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 


WORKING GROUP 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


PROCEDURES REVIEW
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held in Cincinnati, Ohio on Aug. 29, 


2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES
 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 
 

2 

C O N T E N T S
 

Aug. 29, 2007 


OPENING REMARKS 


ADDITIONS OR REVISIONS TO AGENDA 10 


REPORT ON OUTCOME OF DISCUSSIONS WITH CONTRACTING 


SC&A COMMENTS ON REVIEW OF FIRST MATRIX, 


DISCUSSION OF OTIB-0052 AND SC&A REVIEW “PARAMETERS 


TO CONSIDER WHEN PROCESSING CLAIMS FOR CONSTRUCTION 


REVIEW ACTION ITEMS FROM 6/26/07 TELECONFERENCE 11 


OFFICER RE ADDENDA TO SC&A REPORTS 13 


OUTSTANDING ITEMS LIST 14 


NIOSH REPORT ON GLOBAL ISSUES 132 


PERs 155 

TRADE WORKERS” 167 


DISCUSSION OF TBD 6000 229 


WRAPUP AND REVIEW OF ACTION ITEMS 267 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 274 


 6 
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 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

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 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 

 

5 

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS 


ANIGSTEIN, BOB, SC&A 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAU 


BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH 


CHEW, MEL, ORAU 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


FIX, JACK, ORAU 


GUIDO, JOE, ORAU 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KATZ, TED, NIOSH 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MARSCHKE, STEVE, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCGOWAN, BILL, UNIV. OF CINCINNATI 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


QUINN, TRISH 


SHARFI, MUTTY, ORAU 


SIEBERT, STEVE, ORAU 


SMITH, MATTHEW, ORAU 


THOMAS, ELYSE, ORAU 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

AUGUST 29, 2007 


(9:30 a.m.) 


OPENING REMARKS


 DR. WADE: Good morning all. This is the 


work group conference room. This is Lew Wade, 


and the entire work group isn’t here yet. Ms. 


Munn has decided to proceed so we’re going to 


being with my usual sort of monologue. 


This is the work group on procedures 


review, and the work group is chaired by Ms. 


Munn, members Gibson, Griffon, Ziemer, Presley 


as an alternate. Right now in the room we 


have Wanda Munn and Paul Ziemer. We’re 


awaiting Mike Gibson and Mark Griffon. We 


believe Robert Presley will be on the phone. 


Robert’s an alternate. 


Are there Board members on the phone 


right now? 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yeah, Lew, this 


is Mark Griffon. I’m on the phone. I’m 


sorry. I’ve been on for a few minutes. I 


just didn’t hear any action. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


Is Mike Gibson on the phone? 

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(no response) 


DR. WADE: Is Robert Presley on the phone? 


(no response) 


 DR. WADE: Are there any other Board members 


on the phone other than those named as part of 


the work group? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so we don’t have a quorum 


of the Board, and it’s acceptable to proceed. 


So we have Munn, Ziemer in the room, Griffon 


participating by telephone. 


What we’ll do is go around the table 


here and let people identify themselves, then 


we’ll go through our normal run of people on 


the telephone that will be NIOSH/ORAU team 


members, SC&A team members, other feds who are 


working today as part of this call, members of 


Congress or their representatives, workers or 


anyone else who wants to be identified on the 


call. So let’s start around the table here. 


MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A. 


MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, Advisory Board and 


Chair of this session. 


DR. ZIEMER: Paul Ziemer, Advisory Board, 

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member of the work group. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld, NIOSH/OCAS. 


MS. THOMAS: Elyse Thomas, O-R-A-U team. 


 MR. SHARFI: Mutty Sharfi, ORAU team. 


MR. CHEW: Mel Chew, O-R-A-U team. 


 MR. MARSCHKE: Steve Marschke, SC&A. 


DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A. 


 MR. McGOWAN: Bill McGowan, University of 


Cincinnati, not a member of the committee but 


an observer. 


DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH. 


MS. BURGOS: Zaida Burgos, NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Larry Elliott is around the table 


but left the table just briefly. 


This is Lew Wade, works on the 


Advisory Board and works for NIOSH. 


Let’s go out to the telephone and hear 


from other NIOSH or ORAU team members who are 


on the line. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): This is Liz 


Brackett, O-R-A-U team. 


MR. SIEBERT (by Telephone): Steve Siebert, 


O-R-A-U. 


MR. FIX (by Telephone): Jack Fix, ORAU 


team. 

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MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): Joe Guido, ORAU 

team. 

MR. SMITH (by Telephone): Matthew Smith OR-A-U team. 

MR. KATZ (by Telephone): Ted Katz, NIOSH. 

 DR. WADE: Other NIOSH or ORAU? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: How about SC&A? 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Hans and Kathy 


Behling. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Bob 


Anigstein, SC&A. 


 DR. WADE: Other SC&A team members? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Are there other federal employees 


on the call by virtue of their employment? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): This is 


Liz Homoki-Titus with HHS. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome. 


MR. KOTSCH (by Telephone): Jeff Kotsch from 


Labor. 


 DR. WADE: As always, Jeff, welcome. 


Any other feds? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Members of Congress, their 

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representatives? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Are there any workers, 


petitioners or their representatives on the 


call? 


MS. QUINN (by Telephone): Trish Quinn, 


Center to Protect Workers’ Rights. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


Anyone else on the call who wishes to 


be identified for the record? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Okay, before we begin, again, 


some simple rules of etiquette. Please, if 


you’re speaking, use a handset and not a 


speaker phone. Mute whatever instrument 


you’re dealing with on the telephone when 


you’re not speaking. Be mindful of background 


noises, and again, just think about your 


situation and how it’s broadcast to others and 


it might affect the ability of the group to 


function most efficiently. 


With that, Wanda, it’s all yours. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you, Lew. 


ADDITIONS OR REVISIONS TO AGENDA
 

I hope most of you have a copy of the 

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rough agenda that I hope to be able to follow 


today. Anyone who’s been on more than one of 


these meetings knows that we have far more 


than we can possibly get through in a single 


day, but we’re going to get through as much of 


it as we can. And I have every intention of 


touching each of the items that I’ve shown on 


the agenda so we may have to cut some of our 


deliberations short just so that we can get to 


all of the items that are listed. 


REVIEW ACTION ITEMS FROM 6/26/07 TELECONFERENCE
 

Let me go over my list of action items 


from our last meeting which was a 


teleconference held on June 26th . The action 


items that I have listed are for SC&A to 


verify the review of all procedures from the 


first matrix which was originally issued as 


final on July 23rd of 2006, and specify each 


outstanding issue from that list. 


To provide the protocol used in 


workbook reviews and to create a matrix 


supplement to crosswalk all TIBs and PROCs. 


To provide a table showing what’s been 


reviewed and what has not. 


To re-send the approach to PERs 

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information to work group members. 


To re-issue a second working draft, 


5/21/07 matrix including numerical level of 


concern and indicating an asterisk for any 


changes from earlier assessments. 


SC&A and our designated federal 


official were to discuss and resolve with the 


contracting officer whether addenda to 


existing SC&A reports are acceptable for 


reporting reviews of revisions to procedures 


resulting from earlier evaluations. 


And, NIOSH was to report on whether 


the global issues of ingestion internal dose 


resuspension that were raised earlier have 


been adequately addressed in subsequent 


procedures and indicate where that was. 


Are those action items in line with 


memory and understanding of others around the 


table? 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: Good. Then with the hope that 


one of the simpler, most easy to complete of 


those items was the outcome of the discussions 


with the contracting officer, I’d ask that 


perhaps Lew could address that. 

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REPORT ON OUTCOME OF DISCUSSIONS WITH CONTRACTING OFFICER 


RE ADDENDA TO SC&A REPORTS


 DR. WADE: During my discussions with the 


contracting officer, it’s determined that, 


yes, that addendum are an acceptable mechanism 


for doing such reporting. 


John, I don’t know if you’ve pursued 


that within your organization. 


DR. MAURO: The addendum to the procedures 


has been re-issued. It was released, and the 


matrix reflects that. In other words the 


Supplement One that was delivered, I believe, 


about a year ago has, in fact, been modified. 


Two or three of the reviews have been updated, 


and I believe everyone should have hard copy 


of that addendum along with a revised matrix 


that, as you may recall, we wanted to add into 


the matrix, the score. 


Everyone should have a copy of that. 


In fact, the latest version of it that Stu put 


out on Friday or Monday also has at least some 


of your responses. So I think we’re pretty 


current and have been keeping a track on the 


addendum approach. 


MS. MUNN: It looks like we’re all right. 

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 DR. WADE: We’re better than all right. 


MS. MUNN: We’re better than all right. We 


are ahead of schedule by ten minutes. 


SC&A COMMENTS ON REVIEW OF FIRST MATRIX, OUTSTANDING 


ITEMS LIST
 

We’re ready for SC&A’s comments on the review 


of the first matrix and the outstanding items. 


And let’s all make sure we’re working from the 


same matrix when we start. 


DR. MAURO: I think you’re referring to this 


crosswalk at this time from the first matrix 


and the carryover. 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: And there was a package that 


Kathy Behling distributed for the crosswalk to 


make sure that we’re tracking closure. And I 


believe Kathy is on the line, and she’s in a 


much better position than I can since she put 


together the matrix dealing with the 


crosswalk. And I believe that’s what you’re 


referring to. 


MS. MUNN: Well, actually, we can do that if 


we want to. I have that scheduled for later 


in the discussion, but we can do that first if 


it’s easier for you and for Kathy. 

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DR. MAURO: Well, I only bring that up 


because I thought that’s what you were 


referring to. I may have cross-wired on you. 


MS. MUNN: No, that’s fine. I have that 


listed after our break, but if you think that 


will be a relatively easy one of our attacks 


to get through then perhaps we should. 


 DR. WADE: For the record Mike Gibson has 


joined us. Welcome, Mike. All of the work 


group members are now participating. 


MS. MUNN: Your call. 


DR. MAURO: Well, apparently, you’re 


referring to something else, and I’m not quite 


sure what that is. 


MS. MUNN: I was talking about getting right 


into the --


DR. MAURO: Oh, the big matrix. 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: That’s fine. We can do that 


also. 


MS. MUNN: I expected to do that so that we 


could very quickly see what has been 


accomplished by all the participants and take 


a look at NIOSH’s most recent distribution of 


that. 

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DR. MAURO: That’s bringing us to the big --


MS. MUNN: The big one. 


DR. MAURO: -- with all the 33 procedures. 


MS. MUNN: I thought we’d get some feel very 


quickly for how far we have to go and what 


we’ve completed here. 


DR. MAURO: That being the case in terms of 


the way I’m tracking it --

MS. MUNN: Hold on. 

MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): I’m sorry, 

Wanda. This is Mark Griffon. Can you just 

tell me which matrix you’re referring to? I’m 


MS. MUNN: We’re talking about Supplement 


One, Rev. One. We’re talking about the 


document that was just a re-sent with NIOSH 


comments on it the day before yesterday. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Okay, thank 


you. 


DR. MAURO: I guess it’s best for me to sort 


of start this. I’m hoping everyone can hear. 


Can everyone hear me on the line? I’m pretty 


far from the microphone. I guess I’m okay. 


As you’re probably aware the way in 


which we did this is we divided up, I think 

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there were about 33 procedures that we 


reviewed, and we divided up amongst various 


experts. And what I’ve done is to get things 


started, the very first procedure that we 


reviewed is a procedure OCAS TIB 0010 dealing 


with the glove box. 


Mainly, these were a procedure whereby 


a person’s working at a glove box, and he’s 


wearing his film badge or TLD on his lapel. 


