THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


THIRTY-SIXTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically, on March 14, 


2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S
 

March 14, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 


SEC RULE REWRITE 12 


BOARD CORRESPONDENCE, AGENDA FOR APRIL MEETING, 


REPORT OF WORKING GROUP: INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION 


REPORT OF WORKING GROUP: Y-12 SITE PROFILE 71 


REPORT OF WORKING GROUP: ROCKY FLATS SITE PROFILE 116 


PROGRESS REPORT SC&A SEC TASK 175 


FUTURE BOARD MEETINGS AND WORKING GROUP SCHEDULE 224 


REVIEW 237 

NIOSH UPDATE BETHLEHEM STEEL 247 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 261 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

4

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H. 


Director 


The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental 


Medicine 


Professor of Medicine 


Nashville, Tennessee 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 

 

5 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


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


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


STAFF
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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PARTICIPANTS
 

BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


DEMAIORI, TONY, ROCKY FLATS 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS 


FALK, ROGER, ROCKY FLATS 


HILLER, DAVID, SEN. SALAZAR 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KATZ, TED, NIOSH 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LANGSTED, JIM 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SUNDIN, DAVID, NIOSH 


THOMPSON, JENNIFER, ROCKY FLATS 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(10:00 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Lew, do you want to take the roll 


call? 


DR. WADE: Yeah, please, if I could ask 


Board members to identify themselves. 


DR. LOCKEY: James Lockey. 


MR. PRESLEY: It’s Bob Presley. 


DR. DeHART: DeHart. 


DR. ROESSLER: Roessler. 


 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson. 


MR. CLAWSON: Brad Clawson. 


 DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius. 


 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn. 


MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon. 


DR. ZIEMER: Ziemer. I think we have a 


quorum. 


DR. WADE: We certainly have a quorum. Why 


don’t we just run through? Again Leon I said 


will not be with us. Poston will not be with 


us. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Okay then let me officially 


call the meeting to order. This is officially 


meeting 36 of the Advisory Board on Radiation 


and Worker Health. I should pause and make 


sure that Ray Green is ready to proceed. Ray? 


COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir, we’re good. 


DR. ZIEMER: So the meeting is called to 


order. I want to again welcome everybody and 


make sure everybody has a copy of the agenda 


that was distributed. The agenda has in it a 


lunch break at 12:15, and if necessary, we’re 


scheduled on this call to go through four 


o’clock. We don’t, we’re not required to, but 


we are able to if so required. 


Lew, I want to give you an opportunity 


to make some preliminary remarks as well. 


DR. WADE: Well, thank you, Paul, and thank 


you all for again the considerable time and 


effort you expend in support of the Board. I 


really can’t thank you enough and for the 


professionalism that you bring. I’m thrilled 


today that we have two of our new members with 


us and duly seated. Brad Clawson and Dr. 


Lockey have gone through all of the hoops that 


I’ve been told they need to go through, and 

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they are formally with us now, and we welcome 


their energy and their experience. 


And by everything I’ve seen to this 


point I think the Board will certainly be made 


better by their efforts. They’ve had waivers 


prepared. They’ve gone through that process. 


Those waivers will be posted. I thought I 


would just take a brief moment and for 


everyone let the world know of the conflicts 


as they’ve been identified in the waiver 


letters for these individuals. 


For Bradley Clawson the conflicts are 


the Idaho National Laboratory, any claims 


filed by PACE, PACE USW Atomic Energy Workers’ 


Council, for which he serves as secretary-


treasurer, and any claims filed by PACE USW 


Local 652, Idaho Falls, Idaho for which he 


serves as area representative and a trustee. 


Conflicts for Dr. Lockey are Fernald due to 


his work on the Fernald Settlement Fund Expert 


Panel and Portsmouth due to his performance of 


independent medical evaluation of workers from 


the gaseous diffusion plant in Portsmouth, 


Ohio. 


So I think just so everyone is aware 

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of those conflicts, they really won’t enter 


into our discussions today. But I think for 


purposes of transparency I wanted to get that 


on the record. 


Today we will be dealing with issues 


related to the Y-12 site profile, the Rocky 


Flats site profile, the Bethlehem Steel site 


profile, and as you recall, if an individual 


is conflicted when we deal with a site 


profile, the Board members who have conflicts 


may participate in the discussion at the table 


but cannot make motions or vote on motions. 


The conflicts as they’re currently 


recorded for Y-12 are Dr. DeHart, Robert 


Presley, Dr. Ziemer, Mark Griffon only where 


actions are filed by the Atomic Trades and 


Labor Council. We have no conflicts recorded 


for Rocky Flats or Bethlehem Steel. 


I don’t imagine the Board will be 


doing any formal business on SEC petitions on 


this call. Just as a reminder, when we do 


formal work on SEC petition, Board members who 


have a conflict may not participate at the 


table in those discussions. They must step 


away. They may contribute as site experts 

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during public comment. 


So just again to set the record 


straight, I welcome the two new members who 


are with us and certainly look forward to 


their contribution. 


Thank you, Paul. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lew. 


And I think probably for Ray Green’s 


official record, we probably in addition to 


Board members, need to identify the various 


support staff who are present on the call. So 


I wonder if we should go ahead and do that 


starting with NIOSH. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade with NIOSH in 


Washington, D.C. 


 DR. NETON: Jim Neton with NIOSH in 


Cincinnati. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford, NIOSH 


Cincinnati. 


MR. SUNDIN: Dave Sundin, NIOSH Cincinnati. 


MR. KATZ: Ted Katz in Atlanta. 


MS. SHIELDS: LaShawn Shields, Atlanta. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz Homoki-Titus with 


Health and Human Services in D.C. 


MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell with Health and 

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Human Services in D.C. 


MR. BROEHM: Jason Broehm in the CDC 


Washington office. 


DR. ZIEMER: Any other CDC/NIOSH/HHS people? 


(no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: Department of Labor? 


MR. KOTSCH: This is Jeff Kotsch here with 


the Department of Labor. 


DR. ZIEMER: Any other Labor? 


(no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: Is any other federal staff 


aboard the call? 


(no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: That’s all we need to identify 


is it not, Lew? 


DR. WADE: Yes, I mean we can, if you want 


to, have other people identify themselves as 


they wish. That’d be fine as well. 


MR. BROEHM: This is Jason. I understand 


that some congressional staff may be joining 


for discrete agenda items such as Rocky Flats 


and Bethlehem Steel. You may have people join 


the call later. 


SEC RULE REWRITE
 

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

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first item then after the introductory 


materials is SEC rule rewrite. You may recall 


at our last meeting we had the materials that 


constitute the interim rule. We had a 


discussion and actually, we identified at our 


meeting a number of items that could be of 


concern. And we asked Dr. Melius to draft 


some proposed comments based on those items. 


He has done so, and that draft, which is a 


two-page document, was distributed, I believe, 


on the ninth. 


I want to make sure everybody has a 


copy of Dr. Melius’ draft. Is there anyone on 


board that does not have a copy of that? It’s 


called “Draft Comments on Proposed Amendments 


to 42 CFR Part 83 Special Exposure Cohort 


Rule”. And I would suggest that you write on 


the top of your sheet that it’s a draft and 


that the date of that is 3/9/06, perhaps 


distinguish it from any later versions. 


DR. WADE: And just to complete the record, 


if you recall the comment period was going to 


close before this call and a 30-day extension 


was granted. 


Ted, when does the comment period 

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close now with the 30-day extension in effect? 


MR. KATZ: I’m sorry, Lew, I don’t have that 


in front of me. I’m not sure what the date 


is. 


DR. WADE: Okay, Liz, do you have that? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I don’t have it in front 


of me, but you guys go ahead and start talking 


and I’ll pull it out. 


DR. MELIUS: I think it’s approximately one 


week from now. 


DR. ZIEMER: I was thinking it was the 21st
 

of March was what I have on my calendar. 


DR. WADE: Right, I just want to get -- Liz 


will give us the official date but I think --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, roughly a week from now 


but we’ll get the official date. 


So I assume by the silence that 


everyone has a copy. No one has indicated 


they did not. Jim, do you want to make any 


preliminary statements on the materials before 


we go into it, sort of work through it 


paragraph by paragraph? 


DR. MELIUS: No, only that what I drafted 


was based on some of our discussions at the 


last meeting including some discussions with 

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Board members sort of after the meeting or 


during the meeting. I’m sure it was all 


formal discussion. So what I tried to do was 


to take some of the comments that we discussed 


and summarize them into a letter or the format 


of a letter that would go from the Advisory 


Board to NIOSH’s formal comments. And I also 


included in there the quote from the 


Conference Report simply because that sort of 


was what NIOSH was responding to in drafting 


their interim final regulation. 


DR. ZIEMER: I wonder on the Conference 


Report if it would be helpful if we could put 


a reference in here, the date or the location 


of the quote. 


DR. MELIUS: I can come up with that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Or maybe NIOSH staff can. I 


was a little puzzled by some of the wording in 


there. I know you were quoting directly, but 


it refers to the President receiving a 


recommendation from the Advisory Board. 


DR. MELIUS: That’s because that’s what the 

law says. 

DR. ZIEMER: The original law says that, 

yeah. 
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DR. MELIUS: It’s by, and somebody, Liz or 


somebody, could maybe help me here, but it’s 


by an executive order from the President that 


designates that power to the Secretary of 


Health and Human Services. So when they amend 


the law, they refer to the, or they comment on 


the law or they refer to the President even 


though, in effect, it’s the Secretary of 


Health and Human Services that, so when NIOSH 


writes the regulation, they essentially 


utilize the federal executive order to --


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah, I understand that, 


but I’m concerned that this comment might give 


rise to some confusion if we don’t link it 


back to this was not a Conference Report that 


was related to the, to this particular 


revision. This was the original one was it 


not? 


DR. MELIUS: Oh, no, no, this relates to 


this particular revision. 


DR. ZIEMER: But they are quoting the 


conference, the original law I believe. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but when Congress says 


anything that references the law, they always 


go back to the law, not the executive order 

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because the executive order can change. 


DR. ZIEMER: Anyway, I’m suggesting we put 


the reference in there so it’s very clear --


DR. MELIUS: I agree. I actually think in 


the first paragraph the last sentence there, 


it would be in parentheses. I can put in 


something to that effect, that the Secretary 


is the President’s designee for that 


particular task. 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I found that 


confusing also if for no other reason than the 


fact that I didn’t have the Conference Report 


per se in front of me and had no indication 


where to find it. I only had the Department 


of Health and Human Services pages from the 


Federal Register. 


DR. ZIEMER: And of course, the reason for 


referencing the Conference Report is the time 


periods. It’s not this particular issue, but 


I was concerned that this could introduce some 


confusion back into the system. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Dr. Ziemer? 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I just wanted to let you 


know that I’ve got the Federal Register notice 

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in front of me and the deadline is March 23rd , 


2000 and --


DR. ZIEMER: Twenty-third. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Twenty-third. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


Well, let’s, we’ll get some clarity 


on, or add a reference for that that will help 


clarify that issue. If there’s no objection, 


we’ll consider that an acceptable change. 


Let’s look into the specific comments 


now. There are three of them. 


MS. MUNN: Before we go to that, Paul, there 


is one typo, I think, an omission in the fifth 


line of that Conference Report, states, there 


in the first line. It’s the first word in 


that line is documentation. Just during the 


180, I believe the word day was omitted there. 


DR. ZIEMER: The word day should be in 


there, yes. Thanks, Wanda. 


Now, item one, again, I’m going to 


suggest that we reference each item to a 


specific part now of the proposal. Jim, for 


example, this seven-day thing shows up --


well, if you look at the materials we had at 


the last meeting, which is the Federal 

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Register material, it refers to page 7-5-9-5-3 


of the Federal Register, and it’s item C. 


Again, I’m just suggesting that on each of 


these items we refer to the specific part of 


the proposal just for ease of cross-


referencing. Is that agreeable? 


DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: So we would say something like 


with regard to the requirement of Item C, page 


7-5-9-5-3 of the Federal Register notice, we 


do not believe and so on. 


DR. MELIUS: I think maybe a better way of 


doing that or at least a shorter way would be, 


rather than have to go back to the Federal 


Register is refer to Section 83-11 --


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, yeah, it’s Section 83-11, 


Item C. Yeah, that will do it very well, 


thanks. 


Is that agreeable with everyone? I 


think again that helps clarify what it is 


we’re commenting on. 


MS. MUNN: Eighty-three eleven is noted in 


that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but I think if we put a 

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bullet up front to say it’s 83-11c of the, 


it’s a little bit more clear. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, now I guess on this item 


one of the issues now is going to be the 


seven-day versus the 30-day issue and maybe 


have a little debate on that if there is any. 


And this is one of the items we talked about 


at the last Board meeting, the issue of the 


seven days. Is that enough time? I think 


NIOSH was saying, well, in reality they are 


working with the folks so they sort of know it 


in advance, but I guess our concern was do we 


always, is there a guarantee that that’s 


always the case. And should we allow, even 


though we want to keep the process 


streamlined, should we allow more time? And 


if we do what should it be? Is it as much as 


30 days? 


DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. I agree 


with Melius. I don’t think seven days is 


adequate. I think 30 days is an adequate 


period of time. That’s what my opinion would 


be. 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. It’s fairly 


obvious to me that whoever dreamed up seven 

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days clearly had never been through this 


process so has no real feel for the number of 


individuals that are involved, the number of 


agencies that are involved and the steps that 


have to be taken. Thirty days seems logical 


to me. 


DR. DeHART: This is Roy. As I remember in 


the meeting there was some concern on the part 


of NIOSH as to their being able to be timely 


in the completion of their work. Could 


somebody from NIOSH comment on what the impact 


of the seven days would be versus the 30 days? 


DR. ZIEMER: And also whether or not there’s 


a separate clock running. Is the 180-day 


clock still running here? 


DR. WADE: Could I ask Ted to speak to that 


issue? 


 (no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: Or is Ted still here? Or Liz? 


MR. KATZ: Can you hear me? 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, now we can. 


MR. KATZ: This is Ted. The phone was on 


mute. So the consequence on the other side of 


it is that the 30 days, whatever it is, seven 


days, 30 days, that’s time elapsing against 

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the 180 days. If the review of the 


disqualification determines that it is, in 


fact, qualified. So that just shortens the 


180-day period for completing the evaluation. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, well, you may recall we 


had a discussion about that as well because it 


was a little confusing, the fact that if it 


wasn’t originally qualified and then becomes 


qualified, then the qualification date in its 


essence seems to be moved back. So the 180 


days is already going even though the 


determination that it was qualified came sort 


of later. 


 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Unintelligible). 


DR. ZIEMER: Is somebody commenting? Ted, 


were you responding or --


MR. KATZ: No, no, that was someone else. 


DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. Is the 180 


days, I mean, if this petition disqualified 


then my assumption is the 180 days has already 


expired. Is that correct? 


MR. KATZ: No, the 180 days doesn’t begin 


until a petition qualifies. But this is a 


situation where NIOSH OCAS has in effect said 


we don’t think this petition qualifies. Then 

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it goes for review at NIOSH if the petitioner 


wishes, a review of that proposed decision. 


Now if that review decides, in fact, it should 


have qualified, then that clock would have 


been running at the point NIOSH said it didn’t 


qualify. So I understand that’s confusing. 


I’m just trying to explain --


DR. ZIEMER: That was the issue before so 


that if now after 30 days it’s designated as 


qualified, what they’re saying in essence was 


that that qualification actually occurred 30 


days earlier. So they’ve already lost 30 days 

on the 180. 

DR. LOCKEY: Can that be changed? 

MS. MUNN: Can that be one of our comments 


that the clock should start over again? 


DR. LOCKEY: That’s what I would say. It’s 


not fair to NIOSH. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Let me 


ask a question. So is NIOSH saying that the 


qualification process takes place within the 


180 days or does not? 


DR. MELIUS: Does not. This is Jim Melius. 


Part of this is confusing because if you look 


at the Conference Report language, they 

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certainly say, I mean the sentence there says 


with 180 days of receipt of a petition, and 


NIOSH has somehow interpreted that as 180 days 


of qualification, after qualification as 


opposed to receipt, which adds to the 


confusion here for our part in terms of trying 


to, you know, decide what’s reasonable in 


terms of response. 


I just think it’s sort of 


fundamentally a problem that you give a 


petitioner -- first of all, one comment, this 


appeal, this disqualification and appeal thing 


is a first, so we don’t have any experience 


with what’s involved here. Secondly, to give 


a petitioner seven days to respond and gather 


additional technical information when NIOSH 


has rejected their petition is really not fair 


to the petitioner. 


I mean, it’s just not possible, I 


think, or feasible to do that. It’s not just 


gathering an extra signature or a simple 


document. It would be gathering, I think, a 


significant amount of more information and 


even that could even be hard within 30 days 


let alone within seven. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Maybe our best bet here for the 


moment is to try to keep the two issues 


separate, the 30 days and the 180, because we 


may have to deal with the 180 anyway in the 


next item. Let me ask if there’s any other 


comments pro or con on the seven days versus 


30 or any other number. 


DR. DeHART: This is Roy. I certainly agree 


with the 30 days. My only concern for raising 


the question that I did is what is the impact. 


And I think we’re going to be talking about 


that in number two. 


DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. Are we 


going to go back and look at what Jim just 


said about, and others just said about the 


confusion about when the 180 clock starts to 


run? Are we going to define that in a more 


appropriate manner? 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, this second item here 


deals with that 180 days so it certainly can 


be inserted there in some way if necessary. 


There’s a suggestion that the 180 time period 


be clarified anyway. 


Any other comments on the seven day 


period? 

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MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Ziemer, this is Brad 


Clawson. I feel that seven days is completely 


inadequate. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we’ve heard from a number 


of people that are supporting the 30-day 


recommendation. Are there any that believe 


that we should stick with the seven day? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Ziemer, this is Larry 


Elliott. I just want to offer a point of 


clarification. The seven day requirement of a 


petitioner is to send us a letter. It is not 


a requirement to produce more information. It 


is to send us a letter saying they contest or 


they want to appeal the decision that has been 


made that a submittal has been disqualified as 


a petition. So all we’re looking for is that 


letter. 


DR. ZIEMER: Saying that they are appealing 


it but not necessarily requiring that they 


have the material needed to support the appeal 


at that point? 


MR. SUNDIN: This is Dave Sundin speaking 


now. Well, as a matter of fact they are not 


supposed to provide additional substantive 


material at that point. If they do that, then 

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it becomes a modification to their petition 


rather than an appeal. An appeal is supposed 


to just be about the process that was used. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I guess I 


would just want to comment that even on an 


individual dose reconstruction case, the 


individual has more than seven days, I 


believe, to sign and fill out the OCAS 1 Form 


or to, if they’re denied through DOL, to 


appeal that process, don’t they? So it just 


seems a little illogical to me that given an 


SEC involves so many different people and so 


many different potential issues, you know, I 


think seven days is just too short. You know, 


I agree with the rest of the committee that it 


should be the 30 days. 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott again. 


And Mike, I appreciate your comment. However, 


I don’t see any correlation between the dose 


reconstruction process and experience that a 


claimant goes through as compared to the SEC 


petition process that a petitioner goes 


through. I think they’re distinctly different 


systems and processes. And again all we’re 


asking here for on this seven-day clock is an 

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answer from the claimant as to whether or not 


they are contesting a decision that their 


submittal does not meet the criteria for a 


petition. 


DR. ZIEMER: Larry, there is one phrase in 


the wording that says that as part of that 


they must specify why the proposed finding 


should be reversed based on petition 


requirements and on the information that they 


have already submitted which sounds like they, 


to some extent although you’re not allowing 


them to submit new information at this point, 


that they have to have some sort of an 


analysis defending the reason for the appeal. 


Is that, am I understanding that correctly? 


MR. ELLIOTT: I’ll let Dave Sundin respond 


to that. 


MR. SUNDIN: I may not be the best, Liz or 


Ted, but I think we’re asking that they point 


out what aspect of our procedures they believe 


we did not follow. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. I would like to 


hear Jim Melius’ comments as to whether he 


understood the procedure as Larry has 


described it when he put this together. 

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DR. MELIUS: And the answer -- this is Jim 


Melius. The answer is yes, and I think it 


just, you know, these petitions some of them 


have included hundreds of pages of 


documentation. There’s more that’s uncovered 


and for a petitioner to decide what options 


they have takes some time. Our procedures are 


technically complex and a bit difficult, and I 


think they need more time to make up their 


minds which route to take. And I think 30 


days is appropriate. That’s what we had 


decided initially when we passed these 


regulations or commented on the initial 


regulations what NIOSH had in their initial 


regulation. 


DR. DeHART: This is Roy. The petitioner is 


the only one who’s going to be disadvantaged 


by the 30 days. We are trying to do a system 


that will be effective and efficient, and if 


the petitioner wants to raise an issue or a 


question it only delays a final decision which 


only impacts that petitioner or the 


petitioners. 


DR. ZIEMER: They can certainly submit 


sooner if they wish to. 

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DR. DeHART: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments on this 

issue? 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I’m not at all 


sure, I thought I understood what I was doing 


when we started this and now I’m confused. 


I’m looking back at the Federal Register
 

notice itself, sub-part C, that says revised 


paragraph 83-11 to read as follows: “What 


happens to petition submissions that do not 


satisfy all relevant requirements? NIOSH will 


notify the petitioners and any requirement 


that’s not met with the submission, assist the 


petitioners with guidance in developing 


relevant information and provide 30 calendar 


days for the petitioner to revise the 


submission accordingly. After 30 calendar 


days from the date of notification, NIOSH will 


notify any petitioner if his submission 


remains unsatisfactory of the proposed 


findings that the submission fails to meet the 


specified requirements and the basis for this 


finding.” 


Then the next section says, “A 


petitioner may request in writing a review of 

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a proposed finding within seven calendar days 


of notification under Paragraph B. 


Petitioners must specify why the proposed 


finding should be reversed based on the 


petition requirements and on information that 


the petitioners had already submitted.” 


So this is not talking about new 


information. 


DR. ZIEMER: No, that’s correct. That’s 


what Larry was pointing out. 


DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius, they essentially 


have a choice of either seeing if they can 


gather new information to satisfy NIOSH’s 


concerns or they have a choice, or they can 


basically internally appeal, you know, say 


that NIOSH is wrong, that they provided 


adequate information. They believe NIOSH 


should consider that information. It should 


be adequate. 


And so I think that’s why they need 


longer than seven days. It’s not simply just 


sending a letter. There’s a decision has to 


be made, you know, should they get other 


affidavits from other people? Is there other 


information that they would be able to seek 

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out which NIOSH would allow to consider. Or 


the corollary, if I understand the process, is 


if they don’t provide new information, then 


NIOSH is not going to reconsider their 


petition unless they follow this procedure. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Melius, this is Larry 


Elliott again. Wouldn’t that, your statement 


that you just made there, wouldn’t that go 


then to the 30 days to develop the basis for 


the petition to meet the criteria to support 


the petition? Wouldn’t it go to the 30 day 


time frame rather than the seven day time 


frame to make a decision on whether to contest 


the decision of disqualification? 


DR. MELIUS: I would argue they need 30 days 


for both. I mean, there’s some, they need to 


decide which route to take. 


DR. ZIEMER: Because one of their options 


is, in fact, to submit new material. It’s 


true that it’s then regarded as a what, a new 


petition or something like that, but 


nonetheless that is the, that is one of the 


routes so they do have to make that decision. 


MS. MUNN: And up front NIOSH provides them 


with 30 days in which to do that. I had 

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frankly neglected that 30 days up front when I 


was being concerned about the seven day time 


period. 


DR. ZIEMER: That’s at the front end of the 


process. 


MS. MUNN: Right, NIOSH has already worked 


with the petitioner for 30 days with respect 


to the content of the petition as to whether 


or not it’s adequate. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. It still 


seems to me that even if a petitioner’s not 


submitting additional information, if they 


want to go back through and, as we’ve seen 


some of these petitions are very, very 


lengthy, if they want to go back through and 


try to better define the material that was 


included in the first place to specify why the 


finding should be reversed, that in itself is 


going to take a good amount of time. And it’s 


just between that and everything else, I just, 


seven days just doesn’t seem adequate to me. 


DR. DeHART: This is Roy. More than likely 


there’s going to be a challenge to a ruling or 


determination on the part of NIOSH. It could 


be the same data, but it could be a different 

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expert. And that means defining that expert, 


getting the documentation as it applies to 


what has already been submitted even without 


additional information. And that’s taking 


time. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any further comments on 


this? It appears that from what I’m hearing 


is that there’s pretty strong support for 


recommending the 30 days versus the seven. 


And that being the case I think for the moment 


I will interpret that as a consensus on that 


item. Let’s move on to item two, and then 


we’ll come back and talk about approving the 


whole document with any changes. 


The next item, let’s see, is the 180 


day issue. Now the 180 day is mentioned in 


the, that’s actually a statutory requirement. 


I think your point here, Jim, in the fact does 


not mention in the rule is simply it is a 


requirement and why isn’t it mentioned? 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, there are two points to 


number two. One is --


DR. ZIEMER: I mean, you don’t have to state 

it as a rule. It’s already a statutory 

requirement. 
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MS. MUNN: That’s true. 


DR. MELIUS: The 30 days is a requirement, 


too, as I understand it, and that’s in the 


rules. Why isn’t the 180 days? To me it’s 


confusing having to refer back to the preamble 


to, you know, if you’re trying to reference 


this. And then I think the second comment 


built in there is let’s sort of clarify what’s 


been, you know, at one point the language says 


for a petition submitted suddenly a petition 


isn’t submitted unless it’s, or I should say 


when it’s, until NIOSH has qualified it and 


confusion there. 


And some of this I think is addressed 


in number three, too, that I think what we’re 


really looking for, or at least what I would 


recommend we look for, is some sort of overall 


guidance for the petitioners. What’s the 


process going to be? How long are different 


steps going to take? 


Congress has specified some of those, 


but there ought to be some sort of overall, I 


think, guidance communications for the 


petitioners to understand the process as it 


goes along. What are their options at each 

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step? Roughly how long is it going to take 


for different parts of these steps. Some of 


them are going to be hard to specify, but they 


ought to have at least some idea of what’s 


going to happen, what to expect. 


DR. ZIEMER: In that connection also if I 


could raise again the original point about 


when a petition becomes qualified, if after an 


appeal whether it’s the seven day or a 30 day, 


it then becomes qualified, is there an actual 


legal requirement that says that was 


interpreted wrong at the front end; it should 


have been qualified and the clock really is 


running? Or can you legally say once it’s 


declared qualified the clock starts running on 


the 180? I don’t know if legal counsel can 


speak to that or not. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I’m not sure I can speak 


to that right now. 


DR. ZIEMER: I mean it currently is that 


just an interpretation of that particular rule 


or is there some sort of precedent that --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: There’s no precedent. 


What it is is interpretation of 180 day 


requirement. 

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DR. WADE: We’re hearing elevator music or 


something like that. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I think somebody put us 


on hold. 


DR. WADE: Those of you who are still with 


us, don’t put us on hold. I don’t know how we 


solve this problem. Let’s try and work and 


see how we do. 


DR. ZIEMER: While we’re on that paragraph 


on the second page, one, two, three, the fifth 


line, there’s a typo there. I think it should 


say we note that. But let’s get specific 


comments now on this issue. So one point, 


Jim, that you’re suggesting is that there be a 


specific mention in the rule of the 180 days, 


and then the clarification of that 180 days is 


sequenced in terms of the various pieces of 


activity. 


DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I’m sorry, Dr. Ziemer, 


there sounds like there’s some sort of 


conversation going on in the background. If 


the people who are not speaking could stop 


speaking or put it on mute, we’re just having 


a hard time hearing. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Part of that is that music. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Yeah, part of it’s the 


music, but it’s also the conversation. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. In order for 


us to succeed at this, it’s going to take 


discipline on everybody’s part so please, if 


you’re hooked up to this call, make sure 


you’re on mute if you’re having any 


discussions. And someone is coming in and out 


putting us on hold and when you do that 


there’s music playing. And that makes it very 


difficult for us to conduct our business. 


 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you hear this? 


DR. WADE: I can hear that, yes. 


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you hear this? 

DR. WADE: Yes. 

 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Oh my god, we are so 

sorry. 

DR. WADE: It’s unacceptable behavior. You 


really need to stop it, please. 


 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Twenty lashes to us. 


We will be quiet. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other comments on 


this? 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda again. Perhaps 

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just a reference to the original law that 


National Defense Authorization Act 1-0-8-3-30 


and 3-75 that requires the 180 days would be 


in order. It just, my first thought when I 


saw number two was that the Federal Register
 

notice had gone to, I thought, very specific 


clarification with respect to the fact that 


180 day reference is law. 


And I understand Jim’s point that it 


may be a bit confusing for the person who’s 


reading only this. But the law is referenced, 


and since it’s referenced I guess the wording 


perhaps could be very brief with respect to 


that reference just assuring that it is 


referenced. I guess I’m concerned about the 


confusion that arises out of trying to de-


confuse already confusing language. 


It’s very difficult, I think, without 


offering up specific language and an 


indication of where it should go to leave the 


rule making in the hands of folks who don’t 


perhaps understand why we have, where we think 


it ought to go. I guess that’s what it really 


boils down to. Can we be more specific than 


where we feel and what we feel should be added 

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to clarify whichever of these paragraphs is 


most murky for us? 


DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius, I mean I was 


frankly trying to avoid getting into the realm 


of legal interpretation of what language may, 


you know, congressional language may mean and 


how it’s interpreted by the Department and 


rather go back and say let’s look, the intent 


is to have this be a timely process that to 


the extent possible they ought to specify all 


the steps in the process. Some they have put 


time requirements on. Some that may take some 


time they have not. But at least in those 


where there are not specific requirements, 


let’s at least have a way of informing the 


petitioners, those involved in the process, of 


what are reasonable periods of time for how 


these steps, how long these steps will take. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, Jim, I guess probably one 


of my problems is that I didn’t have the 


Conference Report, was not aware that the 


Conference Report should be a part of our 


deliberations here. And that sort of --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I don’t know that it 


necessarily should be. It does refer to the 

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180 days, but in, it probably would be 


helpful, maybe even under the definition 


section, they talked about computation of time 


periods and so on. It may be that there could 


be a clarification in there of when the 180 


days begins and what counts against it in 


terms of these other activities. I think in 


general that’s the kind of thing you’re 


getting at, Jim, right? Put something in the 


rule that specifically pulls the 180 days in 


there and then relates it to these other 


activities. 


DR. MELIUS: Correct, and --


DR. ZIEMER: And we shouldn’t try to 


wordsmith how that’s done. 


MS. MUNN: No, I understand that. 


DR. MELIUS: I think we’re just asking NIOSH 


to be more specific. Get them to meet the 


statutory requirements. The Conference Report 


states some of the intentions and rationale 


for that. That needs to be addressed. And 


then also other steps in the process that are 


not addressed in the Conference Report or in 


the statute that still would be good to 


communicate to the petitioner so all of us 

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involved in this process sort of understand 


what the steps are and what are the time 


periods that might be expected for these 


various steps. 


MS. MUNN: So I guess then the question is 


not necessarily to make the final rule 


consistent with the Conference Report. It’s 


just to clarify the time periods in the final 


rule. 


DR. MELIUS: Certainly I would say maybe the 


language should be, make it consistent with 


the intent of the Board or, personally, I 


don’t think that the Conference Report should 


be ignored, but some of the technical and 


legal issues here are complicated. And I’m 


not sure that we’re qualified nor do we want 


to necessarily try to rewrite the entire rule. 


MS. MUNN: No, I certainly wouldn’t want to. 


DR. MELIUS: I was trying to, you know, 


there was some language that would just show 


what our general recommendation is without 


trying to write more specifics but pointing 


out some of the issues that, for example, the 


Conference Report certainly implied that the 


180 days was meant to start when the petition 

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was submitted. 


Now and then another point, the end of 


the process, NIOSH has its evaluation report. 


Well, an evaluation report by itself isn’t 


necessarily very helpful or doesn’t move the 


process unless there’s also, it’s really the 


recommendation based on the evaluation report 


that moves the process along. 


MS. MUNN: So that last sentence --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, there’s a fairly good 


discussion in the preamble of the 180-day 


issue and the 30-day deadlines and so on. 


MS. MUNN: Yes, there is. 


DR. ZIEMER: So it probably in a sense is a 


question of how much of that is simply to be 


descriptive material in the preamble versus 


specific rules. Some of these are, some of 


these are very specific, you know, the seven 


day or 30 day, whichever it will be, will 


become a very specific requirement. But as 


you look back in the preamble, it looks like 


there’s a nice effort to describe this 180 day 


period and the things that go on. 


But maybe there needs to be some 


transfer of some of that material into the 

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rule itself, but I’m not sure which, you know, 


you want to keep it sufficiently flexible. I 


mean, operationally now with the 180-day clock 


isn’t starting at the time that the petition 


is submitted, is it? 


DR. MELIUS: No, it --


DR. ZIEMER: It’s really started when it’s 


qualified, I believe. 


DR. MELIUS: Right, which --


MS. MUNN: That’s what I thought. 


DR. MELIUS: -- pointed out some of the 


language in the Conference Report. The 


language at the other end just says that 


evaluations were submitted. It does not talk 


about a recommendation coming from that. And 


again I think what we have, there is some 


explanatory language in the preamble. 


What we would like to see is some of 


that language get put out in terms of some 


overall guidance or communication for the 


petitioners. So it would cover the whole 


process rather than try to say well, you go to 


the preamble, and you’ll get this information. 


You go to the rule, you get this deadline. 


You know, if I were a petitioner, I would be 

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just very confused by what was meant; what was 


expected; what was required. 


MS. MUNN: May I suggest that perhaps the 


last sentence, if we’re going to retain this 


section two of our recommendation, that 


perhaps the last sentence should read 


something like appropriate changes should be 


made within the rule to address these problems 


and clarify timeline requirements in the final 


rule. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I kind of 


hear what Wanda’s saying. I think our 


comments should be probably consistent with 


the language of the Congressional Conference 


Report language. And so maybe we could, you 


know, since most of us don’t have it in front 


of us, I’ve got so many windows up on my 


computer right now it would be hard to do, but 


I just don’t think, we always say that, you 


know, we’re wanting the intent of what 


Congress had in this law, and I don’t think it 


would be appropriate to just ignore the 


congressional report and what they put in 


there. You know, we can give our comments, 


but I think we ought to be consistent with 

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them. And I don’t think that ought to be 


incorporated into the interim final rules. 


DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments on this? 


DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. My comment 


is that, I think it sort of parallels what Jim 


Melius has said. It is confusing to us. I 


can’t imagine what it is to the petitioners. 


Somehow that has to be resolved. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right at the moment this 


recommendation is somewhat general. It simply 


points out that there is some additional 


clarity that perhaps could be brought to the 


rule itself based on whatever is already in 


the preamble, the requirements of the 


statutory law itself, and basically, simply 


calling for some clarification here without 


specifying how that should be done. So --

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Could I 

ask a question? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

MR. GIBSON: If the language is just left in 


the preamble, and maybe I’m asking for a legal 


determination on this, the preamble seems 


almost like an executive summary to the law 


and so if it’s not adopted into the law, does 

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that guarantee that it applies? 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, the 180 days is a 


statutory requirement, so that’s required in 


any event. I think the issue here, I believe, 


is to clarify for petitioners precisely when 


the clock starts. And some of this is done in 


the preamble and that’s probably appropriate. 


But it may be helpful in the rule itself to 


spell out exactly how that divided up. What’s 


going on during the 180 days. What’s NIOSH 


doing? What’s the Board doing? What 


deadlines did the petitioners have to meet? 


So I think what’s being asked for here is 


clarity in the rule. 


Is that a fair statement, Jim? 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, correct. 


DR. ZIEMER: Without specifying exactly how 


that’s done. I think we’re aware that the 


various pieces of it are there. They’re there 


either in the original statutory requirement. 


They are there in the Conference Report. They 


are there in the preamble, and pieces are 


there in the interim rule. So basically if 


there’s some way to clarify the rule itself so 


that everything comes together clearly. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Is that a fair statement? 


DR. MELIUS: Correct, that what we’re asking 


NIOSH to do is to the extent that, I guess 


it’s legally appropriate to clarify these in 


the rule and for parts that may not be 


appropriate to change in the rule to 


(unintelligible) explain in the preamble. But 


that there also, I think, should be some 


overall document that explains the process and 


the steps in the process and the approximate 


time periods that those steps are going to 


take. 


DR. ZIEMER: So with those comments, again, 


this, the second item is fairly general so I’m 


going to ask if there’s any major objections 


to it. 


MS. MUNN: No, I do think we need to follow 


what we’re requesting of others and probably 


tighten it up a little bit and be fairly 


specific (unintelligible) being as general as 


possible. 


DR. ZIEMER: But is it just in the last 


sentence that the appropriate changes should 


be made within the rule --


MS. MUNN: Yes, within the rule. 

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DR. ZIEMER: -- within the rule to address 


these --


MS. MUNN: To address or to clarify these 


problems. 


DR. ZIEMER: To clarify. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I agree 


with that because I hate to six months down 


the road we’re going to be coming back doing 


the same thing all over again if we don’t get 


it right this time. 


DR. ZIEMER: The comment here, then, the 


change Wanda suggested is that we say 


appropriate changes. And this is really the 


recommendation. Appropriate changes should be 


made within the rule to clarify these problems 


with the IFR and to make the final rule 


consistent with the Conference Report. Is 


that correct? 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I don’t know whether we 


want to actually request -- my personal 


preference would be to include a request for a 


specific timeline as to how these things 


should flow. But perhaps that’s asking for 


too much specificity. 


DR. ZIEMER: I think actually the words Jim 

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has in here earlier talk about the timeline 


and so on. Again, it’s general and it would 


be up to NIOSH’s discretion as to how they 


handled that. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. So are we 


-- trying to get this kind of straightened out 


here in my head. Are we saying they’re going 


to remove the 180 days from the text of the 


rule --


MS. MUNN: No. 


MR. GIBSON: -- that we have in the preamble 


or are we going to -- in my opinion, we need 


it in the rule just like it was, you know, it 


would tend to be more clear to everyone 


involved that reads the rule. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, that was the sense of my 


suggestion. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, the point was that it’s 


currently not showing up in the rule itself. 


MR. GIBSON: Right. 


DR. ZIEMER: It shows up in the preamble but 


was not showing up in the rule itself. 


Okay, let’s take a look at the third 


item. Any comments on that? Actually, this 


is kind of supplements the previous item, does 

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it not, Jim? 


DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


MS. MUNN: And again supports the concept of 


a timeline. 


DR. MELIUS: I mean, I agree with Wanda on 


the need for a timeline. I’m just not sure 


that the rule making is the, may not be the 


appropriate place for sort of publishing that. 


It may be easier to do it in sort of a 


separate document that’s guidelines that 


incorporates what’s in the rule making. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. ZIEMER: I’m trying to get a feel for 


what we’re actually asking for here with 


respect to the interim rule. 


DR. MELIUS: I think what we’re saying, 


specifically saying is that NIOSH should 


supplement the rule making process with 


section of some, a document set of guidelines 


that would cover the, you know, explain the 


entire process. 


MS. MUNN: Perhaps we need to say it in just 


those words, Jim. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, the last sentence does 


say develop guidelines for the entire SEC 

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petition process including regular 


(unintelligible) covering at least portions 


required by the law. And by guidelines here 


you’re not talking about rule making, but a 


supplemental guideline here. 


MS. MUNN: Is that second paragraph 


considered a part of item three? 


DR. ZIEMER: Item three? 


MS. MUNN: I had thought that it was, I had 


thought that we were back in the letter again. 


DR. MELIUS: That’s part of three. 


DR. ZIEMER: Any comments on the third item? 


This does not require a specific change in the 


interim guidelines, does it? 


DR. MELIUS: No. 


MS. MUNN: I don’t see any indication here. 


DR. ZIEMER: A supplementary action perhaps. 


DR. MELIUS: Again, just background, I 


think, the intent of Congress, I think, in 


making the changes in the law and that is just 


to make this more timely. And I think if we 


cover the whole process, I think it, and 


explain the whole process, then, at least the 


petitioner will understand the steps that we 


take as part of the review and so forth, you 

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know, to keep it going in a timely fashion. 


Some of these steps it’s more, you know, 


there’s more uncertainty because of what’s 


involved, but at least there’d be, again, just 


a better understanding. And we would sort of 


understand what we’re trying to achieve with 


these types of recommended times. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, and that being the case I 


have a feeling that we should make a slight 


change in the introductory phrase to the three 


items. The introductory phrase says we have a 


number of questions and comments on the 


proposed amendments. I’m wondering if we 


might want to add this phrase to that, and 


their implementation. Because this third item 


really has to do with implementation of the 


amendments, I think. It’s not a comment on 


the amendment per se. Is that a friendly 


amendment in your mind? 


DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: It would say we have a number 


of questions and comments about the proposed 


amendments and their implementation. 


Actually, do we have any questions in here or 


are they all comments? 

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MR. GIBSON: Well, this is Mike Gibson. The 


-- let me try to find this Conference Report. 


DR. ZIEMER: I think these are all comments, 


Jim. Were there any questions in there per 


se? Did we ask any questions? 


DR. MELIUS: Actually, an earlier draft had 


a question in number two, but I changed it to 


a comment. 


DR. ZIEMER: So it should be we have a 


number of comments. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that’s fair. 


DR. ZIEMER: Make that change. 


Mike, I’m sorry. I interrupted you. 


MR. GIBSON: That’s okay. I was just, if I 


could ask Jim, I did finally find this part of 


this Conference Report, or one section of it 


under the SEC thing. It appears that it looks 


like they have, I think they reference maybe 


three time periods, 180 days and then the 30 


days a couple of times. So at least we should 


ask for those three time periods to be spelled 


out in the text. Is that one of the things 


you’re asking, Jim? 


DR. MELIUS: The 30 days already is, the 30 


day notification for action on the part of the 

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Secretary of HHS is already in the rule. 


That’s okay. The 180 days is in the preamble. 


The second page, NIOSH identify all 


deficiencies in the petition within the first 


30 days I don’t believe was directly 


addressed, and I guess we were asking them to 


clarify that. I wasn’t quite sure how that 


fit into this time frame. 


DR. ZIEMER: That answer your question, 

Mike? 

MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I believe so. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I want to ask or raise 

one other point here. Jim, according to my 


notes from the discussion we had at the Board 


meeting, we also had this issue of what 


constitutes a recommendation. It was the 


framework of whether or not the recommendation 


was we need more information and does the 


clock then start? Or do we need a specific 


recommendation, yea or nay from NIOSH, for the 


clock to start? Do you recall that 


discussion? 


DR. MELIUS: Correct, and I guess it’s 


really the clock to stop. It’s the end of the 


180, the 180 days stops when NIOSH does an 

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evaluation report. It’s not clear whether 


that includes a recommendation for, to accept 


or deny the special exposure cohort petition. 


So I think what we’re asking for is that to be 


clarified. I think that it’s --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, you didn’t mention that, 


the issue of what constitutes a recommendation 


here although we had that discussion. 


DR. MELIUS: It’s in part two for number 


two, the middle of that paragraph. It’s the 


top of page two. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, when you say “but not 


necessarily a recommendation”. 


DR. MELIUS: We did not specify, I did not 


specify what is a recommendation because it 


again it’s one of these things that it is 


confusing because we also have, and have 


already, sort of split up petitions. So is it 


a recommendation on one part of a petition or 


is it a recommendation on all parts and so 


forth. And again, I think it’s one of these 


areas where we’re overall trying to achieve 


reasonable, appropriate timeliness and to keep 


the process moving. 


And it may very well be that at the 

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evaluation stage we often will split, or when 


we’re evaluating what NIOSH’s report, we may 


want to approve one time period and not 


another or something like that. And so I 


guess I’d want to try to get in, trying to 


avoid having to get in a lot of specifics 


because it’s fairly complicated. I just think 


there needs to be some recognition that to 


keep the process moving than just having an 


evaluation to have a recommendation or a 


recommendation --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, what you say in the 


second line of the second page in the 


parenthetical statement, the period ends with 


the presentation of just the evaluation report 


but not necessarily a recommendation. 


DR. MELIUS: Right, that’s my understanding 


of what NIOSH’s current draft was, their 


current interim file. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, but just the evaluation 


report but not necessarily a recommendation. 


And how does that relate to the 180 days as 


mentioned in the statutory requirement? I 


know, Larry, can you help me out here? Larry 


Elliott, there’s a requirement for a 

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recommendation, but the statutory requirement 


does not necessarily spell out that the 


recommendation has to be kind of an up or 


down. I think you’ve interpreted it as it 


permits gathering more information or --


DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim Neton. Larry 


just stepped out of the room. 


DR. ZIEMER: Jim, can you clarify that 


point? 


DR. NETON: I’m not sure I can. I don’t 


know if Ted or Liz can help out with that. 


MS. MUNN: What would an evaluation report 


be if it does not include a recommendation? 


DR. ZIEMER: Say it again? 


MS. MUNN: I said what would an evaluation 


report be if it did not include a 


recommendation; what kind of an evaluation 


would we have? 


DR. WADE: Do we have Ted or Liz available 


to speak to that? 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I just 


stepped back in the room. 


DR. ZIEMER: Larry, we’re trying to get some 


clarification on the understanding of what 


constitutes a recommendation. I believe as 

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NIOSH has understood it, it’s not necessarily 


a recommendation that the petition is -– that 


you’re going to make a recommendation for a 


class or not a class be added, but the 


recommendation could also be that you need 


more information or something along that line. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Are you asking about --


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


MR. ELLIOTT: -- recommendation as it’s 


presented to us in the Defense Authorization 


Act? 


DR. ZIEMER: Or how you’re using it at 


least. 


MS. MUNN: And I’m asking whether an 


evaluation would ever be made that did not 


include a recommendation. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I can answer that last 


question quickly and easily. All evaluation 


reports that we sign off on here as complete 


have a recommendation to either add or deny a 


class. That’s on a scientific basis we 


provide that conclusion. And then, you know, 


the Board takes that up of course. 


MS. MUNN: Good, so our parenthetical 


statement but not necessarily a recommendation 

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is not necessary. An evaluation report would 


by definition include a recommendation. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that’s correct. By 


definition an evaluation report would include 


a recommendation. To answer the other 


question that I hear you asking what is our 


interpretation of the word recommendation as 


it is presented in the Defense Authorization 


Act? The amendment to this rule --


DR. ZIEMER: Do you have 180 days to make an 


evaluation report? 


MR. ELLIOTT: It’s certainly our intent to 


try to come forward with an evaluation report 


that includes a recommendation within the 180 


day time frame. In one instance, Rocky Flats, 


we were not able to provide an evaluation 


report, as you know, because we were all 


wrestling with questions that were raised 


about the site profile. 


And we felt that those questions 


needed to be resolved and put to bed before we 


could provide a evaluation report. And so we 


made a recommendation to essentially postpone 


the delivery of the evaluation report until 


the site profile issues, questions, were 

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resolved. That was an interpretation at that 


point in time on that particular petition that 


we made. 


DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. But 


refresh my memory, but my recollection was 


that on Y-12 that the sort of I would call it 


the partial recommendation, recommended only 


one aspect of the petition was considered as 


meeting the 180 day --


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, Jim, you certainly bring 


up another set of nuances about this whole 


process. At Y-12, as an example, we had three 


petitions that we combined and responded to 


with one evaluation report. And one of those 


petitions, the proposed definition in that 


petition was broader than the time frame or 


the class that we evaluated and recommended 


adding, and we’re still working on that now. 


That begs the question of interpretation as to 


did we meet the 180 days for all three of 


those petitions or not? And I’ll let you all 


decide how you arrive in an interpretation of 


that. 


DR. ZIEMER: I guess my main question is 


does the new rule, or what now is the interim 

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rule, address that in any way that helps the 


petitioner understand that as an option that 


could be, or an outcome that could result, 


that in essence there may not be closure in 


180 days from the point of view of making an 


up or down recommendation? 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott again. 


I would ask Ted to chime in here, weigh in, 


but I don’t believe we provide that specific 


level of detail that would give a petitioner 


that understanding. 


DR. ZIEMER: That could be provided in a 


guideline such as we talked about with item 


three which would not be part of the rule but 


could --


MR. ELLIOTT: It’s certainly something that 


we practice here in our assistance that we 


give to the petitioner. As we work with the 


petitioner, and we walk with them hand-in-hand 


through this process, we explain how their 


petition is being handled. But Ted, were you 


going to offer a comment about our language in 


the rule on this point? 


MR. KATZ: Yeah, sure, we didn’t change 


anything with respect to what constitutes a 

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recommendation in the rule because in the rule 


an evaluation report includes a 


recommendation, a recommendation. So we 


haven’t changed, there’s nothing in the rule 


that really addresses this which has really 


just come up, you know, late last fall. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I wanted to make sure 


since it was discussed at the last Board 


meeting in the context of this document that 


if the Board wished to, and you may feel like 


item two already discusses it adequately and 


raises the issues, then that’s fine. I just 


wanted to make sure that we’ve covered those 


things that the Board raised. And Jim, I 


think that your feeling was that it does raise 


the issue. 


DR. MELIUS: Correct, and this needs to be 


clarified either in, to the extent it can in 


the regulation. If not, in guidelines that 


would explain what the various steps in the 


process are or could be. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I agree 


with, I believe Wanda was saying that if you 


look at the, I guess, how do you define 


recommendation. And it’s hard for me to see 

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someone coming forth with that after their 180 


days is up and not having an approval or 


denial. I mean, I understand that there’s 


complications, but just by the mere what I 


consider the definition of recommendation. If 


it doesn’t have a recommendation to approve or 


deny, it seems like it’s a meaningless 


deadline or something. I mean it just seems 


like it needs to be defined in the rule what a 


recommendation is. 


DR. DeHART: This is Roy. Some of these 


recommendations we’ve already seen, of course, 


where we’ve divided topulations (ph) and time 


frames and so on. Perhaps what is needed is 


when that kind of recommendation is done or 


there is need to go further in time in 


reviewing or seeking out information or 


ensuring that we have the proper description 


of a site, there should be a time frame added 


to that then that says expect a interim 


recommendation, a further interim 


recommendation within 90 days or something of 


that sort instead of it hanging out there 


forever and the petitioner having no idea when 


they might hear again. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Roy. 


Any further comments on this? 


(no audible response) 


DR. ZIEMER: It’s probably an issue that 


would be worth clarifying in some way if only 


in the guideline. I think at least based on 


the discussion here, I think NIOSH folks might 


be in a position to at least try to address 


that as part of the clarification process. 


I want us to try to come to closure. 


We have to provide some comments within the 


week. It would be appropriate at this time if 


we’re comfortable with what we have already 


discussed and the few changes that we’ve made 


in the document to call for a motion to 


approve these comments and submit them to 


NIOSH. 


MR. GIBSON: Paul, this is Mike. Is that 


what the sum of the discussion we’ve had that 


modifies --


DR. ZIEMER: It includes two typographicals. 


It includes adding a couple of references and 


includes a few minor word changes. Of course, 


there is a contextual discussion that’s in the 


record with that as well. 

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DR. DeHART: I think that NIOSH having been 


a participant in listening to the discussion 


and joining in periodically that they 


certainly understand the Board’s concern and 


can address that even though we may have only 


minor changes in the documentation that will 


be submitted as our comments to the proposed 


rule. 


DR. ZIEMER: And therefore --


DR. DeHART: And therefore, I move that we 


allow for the modifications of the document 


submitted by Dr. Melius and forward that to 


NIOSH. 


MR. PRESLEY: It’s Bob Presley. I second 


that motion. 


DR. ZIEMER: Further discussion? 


MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I have one point of 


discussion. Do we expect NIOSH to look at 


these recommendations we have and modify their 


findings if they so choose and then let us see 


that again so that if we have additional 


comments we could submit them before the 30­

day extension is up? 


DR. ZIEMER: The period is up on the 23rd
 

which is only a week away. They had a 30-day 

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extension to allow the time period to at least 


include our deliberations today, but it’s not 


30 days from today. There’s only a week. 


MR. GIBSON: I understand that. 


DR. ZIEMER: So I think in I guess NIOSH 


people can comment. I think that the process 


is such that they receive the comments, but I 


don’t think they’re required to respond to 


them. They have a certain amount of period in 


which to make the changes. Isn’t that 


correct, Larry or Ted? Or make any changes 


they believe that they should make based on 


comments. 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott and, 


Ted, you should weigh in here as well. I 


would offer this in response to Mike and to 


you, Dr. Ziemer. We are in public comment 


period in this rule making. We are listening 


to what you have to say. We would welcome the 


consensus comments of the Board, and as we 


have treated them in the past rule making. 


We will show how we have reacted and 


how we addressed your comments as well as 


those of the public in the preamble of the 


rule when it’s finalized. We will take the 

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public comments. We will take up the Board 


consensus comments that you’re putting 


together today, and we will revise the rule as 


we see appropriate and produce a final rule 


that will specify how we handled those 


comments. 


Ted, do you want to add anything to 


that? 

MR. KATZ: No, thanks, Larry, that was 

perfect. 

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

point out the individual Board members are 


free to comment as they would. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that’s correct, right, 


appreciate your addition there. 


DR. ZIEMER: And Mike, does that answer your 


question? 


MR. GIBSON: Yeah, that answers it. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Mike, I would offer this as 


well. Like all of our rules if there are 


comments that the public wishes to provide us 


once we have finalized a rule we certainly 


accept those comments. Even though we’re not 


involved in rule making, we can take a comment 


of substance and go back into rule making and 

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make a change if --


DR. ZIEMER: So it’s not frozen forever. If 


this motion passes, I’m going to ask Jim to 


make the changes with the appropriate 


references and get copies out to all of us, 


and then I will get it officially transmitted. 


Jim, is that agreeable? 


DR. MELIUS: That’s fine. I should be able 


to get that out later this afternoon or 


tomorrow depending on how long we go with our 


call today. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Ziemer, this is Larry 


Elliott again. If I might offer one more 


suggestion for Dr. Melius’ and your 


consideration? In your, as you’re writing 


this up, I think it would be beneficial if you 


would refer to the transcript that’s created 


from today’s discussion so that it will add 


and enhance whatever you put in your 


recommendation to us. 


DR. MELIUS: Right. 


DR. ZIEMER: In other words the contextual 


background for this. Thank you, that’s a good 


suggestion. 


I think you can just add that, Jim. 

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DR. MELIUS: I will, and of course, our fine 


transcriber will have a transcript ready by 


tomorrow. 


DR. ZIEMER: Do these comments go, do these 


need to go to the Secretary, Lew? 


DR. WADE: I don’t believe so. 


I mean, Larry, where do the comments 


to the rule go? 


MR. ELLIOTT: As the rule specifies they 


should be submitted to the NIOSH Docket Office 


or to me directly, and we’ll include them in 


the docket for this rule making. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


We’ll call for a vote now. We’ll have 


to take a roll call vote here. 


