NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

Teleconference Meeting

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 

The meeting convened at 11:00 a.m., Eastern 

Daylight Time, by Teleconference.
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Members Present: 

Henry A. Anderson, Member

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

R. William Field, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

David B. Richardson, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member

Phillip Schofield, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer, Member

Ted Katz, Designated Federal Official

Also Present: 

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

Barrie, Terrie, ANWAG

Buchanan, Ron, SC&A

Burgos, Zaida, NIOSH

Calhoun, Grady, DCAS

Crawford, Chris, DOL

Fitzgerald, Joe, SC&A

Hughes, Lara, DCAS

Lewis, Greg, DOE

Rafky, Michael, HHS

Rutherford, Lavon, DCAS

Stiver, John, SC&A

Taulbee, Tim, DCAS
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Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health Teleconference 

Meeting Wednesday, October 16, 2019 1

Welcome/Roll Call 4

Recording August 2019 Meeting Absentee 

Votes 4

Special Exposure Cohort Petition Status 

Update 5

Updates from Work Groups and 

Subcommittees 6

Plans for the December 2019 Board Meeting 9

Adjourn 13
4

Proceedings

(11:01 a.m.)

Welcome/Roll Call

Mr. Katz: This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health. This is our teleconference to prepare 

for our December Board meeting, which is on the 

11th out in California.

We don't have any conflict of interest issues for the 

sort of planning meeting that we have on these 

teleconferences. So I don't need to address that.

Let's run through roll call. And if I know you're there, 

I'll say it, you don't have to.

(Roll call)

Recording August 2019 Meeting Absentee Votes

Mr. Katz: I think we can get rolling. The first item is 

recording the votes for the August Board meeting for 

the two SEC petitions that were acted on, and those 

were both passed in August.

We had a couple of absentee Members for the last 

vote, which was on the Y-12 petition. And that's Dr. 

Kotelchuck and Dr. Anderson. But they both voted 

almost immediately afterwards and in favor. So the 

Y-12 vote was unanimous with one recusal. That was 

Dr. Lockey, who was recused from that action.

And just to remind you, that class recommendation

is for the period from 1977 through 1979, so two and 

a half years, through July 31, '79. And that action has 

gone up to the Secretary for the Secretary's 

consideration. So that's where that stands.

And we also had a vote, just to remind you, on West 

Valley Demonstration Project petition. That was for 

adding an SEC period from '69 to '73. And that, too, 

was unanimous with no recusals. That went forward 

to HHS as well. So that's -- those are both sitting with 

HHS, so we should see action soon.
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It sounds like we have someone on hold or 

something. But it's not too disturbing, I think I'll just 

get through this. Zaida, if you're on the phone, if you 

could see about cutting whatever line is on hold.

Ms. Burgos: Yes, I will.

Mr. Katz: Thank you. Okay. So that takes care of 

that. And the next item is the SEC Petition Status 

Update from Lavon Rutherford.

Special Exposure Cohort Petition Status Update

Mr. Rutherford: Alright. Okay. Thanks, Ted.

I want to give a very short Special Exposure Cohort 

Update. We will not be presenting any new SEC 

evaluations at the December Board meeting.

There will be a significant update on the Savannah 

River Site SEC. But other than that and the standard 

Work Group updates, there will not be any more SEC 

activity.

As a side note, we did just receive a new petition from 

ANL-East. 

(Telephonic interference)

Mr. Rutherford: Whoa, I don't know what happened 

there.

Mr. Katz: She just -- go ahead. Go ahead, Lavon.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay. Again, we did just receive a 

new petition from ANL-East. I'm sure I'll have an 

update on that petition status at the December Board 

meeting.

Other than that, that's about it. Any questions?

Mr. Katz: So, Lavon, can you just remind us? Are 

there any petitions that are in the evaluation stage 

that are likely to come up then in the spring?

Mr. Rutherford: Actually, the only new petition we 

have, other than ANL-East, is the Reduction Pilot 
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Plant, which is held up by Department of Labor 

evaluating the covered period.

But we do expect that we will have the Lawrence 

Livermore National Lab addendum ready for the April 

meeting. That will cover the remaining years on that

petition. I think that's about it, though, Ted.

Updates from Work Groups and Subcommittees

Mr. Katz: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for 

Lavon? Okay.

It's time now for any Work Group or Subcommittees 

who want to report out on what's happened or 

coming up. Now is a good time for that.

Member Kotelchuck: This is Dave Kotelchuck, 

DRRSC. A draft of the Secretary's report went out to 

folks from DRRSC following up on our discussion at 

our last meeting.

If there are any folks -- I've gotten a few responses. 

