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 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


SAVANNAH RIVER SITE
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 


Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held in Hebron, Kentucky on August 22, 


2006. 

2 

 6 

C O N T E N T S
 

August 22, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


SAVANNAH RIVER TBD FINDINGS MATRIX: 10 


COMMENT ONE: RECYCLED URANIUM 10 


COMMENT TWO: 64 


COMMENT THREE: NEUTRON TO PHOTON RATIOS 64 


COMMENT FOUR: TANK FARMS 84 


COMMENT FIVE: EARLY MONITORING 139 


COMMENT SIX: 149 


COMMENT SEVEN: GAUSSIAN MODELS 159 


COMMENT EIGHT: METAL TRITIDES 176 


COMMENT NINE: HIGH FIVE 209 


COMMENT TEN: 220 


COMMENT ELEVEN: 225 


COMMENT TWELVE: ORO-NASAL BREATHING 226 


COMMENT THIRTEEN: REPORTING INCIDENCES 227 


COMMENT FOURTEEN: 240 


COMMENT FIFTEEN: GUIDELINES 245 


COMMENT SIXTEEN: CONSTRUCTION WORKERS 246 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 253 

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

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

5 

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

ALVAREZ, BOB, SC&A 


BIHL, DON 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


CHANG, CHIA CHIA, NIOSH 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


FIX, JACK 


GLOVER, SAM, OCAS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KATZ, TED, NIOSH 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LABONE, TOM 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


ROLLINS, GENE, DADE MOELLER & ASSCS. 


SAMPSON, BOB, GAO 


SCALSKY, ED 


SIEBERT, SCOTT 


THOMAS, ELYSE, ORAU 

6 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

P R O C E E D I N G S


 (9:30 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO


 DR. WADE: Good morning, all. This is Lew 


Wade, and I'm the Designated Federal Official 


for the Advisory Board and I would like to 


welcome you to a meeting of the workgroup of 


the Advisory Board. This is the workgroup 


that's looking at the site profile for the 


Savannah River Site. As currently constituted, 


that group is now chaired by Mike Gibson, and 


members are Brad Clawson, Dr. Lockey and Mark 


Griffon. 


What I would like to do -- we'll go around and 


identify ourselves here, and then we'll go out 


onto the -- the conference call and I would 


like certainly people who are working for the 


government on this call to identify themselves, 


members of the SC&A team, and then anyone else 


-- other Board members who are on, I'd like 


them to identify themselves. And then anyone 


else who would like to, and then I would turn 


it over to -- to Mike. 


When the SC&A people and the NIOSH team 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

7 

identify themselves, if there's anyone with a 


conflict, I'd like them to also identify that 


conflict so we can start with a complete 


disclosure. 


 Around this table, again, this is Lew Wade with 


the Advisory Board. 


 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson. 

 DR. GLOVER: Sam Glover with OCAS. 

 MS. THOMAS: Elyse Thomas with ORAU team. 

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Kathy Robertson-Demers 


with SC&A, no conflict. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And Joe Fitzgerald with the 


SC&A team. I have no conflict. 


 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell with HHS. 


DR. NETON: Jim Neton with NIO--


 MR. CLAWSON: Brad Clawson, Advisory Board. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Bob Alvarez, SC&A, no conflict. 


 DR. LOCKEY: James Lockey. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon with the Advisory 


Board, no conflict. 


DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH, no conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Any other Advisory Board 


members beside Brad on the call at this moment? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Any other members of the NIOSH/ORAU team 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

8 

on the call? 


 MR. SCALSKY: Ed Scalsky. 


 MR. FIX: Jack Fix. 


 MR. BIHL: Don Bihl, no conflict. 


 MR. LABONE: This is Tom -- Tom LaBone. I have 


a conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Other members of the NIOSH/ORAU 


team? 


 (No responses) 


Just for the record, would anyone on that team 


who has a conflict identify now? 


 MR. LABONE: This is Tom LaBone. I -- I worked 


at Savannah River for about 20 years. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Anybody else in the 


ORAU/NIOSH team who has a conflict? 


 (No responses) 


Anyone on the SC&A team with a conflict? 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I spent three 


or four months at Savannah River as part of 


graduate school. I'm not sure that would 


constitute a conflict, but I did spend some 


time at the site. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you for your candor, John. 


Anyone else? 


 MR. FIX: This is Jack Fix. I certainly have 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

9 

spent time at Savannah River, but I don't con-- 


I don't believe it's a conflict. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Appreciate that. Anyone else 


wants to report a conflict? 


 (No responses) 


 Are there other government employees who are on 


this call working? 


 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch for the Department of 


Labor. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Jeff. 


 MR. SAMPSON: Bob Sampson with GAO, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Bob, we're pleased to have 


you with us. 


 MR. KATZ: Yes, Ted Katz with NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Ted. 


MS. CHANG: Chia Chia Chang with NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Any other federal employees, federal 


contractors who need to identify themselves? 


MS. CHANG: Chia Chia Chang with NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Chia Chia. Anyone else 


on the line who wishes to identify themselves? 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan with SC&A. 


 DR. WADE: Hi, Ron. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Hi. No conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. Any more telephone 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

10 

introductions? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Just before I turn it over to Mike, you 


know, this workgroup has been recently shifted. 


When originally appointed it had Dr. DeHart as 


chair, with members Gibson, Griffon and Lockey. 


Dr. DeHart will be res-- will be retiring from 


the Board and Mike has stepped forward as chair 


and Brad Clawson has joined, so the makeup now 


is Gibson chair, Clawson, Lockey and Griffon. 


And Mike, it's all yours. 


SAVANNAH RIVER TBD FINDINGS MATRIX


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Thank you, Lew. As Lew 


said, we're here today to try to resolve some 


outstanding issues with NIOSH and SC&A on the 


Savannah River site profile. And I think we'll 


be working off of a August 16th draft of SC&A 


responses to Savannah River TBD findings matrix 


dated June 5th, 2006. Matri-- comment number 


one, someone from SC&A wants to go ahead and 


start off... 


COMMENT ONE: RECYCLED URANIUM


 MR. FITZGERALD: Sure. Sure, this is -- 


Savannah River being one of the earliest ones 


that we actually reviewed, I think it was one 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

11 

of the earliest ones that NIOSH actually 


conducted in terms of site profile reviews. 


This is sort of walking back before a lot of 


history in terms of some of the issues that 


we've addressed, but recycled uranium is 


actually one of the somewhat more generic 


issues that we've addressed in the other site 


profiles, so the -- the -- the questions we're 


raising here really fall back to some of those 


similar issues that we've discussed at other 


sites and probably have also walked down 


similarly, as well. 


And I'd like to break this down because this 


does cover a lot of different subject areas, 


but in the first issue we're concerned I think 


with the specificity and the scope of what's 


addressed as far as impurities in recycled 


uranium. I guess we understand the sources 


which are referenced, which certainly with Tom 


LaBone on the phone, his -- his review, as well 


as the 2000 review, but we're also concerned 


that beyond those generic references there 


didn't seem to be much in the way of specifics 


on the concentrations handled and the fractions 


-- the same kinds of issues I think we raised 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

12 

at Y-12 and some of the other sites. And we 


recognize this was the early treatment of the 


subject at one of the first site profile 


reviews, but again, we think Savannah River did 


receive and handle various feeds of recycled 


uranium and with different trace materials, 


transuranics, what have you. And I think the 


treatment in the -- certainly the treatment in 


the site profile re-- we reviewed we felt was 


inadequate from that standpoint -- 


 DR. WADE: Joe, could --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- in terms of characterizing 


it. 


 DR. WADE: Could I ask you to -- or John Mauro 


to --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- sort of just identify where we 


are in terms of Revs. of the site profile and 


what you have reviewed at this point, just so 


we all start on the -- the same page? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, we have reviewed -- 


obviously for the site profile review we 


conducted last year -- the first edition of 


that site profile, and since we reviewed that ­

- and that was two years ago -- a Rev. -- is it 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

13 

3? I think that's correct. A Rev. --


UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- a Rev. 3 has been issued 


and we have since looked at that as well. So 


these comments basically take the original 


issues that were cited in that first review 


that we submitted a year ago, which was, again, 


based on a site profile that NIOSH conducted a 


year before that, so it was a 2004 site profile 


-- 2003 to 2004 -- and we've updated that, 


reflecting what was in the most current 


Revision. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So the way this is structured 


is we take the original findings that were in 


the review of the site profile and we've 


updated it in response to the comments that -- 


that I think we received from NIOSH. 


Now as further background -- thank you for 


raising this question of where we stand -- we 


had a general discussion that was chaired by 


Roy DeHart on a conference call in June which 


we kind of walked through the matrix. And the 


matrix that was prepared was the first response 


that we've seen in terms of I think NIOSH's 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

14 

reaction to our original findings on that site 


profile. So what we're providing here I think 


is the -- I guess the first response to what we 


saw in that matrix that we received back about 


two or three months ago. So again, we haven't 


had a chance to really discuss what was in that 


original matrix other than to allude to, you 


know, what -- what was there and we haven't had 


an interchange on it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Joe, just --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the last matrix was June 5th, 


2006. Is that the most updated matrix? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I believe so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's the... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, June 5th, 2006 is the 


last one that we have. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: That was our response -- or -- or 


what we provided for our working group 


conference call. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. Right. 


 DR. GLOVER: And there were I believe, to make 


-- you know, in the development of the matrix, 


I think that conversation with a little more 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

15 

clarity, and so SC&A's responses and ours, we 


have not updated it or tried to make any 


changes to that following that, and so in some 


cases they provided clarification I've 


received, so... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, and that -- again, that 


confer-- that was really a opportunity to 


clarify what the original findings were and 


then to I think discuss what the initial 


response was, and we left it at that. So this 


is really the first opportunity we've had a 


chance I think to get into the details. 


Going back to the first part of the matrix item 


number one, which was one of our early findings 


on recycled uranium then, the letter A, that 


first part, I think is our concern that the -- 


the impurities, that discussion, the 


information provided, in our view, wasn't as 


comprehensive as we felt it needed to be in 


order to be assured that there was a pretty 


good characterization on what the recycled 


uranium contained. 


 Our recommendation, quite frankly -- and again, 


is -- it doesn't differ too much from what we 


originally said -- was that we felt there was a 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

16 

need to clarify better what those impurities 


are. 


DR. MAURO: Say, Joe, this is John Mauro. 
I 


have a version of the matrix that came out on 


July 28th that has a column in it, and that's 


where, if everyone is looking at the same one 


I'm looking at, that indicates -- right after 


NIOSH response, there's a column called 


"Location in SRS TBD Rev 3," so I guess my 


question is, I'm not quite sure I'm looking at 


the same version everyone else is looking at. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the only --


DR. MAURO: I found that column very useful 


because it indicates, for each one of the 


issues, whether or not that particular issue 


has in fact been addressed in Rev 3 and where 


in Rev 3 it is addressed, or if it's not 


addressed in Rev 3. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, le-- yeah, let me -- let 


me -- let me just indicate, we went ahead, for 


our own purposes -- this gets confusing -- we 


added a column just to help us know where the 


issue was addressed or revised in the matrix, 


so it doesn't change really the NIOSH response, 


nor does it change our response. It just is --

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

17 

it just gives you a reference point in the 


text. That's what the additional column was. 


So if you have that -- that version of the 


matrix, it's -- it facilitates I think the 


discussion, but it doesn't change the responses 


at all. 


Do you have any comments or... 


 DR. GLOVER: So our response in --


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez, and in some 


instances, John, Rev 3 does not address the 


issues in the matrix and one of them is 


recycled uranium. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, yeah -- no, I agree. Don't get 


me wrong, I just wanted to make sure that I was 


on the same page as everyone else. I did 


notice in that column there -- sort -- there 


are a couple of -- number of places where the 


Rev 3 does in fact address some specific issue 


related to this one particular topic in fact, 


that we're on right now, and then -- but by and 


large, on this one particular topic, the -- the 


Rev 3 does not contain any material related to 


many of the -- of the responses that are 


provided in the matrix, and I found it very 


useful. I'll give you an example. On this 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

18 

very -- this very first issue, you know, 


comment number one, NIOSH has its response in 


the column called "NIOSH Response," and I 


noticed on the second page there -- one of the 


responses, right toward the top of the second 


page, is (reading) Bioassay for americium, 


curium and californium was in place during the 


mid '60s. 


And I have right next to it a little note, yes, 


in fact, the Rev 3 does in fact say that. So 


that particular issue is addressed in Rev 3. 


However, many of the other paragraphs in NIOSH 


responses are not contained in Rev 3, and I 


thought that would be helpful as a tracking 


device. It was helpful to me. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Bob, did you want to add to 


that? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: No. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We discussed this in the last 


conference call so I'm not sure this is really 


a new issue. We just felt, again, that we 


didn't get enough of a sense that there was 


additional material that would be provided. 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, we had a couple -- there 


were several -- is it okay for NIO-- for a 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

19 

response at -- all right. There were several 


things we were to walk away with in the last 


working group meeting. One was to look at the 


-- an older recycled uranium document. 
I 


believe we've done that. We have not updated 


our response, obviously. We had agreed that it 


needed to be included in the -- at -- at the 


time that was generated, recycled uranium had 


not really been dealt with well. The Hanford 


site, and I believe it was probably one of the 


first sites to really deal with recycled 


uranium, and we have Don Bihl on line, and Ed 


Scalsey -- Ed Scalsky to talk about that. And 


so we -- we have said that we would address -- 


we -- we understand that you still are 


concerned that we have not maybe looked deep 


enough at the uncertainty in concentrations -- 


is that my understanding with what we have 


here? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think the -- the -- 


the broad comment is that we understand this is 


one of the first ones. We're not trying to --


 DR. GLOVER: Sure. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- to say anything more than 


the fact that as we have progressed through the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

20 

subsequent site profiles, I think we've reached 


a point where there's common understanding of, 


you know, the level of detail necessary to put 


that one to bed. And all we're saying is that 


-- I don't think there's any disagreement that 


that's probably something that needs to be 


retrofitted into the Savannah River review that 


would reflect maybe later understandings of how 


that issue's treated, so -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez again. When 


you referred to the older recycled uranium 


document, is that the 1985 task force report? 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. Unfortunately we've got 


these things -- I've got three or four 


documents on my -- right in front of me. I 


can't -- but it was the '85 -- we had said we 


were going to go and look at that. I know -- I 


think we've only done some preliminary scoping. 


I don't think we're anywhere complete 


necessarily with --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I think one thing that may 


be useful is that a lot of the work that has 


been done that expands upon the recycled 


uranium issue at the sites was actually derived 


from a Department of Energy study that was 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

21 

done, a uranium mass balance (unintelligible), 


it was issued in March of 2001 and each site 


did a site-specific workup of this. The bottom 


line of -- of the -- of the report as a whole 


was that they could not actually perform a -- 


an active mass balance, especially with respect 


to trace contaminants, and that there were 


important discrepancies at these sites 


regarding these materials. And also of course 


the '85 -- it reiterated a lot of what the '85 


task force had to say, which was there were no 


product specifications between and even within 


sites up to 1985, which may have changed after 


this report, and nor were there any efforts 


made to measure workers who were so exposed to 


these materials, these trace contaminants, and 


some sites weren't even notifying other sites 


of the trace contaminant levels, particular 


neptunium. But you should endeavor to obtain 


that whole set of documents because it's really 


used extensively in the site profiles. 


 DR. GLOVER: Don and Ed, you guys have been 


working on this issue? 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. I -- I really 


think a better way to go here at this point -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

22 

for about the last year there's been a group of 


folks working on the recycled uranium issues 


across the complex or the various sites, and 


they have drafted a Technical Information 


Bulletin that is specific to recycled uranium. 


And you know, they've really got their heads 


into it and done a -- you know, they're -- 


they're able to focus on this subject, look at 


all the sites, look at the transfers between 


the sites and -- and that sort of thing. And 


you know, that draft document is coming up with 


pretty much recommended values. It -- it'll -- 


some of the sites are clearly different than 


others, so they've got some in there that are 


specific to given sites, and then they have 


basically recommendations for most of the other 


sites, like Savannah River or Hanford, that -- 


that weren't as problematic as Fernald or 


Portsmouth, Paducah, or something like that. 


And I just -- you know, I just feel like we 


probably ought to just take a hard look at that 


document. I'll obviously go through all the 


review steps and then -- and then -- and then 


use that for Savannah River and for Hanford and 


-- and virtually everywhere so that folks like 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

23 

myself who've read a million things to -- to 


study at a given site and do the best we can, 


don't -- don't have to get our head quite into 


the recycled uranium as much as this other 


group did. So I recommend we just use those 


default values as soon as they're approved. 


 DR. GLOVER: And that -- hey, Don, that's done 


by Mel Chew? 


 MR. BIHL: Mel Chew and Bryce Rich are two of 


the people on the -- involved with it that I 


know of, yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Don, this is Joe Fitzgerald, 


what's -- again, what's the time frame on that? 


I know they've been working on it. 


 MR. BIHL: I believe it has gone through 


internal review and the authors are working on 


resolving some internal review comments. It'll 


go to OCAS next. So it's -- it's clearly 


along. It's -- but you know, there's probably 


a month or two yet before it's done. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: In this -- this particular 


exercise, does it build upon the data that was 


already generated by the mass balance, or does 


it just simply take those data? 


 MR. BIHL: I'm not sure I'm the right person to 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

24 

ask --


 MR. ALVAREZ: (Unintelligible) the transactions 


data was -- was pretty extensive in the -- the 


mass balance review of 2000/2001 and I -- but 


they -- they still had important gaps in there 


and a lot of extrapolations had to be done, and 


I'm just curious were there any new data beyond 


that which was generated in the mass balance 


report that's going to be utilized in this 


exercise. 


 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me, this is Mike Gibson. 


Would those on the phone please identify 


yourself before you comment? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Certainly. This is Bob Alvarez. 

I'm sorry. 

 MR. GIBSON: Thank you. 

 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl, and I honestly 


cannot answer that question. You -- you would 


have to talk to Mel Chew or -- or Bryce Rich. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. GLOVER: What I -- what I would propose 


doing is if you would -- we will provide the 


comments that SC&A has given us on this, and if 


you have additional comments, make sure that we 


can provide that so that they're part of the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

25 

review so we don't -- so that these things 


don't come later. We -- obviously something 


that's been going on for a long time. Recycled 


uranium is not a new issue. And as Don says, 


it may be best to address this broadly. So if 


-- we can provide thes-- I will make sure that 


we give -- and Elyse Thomas is sitting here. 


She coordinates the SC&A responses for ORAU, so 


I'm sure she can make sure that we get all 


these comments to them, make sure that they 


incorporate these into their -- in their 


Technical Information Bulletin. And then 


obviously this will be subject to part of the 


SC&A and Board review. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- this is Mark Griffon. 


I don't think any of us want -- want to 


duplicate efforts on that, so if it's being 


done under the TIB, that's fine. I would just 


say that I -- I hope that TIB doesn't lose 


sight of sort of site-specific issues. I think 


that's -- that's what keeps coming back in in 


this process of recycled uranium is the -- the 


ways the isotopes of interest could concentrate 


in various processes, not -- not just the site-


wide average concentration for 50 years. You 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

know, I can't really look at this issue at 


10,000 feet, I don't think. I think there has 


to be something site specific. So hopefully 


that's being addressed in that TIB. I think --


it sounds like you got sections on each -- or 


at least for some sites you got site-specific 


sections. I don't -- I don't know, I haven't 


seen -- do we know the TIB number on that, by 


the way, so we can... 


 DR. GLOVER: Anybody at ORAU have a -- a 


potential TIB number, what they're working on, 


so we can --


 MR. GRIFFON: Just so we can track it, yeah. 


 (No responses) 


 DR. GLOVER: We will provide that information 


to the Board. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This Joe Fitzgerald. This is 


-- that was another reason I wanted to know the 


timing because certainly if it's going to be 


available within the next couple of months, it 


would also provide an opportunity to do a site-


specific for certain sites like Savannah River. 


So either way, you know, I think it will lend 


itself that way. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

27

 Unless there's any other comments on -- on the 


recycled, I think that sounds like a reasoned 


way to go about it, to see how the OTIB handles 


it and then to -- to determine if there's 


anything else that would be necessary. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I just mayb-- maybe just a silly 


question on that. There's been a lot of 


Savannah cases that have gone through. I mean 


Savannah's one of the sites we've seen a lot of 


-- I don't know how many were best estimates, 


but -- but how -- how has recycled uranium been 


handled so far or -- in the dose 


reconstructions, or has it been mainly 


maximized and minimized cases and you haven't 


run into that as an issue? 


 DR. GLOVER: Do we have our --


 MR. GRIFFON: Any -- any dose reconstruction -- 


 DR. GLOVER: I don't have the tools -- do we 


have our -- somebody who's doing our active SRS 


cases? 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. This issue came 


up for discussion when I was trying to look 


into what we should put for recycled uranium at 


Savannah River, and I asked Scott Siebert, 


who's one of the managers of the dose 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

28 

reconstructing group, Task V, and he said what 


they've found is that most of the people that 


were handling uranium and had uranium bioassay 


also had plutonium bioassay, and that the 


missed dose that you assign for a non-detection 


of plutonium in a urine sample is so high that 


it more than readily accounts for a little 


plutonium or neptunium or something that's in 


the uranium. And so when you put together the 


-- the doses from missed dose from a uranium 


intake and a missed dose from a plutonium 


intake, you've got what they felt was more than 


adequately accounted for plutonium dose that a 


person might have received through that pro-- 


you know, the missed dose process. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Don, this is Bob Alvarez. These 


-- these plutonium bioassays that were 


obtained, were these for workers in the 300 


area? 


 MR. BIHL: Once again, I'm --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Is this the --


 MR. BIHL: -- (unintelligible) past my little 


bit of knowledge in this area. I'm not a dose 


reconstructor so I don't have that level of 


detail. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

29

 MR. ALVAREZ: Because the site-specific report 


that was issued by Savannah River in 2000 said 


there were no measurements taken for trace con­

- fission products or transuranics of workers 


in the 300 area throughout this whole period, 


and that if the -- if the current revision is 


being used as guidance, the definition that's 


contained in that current revision provides no 


guidance other than the uranium isotopes that 


would be in recycled uranium and none of the 


trace contaminants are discussed. So it would 


be interesting to see whether or not workers, 


especially in the 300 area, who were handing 


these materials were -- had -- those who might 


have filed claims, how those particular cases 


were being handled because that would be an 


important indicator. 


 DR. GLOVER: Tom LaBone, are you on the line? 

 MR. LABONE: I'm here. 

 DR. GLOVER: You would know if anybody from the 

300 area was -- had plutonium bioassay? 


 MR. LABONE: I think -- I don't understand the 


nuances of the dose reconstruction yet, but the 


-- I think if they, at some time late in their 


career, get a single urine sample for plutonium 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

30 

analyzed, that can be used for some sort of 


bounding calculation. But they did not 


necessarily have to be samples for plutonium 


while they were working in the -- in -- in 


(unintelligible) area or -- or any of the -- 


you know, or A line or something like that, but 


it's just some time they had rotated into an 


area that required plutonium, that would have 


been useful I believe in the dose 


reconstruction. 


Don, does that sound right that they can -- 


again, they can use a plutonium later on to 


bound it? 


 MR. BIHL: That's correct, and so that would 


account for some other cases that maybe weren't 


on a routine plutonium bioassay, but -- I mean 


the question is still value -- you know, were 


there people that were exposed to uranium that 


never got a plutonium bioassay, and how do they 


account for that; and I don't know the answer. 


I'm sure they've discussed that in Task V, but 


we'd have to -- we'll just have to go find the 


answer to that question. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I guess -- this is Bob Alvarez. 


I guess the other question I would pose is that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

31 

plutonium bioassay was taken elsewhere, where ­

- where perhaps recycled uranium was not being 


handled, repre-- would it be representative of 


the exposure a person might have received 


handling recycled uranium? 


 DR. GLOVER: For that individual, obviously it 


represents his exposure. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Yeah, but does -- is it 


representative of the work that person did when 


he wasn't monitored for transuranics, handling 


recycled uranium or not? 


 DR. GLOVER: Plutonium is a long-term excreter, 


so -- anyway --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I understand, but I mean 


does this mean that this was the maximum he 


might have received elsewhere, even though he 


wasn't measured, is the way I'm trying to 


phrase the question. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, Bob, this is Jim Neton. I 


think the answer to that is yes. I mean these 


are what they call bounding calculations where 


one would try to determine how much could have 


they inhaled and been excreting that amount of 


plutonium six months, eight months, one year 


after the exposure. And then as far as the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

32 

solubility type goes, of course we would always 


assume the solubility type that gave the organ 


the highest dose. 


 DR. GLOVER: And for -- one thing that might be 


of -- of interest, when you're talking about a 


gram of uranium, that is about 1.2 million dpm 


of uranium and you're talking about 1,000, 


3,000 dpm plutonium, so one part in 400 as far 


as the ratio of activities, so there's a lot of 


uranium activity compared to the other 


actinides that may be present. That may not be 


true necessarily with the beta emitters, but 


they also have a lower dose coefficient. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think they answered -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- answered my question on that. 


Yeah, I think we -- that's the question is do 


you have people that worked with uranium that 


never got plutonium sampling. 


 DR. WADE: That's the question we need to 


answer. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: We need to make sure that's a part 


of our -- that the TIB deals with that, yes. 


agree. 


I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

33

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, but also -- yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: Or that --


 MR. GRIFFON: Retrospectively, that you didn't 


do any cases that would have been affected by 


that, which I, you know, probably doubt, but 


could happen. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, so that's one of the actions 


for issue one that we'll be wait-- waiting on 


the answer for. And the other is -- I guess 


SC&A is going to wait on a -- a document that's 


going to turn into a TIB that's going to talk 


about the -- give better detail on the 


concentrations of the uranium? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think that's a 


reasonable proposal, to see what that does, 


then decide if it does enough for Savannah 


River. But I think this question of balancing 


generic versus site-specific which Mark raised 


is probably the issue on that -- on -- on the 


OTIB. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I can add one 


little -- I just spoke to Hans and Kathy on the 


-- my cell line just to check to see if the 


Savannah River workbooks have factored in 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

34 

recycled uranium, for example, as part of the 


process -- 'cause we're reviewing the workbooks 


right now and --and dose reconstructions, and 


just -- Kathy just informed me that no, 


currently the workbooks for Savannah River for 


dose reconstruction do not include 


consideration of recycled uranium. I -- I 


believe that came up a little earlier. 


 DR. GLOVER: I will, as -- as somebody who has 


done Savannah River cases, at least a while 


ago, oftentimes the doses from recycled uranium 


-- based on the contaminant levels I've seen at 


Hanford -- are very low. So we'll have to bal­

- you know, see how much impact that really 


makes, depends -- you know, obviously will be 


organ-specific. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: And the contaminant levels you 


found are -- are -- were collected at what 


period of time? This is Bob Alvarez. At 


Hanford. 


 DR. GLOVER: Well, the Hanford TBD has a -- a 


list -- Don Bihl I'm sure can speak 


authoritatively with where that came from. 
I 


believe that also came from this 2000 document. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Because most of the sampling in 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

35 

the 2000 document was done in the '80s, after 


the recycled uranium task force report came 


out, and there was a real gap in data prior to 


that. The question is, is that representative 


of the -- of the contaminant levels that were 


present before that time or not. 