DR. WADE: To the motion before the Board, 


Brad Clawson? 


MR. CLAWSON: Aye, I accept. 


DR. WADE: Roy DeHart. 


DR. DeHART: Yes. 


DR. WADE: Michael Gibson. 


MR. GIBSON: Yes. 


DR. WADE: Mark Griffon. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


DR. WADE: James Lockey. 

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DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 


DR. WADE: James Melius. 


DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


DR. WADE: Wanda Munn. 

MS. MUNN: (inaudible) 

DR. WADE: Wanda, are you with us? 

MS. MUNN: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Robert Presley. 

MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 


DR. WADE: Gen Roessler. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 


DR. WADE: And Paul, there’s no need for you 


to vote so it’s --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I vote anyway, yes. 


That completes this item on our 


agenda. Thank you very much. We’re not too 


far off of schedule. 


DR. WADE: And this is Lew Wade. You’re to 


be complimented for dealing with a very 


difficult issue in a telephone call. You did 


extremely well. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


REPORT OF WORKING GROUP: Y-12 SITE PROFILE
 

Next we have a report of the working 


group on the Y-12 site profile. 

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DR. WADE: If I could, this is Lew Wade, if 


I could make some introductory comments on 


that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead. 


DR. WADE: Just to remind you, and it’s 


fairly complex and even relates to the things 


we just talked about. The Board is actively 


involved in the review of the Y-12 site 


profile. The Board’s contractor, SC&A, is 


actively engaged in the review of the site 


profile. At the same time we have an opened 


SEC petition on Y-12 that sits before us. 


What the Board has done in its wisdom 


is it’s asked the working group chaired by 


Mark Griffon that looks at site profiles, dose 


reconstruction and procedures reviews to try 


and focus their review of the Y-12 site 


profile to at this time focus on those issues 


that are in the opinion of all involved 


germane to the issues the Board will face on 


the SEC petition. And there’s a broad matrix 


that exists that covers all issues. Mark and 


his working group have narrowed that, and 


we’ll hear a report from them on the overall 


matrix but more focusing on the specific items 

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that relate to the SEC. 


It is NIOSH’s intention to put before 


the Board before the end of April meeting, and 


our target is very early April, an evaluation 


report on this SEC petition that contains a 


definitive recommendation. I refer to our 


previous discussion. Therefore, it’s 


incumbent on all of us to try and close as 


many of the technical issues as possible. 


To further complicate the matter, 


there’s also a working group of the Board 


chaired by Dr. Melius that is looking at the 


activities related to SC&A as it relates to 


their work on their task that relates to an 


SEC. We asked SC&A to look at one broad 


review, that was Ames, Iowa, and two focused 


reviews, they being Y-12 and Rocky Flats. So 


that activity is going on in parallel. We’ll 


hear from John Mauro after lunch on that. 


But now the stage is set for us to 


hear from Mark Griffon’s working group as it 


relates to the Y-12 site profile review with 


particular emphasis on issues that relate to 


the SEC petition that’s pending. 


DR. ZIEMER: Very good, thank you, Lew. And 

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Mark has distributed to the Board within in 


the last day the work group minutes which 


cover both Y-12 and Rocky Flats. Those are 


minutes of a February 27th meeting, and I 


think, Mark, maybe you sent those out 


yesterday or it’s fairly recent anyway. And 


then also the matrix of priority items that 


are relevant to the SEC petition. And that 


matrix is officially, let’s see, for Y-12 it’s 


dated February 27th, and I think was 


distributed to Board members within the last 


couple of days. So you should all have those 


copies. 


Mark, take us through the issues that 


you think are pertinent here. And keep in 


mind now that these are, there’s a number of 


items that were identified by SC&A that are 


identified here as being related to the SEC 


petition. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. Mark, could you 


tell us what the top of that document looks 


like to make sure that we’re on the right --


DR. ZIEMER: Gen, we can barely hear you. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m going to speak mainly from 


the matrix, Gen, and it’s titled Y-12 Site 

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Profile Review, Matrix of priority issues 


potentially relevant to SEC petition review, 


prepared by the work group, February 27th, ’06. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, thank you, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: And Paul, do you want me to 


proceed? 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: First, I should say I guess 


you just got these documents so you probably 


would not have had a great deal of time to 


review them. It did take a lot of time last 


week between myself, SC&A and NIOSH to sort of 


from all of our notes fine tune these things. 


And I still think there’s probably some things 


that we have open for discussion on the 


wording. But --


DR. ZIEMER: But we did have the identified 


items in January at our meeting, right? 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s correct, and that’s why 


in the middle column you’ll see action items 


labeled January 8th, ’06, and on the final 


column in the matrix you see the February 28th
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right, because we had gone 


through those items at our January meeting. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Right, and the items 


underneath in the columns line up one-to-one. 


In some cases there’s more items in February 


28th
 . That means we had a new action item that 


wasn’t previously identified on January 8th , 


but in most cases it matches up one-to-one. 


So you’ll see for item one it’s been completed 


by NIOSH. I’m looking on the first page. 


They posted the database on the O drive. And 


I can step through this, but, you know, to 


give you the major updates on where we’re at. 


Item two, this is looking at the 


Health Physics reports for Y-12. And the 


reason to do this is as a means to test the 


reliability of the CER database as the Y-12 


databases because they are used for the 


coworker models and NIOSH is still in the 


middle of this assessment. They did give us a 


preliminary update on one of the points raised 


out of the Health Physics reports, but they’re 


going to, as you can see, do a further 


assessment based on some of those reports and 


comparing the summary data in the reports to 


the actual full databases. 


Any time anybody wants more detail on 

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these stop me, but I’ll just go ahead through 


these. Item three is again NIOSH has 


identified I guess some former lab workers or 


a lab manager that indicated that these 


laboratory logbooks should be available, and 


they’re trying to pull that thread and find 


out exactly where they might be. So again, 


this is an outstanding action item. They’re 


going to attempt to find at least some of 


these laboratory logbooks. And again, this is 


to look at the reliability of the data in the 


databases. 


Number four, this is the question of 


how the units were converted from the raw data 


to the database has units of dpm per day per 


24 hour. And NIOSH has provided actually just 


yesterday or the day before an e-mail with 


some more clarification on that. So they were 


tasked with doing this, and actually they’ve 


provided us additional information which the 


Board or the work group and SC&A have just 


received. 


MS. MUNN: Really nice to see that factor of 


eight issue. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, the factor of eight in 

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the equation. 


Number five and, well, number five 


basically asked if there was any QC 


documentation available, QC reports or 


anything like that regarding the bioassay 


program from the early years or the years in 


question and to date nothing has been 


identified. So I think NIOSH foresees a dead 


end here. Although when they’re looking for 


other materials, it may turn up, but at this 


point nothing has been identified. 


DR. ZIEMER: What will be the impact of 


that? 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess it was another way to 


lend a level of confidence in the database 


itself, the reliability of the data in the 


database. 


DR. ZIEMER: That would be a kind of an 


independent assessment of data quality? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


And the last item, number six, the 


other part goes on the next page, this is a 


dead end. I think this action is no longer 


outstanding. There was some discussion of the 


fact that Y-12 had received permission from 

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DOE for using the electronic record as the 


record of, the sort of legal record; and 


therefore, the raw data records might have not 


been kept. And but there was, theoretically 


they thought they could find some memorandum 


to this effect, and they could not produce 


this. So I think they’ve sort of stopped that 


action. 


DR. NETON: Mark, this is Jim Neton. I can 


give you a brief update as to where we are 


with some of this. It turns out that we have 


identified a source of the original IBM punch 


cards that were used to record the data. In 


fact, the cards were sort of pre-made out and 


in the laboratory, the lab analysts wrote the 


results on the card and then they were 


keypunched. ORAU is going over there now to 


review this cache of these punch cards. 


MR. GRIFFON: So this is not lab books, but 


it’s punch cards? 


DR. NETON: Right, the lab books just turned 


out to be a dead end, but the punch cards are 


there. And we’ve identified the room and the 


person that owns them right now. And they’re 


going to go through and try to pull out some 

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representative samples of those cards. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s a good find. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that was encouraging. We 


had a conference call yesterday on this issue. 


MR. GRIFFON: Any other updates on that 


item, Jim? 


DR. NETON: No, I think that was it. 


MR. GRIFFON: On to the next page, 1a-3, and 


you’ll see no action, and that means it’s 


basically not considered an SEC issue here. 


One a-4, again, no action, so that 1a-5, 1a-6, 


same thing, no action. And on these when we 


say no action, again, we’re saying it doesn’t 


appear to be relevant to the SEC review. It’s 


still on the site profile. 


DR. ZIEMER: The site profile issue, but not 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, so we did try to 


narrow down issues here. 


On to the next page, 1b, this was a 


major part of our discussion in the work group 


meeting surrounding the 6,000 pages, yes, 


6,000 scanned pages that were identified, so 


we’ll step through these. Item 1, the thorium 


air sampling data, this particular dataset is 

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post 1960, so it’s not within the time frame 


of the specified SEC petition. So there’s no 


outstanding actions on that. 


Item 2 was an update on the 6,000 


pages. NIOSH provided this to SC&A in its raw 


form, and also an ORAU team led by Mel Chew, I 


believe led by Mel Chew anyway, took a close 


assessment of this data. And there’s several 


actions in here if you can sort them out. I’m 


going to try myself, but --


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mark, let me interrupt, 


Ziemer here. On that first item on the 


thorium, the sample database is not within the 


sufficient time frame, right? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. ZIEMER: But if we had inhalations, I’m 


trying to get an understanding of, could there 


not still be individuals who got exposed at 


that time that are carrying body burdens 


forward into the specified time interval? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, this is air sampling 


data, I believe. 


DR. ZIEMER: It wasn’t used then as bioassay 


data so they don’t need that for --


MR. GRIFFON: Well, that’s the impression 

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right now. Jim, can probably speak to this 


better, but the indication we have there’s 


still an outstanding question about thorium 


exposures in the ‘50s. There seems to be some 


question of, at least some pilot-run-type 


activities for pilot operations. And just how 


they’re going to be assessed from a dose 


standpoint I don’t think NIOSH has presented 


that to us yet. They’re still reviewing that. 


But this air sampling data was for later years 


with different, I guess sort of a full 


production runs and they felt --


DR. ZIEMER: So these are for later years? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: Oh, not prior, oh, okay. 


MR. GRIFFON: Post-1960. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, post. Okay, that answers 


my question. 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess because of the 


different types of operations they didn’t feel 


that it would be necessarily a factor 


extrapolation or anything. 


DR. ZIEMER: So that’s post-1960. I missed 


that. You’re fine. 


MR. GRIFFON: So in item 2, the 6,000 pages 

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Mel Chew and his team actually assembled all 


this data in an Excel spreadsheet. I believe 


the spreadsheet’s going to be provided to the 


Board and SC&A. 


DR. NETON: Mark, this is Jim. I put it out 


there this morning on the O drive. So there’s 


7,400 individual bioassay records out there 


now on an Excel spreadsheet including some 


thorium results by the way. 


MR. GRIFFON: Two a, they agreed to, in 


looking at this, what we’re calling the Delta 


View dataset or data -- it’s sort of scanned 


images in. It’s not really a database. But 


in querying this dataset I guess ORAU and the 


team requested other radionuclides other than 


uranium, which was the task at hand. But in 


doing so several of the sheets also in 


addition to running for urinalysis for 


plutonium, for instance, they often did 


uranium urinalysis so now we have this new 


cache of uranium results. 


And in item 2a we’re asking NIOSH to 


give us an assessment of whether these uranium 


results within the Delta View dataset are 


bounded by the results in the larger CER 

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database. It seems like they are not included 


in the CER database necessarily, but it may be 


that the results are bounded by the 


distribution that’s developed from the CER 


dataset if that makes any sense to people. 


Did I state that correctly, Jim? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, you got it exactly right, 


Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: So we’re looking at 


additional, there may be some uranium data, 


and we’re going to assess that. That’s where 


that stands. I guess that’s 2a and b, I kind 


of, I think I put those two together. 


Two c, we asked that in the 


discussions there was quite a bit of useful 


presentation from Mel Chew regarding the 


Calutron/cyclotron production histories and 


the different runs that went on. And they 


said they could actually assemble a timeline 


and references for these production runs which 


might be useful in terms of looking at the 


source of different exposures over time. So 


they’re going to do that as well. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, Mark, this is Jim. Those 


references are now out there as well. I will 

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put out an e-mail later today to the working 


group and SC&A folks to outline what we’ve put 


out there in the last day or so, but they are 


there. 


MR. GRIFFON: Great. Is that someone else, 


I’m sorry. 


DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 


MR. GRIFFON: So then we’re on to item 3. 


Item 3 is the other radionuclides outside the 


Calutron/cyclotron processing -- and I’m just 


reading along with you here. So we have these 


other sources of exposure that NIOSH is going 


to look into including plutonium, uranium-233 


and neptunium components. 


And also further down there’s this 


other question of the thorium processing that 


has come up. And this is the pre-1960 pilot 


runs is what we were led to believe anyway. 


So this is still an outstanding item, and I 


think it’s outside the information that might 


have come out of those 6,000 pages. 


Jim, is that correct? Hello? 


DR. ZIEMER: Maybe we lost Jim. I don’t 


know. Jim, are you there? 


MR. GRIFFON: There was some static on the 

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line there. 


DR. ZIEMER: No, go ahead. 


MR. GRIFFON: Anyway I believe that’s an 


outstanding item they’re pursuing. 


And then item 4, the X-10 department 


information, X-10 department 4000 or 4-X-X-X, 


actually, the 4000 series of departments, was 


theoretically supposed to be the X-10 workers 


that worked at Y-12, I believe, in these 


operations. And we were or NIOSH was 


considering looking at that data as another 


source of characterizing exposures in the 


Calutron/cyclotron areas for these runs. But 


I think they’ve sort of are not, no longer 


pursuing this approach in lieu of the, I think 


they’re going to use the 6,000 records of 


production histories instead of that. 


And then number five is the recycled 


uranium and the recycled uranium, I think, 


let’s see -- there was a presentation of how 


they were going to handle recycled uranium in 


the original TBD, Table 5.2. SC&A provided 


comments, and I think NIOSH is reviewing 


SC&A’s comments and were going to give an 


update on that. And the issue here, the 

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primary issue here I think is one of where 


these materials might have concentrated in 


various areas around the plant so as to have 


different ratios in different areas and how 


you place people in time, similar issues we’ve 


had before. 


Going on to 1c, 1c-1 has no applicable 


items really for the SEC. On down to 1d, that 


whole page no action items remain for the SEC, 


1d, 1e-1 and I think we’re on down to 


external; 1f is also no action items, right? 


DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: External dose issues, item 1a 


is very similar to the internal item 1a which 


is looking at the reliability of the database 


data for purposes of coworker models and you 


can see the (unintelligible) NIOSH has 


provided this information. They’ve completed 


those actions. 


Item 3, NIOSH provided the data on the 


147 workers. This was a previous action item, 


and SC&A has just done a preliminary review of 


that data, and we feel like we’re in the 


middle of a discussion on that really. 


The fourth item this is a comparison 

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between hard copy records similar to what Jim 


was just referencing was the punch cards, 


testing the, or checking the reliability of 


the database. And one source of analysis came 


from the Delta View data records. There were 


some external radiation records in there. 


NIOSH provided a report on their 


comparison of those external raw records with 


the database concluding that actually there 


was a pretty good match. SC&A and the work 


group have not had a chance to really review 


that report, so we’re in the middle of looking 


at that. And NIOSH only did a sample looking 


at 1953 records out of that. So again, this 


is an outstanding item to check raw records to 


the extent we can support their reliability or 


confirm or deny the reliability of the CER 


database. 


And then the fifth item is the same 


quality control item, and again, they haven’t 


found these sort of quality control reports 


they were hoping to uncover. 


DR. NETON: Mark, this is Jim. I’m a little 


confused on number three where we’re at. I 


guess I thought we had sort of come to some 

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conclusions there that --


MR. GRIFFON: My understanding from SC&A is 


that they -- is John on the line? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. Go ahead. I’ll pick 


up after you proceed. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, I’m asking you for a 


response. Where do you think we’re at? 


DR. MAURO: With regard to the use of the 


140 data, I see that as more of a site profile 


issue whereby the extrapolation method that’s 


being used where they have 147 datasets that 


was compiled as a means to extrapolate back to 


predict what doses the workers were pre-1961, 


that the procedure, a sophisticated 


statistical method, and we are looking very 


closely at that from the point of view that 


this fundamental theme here is that the data 


that is available represents those workers 


that experienced elevated exposures and not a 


cohort sample so to speak. 


And that goes to the question of can 


you use the approach, the statistical 


approach, as laid out in one of their 


procedures -- I forget the number -- as a good 


means, a coworker approach, to reconstruct the 

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doses pre-1961? Bear with me for a minute. I 


don’t see that as an SEC issue, and the reason 


as follows: that approach, though it may have 


certain questions regarding is it really the 


optimal approach for reconstructing, for a 


coworker dataset for reconstructing doses. 


There are other approaches that could be used 


that would be more claimant favorable that we 


are currently looking at in looking at the 


records, the 147 records. 


But it really becomes a matter of has 


NIOSH developed a protocol that is 


scientifically robust and claimant favorable? 


But it’s really a matter of degree, and this 


is where a judgment will have to be made as to 


which strategy is the one that’s most 


scientifically robust and claimant favorable. 


I don’t see that as an SEC issue because there 


is a strategy. 


In other words, we believe that you 


can reconstruct these doses, the external 


doses, and it’s really a matter of how 


conservative do you want to be. So I guess 


I’m hoping that helps answer the question. We 


see it as certainly a site profile issue but 

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not as an SEC issue. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, the --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, may I add something. 


Joe is not on the call, and before Joe left, 


and even after he left, we had some exchanges 


of e-mails and this is sort of an, like a 


yesterday and today issue. I’m sorry for the 


additional comments here, but Joe had asked me 


to make sure that the paper that George Kerr 


handed out on February 27th, which only he and 


I have since we were the only SC&A 


representatives there, was properly reviewed 


internally. Now I sent it to Ron Buchanan 


yesterday, and then he sent a preliminary 


response back. 


I had some questions about one of the 


items in relation to the increase of beta 


doses that was significant on a per person 


basis within the 1950s which is not explained 


in the analysis by Dr. Kerr. And I would say 


that while broadly, you know, all of us 


thinking like John, but some questions that we 


need addressed in the paper that Dr. Kerr 


handed out. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I hope you 

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can hear me okay. I heard some noise on the 


line. 


Yes, there’s certainly some issues 


related to the patterns of exposures we’re 


looking at in pre-’61 and whether or not those 


patterns are indicative that perhaps these are 


not the high end population or cohort as 


represented. And I think those certainly need 


to be aired out. 


DR. NETON: I’m a little confused though, 


this is Jim Neton. The 147 worker 


extrapolation only refers to photon exposures 


and Arjun mentioned something about beta 


exposures. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But we were asked to 


evaluate, in looking at the question of 


external exposures, Dr. Kerr handed out that 


paper. And when we looked at that paper, 


there was a question as to who was monitored 


in the ‘50s. And there’s a smaller anomaly 


like that in gamma doses, but it’s very 


pronounced in beta doses, and the question 


really only arose as to who was monitored. 


Looking at those beta doses you expect the 


beta doses to be sort of higher because they 

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were handling uranium presumably. And so this 


is a question that just arose examining Dr. 


Kerr’s paper. 


DR. MAURO: Let me add a little bit to that. 


We’re looking at that data as another metric 


as a way to convince ourselves that in fact 


the measurements that were made in the 1950’s 


up to ’61 were in fact these high-end 


exposures. And in the end if we come to 


closure on that, then the extrapolation method 


works. 


However, if we run into some issues 


that in fact maybe there’s some question 


whether it’s because of the beta/gamma skin 


dose or it has to do with the whole body 


photon dose. As the data reveals itself to us 


and we look at it, we find that maybe there’s 


still some question. Then there might be some 


other strategy that might be employed that 


would be more claimant favorable. But again 


I’ll say it, I think this is a subject for 


site profile not for SEC. 


DR. NETON: Okay, well, I guess we’ll 


receive some comments from you then because 


this is news to me on this analysis of --

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DR. MAURO: Yes, this is actually, as Arjun 


pointed out, something that was discussed 


amongst ourselves only within the last day or 


so. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so the working group and 


SC&A will need to touch base further on this 


with NIOSH then. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s part of the reason I 


left that open, Jim, because I think we had 


just received the George Kerr report, too, at 


the last meeting so I didn’t know if everybody 


-- we got the presentation of it at the 


meeting but I wasn’t sure if it had been fully 


reviewed. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, one item -- this is 


Arjun. One item I might request if Dr. Kerr 


can send us a spreadsheet on which those 


graphs were based because it’s awfully hard to 


try to read off the numbers on the graph. 


They are in logarithmic plots and so a small, 


small errors in reading kind of could make a 


big difference as to, so if we could have the 


spreadsheet that would be very useful. 


DR. MAURO: And also, Mark, this is John 

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Mauro again. The statement I made, in other 


words, we’re almost in real time now, in 


looking at that issue, Kerr’s data, in effect, 


we had a conversation and the consensus among 


the SC&A folks right now is that this still 


resides in the realm of site profile. 


However, you and I and the working group, the 


rest of SC&A really haven’t had a chance to 


engage you in this discussion. 


So I don’t want to by any means 


preempt the working group’s position regarding 


whether or not this particular issue is 


clearly only a site profile issue. But right 


not, at least internally to SC&A, the general 


consensus is it is a site profile issue. 


DR. NETON: So are we going to remove it 


from this list then or not? 


DR. ZIEMER: I think you need to wait and 


discuss this further. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I’d like to, if we could 


hold it on there at least until the next work 


group meeting, Jim. I’m actually proposing 


that we have another meeting before the April 


Board meeting. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I think I agree with that. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and then if we can just 


hold it as an open item for that time I’d feel 


for comfortable because I also raised with 


George some questions about the -- and I’m not 


sure if it comes up in there, this action item 


or a later action item the 2A-1, but the 


question of whether the highest exposed 


individuals were likely included or covered in 


the monitoring program. And I gave him some 


specifics on some departments of concern which 


I don’t think we should go into, might be some 


classified issues around that. 


DR. NETON: Okay, I know where you’re going 


with that, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: So that’s part of the reason I 


left it an open item as well. 


DR. NETON: Okay, that’s fine. 


MR. GRIFFON: Item 4 we just went through 


and then item 5, okay. So we finished that 


unless these there’s other comments on that 


section. 


Going on to the next page, 1a, 3, 4 


and 5 are all removed for SEC issue purposes. 


One a-6, that was just an action to provide 


the models, and they have been provided. 

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And then on to 2a, and this is really 


the question of the maximally exposed 


individuals. And I think in action one we’re 


really deferring this action to sort of the 


sample DR cases will demonstrate the proof of 


principle here. And that’s where we’ll really 


get to review how this is being implemented. 


So that’s being shifted into a question of 


NIOSH will give us a sample dose 


reconstruction applying this methodology, and 


then we can, it sort of for proof of 


principle. 


Item 2, NIOSH is going to give a 


response on this criticality action. I think, 


Jim, you said you had prepared, or there was 


some draft preparation in this. 


DR. NETON: That’s right, we have a whole 


TIB on reviewing this criticality action. And 


you know, we’ve done so much I thought I had 


provided it, but we will get you a complete 


analysis of that scenario. 


MR. GRIFFON: Then on to item 4, or wait, 


item 3, I’m sorry. NIOSH provided an addendum 


report. I think this was the real, that’s 


where I was referencing the George Kerr 

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report. And I think George gave us two 


reports, didn’t he, Jim? I’m trying to 


remember all this. 


DR. NETON: You know, I don’t remember. I 


know the one that we just talked about. 


MR. GRIFFON: I believe there was one before 


that, but maybe I’m, I have to go back and 


look. Anyway, there’s at least some George 


Kerr analysis on this issue. And I believe 


this is what Arjun and John were just 


referring to, and I think that’s sort of an 


open discussion item still. 


MS. MUNN: Are we on item 3? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


MS. MUNN: So we’re talking about DR and 


Kerr’s report? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, item 2a-1, item 2a-1, and 


then action number three. 


MS. MUNN: Action number three. 


DR. NETON: And Mark, honestly, I don’t know 


what this addendum is that we’re talking about 


here now. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, I thought that George’s 


last report -- I can correct this if I’m in 


error --

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DR. NETON: Oh, I’m sorry, it said NIOSH 


provided. I see, I thought we were to 


provide. Okay, yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: You provided this report. 


The next item really should be a 


follow-up to three, SC&A will review those two 


reports and provide comments. It sounds like 


John’s saying that you’ve done a preliminary 


review, and we just need to bring that back to 


the work group and discuss it really. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, that’s a correct 


characterization. 


MR. GRIFFON: Finally, item 5, NIOSH will 


attempt to determine, this is actually the 


assembly worker question. 


DR. NETON: Mark, Mel Chew and Bryce Rich 


are going down to Oak Ridge next week to 


attempt to address this issue. And we may 


need to have some communications related to 


that. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right. And on to 2b-1, I 


guess SC&A provided comments to TIB-0051. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: And we need a response from 


NIOSH sort of so we’re in the middle of 

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discussing TIB-0051 which is a new TIB 


developed by NIOSH and ORAU. 


DR. NETON: Right, but we had some fairly 


good discussions, I thought, about it, and it 


seemed to me that most of the issues that were 


raised we kind of addressed at our working 


group meeting. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, this is Arjun. I 


think Jim is right about that. I think the 


principles were articulated at the February 


meeting and then what remains I think is to 


show that those principles can actually be 


applied to a dose reconstruction. That’s why 


in the sample list there are some neutron 


items because practically how the knowledge of 


tail of the distribution is going to be 


extended to the areas where there were no 


measurements. That practicality I think is 


outstanding. The principle, I think Jim is 


right, discussed on February 27th . 


MR. GRIFFON: So can this be changed to sort 


of like the way I had the previous action 


where NIOSH will demonstrate proof of 


principle in a sample DR? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s the best of my 

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recollection, Mark. I mean, I think the 


principle was outlined. 


John, you were on the call so jump in. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John Mauro. I 


think, in fact, all of these issues that we’re 


discussing now related to Y-12 have matured to 


the point where now we believe that really 


closure is going to occur or not when we move 


into the sample dose reconstruction. You 


probably have all received a list of, I 


believe, 11, what I will call sample cases 


that will test just about every issue that 


appears to be coming to closure here on Y-12, 


but to see if in fact the rubber meets the 


road going through these cases. I believe we 


delivered that list only recently. 


Arjun, did you send that out over the 


weekend? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I did send it on Sunday, 


John. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, on Sunday, so you folks 


may or may not have seen it. I believe it’s 


11 items. 


MS. MUNN: Yes, very thorough I might add. 


DR. MAURO: And I think now we recognize the 

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degree to which NIOSH can in fact do that 


sample cases. We’re in the part of the 


process now where I see it as that’s where we 


are, cases being developed and presented that 


test each one of the issues and how they will 


be closed. I think we’re really, in my mind 


stepping back, we’re in the home stretch of 


either coming to closure on the issues that 


yes, in fact it appears that that strategy 


works or it does not. 


And now bear in mind that I think that 


issues related to data reliability, this is 


more of an amorphous type of matter that’s 


under both internal and external, that in 


effect, once there is consensus that we’ve 


achieved data reliability then we can go 


through the cases using that data and using 


the protocols as developed by NIOSH to see how 


well they serve us. That achieving closure on 


data reliability questions in my mind right 


now, in fact, I’d like to put this on the 


table a bit, is how do we get there? 