But if there are any folks who want to make 

corrections to the report or to the update of the 

report that was sent out to you, please do that in the 

next day or so.

Try to get it in if you will. Well, you've had it a while, 

end of business 10/18, two days from today. And 

then I will update it and get it ready with Ted to send 

to the Board for the December meeting.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Thanks, Dave. Other Work Groups 

have any reports? Okay.

Just to note then, to keep people abreast, we do have 

a couple -- several Work Group meetings already 

scheduled. One is Metals and Controls for late in the 

year. I don't recall the date right now. I think it's 

December --

Member Beach: January 9th.

Mr. Katz: Oh, January, sorry. Okay.
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Member Beach: Yeah.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Good. And we also have a joint 

meeting of the SEC Issues Work Group, which 

focuses on the coworker modeling and the SRS Work 

Group, which focuses on SRS SEC issues right now, 

the joint meeting of them, the week before the Board 

meeting in December in Cincinnati. So those are 

scheduled.

And then I don't know whether we will have or not -

- and maybe Paul could tell us whether we're going 

to have Work Group meetings prior to the Board 

meetings on Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, 

because that will be -- we will be giving a Work Group 

update in California in December on that.

Member Ziemer: Yeah, I think we need to hear from 

NIOSH on any new material that they --

Participant: Hello?

Member Ziemer: -- have ready. Yeah, can you hear 

me?

(Telephonic interference)

Mr. Katz: Someone on the line shouldn't be speaking. 

This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health call. Go ahead, Paul. Sorry.

Member Ziemer: Yeah, I was just going to say when 

we talk about plans for December meeting, we need 

to find out if there's any new information from NIOSH 

ready.

I think it would be good if we could have a Lawrence 

Livermore, or Lawrence Berkeley meeting before the 

December meeting. But it will depend on whether 

there's some new material for us as well from NIOSH.

Mr. Katz: Okay. And can someone from NIOSH just 

remind us where that stands with --

Mr. Calhoun: Tim can possibly give a better update 

than I can, but I'll go ahead. And I believe that we 
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are working on a few things. And I would have to get 

with Megan and find out-- or Dr. Lobaugh, and find 

out exactly the status. And I'll have her send you an 

email on that, Dr. Ziemer.

Member Ziemer: Yeah, and, you know, we have a 

number of items we can report on from where we 

were at our last meeting. And we will need a report I 

think at the meeting, and maybe we can kind of 

transition into that right now. We need a report from 

NIOSH on Lawrence Berkeley. And then I think we 

need a report from the Work Group on where we 

stand on the open issues.

But there were some additional items that were in 

process. And that's what we need to know.

Mr. Katz: Right. So I think the way we can do it, we 

can do it two ways here -- and I'm saying this mostly 

for Lavon's benefit, for when he talks to Megan.

Paul can give an update of what the Work Group has 

already completed so far in terms of review and 

closing out issues and issues still on the table.

And then Megan could speak after Paul about what's 

still standing and where they are with that work, you 

know, or we can have a Work Group meeting, and 

Megan can present on all that to the Work Group, and 

Paul can handle that all. We could do it either way. 

But whatever works out. 

Member Ziemer: Yeah, and I can work with Megan 

on what we present at the meeting. But, again, some 

of that will depend on where they are in terms of the 

open items that we're still expecting some feedback 

on.

Mr. Katz: Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Paul, 

and thank you, Bomber.

Okay. Then, so that takes care of updates from Work 

Groups unless I have any others. I'm not hearing 

any.
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Plans for December Board Meeting. So here's what I 

have for the December Board meeting.

By the way, first things first, the Board meeting is on 

the 11th. But on the 10th we do have confirmation 

from the site that we can have a site visit by the 

Board members. And we have so far very good 

participation from the Board members.

(Note: At this point, the court reporter temporarily 

lost connection to the call. Mr. Katz's comments are 

inserted here. They are a reconstruction from an 

email sent by Mr. Katz to the court reporter after the 

call was completed.)

Plans for the December 2019 Board Meeting

Mr. Katz: Plans for the upcoming December Board 

meeting.

On the 10th, the day before the meeting, we will have 

a tour of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

DOE has confirmed we can have this tour and we 

have very good participation from Board members 

and staff. If there are any Board members who wish 

to attend and haven't yet let me know, please do so 

this week.

I'm going to review the non-routine items for the 

Board meeting on the 11th. It will be a one-day 

meeting.

