right.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, yes.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Assuming the 

5 coworker --

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Right, 

7 right. That would just be another reflection 

8 of additional source involved with that.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. 

10 Okay. Is there anything else for today? 

11 Anyone? I will try to turn these action items 

12 around fairly quickly because I don't want to 

13 lose track of my train of thought --

14 DR. NETON: It's happened before.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It has happened 

16 many times, yes. But I will try to send these 

17 around and first probably to NIOSH. Greg, I 

18 guess you would be the point of contact and 

19 Joe for SC&A and Ted, you and probably, Fran, 

20 because I want to make sure I captured your 

21 issues as well. And then I'll circulate them 
271 

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1 around to everyone after that.

2 I think that's it unless anybody 

3 else has anything for the record.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the only 

5 thing I had I would say for the record is 

6 Andrew had a question about our report. And I 

7 just want to verify it's in the Privacy Act. 

8 We do. And subject to that being completed, 

9 it would be presumably available.

10 MR. KATZ: To the public.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: To the public, 

12 right.

13 MR. MACIEVIC: I have a question 

14 for you, Mark. If this is the short meeting, 

15 what is the long one?

16 (Laughter.)

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The short one? 

18 Relatively short. Oh, yes.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Two days for 

20 Wanda's meetings. They run until 5:00.

21 PARTICIPANT: Yes. They go to 
272 

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1 5:00 and 5:00 and beyond.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Wanda never 

3 lets you out by 3:00. I know that. Thank 

4 you.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. When I say, 

6 "5:00," I mean 5:00.

7 DR. NETON: I hope you're feeling 

8 better.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Wanda, you're 

10 the Bionic Woman. I know that.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Hey, I'll have all 

12 these new knees to go off when I see you next. 

13 Thanks.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I think 

15 we're ready to adjourn. Thanks everyone. And 

16 have a good weekend.

17 MR. KATZ: Take care, everyone on 

18 the phone. And thank you.

19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

20 matter was concluded at 2:46 p.m.) 

21 
273 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8