A lot is being done looking at data, 


making certain comparisons as laid out in the 


action items. I guess it’s a little bit 

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ambiguous right now as how do you really get 


to the point where we say I think we’re okay 


or not? 


MR. GRIFFON: Can we just hold off on that 


one for a second, John, and just finish these 


last couple of items --


DR. MAURO: Sure. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- and go back to the summary 


of the whole. 


Under 2b-1, item number two, NIOSH is 


going to provide a new model for beta 


exposures. Is that correct, Jim? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then as John just started 


discussing, item three, the sample DRs and 


there are 12 sort of scenarios. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: There’s 11. 


MR. GRIFFON: Eleven that SC&A has mailed 


forward. And I just wanted to say I generally 


agree with John, since he added on the 


reliability part I generally agree that most 


of these issues are going to come down to 


let’s do some sample cases and demonstrate, 


sort of proof of principle here. But the data 


reliability question does still hang out there 

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over all this on both sides, external and 


internal. 


So with that in mind, John, I think we 


can get back to your discussion of how do we 


get to closure on the data reliability 


questions. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, before we discuss data 


reliability per se, let me just ask -- and 


thank you, Mark and work group, for it looks 


like you made good progress. I want to ask 


two general questions. Do you feel like we’re 


pretty much on schedule now for the April 


meeting? Or to put it another way are there 


any show stoppers? And is it going to, it 


looks like it’s going to come down to the data 


reliability issue? 


MR. GRIFFON: It sounds, I mean there’s some 


pieces that we still haven’t heard about, the 


other radionuclides other than the 


cyclotron/Calutron. And I’ll speak from my 


standpoint anyway. The cyclotron/Calutron I 


don’t know that we have a clear model of how 


workers in those areas are going to have the 


dose assessed. It wasn’t clear whether there 


was enough isotope specific data in those 

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6,000 pages that Jim just mentioned. It’s on 


the O drive now, the spreadsheet related to 


the 6,000 pages. 


So we’re not clear on valid data 


there, but otherwise I think the data 


reliability question has been the big question 


as to how long is it going to take to locate 


some of this raw data and to do a sampling 


comparison against the CER database. And it 


sounds like they’ve made good progress in that 


regard. 


MS. MUNN: It sounds like we’re pretty much 


on track from my point of view. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I tend to 


agree with the two big issues in my mind are 


related to the other radionuclides that we’re 


working towards very intensely right now and 


some degree the data reliability although I 


asked that question very early on if we can’t 


identify all these sources to validate the 


pedigree where do we end up at the end of the 


day given that there’s been no indication that 


the data are corrupt in any way? 


But the other big issue that I think 


we need to knock down, and I’m a little bit 

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discouraged from our call today that the 


highest monitored workers for external, I 


think two or three meetings we’ve sort of put 


this to bed I thought, and it keeps 


resurfacing. We really need to get that 


resolved if we’re going to make any progress, 


and I’m somewhat concerned about that because 


we’ve provided numerous approaches to 


addressing this issue and even that analysis, 


147 worker, that SC&A did, I saw nothing in 


there that indicated that we were off base. 


And now again we’re morphing into another 


discussion so that’s my concern. 


MS. MUNN: I’m a little surprised about that 


too. I was feeling comfortable about it. 


MR. GRIFFON: I mean, you said that Mel Chew 


and someone else are on their way to Oak 


Ridge. 


DR. ZIEMER: Bryce Rich. 


MR. GRIFFON: So clearly, there was, you saw 


an action there, too, Jim, that --


DR. NETON: That’s the other radionuclide 


issue. I mean, they’re down there working on 


the other radionuclide and in addition I will 


say that the --

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MR. GRIFFON: But I thought you were 


assessing the assembly worker. You mentioned 


that after --


DR. NETON: No, the assembly worker, that’s 


a separate issue, but I think we’re still 


talking about this 147 projecting back into 


1961 independent of that assembly worker 


issue. And I’m somewhat concerned --


MR. GRIFFON: Well, part of the question I 


was raising was with regard to the highest 


monitored, you know, highest likely exposed 


workers were monitored was the question of 


were they monitored in these assembly areas? 


DR. NETON: Right, and I agree with that. 


That needs to be addressed. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s where --


DR. NETON: I’m hearing some dissention even 


among SC&A when John has one opinion and Arjun 


says no, it’s not exactly that. So we need to 


come to grips with this. We can’t keep 


working to moving targets like that. 


MR. GRIFFON: I agree, but also I want to 


say, Jim, we received that report the day of 


the last work group meeting from George Kerr, 


that second one, so I don’t know that, you 

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know. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I think 


because we have been in this real time kind of 


science discussion it does make it very 


difficult because it’s not possible to resolve 


all discussions internally and then present a 


finished product. This issue that I brought 


up really arose as a result of the analysis 


for which we do not have the data and 


spreadsheets. We have just graphs on 


logarithmic paper, but George Kerr put on the 


table this information was not provided before 


to my knowledge. 


Now I haven’t been involved in the 


site profile review, and so Joe left me with 


this responsibility. And so I do feel my duty 


to look at that paper and see that the 


analysis is properly completed. And we just 


began this analysis so it’s very natural that 


we’re going to have maybe different ideas of 


which pieces of it are important. But I don’t 


think, I don’t know that John even has got the 


George Kerr paper as yet. 


DR. MAURO: No, if again I guess this 


issue again, I think we owe the working group 

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a discussion with Mark related to whether 


we’re talking an SEC or a site profile issue 


here. I think that there are matters, 


technical matters, that we’re engaged in right 


now, as Arjun described, that warrant 


discussion. 


The more important question at this 


time is whether or not those discussions 


somehow will bear on this being an SEC issue 


or not. And I think certainly we owe it to 


the working group to have this discussion with 


Mark and the rest of the working group so that 


the working group could come to its own 


judgment as to whether we want to drop it in 


the box as still an issue that requires SEC 


consideration or whether or not it’s off the 


table. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. As a part of 


the Board not involved with the working group 


and these discussions, this whole conversation 


has been quite confusing because I’m not quite 


sure what we’re concentrating on. And I think 


before we have our next meeting we need some 


clarity and some agreement and a presentation 


that we can understand that doesn’t take us 

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off in various directions that aren’t 


pertinent. 


MS. MUNN: Gen, your voice is very faint 


when you come on. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right now, Gen, this is 


primarily a status report so that we know what 


issues have been addressed, what issues are 


ongoing, which ones have been closed. But 


clearly the working group is going to have to 


meet again at least once with SC&A and NIOSH. 


And ultimately the question that John raises 


on credibility or the data reliability is a 


judgment the Board will have to make based on 


the criteria that we set up spelled out in the 


Melius document, the pedigree of the data and 


the internal consistency and 


representativeness of the data as it relates 


to other information sources and so on. So 


ultimately that will be a judgment the Board 


will have to make. 


DR. ROESSLER: I got off the speaker phone 


now. I wonder if I can be heard more clearly. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


DR. ROESSLER: That probably helps. I guess 


my point was that by the next Board meeting 

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when we do have to vote and when those of us 


who have not been involved in the work group 


are required to vote that it becomes much 


clearer what items are important to the data 


reliability and what for the SEC review, and 


what items are not. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, I think one thing we 


need to do maybe by the next work group even 


is ask NIOSH to look at SC&A’s list and come 


back to the work group with some of the sample 


DRs because that will sort of show proof of 


principle in all these areas where we’re 


concerned. 


I do think that 147 worker question is 


close to closure, Jim, so I just left an 


opening because I’m not completely sure 


everyone’s reviewed that last document 


provided, but I think we’re making headway on 


those issues. I think we’re also still 


receiving new stuff in a real-time basis as 


Arjun pointed out. And the last item, these 


data cards, could go a long ways towards this 


question of database reliability. So we’ve 


got some loose ends, but I think we definitely 


can tie it together in the next work group 

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meeting and with some sample DRs really show 


proof of principle for areas of concern back 


to the petition class. That’ll be our product 


for the Board meeting in April I believe. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. Maybe I could 


just talk a little bit about what’s in front 


of us to sort of bring some context to the 


discussion. Again, it is all of our hope, it 


is certainly NIOSH’s hope, that the Board will 


vote on this open Y-12 SEC petition at its 


meeting in Denver at the end of April. That 


means NIOSH has to have a definitive 


evaluation report before the Board and the 


petitioners in early April. 


NIOSH will be working towards the 


production of that report. Obviously, the 


more issues that can be resolved before NIOSH 


finalizes that report it would form NIOSH’s 


activity the better. It’s quite possible the 


issues on data reliability will be left for 


the Board to decide on when it votes on the 


petition. What I see happening in April is on 


day one of the meeting we’ll have a thorough 


vetting of the site profile issues, hopefully 


as much closure as we can bring to bear, and 

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on the second day we’ll get into the SEC 


issues, and we’ll come to the point where the 


Board will vote. 


So the working group needs to take 


into account the fact that NIOSH will be 


preparing a definitive evaluation report in 


early April. What we can do towards making 


that a consensus quote/unquote even the 


better. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lew, that’s very 


helpful. There’s no action required of the 


Board today, but we do want to make sure if 


there are still outstanding questions Board 


members wish to raise right now on Y-12 to do 


so. Any issues you want raised with Mark or 


with Jim or SC&A with John? 


 (no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: If not, I thank you, Mark, for 


the work of the working group and as well as 


the others involved. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think the one item, I don’t 


know if we need to do it here but since 


everyone’s on the call we do need another work 


group meeting for this. And with just 


following up with what Lew said if we’re going 

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to get an evaluation report in early April, I 


think we need to do this probably in late 


March. So I don’t know if anybody, if you 


want to think about dates maybe at the end of 


the meeting today and whenever we can --


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and probably, Mark, well, 


it’s you and Wanda and --


MR. GRIFFON: Mike and Bob. 


DR. ZIEMER: -- Mike and Bob, right? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. ZIEMER: And maybe you can work that out 


individually by e-mail or something 


afterwards. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but we need SC&A staff 


and NIOSH for that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Do you want to try to identify 


right now some times? 


DR. WADE: We could do it now. The last 


agenda item on today we’re supposed to work on 


that, but --


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that’s fine because it 


impacts Rocky as well probably so --


DR. WADE: It also could impact, you know, 


SC&A has an SEC task that we’ll talk about 


after lunch. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Let’s do all those then at the 


end when we have it on the agenda. I notice 


it’s 12:30. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t 


just take our break now and then start Rocky 


Flats after the break. Is that --


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade again. I know 


that there are petitioners and interested 


parties for Rocky Flats on the line. I mean, 


the Board does reserve the right to be 


flexible with its agenda. I would hope that 


you would be able to accommodate our taking a 


lunch break and then coming back and working 


on Rocky Flats immediately after lunch. If 


there’s a strong objection, please voice it. 


 (no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: Are there any Rocky Flats folks 


on the line for whom that would be a 


difficulty? 


 (no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: I hear none. I’m wondering 


also, Board members, can we cut the lunch 


break down to 30 minutes? 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. 


 DR. DeHART: I’m here by the phone. It 


doesn’t matter. 

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116

 DR. LOCKEY: Do we hang up and call back or 


what do we do? 


DR. ZIEMER: I think we hang up and call 


back, don’t we, Lew? 


DR. WADE: Right, you could do either, but 


that’s normally what we would do. The line 


will be open. 


MR. CLAWSON: This is Brad Clawson. I need, 


I got your Y-12 site profile, but I never got 


a Rocky Flats profile. 


DR. WADE: Okay, I’ll try and re-send it. I 


did send it, Brad, but I’ll try and send it 


again. 


MR. CLAWSON: Okay, I appreciate it. So 


we’re going to reconvene in --


DR. ZIEMER: So we’ll recess for 30 minutes, 


reconvene at one o’clock. How’s that? 


(Whereupon, a luncheon break was taken at 12:30 p.m., and 


the meeting resumed at 1:00 p.m.) 


REPORT OF WORKING GROUP: ROCKY FLATS SITE PROFILE
 

DR. ZIEMER: We’re ready to reconvene the 


meeting back to order. We’re ready to take up 


the next agenda item which is a report of the 


working group on the Rocky Flats site profile. 


And again Mark and Bob and Wanda and Mike were 

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that working group. And you should all have, 


in addition to the minutes of their meeting of 


February 21st, you should have the Rocky Flats 


matrix with actions as of February 27th . I 


think the matrix date is February 27th . 


Everybody have that? And again, Mark will 


basically give us an update of where we are on 


Rocky Flats’ review and have a chance for 


questions or comments. 


Mark. 


DR. WADE: Paul, this is Lew. Just very 


briefly, I won’t repeat my message about Y-12. 


It applies to Rocky Flats as well. Again, 


NIOSH intends to present a definitive 


evaluation report to the Board in early April 


with the vote at the Board meeting hopefully 


at the end of April. 


I would just take a moment if there 


are people involved in the Rocky Flats 


petition who are on the line, possibly they 


could identify themselves so the record could 


reflect their involvement. Anyone from Rocky 


Flats with us? 


MR. DeMAIORI: Tony DeMaiori with the USW, 


and I’d also like to state that Jennifer 

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Thompson couldn’t continue on the line because 


she has a job. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


MR. HILLER: This is David Hiller with 


Senator Salazar’s office calling from Denver. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, David. 


Any others? 


MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie with the 


Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Group. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Terrie. 


(no more responses) 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark, why don’t you 


proceed? 


MR. GRIFFON: Sure. For Rocky Flats there’s 


one note I should make on the matrix here, and 


the minutes also, the one set of minutes I 


should have mentioned before cover both Y-12 


and Rocky so that part of the minutes will 


reflect these actions in here. 


But one important note on the top of 


the matrix you’ll see for Rocky, which really 


didn’t come up in the Y-12 site profile, but 


it’s basically saying additional issues may 


arise as a result of the review of the 


petition and amendments and NIOSH’s evaluation 

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report. And that’s particularly important I 


think for the Rocky one because the petition 


in total, I guess with the amended parts is 


some 700 pages or more. 


And actually, I had not at the point 


of this last work group meeting I had not gone 


through the whole petition myself. And I know 


that the issues as defined here in the matrix 


come from SC&A’s review of the site profile. 


So I think we certainly, I don’t know if NIOSH 


has looked through the entire petition. 


I think we need to ask, I think SC&A 


has done a preliminary read on it, and I think 


in lieu, now since we’re in the SEC task I 


think it’s appropriate that the Board or the 


work group ask SC&A to look at the entire 


petition and make sure that there are not 


other relevant issues that would add to this 


matrix. I wanted to note that up front. 


DR. WADE: We’ll deal with that specifically 


through the next agenda item, Mark, but thank 


you for putting it on the record. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then so just to go through 


these, comment two, some of these comments 


are, have multi-parts to them. Comment two 

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happens to be one of those that has several 


pieces to it. But basically, it’s the super-S 


plutonium question, and NIOSH has developed a 


Technical Information Bulletin 49 and has now 


provided that as of several days ago to the 


work group and SC&A. I think we’re still 


waiting for the chief data and analysis files 


that go along with that TIB-0049, but they 


will be provided by NIOSH. 


DR. NETON: Yes, that’s right, Mark. We’re 


still, we lost a couple days due to, as you 


may have heard, a small fire in the building 


here, and I’ve got a draft on my desk right 


now. I hope to get it out fairly soon. 


MR. GRIFFON: And 1b is NIOSH will provide 


all data and analysis related to the USTUR, 


the Transuranic Registry autopsy cases which 


are used not, my understanding is not directly 


in TIB-0049, but they’re used to sort of bound 


the approaches outlined in TIB-0049. 


DR. NETON: That’s correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: And 1c is NIOSH will provide a 


procedure for addressing the GI tract doses 


from the super-S plutonium exposures. I think 


that was in development, right, Jim? 

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DR. NETON: Correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: So that’s also a deliverable. 


And 1d, NIOSH and SC&A will set up a 


conference call to follow up on -- there’s a 


lot of details in this. Basically, the TIB0049 is looking at some case-specific data for 


Rocky cases where known exposures to super-Sclass plutonium occurred and there was 


extensive follow-up monitoring that was done. 


So they’re using these cases along with some 


from Hanford, I believe, to sort of develop 


adjustment factors for the S-class model. 


And in discussing this we get down 


into the details of the ICRP modeling and the 


methods for calculating doses to various 


organs there. And so we decided to set up a, 


let them have a conference call separate from 


the work group to work on some of these 


details. And I don’t know. I don’t think 


that’s occurred yet. I think you still have 


some items to deliver and then you’re going to 


set that up probably. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: Anything to add on comment 


two? 

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DR. ULSH: I don’t think so. I think that 


pretty well covers it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is that Brant? 


DR. ULSH: Yes, sorry. 


MR. GRIFFON: Then going on to item four. 


This is the question of the americium 


question, americium-241 and how this would 


affect the in vivo counting I guess. And I 


think I left the meeting actually before this 


was finalized, but I think that there was some 


good discussion on this issue. I think really 


where we’re at is that SC&A would still like 


to see the supporting documents to back up the 


assertions. The presentation by Roger Falk 


seemed reasonable, but I think SC&A was asking 


for some of the documents that supported that 


approach to that presentation. 


DR. ULSH: So you’re looking for some 


documentation that older plutonium, aged 


plutonium that came back to Rocky Flats, as 


Roger explained, was then mixed with newer 


plutonium, which would have had the parent for 


americium. And you’re looking for some 


documentation that occurred? Is that kind of 


the nugget of it? 

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123 

MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s it, yeah. 


SC&A, if --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, this is Arjun. Yes, 


what Roger said that the concern that we had 


raised earlier that plutonium-241 


concentrations would go down over time with 


decay with the 14.4 year half-life. And then 


you’d lose your americium signal after that 


plutonium was refined. We indicated that 


plutonium-241 concentration was never allowed 


to go down below a certain amount and because 


of specifications of what Rocky Flats had to 


produce. 


And it seemed to me that a reasonable 


thing, and Joe and John and all of us talked 


about it afterwards, and that’s where we are. 


But we thought that the process of control of 


this plutonium composition and who worked on 


what, when needed to be examined to make sure 


that the degree to which it occurred and 


what’s in the site profile is right. The site 


profile has only two plutonium-241 


concentrations and so we thought that some 


verification of this, just a purely oral 


presentation, was needed. 

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DR. NETON: Yeah, Arjun, this is Jim, Jim 


Neton. We had discussed at the meeting I 


thought that we felt that if you could do a 


plutonium urinalysis, which was done 


throughout the operating history of the plant 


for workers, would bound that, and that this 


would only apply to when we were using in vivo 


counting. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh yes, I agree. This only 


applies to in vivo counting of course. But I 


don’t know whether, yeah, I don’t know when 


you’re going to use in vivo counting, what the 


intake situation is corresponding to your mda, 


whether it would be unreasonably large, I mean 


all those issues are still in the air. 


DR. NETON: Right, but it would seem to me 


though to be not an SEC issue if we agree that 


the plutonium would be a bounding analysis. 


Then it’s a matter of whether we could refine 


it based on the in vivo measurements. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, it depends on whether 


your intake is calculated from your mda limit, 


and urine would be less or more than your 


intake from a weak americium signal. I mean, 


that’s what the issue is here. 

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125 

DR. NETON: I can almost guarantee that the 


mda for the plutonium in urine will be higher. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I would tend to agree 


with you qualitatively, but it’s a question of 


just putting it to bed. 


DR. MAURO: Hey, Jim, this is John Mauro. I 


guess we were looking at, you have two 


fundamental strategies for reconstructing 


doses. One was developed more recently, 


implemented more recently which is the chest 


count. And of course, the one that has been 


in place all along is the urinalysis. Now I 


guess we were looking at this as we have a lot 


to talk about regarding the high-fired 


plutonium and the implications of it when 


you’re trying to reconstruct doses based on 


urinalysis. So we saw that as one, I guess, 


area of investigation that we need to achieve 


closure on. 


The chest count, we saw that as okay, 


that puts us, once you have the chest count 


program in place, you basically have now 


sidestepped the urinalysis issue. It’s okay, 


we’ve got our chest count, and at least we can 


say that notwithstanding what happens 

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regarding the high-fired plutonium issue, if 


you’ve got reliable chest count data, at least 


you have constrained the time period, for 


example, or the classes of workers that might 


be at issue regarding an SEC because you could 


say, well, starting at this point in time, we 


have the chest count. And we could sort of 


hang our hat on that. 


But we did, now for that reason we 


bifurcated the two, and now once you do that 


then it becomes important that we’re all 


comfortable that there are no surprises 


related to, let’s say, areas where you might 


have some difficulty using the chest count. 


And I think Roger Falk had pointed out he does 


not anticipate that because all the 


information needed in order to interpret the 


signals coming back from chest count are 


available to you. So that you could always 


use your chest count data and reliably predict 


what the body burden is or the lung burden is 


on the inhaled plutonium. 


So that’s the reason why we sort of 


have these as two separate items. I would 


agree with you if you were to argue that well, 

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once we achieve closure on the high-fired 


issue, and let’s say that that’s achieved to 


everyone’s satisfaction that you’ve got a 


tractable problem, then you don’t have to 


have, then we don’t have to engage the chest 


count as an issue. Although frankly, I think 


that we probably would like to go down both 


roads and make sure we’re comfortable with 


both approaches. 


I mean I hate to say well, let’s just 


take the chest count issue off the table 


because we expect to be able to achieve 


closure on the high-fired plutonium issue 


related to urine. I think we want to leave 


the chest count issue on the table until we 


resolve the high-fired plutonium issue. 


DR. NETON: Okay, I understand what your 


logic is. Maybe we should annotate item 


number four somehow to reflect that because 


technically and really you’re right. If we 


come to closure on item two and number four, I 


don’t think in my personal opinion, it doesn’t 


become an SEC issue. 


DR. MAURO: I’d agree with that. 


DR. NETON: In fact, plutonium is measurable 

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in the lungs. I mean it’s just easier to 


detect it via the americium as you know. But 


plutonium does have a finite detection limit 


in lungs, admittedly much higher. It depends 


on the person’s size, but it’s not totally 


undetectable in lung counts. 


But anyway, if we just made that 


notation I’d feel a little better so that we 


know --


DR. MAURO: Before we, one more point 


though. Let’s say you do have a pretty good 


handle on what’s in the lung based on chest 


count for a moment. Don’t we still have an 


issue on the kinetics? So that if you were 


trying to reconstruct the doses to the bone, 


liver or kidney from your chest count not 


knowing the chemical form of the plutonium 


that you’re counting for your chest count, you 


still have a bit of a problem there trying to 


reconstruct the dose to the other organs. 


Would I be correct in that statement? 


DR. NETON: No, not really, I think --


DR. MAURO: Then I could use a little help 


in understanding --


DR. NETON: Yeah, I think we can go back, I 

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mean, if you know what’s in the lung, you can 


know what’s getting out of the lung. And we 


would apply the solubility factors that were 


the most generous, and TIB-0049 is our shot at 


doing that. So we’re saying once you know 


what’s in the lung, we would clear it from the 


lung using the TIB-0049 calculates to the 


lung, and then we also have the amount that 


would show up systemically. 


DR. MAURO: I stand corrected. 


MR. GRIFFON: So Jim, I can say on this, 


pending closure on item two basically for item 


four? 


DR. NETON: I don’t want to browbeat anybody 


into that but --


MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, I think we agree 


on that. 


DR. NETON: -- in my mind that’s true. 


DR. MAURO: Well, I understand what you’re 


saying, Jim, and you’re absolutely correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then item six is OTIB0050, and I’m not sure where we stand on 


closure in that one. Can someone help me with 


that? I guess there’s a question of the NTA 


calibration versus the glass track dosimeters. 

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DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I don’t 


think our team has fully digested the NDRP 


report. This came up. It was discussed at 


the Boston meeting. The issue raised there is 


the NDRP report says the calibration factor 


for NTA film applies also to the glass track 


but doesn’t provide any analysis. There are 


few other issues I think that were raised in 


the February 21 memo sent to NIOSH, but 


actually, I don’t have it in front of me. I 


have to open it to see what they were. But 


we’re not sure that all of them have been 


addressed maybe because we haven’t gone 


through the NDRP report thoroughly enough as 


yet. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan. We are 


presently -- with SC&A. We are presently, I’m 


presently finishing up the analysis of the 


OTIB-0050 to be sent to SC&A internally for 


review to see how it reflects on the NDRP 


report. The questions on the NDRP that we had 


was, two, there was two questions. 


Number one was using the NTA 


calibration for the NTP plates rather than 


having a separate calibration for those. That 

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was a question. And a number two question was 


using only a moderated and an unmoderated 


figure F source, neutron source, to cover all 


the different energy ranges at Rocky Flats. 


Those were our two concerns in number six. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And I think they’re 


still on the table, right, Jim? Are you, or 


Brant? 

DR. ULSH: I think so. Roger, are you on 

the line? 

 MR. FALK: Yes, I am. 

DR. ULSH: Do you want to talk about that 


now or would you rather wait? 


 MR. FALK: I would much rather wait. 


DR. ULSH: Okay, that is an issue. 


DR. ZIEMER: It’s still an open issue, 


right? 


MR. GRIFFON: We can save that for a work 


group discussion. It think it’s better served 


there. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


MR. GRIFFON: Item seven, now my 


understanding was, and Roger is on the phone, 


but I think some of this is described in a TBD 


but I thought that you were going to provide 

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support reference documents for the 


calibration technique. Maybe I misunderstood 


that in the work group meeting. Is that the 


case? 


DR. ULSH: Okay, Mark, this is the plutonium 


tetrafluoride calibration information? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


DR. ULSH: And I think what Roger said was 


that that was included in the NDRP. Is that 


correct, Roger? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, it is described, I think, on 


page 16, but it’s in section eight. 


MR. GRIFFON: So I thought in the meeting 


that you said it was described in the report, 


but you had some backup document that detailed 


the calibration technique. That was my 


understanding. Maybe I was wrong. 


 MR. FALK: It is described on page 14 in the 


NDRP report. There is also a paper written by 


Mann and Voss which basically described the 


initial calibration of that source. And that 


is a part of the documents on the O drive. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, maybe that was, is there 


anything else outstanding on this item? Maybe 


that is the document I was thinking of unless 

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SC&A had anything else on this item. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan. I just 


wanted to make a comment, Roger. In the NDRP 


report they mention it on page 14 through 16. 


They do not describe any details. Are you 


saying that the details, all the details 


available is in that Mann and Voss report, 64 


or something around that area? 


 MR. FALK: That is how they did the initial 


calibration. They also used the Hanford long 


counter and also a couple other specialized 


techniques. But this is the paragraph in 


section eight is how I did the updated 


calibration for the neutron films in 1967. 


And those were the calibration films that we 


used for the NDRP project. 


MR. BUCHANAN: They did not do any re-


exposures or anything. They used the old 


calibration film from the past in the NDRP 


analysis. Is that correct? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, we did. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you. That would 


be something I need to look into in more 


detail on that calibration to solve this 


issue. 

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DR. ULSH: So the action item on number 


seven, should that be shifted back to SC&A’s 


court to review? 


MR. GRIFFON: I think that sounds right, 


yeah. So I’ll note that the references have 


been provided on the O drive and SC&A will 


review further. 


Then I think we’re on to item nine, 


and this is a broader one. It has several 


actions in it. The NDRP report has been 


provided and OTIB-0050 has been released for 


SC&A review, and as Ron just described, he’s 


in the process of doing that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Mark, let me interrupt. This 


is Ziemer. Could you describe briefly for the 


Board members the content of the NDRP report? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, I’ll probably give that 


to Brant to describe. It’s a neutron dose 


reconstruction project. 