 DR. GLOVER: Again, I think this will all come 


out with the TIB. This -- I was just providing 


generic comment. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are there other radi-- other 


nuclides in that section, Joe? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, there -- we -- we adopted 


the NIOSH response the way that was structured 


and just responded to the way that was set up 


rather than, you know, trying to deal with it 


generically. And in B and C we -- I think 


NIOSH addressed our concern about maybe the 


lack of specificity about transuranics, for 


example, in the site profile. And I think 


what's noted in -- in section B and C of the 


NIOSH response on the first comment is that in 


fact they did address Pu-242 and went into some 


specifics on the -- on the source terms 


involved with that and U-233. Our only comment 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

36 

really in B and C -- it's right there -- is 


that we can't -- because of our concerns on 


thorium -- and this is not a new issue. 
I 


think we've raised this almost at every site 


now because of these -- the -- you know, the 


higher activity and what have you with thorium, 


we -- we would need more information on how the 


default considerations for the assignment of 


thorium dose is -- is done, and that's just not 


available right now in the site profile. And I 


think that's the implication of what you're 


saying here. 


 DR. GLOVER: Don, that's something you're 


addressing the new Revision. Correct? 


 MR. BIHL: Yes, the Revision that's going 


through the review process right now has quite 


a bit of new information about the thorium, the 


uranium-233, uranium-232 and the plutonium-242. 


At some point as it goes through the review 


process, or maybe when it comes over to OCAS, 


Sam, to you guys, you know, you're free of 


course to pass it on at that point. I mean 


we're little hesitant to -- to -- when these 


things are just coming out and being looked at, 


to pass it, you know, to a wide group before 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

37 

they've had a chance to -- to review it 


internally and see if there's any issues that 


we identify that need to be done -- you know, 


something that needs to be done better. But 


somewhere along the line that information 


certainly can be passed over. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that -- that was kind 


of our take, that we -- we think this is moving 


in the right direction I think if in fact these 


details are provided and I think the only 


admonition is that we would like to see enough 


information to draw a judgment on -- on thorium 


in particular, but certainly on the others as 


well, that there'd be enough basis for the -- 


the -- the assumptions made. 


 MR. BIHL: Sam, I'll leave it up -- this is Don 


Bihl. I'll leave it up to you to decide when 


it -- when you're comfortable with sending that 


new information over. 


 DR. GLOVER: I think, you know, you're correct. 


You guys have got to review it and make sure it 


passes your own internal review, and at that 


point you feel you're -- it would be nice if 


you can give us an update of what you -- time 


line they think it's on and we'll look at this 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

38 

as an action item and certainly as we review it 


or as we prepare to get this Revision approved, 


all this has to kind of go through -- you know, 


we have to meet all these criteria, so that'll 


be part of what we can provide is -- is the 


table that -- specifically and let them see 


what we have. So do you have any idea, Don, 


where that stands? Are we a month or -- it's 


kind of the same thing as the recycled uranium 


response? 


 MR. BIHL: It stands in the -- I have received 


back some comments from internal reviewers and 


I need to look through that, and then -- you 


know, it has to go back to Ed Scalsky for a 


final look, and then at that point, you know, I 


think it'll go to OCAS. So I -- you know, I 


think we're only a few weeks away from getting 


it to OCAS. Now I don't know -- Ed, do you 


have anything more to add to that? 


 MR. SCALSKY: No, I think you're right. It's 


probably a few weeks away yet, Don. 


 DR. GLOVER: That sound fairly reasonable? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I -- no, I think that 


would be appropriate from our standpoint. 


 DR. GLOVER: That was Ed Scalsky? 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

39

 MR. SCALSKY: Yes, I'm sorry. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, does that satisfy everyone 


on the issue one right now for the present 


time? 


 (No responses) 


 Okay, hearing no objections, we'll move on to 


matrix comment number two. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, actually no, there's a 


couple of loose ends here on number one. We're 


using again the NIOSH response structure, just 


the --


 DR. WADE: D and E. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- D and E. 


 MR. GIBSON: Oh, okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We had a -- a kind of a broad 


finding in the site profile review originally. 


I think NIOSH came back and kind of gave some 


specifics, which we want to address. And on --


on D, the question we had on D, now the issues 


we indicated -- certainly there were not 


specific internal dose contributions addressed 


for transuranics and other fission products, 


and I think certainly D makes it clear that 


there was bioassay for americium, curium and 


californium, for example, in the mid-'60s. Our 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

40 

question there, as we indicate in the piece we 


provided, was how in fact is one addressing the 


lack of bioassay, though, before that time 


frame when in fact people were being exposed, 


workers were being exposed to these 


constituents. It's not clear how that's being 


addressed from that standpoint. 


 DR. GLOVER: The standard internal dosimetry is 


-- included a plutonium-241, americium-241 


contaminant that is part of the irradiation 


process. And so unless there's a specific 


program as the -- unless they're concentrating 


americium-241 as its own -- into its own right 


before the bioassay, it's really -- it's 


addressed as part of the plutonium dosimetry. 


You have so much americium as part of the 


plutonium. It's part of the matrix that you 


breathe in, that you're exposed to. So -- is 


that what you're asking or -- or are you 


talking about something spe-- different? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I guess the -- the 


question is whether americium was in fact 


handled exclusively as a constituent of 


plutonium, whether you had these sources -- 


sources at the site that were in fact separate, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

41 

varying assays. I mean -- I would say very 


similar to some of the issues we've addressed 


at Rocky and Y-12. They're sort of the same 


questions. And again, I keep -- I hate to keep 


going back to the -- the analogy, but you know, 


we have I think covered a lot of ground on very 


similar issues at other sites and all we're 


saying is using, you know, all that lesson 


learned -- lessons learned, can you 


characterize how, for example, americium, but 


as well as these other constituents were 


handled. Was it simply as a -- a uniform 


fraction of plutonium that was handled 


routinely or was there in fact a lot of 


instances where that wasn't as standard as 


that. 


 DR. GLOVER: At Rocky Flats it would have been 


different. One, you guys have got to recognize 


that they had old plutonium coming back, and so 


you had the time for americium to really in-


grow. In the very beginning years you had 


freshly irradiated plutonium. You wouldn't 


have a lot of americium in that -- in that 


early time. As it gro-- as it grows in, 


plutonium-241 is created as part of the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

42 

irradiation process if you're not -- it goes 


239, 240, 241, the end gamma reactions. 


Plutonium -- americium-241 becomes -- is part 


of the beta decay and so it will be a end 


growth before -- with about a 14-year half life 


that amer-- plutonium-241 has so it'll start to 


grow in with time. But it's -- a very, very 


small fraction would be present immediately. 


But it really -- Rocky Flats saw it because 


they had old plutonium to recycle. Savannah 


River -- it would have to be specific to what 


Don Bihl and Tom LaBone know before the 


bioassay programs there really started, but -- 


are you guys aware of a program which would 


have a separate americium content? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Or one that would vary from 


what you were saying is the standard, you know, 


fraction for --


 DR. GLOVER: End growth for -- yeah, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, right. 


 DR. GLOVER: This other we could sort of -- 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. I -- I have not 


uncovered that in my -- my research, but I 


certainly don't know absolutely everything that 


went on at the site prior to the '60s. It's 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

43 

just I -- you know, I tried my best to go 


through the documentation and I haven't found 


any program that was concentrating on americium 


prior to the '60s. Tom, do you have anything 


to add to that? 


 MR. LABONE: Well, you all seem to know more 


about it than I do. The -- no, other than the 


campaigns that started there in the '60s as far 


as where -- making the transplutonium compound, 


you know, I don't know of anything beyond say a 


chemist working at a bench where they may have 


been trying to concentrate something. 


 DR. GLOVER: There's some very specific 


documentation regarding the transplutonium 


programs. Darlene Hoffman and all the -- were 


very involved. Seaboard* was leaving those 


programs to develop higher actinides, so 


there's a lot a very detailed information 


regarding that. Savannah River was part of 


that where they were trying to make higher 


elements as part of the irradiation programs, 


so... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So it would be a fair 


statement to say that you could back-


extrapolate the experience from the mid-'60s on 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

44 

back backwards in terms of operations involving 


the transuranics -- transplu-- you know, back 


in that time frame, the -- where they handled ­

- the early '60s, late '50s? You know, I -- I 


think the -- the comment is that, you know, 


essentially you have the -- this data starting 


in mid-'60s, and our question is well, what 


about the period in advance of those bioassay 


techniques and how would you actually handle 


missing dose. And I think your comment is that 


well, it's pretty standardized, we're pretty 


confident that we have those ratios and we 


could back-extrapolate those doses if we have 


to. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or -- or -- or -- or --


 DR. GLOVER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or I think you might need to 


verify -- the americium might be a similar 


answer to the Rocky Flats answer, which was 


that until after 1957 or '58 there wasn't much 


americium there --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to do any, you know, specific 


americium sampling. It was all associated with 


the plutonium exposures. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

45

 DR. GLOVER: They were making plutonium and 


therefore that's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, so I think you 


might find the same thing -- 


 DR. GLOVER: We can make sure that, Don Bihl, 


in the next Revision we put some verbiage in 


there? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez. There --


there was, until it was moved to the tank 


farms, a large amount of americium/curium I 


believe in the S -- F Canyon, and I'd be 


curious what the origin of that material was 


and when it was produced. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we just need to track 


back to see if there was -- 


 DR. GLOVER: What time frame. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- specific source terms prior to 


'60s when they -- they -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And whether the assump-- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- there might have been a need 


for an individual bioassay program, you know -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Make sure we link the bioassay 


program and -- and potentially unique source 


terms. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

46

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And also that the assumptions 


can be -- the assumed fractions and 


concentrations can be back-extrapolated, that 


the assumptions are sound on that. I think if 


that's clarified and substantiated, I think 


we're fine. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But I think that was a gap in 


-- as far as what the justification or 


assessment was provided. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, any more comments on D? 


 (No responses) 


If not, we can move on to E. SC&A has --


 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't -- I don't think 


there's any issue with E. I think what we're 


saying with E and F is that -- yeah, I think 


the information provides value and should be 


reflected. I -- I don't think there's 


disagreement there. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, any -- any comment from 

NIOSH or... 

 DR. GLOVER: That's the best kind of answer. 

 MR. GIBSON: Okay. You ready to move on to -- 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

47

 MR. FITZGERALD: (Unintelligible) spend too 


much time on that. 


 MR. GIBSON: Move on to comment number two. 


SC&A has some questions and concerns about the 


adjustment factors and uncertainties related to 


the exposures measured by the dosimeters. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I -- Ron Buchanan, are 


you still on? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, I'm still here. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Can you sort of outline both I 


guess the NIOSH response as well as our 


evaluation? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, in the site profile they 


initially talked about angular response and 


energy to response and some of the 


uncertainties in the external dosimeters and -- 


but then in the final version when they talk 


about making correction factors they only talk 


about the calibration factor and the difference 


between the uranium or radium-226 calibration 


used, as opposed to the ten centimeter dose, 


and they say apply prior to January of '86 the 


factor of 1.119 and then '87 a factor of 1.039 


and then no correction after that. And SC&A's 


concern was that while some of these other 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

48 

factors were mentioned in the site profile, 


there was no quantitative numbers given to them 


other than for the calibration difference. And 


so I realize this is an older site profile and 


this has come up at many other site profiles 


since then on the uncertainties of the 


geometry, mainly of the AP/PA rotational type 


geometry as opposed to the calibration 


geometry. And so what SC&A's concern was was 


that in the site profile they were not 


addressed in a quantitative manner. And then 


NIOSH's response again was not quantitative and 


so what we would like to know is have they 


looked into determining whether there was -- 


such as fading of dosimetry information, was 


there geometry factors that should have been 


considered in these dose reconstructions that 


it wasn't on a quantitative basis. 


 DR. GLOVER: I think Jack Fix -- Ed, you want 


to comment on this, or Jack Fix, perhaps? 


 MR. FIX: Well, this is Jack Fix. Basically 


the approach that we use on all of these site 


profiles is the one that was originally 


published by the National Review Council in the 


late 1980s in which they identified bias 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

49 

corrections and uncertainty factors, and we did 


this in the context that with the DOE 


Laboratory Accreditation Program testing that's 


existed since the late -- the mid-1980s, we're 


able to come up with estimates of bias and 


uncertainty factors for recent (unintelligible) 


look at the trend in doses back through time to 


see if there's any discontinuities that are -- 


could be associated with changes in operations 


or changes in dosimetry systems with a goal to 


-- to come up initially with a bias factor and 


then recently relative to the HP-10 and the ten 


millimeter depth dose that's used in -- one 


centimeter depth dose that's used in -- as a -- 


for penetrating dose. And the reason that the 


1.19 and 1.039 are applied are those are based 


on Savannah River's own assessment of the -- of 


the difference historically in their recorded 


dose relative to HP-10 in terms of a bias. And 


then we go on to look and see what would be 


reasonable (unintelligible) the uncertainty and 


the uncertainties (unintelligible) 


environmental radiological and laboratory 


sources. And many of these are -- some -- some 


of these sour-- certainly some of these sources 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

50 

are under the control of that dosimetry 


program, and also the -- even with the earliest 


dosimeter, typically there was a -- there was a 


-- they used the intelligence of the dosimeter, 


the response of the dosimeter to assign doses 


and so they always used ratios (unintelligible) 


penetrating dose to do energy corrections and 


so we are trying to use what data is available 


to us to assign what would be the bias, the 


bias factor that's assigned to say the measured 


dose or the missed dose or the ambient dose or 


and medical radiation dose estimates 


(unintelligible) uncertainty factors. 


 DR. GLOVER: And we'd also choose a claimant-


favorable geometry. Correct? 


 MR. FIX: Well, we're using the 


anterior/posterior geometry in almost all cases 


'cause it gives the -- for most cas-- for most 


situations it gives the highest 


(unintelligible) dose. 


 DR. GLOVER: And those are out of the NIOSH IG 


guide, if I remember correctly, and those have 


an uncertainty and a best estimate associated 


with those -- for all the organs. 


 MR. FIX: Yes, (unintelligible). 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

51 

MR. BUCHANAN: Now are you saying that the bias 


factor includes the AP factors -- you say that 


they were monitored A/P but the exposure was 


P/A, or are you saying that the bias factors 


are meant to include any uncertainty in that or 


is that a separate issue of the geometry 


factor? 


 MR. FIX: Well, no, I think if you have a 


certain claim in which a person was being 


predominantly exposed from the back side, that 


gets into a special circums-- special 


situation. Obviously I don't (unintelligible) 


person being exposed from the back side that 


the dosimeter will underestimate. But I don't 


-- we typically don't see situations like that. 


People are normally exposed -- not even A/P. 


They're typically rotationally -- they'll be 


(unintelligible) moving, the sources are -- 


surround people, usually -- usually not 


(unintelligible) circumstances. A/P is 


probably the -- the -- the situation that 


represents the typical highest dose scenario 


for workers and they -- that's when they're 


working close to a source, they're usually 


working right -- they're directly facing it. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

52 

It seems to be the geometry of choice 


(unintelligible) can only choose one. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is Kathy. Can you 


tell me what source you got those two numbers 


out of, correction factors? 


 MR. FIX: The -- you mean the 1.19 and 1.039? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes. 


 MR. FIX: That's in the Savannah River internal 


dosimetry Technical Basis -- no, it's in their 


historical document. They have a -- I don't 


have these documents in front of me. It's 


(unintelligible) historical document -- 


external do-- external dosimetry historical 


document, there's a little table in there. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Thanks. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think maybe a lot of this 


issue's just simply we weren't picking up some 


of these specific references to some of these 


fac-- adjustment factors, corrections factors, 


and it was difficult to go ahead and evaluate 


the basis without clearly -- you know, not to 


say they don't exist, but we couldn't find the 


references very easily. 


 MR. FIX: Well, I think this looks very clear, 


it should be very clear, I believe. But we'll 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

53 

go look at it again. If it's not clear, we can 


-- we can make sure it is clear. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Ron, you kind of got into the 


bowels of this one. Did you -- do you have a 


problem I guess picking up the references or 


was it just a matter of understanding the 


derivation? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Well, as far as the 1.19 


correction factor, I don't -- don't have a 


problem with that. I didn't look at the 


original data on that but, you know, that seems 


reasonable. My -- I guess my question was, 


when I wrote the summary paragraph that I sent 


to Joe, was that -- that the -- the original 


site profile did address some of the other 


issues, but I wasn't sure from reading the site 


profile how these were factored in 


quantitatively, such as the geometry factors 


are -- are addressed in -- let's see, Table 


5.3.2.1.1. They talk about A/P and rotational 


and such, and they give some -- some numbers 


there in that table. However, you know, back 


in the back when they get down to the step-bystep instructions, the only ones they included 


was the calibration factor and -- which was 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

54 

okay, but I didn't see anything numerically for 


the geometry factors. And so that -- that was 


my concern, where were these geometry factors 


going to be taken in consideration during dose 


reconstruction if only the calibration factors 


for the different types of isotopes that were 


used was included in final instructions. So 


where does the information that's provided in ­

- in -- in the site profile, such as in that 


table for -- for geometry, where is that 


included in the final dose reconstruction 


process? Is it explicit or implicit in some 


overall bias factor? 


 DR. GLOVER: It seems -- in the updated 


revision to the document, to me this sounds 


like it's part of an over-arching how we do 


dose reconstruction. It's not specific to 


Savannah River. These are how we apply 


geometry correction factors, and I know we've 


had updated guidance since probably the Rev 2 


or Rev 3 that was finally done 'cause I know we 


went -- we had rotational in there for a while. 


Now we use A/P. 


Jack, I think you can probably speak to that 


the best. Do you know what the new document -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

55 

or maybe it's Don -- what's going to be 


updated? 


DR. NETON: I -- I can speak to that. I just 


signed a new version yesterday. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay. 


DR. NETON: So the new imple-- the revision to 


the external dosimetry Implementation Guide has 


been revised to -- you know, to use the A/P 


geometry preferentially over the other 


geometries, and there's a few other things that 


were incorporated into that. But this was 


revised in response to a number of SC&A 


comments I think that occurred in several 


different reviews, so maybe that's where we 


need to look for some clarity on this issue. 


 DR. GLOVER: So maybe the updated IG guide -- 


and that is going to be -- supersede any 


Savannah River TBD and at -- probably at the 


time when we wrote Savannah River some of that 


guidance may not have been as -- as clear as 


what it is now. 


 MR. FIX: I just wanted to say that I know this 


is a common -- a common concern not only from 


SC&A but I think also from the NIOSH team as to 


how to -- to do these calculations. Before too 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

56 

long we should have a document published -- I 


think it's in Radiation Research -- by the 


International Agency for Research on Cancer in 


their 15-country study in which they took 


dosimeters -- ten widely-used dosimeters in the 


world and actually one of them was the Pan-- 


the Savannah River Site 802 Panasonic 


dosimeter, and where they exposed these in 


rotational isotropic A/P exposure geometries to 


several selected beams of radiation there at 


the IAEA Medical Radiation Physics Laboratory 


near Vienna, and that'll be coming out here 


before long and one will be able to observe 


what the performance of these dosimetry systems 


are in -- to -- in these different geometries 


in a laboratory setting. So it'll -- I think 


everyone will find that interesting because it 


is germane to this topic (unintelligible). 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me -- let me propose on 


thi-- on this one, since this is a clarity 


question in terms of where would one go, and it 


might be to this generic document, it might 


actually be to some other specific documents, 


but I think this is a -- the second paragraph 


to our response where we actually itemize some 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

57 

of these factors and some of the bias, you 


know, considerations that would be addressed. 


If -- if we can just -- if you can just simply 


track those to the document that quantitatively 


provides the basis, I think that would put this 


to rest and we can move on. I mean I don't 


think we're saying they don't exist. We just 


can't clearly find the derivation in the -- in 


the tables in the source documents. They may 


exist elsewhere. 


 MR. FIX: I think you people have access to our 


workbooks, as well, don't you? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. FIX: And you know, these -- these -- way 


these factors -- calculations themselves and 


the way these factors are combined, you know, 


are shown there. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So maybe we should look at 


those first before we go through this process. 


 MR. FIX: Yeah, I think --


 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. 


 MR. FIX: We certainly will be glad to work -- 


work to assist the process, but I mean that's 


what our staff would use if there was a 


question for a specific claim, or even a 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

58 

specific process. I mean everything -- all the 


intelligence that's used is contained within 


those workbooks. 


 DR. GLOVER: So would a fair action item be 


that you guys will compare your response 


against what's really being used in the 


workbook, and then we'll -- and then we'll work 


on the issue? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll go ahead and work the 


issue. I don't want to spend too much time, 


but I think the -- the -- the broader question 


is, based on the site profile, what was in 


there in the references, it wasn't easy or 


clear finding the -- the source documents for 


the factors, and I think that's something we 


can -- we can work at. I'm not saying that's a 


show-stopper, it just was a -- a problem in 


terms of independent evaluation. 


 DR. GLOVER: Sure. So I think if you -- and if 


you have anything, let me know and we'll track 


it down for you. Is that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll -- we'll work the 


workbooks --


 DR. GLOVER: We'll work the workbooks. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and anything that falls out 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

59 

of that, we'll come back to you and just see if 


we can together find out where that is. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Are we ready to move on? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, on B we have in fact 


reviewed OTIB-17 since this was written and I 


think we do not have any -- any issues -- 


outstanding issues on OTIB-17, so we think 


that's a satisfactory response to the question 


of how shallow dose is addressed. 


Unless -- Ron, do you have anything more to add 


on OTIB-17? 


MR. BUCHANAN: No, I think that it fairly well 


addressed the question. I think there's some 


re-- a couple of comments ahead on OTIB-17 


itself, but I don't think it's a problem with 


this particular issue on Savannah River. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can someone tell me -- just going 


back to what Joe just mentioned -- this is Mark 


Griffon -- would -- as far as tracking back to 


the workbooks, and I've brought this up in 


prior meetings, but there is a document out 


here on the O drive called SRS external 


instructions, and I think these are the 


instructions for the people doing the dose 


reconstructions. And I don't know if -- you 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

60 

know, that -- that -- for me, these have been 


helpful that they exist at several larger sites 


anyway, and they're helpful in terms of 


crosswalking with the workbooks. I think the 


workbooks, as we've all found, are -- you know, 


can get pretty complicated to walk -- to walk 


through from one sheet to another and un-- and 


understand what's going on, but these 


instructions are very helpful. The question I 


have is, I have something from the O drive 


dated 3/29/04 was the -- and there might be 


updates since then and I don't know if there's 


any good way to find these -- these dose 


reconstruction instructions. They almost seem 


to supplement the site profile for the people 


doing the DRs. Right? Is that what they're 


used for? 


 DR. GLOVER: Just try to pin it down to 


something that's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Cheat sheets (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Not only that, and make sure that 


you have a -- yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Boilerplate (unintelligible) 


template (unintelligible). 


 DR. GLOVER: I guess when I meant to look at 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

61 

the workbook, I actually meant the written -- I 


guess that, supplemented with what the tool -- 


the tools that exist to help support the dose 


reconstruction process. But the workbooks, at 


least in the term-- the way I use them is the 


written instruction. That could be a mis-- 


mistake on my part, but that's the way I've 


always kind of... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know that we have ready 


access sometimes to the written instructions. 


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


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- I've been working pretty closely 


with Hans and Kathy, who are right now 


finishing up the review of the site-specific 


workbooks, and of course Savannah River is one 


of them. And I know that there is almost two 


or three times a week discussions held with the 


appropriate folks over at NIOSH just for the 


subject you're talking about; that is, to make 


sure we have all of the information we need, 


not only the workbook but all of the supporting 


guidance. So -- so you're correct that there 


is a lot of texture to the workbook reviews, 


but -- and I think that a lot of the issues 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

62 

related to the workbook we're going to have a 


good grasp on by the end of September. Our 


plan is to deliver our review of the site-


specific workbooks to NIOSH and the Board by 


the end of September and -- and on the -- two ­

- I know Savannah River is one of the big ones, 


Hanford is, Rocky Flats is. So maybe we'll be 


in a lot better position to discuss the degree 


to which all of these adjustment factors for 


external dosimetry have in fact been 


incorporated into the workbooks. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Which I -- yeah, I think 


that's where this is headed... 


 DR. GLOVER: Jim, is there a place out there 


where these things exist for the Board -- or 


the reviews, the most updated versions? 


DR. NETON: (Off microphone) The 


(unintelligible) themselves? (On microphone) 


There -- there is no generic location for those 


-- those documents, although SC&A has access to 


them via an arrangement with ORAU. I'm not 


exactly sure how that works. I think it'd be 


pretty -- pretty complicated for someone just 


to pick up a workbook and review it. They're ­

- they're essentially very sophisticated Excel 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

63 

spreadsheets is what they really are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: They're -- they're dif-- yeah, 


they're difficult, but we were doing this prior 


to finding some of these instructions. We were 


-- kind of been trying to crosswalk them and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, you sort of meet both 


ways. You work the site profile down till you 


get to the point you almost have to have that 


information. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But these -- these instructions, 


as you're saying, are -- are -- really make it 


a lot easier to crosswalk the spreadsheets. 


DR. NETON: I think what we're getting in here 


is an important intersection of what the site 


profile information is provided and then what 


the detailed, specific instructions for dose 


reconstructions are, and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- you know, where does one stop 


and the other one pick up, and that's really 


what we've been talking about. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. Yeah. 


DR. NETON: And -- and as you can see, we're 


automatically jumping out of the site profile 


into workbooks and -- and Implementation Guides 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

64 

and such. 


COMMENT TWO:


 MR. FITZGERALD: Fortunately we have a right 


hand that's doing that as the left hand does 


this, so -- otherwise it would be a daunting 


task to jump in to even look at this 


information, but I think we can do that. 


I think that's comment two. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I think -- to answer your 


question, Sam, I -- I think we've -- we've got 


access. It's not in one central location, but 


SC&A has access to that and (unintelligible). 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. Yeah, we're looking at 


the Savannah River Site specifics right now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we're okay on that. 


COMMENT THREE: NEUTRON TO PHOTON RATIOS


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. So we're ready to move on 


to comment number three. Okay, SC&A has 


concerns about how technically sound and 


claimant favorable the neutron-to-photon ratios 


are at Savannah River Site -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yeah --


 MR. GIBSON: -- in some cases? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, this is Joe Fitzgerald. 


Generally I thought the response was very 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

65 

responsive. The only issue we have is a matter 


of scoping that we raised both pre-'71 as well 


as post-'71, and the response really addressed 


the -- the pre-- I'm sorry, pre-'72, and we 


feel there's a -- it's sort of a continuum of 


uncertainties that we think should be addressed 


and I guess we just want to hear the basis for 


not considering 95th percentile for some of the 


later missed neutron dose. 


 DR. GLOVER: I think Jack Fix has been doing a 


-- quite a bit of work on it in this area. I 


would -- I look at the response concerning 


using the 95 percentile for all versus using 


the best estimate and an uncertain-- a 


distribution as part of your being claimant-


neutral. I think that's the best estimate 


case. I mean if you have -- typically our -- 


our estimate is the 95th percentile is an 


overestimate, but if you have the best estimate 


of any measurement, then the median -- would 


think the most appropriate is to use the -- the 


best estimate and its uncertainty and propagate 


that through. But anyway, Jack Fix I know has 


been working on -- on this issue regarding -- 


what was that, you did some additional follow­
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

66 

up with Ken Crase and some population work as 


well, Jack? 