You’re concerned about the exposure he may 


have gotten to, let’s say, the bladder. 


There’s an adjustment factor that’s needed. 


And that procedure deals with that subject. 


And Bob Anigstein performed the review. 


Now we could go one of two methods. 


We could just summarize our findings regarding 


that procedure, or I guess Stu, if you prefer, 


since you folks are in the process of 


reviewing our commentaries on each procedure. 


So whichever way to go forward. Whether we 


should take the lead or whether NIOSH should 


take the lead. It’s certainly your choice. 


MS. MUNN: Well, there’s yet a third one, 


and that is the process that we discussed by 


phone during our earlier meeting, whether we 

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wanted to concentrate on the items that were 


already ranked as ones, twos, threes, et 


cetera. So my personal preference would be to 


spend first a few minutes concentrating on 


those ones and twos to see where they were and 


then after that proceed from the viewpoint of 


whether NIOSH has specifics other than the 


ones that they responded to. 


I really would like to take a look at 


the responses that NIOSH has made to see if 


we’re going to have a resolution to those at 


this meeting or whether we’re going to go 


further. Does anyone have any problem with 


addressing the ones and twos first just to see 


where we are? 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: If not, then I would prefer that 


we run down the rating list, and when we 


encounter a two have a quick response from 


first SC&A and then NIOSH with regard to where 


we are. And in that manner go through the 


ones and twos and then address the items that 


NIOSH has responded to just this week. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Are you suggesting that, well, 


let me propose this as a modification. There 

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are several TIBs or TBDs that have been 


reviewed here, and the first one that John 


just referred to, NIOSH has not provided a 


response to yet. And so I don’t know that 


it’d do great service at this point to talk 


about TIB-001 and a rating of one, two or so 


until we come back with our reaction to that 


criticism. 


MS. MUNN: It’s rated a three; and 


therefore, from my perspective it’s not the 


place to start. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I’m sorry. 


MR. HINNEFELD: But on this document there 


are twos. There are twos and we’ve not 


prepared a response. We’ve not analyzed the 


finding and prepared a response on this 


document. So our preference, I think, would 


be to go to the ones where we have provided a 


response unless we, because, you know, I’m not 


completely familiar with the report. 


SC&A’s attempt to describe pretty well 


the finding in their report. The matrix 


finding is for the summary or brief statement 


of it. But their findings are generally 


pretty well developed and pretty well 

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described in their report. And we just have 


not gone through the exercise. We had ORAU 


staff work on ORAU-prepared documents. We 


just have our own staff available to work on 


these, and so we haven’t provided responses on 


these. 


MR. ELLIOTT: For completeness I would 


suggest that we can say for TIB-0010 we 


understand the comments that they’ve made, and 


we are working on those. But we are not 


prepared at this point to speak about where 


we’re at with regard to our reactions. 


MS. MUNN: Because I want to make sure that 


we cover two things. I want to make sure 


we’re covering the items that are marked one, 


and the items that NIOSH has responded to. 


Then if we want to eliminate, my suggestion 


with respect to twos, I have no objection to 


that. But I really would like for us to take 


a look at all the ones to see what we actually 


have out there. And then take a look at what 


NIOSH has responded to if that’s satisfactory. 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: Nodding heads. 


DR. ZIEMER: And just a quick question on 

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the matrix where it says NIOSH response. On 


those documents which are O-R-A-U procedures, 


those are actually responses from OCAS staff 


rather than NIOSH staff but reviewed by NIOSH? 


MR. HINNEFELD: They have been at this point 


probably nominally reviewed. We just got 


them, and we provided them to the Board rather 


than spend the time reviewing it and not 


having them available. 


DR. ZIEMER: So where it says NIOSH response 


MR. HINNEFELD: In large part that’s ORAU. 


DR. ZIEMER: In large part it’s O-R-A-U team 


response. 


MS. MUNN: All right, so if we’re looking at 


the copy of Supplement One that was just e-


mailed to us this week, and we’re looking at 


the ratings only, then the first one that I 


see is on page six of that --


DR. ZIEMER: Supplement One, Rev. One. 


MS. MUNN: Supplement One, Rev. One. It 


should have Monday’s date on it, the 26th, I 


believe. On page six, ranking one is ORAU 


OTIB-0020. 


DR. MAURO: That’s correct. And I believe 

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that particular procedure was reviewed by Hans 


Behling. I’m hoping --


Hans, are you on the line? 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, I am. 


DR. MAURO: I’ll give you a second to sort 


of catch up. I believe that was OTIB-0020, 


and I have to flip through the report to get 


the correct title, “The External Coworker 


Model,” and in your review at least one of the 


elements of your review had a one in it, and I 


guess I’m going to give you a sort of a chance 


to catch up. Do you have the matrix or your 


report in front of you? 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): I have both the 


matrix and the report. And I guess I just 


want to make a comment here. Obviously, 


everyone hopefully has had a chance to review 


both the report itself as well as the matrix 


which only gives you a snapshot of the issue. 


But let me just point out that some of the 


comments that are in that report really go to 


a basic issue here that I found to be a 


problem. 


And that is it is an issue of 


plausibility versus what might be considered 

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practical or achievable. And having been 


involved in auditing dose reconstructions that 


oftentimes involves a thorough review of what 


the information is that is available to a dose 


reconstructor out in the field, many of the 


comments reflect that dichotomy between what 


is theoretically possible versus what is 


reasonable and what is available to the dose 


reconstructor when he sits in his cubicle some 


place and does this dose reconstruction. And 


so keep in mind that this particular issue, 


plausibility versus practicality. 


Finding 4.1 is the one that I 


identified as having a low value, and that is 


due to the fact that, again, it’s an issue of 


what are the subjective elements to this? The 


dose reconstructor has to make an awful lot of 


decisions here that may or may not be 


available to him. And I believe that many of 


these decisions are likely to be very 


subjective in nature. Again, you have to 


really go through the report to come to that 


conclusion. 


That is, how do you know when a worker 


has no records. Is it due to the fact that he 

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was monitored? Is it due to the 


unavailability of records that may have been 


lost? The difference between the 50th
 

percentile and 95th percentile value, these are 


all things that you may or may not have 


information. When you get a folder from the 


DOE that says no records available for this 


person, how do you know whether or not he is a 


person who may have been only on occasion been 


exposed to radiation that was monitored. 


Was he a person who was routinely, 


yes, I know that if you dig hard enough you 


can probably come up with something that might 


give you some clue as to whether a person was 


routinely exposed and not monitored versus 


only occasionally or never. But these are all 


very, very subjective issues that somehow or 


other the dose reconstructor has to come 


conclude before he makes a decision whether to 


assign the 50th percentile, the 95th
 

percentile. 


And even there you have to know 


whether or not this is likely to be 


compensated, whether POC is equal to or 


greater than 45 percent. So those are really 

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the bulk of the issues that define this 


particular TIB-0020. And I believe they’re 


all basically identified and the responses 


from NIOSH, obviously they’re responses, but 


again, I’m going to have to back away and say, 


well, somebody else has to make the decision 


whether or not this is reasonable. 


And quite frankly, having -- and I’ve 


sort of divorced myself at this point from the 


auditing process of dose reconstruction. But 


Kathy is very much involved at this point, and 


I’ve conferred with Kathy on this issue. And 


I said have you ever seen TIB-0020 being used, 


and the answer is no. And so the question 


again comes into play whether something that 


can in theory be done versus one that is 


practical and usable. 


MS. MUNN: Hans, thank you for an overview. 


May I hold us up for just a moment and point 


out to everyone that although we were focusing 


on the number one in the rating column, that 


we actually have a half dozen almost OTIB-0020 


issues here, and probably one of them should 


not be discussed in segregation from the 


others. So if we might have just a few 

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minutes to give everyone an opportunity to 


review both the SC&A comments and the NIOSH 


comments for all of the OTIB-0020 items 


instead of just this single one it might be 


beneficial to everyone. 


DR. MAURO: I have a suggestion because in 


going over the material and reading it one of 


the things that I noticed is that every OTIB 


has a certain objective and is trying to 


accomplish something that’s important to the 


dose reconstruction process. 


And I noticed that now we’re jumping 


right in, going into a number, OTIB-0020, and 


then we’re zeroing in into one element in it. 


So it’s very difficult to dive right into that 


specific without sort of stepping back for a 


second and say, okay, what is this OTIB about? 


And what’s it trying to accomplish? 


And for example, if you look at the 


big book, and you go to the checklist, you 


quickly see, okay, there’s a lot of scores 


here. But one particular score came out with 


a one. The point Hans is making there’s a 


specific aspect to this particular OTIB that 


deals with a particular subject that is 

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troublesome to us, and we assigned it a one. 


So I think maybe the best way to 


communicate or get on the same page is maybe a 


quick 30-second sound byte, what is this OTIB 


about? What is it trying to accomplish? So 


everybody’s oriented. And then why is that a 


concern, namely a judgment that is embedded in 


this particular protocol? 


There’s a certain degree of judgment 


that needs to be made by the DR that is 


subjective. And our concern is that that 


being the case you create a situation where 


it’s possible that different auditors or 


different dose reconstructors may very well 


come to a different judgment on a particular 


matter, whether to use the 50 percentile 


versus a 95th percentile so there are various 


subjective judgments. 


And I think what needs to be discussed 


with NIOSH here is the degree to which that is 


a real concern or whether or not it’s well in 


hand. So I think maybe this process we’re 


doing which we’re inventing as we go, maybe 


the best way to go is that when we hit a 


procedure that has a one, real quickly get an 

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idea of what the procedure is about and why 


that particular one might be important. 


Maybe it would be helpful -- I don’t 


know if everyone else agrees -- if, Hans, if 


you could sort of step back and just give a 


quick overview of this particular procedure. 


And then within that context why that one 


might be an important issue that we need to 


discuss. 


And I guess, Stu, you folks have 


responded to that and your sense, of course, 


is that, well, perhaps it’s not as serious a 


problem as we may have made it out to be. I 


think that will be a productive way to 


proceed. 


MS. MUNN: It would be a productive way to 


proceed after we’ve done what I’ve just 


suggested that we do which is let’s take a 


moment and everybody read all of the 


commentary that we have on the matrix with 


regard to OTIB-0020. That will take you back 


to, given the most recent copy that we’re 


looking at, OTIB-0020 begins on page five. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Wanda? Can I 


ask? I have the matrix, but I don’t have the 

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NIOSH responses in the matrix so I think I 


don’t have the most recent version. Do you 


know --


MS. MUNN: Do you have your e-mail up? 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): I do, yeah, do 


you know when it was sent? 


MS. MUNN: It was sent on the 26th . Sent 


Monday morning very early. 


 DR. WADE: Now there’s no NIOSH comments on 


the first couple of pages so it might confuse 


you. On the first page there’s no NIOSH 


comments, but as you get into it there are. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Sent on the 26th 

from Stu? 

MR. HINNEFELD: From me. 

MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): All I saw is 

OTIB-0052. 

MS. MUNN: No, that’s a separate thing. 


 DR. WADE: Can you send it? 


MS. MUNN: Arjun is telling me it’s the 27th . 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): All I have on 


the 27th from Stu is the initial responses to 


OTIB-0052 findings. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I can send it to you if you 


have your --

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MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yeah, if you 


could forward it again, thank you. 


DR. ZIEMER: Is there a separate report on 


this one? There are on some of the TIBs. 


What’s the electronic reference for that one? 


DR. MAURO: The actual hard copy report, the 


original report -- let me step back. It might 


be helpful. This is task three where our job 


is to review procedures. And we were 


reviewing procedures in groups of about 30. 