Brant, maybe you can give a quick 


overview of what that encompasses. 


DR. ULSH: Well, I’m going to say just a 


little bit and then maybe defer to Roger since 


he was the author of it. But the idea of the 


NDRP was to go back and look at the neutron 

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films that were taken at Rocky Flats and to 


correct those recorded neutron doses due to 


some recognized deficiencies in neutron film. 


Roger, would you care to maybe expand 


on that just a little bit? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, it turns out that back in 


1993 when the Colorado Department of Health 


with the (inaudible) Med Center was going to 


do their epidemiology study of the Rocky Flats 


workers, we had a dosimetry meeting and then 


the question was raised what is the weakest 


part of the dataset? And then I mentioned 


that probably the weakest part of the dataset 


was the neutron doses which were evaluated by 


the films in the ‘50s and the ‘60s. 


Then the DOE sponsored a pilot study 


that I was the primary investigator to scope 


out what was the nature and the magnitude of 


the problem. And then I gave a presentation 


to the DOE back in 1994, and the overheads for 


the presentation is part of the SEC petition 


documents. And so that is the nature of the 


problem. Based on that the Rocky Flats DOE 


sponsored the project to essentially re-read 


all of the old neutron films to try to get a 

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handle on what are our best shots at the 


reconstructed neutron doses for the ‘50s and 


the ‘60s. 


And we finished that project in the 


year 2004, and the NDRP write-up is a 


description of the methods and the outcomes 


that we used for this study. And then we gave 


all of the data for each affected worker to be 


appended to that worker’s Rocky Flats 


dosimetry history. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Roger, this is Larry Elliott 


at NIOSH. Just to provide a little 


clarification on the context here. Am I 


correct in my understanding that the neutron 


films that were used in the ‘50s and ‘60s that 


the issue about the weakest part of the 


dataset and those being neutron films is not 


how they were collected. It was the fact that 


they were in some cases never read, or if they 


were read, were never recorded and assigned to 


an individual. Is that correct? 


 MR. FALK: No, that is not correct. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, I’m sorry then. 


 MR. FALK: Basically, all the films that 

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were read the doses were actually assigned to 


them. What the problem was, especially in the 


‘50s, many of the plutonium workers were not 


monitored with the neutron film. Therefore, 


we had to assign some type of a notional dose 


to those workers. Also, the workers who were 


monitored with the film the issue was the 


quality of the reading of the film. That is 


why we took it on ourselves to actually reread all of the films that we could find and 


then match to a worker. And that was about 


93,000 films. 


DR. ZIEMER: So it was a hundred percent reread then, not just a sampling? 


 MR. FALK: It was a hundred percent re-read. 


DR. ZIEMER: And what was the elapsed time 


since the original readings, the smallest 


elapsed time? In other words, you went back 


to what years and --


 MR. FALK: We captured all of the films that 


were archived through 1970, although starting 


in 1970 many of the films were not archived so 


1970 was not a well-behaved year. 


DR. ZIEMER: I assume you looked at storage 


conditions and made determinations about 

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signal fading since --


 MR. FALK: Yes, I had personally done that 


during the pilot study, and I basically 


observed that the images are just as sharp as 


I recall in 1967 and ’68. Those were very 


high quality photographic films of an image. 


DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen; I have a 


question. How did you match then the 


information with the workers which you said 


had not been done before? 


 MR. FALK: We also captured all of the 


original worksheets. Also, starting I believe 


in 1960 they started to X-ray the workers’ 


employee number on the films. And prior to 


that there was a badge number that we had to 


correlate with the worker based on the 


worksheet data which had both. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, thank you. 


DR. ZIEMER: Very good, that’s the answer to 


my question. Sorry for the interruption, 


Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s all right, that’s a 


good clarification. 


MS. MUNN: For those of us who have not read 


the NDRP, what was the bottom line with 

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respect to your findings? 


 MR. FALK: The bottom line is that we found 


the general increase in the doses to the 


workers and the maximum increase over the 


lifetime for a single worker was actually 49 


rem extra neutron dose. 


MS. MUNN: Okay, that’s what I need to know, 


thank you. 


DR. ZIEMER: But that had to do with missed 


doses and so on, not on the readings 


themselves? 


 MR. FALK: It was on the readings plus --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, it sounded like you were 


saying that --


 MR. FALK: -- plus the unmonitored notional 


doses that were assigned. It’s the sum of the 


two. 


DR. ZIEMER: So basically, you’re using a 


different algorithm to define the doses based 


on the reading, right? 


 MR. FALK: Not really because we had the 


same calibration films that were used in the 


late ‘70s. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 


MS. MUNN: That was inclusion of possible 

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missed dose. 


 MR. FALK: One of the things that we did 


differently was that we did not subtract off 


any background tracks; and therefore, that is 


also claimant favorable. 


MS. MUNN: Very. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


MR. GRIFFON: Thanks for that clarification. 


Item two is the, there’s some 


additional data University of Colorado, I 


believe. Jim Ruttenber (ph) has done some 


work through NIOSH actually and under the 


medical surveillance program I believe, and 


there’s some job exposure information, 


particularly I think looking for job category 


information from that data. And I think 


they’re still working with Dr. Ruttenber to 


obtain that data. 


Is that accurate, Jim? 


DR. ULSH: This is Brant. That is correct, 


Mark. We are still trying to get access to 


the Ruttenber data. I do, however, want to 


clarify what we expect from the Ruttenber data 


once we do get it. I don’t think it’s 


accurate to say that we can’t do a coworker 

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dose reconstruction unless we get the 


Ruttenber data. We are pursuing coworker data 


distributions now. The Ruttenber data may 


prove helpful, but I don’t think our ability 


to do a coworker dose reconstruction is 


dependent on the Ruttenber data. That’s one 


of the --


MR. GRIFFON: I don’t think that’s stated 


here, is it? 


DR. ULSH: Well, it’s not, but it is on this 


matrix as an SEC issue and I’m not sure that 


that is entirely appropriate. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, it was an outstanding 


issue from last time. I guess that’s 


something for discussion. 


DR. ULSH: Right, I do agree that it was an 


outstanding issue. It’s just I’m not sure it 


rises to the level of an SEC issue, and if you 


prefer we could talk about that at another 


time. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, or maybe a 


(unintelligible) if you provide another 


coworker approach and it doesn’t rely on any 


Ruttenber data then maybe this just goes away. 


I guess that’s sort of the way I see it. 

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DR. ULSH: Okay, that’s fair enough. 


MR. GRIFFON: Item number three, NIOSH will 


provide analysis regarding the completeness of 


external exposure data SC&A will review. I 


think that’s all. I don’t have any more 


expansion on that. I think --


DR. ZIEMER: That remains to be done by 


SC&A? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, NIOSH has to provide an 


analysis on it, too. And I’ve got to say I’m 


forgetting where I quoted that completeness of 


external exposure data from. I think that 


came from one of the internal memos back and 


forth. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, this is Arjun. I’m 


not current on everything with Rocky Flats. 


Joe is not here. He gave me some items to 


work on. Has NIOSH provided analysis 


regarding? 


MR. GRIFFON: NIOSH --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Ron, do we have this? Is 


this correct? 


MR. BUCHANAN: No, I do not have any data on 


completeness of external exposure. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I have not seen this, but I 

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may be ignorant of all this. 


MR. GRIFFON: Was that delivered in the last 


meeting? 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, that was our written 


responses to comment nine that we did provide 


to, let’s see, it was the working group, and I 


think I sent it to Joe Fitzgerald. We did 


provide some material there on the 


completeness of external exposure data. 


MR. GRIFFON: Was it just your letter there 


or was there more than that? 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think it was my letter. 


The cover page is NIOSH preliminary responses 


to issues with potential SEC implications. 


That’s the cover page and then it’s our 


written responses that wouldn’t really fit 


easily into a matrix. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s right, so that’s why I 


quoted it this way I guess, yeah. 


So you need to look at that letter 


report, and I don’t think because we just got 


it a few days before the meeting, I don’t 


think it was really reviewed by SC&A. 


DR. ULSH: I think that’s correct. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I guess this will have to 

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wait. John or Ron, unless you know something 


to say, I guess this will have to await Joe’s 


coming back. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, unfortunately, I can’t add 


any more except to say that this, if you 


recall when we first started to develop a list 


of focus issues for SEC potential 


consideration for Rocky Flats, we originally 


identified three broad categories. First and 


foremost was data reliability, and then second 


was the high-fired issue. And the third one 


was the americium or chest counts. 


And that’s where we came in. And then 


what happened was subsequent to that we also 


had these conference calls, working group 


conference calls where we started to dive in a 


little further primarily in response to some 


questions that Mark had raised related to 


neutron exposure. And that surfaced a 


discussion we had just completed, but at the 


same time we noticed also that the data for 


photon exposures in the TBD showed that they 


were primarily roll-ups. 


That is, starting I believe up until 


1976, I think the data that was available, and 

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you can certainly correct me if I’m wrong, 


were not individual measurements but were 


roll-up data of total photon and neutron 


exposures, external exposures. And then the 


intent was to somehow disaggregate them so 


that we could actually reconstruct the photon 


doses versus the neutron doses. 


And I believe that all of what we’re 


talking about now, mainly the neutron exposure 


discussion we just had and this matter of 


these other data, go toward the, please 


correct me if I’m wrong, the deconstruction of 


the roll-up data in a form that will allow 


reconstruction of individuals’ doses, I think, 


pre-1976. And that’s where I believe then the 


delivery of the special neutron study and also 


now these other data that we’re talking about, 


the latest external dose. 


So this was like the fourth item that 


was added on to the original list of three 


that we felt we needed to start to explore. 


Now it seems to me the conversation that we’re 


having now is a mixture of data reliability 


issues and also this business of 


reconstructing photon and neutron doses in the 

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earlier years. So when I look at number nine 


and the way it’s constructed, I see a little 


bit of both in there as looking at the data 


from the point of view of dealing with 


reconstructing historical photon exposures, 


but also there are some items in here that 


will also go toward data reliability. 


And that’s where I am right now in my 


understanding of where we are in the process. 


And NIOSH is providing these data and records 


for us to review to see if, in fact, the 


concerns we originally raised related to this 


roll-up issue, neutron-photon roll-up issue, 


are, in fact, not a problem. And that’s where 


my understanding is right now of this 


particular potential SEC issue. 


DR. ULSH: John, I would point you to that ­

-


MR. GRIFFON: That issue, yeah. 


DR. ULSH: -- that Mark just referenced 


about the roll-up of neutron and gamma doses 


together. In our written responses for the 


Boston meeting on pages nine and ten we talked 


about that very issue. And we reported that 


for the time period that you’re talking about 

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where the photon and neutron doses were 


combined, we applied that measurement to both 


neutrons and to photons. So effectively that 


doubles the reported dose, and we presented 


that as a claimant favorable resolution to 


this issue. I don’t know if you guys have 


reviewed that yet, but it’s on pages nine and 


ten of our written responses. 


DR. MAURO: Now that you mention it, yes, I 


do recall that, and I haven’t. Unfortunately, 


as pointed out earlier, Joe is, I believe, in 


Europe right now, and he’s been sort of the 


point man on this, and I wish, and I’m not 


thoroughly briefed on this. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I think we, that’s why and 


on the last page new issue number one, I left 


that as an open item that SC&A’s reviewing 


your response, Brant. That’s sort of where 


that stands. 


I agree there’s a little bit of 


overlap between the neutron and the data in 


the number nine issues here. I think we can 


proceed on though. We’re on the right track, 


John. 


Item number four is the description of 

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the coworker model, and I don’t think at this 


point that NIOSH has provided anything to us. 


DR. ULSH: That is correct. We have not 


provided you coworker models. We are 


developing that from the Rocky Flats database. 


Now I want to point out that there’s a 


difference here between Rocky Flats and some 


of the other sites that you previously 


considered. And that is that we are not 


proposing to use CER data. We are using 


actual data from Rocky Flats. We have about ­

- Craig jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, 


but I think 360,000 bioassay data, and I don’t 


even know how many external. But it covers 


just about all the, it covers all the years 


that we’re talking about the operations at 


Rocky Flats, and we are currently bouncing the 


results of, the results that are contained in 


the electronic database against paper records 


for this. But I do want to point out that 


this is not CER data. It’s not third-party 


data. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, go ahead, Mark. 


(no response) 


MS. MUNN: We seem to have lost Mark. 

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DR. ZIEMER: Mark, are you there? 


DR. WADE: I say we wait a minute, he’ll be 


back. Mark, you’re not on mute, are you? 


MR. GRIFFON: Hi, Paul. This is Mark. I 


got cut off somehow. 


DR. ZIEMER: We just were waiting for you to 


get back. We figured you’d come back if we 


waited. I think we’re down to item five under 


nine. 


MR. GRIFFON: Item number five is this 


question about the zeros or no data available 


fields, and I think where that stands is that 


NIOSH has basically outlined an approach for 


this. 


Brant, you referenced this in that 


same document I believe and also maybe in the 


TBD. I’m not sure. 


And SC&A has to look at this and see, 


review it as it applies to the SEC petition I 


guess is the question. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, we presented, Jim Langsted 


presented a discussion of this issue. It was 


primarily related to after the years 1964 and 


forward where they had the combined dosimetry 


and security badges. And the question that 

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SC&A raised was after that time period why do 


you still see blanks in some cases or zeros in 


some cases when everyone was badged. 


What Jim described was that in some 


cases workers would miss a badge exchange 


cycle and so there would be no recorded dose 


for that cycle. However, they were still 


wearing the badges they were issued, and they 


would turn it in at the next badge exchange 


period. In cases like that --


DR. ZIEMER: Presumably, that period dose 


was on the next time period. 


DR. ULSH: That’s exactly right. All of the 


doses recorded on that badge would be recorded 


in the latest time period when the badge was 


actually exchanged. And of course, that 


leaves you with a hole for the first monitored 


period, but in that case NIOSH would assign 


missed dose because this worker was 


continuously monitored. 


So by assigning missed dose that’s 


actually a claimant-favorable approach. We 


laid that out in the comment responses that we 


prepared for Boston, that letter that we keep 


referring to, and I think it is in SC&A’s 

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court to review that. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, but that doesn’t really 


address the question of potentially leaving 


badges aside when doing, when working in an 


exposure area. 


DR. ULSH: You’re right. That’s a separate 


issue. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s a separate issue. 


DR. ULSH: Those two issues weren’t rolled 


into one. 


DR. ZIEMER: As they approach their dose 


limit to take their badge off so they --


MR. GRIFFON: But I think, Brant, you also 


offered a way for handling that second issue. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, the assertion was that in 


some cases workers as they approached the dose 


limit would leave their badges in their locker 


or stick them in their back pocket or 


something like that. We have heard that, 


similar stories from other sites. I don’t 


think that NIOSH is questioning that that 


might have occurred in some situations. 


However, I did mention that we do have 


methods to handle that, nearby technique, 


looking at the worker’s monitoring results 

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over time. There is a paper by Kumazawa (ph) 


that describes how you can identify situations 


when this occurred, and when it does, how you 


can adjust the recorded dose. 


MR. GRIFFON: And have you looked at that 


method as it applies to this particular site, 


this particular petition? Whether it would 


apply or if that approach can be used? I 


guess that’s the question here. 


MS. MUNN: Is it generic enough? 


DR. ULSH: It is generic. It’s a generic 


approach for adjusting recorded doses. I 


think Jim has something he wants to add. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I think what Brad’s 


talking about is the Kumazawa approach was not 


specific to adjusting doses. It evaluated 


lognormal distributions of individual worker 


exposures. And you can see that as workers 


tend to get closer to the administrative 


limits, the curve tails off and doesn’t go in 


a straight line all the way up through. 


That could either be due to the fact 


that they weren’t working or that they were 


leaving their badges in their rack. And we’ve 


adopted techniques at places like Hanford 

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where we would just extrapolate that straight 


line right up and not account for the 


curvature and give credit for the fact that 


the person may have continued working and 


didn’t wear their badge. 


I would say this only does apply to 


people who were fairly heavily exposed. I 


mean, the ones who would leave the badge to 


continue working to get their incentive pay or 


whatever would be the ones at the higher end 


of the distribution. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, I would agree. 

MR. DeMAIORI: I’ve got a question. This is 

Tony DeMaiori with the Steel Workers. And my 

first question is what internal procedures, 


written procedures allowed for badges that 


weren’t counted to be counted again the 


following period? I guess that’s for Roger 


Falk. What procedures did we use that allowed 


for that when a badge was missed? 


DR. ULSH: Actually, I think that might go 


towards Jim Langsted. Jim, are you on the 


line? 


MR. LANGSTED: Yes, I am. 


DR. ULSH: This is Brant Ulsh. I can say 

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that we are tracking down right now QA 


procedures or procedures that the radiation 


control group would have used in terms, in 


situations where there was a suspect badge 


reading. And we do intend to present that in 


the evaluation report or at the time we 


present the evaluation report. But Jim, I 


don’t know if you have an answer for that 


or... 


MR. LANGSTED: There were procedures during 


the ‘80s and ‘90s and the 2000s that did 


account for reading badges that were submitted 


off cycle or after two cycles. And those 


results did go into the database. There were 


also procedures that Brant referred to for 


investigating and documenting badges that were 


off normal, for instance one crystal that was 


odd or a badge that was, with an unusual 


reading on it and investigating the dosimetry 


to assure that the badge was reading correctly 


and assigning the appropriate dose. 


MR. DeMAIORI: Well, I understand conduct of 


ops and the conduct of operations was 


perfectly clear that if you had an unusually 


high dose you trusted your instrumentation and 

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you assigned that dose. So I know procedures 


that would require you to assign the dose, I 


just don’t know any other procedures that 


would allow for no current data available. I 


guess that’s really what I’m shooting at. 


What procedure allows that insertion to the 


permanent document? 


MR. LANGSTED: The procedure did not address 


no current data available. That was a record 


keeping issue while there was not a number 


available for that exchange period. And like 


we discussed earlier if the badge did not get 


exchanged but got exchanged the second period 


a no current data available would show up in 


the database for that first period. And then 


all the dose would show up for the second 


period. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, this is Arjun. There 


are a number of these data integrity 


questions, and they’re quite different, and 


the approaches might be quite different. And 


I guess it might be useful to make a list of 


them and discuss it at the working group so we 


know the issue is being addressed. Because 


apparently, NIOSH is contemplating addressing 

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them, but --


DR. ZIEMER: And we certainly can’t address 


them here today so that’s probably a good 


suggestion. Just to identify those kinds of 


issues and whether or not they get addressed 


in some kind of a procedural way or 


operational way. 


MR. GRIFFON: That might be a follow up from 


item five, Arjun, is that look at NIOSH’s 


response, and when you come back with your 


comments make sure we cover all the areas of 


data integrity issues there. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But since Tony was speaking, 


you know, this is the point that you raised 


earlier. The petition I think has additional 


issues some of which Tony’s been raising here. 


And so it might be, the reason I made the 


comment is it might be good to combine all 


those issues into one list so that we’re sure 


that they’ve all be taken care of including 


the petitioners’ issues. 


MR. GRIFFON: I agree. At the outset of 


this I think we said that, I think SC&A under 


the SEC task we’d need to review the full 


petition and provide comments back on that. 

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So to the extent you can have that done before 


the next work group meeting that would be 


beneficial. Does everybody agree with that? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John Mauro. Our 


intent in our February 21st proposal for the 


task V, the SEC task that has been recently 


authorized, it includes reviewing the full 


Rocky petition. And as you indicated in your 


note at the top of the matrix table, certainly 


there are other issues that may emerge that 


need to get into this matrix. So we’re sort 


of caught right now between working off the 


original site profile set and transitioning 


into the SEC activity. 


And given the magnitude of the 


petition itself, we’re not there yet in terms 


of, in order to say that we have not only 


looked at the material that is being provided 


to us by NIOSH to deal with the issues that 


we’ve already begun to identify, but we really 


have not moved into a mode where we’re 


comfortable that we’ve explored and reviewed 


the full petition to the extent that we think 


that we have our arms around it. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: In that context I might say 

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is NIOSH has undoubtedly reviewed the whole 


petition and if they have a list of these 


issues that would maybe make it more efficient 


and cut down the time. Because it is 700 odd 


pages, I have tried to kind of take a first 


look at it, but it’s very long. 


DR. ULSH: It is a very extensive petition, 


very thoroughly documented. We are in the 


process as required preparing an evaluation 


report which we plan to have, as Lew mentioned 


at the beginning of the call, we plan to have 


that in the hands of the petitioner and SC&A 


and the Board in early April. I don’t know 


that we would be prepared to provide a 


breakdown of the petition before that time. 


But I would like to take the 


opportunity to point out that the time is 


short here. To the extent that we can capture 


the issues on the matrix so that we’re not 


shooting at a moving target, I think that 


would be beneficial for everybody. I don’t 


think anybody wants to go into the Board 


meeting with brand new issues that have just 


come up recently because I really think the 


petitioners are anticipating a vote in April. 

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And we certainly want to be responsive to any 


concerns that are reflected both in the 


petition and raised by SC&A. I think we’ve 


done that, and we’re in the process of doing 


that, but we need to know what the issues are 


in order to prepare responses to them. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re in agreement 


with you, Brant. We’re doing our best. We’re 


all working hard on this. And it is partially 


because it’s from a site profile that we 


started this process that we’re, I guess, 


modifying these slightly as we move because 


we’re understanding the issues better, quite 


frankly. I think that’s what’s happening. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: It’s a little bit more than 


that. This is Arjun. It’s different than Y12 in that the Y-12 petition is short and has 


been on the web. We only recently got the 


Rocky Flats petition. It’s very long, as 


Brant has said, it’s thoroughly documented. 


It’s technically very complex and the Board is 


just charging us, or recently has charged us 


with looking at it as a petition. So I don’t 


know what the pleasure of the Board is in 


terms of asking us, but as a task manager for 

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SEC I do feel constrained to say that these 


issues that have been raised from a site 


profile there’s no necessary connection with 


what the petitioner might have said. I do 


know there may be overlap, but --


MR. GRIFFON: From my standpoint that’s part 


of why we put this under the SEC review 


process. And we certainly owe it to the 


petitioners to fully review the petition 


they’ve put together. I mean, that’s what 


we’re doing here so to the extent we can, we 


want to do this in a timely fashion, I agree 


with you, Brant. But it is extensive and 


lengthy and we also owe it a thorough review 


so I agree. I think we’re getting there. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, let’s proceed here, Mark, 


with the rest of this. 


MR. GRIFFON: Item six, this is something 


that was addressed in Brant’s response 


document that he’s referring to, and 


basically, I think it needs further follow up. 


It was a finding in a 1993 GNFSB report, and I 


think it just hadn’t been tracked back. Is 


that accurate, Brant, that you’re working on 


that? 

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DR. ULSH: I think that’s accurate, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: Item seven is -- and since 


there’s no previous item six, this is kind of 


a new item. This was a, Tony brought this up, 


a petitioner, on the last work group meeting. 


He was on the phone, and it’s a question of 


following up on some criminal investigations. 


And I put this as an action because I 


think that NIOSH needs to work with the 


petitioner on this. I think at the time of 


the phone call Tony didn’t have specific 


dates, times or who was involved. And I think 


that we were hoping that NIOSH could follow up 


with the petitioner and at least pull the 


thread on this and check into it and make 


sure, or see what’s there basically. 


DR. ZIEMER: Does this refer to the original 


grand jury investigations that were done after 


the FBI visited Rocky back in ’89 or ’90? 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s what we’re not sure of. 


Tony, do you have any more that you 


could offer on this for clarification? 


MR. DeMAIORI: Under clarification I would 


give you, we just concluded an investigation 


at Rocky Flats under an (unintelligible) 

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sample. It was (unintelligible), whatever 


term you want to use. It’s with pure 


plutonium, no americium ingrowth, so that’s a 


current one that was just completed by Kaiser-


Hill and the United States Department of 


Energy, and there was no criminal prosecution; 


however, there was no dose added to the 


individuals’ record. And this is not 


uncommon. This has been continuous throughout 


the history of that site. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, can I ask --


MR. DeMAIORI: And I’ve got the current one. 


I’ve got the report in my filing cabinet right 


here as this is something that we just 


completed. 


MR. GRIFFON: Are any of these that you 


referenced in the last work group meeting, are 


they included within your petition or is this 


something beyond the materials that you 


provided already? I mean I guess that’s what 


we sort of need to know. We want to make sure 


we cover --


MR. DeMAIORI: Right, it’s a challenge under 


the record keeping, the no current data 


available. You know, we don’t believe that 

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it’s simply because there was no data 


available. The workers don’t believe it. 


I’ve got a package right here from Norm Worwin 


(ph) from the ’90, when we were adding 


plutonium to the stacker/retriever in Building 


371, he was the (unintelligible). We were 


turning out our ADRTs as two-week limits so 


that they didn’t exceed their five rem a year 


so we were rotating them out. 


But Norm did the job for all four 


months from the inside of the C cell, and his 


records indicate no current data available 


quite often during that time period and low 


dose even though the people he was supporting 


had high doses, and we were rotating them in 


and out on a routine basis. And so in the 


petition these are the types of things that we 


are questioning on the record keeping 


absolutely. 


And so as I brought up historically 


that is when the doses weren’t believed to be 


correct as there was the (unintelligible) no 


current data available. And so this is really 


where we’re at. 


DR. ULSH: Tony, this is Brant, Brant Ulsh 

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with NIOSH. You mentioned that you’ve just 


finished up, I don’t know if you used the term 


investigation, but --


MR. DeMAIORI: It was an investigation by 


Kaiser-Hill and the United States Department 


of Energy. 


DR. ULSH: If there are situations like 


that, investigations, can you please forward 


that to us? We would be very interested in 


considering it and responding to it. And if 


there are other ones that you’re aware of but 


you may not have in hand, if you could point 


us in the right direction, tell us whatever 


you can tell us in terms of who we call or --


MR. GRIFFON: When this first came up, just 


to respond to what Paul said, I was thinking 


it was related to the 1989, you know, the FBI 


DR. ZIEMER: Although I think that original 


case had less to do with personnel monitoring 


and more to do with dumping, illegal dumping 


into the environment. 


MR. DeMAIORI: Yeah, the grand jury 


investigation was more of an environmental 


investigation, no question about it. What I’m 

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telling you is, you know, and this relates 


directly to using the coworker model as when 


in fact out at Rocky Flats as some of the 


doses came in that were a lot higher than the 


operations would normally expect to see, and 


there were investigations, internal 


investigations. (Unintelligible) were not 


justified in the minds of those who did the 


investigations. They were zeroed, just like 


this person, the investigation we just 


completed was zeroed. 


You know, the people investigated it, 


determined that the samples had been doped 


with pure plutonium, and we never worked with 


pure plutonium. As did who did the doping, 


that’s why there’s no criminal prosecution due 


to the chain of custody. So you know, but 


once again we’re at the zero. Now conduct of 


operations out at Rocky Flats is something 


that we implemented in the mid-‘90s anyway. 


And would say yeah, we believe your 


instrumentation and your assigned dose. 


So really what I’m saying is that if 


there are procedures that I’ve been told about 


here recently on the telephone that would 

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explain these type of things and direct, we’d 


like to know what those procedures are. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, I think I’ll leave 


that action. Brant, you can call up with Tony 


and maybe see if he has more materials to 


provide, and we’ll leave it there. Is that 


okay? 


MR. DeMAIORI: I’ve got the current 


investigation. I’ve got the files. My sister 


was part of the investigating team. 