 MR. FIX: Well, yes, we took this issue back to 


Savannah River this past couple of weeks trying 


to double-check, you know, that -- on the -- on 


the guidance that's there, and basically the -- 


I'm not sure why there's concern after 1971 


because that's when the Hoy -- I think it was 


called the belly-button -- thermoluminescent 


dosimeter, it was a hemisphere, it was 


probably the best-performing dosimeter that -- 


neutron dosimeter that's ever been used in the 


United States. But -- and it was also 


supplemented with measurements, but more recent 


-- in more recent times they have the Panasonic 


809 system with this ROSPEC which they actually 


go in and take routine neutron spectrometer 


measurements, dose and spectra measurements in 


the workplace. And you know, since the 


introduction of the Hoy dosimeter and now 


subsequently the 809, it seems as though that 


the Savannah River Site estimates of neutron 


dose are -- are pretty -- are -- are very 


defensible. And so again we use that logic of 


taking the measurements that are recorded 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

67 

today, along with the DOELAP performance 


testing and then extrapolating back to a time. 


And before the Hoy, they used the NTA, and I 


think everybody realizes that we do not use the 


results of the NTA -- the neutron dose results 


from the NTA film but use the photon-to-gamma ­

- neutron-to-gamma ratio. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I have a 


question that -- in terms of participating in a 


lot of these site profile reviews, I -- I'm not 


quite sure if there's a consistent philosophy. 


My understanding of the philosophy in terms of 


these kinds of issues where in effect we're 


talking coworker models where you have for some 


time period a group of workers where you may 


not have neutron dosimetry or -- or adequate 


measurements, and somehow you're going to use 


another group of workers from a different time 


period to apply that experience to the earlier 


time period. Now my understanding, at least in 


some of the site profiles that we looked at, 


the general philosophy and one that I agree 


with is if you have a worker that is -- whereby 


you're using the -- you have to excuse that, 


that's my fax machine coming through. I hope 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

68 

it doesn't interfere with this -- it should be 


over -- that ring should be over in a second. 


Let's hold for a second here. 


(Pause) 


If we have a worker, and you're going to be 


using let's say a neutron-to-photon ratio from 


another time period in order to predict his 


dose, my understanding is if you think the 


worker probably was not a member of the exposed 


group of people based on his job category, 


that's when you use the full distribution. So 


in other words, you give him the benefit of the 


doubt and assume he was exposed, even though 


there's reason to believe that he -- his job 


category was such that he may not have been 


exposed and probably was not exposed, but you 


give the benefit of the doubt and assume the 


full distribution for whatever the coworker 


model is. 


However, if it was a worker that you believe 


had a job -- was a job category that should 


have been monitored but wasn't during that 


earlier time period, you assign the upper 95th 


percent fixed value from your coworker 


population. That approach is -- I've seen that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

69 

in -- in some circumstances. In other cases I 


-- I haven't seen that. I've seen the 


application of the full distribution under all 


circumstances. Could you -- right now on 


Savannah River -- for example, we're talking 


the neutron-to-photon ratio, could you just 


give me some information on whether you're 


going with that -- that -- that philosophy or 


strategy that I just mentioned or something 


different? 


 MR. FIX: Well, fortunately in the case of 


Savannah River we actually have neutron dose 


measurements and -- you know, that we -- that 


are reliable in recent time and basically has 


to do with the facility the person works in and 


-- going back through time. Assigning the 


neutron-to-photon ratio is -- is not -- is not 


-- is not a -- what we would really like to do, 


but we think it's favorable to the claimant 


because it gives them a -- if -- if in fact 


they're in that position -- when you say the 


full distribution, I assume what you're talking 


about is --


DR. MAURO: Yes. In other words -- 


 MR. FIX: -- we do a (unintelligible) of 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

70 

neutron-to-photon ratio based on data that we 


feel is reliable, meaning that it's been taken 


in recent times, that we've -- we're only using 


the higher doses so that we get reasonably good 


-- reasonable estimates of the actual neutron-


to-photon ratio, and then on that distribution 


we take the geometric mean, the geometric 


standard deviation and the 95 percentile -- 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. FIX: -- and then we can go back in time 


and, if necessary, say a person worked in H 


Canyon for many years, both before and after 


when the new dosimetry system came into -- the 


Hoy dosimeter came into being at Savannah River 


on January 1st, 1971, we would then look at 


that and apply the neutron-to-photon ratio. 


This particular case the person 


(unintelligible) actually in the area at the 95 


percentile prior to that. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, so --


 DR. GLOVER: John --


DR. MAURO: -- what you're saying is is you 


would apply the 95th percentile value as 


opposed to the full distribution. 


 MR. FIX: I don't know what you mean by the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

71 

full distribution. 


DR. MAURO: Well, I mean -- let's say you have 


a -- you have a distri-- whether we talk-- 


let's say we have a full distri-- we have a 


distribution of neutron-to-photon ratios -- 


 MR. FIX: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- that you observed. 


 MR. FIX: And we only take certain 


representative values -- 


DR. MAURO: Right, and --


 DR. GLOVER: Could I -- could I interject -- 


DR. MAURO: -- (unintelligible) those from 1 -- 


1.2 to 1.5 or -- or whatever the distribution 


is --


 MR. FIX: You could pick a (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Jack --

 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me, John --

DR. MAURO: Yeah? 

 MR. GIBSON: John, this is Mike. If the 

gentleman you're talking with -- we're going to 


have to try to speak up a lit-- speak up a 


little bit better for the court reporter. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, you can't hear me? I can take 


my --


 MR. GIBSON: Not -- not you, John. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 -- 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

72

 MR. GRIFFON: We can hear you, John. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Jack. 


 MR. FIX: Okay, I'm sorry. I'll speak louder. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Thank you. 


 DR. GLOVER: Just one other -- I think, John, 


in the context of the broad program, Jim Neton 


is sitting here and he probably speaks best to 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I was going to interject 


here. I think John -- John, we've been through 


a few of these, as you know, and -- 


DR. MAURO: Jim, could you speak up a little 


bit? I'm just having a little trouble hearing 


you. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. As you know, we've been 


through a few site profiles and a few of these 


distribution discussions -- 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


DR. NETON: -- and -- and I am in agreement 


with what you stated, that we would apply the 


95th percentile of a distribution to a worker 


who should have been monitored and use the full 


distribution -- that is, the best estimate and 


some geometric standard deviation would be 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

73 

applied to a person who probably didn't need to 


be monitored but had some potential for 


exposure. I mean I think we're in agreement 


with that, and we just need to make sure that 


we're consistent across some of these 


documents. 


Where I do have an issue, though, is where we 


come up with the 95th percentile for the photon 


dose and then apply the 95th percentile on top 


of that for the neutron dose. I think we're 


unreasonably biasing that dose extremely on the 


high side, and -- and we need to think about 


that a little more and how we're going to 


handle those situations. 


DR. MAURO: I have to apologi-- Jim, you 


actually broke off in the end of your 


description. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: It sounds like you -- there -- 


there are circumstances where you felt that 


95th percentile strategy is inappropriate, and 


I'm sorry, I -- I couldn't hear. 


DR. NETON: Well, what I was speaking of was -- 


was a situation where you have a completely 


unmonitored worker where one would assign the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

74 

95th percentile dose because we -- because we 


thought he should have been monitored for the 


photons. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


DR. NETON: Then if one compounds that and puts 


the 95th percentile of the neutrons on top of 


that, you end up in a situation where I think 


you end up with some unreasonable estimate of 


the upper limit of the dose. 


DR. MAURO: I fully agree with that. 

DR. NETON: Okay. 

DR. MAURO: In other words, when you have two 

steps in the process, if you use 95th 


percentile in both steps, you're operating off 


in never-never land, so yes, I agree with that. 


DR. NETON: Right, and we need to come to grips 


with that issue and talk about it internally a 


little better, but I agree in principle with 


what you said earlier completely. 


 MR. FIX: Yeah. No, I understand now what you 


meant by the full distribution. If we're doing 


a best -- this is Jack Fix again. If we're 


doing a best estimate, we do use the 


distribution in the context of -- of a -- if 


there's any bias correction in an estimate of 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

75 

the standard deviation, we do do that. And I ­

- I understand now what you're saying. As far 


as applying the 95 percentile or the 50th 


percentile based on the neutron-to-gamma ratio, 


if it's -- typically it's the 95 percentile 


that it's based on in what facility was the 


person working. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I've been through a 


few -- this is Mark Griffon. I've been through 


a few of these workgroups, too, and I agree 


with John and Jim on -- on that overall 


philosophy. I guess I was troubled a little in 


the NIOSH response under this. It's about two-


thirds of the way down the paragraph. It reads 


(reading) for likely compensable claims, the 


geometric mean value of the neutron-to-photon 


dose ratio is applied, and if necessary the 


Monte Carlo analysis performed taking into 


consideration the 95th percentile value as part 


of a lognormal distribution. 


I'm not clear why this would be dependent on 


the nature of the compensability of the claim 


as opposed to the nature of the work that the 


individual is doing. I don't think you -- we 


should be --

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 -- 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

76 

DR. NETON: I agree, I think that statement 


needs to be reviewed and -- and reconsidered. 


We -- we would use the 95th percentile for a 


worker who was likely to have been -- or should 


have been monitored, that standard 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I agree with your statements, 


Jim. I think that -- this troubled me a little 


 DR. GLOVER: This is discussing a monitored 


worker. This is a person with a photon badge. 


DR. NETON: Even if you have a photon badge, 


though, and -- and let's say that you -- for 


some reason we have determined that you -- you 


were in a neutron area where you should have 


been monitored for exposure to neutrons, we 


have no knowledge then at that point as to what 


the upper limit of the neutron exposure could 


have been for that person and we -- to be 


consistent with what we've done elsewhere, we 


would apply the 95th percentile of the -- of 


the distribution of potential neutron doses. 


Now you take -- you take -- 


 DR. GLOVER: That's straight from the Science 


Director, so that's all that matters. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

77 

DR. NETON: Yeah, and -- and this may be 


something we need to talk about a little more 


internally and I apologize, I have not had a 


chance to look at these in detail before this 


meeting, but -- but there's -- there's -- you 


know, this is something that has been our 


position and -- and that's the direction we 


would go. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just reading this now as 


well, Jim, so that's -- that's fine. The other 


-- the other question I had -- I thought came 


as -- as Jack was talking. Jack, you mentioned 


we'd use neutron-to-photon ratios -- at least 


the ones that we feel are reliable, and I guess 


my question is how -- where -- where are -- 


where do these exist? Are these referenced in 


the site profile and how -- this may, again, 


get back to dose reconstruction versus site 


profile, but you know, my -- my question is, 


you know, how was this determined? Which --


which NP ratios were used, from what time 


frame, were they representative of earlier 


production periods, et cetera? 


 MR. FIX: Right. Well, the data that's 


selected is difficult and that's why we work 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

78 

with the site trying to find the actual data 


that we would want to use in the analysis, and 


-- and that's why we actually try to look at -- 


across more than one site 'cause not all sites 


have very many measurements. But since they've 


gone to ROSPEC in recent years, along with the 


809 dosimeter, they've actually updated some of 


their own estimates of what the neutron-tophoton ratio is. And so we've been working 


very closely with the site, and that probably 


is an area that we could maybe improve on is 


exactly what data forms the basis of the 


neutron-to-photon ratio that we're applying -- 


recommending in the site profile. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I'm not saying all the 


details need to be in the site profile, but it 


might be useful to reference, you know, what 


time periods and what methodology was used for 


the NP ratios. And I think in -- to some 


extent -- I -- I guess part of my concern would 


be if you're using more recent, more reliable 


data, is it representative of earlier 


production operations and -- and -- and you 


know, work practices. I mean, you know, 


conditions, shielding, things like that may 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

79 

have changed quite dramatically over the years, 


which would have an effect on these NP ratios ­

-


 MR. FIX: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- over time, so you know, just ­

- and -- and I -- to be honest with you, it's 


been so long since I looked at the site profile 


I don't know how much this was discussed in the 


original document, but I think it should be at 


least alluded to how these were derived. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And Jack, this is Joe. As I 


recall, too, you based a lot of the NP ratios 


on Hanford reactors, some of that information 


came from the Hanford reactor -- 


 MR. FIX: Not on Hanford reactors. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. FIX: The Pacific Northwest National 


Laboratory people I think in neutron spectra at 


many of the DOE si-- not many, but several DOE 


sites, including the Savannah River Site, and 


many occasions at the -- at the Hanford site, 


and you recommend -- and we -- and the -- the 


analysis we looked at was -- so we did use the 


Hanford -- some of the Hanford measurements in 


the context of examining how they compared with 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

80 

Savannah River Site. And -- and there was -- 


one unfortunate thing about the field 


measurements, the way we're using them now as 


far as being applicable to the general 


workforce, is there's always a tendency when 


you go to a site to take some measurements, 


they want you to take measurements where 


they've had some problems or there's been some 


issues. It may not have anything to do with 


whether workers are -- are present there or 


not, and so are you -- so are you referring to 


the one measurement location there at Savannah 


River where -- on a dry well, I guess it was, I 


forget the exact location. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I -- I guess it just wasn't 


clear to what extent the ratios were being 


weighted as -- on the Hanford data as opposed 


to Savannah River-specific data, or whether it 


was just really a generic assessment -- a DOE-


wide assessment. 


 MR. FIX: It's not a DOE-wide assessment. 


We're trying to use the best data that we can, 


but there's not a lot of measurements at 


Savannah River. The better -- the better 


measurements probably are the more recent 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

81 

measurements with the ROSPEC. As far as going 


back through time, I agree it's very difficult. 


Just like people were talking about earlier 


about the americium-241 buildup, there's lots 


of issues. And quite frankly, it's been very 


difficult for us to try to get some of the old 


measurements that we would have liked to have 


had, just because it's classified. As you 


probably know, the DOE shares with the 


Department of Defense what's called the 


intrinsic radiation measurements, the neutron-


to-gamma ratio for all these different weapons 


systems because the military has to handle 


these, but that's all classified information 


and so we're exploring ways to try to document 


at least a little bit of this information we 


have available to us. 


 DR. GLOVER: Is there an action item that we'd 


come away with on this? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I -- I think in general, 


as long as it's consistent with the overall 


approach, I think that was the concern, that it 


was uniformity on that. 


 MR. FIX: Yeah, I -- we are preparing a -- a 


generic OTIB on this neutron-to-gamma ratio 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

82 

issue because it's widely used, it's -- it 


raises questions, and we think as opposed to 


trying to approach the issues site-by-site, at 


least for plutonium-handling facilities, 


perhaps we could do it better in a generic 


OTIB. 


MR. BUCHANAN: That's -- this is Ron. That's 


good because we have the same issues at Rocky 


Flat and other sites that we ran into the same 


identical issue, so that would be good. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, and presumably when you 


do this -- this is Arjun, I joined a few 


minutes ago. Presumably when you do this 


you'll -- you'll have an approach that looks at 


the age of the plutonium and the americium 


content and so on. 


 MR. FIX: Yes. Well, we -- I'll -- we'll 


present to you what we have. I agree, we all 


ask the same questions and we have received 


some information that we can use. It turns out 


that actually if the -- what's really important 


is what you do to shield or contain the 


material after it's available to you, and that 


of course varies a lot. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. Yeah, that -- that would 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

83 

apply to like the weapons systems themselves, 


but not -- not to the manufacturing processes. 


Well, not to many of the manufacturing 


processes. 


 MR. FIX: Okay. Well, we all know it's a 


complicated area and we'll work with you to get 


a -- to describe what we have available to us 


and -- and how we can make reasonable judgments 


from what's available to us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess just one action item in 


that area would be my -- you know, my -- just a 


description of the derivation of the neutron-


to-photon ratios being -- you know, I'm not 


even -- just a current -- an explanation of 


currently -- you know --


 DR. GLOVER: Policy? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, Jack's mentioned that, you 


know, ideally it'd be more recent higher level 


values --


 DR. GLOVER: Oh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that were used. I mean, how 


was it deri-- how were these distributions 


derived. 


 MR. FIX: Well, we've tried to explain that in 


the respective Technical Basis Documents, but 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

84 

we -- perhaps we could have done a better job. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And like I said, it's been a 


while since I looked at that so maybe it's fine 


in there and -- and if it is, you can just 


point me to that, you know, but don't -- I'm 


not looking for a redundant answer. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, is that it for this issue? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. If so, it's approximately 11:00 o'clock 


here and I think everyone in the room's 


probably ready for a short break, so we'll take 


a break till -- let's say between 11:10 and 


11:15, then we'll reconvene? 


 DR. WADE: We'll keep the phone on -- 


connected, though. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:00 a.m. 


to 11:15 a.m.) 


 DR. WADE: ... is with us, getting his machine 


warmed up, turning the crank on the battery. 


Okay, I think we're ready. 


COMMENT FOUR: TANK FARMS


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, we're ready to convene. 


We'll go to matrix comment number four. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, comment --


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, Joe. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

85

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- four, and I'm going to turn 


this over to our in-house experts on the tank 


farms in a second, Arjun and Bob Alvarez, but I 


think our issue here is a broader one. It's 


the degree of characterization, and we're the 


first to admit that, you know, how much is 


enough is always an issue with site profiles. 


But in this case we felt this site profile 


would have benefited perhaps with a more 


comprehensive treatment of the tank farms from 


the exposure standpoint. And I will turn it 


over to Arjun just to go over some of the 


details that we provided. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, let me -- let me ask Jim 


a question -- Jim Neton a question. Did you 


manage to get your hands on -- on the tank farm 


data bank at all after the review was -- our 


review was published? 


DR. NETON: I'm not sure I understand the 


question. 


 DR. GLOVER: Arjun, this --


DR. NETON: Sam's here --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: There's a -- there is a tank 


farm data bank of incidents that's cited in our 


review quite frequently -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 -- 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

86

 DR. GLOVER: We had some --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and that -- that has a lot 


of information in it about incidents in the 


tank farm, radiation rates, spills, 


radionuclides of importance and so on contained 


DR. NETON: Sam -- Sam Glover seems to be our ­

-


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- that we used in our review 


that, you know, from a summary that I made a 


long time ago. We don't have the actual tank 


farm data bank and wondered whether NIOSH had ­

- had tried to get a copy of it. 


 DR. GLOVER: Arjun, I -- I will speak to that. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: Elyse Thomas is sitting here. She 


can probably give us the most recent status. 


She sent me some e-mails. We had a -- is that 


actually the database -- you're talking about 


an electronic database versus a document that 


summarized one particular time period? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, there is an electronic 


database. What I had worked with and Bob and I 


had worked with in the early to mid-'80s was a 


document that Bob got which was a printout of 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

87 

an electronic database -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay, that's --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- up through the end of 1982, 


I think, but I think it was maintained after 


that, so there should be a more recent version 


of it. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez. In our 


comments to the matrix we identify a 1995 


report regarding the status of this database, 


how it is used -- the -- there's a user 


handbook for it or a manual, who's used it, how 


it's set up. It basically involves approx-- I 


believe about 35,000 entries in the 200 area 


including tank farms, separations plants and 


tritium separation. I believe the tritium 


separation data is classified, but it is being 


used and has been used. In fact, it was used 


for dose reconstruction by Radiation Assessment 


Corporation in the past and we provide a 


detailed description of what it current-- what 


it was as of 1995 and -- and who has control of 


that in the reference documents. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, talk -- I mean the reason 


-- the reason I mention that at the outset is, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

88 

you know, I -- you -- you've probably had time 


to go -- go over our responses to your matrix 


comments, to the NIOSH matrix comments, and you 


know, starting with -- with the radionuclide 


list, I -- I really think -- I really think 


that the radionuclide list needs to be 


considered in light of the dose reconstruction 


and the various periods for which you have to 


do dose reconstruction and not as a general 


which radionuclide is short-lived and which 


radionuclide has large EDEs. 


Joe, do you want us to proceed issue by issue 


or to get --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I -- I think you're -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- an overview of everything 


first or how -- how do you want to do this? 


 DR. GLOVER: Just one real quick thing to 


finish up -- we did -- there are some people 


who've been do -- have been working on finding 


this. We want-- I just wanted to verify that 


what we had obtained or what we -- we -- to 


discover was what -- we were talking on the 


same wavelength here. 


Elyse, you want to give us a status of where we 


are? 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

89

 MS. THOMAS: Yes, and Tom, I'm going to call on 


you 'cause Tom LaBone helped me track this 


down, but he said that that database is no 


longer available at SRS and it's maintained by 


a private company. It would be available at a 


cost and it also contained OUO and possibly 


some classified information, so we could not 


obtain it -- easily, anyway. Tom, I don't 


know if you want to elaborate on that a little 


more. 


 MR. LABONE: I mean all I can say -- I called 


Ken Crase 'cause I had never heard of the 200 


area incident database, but what Ken said was 


that there was an SRS incident database. This 


was developed back when DuPont was running the 


site and they used it a lot for safety analysis 


reports --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 MR. LABONE: -- for input data into that. At ­

- at some point along the way, I believe when 


WSMS was spun off of Westinghouse Savannah 


River Company, they retained the database. And 


so for example, someone on the site wants to go 


look at the database, they have to go to WSMS, 


who would get the information for them. And 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

90 

that was pretty much the status of it as of 


now, from what Ken said, and I got a contact at 


WSMS and I don't know if Elyse had time to talk 


to her, but (unintelligible) -- anyway, the 


database supposedly has -- you know, it has 


names -- you know, the people involved with 


incidents and has quite a bit of information, 


as you're pointing out. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez. The 


document that we cite in our comments in the 


matrix, for your information, is a 1995 


document prepared by Westinghouse Savannah 


River Corporation called "Waste Management 


Facilities Fault-Tree Data Bank, 1995 Status 


Report," and it's referenced in our comments. 


This docu-- these -- these data may be held by 


private parties, but this is collected with 


government taxpayer dollars, and I find it, you 


know, questionable that a charge would be 


levied ag-- for using data that has been 


assembled by the government, and it certainly 


was under Westinghouse's control up until 1995. 


It is referenced. It has a handbook, as I 


said. There are 35,000 entries. They have a 


-- they have tables in this report in terms of 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

91 

who -- what the data searches were for, how -- 


what data sources comprised this data bank. 


Now that's all I can tell you, but it's quite 


extensive and it is essentially a chronological 


listing of all operating incidence reports, 


unusual incident reports, it has special hazard 


investigations, teletypes, you name it. And in 


the comments that we did provide, we provided 


you the tables from this report as to the 


source codes and the source of data that are 


available to it, so you might want to take a 


look at that. 


 DR. GLOVER: Do you have the document or do you 


want -- do you know --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, we -- we've referenced the 


document and --


 DR. GLOVER: All right. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: -- provided tables from the 


document in our comments to you that we filed, 


which I hope we -- you know -- 


 DR. GLOVER: I just want to make -- do you -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: -- have before you. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- do you -- do you have the full 


document, we'll just get a -- is it -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I certainly do. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

92

 DR. GLOVER: Okay. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I'm happy to e-mail it to you. 


 DR. GLOVER: Oh, it's an electronic document? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Yeah, it's in electronic format. 


It came out of the DOE information bridge. 


 DR. GLOVER: Well, that -- that would be 

outstanding. That'll -- that'll minimize us 

trying to --

 MR. ALVAREZ: Sure, I'm very happy to send it 

to you. 

 DR. GLOVER: Outstanding, 'cause we had -- 

there was some dis--


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The thing that Bob is talking 


about is -- is not a general incident list. 


There is a document called a data bank that's 


specific to the 200 area and what I -- Bob and 


I had looked at in the '80s which I mentioned 


was specific to the tank farm. At that time 


they I think maintained two different data 


banks, one for the canyons and one for the tank 


farm --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- so far as I could discern, 


and maybe they merged them later on, but those 


are the documents I think -- at least so far as 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 -- 

93 

-- that we have referenced in our work. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Originally these data were 


assembled to do probablistic risk assessment. 


That's why they're called fault-tree data. And 


apparently, based on this 1995 Westinghouse 


report, it is being used -- it has been used 


for lots of different purposes, including dose 


reconstruction. And I'm happy to -- to send 


you a copy of this document that describes 


these data -- this database in some detail and 


-- and how it's constructed and how it's 


maintained and -- including references to 


handbooks to use the database. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay, so what we can say is -- but 


we're -- just regarding that, you'll send us 


that and we will follow-up just finding out 


what the status of the database itself is. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Sure. 


 DR. GLOVER: We have an (unintelligible) -- we 


had a false -- we didn't get the title right so 


we had some -- you know, exactly trying to 


figure out where this thing existed and -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Sure. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- so we -- we have located it and 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

94

 MR. ALVAREZ: I'll get your e-mail address 


later and I'll just send you the document -- 


 DR. GLOVER: That's great. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: -- so you (unintelligible) can 


work off of that. 


 DR. GLOVER: That's great. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This -- this document is very 


important because it -- among other things, 


besides assisting with dose reconstructions, it 


can tell you whether your assumptions about the 


completeness of worker records in regard to say 


the incidents that are listed in them is right. 


I mean I have -- both Kathy DeMers and I have 


had some questions about that which we raised 


in our review, whether -- whether the -- you 


know, we haven't looked at the individual 


worker files, but we cited some evidence where 


we're uneasy whether the -- whether the worker 


files do indeed have all the incidents recorded 


in them. And this data bank is quite important 


because if the incidents in the data bank are 


not in the worker records, then I think -- or 


you know, if they are in the worker record, 


then you've validated the worker record, you 


know, in a very good way and if they're not, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

95 

then you've got a significant issue in regard 


to the completeness of the worker record. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez. I think 


these -- this data bank is very unique to the 


DOE complex. I'm aware of -- I'm not aware of 


anything that's comparable to it at any other 


DOE site, and so I think it's a valuable 


resource and hopefully we can -- we can get 


access to it. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You mean unique to Savannah 


River. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Unique to the DOE. I'm -- I'm 


unaware of any type of data bank that is -- was 


set up in this manner with this level of detail 


that would provide I think important insights 


as to, you know, what -- what were the 


incidents, what went wrong, what was the nature 


and -- and draws from several different sources 


on the site and was assembled for the purposes 


of ascertaining risk of accident and -- and 


currently dose reconstruction purposes. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But the data bank itself is not 


a complete list. I mean it (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Oh, no, no, I'm not saying it is, 


but I'm saying that it -- that the -- that the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

96 

data bank itself is unique to the DOE complex 


because I'm unaware of any other site that has 


done something like this. That's all I'm 


saying. 


 DR. LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. Did somebody 


say they used this as a fault-tree analysis? 