The original set of 30 were reviewed, by and 


large closed out, there may be some mop up. 


Then the second set, and a report came 


out. And that report actually came out in, I 


believe it was dated on the order of June 


2006. Now during the last meeting when we 


were about to engage this particular set of 


procedures, I volunteered to -- listen, it’s 


been a year since, you know, we wrote that 


report, and we realized in getting ready for 


that meeting that we’ve learned a lot. A lot 


of things have changed; we’ve learned a lot. 


And we also had a matrix. And the 


matrix did not -- it’s a big matrix, 37 pages, 


and so one of the things I volunteered, I 

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said, listen, why don’t we do two things. 


Let’s edit our June 2006 version of this 


report and re-issue it with the revisions? 


And it turns out two, three or four procedures 


were revised, and we re-issued the report. 


And it’s actually dated now August 


2007. The delivery date was August 17th, so 


it’s relatively recent. But by and large it’s 


very similar to the original one except for a 


few procedures. In addition --


MS. MUNN: Did we get the page changes over 


into the matrix? 


DR. MAURO: And the matrix, yeah, captures, 


it’s up to date. And the matrix that came out 


captures all of the changes that were there. 


In addition, it adds in the score card. 


Remember we wanted to put the score card in? 


MS. MUNN: We agreed we would do that. 


DR. MAURO: And we did that, and even more 


was done. NIOSH had a chance at least to take 


a run, at the 11th hour I would imagine, to try 


to be responsive to as many that they could. 


So that’s where we are right now. So 


hopefully, everyone has the matrix that’s 37 


pages, and everyone has the August 2007 

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version of this what’s called Supplement One 


Procedures. The second set of 30, it turns 


out I think it’s 33, procedure reviews. I’m 


trying to sort of set the stage. It’s 


complicated. 


MS. MUNN: Right. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Excuse me, this 


is Kathy Behling. In answer to Paul’s 


question also, the file name was called 


Transmit Draft S-C-A-dash-P-R-dash-pass threedash-0-0-0-1-dash-rev-dash-1, and it was a PDF 


file. 


And, John, you are correct. When I 


re-submitted the matrix, I did, the matrix 


does reflect this Rev One and the page changes 


on the Rev One. And I also included for those 


changes that I made to ensure that there’s a 


vertical line on the left hand margin so that 


you can see what has changed. 


DR. MAURO: That’s in the main body of the 


big report. As you flip through the pages 


you’ll see a vertical line, and that’s the 


place where the changes are made. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: If anybody doesn’t have the 


report, I have the e-mail in which it was 

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transmitted to me. I can send it to anyone 


who wants it. 


MS. MUNN: Stu, would you like to take a run 


at what John has suggested with respect to 


what OTIB-0020 is really all about and go 


through the responses that we have here? 


MR. HINNEFELD: OTIB-0020 is sort of a 


guiding document more so for people preparing 


later site-specific OTIBs that have actual 


coworker data in them and is for a dose 


reconstructor to pick up and use. And so it 


pretty much describes this is how we will take 


these datasets and build coworker 


distributions. That’s primarily what it’s 


used for. 


The issue you raised though, the one 


about 50 percent versus 95 percent is an issue 


in the use of coworker in general. So if we 


can address it here which would be a lot more 


efficient than addressing it every time we 


pick up a site-specific TIB. And I think --


Mutty, step in and say something if I 


say something wrong here because Mutty does 


dose reconstructions certainly far more than I 


do. 

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But when choosing in this situation, 


as a general, we know the sites, the DOE 


sites, that give us what they have. When 


you’re talking about when a person doesn’t 


have monitoring data, it’s because the DOE 


didn’t find it and send it to you or was it 


lost or monitoring was lost. We don’t know 


that, people who were monitored and lost. We 


know the sites, the DOE sites, that provide us 


a full report. We pretty much know those, so 


they gave us what they have, and so we go with 


that. 


Once we have that information though, 


we typically don’t just get the monitoring 


information in a void. We got some 


information either from the claimant himself 


or from maybe it’s in a DOE record. Some of 


the records may include some things that gives 


you an idea what their job was. 


And so mainly we rely on job title to 


make a judgment about is this person someone 


who would have been a radiation worker because 


quite likely there were a large number of 


people who today we would probably consider, 


well, they were a radiation worker or at least 

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a periodic radiation worker, and they should 


have been monitored who were not monitored at 


the time so you won’t get any record for them. 


So in most instances where the job 


appears to be, any job where they could be 


even periodically exposed, those people get 


the higher percentile. In other words, if 


they would be regularly exposed, they would 


get the 95th percentile. 


And it’s only when we can decide with 


some confidence that the person was really an 


administrative worker who wouldn’t be a 


radiation worker in today’s nomenclature, that 


we would give them the 50th percentile which is 


still, you know, that 50th percentile was the 


monitored people. That’s still a pretty 


generous assignment for someone that we 


conclude probably wasn’t exposed. 


So that’s how we arrive at that 


selection. I don’t know that we’ve got 


anything more formal written than that, but it 


does have a dose reconstructor who makes the 


judgment. The peer reviewer’s judgment, a 


peer reviewer from the dose reconstruction 


organization can also say, you know, you 

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judged wrong. And then there’s a Health 


Physics review from the Health Physicist on 


OCAS’ side. So three different people have to 


concur that that this person really, there’s 


sufficient evidence that this person wasn’t 


exposed in order to give them the lower 


percent. 


DR. MAURO: I think one of our concerns was 


that when those judgments are made, and I 


understand the ground rules that you just laid 


out, when we have a DR that comes in 46 


percent, that judgment becomes critical. And 


it’s at that place where I felt that if 


there’s any ambiguity, this is the place where 


you could have a reversal if that judgment 


wasn’t bulletproof. 


I guess that’s where we came in; why a 


one was important here. There are going to be 


times when those judgments don’t make a 


difference, but there are going to be times 


when they do make a difference. It wasn’t 


apparent to us whether or not there was 


anything a little bit more structured in terms 


of that judgment. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think Matt Smith who 

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prepared the response on this, I believe 


Matt’s on the line. 


Matt, do you have anything more you 


wanted to offer? 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): Stu, you did a 


good job summarizing the responses I wrote up. 


Again, I would tell the group to keep 


everything in context. When it comes to 


prescriptive guidance, as Stu stated, that’s 


where site-specific OTIBs would come into 


play. 


Regarding the general 50th and 95th
 

percentile issue, there’s a written response 


on that as well. And if you folks want to 


look at the final table in OTIB-0020, you’ll 


see there a comparison of some different data 


analysis approaches, the one being the OTIB0020 method if you will. And the other one 


being a maximum likelihood approach which I 


know has been discussed before. 


And I think you’ll see that the OTIB0020 approach is quite favorable across the 


board. As Stu mentioned, even the 50th
 

percentile values are giving us a good cushion 


of claimant favorability. 

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Other than that, again, the dose 


reconstructors are not working in a vacuum in 


a cubicle. They have not only other documents 


to look at. They have what we term site DR 


leads. For instance, Mutty is the DR lead for 


Rocky Flats. So they have a, if you will, a 


senior dose reconstructor to refer to and to 


bounce questions off of regarding how the data 


looks. 


And then beyond that there’s also, as 


Stu mentioned, a peer review process. And 


unless there’s further question, I think I’ll 


leave it at that. 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is Hans 


Behling. I just wanted to again go back and 


address the issue of the subjective nature, 


and I think I’m really focusing on earlier 


years when, especially early years when cohort 


badging was a matter of fact in the way of 


monitoring workers where people who should 


have been monitored were not monitored, and 


they may have been decided on because they’re 


(unintelligible) exposed group, but clearly 


were exposed. 


And subjective interpretation on the 

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part of the dose reconstructor to decide what 


portion or what periods of time does the 


worker qualify for the statement that he 


should have been monitored but was not 


monitored or by today’s standards he needed to 


be monitored, et cetera, et cetera. 


That’s really the issue that I want to 


bring out here on this particular TIB is that 


we’re not dealing with a single issue here but 


a variable issue that changes over time 


because of various practices that were in 


vogue in the early years in the ‘40s, ‘50s and 


‘60s that were subsequently much more 


restrictive later on when people were, as a 


whole, regarded as all potential exposures, 


and therefore, the issue that we have to 


address here is not a single issue but one 


that changes over time. 


DR. NETON: Hans, this is Jim Neton. I just 


got a question. I understand your concern 


about the potential misapplication of 50th
 

versus the 95th with the dose reconstructors. 


But I think as Stu pointed out we tend to be 


extremely conservative in our approach to 


selecting those values, and there’s multiple 

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checks along the way. 


I guess my question is of all the dose 


reconstructions SC&A has done has there been 


any evidence to indicate that we have 


improperly or possibly improperly assigned 50th
 

versus 95th? Because in my mind the proof is 


in the practice. 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Well, as I 


started out by saying to date I don’t think 


we’ve ever seen a dose reconstruction report 


that even makes use of OTIB-0020. 


DR. NETON: As selecting the 50th versus the 


95th? No. 


 MR. SHARFI: One of the main differences we 


don’t reference specifically OTIB-0020 since 


we reference the site-specific --


DR. NETON: Exactly, so we --


 MR. SHARFI: -- coworkers. 


DR. NETON: -- we have clearly used the 50th
 

versus the 95th in multiple cases. And that 


was the issue we were discussing here. 


MR. HINNEFELD: But in terms of the ones 


they’ve reviewed, I don’t know. A lot of the 


ones they reviewed were dose model, you know, 


dose model. So it may be that there has not 

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been a coworker that’s been selected --


DR. NETON: I think that might be a good 


thing to do because, again, the proof is in 


the facts here. I think we certainly believe 


we’ve got a conservative approach, and I don’t 


know any way around that. I don’t know what 


the solution would be other than to look at 


some of these things and see. Have we not 


appropriately assigned a dose? 


 MR. SHARFI: I would add on OTIB-0020, it’s 


a general coworker application TIB. When 


you’re doing DR, you do need site-specific 


information to make decisions and to put a 


general blanket, across-the-board, complex 


decision process into a TIB that’s not site 


specific almost hinders you from using 


claimant and site-specific information. So 


areas like that might be more suited to the 


site-specific coworkers if there’s knowledge 


that they’ve done batch monitoring or stuff 


like that. Or if you know specifically that 


they badged everybody, that stuff can be very 


more site specific rather than putting them 


into a complex-wide TIB when this TIB just 


covers how to develop and the general use of 

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coworker. It’s not really designed for site-


specific application. 


DR. MAURO: Am I hearing that for all 


intents and purposes this TIB is general 


guidance, but in practice it really doesn’t 


come to the surface? That is, what I’m 


hearing is the reality is every case is being 


dealt with on the merits of that particular 


site and its dataset as opposed to drawing 


upon some overarching universal guide such as 


this one. So perhaps --


 MR. SHARFI: For instance like you have the 


Rocky Flats external coworker would have 


referenced OTIB-0020 in development of that 


coworker set, but the DR would not have 


referenced OTIB-0020. They would have 


referenced the site-specific coworker. So 


it’s maybe one removed from the original DR. 


DR. MAURO: To ask an embarrassing question 


perhaps this is a procedure that really is 


really not all that relevant? 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): Well, it is a 


relevant procedure because it serves as the 


keystone for the follow-on series of external 


coworker TIBs that have been developed. And 

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everyone in the room there stated the correct 


thing, and that language is located in Section 


One, The Purpose, where it does talk about 


using OTIB-0020 in conjunction with separate 


TIBs that provides a site-specific coworker. 