MR. GRIFFON: And number eight, and this 


goes to the data reliability similar to the Y12 matrix, this NIOSH/ORAU will demonstrate 


reliability of bioassay and external database 


data for the comp program. And this is, you 


know, I think we’re asking for NIOSH/ORAU to 


give a method by which they’re going to 


determine the reliability of these databases. 


And it sort of depends, it’s related 


to the coworker models in that I’m not even 


sure how extensive their reliance on coworker 


models will be for this petitioning cohort. 


We know at Y-12 for that period of time the 


coworker models were going to be fairly 


heavily relied on. I’m not sure the same is 

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true for this, for Rocky Flats. So I think 


they’re sort of tied together with the 


coworker model in that respect. 


DR. ULSH: Mark, I think you’re right. If 


you look at the graph that we put together in 


our written responses for Boston, there’s a 


very high proportion of the plant population 


that was monitored, particularly between the 


years of -- I’m trying to eyeball it off the 


graph here -- about 19, in the early ‘60s up 


into the ‘90s. It, of course, ramped up in 


the ‘50s up to that peak in the ‘60s. 


MR. GRIFFON: So if a high percentage were 


monitored, and you have enough data to do 


individual dose reconstruction, obviously, 


these kind of things go away. 


DR. ULSH: That’s exactly right; however, I 


don’t want to say that we had a hundred 


percent monitoring. We certainly will in 


individual situations rely on coworker data. 


But again I do want to point out again that 


we’re relying on the site, the actual site 


data, not CER data that might have been 


massaged by, for an epidemiology study. 


MR. GRIFFON: Correct. 

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MS. MUNN: Not third party stuff. 


MR. GRIFFON: These are identified as new 


issues. New issue one I think John pretty 


much outlined earlier, this roll-up question. 


And I think that’s this basically we need to, 


SC&A needs to review that. We just got that 


response at the last meeting. And then the 


same issue, too, is kind of a specific issue I 


think in that this question of an 


inappropriate algorithm being used. 


And I believe we had a response which 


seemed to be, you know, result in higher 


doses, but SC&A just has received it at the 


last meeting again, so you know, that last 


item might, for instance, be resolved very 


quickly. But we want to give SC&A a chance to 


further consider. 


Anything else to add either --


DR. ZIEMER: Board members, any further 


questions on the material that Mark’s 


presented? 


 (no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: The same issues or the same 


questions apply in terms of timing. Are we on 


track? It looks like we’re going to be really 

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pushed hard on this one timetable wise. NIOSH 


is doing their best to come up with their 


recommendation by early April, but then also 


the opportunity for SC&A to evaluate that 


material and for us to look at it before the 


Board meeting --


MR. GRIFFON: I guess the big, you know, one 


big sort of unknown right now for us is the 


petition is some 730 pages, and we’ve just 


asked SC&A to really look into it. So this is 


fairly recent that they’ve been tasked with 


that part of it. They’ve been looking at the 


profile in the past. So that’s, you know, I 


know we have to like everything else, we’re 


going to try to expedite that, but that’s sort 


of a big unknown and hopefully we’ve captured 


a lot of the same kind of issues in the 


original matrix, but we’re not sure of that. 


So we definitely need to look at that 


thoroughly. 


DR. ZIEMER: Board members, any other 


questions for Mark? 


 (no response) 


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


appreciate again the work group’s efforts on 

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this. It’s been extensive and time consuming. 


MR. HILLER: This is David Hiller with 


Senator Salazar’s office. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yes, David. 


MR. HILLER: It sounds like you’re ready to 


move on past this issue, and if I can I’d just 


like to, I guess, echo your question regarding 


whether or not this petition is going to be 


ready for action at the April meeting. I’m 


not sure that anybody can answer that 


question, but as you all know, this petition 


is well beyond the 180 day limit now. And 


there’s a great deal of concern both among the 


community of Rocky Flats workers and the 


congressional delegation this is going to be 


postponed yet again. 


DR. WADE: Well, I can try and answer your 


question. This is Lew Wade with NIOSH. It is 


NIOSH’s intent to present a definitive 


evaluation report to the petitioners at the 


early April and bring the petition evaluation 


report to the Board so that the Board can vote 


on it at its meeting at the end of April in 


Denver. That is really NIOSH’s expressed 


intent that I would imagine will live true to 

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that intent. 


What really is being discussed now is 


how much closure there’ll be on the variety of 


issues that we’ve raised prior to that. And I 


think that’s where the push is. I think this 


next discussion on the Board’s contractor and 


their progress on the SEC task will relate to 


this issue as well. But it is NIOSH’s intent 


to issue a definitive evaluation report prior 


to the end of April meeting and to see that 


the Board is in a position to vote at the 


Denver meeting at the end of April. 


MR. HILLER: Well, fair enough --


MR. GRIFFON: With that in mind -- I’m 


sorry. This is Mark Griffon. I didn’t mean 


to cut in. But with that in mind I think one, 


I’m just looking back at our matrix and one 


big item that’s missing in my mind is the 


sample DRs, the sample dose reconstructions. 


And I think I don’t know if, you know, giving 


this timeline I think we need to ask SC&A now 


to develop the same thing they did for Y-12 


and get those to NIOSH as soon as possible 


possibly for, so NIOSH can do some sample dose 


reconstructions for the next work group 

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meeting. 


I don’t know if this is all possible, 


but I’m throwing it out there that it seems 


like we need to have some sample dose 


reconstructions to sort of stick by our draft 


SEC review procedures as well. This is sort 


of the proof of principle. Show us some draft 


dose reconstructions of representative cases. 


DR. MAURO: Mark, this is John Mauro. I 


agree with you completely. I believe, 


especially in light of this discussion, we’re 


in a position to begin to craft cases similar 


to the set that we sent down on Y-12. The 


only thing I would caution is that while we do 


that and we’ll begin that, we have already 


begun that, and we do want to leave the door 


open, that in parallel we are reviewing the 


large, the petition, all the data that is 


being provided, information and procedures 


that are being provided to us. 


So I think that if acceptable to the 


working group and the Board, we could probably 


put something out as an initial set of cases 


that we think, given our, the maturity of our 


understanding of the issues, we think these 

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are cases that would help achieve closure. 


But we may have to add additional ones as we 


proceed. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, this is Arjun. I 


agree with John. As I said we have done a 


very rough look to of the first part of the 


petition. And part of our suggested 


procedures, and granted you haven’t voted on 


them, but in the commonsense spirit that Dr. 


Wade instructed us to work a couple of weeks 


back, we think that it’s important for us to 


interview the petitioner and, or at least one 


of the petitioners, and we can begin to 


develop this partial dose reconstruction list 


even as we did with Y-12 based even on the 


site profile issues and in the initial 


reading. But as John has said there’s no, we 


can do that within a few days, but we don’t, 


probably it will not be complete, or at least 


we won’t --


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we understand 


that. I think we need to get a partial 


listing though and maybe within a week if 


that’s possible. And then NIOSH will have 


some time to possibly turn it around before 

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the work group meeting at the end of the 


month. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, we can work on that 


and if you like we can integrate some of the 


issues that we see in the petition into that 


as well to kind of move things along in the 


spirit that’s here. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think that would be 


advisable, yeah. 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I would hope that 


that list of scenarios would not be 


unmercifully long. This site had from its 


outset a very focused mission and very focused 


activity range. And added to that a very high 


level of worker monitoring that we don’t 


always see. Given those parameters I would 


hope that we’d be able to focus in on a 


limited number of issues that affect the SEC 


and reduce the number of potential dose 


reconstructions that we need to prove. 


It would certainly seem reasonable to 


expect that we might not need to have 12 or 


even 10 or even nine different scenarios that 


we need to cover. I would hope we would be 


very, very circumspect in choosing what we are 

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expecting our people to do. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Ms. Munn, I guess you’re 


directing us to work with the working group 


that developed this, and we will, of course, 


take our guidance from the Board members on 


the working group, and you’re on it. So I 


suppose we will develop a process in that 


light and send you --


MS. MUNN: I’m just asking that it be 


focused specifically on issues that are raised 


by the SEC. 


DR. ZIEMER: And you’ll be there to help do 


it, Wanda. 


Other comments or questions? 


MR. GRIFFON: And maybe you can provide that 


list within a week, John, and circulate it to 


the working group and NIOSH. 


DR. ZIEMER: And we really haven’t answered 


the question from the Colorado delegation in 


terms of reaching closure, but I think it’s 


safe to say we’ll do our best effort to come 


to closure at the April meeting. 


PROGRESS REPORT SC&A SEC TASK
 

DR. WADE: This is Lew. The second 


discussion we’re going to have now is hearing 

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from SC&A on their work and plan for the SEC 


task. That is also part of this. So until 


that discussion takes place I don’t think 


we’ve explored all of the issues we need to 


explore prior to making our plan. I would 


suggest we move into that agenda item. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right, that this the next item 


on the agenda. Lew, do you want to make any 


other preliminary remarks on that before we 


look at the proposal? 


DR. WADE: Only that again, we asked SC&A to 


take on three reviews, one full-blown review 


on the Ames, Iowa petition, and then two very 


focused reviews on Y-12 and Rocky Flats, the 


focus being the issues identified in the site 


profile activity. And based upon that charge 


John has prepared, I think it’s a February 21st
 

bit of report plan that I think maybe, John, 


you could simply walk us through and just 


paint us a picture as to where you are and 


where you’re going. And then let us know what 


guidance you need. Now again this work is 


happening under the able leadership of Dr. 


Melius who’s --


DR. ZIEMER: Still there? 

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DR. WADE: Yes. 


So I would ask Dr. Melius if he has 


any introductory comments, and then we could 


hear from John. 


DR. MELIUS: I have no introductory 

comments. 

DR. ZIEMER: And before John begins here, 

Lew, I just for clarification on process, this 


material from John is actually the material 


that was sent to the contracting officer. 


Does this require any Board action or is this 


for information only? It’s basically 


responsive to the Board’s already what we’ve 


designated as our desire. Do we need to 


formally approve this? 


DR. WADE: I think we do have an opened 


action in that SC&A has made a proposal, two 


proposals really to us as to the procedures 


they would follow. And the Board has never 


formally approved those procedures. So I 


think there is an opened action. Whether or 


not you want to take that action now I leave 


to your wisdom. It is something we could do 


at the full-blown meeting in April as long as 


we have SC&A working to the Board’s desires 

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between now and then. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, there’s several documents 


that go back to last fall. You know, we have 


the, I think they were November documents 


dealing with Task Five and the sub-tasks 


thereof. And this letter proposal basically 


is an addendum to Task Order Five. But has 


Task Order Five not been formally issued 


already? 


DR. WADE: Yes, it has. 


DR. ZIEMER: So it does exist, and this is a 


proposed addendum or -- is that the proper 


word? 


DR. WADE: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Addendum to Task Order 


Five. So I think we’ll go through this and 


see if the Board is in agreement that this is 


what we would like you to concentrate on. 


DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. Can I 


change my mind and make some preliminary? 


DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 


DR. MELIUS: I thought they could come 


later, but in our last meeting as I recall, 


what we decided to do was postpone approval of 


the proposed procedures that SC&A had given to 

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us and try to merge those procedures with our 


work group report so that we made sure that 


their procedures were developed before and 


sort of independently of our work group 


efforts. And we needed to merge the two 


documents in a way that would, I think, 


provide more focus to what SC&A would be 


doing. 


DR. ZIEMER: We actually on our own 


procedures though, we did in a sense approve 


those as a working document that we could 


always modify if necessary. So I think we 


said that we were going to at least operate 


under that draft that your work group 


prepared. And then SC&A had developed this 


item Board procedures for review. That’s the 


November 30th document I believe. 


And those were the two that we had 


talked about possibly merging those as a 


formal document, but in essence we are 


already, I believe, operating under our own 


document subject to later refinement as we 


review the SC&A. But in terms of our own 


document that talks about key considerations 


for Board review of SC&A, or of special 

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exposure cohort documents, I think in those 


issues such as the credibility of the datasets 


and demonstration of feasibility and 


sufficient accuracy and those things. We 


actually are operating under those if I’m not 


mistaken. 


DR. MELIUS: That is correct; however, 


SC&A’s procedures as outlined in the November 


30th document was written beforehand. And I 


think the task that we need to do is to 


somehow combine, merge the two so that their 


procedures reflect the focus of what we want. 


I propose that we do that in a sort of going 


forward at the next meeting. Meanwhile, the 


three issues that we have under consideration 


now, we handle sort of on an interim basis as 


best we can, operating under the guidance for 


that document and how SEC –- SC&A is 


approaching these. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right, which means in essence 


we’re going to focus on this February document 


that John sent to the contracting officer. 


DR. WADE: Right, and just to -- this is Lew 


again -- to assure that we’re on sound 


contractual and legal ground, in proposal five 

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that SC&A developed is incorporated now as 


part of the contract. That proposal laid out 


certain activities that SC&A was proposing to 


do. So we can operate under the cover of that 


proposal and this amendment. Now the Board 


has to decide intellectually how it reacts to 


this amendment. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right, okay, and John, why 


don’t you proceed then? 


DR. MAURO: Well, I have to say you’ve done 


a very good job in stealing my thunder and 


anticipating everything, and many of the 


issues that you have just been discussing are 


issues that I’ve been thinking about and from 


the point of view of an SEC Task Five status 


report. I think it’s a good idea for us to 


step back and recollect that Task Five has 


been fully funded and approved. It consists 


of a number of sub-tasks. The first two are 


the delivery of one was a review of NIOSH’s 


evaluation procedures for SEC petitions and 


one was -- pardon me? I thought I heard a 


question. 


DR. ZIEMER: I think we’re getting some 


offline static or something. Go ahead. 

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DR. MAURO: The other deliverable, November 


deliverable that we mentioned is SC&A’s 


proposed procedures to review SEC petitions on 


behalf of the Board and for the Board. So 


those two deliverables are in the hands of the 


Board for your consideration. Now --


DR. ZIEMER: I’m getting a lot of side 


chatter again. 


DR. WADE: We’re getting talk and laughter 


and someone’s going to remind somebody of a 


discussion. That’s all on open mike. Please, 


if you’re doing that, mute your discussion. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, I’ll continue. Now the 


framework that Dr. Melius’ working group put 


together represents really the only approved, 


I guess, guideline under which let’s say work 


is proceeding. The other two documents that 


we’ve submitted are yet to be approved. 


DR. ZIEMER: That’s correct. 


DR. MAURO: So where we are in terms of 


stepping back and the big picture is we have 


authorization and budget to proceed with the 


full scope of work that’s laid out in the 


February 21st letter that you folks have in 


your hands. The reason that was needed is the 

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original authorization of Task Five was only 


really authorized us to proceed with those 


first two deliverables. 


All the other tasks which consists of 


other sub-tasks which consists of the review 


of five SEC petitions that have site profiles, 


the review of one SEC petition that does not 


have a site profile which turns out to be the 


Ames case. So we basically, that sub-task now 


has been officially authorized, and then there 


is the focused reviews. So that was the 


framework that was set up originally, and that 


was approved. 


But now that we’ve been given through 


the working group and through the Board 


authorization to move forward with 


specifically with Ames and these other two 


what I will call focused reviews, I felt it 


was necessary for me to inform the Board with 


the February 21st letter, okay, we are now 


about to proceed with some additional work 


that up until that point in time really was 


not authorized. Here is what I believe will 


be the budget, and here’s what I believe to be 


the scope and the approach that we will use. 

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I elected in that letter to treat the 


Y-12 and Rocky work as focused reviews. So 


they really fall under one of the sub-tasks 


that we have a budget for. And the Ames work 


that we have begun is a full-blown review that 


is, that we have draft procedures in place but 


really not approved. So we’re using right now 


our commonsense approach to the problem. 


Mainly, we have Dr. Melius’ framework, and we 


have the dialogue that’s going on of what we 


need to do. 


But we really have never married Dr. 


Melius’ framework to our procedures that we 


proposed in November. That’s probably needed 


in order to firm up the framework within which 


we’re doing our Ames review because the Ames 


is a full-blown review. With regard to the 


two focused reviews -- and I’ll get into the 


specifics. I’m trying to stay back right now 


to give you the big picture. 


With regard to the two focused 


reviews, we have a little bit of an unusual 


circumstance in terms of originally the 


focused review concept was put in place when 


Task Five was first authorized as a way in 

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which the Board could authorize SC&A to do 


some special studies, relatively small 


studies, and that would be performed after the 


Board had received an evaluation report on a 


particular site profile from NIOSH. And then 


the Board would then say, well listen, SC&A, 


you may want to look into this, this or this. 


What we have here is hunting a little 


bit different, and appropriately different 


that emerged as a result of the maturation of 


our understanding of how best to proceed. 


With regard to the Y-12 and Rocky it became 


clear that in order to expedite the process 


it’s better not to wait until the evaluation 


reports show up at the Board, and then the 


Board to deliberate and determine what areas 


you’d like SC&A to look at and not look at. 


So the judgment was let’s try to get this 


process moving forward as early as possible 


following the qualification of a particular 


SEC petition. 


Now moving closer and closer now to 


where we want to get into, talk about the 


details. Y-12, Y-12 in my mind is, even 


though it’s been initiated prior to the 

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evaluation, it is our understanding of the 


issues are very mature. Our ability to define 


the issues, you could see where we were able 


to do that very effectively. There really has 


not been a growth in the number of issues that 


need to be looked at because we were working 


on the site profile for Y-12 for quite some 


time, and our understanding of what issues 


really rise to the level of an SEC issue and 


what does not is pretty clear. 


So the idea of a focused review for 


those issues really makes a lot of sense. And 


I think it’s well in hand. I think we’re 


progressing very nicely with that. That is, 


the next real stage of activities is those 


sets of cases. Granted we have 11 cases there 


that we suggest. The reason there are that 


many is because there’s a lot of complexity 


especially to these special radionuclides that 


need to be aired out. 


But I think if we can go through cases 


that address those 11 issues, we’ll be in the 


position fairly quickly to give advice to the 


working group and then the working group to 


the Board regarding the degree to which NIOSH 

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has demonstrated that they’re proposed 


approaches do, in fact, work. So I think our 


progress on Y-12 is very, I’m very optimistic 


that we’re going to be able to move pretty 


quickly through the various issues and using 


the case studies as the basis to achieve 


closure. 


Now the focused review for Rocky as 


you can tell is still a bit, I guess, early. 


What I mean by that is we really move very 


quickly from the, moving from a mode, the site 


profile review mode, where out of the site 


profile we were able to identify three, 


perhaps four, major categories of issues that 


emerged from the site profile. We are now in 


a mode where we’re looking at the petition 


itself, and unlike Y-12, the Rocky petition is 


a very large petition, a complex petition. 


We believe that it would be 


inappropriate for us to presume that the four 


fundamental issues that are in the matrix, 


even though the matrix has a lot of elements 


to it, they really boil down to four 


fundamental issues with a number of sub-


issues, it would be inappropriate to say that 

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that is the boundaries of the SEC issues at 


play simply because I think there are two 


things that SC&A has to do. 


One is we have to very carefully 


review that petition, and two, we have to 


interview the petitioners to make sure that we 


feel that we’ve given due process to 


understanding the issues and getting our arms 


around it. Which brings me to a question, 


maybe it was inappropriate to call the Rocky 


review a focused review simply because from 


what I just said, obviously, it’s not that 


focused. So I guess one of the matters I’d 


like to leave before the Board is perhaps in 


light of the process we’re engaging in right 


now, it would have been more appropriate to 


define the Rocky work as something that’s more 


akin to a full review as opposed to a focused 


review. 


Now for a practical sense the reason 


that, and I’m not saying we should do this, 


but from a practical sense, as we move, unlike 


Y-12 where I think we understand how much time 


it’s going to take and how much it’s going to 


cost to work our way through the process. On 

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Rocky it’s a lot more open ended as I see it 


right now. And I don’t want to leave anyone 


with the impression that it’s what I would 


call a standard focused review where the 


issues have been defined, the process for 


closing out the issues have, or the need to 


address the issues, whether they’ll be, 


achieve resolution or not, of course, it’s yet 


to be seen, but I think that the issues may 


still be unfolding before us. 


Unfortunately, I think early on when 


we had one of our conference calls we all were 


optimistic that, well, let’s define those 


issues and move ahead. I think we did that 


effectively on Y-12. I think we were a little 


bit overly optimistic on Rocky. I’d like to 


leave a little elbow room to allow us to 


explore with the working group other issues 


that might emerge as we move through these 


processes. From a practical standpoint the 


implications are that it does have cost and 


schedule implications. 


I noticed in the previous conversation 


that everyone is very anxious to try to move 


this as quickly as possible especially with 

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the April meeting coming up. But I also want 


to caution everyone that I think we’ve got a 


very large petition in front of us and we 


really are only, we’re in the beginning stages 


of totally digesting that document. I think 


it would be unfair to claim that the work 


we’ve done on the site profile certainly gets, 


certainly moved this up the learning curve in 


addressing the issues. But I wouldn’t presume 


that, that we have captured all of the SEC 


issues completely as a result of the work we 


did on the site profile. 


So I guess one of the things I think 


we might want to do is decide whether it’s 


important that rather than work from a 


commonsense approach that we’ve been operating 


under perhaps it’s time to formalize our 


procedures for performing reviews, mainly 


marrying Dr. Melius’ framework with our review 


procedures so we have an approved set of 


protocols under which the Ames review can move 


forward. 


The Ames review is moving forward, but 


it really, and it’s moving forward from the 


commonsense approach. We are starting to, 

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there are only three of us right now reading 


all of that material. So there’s a lot of 


material by the way, and we’re starting to 


develop a sensibility regarding what those 


issues are. We’re hoping within the matter of 


a week or so to start to communicate to the 


working group some of the, to tee up some of 


the things that we think might be issues 


related to Ames, might be SEC issues. Because 


that was one of the reasons we began as early 


as we could on this so that we could 


communicate to the working group and the Board 


some of the issues that emerged. 


And so from the point of view of the 


status report three of us have read 


substantially the two CDs that were provided 


and about 70 documents that are on the O 


drive. And we’re starting to -- our opinion 


regarding what might be some of the SEC-


related issues at Ames are starting to take 


form, but we are very much in the early stages 


of that. 


As those issues start to emerge and 


within our own group of people that are 


working on it, we achieve general agreement 

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that we think we’ve identified X, Y and Z as 


an issue, at that point in time we will 


communicate them in writing to the working 


group. With regard to Y-12, as I mentioned 


earlier, I think we’re very mature, way out in 


front of a power curve so to speak, and 


because we have, I think, one of the big 


milestones in the process we’re in is to get 


the list of cases that we’d like to look at. 


Because really what that means is that 


we understand what we believe to be the key 


SEC issues, and we understand, we believe we 


could define the kinds of cases that if we can 


work our way through those cases to everyone’s 


satisfaction, we have gotten to the point 


where we fully appreciate the degree to which 


we have issues that are resolvable or issues 


that may not be resolvable. And so I think 


we’re well along on Y-12 in that matter. 


So I think we’re pretty much in the 


earlier stages on Rocky. Even though we’ve 


identified a number of important issues, I 


think we’re, and we’re about to deliver to the 


working group a list of at least initial cases 


that we think will serve us well in testing 

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those issues, I believe that there is quite a 


bit more to be done there. I hope that this 


gives you the overview that you’re looking 


for. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, John. 


DR. MAURO: I’d be happy to answer your 


questions. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 


Bottom line on Rocky is that although 


you’ve identified four issues in your proposal 


and that makes it look focused, but in fact, 


there’s a high possibility or even probability 


that other issues may emerge as you get into 


the petition itself and as you examine the 


issues that we’ve already talked about in the 


matrix which makes it look a little less 


focused than it might otherwise have looked. 


DR. MAURO: Right, exactly correct. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let’s get comments from 


Board members. And then the other implication 


of what you said in terms of resources for 


Rocky, whenever that’s the case, one of the 


important resources is time. And that makes 


me awfully nervous about the April time frame, 


not in terms of what NIOSH is able to do, but 

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what the Board and its contractor will be able 


to do in terms of assessing the recommendation 


and coming to closure on it. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Ziemer, this is Arjun. 


I have a question in this regard. What we’re 


doing is sort of developing as we proceed and 


the calendar when NIOSH is going to put the 


evaluation both on Iowa and Rocky Flats is 


fairly short; Iowa is March 22nd and Rocky 


Flats is early April. And given the fact that 


in both readings of those petitions and the 


associated materials, earlier for Ames and 


more along for Rocky Flats, but still not very 


far along. What portions of the review maybe 


the Board would like to happen after the 


evaluation report is published? What parts of 


the dose reconstructions might be done 


afterwards or before? 


This is a little bit unclear. I mean, 


we are going to submit a list of dose 


reconstructions for Rocky Flats as soon as 


possible, soon. But I am a little bit unclear 


about what happens before and after. I guess 


not much is going to happen before in Iowa, 


but whether the Board is anticipating some 

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kind of more extended conversation with the 


working group and with NIOSH before the Board 


meeting on Rocky Flats after the petition 


evaluation is published, if not published, at 


least sent around to the Board and 


petitioners? 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, number one, I think we’re 


anticipating another work group meeting before 


the NIOSH recommendation on Rocky. That would 


be correct, Mark, would it not? 


MR. GRIFFON: I think so. I mean, the way 


they were framing it they’re looking at giving 


that evaluation report in early April so I 


think, yeah. 


DR. ZIEMER: But the other part of that is 


that, and I think this is sort of the question 


that Arjun is raising, is what do we expect 


before that happens and what do we expect 


after that happens. Part of this is a time 


constraint that gets imposed a bit in terms of 


wanting to be timely on these petitions. And 


of course, NIOSH itself is constrained by the 


requirements of the law in terms of the 180 


day thing. 


We have no such constraint per se 

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except that we recognize based on our 


interactions with the public that they also 


are looking for a timely action. We are in a 


situation where we want to be able to 


responsibly review a petition and feel like we 


have done it justice or basically review our 


recommendation by NIOSH, and yet we don’t want 


to drag this on and on and on. 


But we don’t want to get into the kind 


of thing we had at Mallinckrodt where every 


time we met we had a new set of issues to deal 


with, and we couldn’t come to closure. I’m 


just saying that right now particularly based 


on what John has said about Rocky and the fact 


that we’re just now getting into looking at 


the petition itself, and we’ll have the NIOSH 


recommendation in early April, that’s only two 


or three weeks at best before our meeting. 


And whether or not we can do a credible review 


and meet our responsibilities in that time 


would be a concern for me. 


DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I want to 


share that concern and sort of back up a 


little bit because we’re trying to facilitate 


the process, but it is important that, one, 

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that our review be, it’s an independent review 


of NIOSH’s evaluation of that SEC petition. 


And so we maintain some separation from NIOSH, 


and given like the circumstances on Rocky 


Flats I even question why we’re submitting or 


attempt to submit cases to NIOSH, sample cases 


or illustrative cases to NIOSH if we’re not 


confident that the issues, that we understand 


the issues with the SEC. 


And until their evaluation report, I 


mean, we want to make sure that NIOSH’s 


evaluation report is independent of our review 


of that. And so I think the idea of starting 


this early was to be able to make sure we 


better understand some of the issues 


particularly with the site profiles, some 


experience with the site can be gained, and it 


would facilitate the process. We still have 


to, one, maintain independence yet, secondly, 


recognize that when NIOSH does produce its 


evaluation report we may suddenly notice a 


number of new issues that haven’t been, you 


know, we didn’t have the foresight to 


identify. And they may require some amount of 


work. 

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DR. ZIEMER: We have asked NIOSH as part of 


their report to us to include sample dose 


reconstructions. 