Is that what it was used for? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Yeah, it was -- it was developed 


in -- initially in the 1970s to do PRA risk 


analysis for the 200 area facilities. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that's part of why we 


looked at it was to evaluate the probablistic 


risk assessment that DuPont was doing at the 


time. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: But apparently since that time, 


at least based on the document I was able to 


obtain a while back, it is being used for lots 


of different reasons besides PRAs at the site, 


or has been at least until -- up -- up till 


1995. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Is anybody aware that they 


actually implemented -- it went through the 


fault-tree analysis system and actually 


implemented changes? Is that -- is that --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Not that we're aware of. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

97

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, we know they implemented 


some changes after the report we did came out 


in terms of their maintenance procedures and -- 


'cause we pointed out that they were -- they 


had two instances of hydrogen buildup to above 


the lower explosive limits, and there were 


different documents that -- you know, people 


had forgotten to turn the ventilation fans on, 


if I remember right, and -- and I think they 


did -- they did go and change some procedures 


after our report came out, to the best of my 


understanding. But our report was based on -- 


on the data bank and the -- and the safety 


analysis report that came from it -- but it was 


called the Fault-Tree Data Bank. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: But as I said, it is now called 


the -- or was, as of 1995, Waste Management 


Facilities Fault-Tree Data Bank. 


 MR. CLAWSON: This is Brad Clawson. So I guess 


I'm not very clear on this. Are we able to -- 


are we able to see this data -- data bank or 


retrieve information from it, or -- what's 


going on? 


 DR. GLOVER: That's --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I think we've got 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

98 

agreement to do. Right? 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, we -- we have found the 


company that we believe holds the actual data, 


and we'll just have to find out what the status 


of that is. We -- we have not yet made that 


contact. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: And I would also look into why 


they are charging for access to these data 


'cause these data were -- were collected and -- 


and assembled on the taxpayers' dime. 


 DR. GLOVER: We don't yet know that's -- I 


think we have to make contact and find out 


where that stands. I would say -- you know, I 


think it'll be -- I think we're going to be 


talking about this broadly. Those will tell 


the type of nuclides that were involved, the 


incidents --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, not comprehensively. I 


think -- I think in terms of the nuclide -- is 


that Sam Glover? 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, I'm sorry, Arjun, this is 


Sam Glover. I -- just to help test our 


hypothesis that we have covered broadly, not 


that that should be the only list, but I also 


want to speak to the dose reconstruction 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 -- 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

99 

process and how we do that with the constant 


chronic intakes and if there's bioassay that 


we're going to be talking about, please keep in 


mind how the NIOSH dose reconstruction process 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- work. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. Yes. Joe, you want to go 


on? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You're going to get -- it's -- 


it -- you're going to -- the action item there, 


as I understand it, is you're going to try to 


get this. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I guess I -- I want your 


-- I guess at first I want your reaction to -- 


and I -- the comment that perhaps this data 


bank may address some of the other issues, as 


well, because of this question of the 


comprehensiveness of the nuclides cited and we 


can go through that, but would you agree with 


that, Bob or Arjun? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I would tend to think --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: -- I mean just looking at the -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

100 

the sources which they used to assemble these 


data bank are, you know, essentially the extant 


reports that came about when they -- shortly 


after they happened, of -- of -- at various 


different levels, including HP reports. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and it -- also it sort 


of tackles this question of whether the 


incidences that occurred were fully 


accommodated and identified, and it appears 


that would also address that better. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: To some extent. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: To some extent. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Unintelligible) it will be one 


very important check. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. With that as a lead-in 


comment, is there anything specific that we 


should talk about quite apart from whether or 


not the data bank will further that assessment? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, Joe, but I mean those are 


the substantive issues. Should we go through 


them one by one? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we ought to at least 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

101 

touch on them in case there's any questions. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. Yeah. Well, our -- our 


position, you know, in -- in regard to the 


NIOSH response on the radionuclides list, to 


take the first one, is -- is that I think the 


radionu-- we think the radionuclides list is 


still incomplete for the reasons we stated. 


think the NIOSH argument is not -- is not -- is 


not tight enough for the actual dose 


reconstruction purposes, and I've given you 


some examples of -- of radionuclides that need 


to be added, or at least considered. 


 DR. GLOVER: I will gi-- I think this is 


specific enough. It may take -- it's not 


something we can answer off the cuff. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: I don't -- I don't know if Don 


Bihl or -- I know we had some fission product 


approaches and different things. That may be 


something we need to make sure and then just 


verify against. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. I mean if there is a 


sort of over-arching fission product approach 


to the radionuclide list, I think -- an 


approach that is a little bit similar to 


I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

102 

Nevada's that actually says, you know, when the 


worker was involved because it will -- you 


know, it's not as hard as Nevada because you 


have a hold-up time before (unintelligible) is 


reprocessed, so many of the radionuclides will 


automatically be eliminated. But I think -- 


I'm not sure it's a given that -- that 


radionuclides like zirconium-95 are 


automatically excluded because in the early 


years I think there may -- they may well have 


been a concern. 


 DR. GLOVER: Ed Scalsky, do you have somebody 


on the line who -- or do you just want to hold 


off on this? 


 MR. SCALSKY: I think we should hold off on 


this. I don't think Gene is on the line yet. 


 MR. ROLLINS: Ed, I'm here. 


 MR. SCALSKY: Oh, you are there? Could you 


answer this question then? 


 DR. GLOVER: One second, Ed. Gene, you have to 


identify yourself and also provide your 


conflict -- that you are con-- 


 MR. ROLLINS: Oh, I'm Gene Rollins with Dade 


Moeller and Associates and I did spend about 18 


months working in the health physics department 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

103 

at Savannah River Site back in the '70s -- '76 


through '78. 


 DR. GLOVER: Thank you much. 


 MR. ROLLINS: Can I please have the question 


again? 


 DR. GLOVER: This is regarding matrix four, 


about the nuclide list in the -- the tank farm 


area being incomplete. And if we want to just 


hold off and review this or if you have some 


comments regarding what we have here. 


 MR. ROLLINS: I don't have any comments on that 


subject. 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. I -- I guess I'm 


having a hard time understanding the -- the 


emphasis on this. Certainly in the -- in the 


dissolution facilities and the canyon 


facilities it -- which radionuclides may be 


important at that point depends on the exact 


fuel rods that are being dissolved and -- and 


then as they go through the process and, you 


know, these fission products get mixed with 


contamination in the -- in the various tanks 


and pots and transfer lines, and then they go 


out to the tank farms and, you know, they -- 


they may just further mix with old 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

104 

contamination as well as the new stuff -- you 


know, there's really no way you're going to 


take the totality of the mixed fission products 


that were produced in the reactors and they're 


melted in the rods and dissolved and moved to 


the tank farms and say at any one time well, 


such-and-such is more important than such-andsuch. You know, I -- I -- I don't think that ­

- what we put down there was just kind of a 


list of the ones that are pretty well known and 


-- and you know, generally contribute 


significant amounts. It wasn't intended to be 


something that asks the question do we have 


every single radionuclide identified whose dose 


conversion factor might be one percent higher 


for a given organ than some other radionuclide. 


That's not how the dose reconstruction process 


works, and you know, whether we put in that 


particular section every single mixed fission 


product that might have a little higher dose 


conversion factor than another for a given 


organ is kind of a waste of time. Maybe what 


we -- I should do is just say mixed fission 


products were -- you know, were significant. 


Because the dose reconstruction process doesn't 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

105 

take that data anyway and -- and do it. They 


have their tools that list all sorts of 


radionuclides and allow the dose reconstruction 


-- dose reconstructor to pick out the ones that 


does maximize the dose to a given organ. 


 DR. GLOVER: That's -- for somebody who -- go 


ahead. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, Don, I think that that may 


be so for the tank farms, but in looking at how 


these data have been assembled to date, they 


also include burial grounds at Savannah River 


and they were burning, you know, spent solvent 


in open pans for -- for years and years. And 


it's not clear to me whether burial ground 


workers received any bioassays for transuranics 


and so there -- there are lots of things -- I 


think insights that may be gained from this as 


opposed to just the -- a strict academic 


exercise in figuring out, you know, what the 


source terms were of the tanks at a given time, 


because they do tell you what went wrong, what 


the dose rates were, what the radionuclides 


were. And so those would, I presume, be -- be 


considered important and there may be important 


things that were missed, you know, 'cause these 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

106 

tank farms were not just places where things 


sat around, as you know. They were running 


evaporators. They were doing various things 


with these tank farms and there were -- there 


were things that went wrong. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Yeah, I -- I 


think this is an important bridge because when 


we reviewed dose reconstructions I know that 


when you don't have data -- we're talking 


bioassay data now -- for a given worker, they ­

- you resort to the high five approach for 


Savannah River, which is this default approach 


for -- for internal exposure. What I'd like to 


hear a little bit is the bridge. It sounds 


like that -- you know, the -- the tank farms 


and the incidents and the list of radionuclides 


are all certainly real things that occurred, 


sources of information that could be of value. 


The question becomes when we look at that new 


source of information, is -- is the intent here 


to look at it from the context are the default 


methods imbedded in the high five approach 


adequate to accommodate this -- the fact that 


some workers may very well have been exposed to 


these incidents or radionuclides but there 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

107 

aren't any bioassay data for them, and if 


that's the case, would the high five approach 


still provide us with a degree of confidence 


that we had not missed any important dose. 
I 


think that's the way -- that's how I'm thinking 


about it. Arjun and -- and Bob, is that 


question too narrow? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that -- that's one -- but 


that -- one -- that's the over-arching 


question, in a way. But -- but there are other 


issues involved, in reaction to what Don said. 


The idea isn't that you should list all the 


fission products in the world in the list. 


Obviously you want to list the fission products 


that are important to dose reconstruction. 


NIOSH listed fission products and, in its 


response, said cesium-137 and ruthenium are 


listed as significant items but don't produce 


as much dose as strontium-90, cerium-144 and 


curium-244. Well, that's a pretty explicit 


statement about identified radionuclides, and 


in our response we pointed out that it wasn't 


quite on the mark, that these -- these 


radionuclides do produce as much dose, 


depending on the organ you're talking about. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

108 

So just the technical correctness of the 


statement is important. If it's going to be in 


the TBD in a certain way, represented as 


important radionuclides, then you ought to have 


the important radionuclides listed. If it's 


not important to dose reconstruction, one asks 


the question what is it doing in the TBD. So 


it's very misleading to have information in the 


TBD that's not -- that's not technically on the 


mark, and then simply say it's not being used 


in dose reconstruction. 


The second point in response to Don's statement 


is you do have to demonstrate that the approach 


that you're using in regard to mixed fission 


product -- and it's completely legitimate to 


devise an approach for mixed fission products ­

- is claimant-favorable under the circumstances 


of the individual claimant. I don't think that 


NIOSH has done that. We've pointed out, for 


instance, that in -- in the tank -- I found two 


instances of cesium-137 intakes that were 


listed in the tank farm data bank that were 


higher than the high five listed in the TBD. 


And so I personally don't have confidence that 


you identified the high five, and I think we 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

109 

said that in our review. So until you have a 


better grip on -- on the intakes and on the 


list of radionuclides, I don't think you can 


actually demonstrate that your mixed fission 


product approach is claimant favorable. 


And that's the reason to -- that's the 


technical sort of response to what John Mauro 


was saying, that if the ultimate question is 


what is useful in dose reconstruction, then you 


have to demonstrate that that approach is 


valid. And secondly, if it's not going to be 


used in dose reconstruction, then why put it in 


the TBD. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay, so I -- we -- we actually 


later address some of the high five issues. 


There's additional matrix comments. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, right. 


 DR. GLOVER: I'd rather not go into those here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Fine. Fine. 


 DR. GLOVER: And I think -- you know, our 


attachment -- and I know we've sort of -- it's 


-- it's a little piecemeal here. Maybe we've 


lost some of the -- there's a number of 


different objectives about -- it sounds like 


the -- the tank farms and really pulling out -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

110 

does our list -- is it adequate, and we have an 


attachment which we made an attempt to address 


for these workers this is how we do dose 


reconstruction and is it adequate. I think we 


-- we -- you guys have said you have some 


comments back along those lines. For this 


specific list of isotopes, we can check against 


that. The list from your database may help 


verify which ones were important for ac-- 


actually accidents, and so that may -- the 


evaporators, I'd have to double-check to make 


sure what's specifically being done. If those 


people would have not had plutonium bioassay -- 


if that's a particular class of worker who -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Burial ground workers. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- burial ground workers, and so 


we -- we can check with -- if -- if there's 


something unusual about that, whether they had 


plutonium bioassay or not, I don't off the cuff 


know. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, Sam, I guess we can -- we 


can -- we have responses to your attachment A 


and the four scenarios for dose reconstruction 


as part of our comments, and if you want, we 


could move the last to be more specific. You 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

111 

know, so far as I'm concerned, I mean our -- 


our comment in regard to the radionuclide list 


was not that you should include every 


radionuclide, but whatever you say about them 


should be accurate. 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. The problem I 


have with that is that the -- is that the 


possible number of answers to what you're 


proposing is approaching infinity because the 


particular mix of radionuclide at any one time 


in any one tank farm or any one evaporator is ­

- is impossible to know at this point, and is 


variable enough that I can't tell you which 


radionuclide or which five radionuclides were 


most significant to the dose to any possible 


organ that's being looked out down to a one 


percent difference. You know, that -- that's 


just -- you know, it -- it's meaningless and to 


try to generate a list like that is a waste of 


time. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, one thing that provides 


ballast -- ballast to this is this incident 


data bank because while it may not capture the 


entire universe of the source term at any given 


time, it certainly will tell you -- or at least 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

112 

be able to tell you what happened at that given 


time period to -- to workers and what their 


doses might have been and their uptakes might 


have been, and -- and whether these match those 


that are in the files of the claimants, and 


whether these match in the -- in terms of the 


data collected by NIOSH to ascertain things 


like the high five, so there is an element here 


of -- of -- you know, of -- of reality and -- 


and soundness to what we're suggesting. And I 


-- believe me, Don, we're not suggesting that 


you have to come up with some sort of perfect 


exercise that, you know, at any given minute to 


tell us what the source terms were in a dynamic 


-- you know, these dynamic waste situations, 


but rather these provide you 35,000 different 


incidents that occurred that would -- may 


provide some very important insights to inform 


this difficult (unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I -- I think we're past 


the, you know, importance of the tank farm data 


bank. I think we're into something very 


specific. And it's important not to set up a 


straw man. We're not asking that every 


radionuclide at every stage of the process be 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

113 

listed in the TBD. NIOSH chose to call out 


certain radionuclides as important and make 


certain statements that other radionuclides are 


not as important. That's a very -- NIOSH made 


some very specific technical statements, and 


it's our job to audit those technical 


statements and we've pointed out that they're 


not quite accurate. Now it's your choice as to 


what radionuclides you're going to list and how 


you're going to use them in dose 


reconstruction. But whatever you list, the 


statements about them should be accurate. 


That's one point. 


And the second point is related to dose 


reconstruction. In what -- it's not about 


what's accurate to one percent, and that has 


not been said anywhere in our review or in our 


comments. The idea is a compensation program, 


and whatever you do should be demonstrably 


related to the regulation and shown to be 


claimant favorable. If what you are saying, 


Don, is correct, then you have got a problem 


with dose reconstruction at the Savannah River 


Site. If, on the other hand, you can 


demonstrate that a set of mixed fission 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

114 

products to represent certain periods of work 


in the tank farm or the canyons is adequate to 


envelope whatever other mixture might have 


existed at any time, then you're okay. I mean 


that's sort of the principle of the high five 


approach and -- for instance. That's how it's 


supposed to work. If you maximize the intakes, 


then you're okay. Well, I think you have to do 


the same in relation to best estimates and in 


relation to the mixed fission product. You 


cannot simply say that certain radionuclides 


are important from general experience, trust 


us, and that it's okay. It has to be 


demonstrated that it's okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: I agree that -- the technical 


discussion needs to be verified and perhap-- 


there may be reasons why it is correct, but it 


is not innately clear from the way it was 


presented perhaps. And so I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And some of the statements are 


not correct. The statement that I quoted -- 


 DR. GLOVER: It -- it --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- was correct. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- depends on the level -- it may 


be, I don't know, depending on what fission 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

115 

products were there. It may not be --


relationship to one another that may not exist, 


so I -- it depends on what they were thinking 


when they said it, and so I think -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Unintelligible) statement -- 


 DR. GLOVER: -- I think we need to clear it. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- in the NIOSH -- one of the 


statements in the NIOSH response is not 


correct, so you have to take the time to look 


at it perhaps and -- and make a judgment about 


what you think of our comment. I mean I don't 


know how you want to proceed (unintelligible). 


There may be -- there is or is not a to-do list 


of the --


 DR. GLOVER: I think we need to technically 


respond to that comment then. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I would say it doesn't 


sound like you've had a chance to digest all 


this. 


 DR. GLOVER: That came Thursday, so we really ­

- yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, right, I understand. 


 MR. FIX: This is Jack Fix. We have followed 


up on this incident SRS incident database and 


generally it's not available to us as 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

116 

classified inf-- potentially classified 


information. It has Privacy Act information 


and it's not something that we -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Well, we --


 MR. FIX: -- (unintelligible) go through very 


easily, and also if the radiological situation 


is sufficient to dose -- the dose to the worker 


is supposed to be included in their 


radiological data -- their radiological dose 


assignment. 


 (Whereupon, Dr. Makhijani, Mr. Alvarez and Mr. 


Fix spoke simultaneously, rendering individual 


comment unintelligible.) 


 MR. GIBSON: Could we talk one at a time? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: (Unintelligible) obtain them 


through the Freedom of Information Act without 


those types of restrictions -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: -- and in 1985, and so I don't 


see why these data cannot be assembled and made 


available to you in a manner that doesn't get 


in the way of the various reasons why you think 


you can't use that data. 


 DR. GLOVER: Well, I think we're going to 


explore it. This is Sam Glover. I think we 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

117 

will -- we will contact that company and see 


what we can and can't do and come up with path 


forward. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I'd contact the Energy 


Department first since this is the -- really 


was assembled under the Energy Department's 


dime. You know, having worked with DOE and 


worked in the Congress, I find this to be a 


very strange circumstance where someone is 


charging money for use of government data. 


 DR. GLOVER: Well, you're not sure that's 


happening. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I would put the request directly 


to the Energy Department about this and find 


out what's happening, is my -- my two cents, 


and not go through the contractor. This is a 


Department of Energy set of data, not theirs. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And we may be talking about two 


different things. I think -- let's not have a 


confusion. There may be an incident database 


that's completely distinct from the Fault-Tree 


Data Bank that we're talking about for the 200 


area, and Bob will send you the reference on 


that --

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

118

 MR. GRIFFON: Bob's forwarding that file so -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and then you have to at 


least make sure you're looking for the right 


thing. 


 DR. GLOVER: Exactly. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think let's leave it. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we can leave it I think. 


It does appear to be maybe two pieces to this. 


There seems to be an incident database and a 


data bank. I'm not clear on -- you can clarify 


that. It sounds like there may be two pieces 


to this, one of which is probably classified in 


part. 


Let me -- let me --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Once you have time to take a look 


at our comments you'll see the specific 


references plus tables inside there that you 


may want to pull the string on, and I'm happy 


to send you the document upon which we based 


our comments. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That would be good. Yeah, that 


would be useful. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Mike, you want to just cover 


this -- the rest of this internal discussion? 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 -- 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

119 

I don't know how you want to break this up, but 


this is kind of a lengthy issue. We can cover 


the internal and see where we stand at that 


point. You want to do that? 


 MR. GIBSON: Sure. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Arjun, just to keep this 


going, can you go through the (unintelligible) 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- of Attachment A? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- let -- let me go through the 


four scenarios. NIOSH had -- had four 


scenarios in regard to dose reconstruction. 


One -- one was when -- let me look at it here. 


Just a sec, let me get to the right page, 


excuse me. 


 For scenario one where you have the bioassay 


and external data and incident data, you say DR 


will evaluate intake and assign highest intake 


based on a (unintelligible) intake of data 


support all chronic intake. And -- and the 


point there is that this is fine, we have no 


problem with the approach, but just question 


whether you can implement that approach if you 


don't have reasonable confidence that you have 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

120 

a complete incident (unintelligible), so this 


refers back to our earlier discussion. And I 


quote there -- you know, I -- when -- when we 


looked at the data they -- and then when -- is 


-- the thing that Bob said about what's in this 


data bank, when we looked at the data bank it 


was quite clear that many incidents were 


included in it, but many incidents were not 


recorded at all, and the data bank actually 


makes an explicit statement that until 1965 


leaks in the waste tank system are not recorded 


until -- unless individual occurrences are of 


particular interest, so this raises a question 


as to how complete the earlier incident lists 


were, at least in the tank farm. And so I -- I 


think you do have to verify that the dose 


reconstruction approach in scenario one can be 


implemented with confidence for tank farm 


workers, which -- which at present I don't 


think it can. 


 DR. GLOVER: So will --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Scenario number two --


 DR. GLOVER: Can we talk about them one at a 


time maybe? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure, go -- go ahead. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

121

 DR. GLOVER: I -- you know, since we're talking 


about somebody who has bioassay -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- typically the approach by NIOSH 


is a constant chronic intake. If we have a 


positive dose, we're going to model that and 


we're going to fit that to that. If we have a 


missed dose calculation, that's going to be 


modeled as a constant chronic -- unless there's 


some overriding reason to believe it's an acute 


intake. And it tends, when you look at the 


analysis -- I mean those things pretty much -- 


it's going to be claimant favorable to use 


that, and that's been looked at -- I believe, 


John Mauro, you were probably part of that. 


I'm sure Jim Neton sitting here looked at the 


constant chronic versus acute approaches, and 


those are pretty well hashed out techniques 


that have been verified against. And so I 


think when you refute that, we need to -- 


what's specific about this that makes that 


unique to somebody who would be a chemist at 


Los Alamos who could potentially receive an 


acute intake, or why that's different here than 


anywhere else we do business? 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

122

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I think as a general 


matter, I was there with John when we went 


through it with Mallinckrodt and had the 


demonstration in regard to acute versus 


chronic, and -- and we've accepted that as a 


general approach it's all right. But you do 


have to have some verification for the specific 


kind of situation in which you're involved. 


Savannah River tank farm, because of the nature 


of the radionu-- this is -- this goes back to 


the earlier comment, because of the complexity 


of the radionuclides involved and the 


assumptions that you have to make in that 


regard, if -- if you make the wrong assumptions 


about what's going in-- into the body and 


haven't demonstrated that, and if you have an 


acute intake of a particular kind and aren't 


even modeling it, then how do you know that the 


chronic intake is going to cover it? I think ­

- I think that when you have a complex 


situation like Savannah River Site as opposed 


to a uranium processing site, the -- the 


modeling problem to show that chronic is 


conservative actually depends on the 


availability of acute intake data to carry out 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

123 

a few examples to show that. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay, I think that's -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Unintelligible) my opinion. 


 DR. GLOVER: All right. There may be a 


difference between appropriate bioassay versus 


the mechanism that we're talking about. If 


you're saying that we may not actually have the 


appropriate bioassay on these folks, whether it 


be fission product analysis or -- you know, if 


the data in itself is limited, I -- I -- based 


on the approach and the analysis -- I mean if ­

- this is much farther or broader than -- than 


say Savannah River Site, if we're talking about 


that you still don't believe that a -- the 


constant chronic intake, and so that we had not 


tried to address that here. That was sort of a 


default that we've already explained that and 


we felt that everybody was in agreement. If 


that's not the case, then I think that's 


broader than what we're talking about here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I think a specific 


demonstration for the situation of the tank 


farms, which is quite complicated, is -- is 


necessary because it doesn't -- it isn't 


covered by -- in my opinion it isn't covered by 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 -- 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

124 

the general demonstration of a relatively 


straightforward situation. You've had uranium 


intakes that are acute and chronic. You know 


the radionuclide. And what you're simply 


modeling is whether acute or chronic are more 


claimant favorable. We've been through that 


and we have accepted that as a general approach 


in that situation, it's fine. But if you don't 


know the radionuclides and you don't know the 


time of intakes, and you don't have confidence 


that you don't have a complete incident list, 


you do have a more complicated problem at 


Savannah River Site. 


 DR. GLOVER: Well, obviously we haven't 


provided an answer that's sufficient enough, so 


DR. NETON: It sounds to me -- this is Jim -- 


that -- that what we're really talking about 


here is getting back to the argument we just -- 


or discussion we just had about the source 


term. I mean essentially you're saying if we 


don't know the source term, you know, any model 


we come up with with bioassay is not 


necessarily accurate, and I guess I can't 


disagree with that statement. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

125

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, could you speak up, 


please? 


DR. NETON: I'm sorry. You know, it sounds 


like we're talking about a source term issue 


here, not the -- not the appropriateness of 


using chronic versus acute intake models. And 


I can't disagree with you that if we don't -- 


have not identified the source term, it's -- 


it's going to be difficult for us to conclude 


that we've bracketed the dose. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Fair enough. 


DR. NETON: So I think that we're back to the 


square one, really, here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. Okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: Well, one thing that would be -- 


that would -- when we do missed dose 


calculations or other calculations, we often 


don't use site characterizations that are going 


on. What -- you know, some of these nuclides 


you have to have a phenomenal activity that 


we'd be covered in, so... 


DR. NETON: Right, but -- but I guess that's 


what Arjun is saying is we need to make that 


point somewhere. 


 DR. GLOVER: All right. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

126 

DR. NETON: We -- we haven't done that, and I 


can't disagree with that comment. 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not saying it's a wrong 


approach, I'm saying you've got to show that 


it's the right approach. You can't just assert 


that. And in -- in general we've accepted it, 


but I think -- yeah, I agree with Jim's 


comment, basically. 


(Pause) 


So now I can't hear what's going on. 


 DR. WADE: Nothing's going on. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We're writing. 


 DR. WADE: Scenario two. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Scenario two is essentially the 


same routine bioassay, only available would be 


adequate. I mean it's the same issue. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, it -- I think based on that 


premise, that -- that changes the next four -- 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. GLOVER: -- so I think that's probably 


these -- these are all sooner or later -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Unintelligible) problems -- 


you had different problems with three and four. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

127 

I think you've got two covered under one, but 


with three and four, a badge but no bioassay, I 


think -- I think your assumptions regarding 


assignment of internal intakes -- well, you 


know, we don't think that you've provided a 


scientific rationale for -- for using the MDA 


for unmonitored workers because you assume that 


unmonitored workers were not at risk of 


exposure. And for instance, you've said 


construction workers might not have been 


monitored. Well, you have to show that 


construction workers were not at risk. If --


if you look -- if you -- if you look at the 


situation in regard to the open pan burning 


that Bob mentioned, or cleanup of spills in the 


tank farm, some of those spills had quite high 


-- quite a lot of radioactivity associated with 


them. And you know, the digging and moving of 


the dirt that must have gone on in -- in that 


regard may -- may have involved intakes greater 


than MDA. Clearly the tank farm in-- had 


monitored workers that had very significant 


intakes. And then extrapolating from that the 


-- this .1 times MDA and .01 times MDA seems -- 


seems quite arbitrary to us. It's not -- the ­
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

128 

- the dose seems -- at least I could not 


discern any (unintelligible) for these 


assumptions. They may be -- they may be 


justified but, again, it's the same point, you 


have to show that. 


 DR. GLOVER: Don, I think these -- Don Bihl, 


these were -- that -- that was generated as 


part of the update to the TBD. Right? 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don. Yes, and the -- you 


know, the factors of ten given in the different 


years are really based on the fact that the -- 


that the regulations that applied to the sites 


tightened up at various times. Manual chapter 


524 mandated that workers were put on a 


bioassay program if they were felt to be at 


risk at ten percent of the quarterly limit. 