We have a session on completed dose reconstruction 

procedure reviews. It has been a while since the 

Board has taken up any of the reviews that have been 

completed by the Procedures Review Subcommittee 

so it's good to get back on track with these. There 

will be three reviews. SC&A has identified candidates 

and I'm just waiting for NIOSH to confirm whether 

these make sense as priorities. The intent is to do the 

most important ones first with respect to the number 

of claims they affect or the number of facilities. I'll 

report to you further when we've identified the 

specific procedures.
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We have a session to review the draft report to the 

Secretary, HHS on our dose reconstruction case 

reviews. This is the third of these reports and has 

definitely benefitted from the two that have preceded 

it. I think it is in very good shape. So this is also a 

possible action item for December.

Then we have a rather large session that relates to 

the joint work group meetings we discussed earlier 

for the SRS Work Group and the SEC Issues Work 

Group. The session has two parts but I've bundled 

them in one session since they are related and the 

same parties are reporting out.

The first part of this session is for the Board to 

consider its review of the Coworker Modeling 

Guidelines. As you will recall, the Board tentatively 

approved these guidelines but wanted a concrete 

demonstration of them and selected SRS as a 

possibility, as SRS needed coworker models. These 

coworker models are completed and SC&A has been 

reviewing them so this is an opportunity for the Board 

to complete this guideline review.

The second part of this session is not an action item 

but an update on the work of reviewing the SRS SEC 

petition. This entails more than just the adequacy of 

the coworker models per se, but also their 

applicability to certain subcontractor groups at SRS 

and related matters. So this large joint session 

addressing SRS matters should be helpful 

preparation for the Board to possibly act on the SRS 

petition in April, and there will likely be more work 

group meetings between these two Board meetings 

as well for that purpose. As you know, the SRS 

petition review work is extensive and complicated.

And finally, there will be an update on the Lawrence 

Berkeley National Laboratory Site Profile review, as 

Paul discussed earlier. This will be an opportunity to 

bring the public up to date on this Board review and 

also solicit public input on some matters remaining to 

be addressed and reviewed.

And that's it. Any questions?
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(Note: At this point, the call is reconnected, and the 

transcript resumes from the actual call.)

Court Reporter: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: So, I do not, you will note, have on the 

agenda Santa Susana Area 4 again. We've had that 

on our agenda for the past year, pretty much. And 

let me just tell you where that stands.

I have communicated with the petitioner on that 

since our Board meeting. And the petitioner, as some 

of you may recall, has a FOIA into DOE, which has 

been there quite some time and was supposedly to 

be completed by or before November.

In exchanging emails with her, what she's told me is 

that part of it would be expedited and previously she 

had said it was all due in November, but she didn't 

have a date for when that would come in. But none 

of it's in right now.

I didn't think it would make much sense to put this 

on the agenda again given our Board's discussion --

some Board members have given views about how 

much information is adequate on this petition. So 

let's let that information come in.

I can note that both SC&A and NIOSH have gone 

through the materials that the petitioner submitted 

in August. Although they hadn't reported out on 

those materials, they've informally both said the 

same thing about those, which is that they don't 

provide information to support the notion that 

TRUMP-S was restarted at the site. It does not appear 

to be the case, or that there are other operational 

activities in americium and thorium for that latter 

period. But there will be reports from them.

And so I expect Santa Susana to be on the agenda 

for April. And then perhaps that can be packaged with 

the other Santa Susana site SEC, which is still in the 

works. And I'm not clear on when that will be ready. 

But perhaps that will be ready, and we can put them 

together in the session in April.
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So any questions for me for agenda items, any of 

these?

Member Ziemer: Ted, this is Ziemer. I wonder if you 

can estimate at this time how long the meeting will 

be. Do you anticipate going more than midday on the 

second day, not counting --

Mr. Katz: Oh, I'm sorry.

Member Ziemer: -- Tuesday? We'd have all day 

Wednesday. What about Thursday?

Mr. Katz: Yeah, so the meeting is just -- I'm sorry. I 

thought I said that. But I probably wasn't clear. The 

meeting is just one day.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Katz: Yes, the end of the day on Wednesday we'll 

be finished.

Member Ziemer: Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Yeah. You're welcome. Any other 

questions? Alright. Then not hearing any --

Ms. Adams: Ted?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Ms. Adams: Ted?

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Ms. Adams: Ted, this is Nancy Adams.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Ms. Adams: Just an update that the 

recommendations and the SEC packages for both Y12 and the West Valley Demonstration Project have 

gone into the Secretary. And so the Secretary has got 

a due date of October 25th for decisions on those 

designations -- those recommended designations.
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Adjourn

Mr. Katz: Okay. Thanks, Nancy. Anything else? Okay. 

Then I think we can adjourn. Thank you all for 

attending.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 11:26 a.m.)