DR. MELIUS: Correct, I think the issue is 


whether we have SC&A suggest to them what 


sample dose reconstructions to do. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, a priori, yeah. 


DR. MELIUS: It’s a little problematic. I 


wasn’t too uncomfortable with it with Y-12, at 


least as uncomfortable, because I thought that 


everyone sort of understood what the key 


questions were. But I’m very uncomfortable 


with trying it on Rocky Flats, and I also just 


think procedurally -- and I participated, we 


had two conference calls to discuss Y-12/Rocky 


Flats and then another call to discuss what to 


do about the Ames. And at the time of those 


calls, which were earlier in February, I 


believe, SC&A did not even have access yet to 


the Rocky Flats or the Ames petitions. 


And I think we need to sort of look at 


our task, or to me there ought to be maybe a 


separate task early that’s awarded where it’s 


for them to become familiar with the, for SC&A 


to become familiar with what’s in the 

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petition. These are, some of them are quite 


extensive, familiar with the site, again 


depending on whether or not there’s been a 


site profile, whether or not they’ve reviewed 


that site profile. And then based on that, 


propose to us what issues might be worth 


evaluating or becoming familiar with prior to 


NIOSH’s evaluation report. 


But I don’t think we can accelerate 


this process too much and yet retain sort of 


the independence of it. And I also think we 


need to maintain control of our contractor so 


to speak. I get a little worried when they’re 


proposing 1,000 hours of work on the Ames 


petition when they haven’t even read it yet. 


And I understand why they did that because 


they hadn’t read it, and they weren’t familiar 


with the site. There’s no site profile. But 


still, that’s a lot of effort for something 


that nobody’s really started to understand 


yet. 


DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


Other comments? 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Is it okay 


for me to just --

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DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, John, sure. 


DR. MAURO: -- help out a little bit here. 


When we originally put in our proposal for 


Task Five and we were required to put in a 


cost estimate for doing one SEC petition 


review for a petition that did not have a site 


profile and five reviews for petitions that 


did have. What we did was we said, well, we 


have a lot of experience in doing site profile 


reviews. And we envisioned that a petition 


review was in many respects very similar, the 


kinds of things you have to do were very 


similar so we used that as our baseline. 


That is, our experience quite frankly 


in doing site profile reviews turns out to be, 


to deliver the product that you folks have 


seen, the large document. We envisioned that 


the SEC petition review would be at a similar 


level of effort or level of analysis. So we 


basically used, the rule of thumb that we’ve 


been using is approximately 1,000 work hours 


to do, deliver one of those products. And we 


assume that the site profile review without --


I’m sorry, the SEC petition review without a 


site profile would be a comparable cost. 

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You’re absolutely right, the actual cost that 


we incur are better known right now. We’re 


reading the document, the Ames material. 


There’s a lot of material there, but it’s not 


that much more than the material we review 


when we review a site profile. 


When you consider the size of most of 


the total volumes that make up a site profile 


and all of the documents that stand behind it. 


The reality is perhaps it will be less 


expensive to do an SEC petition review because 


its range may not be as extensive. But I’d be 


the first to admit that, yes, the costs 


regarding a full-blown review are difficult to 


anticipate. So we put in our best estimate in 


our proposal which was 1,000 work hours, and 


we’re working towards staying within that 


budget. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. Maybe I could 


talk a little bit about each of the three 


issues and begin to talk about how we might 


proceed. I do this really with my two hats 


on, that is, the technical project officer for 


the SC&A contractors and the Board’s DFO. 


Let’s take what I think is the easiest of the 

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three issues, and that’s the Ames full-blown 


review. 


For just as background NIOSH will 


likely issue an evaluation report on Ames 


within the 180 days, which will have it issued 


at the end of March. It is not NIOSH’s intent 


to bring that proposal to the Board to vote 


until the meeting after the end of April 


meeting. Let’s say that’s early July or late 


June so there is some window. 


One course of action could be that 


once NIOSH issues its evaluation report, the 


working group chaired by Dr. Melius, that’s 


the working group looking at the SEC issues 


for the contractor, would meet. It could 


consider that report, and it could instruct 


the contractor as to what it might want to 


focus on or to highlight. 


At the full Board meeting at the end 


of April, as Dr. Melius suggested, there could 


be this merger of the SC&A procedure proposal 


and the Dr. Melius proposal. And we could 


leave that meeting with SC&A tasked to 


undertake its procedures focused as the Board 


might wish leading up to a presentation by 

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SC&A of its findings prior to the early July 


meeting at which time it’s likely that the 


petition would be voted on. 


So again, right now SC&A would be 


reviewing the materials once NIOSH’s petition 


was out. The working group would meet, decide 


upon if it wanted to give any particular 


instructions to SC&A. Certainly, at the end 


of April meeting, we would finalize the 


procedures, and SC&A could operate consistent 


with those procedures. So again, just as 


straw man, you can modify it as you might 


want. 


Let me go on to the second easiest 


which is Y-12. 


DR. MELIUS: Why don’t we talk about them 


one at a time? 


DR. WADE: I only propose it as a means for 


reaching a solution. It’s not perfect. 


DR. ZIEMER: That’s fine, go ahead, Ames. 


DR. MELIUS: Well, on Ames, I mean, actually 


I agree with your proposal, Lew, and I think 


that the time we had our first call wasn’t 


clear what the schedule would be for NIOSH. 


SC&A hadn’t had a chance to look at the 

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petition which is quite extensive, and I think 


that a work group meeting, discussion of that 


in early April would be appropriate. I think 


we should involve the petitioners in that 


discussion so they’re aware of what’s going 


on. But I think that would facilitate that. 


And I just want to make sure that we’re 


focused. Again, I’m not sure, until we’ve, 


you know, we’ve looked at the petition and 


understood the site, we have to decide what 


really needs to get focused on and use our 


resources appropriately for that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Melius, this is Arjun. 


I’ve been tasked with coordinating the Ames 


review task that you’ve asked us to do. And I 


think at the April Board meeting we’ll be able 


to give you a pretty good progress report on 


where we stand. And of course, we will have 


looked at NIOSH’s evaluation report also. 


DR. MELIUS: Arjun, as I understood there’s 


some issue of scheduling that because I don’t 


think NIOSH planned to present their 


evaluation report at the April meeting. 


DR. ZIEMER: July meeting I think is what 


you said. 

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DR. WADE: The report will be out there. 


The report will be in everybody’s hands at the 


end of March. So it’ll be there for 


intellectual consideration. We won’t be 


presenting it at the April meeting. 


DR. MELIUS: If possible we could do a work 


group meeting after you’ve had an opportunity 


to look at the evaluation report, become more 


familiar with the petition, and then we can 


decide exactly what would be appropriate to do 


at that point. 


DR. WADE: The only reason my proposal 


talked about a work group meeting possibly 


before the full Board meeting was just to give 


a little bit more time in case there are 


substantive issues raised by the evaluation 


report. 


DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


DR. ZIEMER: You’re talking about a work 


group meeting before the July meeting? 


DR. WADE: I’m talking about a work group 


meeting in early April once NIOSH has released 


its evaluation report by Dr. Melius’ work 


group so that they could look at that 


evaluation report and decide if there are any 

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special instruction they wanted to give to the 


contractor relative to the evaluation of the 


Ames situation. 


DR. MELIUS: Again, just in response to what 


John Mauro was saying earlier, I’m not 


convinced that a full site profile review is 


necessary or at least that scope of work. So 


let’s gather the information and determine, it 


may be; it may not, but let’s use our 


resources appropriately. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, Dr. Melius, the way of 


thinking about, I think our way of thinking 


about the full-blown review when we originally 


conceived of it back when we wrote our 


proposal was, it was -- I use the work 


monolithic -- in the way that now we review 


all this material and we deliver our draft 


report with its findings. That’s how, we were 


thinking about it the way we think about site 


profile reviews. 


What I’m hearing -- correct me if I’m 


wrong -- is that it might be a little more 


iterative than that but we’ll review this 


material, and then as early as possible in the 


process once the document is qualified. In 

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this case Ames has been qualified. We’ve been 


authorized to start reading all this material, 


which we are. Along the way I guess it sounds 


like sometime the end of March, there would be 


an evaluation report which SC&A will review. 


But as you, while that’s going on 


there will be working group meetings whereby 


SC&A’s perspectives, what we’ve been reading, 


what we’ve learned from reading NIOSH’s 


evaluation report, the question becomes more 


of an iterative process that is ongoing and 


matures as opposed to, I guess, the way we’ve 


been doing things on the site profile. It’s a 


little bit different. It’s more where we do a 


lot of work and then we deliver this product 


that you see at the end of this process. 


It sounds like the process you’d like 


to use for doing full-blown reviews such as 


Ames is more one where we try quickly to focus 


in on the issues through a process, a working 


group process where it might have a little bit 


different form than the way in which we 


proceed for site profile reviews. Do you see 


it that way also? 


DR. MELIUS: Yes, I do. 

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DR. WADE: And I do, too, John. And again, 


remember we’re dealing now with a finite 


amount of time. I think that really shapes 


the reality we’re pursuing, so yeah, I’m not 


troubled by your characterization. 


Let me talk about Y-12. 


DR. ZIEMER: Let’s see if there’s any other 


comments on Ames, otherwise we’ll take it by 


consent that we could proceed on this basis. 


 (no response) 


DR. WADE: Let me talk about Y-12. It’s 


interesting in that you have the Mark work 


group that’s done excellent work on the site 


profile issues. I would ask that work group 


to complete its work on Y-12, to have another 


meeting as quickly as is practicable to look 


at the remaining issues, try and close the 


issues in the matrix, look at the NIOSH sample 


dose reconstructions and intellectually try 


and tie a knot around the open technical 


issues. 


Then NIOSH issues its evaluation 


report and then the Dr. Melius work group 


takes precedence. It meets with the NIOSH 


evaluation report in its hands. It also will 

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have the benefit of Mark’s working group. I 


would suggest they invite Mark to come to 


their working group and to share the final 


thoughts. And then the Melius working group 


takes up the task of instructing SC&A on 


anything it might want it to do prior to the 


full April meeting. Again, SC&A is taking on 


a focused review of the Y-12 site profile so 


it would not be inappropriate for the working 


group to issue some very focusing 


instructions. 


Now it could well be that the Mark 


working group would have gotten it right, and 


the issues will be on the table. And it’s 


simply of matter of proceeding forward, but I 


think that judgment needs to be made in light 


of the released NIOSH evaluation report, and I 


would suggest then that, again, these meetings 


can happen at the same time. But the Melius 


working group meets after the evaluation 


report has been released, reviews the material 


and decides what instructions, if any, it 


might want to give its contractor. That’s my 


Y-12 proposal. 


DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius. I had always 

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presumed, and maybe I misunderstood, but I 


would almost think it would, there’s overlap 


in these groups so I’m not sure it makes that 


much difference, but given all the back and 


forth that’s gone on with the Y-12 issue that 


it would be better staying with the same 


working group, not establish, not trying to 


switch working groups in mid-stream. 


DR. WADE: Makes sense to me. 


DR. MELIUS: Again, if I remember who’s on 


that working group, but certainly Mark’s been 


part of the SEC evaluation working group also 


so there’d be enough continuity there, and I 


think we’d avoid -- for people that have not 


directly participated in the site profile 


review meetings, it’s very hard, and it takes 


awhile to get up to speed. And I think, I’m 


afraid we might, with a new working group we 


could do more damage than help. 


DR. ZIEMER: I think the main thing here 


would be for that work group to have available 


the merged document, Lew, that you’re talking 


about, right? 


DR. WADE: I don’t think that merged 


document is going to be --

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DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that’s not going to be 


acted on until the April meeting, but it’s 


going to be --


DR. WADE: The only driving document we have 


is the Melius document right now, and I think 


that’s enough to steer the group. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. MELIUS: I will work on drafting a 


merged document so to speak. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that’s right because 


that’ll be the April meeting. 


DR. MELIUS: Paul, except that there’s a 


time, again, I don’t know the exact timing of 


this, but I will work on a merger of the two 


with a procedural merger. I’ve already 


started doing that. 


DR. WADE: So this means, Mark, that if we 


agree to this proposal then your working group 


would have two meetings. It would meet some 


time in March to try and wrap a bow around the 


Y-12 matrix. And then it would meet again 


once the NIOSH evaluation report was available 


and decide if there is anything else it wants 


the contractor to do between the day of that 


meeting and the end of April full Board 

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meeting. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, for good or bad that 


sounds like we need to do that. 


DR. DeHART: This is Roy for a point of 


clarification. With Jim’s working group, 


which I think I’m a participant in, is the Y12 issue out of bounds for me? 


DR. WADE: It would be, yes. 


DR. DeHART: That’s what I thought so I 


could not be --


DR. WADE: So Dr. Melius’ proposal works 


even better then because you wouldn’t be able 


to pick up the Y-12 issue anyway. 


DR. MELIUS: I think Paul has the same issue 


also so--


DR. WADE: It’s best staying with Mark’s 


working group. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, now the other part of 


that is on Y-12 since you’ve been working 


right along there I think many of the issues, 


you might get to the point when the evaluation 


comes out that it becomes very clear that you 


don’t have any issues. Or at least it 


wouldn’t take a big effort to identify what 


they are because you’ve been working on this 

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for quite some time. 


DR. WADE: Yeah, our hope would be that 


there wouldn’t be many new issues resulting 


from the evaluation report, but we would cover 


that --


MR. GRIFFON: That’s our hope with this 


parallel processing. I think we at least need 


to leave a time frame for a potential meeting. 


DR. ZIEMER: If you have to meet, yeah. 


DR. WADE: Well, now it gets difficult 


because now we’re to Rocky Flats although 


we’ve learned some things from the previous 


two discussions. I would say on Rocky Flats 


that SC&A needs to be put to work immediately 


with reviewing the petition, and I think 


they’re doing that based upon John’s proposal. 


I would see value in Mark’s working 


group meeting one more time even before the 


evaluation report is out to try and sort 


through those issues because I still think 


that you’ll find the issues raised by that 


working group will be paramount in the 


discussions that follow. They might not be 


all inclusive but they’re going to be 


important issues. So I would think again --

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MR. GRIFFON: My attempt -- sorry. 


DR. WADE: Go ahead, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: My attempt would be to have 


that the same day of the Y-12 meeting like we 


did last time if that’s --


DR. WADE: I would agree. Although the only 


difference would be I guess we would stop 


short of the sample dose reconstructions at 


this point given sort of Dr. Melius’ caution 


which I think is a sound caution. 


MR. GRIFFON: It is a sound caution. I 


guess I was getting a little ahead of myself 


trying to keep the ball moving. I’m not sure 


that we can identify some at this point that 


are of interest, but I think you’re right. I 


think it’s, you know, we have many issues that 


we’re not as far along on such as, we don’t 


even know how often a coworker model will be 


used, and what the coworker model is. So I’m 


not sure, we might be better served to hold 


off on that. 


DR. WADE: So then NIOSH issues its 


evaluation report we can only hope, and then a 


working group meets armed with the materials 


of the evaluation report, the work of the Mark 

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Griffon working group, and decides what the 


instruction will be to the contractor on 


continuing the focused Rocky Flats review. 


The only question in my mind is should it be a 


continuation of Mark’s working group for the 


reasons that Jim mentioned or should it be the 


Melius working group? I leave that to the 


wisdom of the Board. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, particularly because of 


the time issue I think it would be very 


difficult for a new working group to get up to 


speed on that one. What do some of the others 


of you think? 


DR. MELIUS: This is Jim. I concur on that. 


It just, it’s hard enough at the time of the 


meetings when some of these issues have been 


distilled to catch up that try to do so and 


not disrupt their burden, you know, NIOSH and 


their contractors with lots of questions and 


potential misunderstandings. I think it would 


be better if we --


MR. GRIFFON: My only concern with the 


timing on this, Lew, is that if we meet before 


the evaluation report comes out and we don’t 


have any sample DRs from NIOSH, then we’re 

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going to get an evaluation report and then I 


think we would have to, I mean, as part of our 


procedures we’re now asking for sample DRs as 


proof of principle, and I think we’d have to, 


I guess we could ask for them over the 


telephone or NIOSH could outline some sample 


DRs covering the breadth of potential classes 


within, you know --


DR. ZIEMER: The current procedure requires 


NIOSH to provide some sample DRs. 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. And 


certainly, we have taken to heart the need to 


present an evaluation report to the Board. 


Although the evaluation report itself will not 


include sample dose reconstructions, the 


presentation of that report to the Board will 


include sample dose reconstructions when and 


where we say we feel we can reconstruct dose. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I guess that’s why I was 


requesting that we sort of get some ideas in 


mind for sample DRs, but I think it’s more 


appropriate that NIOSH, like Jim Melius said 


earlier, I think it’s more appropriate NIOSH 


self-identify at this point and --


MS. MUNN: Mark, how many DRs do you feel 

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like we need to see? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think we leave that up 


to NIOSH in this case, you know, but because I 


think, I agree with your general statement 


earlier, Wanda, that --


MS. MUNN: I’m concerned about the number. 


MR. GRIFFON: But we want to make sure, I 


think NIOSH can consider that it covers the, 


it’s representative of the class. 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott again. 


I think Dr. Melius’ comment is on independence 


in our evaluation review for a petition is 


something that came from a discussion we had 


back in February trying to kick off the Ames 


review. I made that plea that we wanted to 


maintain our independence in developing our 


evaluation of a petition. And even though 


SC&A has come forward on Y-12 and offered 


suggestions on dose reconstruction examples 


that they think would demonstrate either we 


can or we can’t do dose reconstruction, I 


think that there’s some help in that. I think 


we’re going to learn from talking through 


those 11. I think you’re going to hear us 


where we feel it’s appropriate to respond and 

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show a sample dose reconstruction we will. 


But on some of these 11 we’re going to point 


out quickly that they have no merit to the 


class as being designated. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s fair. 


MR. ELLIOTT: So I would offer that those 11 


are going to serve us as an example and gain 


experience, but I prefer not to see example 


dose reconstruction suggestions given to us 


while we’re in the midst of an evaluation 


report for Rocky Flats or any other petition. 


DR. ZIEMER: Lew, as I understand what 


you’re suggesting here, there would be a work 


group session after the petition evaluation 


report is out at which time the work group 


would identify for the contractor issues that 


need to be addressed or reviewed. Is that 


correct? 


DR. WADE: Correct, and with the contractor 


bringing that intellectual content to the 


Board prior to the Board being formally 


presented the petition at the meeting so that 


you would hear the contractor report back to 


you on things you asked it to focus on so you 


could consider that as you deliberated on --

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MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. ZIEMER: And with respect to Rocky and 


the comments you made earlier, John, and as 


you guys are looking at the petition, and of 


course, you’re probably going to be 


identifying things along the way as you go 


anyway. And then meeting with the working 


group as you exchange comments and ideas, it’s 


possible that you will identify a number of 


things that aren’t on your list now. You’ve 


got four issues here in your letter proposal. 


DR. MAURO: That’s correct. 


DR. ZIEMER: But I think there is a fair 


possibility that that could expand by maybe 


significantly. 


MS. MUNN: It could, then the question, the 


next question that comes to my mind is how 


long would SC&A need to look at the result of 


the Board’s review? Is two weeks enough time 


for them to do that? 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think one of the 


problems is the following: SC&A will have the 


NIOSH evaluation report. They will have a 


number of issues that they identify, and this 


could take a couple of weeks. I don’t know, 

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but then you have the issue of well, when does 


NIOSH get to respond to the issues that are 


raised? 


MS. MUNN: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. ZIEMER: That’s what worries me about 


the timetable for Rocky. As was pointed out, 


we’re quite a ways along on resolving issues 


on Y-12. At Rocky we’re sort of just 


underway. 


MR. GRIFFON: I would agree, yeah, I would 


agree. 


DR. WADE: Your concerns are real, Paul. I 


think what we can do is work the issue and see 


where it takes us. The Board might find 


itself in a position at the end of April that 


it’s not prepared to vote. And that would be 


the Board’s decision. It’ll be a tough 


decision, but it’ll be the Board’s decision. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but again, I hope that 


the Rocky Flats folks, and I don’t know if any 


of them are still on the line, but would 


recognize that although we do want the process 


to move along, we do want to do it right at 


the same time and not short-change it. So, 

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you know, that’s the pressure. 


DR. WADE: And I think that’s 


(unintelligible) with the technical issues in 


hand as opposed to hypothetical. And the 


reality is that the Melius working group will 


likely meet in early April. Its focus will be 


on the Ames petition and possibly some work in 


terms of the merging of the SC&A procedures 


proposal and the Melius thought piece. Then 


the Griffon work group will meet twice, one, 


third week in March, not ten days from today, 


not far from now, and try and work on its 


matrix work, and then early April following 


the release of the NIOSH evaluation reports. 


Again, it’s very compressed, and I think on 


Ames and Y-12 I think we can all see our way 


through. In Rocky Flats it really needs to 


start now in earnest and NIOSH needs to get 


its evaluation report on the street, much will 


be informed by that. 


MR. PRESLEY: Lew, this is Bob Presley. 


DR. WADE: Sir? 


MR. PRESLEY: Before we get too far, and you 


just told a couple of people that they have 


problems with Y-12. Now, have y’all got a 

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problem with me with Y-12 because I sit on 


this working group? 


DR. WADE: I think when it changes its 


focus, Robert, to the SEC petition I think you 


won’t be able to sit on the working group. 


And I think the meeting in March would be 


fine. I think the meeting in April I think we 


would need to replace you or not have you 


involved. 


MR. PRESLEY: Okay, I’ll agree to that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Any objections if we proceed on 


this basis then? 


 (no response) 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I take it by consent 


that that’s what we’ll do in these three 


cases. 


What do we need to do on the letter, 


the Mauro letter? I’m sort of asking you, 


Lew. 


DR. WADE: Well, John, John Mauro, are you 


comfortable now working consistent with that 


plan based upon the contractual documents in 


place? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I think that the letter, 


the February 21st letter leaves enough room to 

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implement the task that we have just 


discussed. When all is said and done, the 


thing that I just learned that bear on that 


letter go toward really two points. 


With regard to Ames there’s going to 


be active working groups and an iterative 


process, something that’s not actually stated 


in the letter, but it’s sort of silent. So 


the letter really does not need to be 


modified. Right now it says we’re going to 


perform a full review of the Ames document, 


and that we’re going to do that in accordance 


with our Task Five overall proposal of work 


which really joins directly from 42-CFR, Part 


83. So there’s nothing in there that 


contradicts anything that we’ve said so far. 


So I don’t see any problems with Ames. 


With regard to the focused reviews 


right now the only, we really didn’t identify 


the issues that we felt were part of the 


focused reviews for Y-12 and for Rocky, in the 


February 21st letter, but we also put in some 


qualifying words in the letter that says we 


are going to review the full petition as part 


of the scope of work. And we also had some 

 

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words that if it turns out, you know, that the 


number of issues may expand beyond four. 


If it does and it has a potential to 


affect the budget, I will inform the 


contractor officers, the Board, the working 


group, that we are about to exceed the budget 


that we set forth for Rocky if that turns out 


to be the case before that happens, then seek 


guidance from you all on what we should do. 


But those words are in there right now. So as 


far as I’m concerned I think we have 


everything in place we need to move forward. 


And there’s nothing that we’ve discussed here 


that requires a modification to the February 


21st
 letter. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, with that in mind I think 


we can then proceed as you’ve outlined and as 


we’ve gone through here on these particular 


cases. 


BOARD CORRESPONDENCE, AGENDA FOR APRIL MEETING,
 

FUTURE BOARD MEETINGS AND WORKING GROUP SCHEDULE
 

DR. WADE: Some logistics questions, I mean, 


so the Mark working group would need to meet a 


couple of days in March. Might I make the 


suggestion we meet in Boston again? Is that 


overly difficult? 

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MR. PRESLEY: It’s very difficult for me. 


MR. GRIFFON: Cincinnati’s probably better 


for most people. 


DR. WADE: Okay, so let’s say Cincinnati. 


MR. PRESLEY: Correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then NIOSH has their 


resources there as well. 


DR. WADE: Okay, I was just trying to be 


respectful. 


MR. GRIFFON: How about the 29th/30th though, 


either one of those days? I don’t know that 


we need two days, but either one of those 


days. 


DR. NETON: Mark, this is Jim. I’m going to 


be in St. Louis on the 29th . 


MR. PRESLEY: How about the 27th and the 


28th? This is Bob Presley. 


DR. NETON: I’d have to leave early to get 


to the airport. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and Jim, do you think 


we’ll need two days or one day for this 


meeting? 


DR. NETON: I think one day. 


DR. WADE: One good day. 


MR. GRIFFON: I was going to do Y-12 and 

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Rocky. 


DR. WADE: Full day the 28th . 


DR. NETON: I will have to leave probably by 


at three o’clock, but --


MR. GRIFFON: Well, do Y-12 in the morning 


and then we can go into Rocky. We can even 


work a late day if we need to. I mean 


everybody likes to put in the hours on this 


work group. 


DR. WADE: The 28th in Cincinnati. 


DR. NETON: My only concern is I’m probably 


going to be involved in some of this super Y 


discussions, super-S rather, but if we --


MR. GRIFFON: That’ll be the first one on 


Rocky, right? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, right. 


MR. GRIFFON: And we’ll try to accommodate 


you, Jim. 


DR. NETON: Sorry, I’m not trying to be 


difficult. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, I mean, I’m 


serious. I wasn’t being facetious. 


MS. MUNN: Are we going to try to do Rocky 


and Y-12 on the 28th? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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MS. MUNN: Oh, you dreamer. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m a dreamer? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I think 


there are a bunch of dose reconstructions to 


consider, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, we have sample DRs. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: And I think just from the 


experience of last time, they do take awhile 


to understand. And if Jim has to leave at 


3:00, it’s a question. 


DR. NETON: I also just noticed on my 


calendar, Mark, that right now we’ve got a 


tentative date with Dr. Howard coming into 


town. 


DR. WADE: We can change that. 


DR. NETON: I’m checking right now to see if 


that might be moved. Yeah, Lew, you could 


speak for that I suppose. 


DR. WADE: Yeah, we could change that. 


MS. MUNN: We have to push it out that far 


in order to have any DRs, right? We can’t do 


it the preceding week like the 22nd, 23rd? 


DR. NETON: We’re going to be pushing to 


have any DR --


MS. MUNN: Right, that’s what I wanted to 

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verify. 


MR. GRIFFON: And we can’t really push it 


forward because then we’re getting, we’ve got 


another meeting after the evaluation report. 


MS. MUNN: Right, so who can’t appear on the 


27th? 


MR. GRIFFON: I can’t, but I might be able 


to rearrange that. Let me --


DR. WADE: What if we were to try and travel 


the morning of the 27th, Mark, if you could 


rearrange, meet the afternoon of the 27th and 


then as much of the 28th as we would need? 


DR. NETON: Sounds good to me. 


MR. PRESLEY: It’d give us more time. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, 27th - 28th . 


DR. WADE: So we would plan a new start, one 


o’clock start on the 27th, and then we’d have 


the 28th as much as we needed. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that sounds good. 


MS. MUNN: That way we could run late on the 

27th . 

DR. WADE: And then the other two we will 

schedule off line. 


MR. GIBSON: I will not be able to make the 


afternoon session on the 27th, but I could be 

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there on the 28th . 


MR. GRIFFON: And the other one, I don’t 


know. Do you want to wait on the other 


meeting, Paul? I mean, Lew. I was going to 


say April 11th, 12th and 13th by surveying SC&A. 


And the dates I have the week of like or the 


days of April 11th, 12th and 13th are almost all 


that are left except for right before the 


meeting. 