That was clearly tighter than it had been 


previously and so we -- we took that into 


account, that said unmonitored workers were at 


more risk during this time because there were 


more people being monitored at a lower level. 


And then again in 1989 DOE Order 5480.11 came 


in that said the -- the requirement for being 


monitored at two percent of the annual limit, 


and so there again that, plus the regulations 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

129 

tightened things up in a lot of areas that had 


to do with workplace monitoring and recognition 


when intakes occurred, and making sure that 


prompt bioassay was obtained after incidents, 


and so as time progressed the basis that -- 


that you're saying that an unmonitored worker 


was getting intakes, you know, the -- the bar 


was lowered. And so we're just taking that 


into account here. 


 DR. GLOVER: What --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I -- I think that would 


be a good technical foundation, but you have to 


-- the -- the one piece that's missing -- I 


mean it should be two percent instead of one 


percent here, but the -- the one piece that's 


missing usually in these discussions, and I 


don't see it here also, is -- you know, there 


has been generally a statement that workers who 


were not monitored were not at risk, whatever 


the definition of risk happened to be prevalent 


at the time. But when we've kind of turned 


over the stone, we've at least not always 


agreed that that was the case. And so I think 


in a dose reconstruction context there's got to 


be some kind of discussion of the protocol of 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

130 

how it was established as to which workers were 


excluded, and when the workers that were 


excluded actually had -- were say monitored 


from time to time to ensure that they had 


potential for less than the stated values. If 


they were not, then you have no way -- then 


you've just got the subjective judgment about 


exclu-- about excluding workers and you can't 


make a statistical statement about the excluded 


group. 


 DR. GLOVER: What is the status of a coworker 


study at Savannah River on internal dosimetry? 


 MR. BIHL: There is none planned, and the 


reason is because the bioassay database is not 


electronic. It's kept on cards and the amount 


of money and time that would be spent in trying 


to take all of the data from Savannah River and 


create an electronic database was judged not to 


be -- was not going to be pursued. That --


that decision was made at some -- some level -- 


I don't know what level, but we were told in 


the coworker group that Savannah River was not 


going to be done. 


 DR. GLOVER: We'll have to come up with a -- 


perhaps a way to test the hypothesis that we've 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

131 

generated. We're going to be looking at the 


incident database and testing it against what ­

- this is the hypothetical intake that would be 


generated from .01 -- or .02 times the MDA, and 


that relates to -- but we will have to -- okay, 


I -- I agree, Arjun, there's some additional 


discussion needs to be there. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: In regard to scenario three 


you've got a specific issue as to showing that 


the issue -- that the unmonitored -- there was 


a technically demonstrable reason other than 


the subjective judgment of the supervisor or 


foreman that certain -- or health physics 


person that certain people were not at risk. 


think -- I think there has to be some kind of 


periodic monitoring, job description, something 


that shows that they were not at risk and so 


were not monitored -- (unintelligible) 


subjective judgment, so I think that piece is ­

- is -- that's what it's -- I guess we meant by 


technical foundation must be provided for 


discussion of fractions of MDA proposed for 


later periods. 


And -- and so the first three have something in 


common in that we don't say they are not 


I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

132 

correct, but that NIOSH has to provide 


technical justification and demonstrate. The 


fourth one we believe is not correct. 


To attribute environmental dose from -- in the 


way that has been proposed in the TBD we've 


generally not agreed with and would not agree 


with in relation to the tank farm workers. 


It's completely inappropriate to do that, for 


the reasons stated. 


 DR. GLOVER: All right. I think at this time 


we're probably just going to have to table this 


to provide you better -- this -- this is 


probably the most difficult of the ones we've 


talked about so far, and the one that needs the 


most work. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, I agree with that. 


 DR. GLOVER: So --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I just -- just to go back to 


number three for a second, the only thing I 


would add to that -- I'm looking at this real 


time, too, so it may have already been 


considered, but the post-1989 -- I think the 


other thing that might weigh into these factors 


that you've created is technology shortfall 


issues for certain radionuclides. Is -- is 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

133 

that -- might need to be considered in there 


when you --


 DR. GLOVER: That would actually jack up the 


intake, though, if you had a technology 


shortfall if you use the MDA versus the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right. 


 DR. GLOVER: It actually would make it worse, 


would ja-- increase the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It would make it worse, right, so 


that might be part of your rationale for the 


.01 ti-- I -- I don't know. 


 DR. GLOVER: Again, we need more work. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I got to look at that, 


but... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Any more on internal, Bob or 


Arjun? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I -- I'm done. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. The only piece left is 


really a comment on external, and that actually 


is not addressing the NIOSH response at all but 


saying that a piece of the original SC&A 


finding on the site profile wasn't addressed, 


which is this question of dose geometry. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I noticed when Joe asked 


me to draft some of the things in relation to 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

134 

the tank farm, I went back to our review and, 


you know, the matrices are very compressed, and 


I noticed that one -- one thing didn't show up 


in the matrix and it -- it is quite important 


for certain work, I believe, especially for 


like cleanup work and maintenance work where 


people are changing their jumpers and working 


on the pipes and so on in the tank farm. You 


have a situation that's not very different than 


the one that NIOSH did those Atilla model dose 


calculations for Mallinckrodt where it was 


shown that, you know, the brain dose was less 


than the film badge dose and the gonadal dose 


was higher than the film badge doses 


(unintelligible). I think some more geometries 


for the tank farm need -- need to be worked on 


especially. Many of these incident dose rates 


were in the rad -- several rad per hour, tens 


of rads, and I've seen 100 rad or more per 


hour, also. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I think -- I think 250 and, on 


one occasion, 500. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, very high. 


 MR. FIX: Do we have some nuclides to go along 


with that as well? 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

135

 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, these are simply the gamma 


measurements I believe that were in the data 


bank, to the best of my recollection. 


 MR. FIX: I was thinking that for the modeling 


and I assume Mallinckrodt was modeling 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, but they were modeling -- 


at that point they just did the external dose. 


Jim -- Jim knows more about it than I do. 


 MR. FIX: Yeah, well, I'm just trying to think 


of the issues. Certainly we would like to do 


more Atilla modeling and -- but as you know, it 


takes time and we need to be specific. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I think you need to come 


up with the maintenance job descriptions of the 


cleanup workers. My -- when I wrote that I was 


thinking of -- I don't have a comprehensive 


view of all the different kinds of work that 


were done, but the two different job types that 


I was thinking of were workers who maintained 


the underground pipe network and the valves and 


the junction boxes and so on. Their work would 


generally have been closer to the lower part of 


the body than -- than the -- than the badge, 


and so the geometry issue would be pretty 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

136 

significant. And the second group of workers 


that I had in mind was workers who cleaned up 


spills, and some of those spills were 


associated with really quite high levels of 


radioactivity, so -- so a factor of even 20 or 


30 or 40 percent could make a pretty big 


difference. 


 MR. FIX: Well, typically the -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me, this is Mike Gibson -- 


 MR. FIX: -- (unintelligible) are -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me --


 MR. FIX: -- really a problem is you've got 


beta -- primarily beta-emitting nuclides and -- 


so that's what we look for is scenarios where 


we have predominantly beta -- beta-emitting 


nuclides where geometry means everything. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I think they're also 


important in the case of gamma-emitting 


radionuclides in -- in the examples I've given, 


and in the calculation that was done for 


Mallinckrodt I believe it was gamma. Right, 

Jim? 

DR. NETON: Yeah --

 DR. MAKHIJANI: I can bring it up. 

 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me just a minute. This is 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

137 

Mike Gibson. Again, please, for the record and 


for the recorder so he can make these 


transcripts accurate, if you will identify 


yourself and Jack, if you could please -- if 


you're on a speaker phone, maybe go to a 


headset or speak up a little bit, please. 


 MR. FIX: Okay. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. That's correct, 


Arjun, the photon exposures at Mallinckrodt 


were modeled using Atilla, and we had a couple 


scenarios, and I think one of them was the 


cleanup of a spill, that demonstrated that the 


HP-10 dose measured at the chest height was 


lower than what was actually received by some 


of the, you know, lower organs in the body. 


And actually we issued a TIB on that very 


subject. If there are these geometrical 


anomalies or exposure scenarios that you refer 


to, we probably need to look at that. But I'm 


reluctant to go out on a -- you know, on a 


witch hunt looking for, you know, all these 


little isolated pockets. But if there are 


unique scenarios that can be identified, we 


certainly would want to address them. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, some of these unique 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

138 

scenarios may be captured in the data bank that 


we referred to. I mean I recall looking at the 


data for the -- I -- I'm not sure which canyon 


it was, it might have been the F or H canyon, 


but -- and it was sometime in the mid or early 


'60s where they had to call upon several 


hundred men to go in and fix a item of 


equipment in the warm canyon, and these men 


were not given film badges. They were 


basically -- you know, it was a stop watch and 


a whistle and -- and maybe a pencil, if that, 


and they had to run in as fast as they could 


and start a bolt, and it took nearly 200 men to 


do this and then, if I recall in the report, 


after they had started the bolt, the -- the 


201st or so -- so person turned it the wrong 


way and they had to start all over again. So 


there are some very unique situations involving 


encountering -- encounters with very high dose 


rates where it's clear to me that these were 


not process workers but construction workers, 


which may be very useful for you as you proceed 


to address the construction worker exposure 


scenarios. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

139

 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Okay, that's it. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, how do you want to 


proceed? You know, that's probably the -- the 


biggest issue. We have some smaller ones 


ahead, but it's also 20 after 12:00. We can 


keep going if you want. 


 MR. GIBSON: Why don't we maybe keep going and 


try to break for lunch about 1:00, if that's -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: About 1:00? 


 MR. GIBSON: -- will be acceptable to everyone? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Sure. 


COMMENT FIVE: EARLY MONITORING


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, we'll go on to number five. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Should we -- should we dial in or 


(unintelligible)? 


 MR. GIBSON: We're going to --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm going to sign off if the 


tank farm issue is finished. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Arjun. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Joe. 


 MR. GIBSON: We're going to continue till about 


1:00 o'clock and then we'll break for lunch 


somewhere around 1:00. Okay? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's fine. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

140

 MR. GIBSON: Go ahead with issue number five, 


comment number five. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. SC&A had concerns 


about the extensiveness of the early Savannah 


River Site workers' monitoring, and let me kind 


of give you a background of what the rad con 


organization looked like. 


Basically you had a small central core group, 


like kind of the head of rad con, and a couple 


of people supporting him. Then you had, at 


each facility or big area, a rad con manager 


who ran that area. And the procedures -- the 


common procedures -- from the reactor area to 


the separations area were not necessarily the 


same. So we started to see some gaps in some 


of the monitoring in the early years, and I'll 


just give you an example. Do you -- do you all 


know --


 MR. ALVAREZ: Excuse me, Kathy, could you speak 


up, please? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Are you guys all 


aware that Savannah River had heavy water 


reactors moderated? 


 (No audible responses) 


Okay. From 1956 to 1960 none of the reactor 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

141 

workers, according to the -- the progress 


report, were monitored for tritium. And that's 


just an example of one of the gaps that we see 


in -- in this early period while they're still 


trying to get more centralized and focused. 


And what we would like to see is we want NIOSH 


to look into those early years and make sure 


that you've got a comprehensive monitoring 


program, and I'll think you'll find the answer 


is no. 


 DR. GLOVER: I think part of this -- Don, part 


of these responses are what's coming in the 


updated TBD. Correct? 


 MR. BIHL: Certainly one of the fundamental 


premises of the -- this is Don Bihl. One of 


the fundamental premises of the dose 


reconstruction project is that not everybody 


that -- was monitored and that we have to 


account for dose to people who were 


unmonitored. And I have beefed up that 


section, too, because I -- I agree that -- in 


reviewing it that it was not as comprehensive 


as it needed to be. It spoke almost entirely 


to reactor workers and not some of the other 


facilities. I have added language specific to 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

142 

tank farms and specific to the separations 


plants areas, assigning more radionuclides to 


people that are unmonitored -- iodine-131, for 


instance, and more fission products and things. 


So I -- I have tried to address in -- in the 


new draft -- I'm giving unmonitored workers a 


lot more intakes than had previously been there 


and -- more intakes and more radionuclides, 


because I agree, I -- thorium -- you know, you 


guys brought up the thorium issue and I agree 


that has to be addressed, and the uranium-233 


issue had to be addressed. So we definitely 


beefed that up and tried to account more for 


the fact that if you've got an unmonitored 


worker, you've got to assign them some doses, 


and they could have been exposed to more things 


than was originally shown there in the -- the ­

- Rev 3 or whatever version you're working on 


right now. 


 DR. GLOVER: So --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess I didn't want to 


just pick on internal. I would apply that same 


request to the external data. 


 DR. GLOVER: As far as the badging, that they 


weren't badged? 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

143

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: As far -- as far as 


making sure -- looking at all your data, 


especially if you go in and you're looking at a 


-- a coworker model for the external data. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez. One of the 


anomalies that we -- we found and we couldn't 


find -- we couldn't figure out a good 


explanation for it was that in the works 


technical monthly reports that we were provided 


by NIOSH spanning the early period of 


operation, namely the 1950s and early '60s, you 


know, each report had a standard format and 


they had a health physics department write-up 


every month. And in that write-up every month, 


for a period of years, they claimed no 


bioassays were taken for tritium for reactor 


area workers, whereas hundreds were taken for ­

- for workers in the 232-H area. And you know, 


we found incidents where, you know, tritium 


levels in the reactor areas were quite high and 


required, you know, some extraordinary 


activities as a result of fuel element failures 


and the like. And I was curious whether or not 


that was the case, because I just couldn't -- I 


just found that to be kind of hard to believe, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

144 

that they -- that they duly noted in these HP 


reports every month that they took no bioassays 


for tritium for reactor workers. 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl --


 MR. ALVAREZ: (Unintelligible) is that -- 


 MR. BIHL: -- I would agree, that is -- that is 


interesting and I don't have an answer for 


that. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: And I -- I couldn't figure out 


for the life of me why that was so, but it's -- 


I think we did mention it in our first review 


comments that this was some -- sort of 


inexplicable. 


 MR. BIHL: I don't -- Tom, do you have any 


thoughts on that at all? 


 MR. LABONE: No, that -- that doesn't -- 


doesn't make any sense to me. I -- I guess I 


would have to see the report to try to -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, it -- they're referenced in 


our comments. You know, they're essentially 


works technical monthly reports and -- and they 


were made available to us and, you know, 


there's a health physics section in each report 


and they basically list up front, in the front 


of each section, the number of bioassays taken 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

145 

in the -- in the -- in an area, including for 


tritium. And every month no -- a zero was 


recorded for bioassays taken for 100 area 


workers, whereas there were hundreds taken on a 


monthly basis for the 200 area workers. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay, so we need to find out if 


that's a spe-- an unusual class of workers. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Yeah, I don't know if it's an 


anomaly or -- I -- I mean I -- it just didn't 


seem right to be seeing that, but we did note 


it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then the other -- I mean it 


sounds like some revisions have been made, but 


-- but SC&A hasn't seen them, so how -- how do 


we -- I mean --


 DR. GLOVER: That's going to come out -- when ­

- we talked about that. Once they go through 


internal review, we'll get them and then we'll 


make sure that they satisfy the comments and we 


can talk about making -- evaluating whether all 


the -- the classes of workers that may seem to 


be unusual or that -- that-- you know, these -- 


particularly these early time frames, and -- 


and then Jim knows what's going on with 


construction workers TIBs and we need to make 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

146 

sure this is all covered. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, in this case -- this -- 


this is -- this is Joe. This is -- it sounds 


like this is a -- actually the overall revision 


of the -- the TBD, it sounds like. 


 DR. GLOVER: External and internal, that's 


correct. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: External and internal -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- so when that gets reissued, 


these -- these new elements will be added. 


 DR. GLOVER: Internal has been -- is fairly 


specific. We had some examples. You said 


external as well. You talking about these 


people who hadn't been badged in the early time 


frames? I want to make sure that they -- that 


-- did you guys --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. GLOVER: What's that? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Off microphone) Take a 


look at these -- these -- 


 DR. GLOVER: I'll look at the comments. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- if you have access to 


some of the Savannah River claims, take a look 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

147 

at the early external exposure data. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Your --


 DR. GLOVER: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- your sense is that there's 


gaps in the early data maybe? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Even in those that were 


monitored. 


 DR. GLOVER: I'll have --


UNIDENTIFIED: I can't hear, but I guess we 


know that we assigned a missed dose throughout 


the entire employment period if -- if there's 


not the records, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean what -- what -- what -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's not necessarily... 


 MR. GRIFFON: What do we know about -- I mean 


what do you know, I should say, what -- 


 DR. GLOVER: We can ask Scott --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- what do other people know 


about the monitoring program in the early 


years, but it wasn't 100 percent? 


 DR. GLOVER: I'll ask Scott Siebert -- I'll ask 


Scott Siebert to get on the line, maybe after ­

- we can maybe get him on and he's doing -- 


they -- they've done -- they're the ones who 


actually looked through all of the early 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 -- 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

148 

Savannah River Site information, so they'd have 


the best evaluation and when you go through the 


cases you'd have the best feel for that, so 


maybe I can get him on the line after lunch, or 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You know, I'm not 


talking about somebody who shouldn't have been 


monitored. I'm talking about somebody who was 


in the (unintelligible) radiological work. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It sounds like the action here 


is just to defer to these new revisions that 


will be at some point coming, or maybe actually 


some pieces to this that will be separate, such 


as the construction TIB and some of the other 


pieces. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) six has been (unintelligible). 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. While we're 


pausing for just a minute, I want to go back to 


a question that came up in the first item. 


There was a question about what the OTIB number 


was for the draft TIB on recycled uranium. 


I've looked that up, it's 53, five three, per 


the notes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

149 

COMMENT SIX:


 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me -- let me comment. 


We're going to get into comment number six, but 


there's three or four matrix items that deal 


with high five in different facets, and the 


first one is really dealing with the compliance 


issue and whether it conforms with CFR 82, 


which is one of the objectives of what SC&A 


looks at, but I guess our response is the NIOSH 


evaluation is responsive to that particular 


issue and, Kathy, you want to -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) the switch to bioassay solved 


a lot of these issues. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, so six goes away as far 


as a concern that we've had in the past on the 


original review. That brings --


 DR. GLOVER: Tom LaBone, what is the status of 


the -- that revision? 


 MR. LABONE: I'm sorry, what revision? 

 DR. GLOVER: The high five, redoing it with the 

new models. 

 MR. LABONE: I do not know how many of the -- 

the cases have been done. Gus Potter is 


working on that. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

150 

DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I have a 


concep-- I guess an over-arching question. The 


high five approach -- I just want to be 


refreshed a bit -- that was an upper-bounding 


method for the purpose of denial, or is it also 


used as a plausible upper bound for 


compensation? 


 DR. GLOVER: It's an overestimate. 


DR. MAURO: It's an overestimate, but is it 


used in both capacities as -- 


 DR. GLOVER: No, overestimate --


DR. MAURO: Okay, so -- so then if I -- then 


it's very much like OTIB-2 -- bear with me for 


a minute. I'm trying to create a pattern 


whereby this is a method that you could -- that 


someone could default to then, the high five. 


Granted that there are some questions regarding 


whether or not it's truly high five or not, but 


the idea being it's a way to assign an upper 


bound as -- to a worker whereby you feel 


confident that, for that particular worker, by 


all means that assumption is going to place an 


upper bound on his internal dose and -- and it 


still -- you still come up with less than a POC 


of .5 and therefore he's appropriately denied. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

151 

Then tiering down from that is OTIB-17 and I 


believe OTIB-33 where -- then you said well, if 


you don't want to go that route but you want to 


be a little bit more realistic, then you start 


to key in on the -- the assumption that well, 


if there was a comprehensive air sampling 


program then you're in a position to make some 


judgments as to what the -- for a person that 


was not monitored now -- what the upper bound ­

- not upper bound but reasonable upper bound 


and in the -- for the intakes might have been, 


and that's where you -- you fold in whether 


you're at one NPC or .1 NPC, so I just want to 


get a picture -- does the high five approach 


fit into this whole hierarchy of decision-


making the same way that OTIB-2 does, and I 


think OTIB-2 was used primarily for Hanford. 


DR. NETON: John, this is Jim. That's correct. 


I mean it's -- it was a document that was 


written early on to essentially process cases 


that we could demonstrate pretty readily that 


they were not going to be compensable, no 


matter how much research we did. And we have 


never used it -- to my knowledge, at least 


intentionally -- to -- to compensate for a 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

152 

case. They've always been denials. It falls 


into that realm of what I like to consider 


health physics, which is -- you know, you do a 


series of successive approximations, and if 


your first approximation -- which is very rough 


-- demonstrates your point, then you're done. 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: But in certain cases, with the high 


five approach, when you apply it would tend -- 


would put someone over 50 percent, then you've 


got to sharpen the pencil a little bit and say 


well, that -- that first approximation was way 


-- was maybe an order of magnitude or two off. 


Let me try something a little closer to 


reality, and that's exactly -- 


DR. MAURO: Within that concept then, a lot of 


the subjects that we've been talking about -- 


namely the tanks, unmonitored workers, 


incidents, perhaps workers were not monitored 


or appro-- you know, during an incident or 


inadequately monitored -- so then you're in a 


realm where you really can't -- what I'm 


hearing is you could certainly use -- well, 


you'd have to first make a demonstration that 


for those scenarios where a worker might have 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

153 

been exposed to one of these incidents or 


exposures near the tank farms that were not 


monitored, first of all you have to feel a 


level of confidence that the high five approach 


would in fact be bounding for them. And I 


guess there's some question whether that's the 


case or not. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, well, I think the -- the high 


five approach specifically talks about people ­

- I think it's only applicable to workers who 


were not monitored who, in our judgment, did 


not need to be monitored. In fact I think it's 


even more --


DR. MAURO: Oh -- oh, and -- and did not need 


to be monitored. 


DR. NETON: Yes, I think it's even -- 

DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. I thought --

DR. NETON: -- it's even slightly more res-- 

DR. MAURO: -- it was used as a default -- 

DR. NETON: No. 


DR. MAURO: -- as a way to quickly deny. 


DR. NETON: It is, but if -- if they did not -- 


if they, in our judgment, did not need to be 


monitored, had no monitoring data, then we 


believe that those intakes that were assigned 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

154 

are bounding of their -- any plausible exposure 


they could have received. That sort of goes to 


the argument -- doesn't -- they don't 


necessarily have to be the highest five in 


recorded history. They just have to be 


plausible upper bound exposures for that worker 


to which it's applied. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. So if we have a worker -- 


let's say -- it's almost like a little wrap-up 


of what we've done. I'm trying to get 


oriented. We have a worker that is -- of 


concern that he might have received some 


exposure but was not monitored, but he -- you 


know, we don't know whether he was involved in 


one of these incidents or not. Let's say we go 


into this incident scenario. I think that's 


what -- a lot of concern here. We're in a 


situation where somehow we need to be able to ­

- to make a judgment based on this worker's 


records whether he may or may not have been 


involved in an incident and whether or -- and 


if there's no bioassay data, how do we deal 


with that worker? Let's say he wasn't 


monitored. Is -- is that a -- is that a 


situation where we are -- we have to deal with, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

155 

namely possible incidents, possible exposures, 


a worker was outdoors and wasn't monitored, but 


given his work history it's possible he may 


have been involved in one of these incidents 


that are in this big database. 


DR. NETON: I'd have to look -- refresh my 


memory as to the exact wording of the -- you 


know, how the high five approach is applied. I 


-- my recollection is that it was -- it was 


fairly restrictive in its use, and I think it 


was -- even went beyond workers who didn't need 


to be monitored, but was applied primarily to 


administrative type personnel and others in 


that category. Although I -- I -- I have to 


say I can't say with certainty right now 


exactly what that language is. 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. If we get Scott 


Siebert on the phone he'll be able to provide 


that answer in -- in quite a bit of detail. I 


think the rest of us are kind of -- if we tried 


to answer that we would be just kind of out on 


the margin of our knowledge and -- and why 


don't we wait till Scott's on the phone. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess the other comment is 


it --

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

156

 MR. ALVAREZ: This is Bob Alvarez. I want to ­

- I have a question about the data that's being 


used for bioassay. Does -- is there a 


centralized set of data for workers in terms of 


compilation of bioassay that is somehow being 


used? 


 DR. GLOVER: There is no -- there is -- we're 


getting hard copy records and we -- they get it 


entered, we enter the -- the data. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I see. I see. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I just had a comment. The --


the high five is only unique to Savannah River. 


I mean it -- it's been supplanted or found to 


be a -- not a necessarily relevant tool 


elsewhere. Is that --


DR. NETON: I think that's generally true, 


yeah. We tried this at other sites, but 


Savannah River had a -- what we thought was a 


pretty good database that -- you know, and gave 


us a good feel for what the highest exposures 


may have been -- may have been in the past, 


but... 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I'm sorry, can you speak up, 


please? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, we -- that's true. Joe asked 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

157 

whether the high five approach is really on-- 


is unique to Savannah River, and the answer is 


yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I think the other question, 


it seems to me -- now I'm just kind of gelling 


this today -- is that you don't have all the 


other bioassay data in electronic form so you 


can't do your --


DR. NETON: Correct, right, so coworker -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- distributions by nuclides, you 


can't do your --


DR. NETON: Right, although -- although -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) percentile. 


DR. NETON: It appears that way, but I can say 


-- the historical reason it was a high five was 


because we just didn't have coworker models at 


all at the time and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, 'cause this 


(unintelligible) -- first (unintelligible). 


DR. NETON: I mean -- and reality is now it's 


even better because we didn't have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, 'cause one of my questions 


coming in today was why not do it like all the 


other sites now that we're doing all the other 


sites that way, you know. It seems like it's 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

158 

the hard copy issue. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: So -- this is Bob Alvarez again. 


So the -- the reason I asked this question 


about the database is that McClarty in 2001 


made a statement that records indicate that 99 


workers received (unintelligible) internal 


doses of uranium over the history of the plant, 


which were well documented in site incidence 


reports. And in reviewing the works technical 


monthly reports we found there were over 205 


positive bioassays between 1950 and 1960 alone, 


which raised questions about what data is being 


used here. 


 DR. GLOVER: We actually -- later on we have 


some information regarding that. Those are 100 


-- 99 workers who had more than 100 -- 100 


millirem committed effective dose equivalent, 


not that there were 99 -- more than 99 positive 


uranium bioassay measurements. But their 


committed effective dose equivalent was -- 


exceeded some threshold, so -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I see. Well, this was written in 


a manner where that distinction was not made. 


It simply said received internal doses. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

159

 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, I -- that's -- I think later 


on or -- I have some additional information 


regarding that. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Thank you. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: If we -- if we can -- John, 


are you still on the phone? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. 