So it is a keystone document. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, so I just want to make 


sure I understand. So in effect this is the 


keystone that sets the philosophy and then the 


philosophy is implemented on a case-by-case 


basis according to that philosophy. 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): That’s right. 


DR. MAURO: And the degree to which the way 


in which it’s implemented is consistent, 


really emerges on the actual application for a 


particular site. So that’s really where the ­

- in effect, the concern that we have would 


become realized. I guess maybe another way in 


what we’re saying is that it is the right 


question. 


Have we come across cases where we 


felt that the 50th percentile was used when we 


think that perhaps the 95th percentile should 


have been used. I don’t know if that’s 


something you want to talk about here related 

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to this particular procedure or is that better 


suited to be discussed as part of the DR 


review when we get into our Task Four review 


process? I think that’s where it belongs as 


opposed to this underpinning issue. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, the forum for 


discussion can be either one I suppose. I 


think in order to have a discussion though 


we’ll have to do some preparation and, you 


know, look through, we should be able to 


identify of the ones that have been reviewed, 


did any of them reference a site-specific 


coworker TIB. In which case that would be an 


instance where this approach would have been 


used. So I mean, we could do something like 


that in preparation for that discussion when 


we’re doing (unintelligible). I don’t really 


know that we have an opinion on what to do 


there. 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Stu, this is 


Hans. Maybe you can respond to this specific 


issue or question I have. What is the trigger 


that would say we should look at OTIB-0020 as 


a way of reconstructing this person’s dose? 


Let me start out by saying you get a file on a 

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person who has a claim, and the DOE file says 


there are no data for this person either in 


bioassay or external monitoring. 


And the first reaction would be, well, 


this person was not a rad worker, and let’s 


just for the sake of claimant favorability 


assign him the maximum dose based on the TIB0004 which involves occupational environmental 


exposure and be done with it. We’ve seen 


plenty of those. Now what is the trigger by 


which this particular TIB would be used in 


lieu of, say, assigning strictly environmental 


dose and be done? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the trigger would 


trigger the use of a site-specific coworker 


TIB. It wouldn’t trigger the use of OTIB0020. It would trigger the use of a site-


specific coworker TIB that was prepared on the 


guidance in OTIB-0020. So the trigger would 


be the information available about the 


employee’s, essentially, their job title. 


That is the most important thing that would be 


looked at is their job title, and do we have 


sufficient information about their job title 


and perhaps their location of work. 

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Although job titles are normally a 


little more reliable than work location. 


People tend to move around. Is that 


information sufficient for us to conclude that 


this person wouldn’t be considered a 


radiological worker today, was not really 


exposed, and so the environmental would be the 


right approach. So that’s the trigger. It’s 


largely, the most important thing is job 


title. 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): How about in 


the absence of a coworker model? And again, 


there are provisions in this TIB that says, 


well, if you don’t have a coworker model to 


work with, you may also elect to have or to 


apply what are called or what are stated as 


reasonable upper limits. And again, this is a 


very, very subjective term, the reasonable 


upper limits for someone where there’s no 


coworker data to work with. Again, it sounds 


nice, but I would sort of look at this and say 


that’s a very heavy request to be put on a 


dose reconstructor for defining what is a 


reasonable upper exposure for an unmonitored 


individual. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that would have to be 


case specific, and I don’t know that we 


actually do that very much. I know we very 


often have had cases we put on hold to develop 


a site-specific site profile, or site-specific 


coworker dataset. 


DR. NETON: So I think, Hans, that guidance 


would be fleshed out in the site-specific TIB. 


Again, remember this is a general guidance 


document on how one approaches using, filling 


in gaps in data. And what comes to mind to me 


is the Chapman Valve site profile where we had 


a real sparse amount of data, and we took the 


highest value ever measured in the urine and 


used that to reconstruct these workers’ doses. 


But that was not a decision that would be made 


by a dose reconstructor. That was fleshed out 


in the site-specific profile. So OTIB-0020 


doesn’t try to lock you in to a generic 


approach. It provides reasonable guidelines, 


but then it says there are other alternative 


mechanisms that one may use. 


DR. ZIEMER: It sounds like this particular 


TIB, the question you end up asking is the 


guidance appropriate? Because the actual 

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application comes out in each specific site or 


case. The guidance, I think, Hans, you’re 


asking a question, the details on how to apply 


it aren’t given because you don’t have that 


unless you know what site it is that you’re 


talking about. So it seems to me you still 


end up stepping back and saying is this 


appropriate guidance. 


DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): What I’m always 


afraid of when I see too much subjective 


interpretation is consistency. The way I 


would like to test that is to give a single 


case to ten different dose reconstructors and 


see how ten people interpret the guidance 


given here in their own way and see what is 


the level of consistency among those people 


who are independently trying to go through 


this maze of potential options for them to 


think in doing a dose reconstruction. 


DR. ZIEMER: What I’m hearing is those ten 


people wouldn’t be sent to this document. 


They would be sent to a secondary document. 


And the question is, is the secondary document 


appropriate based on this guidance, I guess it 


seems to me would be the question unless I’m 

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misunderstanding its use. 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): In addition to 


that, Dr. Ziemer, the dose reconstructor is 


always going to use what’s in procedure six 


which is the external dosimetry procedure. 


And in there is a table called Table 5.2 which 


is a replication of Table 1.1 in OCAS’ 0-0-1. 


And that contains the hierarchy of data that a 


dose reconstructor would use. Coworker data 


is one of those choices. 


And it’s absolutely correct. If 


coworker data proves to be the desirable 


choice, you’re going to go to a specific 


document. If that document’s not available, 


then as Dr. Neton said, other data that you 


might find in the site profile as well as 


documents that continue to come in and get 


catalogued in our site research database might 


be referenced. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I guess part of the 


puzzlement as I look at this is maybe in the 


four bullets that are in the procedure. Just 


thinking back on our experience of 


specifically looking at Y-12 and Rocky Flats 


external dose questions, the procedure 

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specifies four different kinds of unmonitored 


workers who wouldn’t be monitored by today’s 


standards, unmonitored but would be monitored 


today, worker may have been monitored but data 


not available, and may have partial 


information. Partial information I think is 


reasonably clear. 


But in the other three categories I 


think that’s where the judgment call comes in, 


and if I remember, many of our arguments 


around or discussions around Y-12 and Rocky 


Flats revolved exactly around the question of 


how do you know which bin that they fall into 


when there’s a lot of uncertainty. And maybe 


that’s sort of where the procedure doesn’t 


seem specific enough in narrowing down how you 


make that choice. At least just from somebody 


who didn’t participate in writing the review, 


it seems to me that that may be a large part 


of the problem. 


DR. MAURO: And especially in the earlier 


years. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I should qualify that 


by saying that it would be especially in the 


‘50s or ‘40s and ‘50s. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: and I think the place to 


look at that question would be on the site-


specific coworker TIBs that were prepared and 


see what information was available for that 


site and is it appropriate guidance for people 


who are going to use this site-specific OTIB 


which is what would be used in dose 


reconstruction. Is that sufficient? I think 


I’m a little, I don’t know how you’d do it in 


a procedure that’s generally broadly 


applicable. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Stu, in reviewing 


other procedures that kind of have similar 


issues, I felt that providing an example in a 


procedure that’s very general, or set of 


examples, is very helpful because it shows you 


the kinds of things you’re talking about 


without necessarily narrowing it down and 


being prescriptive. 


DR. NETON: The problem with that is it 


tends to pigeon-hole the whole process because 


there’s a wide range of ways we deal with 


this. I can think of the one extreme which is 


everyone gets the 95th percentile, Bethlehem 


Steel and those where we couldn’t even find a 

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job title to determine who walked through 


those areas. 


And then on the other extreme, people 


who were administrative office workers at 


Hanford that never even entered the fence 


line. They worked in the town, and then 


that’s another extreme where we can say, well, 


we looked. Clearly, environmental seemed 


appropriate. 


Then you get into people that were not 


monitored at all, could have had some 


exposure, and then we’ll pick the 50th, but 


there’s a whole range there, and that’s what 


it’s trying to accomplish, to accommodate all 


those different scenarios. I don’t know that 


you can --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Wouldn’t those two examples 


of those two extremes be useful in this 


procedure so it’s not --


DR. NETON: In fact, that’s what Stu was 


saying. Those are part of the site profiles. 


The site profiles actually do that, but it 


could go in there. Whenever you put examples 


that tends to lock people into certain 


scenarios, and then it’s what about this then, 

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and what about that, and those are all 


discussed at document preparation time in the 


site profiles. And those documents go through 


multiple layers of review as well. 


DR. ZIEMER: I’ve determined in hopes that 


this doesn’t become the working group on --


what is this procedure? Twenty. OTIB-0020, 


it seems to me that we kind of have a feel for 


what this procedure is. As I looked at the 


reviews, there’s a lots of threes there. In 


fact, I think all threes of them is this 


particular one. 


And I don’t know if we know the 


importance of the one at the moment, but we 


kind of have a context for it. And I’m 


wondering if it wouldn’t be useful to proceed 


and sort of set this aside for the moment. I 


don’t think we can resolve it necessarily. 


The one at the moment represents a kind of 


concern to make sure that the procedure or the 


OTIB is properly used. And I think we’ve 


heard that proper use of that plays out in 


other OTIBs as I understand it. 


So I’m wondering if it is inefficient 


to focus too much more time on this at the 

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moment until we get the overall picture which 


I know you wanted to go through maybe a number 


of these and see where the ones are. And this 


is one of the ones. But it doesn’t look to me 


like it’s necessarily going to be resolved 


sort of momentarily. 


MS. MUNN: Unfortunately, it doesn’t. 


DR. ZIEMER: Unless we have the bigger 


context of the use here --


MS. MUNN: I do want to get --


DR. ZIEMER: I think we have kind of a feel 


for the context of this particular one, 


numerical one, and I’m wondering if it would 


be helpful to look at the other ones that you 


had in mind. 


MS. MUNN: I think it would, but before we 


leave this, I think the discussion has brought 


to the forefront the key issue as it appears 


to have evolved here. That key issue being 


shall we use general guideline procedures or 


must general guideline procedures contain the 


amount of specificity that creates rigid 


application of the procedure. 


My personal feeling is that general 


guidelines are very helpful. They are a 

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baseline from which other applications can be 


derived. It’s a pointer to show the way and 


method for defining limitations. It appears 


to me the procedure as I recall it, not having 


read it in several months, comes close to 


that. 


But if that’s the key question, we 


need to define it. If it’s not, then we need 


to define what is the key question here. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think I agree with what 


you’re saying and that guidelines, per se, 


don’t necessarily need that specificity. Let 


me mention sort of the classic cases where a 


regulation says that doses are to be as low as 


reasonably achievable. What does that mean? 


It means something different in every 


situation, and you can’t spell it out except 


philosophically at the front end. And it may 


be that the philosophical statement here is 


not, well, it probably isn’t clear at the 


front end that that’s really what it is. But 


it may be that the procedure itself needs 


some, I don’t recall. We’d have to go back 


and look at the front end an explanation of 


what this is, that this is a general guidance 

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or something. Maybe it already says that. I 


don’t recall. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I’d have to look. 


MS. MUNN: Hans --


DR. ZIEMER: But anyway, it may need some 


fixing based on this, but and maybe even that 


particular case that got the one may need some 


clarification that says that this is sort of a 


philosophical statement and it’s played out in 


specific cases. 


MS. MUNN: Hans and John, would you be 


comfortable with our taking another look at 


the procedure to see if it’s clearly defined 


in the manner we’ve described here? And if 


not, the addition of some words making clear 


that this is as it’s been characterized, a 


keystone not the actual procedure for 


directing how to proceed? Is that acceptable 


to you? 