DR. WADE: Well, let’s take one right now. 


MS. MUNN: Let’s do it then for goodness 


sake. That only leaves now a bare couple of 


days before --


MR. GRIFFON: Do we need two days for this 


one or one day? 


MS. MUNN: I’m always in favor of scheduling 


two and then if you get through with one, 


more’s the better. 


MR. GRIFFON: Let’s say the 11th and 12th
 

then with the same format that we just 


described starting at noon or whatever. How 


does that work for people? 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, don’t get out ahead of us, 


Mike. 


DR. NETON: Now this is NIOSH’s involvement 

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here as well I suppose? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yep. 


DR. NETON: This is the SEC meeting that we 


were talking about with Dr. Melius’ group. Is 


that right? 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess it’s going to be, 


yeah, covering the evaluation reports though. 


DR. NETON: Would this be the meeting where 


we would have example dose reconstructions 


nailed down I suppose? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, we’ll discuss your 


evaluation reports to the extent you provide 


sample DRs to demonstrate the case, yeah. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I don’t 


have to worry about that meeting, right? 


DR. WADE: Just half of it, the Rocky Flats 


part. 


MR. GRIFFON: The Rocky portion which would 


be the second day, I imagine. 


MR. PRESLEY: What’s those dates again? 


MS. MUNN: Eleven, 12. 


DR. NETON: Eleventh and 12th of April. 


MR. GIBSON: And those are all day meetings? 


MR. GRIFFON: I think starting at noon on 


the 11th was the idea or just after noon and 

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going through as long as we had to on the 


second day. 

MR. PRESLEY: Couldn’t start on the 10th , 

could you? 

MR. GRIFFON: I can’t do the 10th . 

 MR. GIBSON: In fact, I’ll miss the 


afternoon session on the 11th again also. 


DR. WADE: Well, it’s a plan. I don’t know 


if Dr. Melius if you want to wait to schedule 


yours or do you want to try and do it now? 


DR. MELIUS: When do you think the 


evaluation report will come out on Iowa? 


DR. WADE: I think it should be the end of 


March; correct, Larry? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, it’s our full intention 


to have an evaluation report completed and in 


the hands of the Board and the petitioners by 


the end of March. 


DR. WADE: So it’s your call, Jim, as to 


when you want to try it. 


DR. MELIUS: I could do the 11th, the 13th or 


14th
 . 


MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask a silly question? 


Who’s on this work group, Jim? 


DR. MELIUS: You’re on the work group, Mark. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I don’t think I am for Ames 


though. 


DR. MELIUS: I thought we were just using 


the --


MR. GRIFFON: -- members of the SEC work 


group. I don’t know who it --


DR. WADE: The SEC? I don’t have it in 


front of me. I think it was Dr. DeHart, 


correct? 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, well, I’m on that work 


group, but I thought you had a separate work 


group looking at Ames. 


DR. WADE: No. 


DR. MELIUS: No. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, sorry. 


MS. MUNN: Isn’t two enough? 


MR. GRIFFON: If you do it the morning of 


the 11th, I’ll be out there. 


DR. DeHART: The 11th is good for me. 


MR. GRIFFON: I mean, would it be done in a 


half, I could get there early and do that in 


the morning and then Y-12 start after that? 


DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) and Jim on 


your subcommittee or work group? 


DR. MELIUS: Pardon? 

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DR. ZIEMER: Who’s on your work group? 


DR. MELIUS: You, Roy, Mark and myself. It 


was the group that did the SEC audit. 


DR. ZIEMER: I couldn’t remember who all was 


on that. I’m not available on the 11th and 


12th, but if you have three, go ahead. 


DR. MELIUS: Roy, are you available? 


DR. DeHART: Yes, I am, on the 11th, 12th and 


13th
 . It’s nice to be retired. 


DR. ZIEMER: The 13th I’m okay. 


DR. MELIUS: I think the morning of the 11th . 


I don’t’ think it’s going to take a full day, 


so it’s --


DR. WADE: So let’s say the morning of the 


11th we’ll get a bright and early start. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, in Cincinnati I’m 


assuming. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. DeHART: I can be downtown by nine 


o’clock. I think that’s when we made it 


before, Jim. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. We have a 


little confusion around the table here as to 


which meetings we are required at. The 11th
 
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and 12th meeting, which is the Mark Griffon 


meeting, and now we’re talking about another 


11th and 12th meeting that is with Dr. Melius? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, the morning of the 11th . 


DR. MELIUS: Just the morning of the 11th . 


DR. ZIEMER: But that’s got to be --


MR. GRIFFON: They won’t overlap. 


DR. ZIEMER: -- with SC&A and, right? 


DR. NETON: Yes, and NIOSH would not be 


involved in that? 


DR. WADE: NIOSH wouldn’t be required. I 


would be there as the DFO. 


DR. NETON: I mean, if we’re available and 


there’s no overlap, we could be there. I just 


want to make sure we understand. 


DR. DeHART: We will have documents in hand 


in advance of that meeting, correct? 


DR. MELIUS: Correct. You’ve already got 


the Board, we’ve already received the 


petition. It was extensive. It’s on a CD 


disk. 


DR. ZIEMER: A CD, right. 


DR. MELIUS: And then we’ll have the 


evaluation report by then. 


DR. WADE: Because I think it would be 

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worthwhile NIOSH having a technical person 


available just if there are any questions. 


MR. PRESLEY: Mark, this is Bob Presley. 


When are we going to do the other Y-12 dose 


reconstructions? Is that on the 11th or the 


12th? 


MR. GRIFFON: The afternoon, we’re going to 


go over NIOSH’s evaluation report on the 11th
 

in the afternoon. So at that point I’m 


assuming they will show some sample DRs. 


MR. PRESLEY: On the afternoon of the 11th I 


do not need to be there? 


DR. WADE: You do not need to be there. 


That’s correct. 


MR. PRESLEY: But I do need to be there the 


morning of the 12th . 


MR. GRIFFON: Correct. Now there might be a 


little spillover in the, you know. If we 


don’t finish Y-12 in the afternoon, we may go 


over into the next morning, but we’re going to 


try not to. 


MR. PRESLEY: Okay, well, I’ll plan to be 


there on the 12th then. 


MR. ELLIOTT: When you say be there, you’re 


coming here to Cincinnati? 

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MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, I hope. 


MR. ELLIOTT: And Dr. Melius, are you 


proposing to have your work group meeting in 


the morning on the 11th by phone? 


DR. MELIUS: I thought we were coming to 


Cincinnati. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, you’re coming to 


Cincinnati, too. 


DR. NETON: That’s fine as long as we’ve got 


the hotel. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, that’s fine. I just 


wanted to make sure we knew where we were 


supposed to be. 


MR. PRESLEY: Are we going to stay out at 


the airport again? 


DR. WADE: Might as well. 


DR. NETON: Okay, what about the March 


meeting? Is that at the airport as well? 


MR. GRIFFON: Same thing, yeah, I would 


assume. 


DR. NETON: Can we get it? 


DR. WADE: Yes, we’ll try. We’ll start 


working this afternoon to get the room. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I 


appreciate it. I’ve got to go to therapy. 

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DR. WADE: Dr. Ziemer, it’s back to you. 


I’m sorry we took so long. 


REPORT OF WORKING GROUP: INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION
 

REVIEW
 

DR. ZIEMER: Just looking at the time here, 


we have just a couple more items to be 


reported on. We have the individual dose 


reconstruction review. Is there anything 


there that we need to do today other than the, 


do we need to go through that matrix today, 


Mark? 


MR. GRIFFON: I think I should go through 


every line of --


DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- in the next 20 minutes. 


No, I just got those out this morning, and 


actually, just to report, we finished going 


through the third set matrix as well, but I 


just didn’t have time to get everything 


together on that one. So these really, the 


second set of cases now have the sort of 


resolution column filled out and the 


procedures review and also in the second set 


of cases. 


And what I would ask at this point is 


that, NIOSH and SC&A just got these when the 

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Board got them. They’re in raw draft form. 


There are some gaps. There are some places 


where I highlighted in yellow because I was 


not sure with my notes what the resolution 


was. 


So I propose to do the same with the 


third set, which we finished in the work group 


meeting, circulate it to NIOSH and SC&A and 


the work group. Then get comments back and 


assemble them for final form for the April 


meeting if that’s okay. 


DR. ZIEMER: That would make sense. I don’t 


think we can really act on them today. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, they’re not in the form --


DR. ZIEMER: They’re not in the format to do 


that. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I still need to complete 


the Board action column as well, but I was 


waiting to get NIOSH and SC&A feedback to make 


sure I got all these correct. So we need a 


little more work on these, but the good news 


is that we completed the procedures review 


matrix and the second set of cases and the 


third set of cases, made a lot of headway at 


the last work group meeting. 

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MS. MUNN: And the really good news is that 


there’s virtually nothing, there’s only one 


high priority item or so in there. 


DR. DeHART: Do we need to hold onto the 


documents that you’ve just transmitted if 


you’re going to be modifying them? 


MR. GRIFFON: Not unless you want to submit 


comments, and that will primarily be for the 


work group probably. So yeah, there’ll be 


another final draft coming out, and I’ll try 


to --


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so we’ll plan to have 


that on the agenda for the April meeting then 


if you try to come to closure on groups two 


and three of dose reconstruction reviews. 


MR. GRIFFON: There’s only one thing I want 


to bring up relative to this which I’m not 


sure where we stand on, and it’s the action 


tracking process. And as I develop all these 


matrices, it becomes, it’s fast becoming 


difficult to follow where actions stand. And 


in some cases, as you’ll see if you look 


through these matrices, many times the 


procedures that were reviewed have been 


replaced, or as a result of the findings, have 

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been replaced with new procedures. So the 


resolution is that SC&A is going to review a 


new procedure or the resolution is that SC&A 


and NIOSH will discuss in the site profile 


review process. So it’s getting complicated. 


DR. ZIEMER: Are you on the procedures 


review? 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: But it’s the question of 


following these resolutions through to 


completion I guess is my concern. And I think 


we need to make sure that all these are being 


tracked. 


MS. MUNN: We’ve never even identified which 


agency is going to do this much less what 


person inside the agency is going to be the 


person of contact to track. 


MR. GRIFFON: To track these. 


MS. MUNN: And it really is --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I do want to ask a 


question in that regard and maybe direct it to 


NIOSH. There was a, in the GAO report there 


was an issue on tracking findings, and I 


thought that there was some plan underway to 


do that. Lew or Larry or Jim, can any of you 

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speak to that? 


MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu Hinnefeld. In 


our conversations we’ve talked that a 


convenient way to do this in the sort of 


matrix form that we’ve been collecting so far 


is an additional column that provides this is 


the action that’s being done, and this is the 


status, and so that, I mean, we’ve talked 


about that in terms of what kind of products 


we’ve had so far. My own view though is, you 


know, we have a GAO report that essentially 


calls upon us to develop tracking systems for 


Board recommendations and resolutions. You 


know, what was done in response to Board 


recommendations. 


And so I guess our own thought process 


here is that the conversation that occurs in 


these various working groups and a compilation 


of these matrices does that constitute a Board 


recommendation that we’ve added to it or is 


there going to be a Board correspondence to 


the Secretary recommending that we resolve 


these matrices in that fashion. 


MR. ELLIOTT: And this is Larry Elliott. 


Let me kind of answer Stu’s question as we see 

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it here. The GAO report refers to a Board 


recommendation and as an advisory board to the 


Secretary and under FACA, we’re interpreting 


that to mean a recommendation to the 


Secretary. That’s what we are required to 


track. And letters that would come forward 


from the Board with consensus recommendation 


would be those things that we would track and 


be held accountable for. 


DR. ZIEMER: Right, well, the dose 


reconstruction reviews will be in that 


category because each of these will be going 


to the Secretary. 


MR. ELLIOTT: But what Stu was just 


referring to as the matrix, those are the 


matrix between us and SC&A and the working 


group --


MR. GRIFFON: But the matrices in the first 


set of cases for review the matrix was an 


attachment to that letter, and I would think 


the same is going to be true eventually --


MR. ELLIOTT: Has that letter gone out yet? 


DR. ZIEMER: No. 


MR. ELLIOTT: The letter has not gone out 


yet? 

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DR. ZIEMER: No, it hasn’t. 


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it still hasn’t gone out? 


DR. ZIEMER: No. There’s a, I’ll need an 


electronic copy of the matrix from you, Mark, 


but I’ll get, I’ll check with you offline on 


that. Everything else is ready to go. But 


those reconstruction matrices will be in that 


category. They’ll be part of the reports to 


the Secretary. 


MR. GRIFFON: So to that extent they should 


become part of that overall tracking tract? 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I was just asking what 


the plan was. 


Obviously, independent of that we need 


to be tracking what’s happening. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I think to answer your 


question, Mark, a letter that comes from the 


Board if it simply includes recommendations in 


the body of the letter, we would track that. 


If it includes, as I hear the first review of 


20 includes a matrix attached to the letter, 


we would track that as well. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I think 


we’ve got to take a little broader view than 

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just the GAO recommendation. I think NIOSH is 


supposed to provide assistance to the Board as 


needed in doing our tasks and if it would be 


helpful to have some sort of system to track 


some of these changes and so forth. I think 


we need to figure out how to get it 


implemented. I don’t think we can do that on 


the phone now, but I think it’s sort of more 


than just the GAO requirement or a response to 


a GAO recommendation. 


DR. WADE: Right, let us bring, this is Lew 


Wade. Let us bring a proposal to the Board 


meeting at the end of April on how best to do 


this. 


MS. MUNN: I would appreciate -- one of the 


things that concerns me is that some of these 


things are going to be fairly long lasting. I 


hate to continue to see the entire matrix 


revolving before our eyes time after time. I 


would like to be able to see action items 


specifically taken out of the matrix so that 


eventually what we see is only action items 


who have the action and what its status is. 


I’d like to see the matrix go away after we’ve 


finished beating it to death and it’s been 

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submitted. 


DR. WADE: And on the other side of the coin 


the thing that worries us all I think is that 


sometimes in the dose reconstruction review 


the action is really to deal with something 


through a procedures review. And once you 


start to cross from one matrix to another we 


need to be sure there’s a mechanism for 


capturing that and not losing that 


intellectual content. 


MR. GRIFFON: In other words, the site 


profile reviews. It gets quickly complicated. 


MS. MUNN: Which is one of the reasons why 


in my mind there needs to be an individual 


that is perhaps even a separate individual who 


tracks outstanding issues from the procedural 


point of view and someone else who tracks the 


outstanding issues from the DRs. That just 


seems to be two separate things to me and --


MR. ELLIOTT: I think it goes back to the 


recommendation from the Board and however and 


whatever shape or form that takes would still 


require us to address those recommendations 


and react to them. And there needs to be a 


response given back to the Board, something 

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that goes back through the Secretary’s office 


that says here’s how we have reacted to the 


Board’s recommendation. We may not take the 


recommendation, and we would need to in that 


case say why we didn’t accept the 


recommendation and move forward with it. And 


so I think this will be accommodated. As we 


proceed you’ll see how it works. My 


experience with other FACA committees is that 


the FACA committee provides a recommendation 


in writing, and they expect a response to that 


and so we would have to do that. 


DR. WADE: Well, let’s think about it 


internally and then come up with a proposal. 


DR. ZIEMER: Mark, on the procedures review 


you also distributed the latest matrix and all 


of those still require Board actions, right? 


MR. GRIFFON: I had just closed it out so 


I’m pulling it open again. I thought I put 


Board actions in there. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, they’re in there. Board 


action and the procedures, we have --


DR. ZIEMER: -- got the right version here. 


That’s the most recent version, most recent 


undated version. 

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MS. MUNN: Yeah, needs to have 3/14 on top 


of that. 


MR. GRIFFON: That file name is 3/14, but 


yeah, I agree. 


DR. ZIEMER: Anyway, do we need to actually 


act on those Board actions? 


DR. WADE: Not today I don’t think. 


MR. GRIFFON: I don’t think today only 


because there’s still some holes in that. 


DR. ZIEMER: But we at some point need to 


take final action on this whole matrix. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, yes, this is the work 


group still recommending this. 


DR. ZIEMER: We’ll view that as a status 


report for the time being. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


NIOSH UPDATE BETHLEHEM STEEL
 

DR. WADE: All we have left is really the 


Bethlehem --


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, what’s the update on 


that? Who’s got the lead on that? 


DR. WADE: Larry or Jim. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I’ve got the 


shtick here. There were six issues or six 

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findings that we worked through SC&A, have had 


numerous meetings and have came to agreement 


on on all six findings actually. And we are 


moving forward in revising the Bethlehem Steel 


profile and incorporate all of them with the 


exception of one finding which had to do with 


the oronasal breathing issue. 


And we agreed in our discussions with 


SC&A that we would pull that out as a separate 


document because it’s universally applied to a 


lot of other locations. So of the five 


remaining findings we’re working them in. I 


can go over them individually or just assure 


you that we are working them and hope to have 


a revised site profile complete and in the 


Board’s hands in advance of the end of April 


meeting. 


DR. WADE: Could you just give a quick 


update, Jim? I know that there’s some people 


on the line who are interested in this. 


DR. NETON: Sure. The first finding had to 


do with the models used in a 1951 and ’52 time 


frame. And you recall we have air sampling 


data for those two years at Bethlehem Steel, 


and the issue between NIOSH and SC&A is how 

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best to use those data to bound exposures. 


And after some discussion we came to agreement 


as to how we were going to do that. And most 


notably that involved adjusting the GA samples 


upward to represent the breathing zone, and we 


were going to do that in the site profile. 


The second issue had to do with the 


cobble issue. SC&A questioned whether our 95th
 

percentile took into account short and 


episodic events, most notably the cobbling 


where there was some assertion that these 


uranium rods were cut with torches. And we 


were working to address that. We talked to a 


number of experts with uranium handling with 


multiple years of experience. And everyone 


that we’ve talked to suggests that that would 


be a very bad idea. We do have a somewhat of 


an open item here to interview, attempt to 


interview some workers from Bethlehem Steel 


and we’re trying to work with Mr. Walker in 


that area to identify some workers to flesh 


this out a little better. Thus far we have 


not been able to connect there. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Before you go on, Jim, let me 


add some clarification. A bad idea meaning 

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that to use a cutting torch on uranium would 


result in a major fire. And so, as Jim says, 


we’re looking forward to talking with some 


workers from Bethlehem steel. And it’s our 


belief and our thinking that this was a 


typical process, cutting cobbles on steel or 


iron when they were working through the 


rolling mill, but we doubt that it happened on 


uranium rods. 


DR. NETON: But we do know pretty well when 


the rods were rolled in 1951 and ’52, they had 


very good records as to which ones cobbled. I 


mean, we know exactly how many cobbled, and so 


given that universe of cobbles, we would 


estimate a certain time frame to cut it up and 


we just have to put an upper estimate on that 


operation for generation of airborne uranium. 


Right now, if they cut them with a saw 


we believe we’re fairly bound in giving what 


we have. If there’s some indication that 


torches were used, we might have to rethink 


that. That’s the only one where we still have 


a little bit of information to flesh out. 


Finding three had to do with the 


oronasal breathing that I just spoke about. 

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Finding four had to do with ingestion intakes. 


We came to an agreement with SC&A that we 


would use an approach where we would take air 


concentration to surface concentration to 


ingestion, and we’ve agreed to flesh that out 


in more detail in our site profile. And in 


fact, we’re going to modify TIB-0009. It is a 


generic ingestion model, and it will be 


applicable to other sites as well. 


Finding number five had to do with 


resuspension in, oh, yeah. SC&A had made a 


suggestion that we would use the median value 


of the general area air samples to be 


representative of resuspension in the vicinity 


of operations, and we ended up agreeing to 


that, and are going to incorporate that into 


the site profile. 


And finding six had to do with 


external doses from beta particles, and we 


have agreed to modify our profile to include 


skin dose and clothing contamination to the 


extent that it would add one and a half 


millirem per hour, which would add about a 1.8 


rem per year to skin dose during all years of 


operation. 

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That’s it. It’s a fairly short list, 


and we’ve been working on it. 


DR. ZIEMER: Jim, the beta thing is a 


general skin dose, not a hot spot dose. 


DR. NETON: Right, that’s right. The 


clothing were contaminated and we got 


statements from actually people who were at 


our meeting that indicated that workers may 


have worn their clothes for up to, I believe 


it was a couple of weeks. And so we’re just 


assuming that they remained contaminated for 


up to two weeks. We also have some data from 


Simonds Saw that indicated that was a fairly 


reasonable approximation. 


So those are the five issues that 


we’re adding, and they’re not that extensive, 


but they do require us to go back and modify 


some tables and go back and revise the front 


end. We will go back once the profile is 


revised though and review every single dose 


reconstruction that was passed back to the 


Department of Labor that had been, you know, 


had a PC in our estimation of less than 50 


percent and see what effect this might have on 


those cases. And we hope to provide a full 

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report on that at the end of April. 


DR. WADE: Thank you. 


DR. ZIEMER: I think that completes our 


agenda. 


Lew, any final comments from your end? 


DR. WADE: Amazingly, we’re close to on 


time, and thank you. I know this is difficult 


work, but it needed to be done, and I 


appreciate all of your efforts. 


DR. MELIUS: Are we going to do a future 


Board meeting? You had sent around the 


(unintelligible). 


DR. WADE: LaShawn told me this morning that 


she needs more time so we’ll be in touch by e-


mail. 


DR. MELIUS: Well, if you’re going to need 


more time then I think you need to re-poll at 


least maybe ‘cause I can’t hold dates. 


DR. ZIEMER: Filling in the calendar, right? 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, mine’s filling in, too. 


DR. MELIUS: It’s been three or four weeks 


now and since I sent her dates and --


DR. WADE: We’ll get an e-mail out starting 

fresh. 

MS. MUNN: And Lew and Jim, I sent a note 
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out this morning probably too late for anyone 


to get it asking that if we had an opportunity 


to do so during this meeting, I don’t know 


about other members of the Board, but I’d 


certainly like to share what went on with the 


House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border 


Security and Claims, what a mouthful, and 


appreciate Jim’s testimony and 


(unintelligible), but I’d really like to know 


what went on. 


DR. ZIEMER: Lew, do you want to report on 


that? 


MS. MUNN: What stimulated that, what we’re, 


you, we, being asked to do? What was the 


motivation? What’s going on other than the 


usual power play? 


DR. WADE: Everything I will offer is my own 


opinion and speculation when it gets to the 


issue of why the hearing was held. I believe 


it was held because there was a pass back from 


OMB became public. That pass back seemed by 


the interpretation of some to raise issues 


that would result in trimming back of the 


special exposure cohort activities, and at the 


same time there was an OMB budget release that 

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looked at trimming, a reduction in the costs 


of the program. 


So the committee was wondering about 


the nexus of these two things. The pass back 


specifically made a number of potential 


recommendations that talked about independent 


review of the HHS process and raised some 


questions about the balance of the Board and 


the unbiased nature of the Board’s contractor. 


I think these issues just triggered an 


interest on the part of the subcommittee. So 


a panel was put together that included Shelby 


Hallmark from DOL, John Howard from NIOSH, our 


own Dr. Melius and Richard Miller, and they 


offered statements and there was rigorous 


questioning. 


I don’t know, Jim, I’ll defer to you 


now in terms of your telling of it. 


DR. MELIUS: Just a couple more things on 


background, one is the OMB issues that were, 


quote/unquote, had been raised by the 


Department of Labor and some solutions had 


been suggested like changing, quote/unquote, 


changing the balance of the Board, adding 


steps to the review process, having an outside 

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external review. So I think there were five 


separate items. The subcommittee involved the 


Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee 


which was the same committee that had asked 


for the GAO report about the functionings of 


the Board. So there had been interest there. 


The subcommittee was chaired by, the chairman 


was Hostettler, who’s a Republican from 


Indiana. (Unintelligible) who attended the 


meeting was one other Republican and then two 


Democrats were also in attendance during the 


hearing. The Department of Labor raised some 


concerns in their testimony and their 


questioning though not as pointed as what were 


in the OMB document. I think Richard Miller, 


John Howard and myself basically, I think, 


defended the current process. And there were 


questions about how we, what our procedures 


were. It turned out that a number of the 


issues, I think, raised by the Department of 


Labor were misleading or misunderstood, and I 


think we corrected those issues in sort of 


both questions and answers. Basically, my 


testimony and my response to questions was 


saying I thought that the Board was 

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functioning well. We represented a diversity 


of viewpoints, that we worked hard to reach 


consensus and usually did or came close to 


that and the process I thought was working. 


We recognized there was always room for 


improvement. We would continue to work to 


improve it. And the questioning from the 


committee, at least for us, was for the most 


part friendly, a little bit more pointed 


towards the Department of Labor. The 


committee had scheduled another hearing for 


last week that was going to include OMB, some 


other, like Senator Bond was scheduled to 


speak, Denise Brock, but that meeting has been 


postponed or that hearing has been postponed 


and my understanding at least for the time 


being has not been rescheduled, that 


apparently these issues are getting resolved 


partly as a result of the public scrutiny. 


There were newspaper articles about what was 


going on that Wanda had passed one on from the 


Hanford area, and there were a number that ran 


around the country. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, there were two from here. 


So this additional hearing that was scheduled 

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but has been postponed is the same 


subcommittee under Judiciary, right? 


DR. MELIUS: Right. They will be continuing 


I think to monitor the --, but my conclusion 


of it is, yes, I thought we had a process in 


place. It was what was envisioned by 


congressional legislation, and that we were, 


you know, functioning was fine, and that we 


should sort of just continue to do what we’re 


doing. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I appreciated your 


testimony. With only one or two minor 


exceptions I would have slapped you, but --


DR. MELIUS: As I said I pointed out there 


was a diversity of viewpoints. 


MS. MUNN: I noticed that. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew. The only take away 


message I took from the hearing is that I 


think there might be some follow-up hearings. 


I think there’ll be a great deal of interest 


related to conflict of interest, and I 


wouldn’t be surprised if several among you or 


among us were back up there on that issue. It 


does seem to be attracting some attention. 


DR. MELIUS: Though I think I feel what the 

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exact issue, one of the issues that had come 


up, it was interesting that Representative 


Hostettler had, as he was addressing the 


questions and talking about the issue, had 


actually come to the same conclusion that we 


had about how to handle a certain situation 


which I thought was --


MS. MUNN: That’s encouraging. 


DR. MELIUS: -- encouraging, yes. 


MS. MUNN: Anytime the Chair comes to the 


same conclusion we’ve come to, that’s a good 


sign. 


DR. MELIUS: I very quickly pointed out that 


we agreed with him. 


DR. WADE: Larry, I know you were there. Do 


you have any observations you’d want to make? 


MR. ELLIOTT: No, I think you guys have 


covered it. 


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


other comments or --


DR. LOCKEY: Yeah, Jim Lockey. May I ask, I 


don’t know what everybody thinks, but is it 


possible that we look at our calendar like 


always 12 months ahead of time? Is that not 


feasible? That would be great for me if we 

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could do that because things do get booked in 


and if we’re on other panels or in study 


sessions or something like that it creates 


problems. 


DR. ZIEMER: It’s certainly worth an effort 


to do that if we can. 


DR. WADE: I’ll have LaShawn come out with a 


year query later this week. 


MS. MUNN: The further out we go the better 


it is for me, too. 


DR. LOCKEY: That’d be great, thanks. This 


is a real education, thank you, everybody. 


DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then I’m going to declare 


the meeting adjourned. Thank you very much. 


(Whereupon, the Board meeting concluded at 4:50 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

261 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of March 14, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


14th day of April, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102