COMMENT SEVEN: GAUSSIAN MODELS


 MR. FITZGERALD: We're up to the environmental 


-- occupational environmental issue in terms of 


Gaussian models, something that's right down 


your alley. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, that -- that would be, and I 


saw your -- by the way, basically -- I had a 


series of comments related to the way in which 


the environmental doses were estimated, and my 


concern had to do with the use of average 


annual chi over Q values, atmospheric 


dispersion factors at the site, mainly taking 


the source terms, releases that occurred, and 


then applying average annual atmospheric 


dispersion factors. That's certainly an 


appropriate approach when you are confronted 


with product releases -- or even episodic 


releases that occur randomly and often. And 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

160 

then you could probably come up with a pretty 


good estimate of the average annual exposures 


to any receptor at any distance in any 


direction from the releases. My -- but my 


concern had more to do with the fact that -- 


and not that I -- that this has really 


happened, but I was concerned that some of 


these releases may very well have been 


episodic, large, and occurred only a few times 


during the course of any given year. And --


and as a result, the approach of modeling that 


dose from that source could grossly 


overestimate the dose -- for example, if a 


person wasn't downwind at the time of that 


release and the wind was blowing in a different 


direction and there was no one downwind, well, 


then no one's getting dose. However, on the 


other hand, if during that release the person 


was downwind and there was fairly stable 


atmospheric conditions, the doses could be 


substantially higher than what the average 


annual chi over Q would predict. 


Now -- and correctly so now, the -- recently I 


received a response to that concern which said 


that well, the monitoring data that I believe 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

161 

was along the fence line or on-site for tritium 


and iodine, which was -- they actually measured 


the conti-- the concentration of airborne 


radioactivity on site from the emissions, and 


the determination was that the average annual 


chi over Q Gaussing model did a real good job. 


It's not overestimating -- you know, estimating 


what the actual measured concentrations were. 


That is very assuring and that confirms that 


the chi over Q approach really works very well 


when you're dealing with chronic releases. And 


so I'm not going to dispute that at all. My 


main concern is, though, are there scenarios 


where there may have been incidents of 


relatively large releases occurring only 


occasionally where that -- we could -- there 


could be some surprises to people on site and 


the average annual approach will miss that. 


And that was my -- that was my first concern. 


And the other one I had had to do with 


resuspension factors, but let's hold off on 


that until they -- we -- I could hear some 


response back on this concern I just raised 


regarding episodic releases. 


 DR. GLOVER: John, will this be a release that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

162 

was intentional? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, it would include releases that 


are intentional and also of course inadvertent 


releases, both. 


 DR. GLOVER: All right. 


DR. MAURO: Anything that is episodic and not ­

- and not frequent -- and random. 


 DR. GLOVER: All right. I guess -- I can't 


speak to what SRS was doing at the time. We 


could try to do some more -- you know, delve 


back into how they -- if they did upscale 


release, usually tried to minimize the dose to 


personnel if you knew you were going to release 


something, I would assume, so that would be 


something we would -- we'd probably need a 


little more description. 


Gene, do you have any comments on episodic 


releases and how they would have handled 


intentional releases or these episodic 


releases? 

 MR. ROLLINS: No, I really don't have anything 

on that. 

 MR. ALVAREZ: Well -- this is Bob Alvarez -- 

the two things I would look for right away is 


the burning of spent solvent in open pans which 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

163 

went on on a constant basis throughout the '50s 


and at least through the early '60s where you 


might have had the on-site deposition of 


transuranics from the smoke, and possible 


exposures. And again, going back to the Fault-


Tree Data Bank, there were stack releases from 


the 200 area on several occasions that required 


them to wash down cars in the parking lots. 


And to my knowledge, those issues -- while they 


may not have resulted in significant off-site 


doses that Atilla might have picked up -- it 


might have resulted in a dose that's of concern 


for dose reconstruction purposes for this 


program. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, in fact while that -- I'd 


like to add to your -- one of the things I 


didn't mention is yes, the -- I believe you did 


rely heavily on the -- the off-site dose 


reconstruction dataset for emissions, and 


that's certainly reasonable 'cause that -- what 


the -- you know, because that was a very 


exhaustive assessment. But if there were other 


releases that may have been relatively small, 


from the big -- from the -- lo-- local and 


episodic, theoretically those doses could have 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

164 

been missed. Because I guess the intent of the 


rack work was really to evaluate doses pretty 


far away. You know, beyond the site boundary 


to where there were off-site populations, and 


so I guess there's that part of it, too. That 


is, is there a level of confidence that the 


source term data used for deriving on-site 


exposures that -- you know, they came from I 


believe primarily the rack work -- is adequate 


and sufficient to capture what the exposures 


may have been on-site, and that of course 


coupled up with the episodic question, whether 


or not there might have been some unusual 


meteorologic conditions -- and not even 


unusual. You have stability class F at the 


time of release. The people immediately 


downwind from that release, especially if it's 


ground level -- in fact only if it's ground 


level, such as these open burning, the -- those 


doses can be substantial. And if the workers 


were not monitored, bioassay or external, 


you're going to miss that. 


 DR. GLOVER: Ed Scalsky, do you have any 


comments, or if -- do you have anything on that 


area to sort of -- you know any -- any -- Gene 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

165 

doesn't really have much. It may be an area we 


just can't -- we haven't -- we're going to have 


to add more work on, but -- is Ed still on the 


line? 


 (No responses) 


I may have lost Ed Scalsky, who's the document 


owner. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I would suggest as a 


starting point to take a look at the works 


technical monthly reports. The health physics 


sections discuss -- in not, you know, great 


detail, but they do discuss open pan burning of 


spent solvent that went on quite frequently 


throughout -- you know, throughout the '50s and 


early '60s. 


 DR. GLOVER: Now John, is open pan burning 


something -- if it's a continuous activity -- 


something that has --


 MR. ALVAREZ: No, it was episodic because they 


weren't doing it 24/7 -- 


 DR. GLOVER: No, no, hold on, I'm going to ask 


John 'cause this is sort of -- in your -- in 


your description that didn't seem to be really 


what you're talking about. You're talking 


about the --

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

166 

DR. MAURO: That's correct, the --


 DR. GLOVER: -- the Poisson kind of thing, the 


very low prob--


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I would agree with what 


you're saying. If you have an episodic release 


that's occurring once or twice a week, week 


after week, randomly, as opposed to at a given 


time of day, in effect when you average it out 


over the course of a year, it's going to behave 


as if it was a continuous release, an average 


annual chi over Q will work. Of course in the 


case of burning, you know, is you used chi over 


-- the average annual chi over Q approach, you 


probably will overestimate dose because the 


burning will have a plume -- a plume rise 


component to it which will help to increase 


dispersion. So I think that the -- if the 


burning was often and random in time, average 


annual chi over Q will probably work. In fact, 


it may overestimate it. So yeah, I'd have to 


agree with you folks there at ORAU that -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: For purposes of clarification, 


the -- the burning did not occur every day. It 


occurred every two or three months and it 


tended to occur for a period of several hours, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

167 

then that was that. 


DR. MAURO: Well, see, that would place it into 


one of the areas I'm concerned with. When you 


start to spread things out that rarely, you 


know, once a month, once every two months, then 


it becomes something that you just can't use 


annual average chi over Q, it'll just -- you 


know, you could really miss the dose by quite a 


bit. The only thing you got going for you, 


though, is since it is burning you're going to 


get a little a bit increased dispersion because 


of the plume rise from the -- the terminal 


plume. But it cert-- you know, what it is, 


it's probably something that's worth putting to 


bed and looking into because if it was only 


once a month or once or twice a month -- and 


this is a judgment call. There's actually some 


Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidance related 


to this matter on -- for accident analysis when 


you -- when you could -- when you should go 


from puff avection modeling -- use that type of 


modeling, as opposed to average annual chi over 


Q, based on frequency that the event occurs. 


There's a reg guide out there at the NRC that 


was used many years during the licensing and 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

168 

accident analysis at nuclear power plants. 


 DR. GLOVER: And that's exactly what I was 


really -- the previous description sounded like 


it was all the time, so -- 


DR. MAURO: I think we're in agreement. 


 DR. GLOVER: I agree. I agree we agree. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Now may I ask a question? Would 


this particular modeling discussion be fully 


applicable for larger particles? 


DR. MAURO: I can answer that, the answer's no. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Because of (unintelligible) -- 


DR. MAURO: Gaussian modeling, and -- and even 


in deposition of particles, the standard 


deposition velocity approach to determining 


what's on the ground, that only applies to very 


small particles. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: So I think that with the burning, 


we prob-- we might have been dealing with 


particles certainly larger than 0.5 micron, and 


for stack releases that result -- you know, 


where the non-volatile beta-emitters and 


possibly alpha-emitters were depositing on the 


parking lot nearby and not necessarily going 


off-site, then the trajectory of the plume may 


not be applicable to this model. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

169 

DR. MAURO: Bob, I agree with you. If it's a 


large particle, it's not -- again, Gaussian 


modeling just doesn't work. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Yeah, so I would also, you know, 


make sure you check that one out. 


DR. MAURO: Even -- even puff avection 


modeling, when you take the time period into 


consideration, doesn't work for these large 


particles because what you really now is have 


just like a trajectory and, you know, large 


particles come out and settle out -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- on its own and it doesn't really 


matter what the meteorology is very much. It's 


going to have its own -- it's going to be 


(unintelligible) ballistic, you know, a -- but 


now I'm talking flakes. You know, large -- 


large flakes, if that's in fact what 


(unintelligible) was dealing with, I don't 


know. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: With (unintelligible) burning you 


don't have a stack, either. It's very close to 


the ground. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay. I -- I heard the issues and 


I think we have to follow up. I don't have 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

170 

some of the people I'd -- on the line, so -- 


good points, and I think they need to be 


specifically addressed. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: John, resuspension factor? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, and this is a very -- very 


simple comment. I notice that you're using 


your resuspension factor of ten to the minus 


nine per meter. That is the one recommended by 


Anspaugh for material that's on the ground for 


very long periods of time. Let's say several 


years. So if you have some cumulation of 


radioactivity on the ground and it's been 


accumulating for many, many years, it sort of 


like weathers its way into the ground, and 


therefore the resuspension factor of ten to the 


minus nine is probably a reasonably good 


number. He has plenty of empirical data that ­

- that shows that's the case. However, there's 


a treat-- there's also -- there are other 


analyses when -- when you have anything that 


disturbs the ground, whether it's high winds, 


anthropomorphic activities, people walking, 


vehicles going by, and -- and also even the ten 


to the minus nine itself has some uncertainty 


in it, like a factor of ten. What I'm getting 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

171 

at is, I was just concerned when I saw the ten 


to the minus nine, the antennae went up because 


when I used to do a lot of these dose 


calculations I usually used ten to the minus 


six as my resuspension factor, five times ten 


to the minus six, sometimes ten to the minus 


five, and I was just surprised to see that you 


were using ten to the minus nine. Now I 


noticed in your response that you said well, 


the -- the empirical data for I guess the F and 


H area was a grass-covered area where there was 


very little potential for resuspension because 


the -- the moisture content of the soil, the -- 


the -- the growth of the grass would keep the 


radioactivity from re-- from resuspending. And 


I would agree, yeah, under those circumstances 


you would expect to see something close to ten 


to the minus nine. So right now I guess I'm at 


a place that says well, I'm used to seeing ten 


to the minus six, but geez, if there's good 


reason to believe ten to the minus nine's the 


right number, I -- you know, I really can't 


argue with you. 


 DR. GLOVER: We've -- we also looked at it 


quite a bit or it's begin-- you know, talked 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 -- 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

172 

about it. It is a low -- it sounds like a very 


low number. However, you know, having 


colleagues down at Savannah River, it is snakes 


and swamps and stuff -- such down there, too, 


so it is a different kind of area compared to 


let's say a Nevada Test Site where you have a 


desert type of environment. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, you know, I understand. Any 


effort made to see what kind of dust loading? 


You see, one of the things that -- I -- I -- 


when it -- when it comes to the long term 


deposition of material on the ground -- see, to 


me, the resuspension factor approach is -- 


 MR. ROLLINS: I think I can answer that 


question. I did some calculations this morning 


DR. MAURO: Good, good. 


 DR. GLOVER: This is Gene Rollins. 


 MR. ROLLINS: Gene Rollins talking. In fact, I 


was the one that did this work that you're 


discussing now. I went back and looked at some 


environmental impact statements that actually 


have dust-loading factors for Savannah River 


Site. The one that they quoted as a 24-hour 


maximum was 135 micrograms per cubic meter. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 -- 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

173 

DR. MAURO: That's -- that's in the realm that 


I would expect like normal outdoor environment 


to be like, yeah. 


 MR. ROLLINS: All right. If I take this a 


little bit further -- now I -- I don't have 


soil profiles for the contaminated areas in F 


and H area, all I had was the average 


concentration in the soil in these areas for 


the first eight centimeters. So application of 


just using that soil concentration and the mass 


loading factor that I just -- maximum 24-hour ­

- which would be an upper bound, in my opinion 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh, okay. 


 MR. ROLLINS: -- would give you numbers 


approximately 80 times higher than what we are 


currently reporting in table C-18. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. ROLLINS: Now I also did some sensitivity 


study that shows what that really works out to 


in dose. And this would be for 30 years of 


intakes. The -- the most highly affected organ 


would be the thoracic lymph nodes, and if we 


increased the -- the numbers in table C-18 by a 


factor of 80, or just make it a factor of 100, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

174 

we're still approaching a maximum, after 30 


years of exposure, of about ten millirem per 


year from plutonium-239 only. 


DR. MAURO: Sounds like you put this one to 


bed. 


 MR. ROLLINS: Well, I'm trying to. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I agree. I tell you what I ­

- I mean -- what -- what really is the clincher 


to me of what you did -- the only thing I might 


have done differently is there's a lot of 


literature on the concentra-- when you have a 


resus-- when you have the dust loading, the 


dust is coming from the surface, you averaged 


over eight centimeters. As a result -- one of 


the things --


 MR. ROLLINS: I agree, that could give us 


another factor of ten in there. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, that's -- right, exactly, 


you've got it. That's where I would be coming 


from. There's -- there -- I would -- I would 


assume an exponential decline with that -- lots 


of data on that, by the way. NRC's published a 


lot of information on a vertical -- 


 MR. ROLLINS: Now (unintelligible) -- now keep 


in mind now, that was a 24-hour maximum 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

175 

resuspension --


DR. MAURO: But -- so you got -- yeah, you're 


at the upper end there (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. ROLLINS: And if you go to an annual 


average geometric mean maximum, it's about four 


times lower than that. 


DR. MAURO: As far as I'm concerned, the story 


you just told puts this issue to bed. You 


know, it may be worthwhile putting it together. 


In other words, I believe what you -- you know, 


I'm hearing you -- the story and that's exactly 


the way I would have come at the problem. And 


if in the end we're talking about doses that 


are in the ten millirem per year range, I think 


we by and large have said that listen, 


notwithstanding the issue -- I mean I think 


that we have made some valid technical concerns 


regarding the resuspension factor. I think you 


have just made an argument that says 


notwithstanding the fact that we may have used 


a small resuspension factor, even if we go with 


some other approach which would come up with a 


substantially higher dust loading and dose, 


we're still talking about doses that are in the 


millirem -- you know, a few millirem per year 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

176 

range. As far as our concern, this problem's ­

- this issue has been resolved. I hate to 


speak -- but I think we could -- that would 


close her down. The story you just told, as 


far as I'm concerned, would close out this 


issue. 


 MR. ROLLINS: Hey, Sam, I'll write that up and 


get it to you. 


 DR. GLOVER: Outstanding. 


 MR. ROLLINS: We can go to lunch now. Right? 


 MR. GIBSON: Is everyone ready for lunch? 


Well, how long do you guys -- ready for lunch? 


Okay. Is an hour good for lunch? 


 (No audible responses) 


Okay, let's all try to reconvene at 2:00 p.m. 


eastern time. 


 DR. GLOVER: Thanks, everybody. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 1:00 p.m. 


to 2:00 p.m.) 


 DR. WADE: This is the conference room with 


working group assembling. We should be ready 


in just a second. 


COMMENT EIGHT: METAL TRITIDES


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, we're ready to reconvene. 
I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

177 

think we're ready for comment number eight? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think -- on -- on 


metal tritides I might also add that after I 


think number six on this list we're getting 


into -- increasingly getting into the 


observations or secondary issues, so again, a 


lot of these are questions of basis and factual 


accuracy. 

 MR. ALVAREZ: Excuse me, Joe, could you speak 

up, please? 

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

Clawson. We need to remind people to put their 


phone on mute. I can -- I can pick up somebody 


typing on their computer and stuff and I can't 


-- it blots out everybody else. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So take that as a -- a 


request, please. If you are not speaking, put 


your phone on mute. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Again, talking about 


matrix comment number eight if you have the 


handout, and this is a finding we spent some 


time talking about in the June conference call 


involving special tritium compounds, you know, 


metal tritides, organic trit-- tritium, and the 


issue here is that we're frankly seeing this 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

178 

same issue at a number of DOE sites. I think 


this was the first site we had seen this issue. 


And the question of low or almost minimal 


solubility is the question we're dealing with 


here, and the fact that for both security 


reasons as well as detectibility reasons, the ­

- the monitoring and the record-keeping for 


special tritium compounds I think everyone 


would agree is not -- not very good. And our 


concern here is whether they've been 


characterized and addressed from a dose 


estimation standpoint adequately. And I think 


we had a good discussion, and there's an 


attachment B to the matrix which is sort of a 


intended pathway I think NIOSH is considering 


and -- but -- but one concern we have is, 


beyond how you model this, we're frankly 


concerned -- based on experience at Los Alamos, 


Mound and other places -- whether in fact you 


can establish where it was used, how it was 


used, who was exposed to it, what facilities 


may have contained it -- I mean there's a lot 


of issues about even establishing precedents 


that we think is an issue. Kathy. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Don, are you on the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

179 

phone? 


 MR. BIHL: I am. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: After the last working 


group Don gave me a call and he thought it was 


a good idea for us to discuss our issues with 


the NIOSH approach, and we kind of agreed to 


submit some questions, first of all, which we 


have included under matrix comment eight, some 


of which cannot be answered in this room. But 


what we've -- what we kind of feel is that on 


the surface the method looks conservative, but 


we don't know what tritides we're dealing with 


or organically bound tritides, we don't know 


how much, we don't know if it's formed 


elsewhere on site besides the tritium 


facilities. We don't understand why there were 


no tritides prior to 1975, these type of 


things. And this is -- we can't make a 


judgment on whether the technique bounds the 


tritide situation without knowing some of these 


things. 


And Don, I don't know if you have the 


questions. 


 MR. BIHL: Yes, I do have the question. In 


terms of which tritides were there, I don't 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

180 

have the answer to that. From a dose 


assessment point of view, from a dose 


reconstruction point of view, it isn't 


essential to know that. The language that we 


have there is -- is to tell the dose 


reconstructor to use either -- assume either 


class or type M or type S, because the tritides 


can come in either form, and they just assume 


whichever one creates the largest dose to the 


organ of concern. So it's -- it's claim-


specific as to which one they assume, and 


that's how you handle that when you don't have 


the specific knowledge. Basically you're 


picking the one that will provide the largest 


dose to the organ of concern. 


As far as the organically-bound material, I do 


have an article where they studied that and 


they -- they said it was methane. I'm not sure 


that makes a difference. I could add that to 


the write-up if -- if you feel that's important 


to say that it was methane. It won't make a 


difference to the dose reconstruction, I don't 


believe. 


In terms of the date, there was a -- one of the 


history documents said that they converted over 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

181 

to the high-dried storage procedures in the -- 


or -- or -- not procedures, but the facility in 


the mid-'70s, and that's -- that's the on-- 


that's as close as I could get they would have 


a source of metal tritides so I -- you know, I 


just said start in 1975. I guess we can, you 


know, negotiate it if that doesn't feel right 


to you, but that's all I know is mid-'70s. 


As far as looking at the exposure to the other 


places besides the tritium processing 


facilities, the doses -- even to the people 


most exposed, which would be in the tritium 


processing facilities -- were so low that by 


the time you dilute this material in anything 


else -- D&D work, waste management, whatever -- 


you know, you're going to be well -- well below 


a millirem. You know, I'm assuming every day 


exposure for the people at the -- at the 


tritium processing facilities, chronic, every 


day exposure, and their doses still come in the 


neighborhood of a few millirem, up to ten 


millirem for -- for the lung, so clearly the 


other -- anyone else at the site just wasn't 


getting enough of this to -- to have a dose of 


concern. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

182 

As far as the last question goes, historic 


percentage, I -- I don't -- I don't have a lot 


of history. I have basically one document, 


this document that was done -- the study that 


was done by Millham and Bodie -- or I guess 


maybe it's Boddie. At any rate, where they 


looked at the various compounds coming out -- 


the effluence from various facilities in the -- 


in the '70s and, you know, they -- they were 


able to, you know, show that it was -- it's 


mostly water, of course, and there is tritium 


gas of course, and then there was some 


organics. The organics were generally less 


than one percent, even from the area where they 


suspected it would be most prevalent, which was 


the tritium processing facilities. There was 


one time when -- by one time I mean one process 


where the organics were considerably higher 


than one percent. They were up to about 80 


percent. And that was during the purging of 


the -- the (unintelligible), these molecular 


sieve beds that -- that held up the material 


prior to release. And during the process of -- 


I don't fully understand the exact process, but 


during the process of capturing this material 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

183 

on the molecular sieves and then purging it 


later, which I guess involves heat, they create 


the methane. And for that period of time when 


they're purging, then about 80 percent of the 


effluent was -- was organic. But the total 


curies that came off then they recorded as 290 


curies of methane or organic coming off at that 


period of time, and that compares to over 3,000 


curies a week released from those facilities in 


terms of water vapor and 1,300 curies per week 


coming off as HT gas. Oh, yeah, and they 


didn't purge every week, you know, it was -- it 


was an occasional thing. But again, even 


though it was high that one time, when you look 


at it on any sort of longer time scale, the 


amount of organics being created was pretty 


small. So I -- you know, we did a calculation 


that looked at this. Assuming that inside the 


facility the organics might have been higher, I 


arbitrarily said instead of one percent, I went 


with ten percent, that the workers were exposed 


to ten percent organics, and did calculations 


and said if they were exposed to -- which -- 


which is what the DR's doing now, that says if 


you assume 100 percent HTO, how much dose are 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

184 

you going to be assigning, and then say okay, 


instead of that, it's 90 percent HTO and ten 


percent organics, OBT, how did that change the 


dose relative to what the DRs are actually 


calculating, the dose reconstructors are 


actually calculating, and it turned out to be 


an insignificant change. So on the basis of 


that, that -- and that was also looked at by 


Tom LaBone. He did a separate calculation and 


came up with the same conclusion, that the OBT 


just isn't a significant enough factor in terms 


of calculating dose that it has to be addressed 


specifically. 


I believe that addresses the four questions 


that you had there. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. Well, the -- the 


action that's really there is just simply to 


continue what we started at the last conference 


call, which was to make sure that there was 


some interchange as far as the -- this -- this 


kind of data, and we don't really have anything 


more at this point then. We want to continue 


that just to get -- 'cause this does affect 


other sites and we have the same issues and 


findings coming up at other sites. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

185

 DR. GLOVER: Do we have any -- there's not a 


TIB on -- on tritides. This is just being 


added to SRS. Right? 


 MR. BIHL: Yes, that's true, I -- well, I think 


-- aren't they also included at -- was it 


Mound? I guess I haven't read the Mound -- 


 DR. GLOVER: I'm certain that they're at Mound 

as well. 

 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and also Los Alamos. 


And so the intent is not to try to settle this 


specifically for Savannah River as much as just 


it's a generic issue and if we can sort of get 


an understanding of how you're approaching it 


and addressing it, that will help address this 


issue across the board. One thing we're 


finding in the site profiles, even though this 


is characterized -- there isn't a lot of 


details as far as the derivation of some of 


these assumptions, and certainly that would 


help. 


 MR. BIHL: I think one thing that is -- that is 


clear and understood is that to monitor for the 


tritides, the standard urinalysis method 


doesn't work real well and most sites didn't -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

186 

didn't -- in fact I think still don't use fecal 


sampling, which would be a preferred way to go, 


and so you definitely do -- if you have that 


source term in any significance, you do have to 


write that up as something that was 


unmonitored, and that's what I've tried to do 


here. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. We would agree with 


that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Don, is there some 


reason why you don't want to go and find out 


what tritides Savannah River worked with? 


 MR. BIHL: Well, again, I -- I don't think it's 


necessary for the dose reconstruction, and I 


honestly don't know how -- whether we would be 


bumping up against classification space. I 


certainly think -- anything that's classified, 


you've got to have a -- a right and a need to 


know, and in this case you don't -- you don't 


have any need to know because we just allow the 


DRs to choose the worst case, and so it isn't 


necessary to know. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess -- again, not going 


into that space -- it would be a distinction if 


one were handling tritium routinely, of which 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

187 

you would expect this to be a component or a 


possible -- you know, an artifact, an issue -- 


as opposed to actually dealing -- or processing 


tritides specifically. In other words, pure 


tritides. 


 MR. BIHL: Well, my understanding -- and I 


certainly don't want to pose myself as an 


expert here, but my understanding is that 


people don't really handle tritides. They 


happen because they're used either as a target 


for an accelerator, for instance -- you know, 


they -- they can be generated in a -- in an 


accelerator where you have a certain type of 


target that creates metal tritides and -- and 


then when you do target change-out there may be 


some loose particulates that have been knocked 


off the target that would be contamination. 


But it isn't -- you know, it comes about 


because of -- I mean the -- the reason for 


tritides is because it's a very stable way of 


holding hydrogen and you don't get a lot of 


contamination out and about because of 


particulate and you're not selling it or 


cutting it or rubbing it or doing anything like 


that. You're heating it, but -- so I think 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

188 

you've got to look at it from the perspective 


that there's going to be some contamination 


around the object that is the metal hydride 


itself, so when you're handling it, then you're 


at risk of these particulates. But it isn't -- 


they aren't going to be just generally all over 


the place. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, again, I think we had 


some operation concerns that have to be 


resolved on that particular point relative to 


Mound, for one, and Los Alamos as a secondary 


thing -- less so Savannah River. So we'll 


leave it at that because it does get a little 


sticky from a security standpoint. So if we 


can just leave that as a -- we'll carry this 


conversation in a generic sense. I know 


there's no OTIB or anything, but again, we'll 


have the same action for Los Alamos, the same 


action for Mound, and it would be very useful 


just to put this one to rest. I think we're 


getting closer. I think we just haven't had 


this conversation. This is the first time I 


think on tritides. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Don, can you -- can you just tell 


me -- this is Mark Griffon -- you mentioned 100 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

189 

percent HTO versus the 90/10 split and it 


didn't make much of a difference in terms of 


dose. What -- where did you get the 90/10 -- 


how did you come up with that sort of ratio? 


 MR. BIHL: Well, what the -- what the dose 


reconstructors are doing now is assuming 100 


percent HTO, so that was my baseline. That's 


what they're doing, and the question was if we 


factored in some OBT, would -- would it be 


enough to change the dose to -- to require this 


to be reckoned with. I mean it does slow down 


the dose reconstructor a lot. OBT is a whole 


different way of calculating tritium and -- and 


is much slower than normal methods and tools 


that are developed for -- for HTO. So the 


question is, was it worth it. The 90/10 split 


came because at the tritium processing 


facilities they've done the measurements and 


showed that OBT was about one percent at least 


of the effluents. I said well, maybe there's 


some operations inside the facility where it 


was ten times higher than that. That was an 


arbitrary thing. Frankly, I doubt if it's -- 


if there's that much difference between inside 


the building or the effluent, but I arbitrarily 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

190 

said let's make it ten percent. So that means 


inside the building it was -- I'm assuming 90 


percent HTO and ten percent OBT. 