DR. MAURO: I’ll offer one thought on it 


seems to me that the significance really comes 


to life in the application on real cases at 


real sites. If we find that, holy mackerel, 


gee, we have a whole bunch of real people at 


real sites where judgments were made that we 

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don’t entirely agree with. That is, you may 


have used the 95th percentile or 50th
 

percentile where in our opinion, in our 


review, audit of the case, it should have been 


the 95th percentile. 


And by the way, that might be 


important because in this particular case it 


creates a situation where there’s the 


possibility for reversal, and especially if we 


have a number of those and they merge. Then 


we have to ask ourselves the question if we 


all agree, yes, that’s a problem and that 


needs to be fixed in these real cases. And 


we’ll discuss it. 


Then the deeper question goes, well, 


is the problem because of this procedure 


because this procedure did not give the dose 


reconstructor the directions that could have 


helped him be a little bit more rigorous in 


making these judgments. Or is the procedure 


fine. 


It’s really that, I’m not sure. In 


other words if there is a breakdown some place 


where judgments are being made and no optimum 


judgments in terms of being claimant 

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favorable, and we actually find out that’s a 


real issue that we need to deal with, we won’t 


know that until we engage real cases and real 


sites. Like Chapman Valve is a perfect 


example. 


I think Jim is right. Here’s a case 


where the philosophy that was intended 


embedded in this was carried and in what we 


considered to be a perfectly appropriate 


approach. In other words we picked the 


highest value. So the judgment in 


implementing that procedure at Chapman Valve, 


what happened was, great, you picked the 


highest number. You really couldn’t have been 


more conservative. 


But there may be other places where 


the judgment was made in a way that we may not 


agree. And then we have to ask ourselves the 


question -- I don’t know the answer to this --


if we agree there was a problem on a real 


case, is the problem because of this 


procedure? And is there anything we can do in 


this procedure that would help avoid that 


problem in the future? So we really can’t do 


much more than that right now. 

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DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Let me also add 


something, and I agree with everything you 


said, John. Let me make a broad statement. I 


think with the procedure if it is implemented 


in the proper way is as good as it’s going to 


get. I fully realize that there are certain 


deficiencies in past monitoring practice, and 


certain assumptions have to be applied in 


those instances. 


And my concern only here in writing up 


some of these issues is that will there be 


always a reasonable and claimant-favorable 


approach taken when you end up with a claim 


for which there is no monitoring data and the 


potential exists as in bullet number one. The 


worker was unmonitored and even by today’s 


standards did not need to be monitored. Well, 


if one could firmly understand that to be a 


fact, then it’s clear what the decision is. 


Don’t bother, just assign environmental 


exposure and be done with it. 


On the other hand, for instance, when 


I looked at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion 


Plant, I realized that early on there was 


cohort badging. And there were probably many 

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people who subsequently in 1960 starting on 


were monitored. And lo and behold, the doses 


there were actually higher in some instances 


for people who were previously unmonitored. 


Therefore, the assumption that we only started 


to monitoring mostly people who were maximally 


exposed may or may not have been the truth 


there, and therefore, you may have in previous 


years, prior to ’60, not bothered to badge 


people who should have been badged. 


But if, let’s assume that they 


terminated their employment prior to that 


moment in time and you left with nothing other 


than a blank slate that says this person was 


no monitored, and he may have been labor, what 


do you do in those instances in trying to give 


a conservative default value to that person’s 


dose reconstruction? 


 DR. WADE: Could I suggest maybe a path 


forward. I mean, I think there are possibly 


two actions that result from this. The one I 


think is that NIOSH should review the tape and 


make sure that it’s clear in defining what it 


is and what’s its intentions are. It’s a 


general guidance document that points you to 

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some specific TIBs. And if that’s the case, 


fine. If it needs to be crisp up the wording 


I think that’s fine. I think that’s 


appropriate for the subcommittee that reviews 


dose reconstruction at SC&A to keep an eye on 


these issues as they review dose 


reconstructions. And should they find 


evidence of the fact that there are questions 


or problems, then they should be raised to 


subcommittee and dealt with at that level. 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): I guess on that 


issue of that first action I would point the 


group to the final sentence of Section One 


which is the purpose section of this TIB. 


It’s also repeated in the comment response. 


MS. MUNN: Can you speak just a little 


louder and --


 DR. WADE: And can you tell us what that 


sentence --


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): The final 


sentence on the purpose section states, “This 


TIB is to be used in conjunction with separate 


TIBS or other approved documents that provide 


site-specific coworker data.” 


DR. ZIEMER: Which is what we 

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(unintelligible). 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): That may take 


care of action number one. 


MS. MUNN: That’s the statement I wanted to 


hear. I don’t know whether that’s the 


statement that SC&A wanted to hear. 


 DR. WADE: So now we’re left with action 


two. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is Kathy 


Behling, and with regard to, I’ve looked at 


almost 150 dose reconstructions at this point 


in time, and we carefully look at all of the 


information that is being used whether it’s 


coworker data. We review all of the 


procedures and all of the source documents, 


most of the source documents that are being 


used in order to determine if we agree with 


the assumptions used by NIOSH. So we are 


definitely looking at any assumptions whether 


they’re 50th percentile assumptions or 95th
 

percentile assumptions with regard to coworker 


data. 


DR. MAURO: Kathy, this is John. In light 


of that is it your sense that places, I 


presume that as I recall there are times when 

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we disagree with the percentile that may have 


been adopted in a particular dose 


reconstruction. And in your sense is there 


anything that could be done to 0020 that might 


have provided the guidelines that could have 


made it a little bit more non-subjective? Or 


do you think that that’s not the problem. 


In other words when we see that we may 


have some disagreement on which percentile was 


used, do you think the problem lies in this 


OTIB-0020 or is it really something that a 


judgment, 0020 did everything it could do. 


The problem really becomes how it was 


implemented on a particular case. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I guess I have 


a little bit of difficulty in answering that 


because as Hans indicated, I have never seen 


in the cases that I’ve looked at where they 


specifically cited OTIB-0020 for the basis for 


the coworker data. 


I have seen cases where they use site-


specific coworker data and in those cases up 


to this point in time, we haven’t seen a lot, 


but so far everything that I’ve looked at 


seemed to be reasonable and claimant 

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favorable. And so I can’t really state that I 


can go back to this OTIB-0020 and indicated 


that there has been a problem. 


 DR. WADE: So maybe we have no action items. 

MS. MUNN: We have no answer? 

 DR. WADE: No action items. 

MS. MUNN: Oh, thank you. I am interpreting 

that as agreement that the final sentence we 


just heard covers the crux of the problem that 


SC&A has with this issue. 


DR. MAURO: What I just heard is that where 


the rubber meets the road on the real cases we 


have generally found that the correct 


judgments were made in terms of what 


percentile to operate at. And that being the 


case I’d have to say that, in effect, it means 


that it validates OTIB-0020. Notwithstanding 


the fact that there may be some interpretation 


in ambiguity here that could be improved, but 


nevertheless at least in the cases that we’ve 


looked at, the judgments that were made in the 


real cases seem to be -- and, Kathy, correct 


me if I’m wrong -- by and large the correct 


judgments. 


MS. MUNN: Made on the basis of other OTIBs 

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DR. MAURO: Other OTIBs which, of course, 


ultimately were based on this philosophy. 


MS. MUNN: Correct. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): What I would 


say is we have not seen a great deal of cases 


that have used the coworker models. I think 


it’s just the more recent cases that are 


starting to use more of the coworker model 


data. What I’ve seen so far seems to be 


reasonable. If there’s going to be maybe an 


action item, I would possibly recommend that 


during the selection of cases that we review 


maybe this becomes a selection criteria was 


coworker data used. And we can look at this 


issue more closely or at least see more cases 


that uses coworker model data. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): This is Mark 


Griffon. I have one question, Wanda. When 


I’m looking at this, I mean, when I look at 


the title of this TIB, it looks to be a fairly 


important document. When I look at the meat 


of it, I’m not sure it rises to that level. 


But my question is I agree with what 


was said with regard application to the 

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individual dose reconstruction level, but I’m 


curious whether this TIB is used by the site 


profile authors because it seems to really 


apply to the people that are developing the 


coworker models up front for the site-specific 


coworker model. 


If you look in Section 6 of the TIB, 


there’s a sentence there which I, you know, 


I’m very curious about which says that, it’s 


like the third sentence there that says, “A 


sampling of the data are compared to claim-


specific data submitted to NIOSH by the DOE 


sites,” to basically to assess whether the 


electronic data is usable as a coworker model. 


So when I look at this title I’m 


thinking, okay, this is the criteria by which 


NIOSH determines whether the data is 


sufficient and under what circumstances a 


coworker model can be developed from the data 


they have for a particular site. And then 


under what circumstances they’ll say it’s 


inadequate or that kind of judgment will be 


made. 


But I don’t see many of those sort of 


triggers in there that tell me, okay, what are 

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your ground rules. What, you know, is there a 


certain statistical analysis that you want to 


do that says if we have, if the data looks 


like this, we’re just going to determine that 


it’s inadequate. 


There might be gray areas, but at a 


certain point we would make a sort of 


overarching, policy-level criteria that at 


least the data have to, have to meet these 


certain criteria to be usable as coworker data 


or something like that. Or that you have to 


have a certain amount of information on the 


employees. You know, do you have sufficient 


job information or information about where the 


people would have worked to determine whether 


a coworker model could be applicable for that 


site. 


And I don’t see any of that really in 


this TIB to tell you the truth. But I guess 


my one question that I would ask NIOSH is do 


the site profile authors abide by this TIB? 


Are they using this TIB in any way to guide 


them when they develop the coworker models up 


front? 


 MR. SHARFI: Look at the site-specific 

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coworkers TIBs. I believe in almost every 


case the first reference will this TIB. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Okay, okay, so 


they do, and they would abide by that phrase I 


just read which is to check these data against 


claim data. Because, I mean, in a few of our 


SEC reviews I wonder if that has happened. 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): And, Mark, even 


on Rocky Flats when we were going over OTIB0058, this was a specific area that was looked 


at even in the earliest provisions of that 


TIB, and further work was done on this 


specific issue. And there’s one area that is 


always addressed in a separate type-specific 


coworker TIB. You know, Hans mentioned 


Paducah. I pulled up the Paducah coworker 


just now, and it’s addressing all those items 


that Hans just brought up on the phone. 


MS. MUNN: We do that in the earlier --


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): I just thought 


I’d mention this because all the discussion 


seems to be around individual dose 


reconstruction. But I think this TIB’s pretty 


applicable to the site profile development 


process. 

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MR. SMITH (by Telephone): Yes, it is. 


DR. MAURO: As I recall when we went through 


the Rocky Flats process, a lot of our 


discussion centered around OCAS coworker 


models. In fact, that’s most of what we 


discussed. 


Now the question I pose to everyone 


around the table and on the phone, is there 


anything that could have been put into this 


particular OTIB-0020 that would have helped to 


avoid the months of debate that we 


encountered? In other words in the end as you 


recall lots of revisions were made to the 


Rocky Flats coworker model, whether they were 


internal or external, I believe that was one 


of the outcomes that there were changes made 


in light of the discussions. 


And the question then becomes would a 


lot of that have been somehow avoided if, in 


fact, more explicit guidance was given. Or in 


retrospect, never mind then, but in 


retrospect, now that we’ve been through the 


Rocky experience, and we know where the 


sensitive subjects were, is there anything 


that could be done to OTIB-0020 in light of 

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the lessons learned from Rocky and its 


coworker OTIBS that could be done to 0020 to 


improve the process. 


Maybe in reality, yeah, there might be 


a problem with this OTIB and the way to 


determine that is there anything that we could 


do now that would help avoid similar 


situations as we encountered on Rocky. 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): My short response 


to that is no. The methodology used in all of 


the revisions to OTIB-0058 were the same, and 


they were always based on OTIB-0020. And 


again, very claimant-favorable methodologies 


as you’ll see in looking at the final table in 


that TIB. 


MS. MUNN: Extraordinarily favorable. 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): The changes that 


occurred with OTIB-0058 were due to the 


repeated revisions of some of the input data 


coming into the front end of the coworker 


modeling process. 


DR. MAURO: So it wasn’t the philosophy. It 


really was the dataset upon which the OTIB was 


based. That’s an important point. 


MS. MUNN: That seems to be the recurring 

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issue is how well the data available for the 


various sites can be applied since there’s an 


enormous variation. We’ve already seen a 


staggering amount of variation between the 


amount of information that we have and the 


application of that information to the site-


specific issues that arise. They seem to be 


very broadly distributed. 


Mark, are you okay with the suggestion 


that the subcommittee sort of check from time 


to time to assume that OTIB-0020 seems to be 


applied appropriately to the other sites? 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yeah, I mean, I 


think generally it comes up in our site 


profile reviews and when we cover cases in the 


subcommittee it will come up that way. 


MS. MUNN: If you’re comfortable with --


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yeah, I’m fine 


with that overall. I would answer John’s 


question in one way thought. I believe, and 


this is only my feeling, that Section 6 in 


OTIB-0020 could be -- and I’m just going over 


this real time as we’re on the phone so it’s 


been awhile since I looked at OTIB-0020, but 


my sense is that some more specificity would 

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have helped. 


And maybe this is in retrospect, you 


know, after Rocky Flats, but some more 


specificity as to what it meant or what should 


be done in terms of, it says, “A sampling of 


the data are compared,” you know, that hardly 


tells us much about the sampling. So maybe 


more specific guidance as to what extent. 


What’s required as far as a sampling? Is 


there a percentage? Is there a, you know. 


How is this sampling done? 


MS. MUNN: Well again, Mark, isn’t that 


going to depend largely on the dataset that 


you have available to you? That can vary 


enormously. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): There may be 


some site-specific issues, but I think overall 


you want an approach across the board that’s 


going to be, you know, you want some overall 


guidance. I would say when developing a 


coworker model, you should at least include 


this in your approach to sampling from the 


claimant data to compare against your coworker 


data. I don’t know. 


That’s just a thought, but otherwise, 

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Wanda, I agree with you that we can take these 


up in the subcommittee and site profile 


reviews when they come for site-specific 


issues. 


MS. MUNN: All right, we can take that as an 


action item for the subcommittee. As far as 


your issue with respect that more definitive 


directions regarding how to proceed with 


sampling, I ask NIOSH if they have views on 


that that they would share with us. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I guess not sitting here at 


the table. We’d have to consult with the 


people who have been preparing these, you 


know, the coworker datasets and some of that 


and just see what exactly are we talking 


about. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): I know some of 


it’s a case by case, but I think from the 


standpoint of having to come, you know, think 


of down the line when you’re going to have to 


defend this coworker model what general 


criteria do you want to be able to meet I 


think is kind of the way I’m looking at it. 


You know, but this is what we do for every 


coworker model we develop. 

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And then there’s going to be 


variations as Wanda said. Every set of data’s 


going to be different and every site’s 


different. I understand that. But maybe it’s 


worth spelling some of those out in this 


general guidance that this is what we look to 


achieve in every one of these. 


MS. MUNN: So can we go away from this item 


with two specific action items? One for the 


subcommittee to incorporate this into what 


we’re looking at there. The other for NIOSH 


to check the wording of Section 6 of the OTIB 


to see if there should be more specificity to 


the direction with respect to sampling of 


data. Is that fair? 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Sounds okay, 


yeah. 


 DR. WADE: I’ve got the two action items 


captured. 


MS. MUNN: Very good. We’re all exhausted. 


It’s time for a 15-minute break. Please do, 


15 minutes. 


(Whereupon, a break was taken from 11:00 


a.m. until 11:15 a.m.) 


 DR. WADE: We’re back in session. Mark, are 

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you with us? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Mark Griffon? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Mark, are you on mute? 


 (no response) 


 DR. WADE: Mark, if you are not on mute 


where are you? He’ll be with us shortly. 


MS. MUNN: I hope so. In his absence our 15 


minutes is up. Let’s return to our summary of 


tasks three Supplement one, Rev. one. 


The next item I see that has any ones 


in the rating column that have any kind of 


response is on page 24 of 37. ORAU PROC-0022. 


DR. MAURO: I’m sorry. This is John. Right 


now I’m looking at my chart --


DR. ZIEMER: OTIB-0017. 


DR. MAURO: OTIB-0017 on page 11? 


MR. HINNEFELD: It has no NIOSH response. 


DR. MAURO: But there’s no response, okay. 


So we don’t want to go there then. 


MS. MUNN: No, not right now. We’ll touch 


on it to see how the responses are coming 


after we’ve gone over the responses we already 


have. If we can get anything whittled down so 

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that it comes off this matrix, or it’s reduced 


to at least one item on the matrix, it will be 


DR. MAURO: I’m sorry. You were saying that 


the next place is where? 


MR. SMITH (by Telephone): Page 24. 


MS. MUNN: PROC-0022, reference to the ORAU 


procedure for our Privacy Act compliance. 


There are two separate findings there, and we 


had responses from NIOSH. 


Stu, do you want to review your 


response to see how SC&A accepts it? 


MR. HINNEFELD: This is a procedure is for 


requesting additional information, and I think 


that would be utilized when we get late 


information like we have a claim about 


employment like at a DOE site or visits to 


other DOE sites that were not part of the 


original claim. I’m trying to catch up here 


again. 


The first finding has to do with 


reference an incorrect procedure maybe. 


MS. MUNN: Refers to the ORAU procedure for 


Privacy Act compliance. Needs to be correct 


and consistent. And the next one suggests 

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that PROC-0022 provide an overview for 


requesting information as referred to task 


two, task four, task five, assumes the 


reader’s familiar with each task. 


DR. ZIEMER: I’m a little confused here. 


The rating column has disappeared from my 


chart. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is Kathy 


Behling. Yes, when we get into the quality 


assurance procedures which is where you are 


right now, in fact, I think Steve Ostrow is on 


the phone and he can help me out here. We 


developed a checklist that’s different than 


the checklist for some of the PROCs. The 


quality assurance checklist simply has, it 


asks questions and the response is either yes, 


no or not applicable, and there’s no ranking 


or rating associated with those. So 


therefore, quite honestly I’m trying to think 


back as to why there was a one in parentheses 


behind this --


MS. MUNN: Well, I know why it was. That’s 


from our discussion previously that you mean 


that’s from Supplement One. That’s the first 


supplement. 

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Sorry, that’s my, I was looking in the 


wrong column, too. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yeah, these 


quality assurance procedures do not have 


rankings. 


MS. MUNN: We’re not going to look at those 


then at this moment. I need to backpedal 


myself. 


I have listed PROC-0061, OTIB-0028. 


It’s OTIB-0028 --


DR. ZIEMER: It’s the same issue. I think 


it’s the version rating. 


MS. MUNN: We had ones on 24, but there was 


no response yet. That’s in preparation. We 


had, 28 has responses to it. They had low 


ratings. 


DR. MAURO: All of these are QA. Here we 


are starting on page 24, for example, may have 


started earlier. Let me see if I can find 


where it actually starts. Page 22. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I’ve moved this back. I’m 


back on page 13. I’m sorry about that. I 


jumped us ahead into the quality procedures. 


I’m back where we do have rankings and 


responses. As I said earlier, I want to make 

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sure we do get an opportunity to look at the 


NIOSH response regardless of the 


classification and to make sure that if 


there’s a resolution that we can reach here 


today that we do that. 


As I see it, the next response that I 


have is on page 13 for OTIB-0028. The summary 


ratings were four and four, but we do have a 


response from NIOSH. It says a page change is 


going to be initiated, will include all the 


files used. Can we assume that that meets the 


criteria anticipated from SC&A? 


DR. MAURO: I’m just getting myself a little 


oriented here. These are the ones I believe 


that were prepared, there are several here by 


Joyce. The one we’re looking at has to do 


with thorium. Is that correct? 


MS. MUNN: Yes, Type M Thorium. 


DR. MAURO: Right and the question --


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): This is Liz 


Brackett. This OTIB was written because the 


values in IMBA are not correct because it 


carries all the daughters through with it so 


we had to come up with alternative dose 


conversion factors. And this OTIB was 

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verification that the number that we were 


using. And I somehow missed, I only listed 


two of the files when there were actually four 


of them. That was one of the problems. 


DR. MAURO: It turns out our comment on what 


I call, there are three in a row, one dealing 


with thoron, one dealing with thorium and one 


dealing with wounds. These were all reviewed 


by Joyce. All of which got very favorable 


reviews. There were no ones, twos, I believe 


they’re only threes. But there was some 


general observations. 


And I believe what you’re referring to 


is there were certain references. I believe 


the one you’re referring to is there are 


certain documents that Keith Eckerman provided 


that were the underpinning for the approach 


used. And Joyce said from her review 


everything looked fine, but she’d sure like to 


look at those original source documents that 


Keith Eckerman used to come up with the dose 


conversion factors, but she didn’t have any 


problem with it. They looked like they were 


valid, but it would be helpful if we could see 


those source documents. I think that was the 

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extent of the comment. 


MS. MUNN: So a page change including the 


lifting of the file will meet your criteria? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I can do that. Do you 


want to see the files as well? 


DR. MAURO: Well, yeah, that’s what Joyce 


asked for. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Liz, if you would send those 


to me, I will send them on to John. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Okay, thanks. 


 DR. WADE: What files are they exactly? 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): These are 


files that Keith Eckerman generated from the 


software that he uses to drive the dose 


conversion factors. It’s the output from his 


program. 


 DR. WADE: Could I have his name again? 


DR. ZIEMER: Keith Eckerman. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): ORNL. 


MS. MUNN: All right, so our only 


expectation will be that page change and this 


item will then clear. 


MR. HINNEFELD: The page change and the 


files. 

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MS. MUNN: Right. 


There is the third item on OTIB-0028 


on the next page --


DR. MAURO: What page number? I’m sorry. 


MS. MUNN: Just the very next page. There 


are three items on OTIB-0028. The first two 


are on page 13, the next one is on page 14. 


It says what should be used when it’s 


an intake of 232 or 238 and that’s different 


from five. And the response is ORAU’s not 


aware of a different ever being applied. If 


needed we will contact Eckerman. Is that 


adequate for the issue? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MS. MUNN: The next response we have is down 


that same page on OTIB-0011. We have two 


items there with responses to them. Sounds as 


though NIOSH is asking for clarification --


DR. MAURO: Perhaps I can help on these two 


items. This had to do with tritium bioassay 


and individuals that would be working in an 


area where they’re exposed to tritium, and 


there were some intermittent bioassay samples 


collected that might have been spaced by many, 


many months. So in theory the person could 

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have been working in the tritium environment 


and the clearance for the tritium I think has 


a ten day half life. So in theory if you 


don’t take sufficient bioassays, you could 


miss an intake. 


And the first comment had to do, and 


it’s a four. It wasn’t a very major, was that 


it wasn’t clear how do you deal with a void. 