Now what in -- what in fact inside the building 


really was was, you know, probably 50 percent 


HT -- you know, 45 percent HTO and five percent 


organic, you know, something like that, but I 


don't have the data. I -- you know, I can 


hypothesize that from logic, but I can't prove 


it 'cause I have no data. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro, a quick 


question. On the organically bound tritium, 


the dose conversion factor for organically 


bound is not that -- I guess that the clearance 


rate is just a little slower, a factor of two 


or three slower, and then as a result the dose 


per becquerel inhaled is just a -- two or 


three-fold higher, so I could see why, you 


know, it's just not going to be important. Is 


that also true for the tritides, the metal 


tritides? 


 MR. BIHL: Boy, you know, off the top of my 


head now, I -- I mean I've done the 


calculations, but I -- I can't answer that 


question off the top of my head. The tritides 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

191 

-- you know, you can have a type S tritide, so 


the dose to the lung would be -- I would -- you 


know, it would have to be quite a bit higher. 


DR. MAURO: So that -- so that rule of thumb 


doesn't -- doesn't necessarily apply to the 


tritides. In other words then -- well, even if 


you assume ten percent -- if you assume ten 


percent you -- you could have a significantly 


higher dose, you know, from the tritides. In 


other words, the -- the sieverts per becquerel 


inhaled for tritiated water is substantially 


lower -- let's say to the lung -- than it is 


through metal tritides by orders of magnitude. 


 MR. BIHL: You know, that's something I can 


look up, but I can't -- I can't pull it off the 


top of my head. 


DR. MAURO: I -- you know, I suspect we have 


talked about this before. Am I bringing 


something up that we already discussed? 


 MR. BIHL: No, not necessarily. I mean I 


didn't look at it from the point of view of -- 


of the dose conversion factor, per se. I just 


did the calculations based on the knowledge I 


had here, and calculated the intakes that 


should be applied to these workers as an 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

192 

unmonitored intake -- and the numbers came out 


fairly low, but -- but you know, not -- I mean 


we're -- we're going to include them. They're 


not that low. But as far as dose per unit 


intake comparison between HTO and the metal 


tritides, I don't have that off the top of my 


head. I'd have to go look that up. Clearly, 


though, for the lung, it's -- it's for a type S 


metal tritide, it would have to be quite a bit 


different than --


DR. MAURO: Yeah, because the --


 MR. BIHL: -- the HTO. 


DR. MAURO: -- the -- I guess the turnover 


rate, the effective half-life of tritium in the 


body is days, while the minimum of type S would 


be years and -- you know, it's a ten-year -- 


what is it, ten-year half-life? So I would 


imagine it would be quite a bit -- quite a bit 


difference. 


 MR. BIHL: Well, yeah, seven -- 700 days to -- 


to longer if it's a type S particle. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah. Yeah, that could be 


important. 


 MR. BIHL: Yes, I would agree. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And just to recap, it would be 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

193 

up to the dose reconstructor on a case by case 


to determine when to assign say a type S metal 


tritide-based value? 


 DR. GLOVER: No. 


 MR. BIHL: Well, they run both. They would run 


type M and they would run type S, and whichever 


one comes up with the higher dose to the organ, 


that's what they would apply. You know, if 


it's the lung, it would be clearly type S. If 


it's one of the systemic organs it might be 


type M, but without running it -- you know, 


actually making the calculation -- I don't want 


to sit here and --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. BIHL: -- try to guess. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And going back to Ka-- one of 


Kathy's original questions, if you don't really 


have the record -- 'cause again, they couldn't 


really monitor for it so it's all surmising 


what people may have been exposed to -- is it 


just based on the CATI interview? I mean I'm 


just trying to get some sense of how you would 


know to even assign a potential, you know, type 


M or type S metal tritide dose. We're finding 


from other sites that really it's kind of -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

194 

you can't even get a classification by categor­

- I'm sorry, by facility or operation. It's 


really worker by worker and whether or not they 


knew what they were handling. A lot of workers 


did not know that they were handling tritides, 


so it's a -- it's a, to me, a quagmire just to 


even know when to -- when to give credit for 


that potential exposure. 


 MR. BIHL: Well, in this case we know that the 


-- the -- the storage system that was the metal 


hydrides was in the tritium processing 


facility, so I -- and I don't know -- facility 


by facility, I didn't know so I just said if 


anybody's working in the 232-H, 233-H, et 


cetera, buildings, that we're going to assume 


they were exposed. And I calculated 


approximately how much that would be, based on 


surface contamination and resuspension and an 


assumption that 50 percent of the material was 


metal tritides, which I'm sure was -- was way 


high. I -- I'm sure that the metal tritides in 


the room was not anywhere near 50 percent of 


the total tritium, but I assumed it for the 


calculation and, you know, the doses come out a 


few millirem to ten millirem, so -- so there's 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

195 

no need to sharpen the pencil, I don't think. 


They're pretty small doses. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So it's a facility-specific 


judgment. 


 MR. BIHL: That was particular to these two 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. FITZGERALD: To Savannah River, yeah. 


 MR. BIHL: -- or 23X-H buildings, yes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All 


right. 


 MR. GIBSON: You know, a secondary issue -- 


this is Mike Gibson. A secondary issue to 


these exposures or potential exposures that I 


know it don't affect the dose of record, but 


some group needs to look into also what type of 


metal these partic-- particulates these may 


have been and what toxicity could affect the 


lungs and may -- you know, it -- again, it 


doesn't affect the dose reconstruction, but 


there could be toxicity in these metals -- 


particles in the lung. 


 MR. BIHL: Perhaps, although -- this is Don 


Bihl again. You know, I think you've got to 


remember that tritium's got a very high 


specific activity and so, you know, it doesn't 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

196 

take that many particles -- it -- it's kind of 


-- it's kind of doubtful that, in terms of 


grams of these particles, that there's, you 


know, anything even measurable if they weren't 


tagged by a radioactive material like tritium 


that has a high specific activity. 


DR. MAURO: If you were taking -- this is John 


Mauro. If you were taking an air sample 'cause 


you're concerned about tritium -- tritium gas 


or tritiated water -- and -- but in fact some 


of that stuff that was airborne was metal 


tritide, you -- there would be no way for you 


to know that, you would just detect it in 


liquid -- you -- after you pull your air sample 


and you -- do you catch it -- I'm not sure how 


they did it in the old days, would catch it on 


silica gel and then liquid assimilation 


detection, you would just look at that beta in 


the window and you would say well, I've got 


some tritium here but I -- you don't know if 


it's tritide or it's -- or if -- tritium -- 


tritiated water, I guess. And I guess if it's 


tritium gas, you may not pick it up at all. Is 


that right? I'm just trying to -- thinking 


about the practicality of -- of knowing whether 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

197 

you have this. And also is -- a tritide is not 


-- it doesn't -- it's not gaseous. Right? 


That's a -- that's a particle that's going to 


stay down, unlike tritiated -- I guess -- I'm ­

- I'm picturing if you -- you're handling 


gaseous tritium, not tritiated water, it'll 


convert to tritiated water pretty rapidly I 


guess in the air, oxidize, but -- and therefore 


you've got yourself airborne tritiated water 


vapor. But tritides don't do that, I assume. 


They -- they're going to more or less stay 


pretty much down, so when you -- when you 


modeled it, you -- you based it on surface 


contamination -- I'm just trying to get a 


picture of the scenario. 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl again. I used what 


I thought was a very claimant-favorable 


resuspension factor of ten to the fourth -- 


DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. 


 MR. BIHL: -- so you know, again, I kind of 


went ov-- went overboard to give them -- give 


these workers a heck of a lot of metal tritide, 


and the doses still come out to be millirem up 


to ten -- ten millirem or so a year. 


DR. MAURO: How'd you get the surface 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

198 

contamination to start with? 


 MR. BIHL: There was a limit for the facility 


they -- they controlled to a surface 


contamination limit of a million dpm per 100 


square centimeters for tritium in the 


facilities. 


DR. MAURO: Ah, okay, very good. Okay, I got 


it. And the resuspension factor you applied, 


I'm sorry? 


 MR. BIHL: Ten to the fourth. 


 DR. GLOVER: Minus fourth. 


DR. MAURO: Ten to the minus fourth? 


 MR. BIHL: Yeah, ten to the --


DR. MAURO: Minus fourth per meter, okay, 


that's a high one. 


 MR. BIHL: Yeah. I purposely picked one where 


they're disturbing it pretty -- pretty heavily. 


They're working it pretty hard and kicking it 


up. 


DR. MAURO: Right, you didn't do ten to the 


minus nine. 


 MR. BIHL: No, I didn't. Now you know, if 


they'd come up with rem doses to lung, then I 


might have kind of sharpened the pencil. But 


because the doses were low, I felt that I could 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

199 

get away with ten to the fourth and -- and not 


worry about it. 


DR. MAURO: And you assumed half of that was 


tritide. 


 MR. BIHL: One -- 50 percent, that's correct. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, I got it. That -- Joe --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: -- that sure sounds pretty -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we --


DR. MAURO: -- bounding to me. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: As I was saying earlier, we 


had less of an issue with the -- with the 


bounding analysis than we did with the question 


of what did we know was there and how did we 


know it and how do you actually come up with 


the -- the source terms for this. Just based 


on our interviews and looking at data, other 


sites, it was very difficult to establish the 


source term. But once you have the source 


term, I think we agree that what Don has done 


is a very conservative modeling approach to 


coming up with the estimate. So we don't have 


really an issue with that part of it, but we're 


still struggling with this first part and -- 


now I think for Savannah River, assuming that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

200 

the -- these facilities are pretty well 


demarcated and this is it for tritium handling 


of this sort and the presence of tritides, I 


think we're -- we're pretty satisfied. We 


still have a generic question of how you handle 


that at the various sites, though, so -- but I 


think as a going-in proposition, this -- this 


approach seems to be a pretty reasoned approach 


and claimant-favorable approach. So... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the only outstanding 


question for me in that regard would be the -- 


still the who. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think you know the -- the 


facilities and -- but -- but I'm not sure how 


people worked at this site. You know, whether 


they were in and out of those buildings, 


whether it's going to be easily definable in a 


-- in a claimant's case. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Let me give you -- give you an 


example of that --


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, that they were in that 


building or not in that building for any 


extended period of time. I mean I don't know 


how the job ti-- you know -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

201

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if it's that obvious or not. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We -- we interviewed a worker 


at one of the other sites -- not Savannah River 


-- and just inadvertently found somebody who 


handled metal tritides as a key part of his 


activity. And I -- I guess I was taken by 


surprise. I thought it was more or less a by-


product, but that was mainly what he did in 


glovebox environment. And when they changed 


out the gloveboxes, took material out of the 


gloveboxes, they did have releases. So you 


know, my -- my question is well, you know, how 


much, who else was doing this, how would you 


know -- there was no monitoring -- and, you 


know, I think if you establish that, then you 


can actually apply this model and I'm quite 


satisfied it's claimant favorable. But to get 


to that point I find a lot of difficulty when 


you don't (unintelligible) -- 


DR. MAURO: Joe, what you -- this is John Mauro 


again. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: What you just described is a 


scenario that's different than the one that was 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

202 

modeled. In other words, what you're saying is 


okay, there -- there are multiple pathways by 


which a person might be exposed to these 


tritides. One -- the one that was modeled is ­

- is that there is this widespread 


contamination on surfaces that are maintained 


within the regulatory limit and therefore that 


would be bounding to that scenario. 


What you just described is that there might 


have been a transient in a glovebox that where 


-- that's a whole different scenario where the 


exposures could have been substantially 


different than the one that was modeled. Is --


is that a scenario that is -- is that what 


we're referring to -- there's another scenario 


that certainly you -- could result in 


substantial exposures and -- and they -- and 


that theoretically may not be readily picked up 


in your bioassay program if it's a tritide 


'cause that's -- would be locked up in the 


lungs, more or less. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, perhaps, and -- and the 


other issue, though, is in the facility in 


question you did have tritium operations, so it 


gets real complicated. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

203 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, (unintelligible) --


 MR. FITZGERALD: The individual may have been 


exposed preferentially to tritides, but you had 


a general background of tritium contamination 


so, you know, it's not clear you would even 


know. And I -- I think -- this may not be an 


issue for this particular case. It sounds like 


the model fits the exposure scenario and it's a 


pretty good clarity about which facilities are 


involved. But I think generically that's not 


the case at other -- other facilities. Now I 


don't know where you go with this. It's just a 


hard issue. 


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


 DR. WADE: Yes, Brad? 


 MR. CLAWSON: I have to -- I apologize, but 


I've got some prior commitments. I have some 


transfers I have to make and I need to excuse 


myself at this time. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I just wanted to let you know. 


Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you for your time. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So if we can leave this issue, 


I just suggest that this has been very helpful 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

204 

and I think we're reassured on Savannah River, 


though I think this needs to be clarified more 


in the TBD than it is now. I think a lot of 


this is not as clear as it could be. But we 


still are left with I think a general issue 


that we're going to have to revisit for Mound 


and Los Alamos, and maybe it's more of a source 


term question. How do you characterize who's 


exposed and where they're exposed when a lot of 


times even the workers weren't allowed to know 


they were dealing with this stuff because of 


security issues. So you really have a dilemma 


on that. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Hey, Don, why did you 


exclude the tritium facility in 200-F? It was 


operated very early on. 


 MR. BIHL: That may have been ignorance on my 


part. I'd better look into that. What -- what 


facility was that again? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm going to have to 


give you the exact number here in a 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. BIHL: Again, if it operated really early 


on and shut down, then they -- they hadn't 


developed these metal hydride systems for 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

205 

retaining the -- the hydrogen (unintelligible). 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That would be -- I 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. BIHL: No, that was something that they -- 


they were proud of that they developed and 


implemented there in the mid-'70s. They were 


kind of bragging about having gone over to 


this. But if there's a facility out there that 


handled tritium but it al-- it shut down before 


the mid-'70s, then it wouldn't be an issue. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it -- it shut down 


well before the mid-'70s, I believe in 1956. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So they probably didn't have a 


tritide issue --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Sounds like it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- on the site. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Did you consider the 


formation of tritides from the presence of a 


lot of tritium in the reactors? 


 MR. BIHL: Well, my understanding -- and if Tom 


Labone is still on the call, he can speak to 


that as well -- but my understanding was at 


these heavy water reactors the HTO produced 


just swamps virtually everything there's so 


much produced. What little -- I mean I don't 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

206 

know how you -- how tritides would be made in a 


reactor, but it certainly couldn't have been 


significant in terms of quantity or dose, that 


I could see. 


Tom, do you want to speak to that? 


 MR. LABONE: I think that's pretty -- you know 


as much as I know about it. The -- you know, 


the -- the special thing about the tritium 


faci-- the handling facilities was the fact 


that they were intentionally making it by -- by 


using it to store the tritium gas, whereas -- I 


mean I'm -- I'm sure there's -- there's 


something around a heavy water reactor, but I 


mean the -- just the tritium water from the -- 


from the moderator and coolant itself is -- is 


going to, you know, predominate just 


everything, even the fission products that 


might be around. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson again. What 


about the issue of naturally-occurring tritides 


just due to tritium settling into rust, as 


metal rusts, and then the workers go in and do 


D&D work and cut this stuff apart? 


 MR. LABONE: Don, I -- do you want to answer 


that or... 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

207

 MR. BIHL: No, I don't want to answer that, do 


you? 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, well, the -- my -- my 


feeling about it is it has to do -- 


theoretically, yes, it can happen. But it's a 


matter of specific activity of the material. 


If you -- here -- here again, on the one hand 


you have something being intentionally produced 


by a lot of tritium gas versus something that 


was incidentally produced by some tritium that 


may have been present in some form. So it's 


just a matter of, you know, what is the 


specific activity of the material that you have 


there. And that was a -- something that was 


chased around quite a bit, the rust and dust 


tritides, when we wrote the -- the good 


practice manual for -- for DOE on that. And I 


mean theoretically it could be there, it's just 


I -- you know, I -- I do not think it's a -- 


you know, as much of a hazard as when, you 


know, you're intentionally making it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Tom, was there any conclusion in 


the DOE good practices manual with -- with that 


regard? 


 MR. LABONE: I don't recall 'cause -- you know, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

208 

we -- we wrote that thing and then it 


disappeared for a couple of years and then it 


came out all of a sudden. I don't recall it --


there's really not a whole lot you can -- you 


can do about it as far as, you know, trying to 


track it down. I mean you can do -- you can do 


-- take a smear survey and you can analyze it 


and -- but then you have to figure out what -- 


you know, do I -- am I looking at tritiated 


water on this swipe or is it a particulate, and 


so there -- you have to bake off the water and 


-- and then analyze it again, and I really 


don't know of anybody who -- who was doing 


that. To answer your question directly, I 


don't recall if -- if any conclusions were put 


in there on the rust and dust issue. I would 


have to go back and look. Exc-- except if you 


do -- if you do the math on this stuff, there 


has to be a lot of it around. I think -- I 


think I did a calculation for the back of that 


good practice manual and -- and again, this is 


from an operational perspective, not -- not a 


dose reconstruction, but I mean you had to have 


many, many curies of loose contamination around 


in order to produce doses of interest -- for -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

209 

for an operational program, again. I'm not 


saying that it's not worthwhile looking into 


for the reconstruction process, but you have to 


have a lot of it there. It's not a slight 

contamination issue. 

COMMENT NINE: HIGH FIVE

 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Can we move on to 

comment number nine? This is another facet to 


the high five issues that we raised in the 


report, and this one really gets to whether the 


-- the largest intakes were included in the 


database upon which the high five was derived, 


and I think we have some specific examples of 


where it appears there were a number that were 


not. That's -- that's the essence of the 


issue. And I think those examples are provided 


in the -- in the SC&A response. 


 DR. GLOVER: We actually looked up some of the 


-- there were -- anyway, that's probably -- I 


think we've discussed what the purpose of the 


high five is and... I know we -- we actually 


did look up some of the intakes and -- and 


compared -- these are actually the intakes that 


were confirmed by the site, is how that was 


actually put together, so -- where was that, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

210 

I'm just trying to -- yeah, Liz Brackett looked 


into this. Let's see -- (unintelligible) 


investigated the high results and noted that 


airborne levels at the time were low or they're 


not just false positives -- anyway, I think -- 


do we really -- is this a cl-- is this 


something we really need to actively -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no, it's clarified -- one 


thing, we're getting into I think some of the 


secondary issues, ones of clarification, 


factual accuracy as -- I think this is in that 


context of --


 DR. GLOVER: All right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- we're trying to understand 


better whether or not -- how complete this 


database was and whether you verified or 


validated -- it sounds like you've done that 


since. 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, we've done some additional 


research, and again, these are confirmed 


intakes by the site, and so there may be 


incidental -- you know, air -- -- some 


information in there or in -- like in this case 


they actually went back and looked at the air 


monitoring data. They do not seem to support ­
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

211 

- but they didn't say it was a false positive, 


but they -- it didn't seem to support a -- but 


Liz Brackett I know went back and looked at the 


Tab 67 dose reconstruction. And so I think 


you've got some additional numbers in here that 


-- that perhaps weren't... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do we have access to this 


database with the confirmed inta-- I -- I've 


heard that before, the confirmed intakes from 


the site. Is that on the O drive or this 


database that you're referencing, or -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Does anybody -- does anybody know? 


ORAU te-- Tom -- or Don Bihl, maybe, or Tom 


LaBone? 


 MR. LABONE: The list from the registry, is 


that what you're asking for? 


 DR. GLOVER: This is a -- is it a registry or 


the confirmed -- let's say a confirmed -- 


 MR. LABONE: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. GLOVER: Oh, okay. 

 MR. LABONE: It's not -- it's not your 

registry, you know, it's not the -- the 


Transuranic Registry. 


 DR. GLOVER: Right. 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah. Is that what you're asking, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

212 

a list of the people who had -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: Confirmed intakes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, just the whole -- the whole 


database, whatever it contains, I guess the 


listing and the information on the exposures. 


 MR. LABONE: When I was at Savannah River we 


sent that to -- to NIOSH. Now I don't know 


where it resides at. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sent it in electronic form or -- 


 MR. LABONE: It's in -- it's in electronic 


form. 


 MR. SIEBERT: Yeah, Liz would know specifically 


where that was. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I would just ask if you can make 


sure that's posted on the O drive somewhere, 


that would be helpful, so we -- if you have it 


in electronic form, it must be on the server 


somewhere, so --


 DR. GLOVER: We'll let you know where the 


location is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- maybe you could just point it 


out, where it is or what -- yeah. And then --


I guess you -- you indicated what confirmed 


intakes mean now. I -- I guess prior to this 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 -- 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

213 

meeting I was trying to understand that. 
I 


think now it's a little clearer that all the 


urinalysis data was hard copy. Ri-- 'cause I 


was trying to understand why -- why this type 


of model, and I -- now it's a little more clear 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that you don't have -- 


database for all the data. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But the confirmed database is 


that collection of -- of paper-based or 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- based, I mean -- and you 


might have other information, but that's not 


the official --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So I would assume you will 


find these exceptions coming from other sources 


if in fact the official database is this 


registry then. There sure certainly would be 


other information here, there and everywhere, 


but it's not official, so to speak. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

214

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: There are I think two 


sources that these came from, one of which is 


the Fault-Tree Database. But the other one is 


the three-by-five cards that dosimetry 


maintains, and it might be helpful for you if I 


faxed you one of them -- 


 DR. GLOVER: That's fine. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- with -- with an 


example of an intake. And my concern is those 


that are not covered at all in the high five. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay, we can look at them. A lot 


of times incident records -- when you have 


something, you make an initial estimate and 


they're often followed up and refined, but I'd 


-- so I'll have to see what you've got. That 


may be easier. Again, for the purposes of 


creating the high five, it has a very specific 


purpose and so -- not to get light in trying to 


-- what -- refine too greatly what we mean by 


the high five. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I -- can I ask, when -- when 


did that registry -- was that in place 


throughout the history of the site or did it 


start in a certain year? When was that 


initially... 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

215

 DR. GLOVER: Tom, do you have any idea of when 


that was created? 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, I don't know if you knew 


Roscoe Hall, or did you -- did you know him? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I've heard the name. 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, he -- I guess he took over 


the internal dosimetry program in the early 


'60s there and -- and the registry -- when I -- 


when I got there in '86, what -- what it was 


was he -- he had books where he basically wrote 


down every incident that he was interested in. 


He said this -- you know, this incident -- this 


took place, this was the dose, and then when we 


switched over to the ICRP-30 models, we used 


that -- his -- his books basically, his notes, 


to -- to say these are all the intakes that we 


had and we went back and re-evaluated them in 


terms of -- at that -- at that time the new 


ICRP-30 models. And so that's how that whole 


database was constructed was from his notes he 


had kept since the early '60s. And prior to 


him was Marshall Sanders, who was there and I 


have no idea whether -- what kind of turnover 


was between the two of them, but you know, 


there were significant intakes in his list that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

216 

were there before he was, and so -- but -- but 


anyway, that's why -- and so, you know, if you 


say you have found one that you think is -- is 


larger than -- than another one that's in that 


list, then for some reason, you know, he -- he 


may not have -- have thought so at the time and 


did not put it in there or whatever. But 


that's the origins of that list. It was 


basically the tribal knowledge of all the 


interesting or significant events that happened 


while we were there. And in the -- the mid­

'80s we kind of formalized it into say anybody 


who we think got over ten millirem committed 


(unintelligible) dose equivalent in the new 


system would go into that list. And so it was 


-- it wasn't so much of a judgment call. It 


was more of a formal -- you know, a dose 


number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess what struck me, and I'm 


taxing my own memory here, but if I remember 


the high five correctly, a lot of the intakes 


were in later years. That's what surprised me. 


I thought a lot of the highest intakes would 


have been in the really early years, and I -- 


again, I'm going by memory from when I read 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

217 

this site profile probably two and a half years 


ago. 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, I -- I think if -- if you 


look at it, a lot of the -- the -- lot of the 


fission products may have been in later years, 


because early on they would have looked at 


those and said, you know, compared to the 


plutonium intake we just had, this really isn't 


much. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I doubt I was looking at 


fission products very much. 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, well, at the -- most of the 


big plutonium intakes occurred in the '70s when 


we had, you know, the 238 campaigns and the -- 


and in the '60s from the weapons grade 


material. I think that they were -- they're 


pretty much uniformly -- they -- everything 


just pretty much dropped off in the '90s. I 


mean they were really -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that makes sense. 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, that -- they were -- I don't 


know if there are any on the high five from 


that time period, but -- we'd have to look at 


it to see are there any patterns, but fission 


products, I wouldn't be surprised if they -- if 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

218 

they didn't have a lot of early ones on there. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Just a -- a 


ques-- a question of clarification for me. 
I 


understand that these are the average of the 


highest five for each radionuclide over the 


history that this program was maintained. But 


how many radionuclides are we talking about -- 


would that -- that you've averaged over the 


highest five of those? 


 MR. LABONE: I'm trying to remember -- you 


know, I wasn't involved with the development of 


this, but it was -- you know, plutonium-238, 


239, 240, americium, neptunium, uranium-234 


took care of all the uranium -- 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 MR. LABONE: -- and then we had some various 


fission products like cesium, then strontium -- 


I'm -- I'm guessing probably eight or nine -- 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. LABONE: -- radionuclides. 


DR. MAURO: All right. And the -- the -- the 


other thing that might be interesting is the 


spread between -- for any given radionuclide, 


the highest and the lowest. For example, for 


example if they spread -- if the -- if the high 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

219 

five covered three orders of magnitude and took 


the average, you could see that that would be 


an interesting average. 


 MR. SIEBERT: Well, all -- all the information 


on the Savannah River high five are in OTIB-1 ­

-


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. SIEBERT: -- page 4, Table 1. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, my apologies. I had not 


looked at that. But it's good to know it's 


there. I'll take a look. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, and -- and -- just -- I 


think we can end -- you know, I don't know 


whether we can go anywhere with this, but if 


you can just make sure that database is 


somewhere where we can -- 


 MR. LABONE: Yeah, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it's been nice --


 MR. LABONE: -- (unintelligible) looking for it 


on the O drive for you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's been nice when we've had -- 


in the last workgroups we've put everything 


under that AB review section, you can make a 


new folder for Savannah there. 


 DR. GLOVER: My only concern about doing that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

220 

is getting duplicated things that they find -- 


they think's had a -- are not getting updated 


when you make too many copies, but depending on 


the location, I'll see what -- what makes -- 


whatever work-- whatever works, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: As long as we know where it is, 


yeah. 


 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. 


 MR. BIHL: This is Don Bihl. While we're on 


the issue of high five and we have Scott 


Siebert, we should probably go back to some of 


the questions we had earlier. I -- I don't 


remember them all myself, but they're probably 


in the notes. I think one of them was exactly 


under what circumstances were -- was the high 


five technique used, and how do you account for 


unmonitored dose to workers when the high five 


can't be used. There may have been some other 


questions, but we should probably have Scott 


answer those while -- while we've got him here. 


COMMENT TEN:


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that -- that even goes 


into number ten, Don, where the NIOSH response 


-- I had a question on that first line, but 


that -- yeah, I guess Scott, if you're on 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

221 

there, maybe you can answer that question that 


Don just raised. 