And I believe the comment was very simple. It 


became clear when we read the workbook. In 


other words there’s a workbook that goes with 


this one. 


And when we saw the workbook, the 


workbook provided very explicit guidance, 


exactly what do you do when you have a void in 


the sampling sequence. But it wasn’t until we 


read the workbook that we realized 


everything’s okay. So that’s why it was a 


four. It would be helpful if the actual 


procedure, the OTIB, provided that explanation 


in the text that you wouldn’t gave to go 


through the workbook before you understood 


exactly that everything’s okay. That was the 


comment that was made. So it’s a relatively 


minor comment. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, there is some language 


in the section called time periods with no 


monitoring. So there is something there. I 


guess it wasn’t sufficiently clear. 


DR. ZIEMER: The response, the ORAU 


response, appears to address it. 


MR. HINNEFELD: There is some wording there, 


and maybe since the workbook is clear and 


there’s some wording there, maybe that’s 


sufficient. 


DR. MAURO: That’s why it was a four and 


maybe we missed it. 


MS. MUNN: We’re okay? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MS. MUNN: We’re okay, those two. 


DR. ZIEMER: Do you need to double check 


that, John? 


DR. MAURO: I’ll go back and take a look, 


sure. Make sure that the words are there and 


sufficient. But quite frankly, as long as 


it’s in the workbook, in fact, let’s talk 


about this a bit. 


If the workbook is fine but maybe the 


procedure is not as thorough, in other words, 


the workbook has to be complete because it’s 

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mechanistic; it’s all there. And there maybe, 


so there’s information in the workbook is 


always richer and more explicit than what’s in 


the text of the OTIB by the very nature of the 


workbook. So in my mind I like the idea, may 


it would make life easier for everyone, is 


they complement each other, and they’re really 


part and parcel of the same thing. That is, 


the write up together with the workbook 


constitutes the procedure. And if we look at 


it that way, then there really is no comment 


because, you know, when we did this review, we 


actually, we looked at them as if they were 


separate. But maybe the better way to think 


about it is this. These complement each 


other. And if there is any ambiguity in the 


actual text of the OTIB that’s resolved in the 


workbook. As far as I’m concerned the problem 


goes away. I don’t know if the rest of the 


working group would agree with that 


interpretation. 


MS. MUNN: I understood that to be the 


philosophy at the time we put the workbooks 


together but perhaps I was in error. Do we 


have any heartburn with that philosophy? 

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 (no response) 


MS. MUNN: If not, then --


DR. ZIEMER: Now I’m wondering if maybe the 


reviewer, maybe your reviewer wasn’t aware of 


this later section and made the comment in --


DR. MAURO: Well, I’ll --


MS. MUNN: The next item is the one 


immediately below it, also a four. ORAU OTIB0019. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Do we still 


want another one associated with 11? I don’t 


know if you want to finish that. 


DR. ZIEMER: She’s talking about that one, 


Liz. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Oh, she just 


said 19. I’m sorry. 


DR. ZIEMER: You meant 11, didn’t you? 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: It’s a tritium one. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I meant 11. 


DR. MAURO: I think the issue here has to do 


with the modeling. That is when tritium is 


taken into the body and then it shows up in 


the urine, there is this delay period. And 


the comment was I believe that that delay is 

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not explicitly taken into consideration. But 


the response, and I will stand corrected by 


the folks who are expects on the ICRP model is 


that it assumes instantaneous mixing 


deliberately. And so that’s the way ICRP 


intended it to be in spite of the fact there 


is this delay intake and when it gets to the 


urine. So as long as everyone, that’s the 


ICRP. I wasn’t aware of this. This was 


explained to me. As long as the ICRP model 


assumes instantaneous mixing and so your 


intaking a -- You’re assuming it’s in the 


urine, that’s not a problem with the model. 


And ICRP did it this way. Please, anyone more 


familiar with this subject than I am, correct 


me if that --


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): This is Bob 


Anigstein. I’m not sure if I understood your 


comment correctly. Did you say that there is 


instantaneous mixing throughout the body? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 

DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Oh, this is 

for tritium only. 

DR. MAURO: Tritium only. 

DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Okay, forget 
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it, sorry. 


DR. ZIEMER: And you’re not saying that 


there is. You’re saying that the model 


assumes that there is. 


DR. MAURO: In reality there is. 


DR. ZIEMER: It only matters if somehow you 


collected a urine sample the first minute 


after an intake. 


DR. MAURO: Right. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Or, well, if 


you collected it within two hours. 


DR. ZIEMER: All right, two hours. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): It’s not going 


to have an impact on the dose calculation, but 


it will --


DR. MAURO: That’s why it’s a five. In 


other words it’s got a five. It was a 


comment, an observation that the reviewer 


wanted to just point out and alert quite 


frankly. It’s unfortunate that it surfaced to 


this degree. I don’t think that it’s 


important. So I don’t think we need to go any 


further. 


MS. MUNN: The next response we have is to 


OTIB-0019. It was rated a four. 

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DR. MAURO: Bob Anigstein, are you on the 


line? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Sure am. 


DR. MAURO: I believe this is the one we 


talked about this morning or yesterday. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Yes, yes. 


OTIB-0019 actually falls into a very similar 


category to OTIB-0020 which we discussed at 


length earlier in terms of that it’s a 


guidance. It’s not really a guidance to the 


dose reconstructors as I understand it. It’s 


a guidance to the site expert to create a 


separate TIB for each site which then will be 


used by the dose reconstructors. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Yes, that’s 


correct. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): The problem 


we had -- just one second. The issue with the 


OTIB-0019 is that it gives a very 


straightforward methodology for taking the 


known data, the coworker data, and assigning 


to each data point, assigning it a percentile. 


You simply rank them. 


And the example they give is let’s say 


you have ten data points. Then the lowest 

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value is given point 0.05 because 0.05 is 


halfway between zero and 0.1. So it gets a 


five percentile. The second one would get a 


15 percentile and so on up to the tenth which 


would have a 95th percentile. And, of course, 


if you have more data points you use a similar 


but finer gradation. 


Then the OTIB instructs that these get 


plotted. Each one of these percentiles gets 


assigned a Z score. So by definition the 50th
 

percentile gets a Z score of zero, and as a 


result of a normal distribution, the 84th
 

percentile will have a Z score of 1 because 


that’s one sigma, and all the others will have 


corresponding Z scores. 


Then there is, I use something like 


Excel which probably people would normally 


use, to do a regression analysis, and you plot 


the best line, the best straight line through 


those points. And then from that line you 


would have two parameters, and one would be 


the 50th percentile would come out of that 


line. And the other one would be the slope of 


the line would be the geometric standard 


deviation. So all of this is straightforward 

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91 

statistics, and it was originally reviewed by 


Dr. Harry Chlmynski who has a doctorate in 


statistics. And he found the statistics to be 


fine. 


The point we did object to is it then 


goes on to say, well, make sure that it’s a 


lognormal distribution because what you plot 


is the logarithms of the values of the doses, 


the doses or intakes. And to make sure it’s a 


lognormal distribution, you calculate the R 


squared. And normally, in ordinary statistics 


when you have two independent, you have a 


measurement that has two values attached to 


it, two independent variables. 


And you then do an R squared to 


determine the amount of correlation between 


these two variables. And if you have an R 


square of 0.9, that’s considered a good 


correlation. If you have an R square of 0.7, 


it’s reasonable and probably valid, 


acceptable. 


That does not apply in this instance 


because you already have guaranteed that 


regardless of the form of the distribution by 


ranking the values and assigning a Z score to 

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each value, you’ve already guaranteed that 


there will be a monotonically increase in 


function. Meaning that each, any time you 


have value K, and then you have value K plus 


one, the value will be higher, and it will 


also have a higher Z score. 


So whether there’s a straight line or 


not, you’ll always have this curve that starts 


at the bottom left and goes to the top right. 


So you will always get a good R square even --


and Harry Chlmynski quotes some papers and the 


discussion this morning -- that they made up 


some perfectly arbitrary distributions, and 


they always get an R square of 0.98. That’s 


the authors of this work that refers to. So 


this is simply not a valid test on whether or 


not you have a lognormal distribution. 


There are other tests. There’s a 


number of statistical tests that can be 


applied to determine how likely it is that a 


distribution is lognormal, but they are not 


mentioned here in this OTIB. So that’s the 


brunt of the criticism. 


And then the nature of the outcome is 


that if you’re trying to take, say, the 95th
 
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percentile of that from the distribution as 


opposed to the real 95th percentile, meaning 


that you had a hundred values, then the 95th
 

percentile would be the 95th value starting 


from the bottom, you might get very different 


values if the thing sufficiently deviates from 


lognormal. It even has a high-end tail. So 


that’s our objection to this. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): But there is 


another test that isn’t documented in the OTIB 


where we do, the information that’s included 


on the spreadsheet that comes out of this, 


there’s the fitted 50th and 84th percentiles, 


and there’s the actual, you know, looking at 


the ranking to look at a comparison of them to 


see if they are very different. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Yes, I 


noticed that. That they do, that it does 


specify, as a matter of fact, it doesn’t even, 


the OTIB does not make clear. Thus, it does 


give you two different ways of calculating the 


84th percentile and the GSD which was the ratio 


of the two. And it’s not clear to the reader 


why there are two different ways, but as you 


explained, that should be, one with inside 

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94 

knowledge would know, yeah, that must be what 


they’re doing. But that should be made 


clearer in the OTIB, I think. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): There is a 


procedure that gives more details of doing the 


calculations, Procedure 95, that was written 


kind of a sub-document to this one that gives 


the person running the statistics the specific 


details of how to do it. I’m not sure if 


that’s covered in there, but that does go 


along with this and does give more detail. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I see. Okay, 


that’s good to know. I do not believe we 


reviewed that procedure. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): It came a bit 


after this one. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I see. Okay, 


that would explain it. 


MS. MUNN: So what is our action here? Is 


someone going to verify that the follow-on 


procedure, that was the issue? 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): It won’t 


settle the issue because it doesn’t address 


other, it doesn’t address any other tests. It 


just does give a little more information about 

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95 

how the statistics are run. 


DR. ZIEMER: Liz, is that procedure the one 


called Generating Summary Statistics for 


Coworker Bioassay Data? 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): That sounds 


like the right title, yes. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I mean, as a 


sort of a lay statistician I would just 


mention that there’s something called a W test 


which is one that can be applied to determine 


lognormality, and there are several others. 


DR. NETON: There’s also the Kolmogrov 


Smirnov test. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Yes. 


DR. NETON: It seems to me we need to go 


back and just look at this again, and in light 


of what Bob just talked about with the R 


squared values. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Sure. One 


thing I will mention is we’ve discussed many 


times what would be the alternative to 


lognormal. This is to determine if it’s a 


lognormal, but we haven’t really come up with 


any better alternative to what it could be. 


Because then if you determine it’s a different 

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distribution, then you have the issue of how 


you enter the output into IREP since it only 


has a limited number of distributions. 


MS. MUNN: Can we have an offline discussion 


of our technical people to see if you can 


resolve this? 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Sure. 


MS. MUNN: And report back to us at our next 


meeting. It would be very nice if the two of 


you could resolve whether there is, indeed, a 


problem or whether it is taken care of and 


just not obvious to the casual reader. I’ll 


expect a report back at our next meeting. 


Okay? Can you do that? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Fine by me. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Who’s making 


the report? 


MR. HINNEFELD: We will. We’ll task around 


the program. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Okay. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Excuse me. I 


didn’t get the name of the lady who had just 


discussed the statistics. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): This is Liz 

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Brackett with the O-R-A-U team. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Liz Brackett. 