 MR. SIEBERT: Generally speaking, I'm -- I 


wasn't over the group that was doing the cases 


where we'd use the high five most recently. 


was doing the more complicated stuff. But 


generally speaking, what I remember is if we 


could throw the high five on it, whether they 


were monitored or unmonitored, we would try it 


first if it was going to look like a non-comp 


case. And then any positive bioassay that may 


be in the claim would be assessed separately 


and then thrown on top of that as well, just 


from a simplification, overestimating point of 


view. 


DR. NETON: Scott, this is Jim Neton, I'm -- 


I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly what 


you're saying, or if I did I might not agree 


with that. I -- I think what happened was if 


there were bioassay results, the high five was 


allowed to be used as long as the projected 


bioassay results from the high five bounded the 


actual monitored results. 


 MR. SIEBERT: That's correct, but if we also 


had additional monitoring -- additional 


I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

222 

positive bioassays that were above that, we 


could also assess those separately and throw 


that additional dose on top of the high five. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and let me ask Scott, in 


the response to number ten in the document 


we're working from here, NIOSH response says 


this approach is used as an overestimate for 


people who were not monitored. And -- and you 


know, I -- I guess just to be clear here, you 


know, we were discussing it earlier and -- and 


it -- it was unclear to me whether it was -- 


you know, how do you determine people who were 


not monitored and shouldn't have been monitored 


or people who were not monitored and just kind 


of missed in the -- you know, in the scheme at 


the time. For example, you know, 


administrative people, it would seem if they 


didn't have monitoring records and they were in 


certain buildings then they, you know, didn't 


have monitoring records for a good reason, 


'cause they didn't need to be monitored. But 


there could be other people who had no 


monitoring records but, based on their job 


description or areas, you know, should have 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

223 

been monitored. 


 DR. GLOVER: Scott, I don't -- hey, Scott, I 


don't know if you have the benefit of the 


matrix in front of you. 


 MR. SIEBERT: Yeah, I just got it. 


 DR. GLOVER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I'm sorry. 


 DR. GLOVER: That's okay, he has -- 'cause he 


wasn't provided as part of -- part of this 


comes up as the tank farm worker issues we've 


been discussing and were they appropriately 


monitored, and if you apply the high five 


approach for that worker type in an unmonitored 


situation, have you properly bounded it. So 


unfort-- you're going back several matrix 


issues later and I know you haven't had a 


chance to look at -- review it, but -- so if -- 


perhaps -- what I'd like to do is maybe -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think --


 DR. GLOVER: -- Scott will be part of our 


oncoming -- and we're going to address all this 


in detail, Scott or somebody from Task V, so 


they'll be part of the next phone calls so as ­

- so we will make sure that these get answered 


appropriately. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

224

 MR. GRIFFON: So maybe if you -- just for 


clarification, Scott, it doesn't have to be 


now, but in the next meeting or whatever, you 


know, how you -- how you determine that if -- 


if... 


 MR. SIEBERT: Right, most -- generally most of 


the main things we'd be looking at is locations 


and external dosimetry records if they exist 


for the individual, and obviously the CATI. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And external dosimetry records, 


explain that to me. What would that --


 MR. SIEBERT: Well, it would be --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that would be indicative of 


somebody who was likely to be exposed? Is that 


what you're saying or... 


 MR. SIEBERT: Whether they were actually 


monitored or unmonitored from an external point 


of view itself. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. GLOVER: One thing that came up earlier, 


Scott, you -- the -- if I remember correctly, 


the SRS external monitoring is pretty detailed 


on where these people worked. Is that correct? 


Is --


 MR. SIEBERT: Somewhat. However, most of the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

225 

codes that they used are not going to be 


decipherable as to area. Much of the 


determination as to where people were actually 


came from incident reports and internal 


dosimetry records. 


 DR. GLOVER: Oh, that's right. 


 MR. SIEBERT: But you're right, there were 


codes for external, but we've -- they weren't 


necessarily consistently used. 


 DR. GLOVER: It was the internal part that had 


the pretty detailed part of that. 


 MR. SIEBERT: Correct. 


COMMENT ELEVEN:


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think -- well, beyond that, 


the thrust of this comment actually has been 


pretty well addressed by the -- you know, the 


modification of IMBA. I think we were 


concerned about the -- the -- beyond just some 


questions on the technical nature which have 


been answered by high five, the use of the 


surrogate -- surrogate radionuclides, and that 


was addressed in the revision. So this one and 


number 11, I think both, are kind of resolved ­

-


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yeah. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

226

 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you'll be glad to hear, by 


the -- that change. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, that --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- different ICRP. Right? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, right. Just -- just 


the fact that -- the models used and the use of 


the surrogate I think were two hiccups that we 


had on those two, so those are both a leap 


forward on the matrix. I think both of them 


are addressed by that issue -- by that 


resolution, so 11 -- ten and 11. Right? Yeah, 


ten and 11. We can move on to 12. 


THE COURT REPORTER: Well, how did we do 11? 


 DR. GLOVER: It was sort of -- the response was 


acceptable. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We can start over if you want. 


We're getting ahead of the court reporter. 


Okay, that was ten and that was 11. 


THE COURT REPORTER: And 11, okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: These really go fast now. 


This is the tail end of the observations. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


always go fast, yeah. 


COMMENT TWELVE: ORO-NASAL BREATHING
 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

227

 MR. FITZGERALD: Number 12, actual-- I wish -- 


I wish Arjun was on the phone for the -- for 


the oro-nasal breathing issue, but I'll be the 


first to say that we have spent endless time 


debating the oro-nasal breathing issue -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and don't even want to talk 


any more about it. 


DR. NETON: Well --


 MR. FITZGERALD: It's a -- it's a generic issue 


being addressed --


DR. NETON: -- I was going to suggest that that 


issue is being evaluated as a complex-wide 


issue and we were hoping to get a draft report 


in our hands from our EG&G contractor folks by 


the end of this month sometime, at least a 


preliminary status, so... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's our understanding as 


well. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was my only question was 


what was the status on the generic -- yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So we understand it's a 


generic issue, so we'll leave it at that and 


defer that particular point to -- to that one. 


COMMENT THIRTEEN: REPORTING INCIDENCES
 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

228 

So that brings us to 13. 


This gets back to reporting incidences. 
I 


don't know, Kathy, you want to elaborate on 


that one? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This is the issue -- I think 


we've almost raised it at -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: At the (unintelligible) 


tank farm. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- most of the site reviews, 


yeah. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We've also raised it 


under the tank farms issue earlier. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm not sure how to take this 


because it's really getting down to how we 


treat incident -- incident reporting in the 


site profiles, and I think we've had this 


debate before and this was probably one of the 


earliest times we've raised this in a site 


profile review. So with that preface, I'm -- 


I'm pretty familiar with how we have debated 


that. I'm not sure what the resolution is, 


though. And maybe the resolution is the data 


bank is going to be the biggest source of that 


kind of information for the tank farms where I 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

229 

think our biggest issue is at Savannah River. 


 DR. GLOVER: I think the tank farm question is 


where this has to -- you know, us showing that 


the calculations are claimant favorable or best 


estimates in those -- for those analyses. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Have you all looked at ­

-


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I -- I just -- just for 


clarification, keep in mind that these data -- 


this database encompasses tank farms and 


probably the F and H areas, as well. 


 MR. GIBSON: Could the speaker please identify 


himself? 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Oh, Bob Alvarez, I'm sorry. The 


database that we examined encompasses -- 


encompassed the tank farm, burial grounds and F 


and H facilities. 


 DR. GLOVER: I was being generic in the 


terminology. You're right. I mean the 


calculations that we're performing are 


bounding, I guess, at SRS, so it goes back to 


that discussion we were having. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Have you all looked into 


getting the special hazards investigations, 


which are actually more general health physics 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

230 

incident reports? They don't always have names 


in them, but they do sometimes have names in 


them. 


 DR. GLOVER: I don't have anybody from Task III 


so I don't know. 


 MR. BIHL: Yeah, this is Don Bihl. We do have 


those now. We just got them. Kathy's right, 


they don't have names in them -- at least the 


ones I've looked at -- so we're not able to 


associate the incident with any particular 


people. I'm not sure what we're -- what we 


would do with those, Kathy. Are -- is there 


something you're expecting that we would do 


with those? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I thought some of them 


had names in them. 


 MR. BIHL: Maybe you're right. I have not 


looked at every single one yet. 


DR. NETON: This is -- this is Jim Neton. This 


is an issue that's been -- been surfacing. It 


surfaced a while ago and keeps reoccurring, 


that the site profiles do not include all 


incidents. And -- and we said from the very 


beginning that they were never intended to 


include all possible incidents. And in fact, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

231 

if we look at the way we've been doing dose 


reconstructions, we've designed a process that 


is essentially -- attempts to be incident-


independent. That is, you take the worker's 


monitoring data, if monitored, and assess a 


dose that bounds any potential incidents that 


would have occurred in between those samples. 


Now if you have an unmonitored worker, you have 


to make a value judgment was he or was he not 


potentially exposed. If he was, then you pick 


something, like a coworker or some available 


data that you have that will assure the dose 


reconstructor at least that he has bounded 


those potential incidents as well with the 


available monitoring data. It's just not 


reasonable to me to -- to assume or to think 


that we could possibly find all incidents and 


get this project done in -- in the time frame 


that we're trying to do it. I think the 


approach we have adopted is -- is reasonable 


and reasonably bounding and is a fairly 


efficient way of moving these claims, and in 


fact is fairly claimant favorable. I just feel 


that -- you know, this -- this comes up time 


and time again, and I'm somewhat frustrated by 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

232 

that, that you know, we don't have all the 


incidents. Well, we'll never have all the 


incidents. It's just not possible to do that. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think we -- I prefaced 


my remarks by saying this is a -- first time 


this issue is raised, but we've had a lot of 


history of discussing this and -- and I think, 


again, if one can look at the data bank as the 


source of additional information for the tank 


farms where I think there's more concern there 


about the contribution, I -- I think we'd be 


satisfied with that. 


DR. NETON: Right, I -- I agree with -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I understand the broader 


question. This was (unintelligible). 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I don't want to sound 


defensive or -- or nasty here, but I just -- 


this has been coming up in a number of other 


fronts, and -- and I do agree that if the 


source term is not understood very well, such 


as at the tank farm, I totally agree that that 


is a separate issue. But where we have what we 


believe to be adequate monitoring -- you know, 


bioassay data -- then I think -- I think we -- 


we've made a fairly good argument that -- that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

233 

we don't need access to all these incident 


reports. Not that we shouldn't look at them, 


if we have them, and review them. But the fact 


that we don't have the complete compendium of 


them shouldn't prevent us from moving forward 


dose reconstructions. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we would concur with 


that. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. LOCKEY: This Jim Lockey. Can I ask a 


question about that? Could -- since -- since 


you have an incident data bank at Savannah 


River, which I take it is not what you have at 


other facilities -- is that correct? 


DR. NETON: Are you talking about the dose -- 


what did Tom refer to it as, the -- 


 DR. GLOVER: Registry. 


DR. NETON: -- registry or whatever? Yeah, 


that -- that's -- well, that's somewhat unique 


in the sense we have that. But we also, as 


Mark pointed out, we don't have a computerized 


database of the bioassay records, either, at 


Los Alam-- at Savannah River, but -- but it is 


unique. 


 DR. LOCKEY: What I wa-- since that's unique, 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

234 

what I was wondering is -- I'm just throwing 


this out -- could that be used as a test to 


verify that the technique that you're using at 


other facilities in relationship to incidents 


is a valid technique? Could you -- could you 


go back to Savannah River and reconstruct as if 


you don't have an incident database and then 


test it against the database to see if in fact 


(unintelligible) --


DR. NETON: I think there's some work that we 


could do there, and -- that's a good suggestion 


and it's one -- one way to get at this. I 


think another way is to do some sort of 


sampling of the actual data itself, pull some 


cards and -- and look at these records. We've 


done -- done this, for example, in the 


construction worker area. We've actually 


polled bioassay records -- and I've forgotten 


how many now, but you know, hundreds of 


bioassay records for construction workers and 


hundreds of records for the -- the -- all 


monitored workers and compared them and were 


able to make some inferences about the -- we 


think the levels of exposures that -- that may 


have occurred and the differences between those 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

235 

two populations. So I think with some 


selective polling of the data -- in fact, we 


have computerized, I think, all of the data for 


the claimants in this program. So you know, we 


have -- I forget the number now, but there must 


be somewhere around 1,200 or more Savannah 


River cases where we've asked for and received 


bioassay data that have already been entered. 


It seems to me that there's something we could 


do with that, as well. I'm not exactly sure 


how to go about it best yet, but -- but there 


is some -- some more fine-tuning I think that 


needs to be done. 


 DR. LOCKEY: If you had a way of verifying that 


your technique is in fact valid based on the 


incident database, that could put this issue to 


rest, couldn't it? 


DR. NETON: Well, although what you've heard 


here is some -- some uncomfortableness with the 


completeness of that incident database, it is 


essentially a -- a convenience database that 


was maintained by dosimetrists for their use 


and has not really ever been purported to be 


the complete compendia of -- compendium of all 


incidents, so we have to be careful there. But 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

236 

I think there's something that could be made 


out of it and I -- I just -- I get 


uncomfortable when people say we have to have 


all the incident reports, I guess. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was out -- out of the room, but 


I just -- from being at so many of these 


workgroup meetings, I think I know what Jim -- 


DR. NETON: You probably could have finished my 


little speech, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- was speaking of -- yeah, yeah. 


We have been around the block with the incident 


issue. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But the -- the only thing that -- 


that -- and this is coming a little more clear 


to me at this meeting, I -- I don't think I 


would have disputed this earlier, but now I 


question -- you -- you said that you have good 


bioassay data for Savannah River, and I'm not 


sure I understand the basis of that statement 


now because you don't have a databa-- in the 


past you've always reviewed databases and said, 


you know, we sampled -- you know, it was clear 


that the program was sampling this percentage 


of people for these time periods, they were 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

237 

monitoring for different radionuclides. We 


don't have the --


DR. NETON: No, what I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we don't have the benefit of 


being able to analyze that here, do we, because 


you don't have --


DR. NETON: If I said we had good bioassay 


records, I didn't -- I didn't mean a good 


bioassay database. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, you didn't say 


database, but you said you -- 


DR. NETON: What I -- what I meant was we do 


receive bioassay results for a large perc-- 


large number of these workers. I don't know 


the percentage off the top of my head, but if 


we have bioassay records for a worker, and even 


if he was sparsely monitored -- for example, 


annually -- one can take that plutonium result 


or that uranium result and put a upper bound 


that would bracket any potential incident that 


he may have been involved with because his -- 


his bioassay record speaks to his past 


exposures. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I guess that's -- 


DR. NETON: And that's what we intend to use. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

238 

I mean so to -- to say that this worker who was 


monitored, we don't have all the incident data 


for him, we say well, it's probably not 


necessary to have that. It'd be good to have, 


but not necessary. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but I guess that's my 


question, is -- for the -- and I guess most 


important for the claimant, some of the same 


questioning we've asked on other sites, you 


know, what percentage of claimants have you 


found have bioassay records, at least enough to 


bound like you're saying? 


DR. NETON: Right, I think -- I think the 


question that's emerging -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) close to 100 


percent on -- on that or... 


DR. NETON: Oh, I don't know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You don't -- yeah. 


DR. NETON: But -- but the question really is, 


if you -- if you have monitored workers, I 


think -- I hope we're in agreement that we can 


move those forward and incidents may appear not 


to be relevant necessarily, or useful. Now you 


have the high five approach that is applied to 


people who were not monitored, did not appear 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

239 

to have to be monitored, and I hope that we can 


convince people that those are bounding 


estimates for that group of workers. What's 


left in the middle here is the unmonitored 


workers who probably -- who should have been 


monitored, in our judgment, and we have a hole 


there. And honestly, from this discussion it's 


not clear in my mind exactly how we're handling 


those, and we need to come to the table with 


that approach and --


 MR. GRIFFON: We're on the same page. 


DR. NETON: -- we'll do that. So I -- I don't 


disagree that we have some holes here, but I 


guess I got off on my little soap box about the 


incidents and got carried away. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I just want to remind 


everybody, this was a year-and-a-half-old 


issue. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that's why I get frustrated. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And in the context of today's 


discussion, we're perfectly happy to see the 


tank farm registry data actually be accessed 


and that's as far as we'd see it. So again, I 


think we go backwards in time on some of these 


issues. We're going backwards on our 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

240 

understanding of where things were. 


At any rate --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think just to clarify -- I 


think there's two different databases. There's 


this tank farm incident data and then -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- there's the --


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's what I thought. 


DR. NETON: Registry data. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Registry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- registry Tom LaBone's -- sort 


of intake registry, yeah. 


DR. NETON: Right, right. That was the -- that 


was the genesis of our -- source document for 


the high five approach, the registry data. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And again, we're getting into 


the tail end of the observations on that site 


profile, so these are -- a lot of these are 


just clarification issues. 


COMMENT FOURTEEN: 


And number 14 -- we can move along -- is 


exactly that, that as -- as we're going through 


this it seemed like there were additional 


sources of -- particularly neutron dosimetry 


information that did not seemingly get 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

241 

addressed in the site profile, and from a -- 


again, from --


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- from the standpoint of just 


providing some references -- providing some 


references for that additional information. 


Kathy? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Actually it was Savannah 


River's problem. When I went down there for 


site expert interviews -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: You need to speak up. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- some -- probably two 


years ago, I was told by the records person at 


the time that he was not providing the pages 


from the neutron log books for 1963 through 


1972 because they had not been pulled back from 


the archive. He did not have them in his 


possession. And this is just simply telling 


you there's data out there, and if one of your 


criteria for assigning missed neutron dose is 


does a person have neutron dose, well, this log 


sheet may tell you that. It's just really 


additional information. 


 DR. GLOVER: Are you saying that it's -- 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

242

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That is --


 DR. GLOVER: -- not contained in their annual 


report? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That is not given to 


you. 


 MS. THOMAS: It's not submitted as a part of 


the DOE submittal is what you're saying -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. 


 MS. THOMAS: -- it's in the archive and -- 

 DR. GLOVER: Maybe a specific --

 MS. THOMAS: -- or it's not convenient -- 

 DR. GLOVER: -- request to pull it. 

 MS. THOMAS: -- for them to... 

 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Now this was two years 


ago when we had talked, and I did try to get 


ahold of the records person to verify that this 


was still the case, but he must be on vacation. 


 MR. SIEBERT: This is Scott. I have a quick 


question there. Did that mean it also would 


not show up on the HPAREA annual results? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It depends upon whether 


they terminated in 19-- prior to 1979. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If it terminated prior to that, 


wouldn't show up; is that what you're saying? 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right. HPAREA, in 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

243 

general, is for those who terminated from 1979 


forward. Assuming that you're talking about 


the 1999 version. 


 MR. SIEBERT: That just surprises me because 


I've seen many cases where a person has HPAREA 


results only for like the '50s and '60s, but I 


-- I could be just misremembering. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's why I said in 


general, because there are -- there are people 


in there who terminated prior to 1979. There 


are --


 DR. GLOVER: So you're saying there's a 


potential source of information that would not 


be in HPAREA for neutron monitoring. Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And the references are pretty 


specific, so I think you could probably make 


the request and track it down. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And those T numbers I 


believe are box numbers. Or record numbers. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: So am I to assume that -- this is 


Bob Alvarez -- that the bioassay data or data 


that is centralized is not based on the review 


of the bioassay log books? 


 MR. GRIFFON: You -- you're talking bioassay 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

244 

now? We're talking neutrons. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Yes, bioassay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You're back to bioassay? I think 


the bioassay registry is based -- 


 MR. ALVAREZ: Well, I heard that was based on 


the collection of -- of exposures of interest 


of an individual who was a senior figure in the 


health physics program, but what I'm getting at 


is, you know, at Mound the -- Mound Laboratory 


the bioassay program was pretty much 


reconstructed on the basis of the log books and 


am I to understand that the data you're using 


is not based on actual compilation of the log 


books? 


 DR. GLOVER: They're from a series of cards, if 


I remember -- correct, Scott? The actual --


the people have a series of bioassay cards that 


record all their plutonium and tritium and -- 


and uranium exposures. 


 MR. SIEBERT: That's correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's what's in the individual 


files. 


 DR. GLOVER: Right, we get the original copy 


that was written down. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: I see. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

245

 DR. GLOVER: So those are all just hard copy 


records. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- I was just going to say 


this -- I mean this seems to be ten years of 


potentially missing neutron data. That seems 


like more than an observation, to me -- 


potential (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it was -- it was an 


observation about the completeness of the 


records that were being accessed. 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Being provided. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the distinction between 


the primary findings that we've made were ones 


that had direct influence (unintelligible) dose 


reconstruction. Some of the factual accuracy 


and completeness issues we've put in as 


observations, and this is how this one's 


listed. 


 DR. WADE: All right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But it sounds like it's fairly 


straightforward. We'll assume that -- that 


NIOSH can report on what happened on this. 


COMMENT FIFTEEN: GUIDELINES
 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

246 

For number 15, those who know Hans Behling will 


recognize this finding from way back when, 


which gets to the difficulty in terms of going 


through the guidelines and -- and impenetrable, 


complex array of guid-- again, I think we've 


covered that, Task III. Hans has -- I think 


has sated his concerns in the task he's been 


working in for a year and a half, so we think 


this has definitely been overtaken, but it was 


an issue a year and a half ago -- almost two 


years ago now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Your last line is correct there I 


think, deferring it to the --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- dose reconstruction procedures 


review. 


COMMENT SIXTEEN: CONSTRUCTION WORKERS


 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll certainly defer it to 


the procedural reviews that are going on, and 


likewise, on number 16, at the time -- again -- 


we were concerned about the issue of 


construction workers, and we understand better 


now that that's been a special activity that's 


been going on. I don't know, is it -- I guess 


it's still going on now. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

247 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I've been saying this for a 


while, but its release is imminent. That's my 


story and I'm sticking to it. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We're not pressing. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. Well, I'm expecting 


something today or tomorrow, another revision, 


so... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 MR. GIBSON: Does anyone have anything else? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess as far as overall, 


revisiting the matrix I guess would be the only 


way to keep sanity in this process, just given 


the -- the length of time. How do you want to 


proceed on that? 


 DR. GLOVER: (Unintelligible) -- I'm sorry? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Just trying to update the 


matrix and just trying to address these issues 


-- just process those questions. 


 MR. GIBSON: I'll try to go ahead and update 


the matrix as far as a separate column of what 


I think we've accomplished today, and I'll e-


mail it out to the different parties and you 


guys can give me your comments and we'll revise 


it and go from there, and then send out a final 


to everyone else, if that's acceptable. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

248

 MR. ALVAREZ: May I just -- this is Bob 


Alvarez. May I ask one other thing? There is 


a paper that is I think going to be published, 


if not recently published, from University of 


North Carolina looking at the -- evaluating 


external radiation exposure records at Savannah 


River Site. And this -- I -- I have a prepublication draft, but if I recall -- I'm 


looking it up right now -- there -- there were 


-- I think these researchers found -- yeah, 


15,752 annual dosimetry records in historical 


log books that were not included in HPAREA. 


Now this is -- I need to talk to the authors to 


make sure this is published, but this is by 


Richardson, Wing and Daniels from the 


University of North Carolina and this was done 


(unintelligible) with NIOSH. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I have -- I -- I am aware of 


this publication coming out and, you know, we 


need -- we need to address these issues when 


they're surfaced, but I think -- you know, we 


need to look at HPAREA versus also what we get 


from the hard copy records from the site and -- 


it's not clear to me from what they found how 


relevant it may be to dose reconstructions that 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

249 

were conducted. 


 MR. ALVAREZ: No, I'm just simply mentioning it 


for purposes of information. 


DR. NETON: No, I understand. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and for those of us who 


are just coming up to speed on the data sources 


for Savannah River, HPAREA -- or I've been 


calling it HP area, but I guess it's HPAREA -- 


 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Actually that's --


that's the annual historical reports, H -- 


well, they were in the process of changing it 


over when I was down there, but they had HPRAD, 


which was supposed to contain bioassay data and 


external data, and HPAREA is just simply a 


historical file spun off every year and 


compiled. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Now the -- the HP -- oh, I see, 


H-P-A-R-E-A, area, whatever, that's on the O 


drive -- it seems to me that has claimant 


information only or -- or is it site-wide data 


or what is it? 


 MS. THOMAS: I think if it's on the O drive it 


contains data for all -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

250

 MS. THOMAS: -- no --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, for all. 


 MS. THOMAS: -- the claim data would be in 


individual -- in claim files in NOCTS, so if 


it's on the O drive, it's probably the entire 


database, which would be people who -- you 


know, cla-- Energy employees and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MS. THOMAS: -- all Energy employees, whether 


they've filed claims or not, is what I'm trying 


to say. 


DR. NETON: We need to verify what's -- what's 


-- what that is. Sam, --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- could you make sure we know what 


that is? 


 DR. GLOVER: (Unintelligible) what's on... 


DR. NETON: I know at one point -- I know at 


one point we -- we imported the Health Energy 


Research Branch's HPAREA data files into OCAS. 


And to what extent they were transported onto 


the O drive, I'm not certain. We need to make 


sure we understand what's there. It could --


it could be that, but I've always -- I've -- 


I've learned not to assume anything these days. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

251

 DR. WADE: And Mike, next steps, once you get 


that out, are you thinking of a meeting 


sometime in the future or... 


 MR. GIBSON: That, or possibly a phone call 


before the September Board meeting so we could 


have -- you know, update the Board. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. With a likely report to the 


Board then from this working group in 


September. 


 MR. GIBSON: Hopefully, if that wouldn't be 


over-reaching. 


DR. NETON: I know Sam is new to the process. 


I'd like to also encourage the use of the -- 


sort of the minutes version -- conference call 


-- the technical conference calls to -- to deal 


out -- deal with very specific issues are okay 


to have without the full court reporter as long 


as the issues are well-defined and dealt with 


and minutes are taken. Sometimes those are 


very helpful to deal -- I think some of the 


issues that's come to mind here are maybe this 


-- the database for the -- 


 DR. WADE: Tank farm. 


DR. NETON: -- tank farm issues and maybe the 


high five approach. Those are some very 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

252 

specific technical issues, and maybe tritides, 


that could be discussed inside. Of course 


Board members are welcome to participate or sit 


in on these calls, but not oblig-- obligated 


to. We -- we've had very good luck with those 


in the past at the -- I know the Y-12, we did 


several of those, at Bethlehem Steel we did 


some and they're -- they're very good technical 


-- down and very nitty-gritty technical 


exchanges. 


 DR. GLOVER: That's a good idea. 


 MR. GIBSON: Once I get the -- the matrix 


updated and sent out to the -- the parties and 


you guys give your responses, maybe you can 


help me decide whether we think we need another 


face-to-face meeting or whether a phone call 


would be sufficient. 


 DR. WADE: Very good. 


 MR. GIBSON: Other than that, anyone has 


anything else, I'd say we're finished for the 


day. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, that you all very much. 


 DR. GLOVER: Thanks to everybody from ORAU. 


 (Whereupon, an adjournment was taken at 3:30 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

253 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of August 22, 


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 


29th day of September, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102