MS. MUNN: The next response that we have 


has a rating of three, ORAU OTIB-0033, and we 


have a NIOSH response. The OTIB was developed 


to give guidance to the judgment the DRs must 


document their rationale for selected 


categories based on information in the 


worker’s file. Is that acceptable to SC&A? 


DR. MAURO: To step back a little bit on 


OTIB-0033. What this is is, unfortunately, 


this is part and parcel to a bigger score. It 


has to do with coming up with, when you don’t 


have adequate bioassay data, and you don’t 


have sufficient air sampling data, but you do 


have a Health Physics program in place whereby 


the DOE order is in effect. You’ve identified 


different sections of a facility that 


radioactively contaminated area, airborne 


contamination area where you have a degree of 


control over access to areas with airborne 


radioactivity. 


That’s the setting. That is, that 


we’re in a situation where you have in place a 


well documented radiation protection program. 

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Now stay with me for a minute. The idea here 


is, I think this is an important issue because 


it goes to the fundamental approach for 


creating surrogate data or surrogate approach 


to doing dose reconstruction where when you 


have very limited information about the 


exposure a worker may have experienced -- and 


certainly if I’m mischaracterizing it, help me 


out -- but and so what happens as follows. 


So we have a facility that has a 


robust radiation protection program, then a 


degree of confidence that access to areas with 


elevated airborne radioactivity is controlled. 


Under those circumstances one could argue that 


it’s very unlikely that anyone working at that 


facility will have entered an area for 


protracted periods of time where the 


concentration of the radioactivity in the air 


is above the maximum physical concentrations, 


the MPCs. So that’s a given as we have this 


control in place. 


Now, one could argue that, all right, 


if we want to place, here we have a worker. 


We want to place on upper bound on what he 


might have inhaled. We have a lot of options. 

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We say, listen, one of the things we can do, 


we don’t have any bioassay data for him, but 


one thing we can say with a high degree of 


confidence is that because he worked for this 


facility at a time when there was a robust 


radiation protection program, there’s no way 


he was exposed 2,000 hours per year to 


radionuclides at a level in the air that were 


above one MPC for the worst radionuclide, like 


Strontium-90. So that sort of puts a lid on 


it. That sort of sets the stage. That’s 


OTIB-0018 by the way. 


Then you said, well, hold it. Hold 


it. So we’re not going to assume that a 


worker was exposed 2,000 hours per year at an 


MPC of the worst possible radionuclide. We’ve 


got to find a way to tone it down to make it a 


little bit more realistic so that we can make 


decisions regarding compensation and denial on 


a more realistic basis. And that’s where 33 


comes in. 


Thirty-three comes in and says, well 


listen, this is what we’re going to do. 


Depending on the year and a number of other 


parameters that characterize this person’s job 

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function and the years in which he worked, 


we’ll assume that he’s at some percentile of 


an MPC of exposure. That is maybe ten percent 


of an MPC or five percent of an MPC. 


So there’s an overall strategy that’s 


adopted here that brings you to a place that 


says even though we don’t have bioassay data 


for this particular worker, we probably can 


place a plausible upper bound on what he may 


have chronically been exposed to while working 


at this facility at this time. And it 


effectively means that we’ll take the MPC to 


the worst radionuclide he might have been 


exposed to, and then, depending on a number of 


parameters related to his job function and the 


year that he worked, we’re going to assume 


he’s at some percentile of the MPC and then do 


a dose calculation. 


Now, the criticism that we had related 


to this is there’s a lot of judgment here, and 


not only that, it’s confounded by some of the 


criticisms we have with OTIB-0018. So it’s 


hard for us to discuss OTIB-0033 in a vacuum 


because OTIB-0033, all it really says is, 


well, apply this adjustment factor to OTIB­
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0018, you know, the MPC, under these 


circumstances or use this adjustment factor. 


So our concern, and this is one way 


perhaps to really get our arms around a 


multiple set of OTIBs. The whole idea that 


doses can be reconstructed for workers without 


any bioassay data based on a premise that 


there was a radiation protection program under 


DOE Order 15, whatever the DOE Order is. And 


thereby there’s assurance that their access 


controls were there. And then given that, 


that in itself is, there’s some questions that 


we should discuss. 


But then superimposed on that is the, 


what I consider to be, the somewhat arbitrary 


selection of adjustment factors like 0.1 or 


0.5 of an MPC based on a variety of parameters 


that one could assign to that worker. And so 


our concern goes toward that. That is, 


there’s an awful lot of judgment. There’s an 


awful lot of presumptions embedded in what I 


call the OTIB-0018-slash-OTIB-0033 strategy 


for reconstructing internal doses. 


And I guess I’d have to put it back 


out to NIOSH whether or not I’ve accurately 

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characterized that combo of OTIBs and your 


sense on whether or not that is, in fact, a 


weakness that you see also. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Excuse me, 


John. Can I just add to some things that you 


said? 


DR. MAURO: Please, yes. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’d just like 


to make it very clear to the work group. 


OTIB-0033, as you indicated, applies a graded 


approach to the OTIB-0018. And OTIB-0018 is 


an overestimating approach that was designed 


to replace or that is used, in fact, quite 


often right now, OTIB-0002. And OTIB-0002, 


the difference now is OTIB-0002, you were not 


allowed to compensate using OTIB-0002. But 


the combination of OTIB-0033, this graded 


approach along with the OTIB-0018 does allow 


that dose reconstructor to compensate a case. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): That’s not 


correct. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): It’s still an 


overestimating technique, and it’s not 


intended to use for compensable cases. 

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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Thirty-three is 


not? 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): No. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Because the 


title of 33 I thought is Assumption for 


Processing Best Estimate Cases, but it’s still 


not to be used for compensating? Is that 


correct? 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Well, that’s a 


good point because it brings in OTIB-0014 


also, which can be used for best estimates. 


But the overestimating assumptions are still 


not to be used for compensable cases. It was 


written during the time where for a short time 


we were doing compensable cases based on these 


types of things, but that’s not the case now. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, because I 


have seen cases where they’ve applied, and I 


was under the impression that the OTIB-0033, 


once you apply that graded approach, you could 


compensate because I have to go back and 


convince myself that I was quite sure that 


we’d seen some cases where there have been 


compensations using OTIB-0033. 


MS. BRACKETT (by Telephone): Well, as I 

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said, when it was first written there was a 


short time when that was being done, but that 


should not be the case now. That’s not the 


intent of it. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, maybe 


that should be something that’s clearly stated 


in this OTIB-0033 at this point. 


DR. MAURO: That’s important. Our 


understanding, and even I think the language, 


in 33 was, that was the reason why 33 was 


written so that you would not, that you had a 


way to reconstruct doses a little bit more 


realistically and compensate or deny --


DR. ZIEMER: It does have best estimate in 


the title. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, so I guess that needs to 


be fixed. If, in fact, 33 in combination with 


18 is, in fact, being used as an upper bound 


for denial only, that’s very much different 


than our understanding. 


MS. MUNN: How can we fix it? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, there might be two 


things to fix here. One is to sort out the 


debate and, if necessary, change the title on 


this OTIB. If it’s strictly an overestimating 

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OTIB, it shouldn’t have this in the title. I 


think there may be some historical 


explanation. I think I might know what the 


history is or why this was used in 


compensating cases. But I want to make sure I 


get it right so I’ll do that. 


And then the other issue may be a 


broader discussion of the combination of 18 


and 33 and what ever, you know, take a look at 


the combined issues on those and see what we 


can do in terms of a combined response and why 


we believe the approach is a good approach. I 


mean, that might be the other thing to do. 


MS. MUNN: So you’re going to do a two-


pronged review. One to see whether changes 


need to be made directly to 33, and also to 


verify that it is being property incorporated 


into the overall activity of dose 


reconstruction. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, in combination with 18 


what we want to do is take the finding, review 


18 as well. Review the findings for 18 and 


review the findings for 33 and see what we can 


come up with in terms of a consistent 


response. 

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DR. MAURO: And within that context we had a 


much more serious (unintelligible) 18 than we 


did with 33. In other words, 33 there was 


this adjustment factors which you could say 


were reasonable, you know, applying this 


adjustment. Because people aren’t going to be 


exposed to the MPC, but it’s hard to escape 


18. Because, see, 18 is interesting. 


It says that, listen, we have a 


general air sampling so that we know what the 


airborne radioactivity is in different areas 


in the plant. And on that basis we could say 


with a high level of confidence that if a 


person, you know, a person’s not going to be 


allowed to enter an area with concentrations 


in air that approach or exceed. 


In fact, in recent times I believe 


respiratory protection is required when you’re 


ten percent of the MPCs. So in recent times 


it’s not going to happen. But our problem, 


and you’ll see we’re sort of crossing into 18 


but you can’t help but do it, is that general 


air samplers, we are finding that there’s no, 


there’s very little relationship between the 


Becquerels per cubic meter you get off of 

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general air sampler and the Becquerels per 


cubic meter that you get off a lapel. 


And therefore, we question whether or 


not you could even use OTIB-0018’s data that 


you would get from a general air sampler as a 


reliable indicator of what a person’s exposure 


might be. And Hans has done some research on 


this, and when we get to 18, you’ll see that ­

- I think this is an important concept --


general air samplers have very serious 


limitations when it comes to dose 


reconstruction, and we the information in the 


review of 18 in this very document we’re 


looking at now. 


And I think that is a very important 


subject that needs to be discussed. Now 


whether you want to do that now or when we get 


to it, but they’re linked. The two are linked 


and 18 really is where we have the greatest 


concern, more than we have with 33. 


MS. MUNN: We established NIOSH is going to 


look at it and see how the two mesh so we’ll 


expect that report as well. 


The next response we have is not even 


rated, but it has responses for OTIB-004. Was 

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whether to allow further reassignment of the 


parameters not available. 


MR. HINNEFELD: This is a question about the 


use of breathing rate. You know, 1.2 is kind 


of what’s normally used in calculating, in 


using breathing rate. So the question is does 


a person breathe hard for eight hours a day 


and includes some portion of heavy breathing 


and some portion of that. So that’s 


incorporated. Some amount of heavy breathing 


is incorporated into the one-two meter. 


DR. MAURO: I don’t know if it was given a 


score. 


MS. MUNN: No, it doesn’t have a score. 


DR. MAURO: There may be a five here. In 


other words this --


MS. MUNN: Well, we have a whole gaggle of 


comments on OTIB-004, and since we have a half 


dozen, actually seven, eight, nine, ten, we 


have ten comments on four. And it would be 


very nice if we could take a moment, read 


through NIOSH’s response and see if they’re 


adequate for the concerns that were raised 


when the findings were first put forward. 


Let’s take a moment to take a look at those. 

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DR. ZIEMER: And the reason these weren’t 


rated is? 


DR. MAURO: I’m trying to find it. 


Kathy, by any chance -- I’m just 


trying to find the page number so I can take 


another look at four because I was part of the 


review team. 


MS. MUNN: It’s on 15. 


DR. ZIEMER: In their report it’s pages 138 


to 40. 

MS. MUNN: Thirty-seven, 38 and all the way 

down to 45. So there’s ten pages of report 

data. 

(Whereupon, the work group reviewed the 


report.) 


MS. MUNN: So can we address and agree on 


any of these? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I can go through them now. 


I was trying to get myself re-oriented. 


Mark’s found them and Mark’s found them pretty 


quickly. 


We’ll start with the very first one on 


page 15, the third row down. This has to do 


with the breathing rate. We’ve been having 


this discussion on breathing rates for quite 

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some time. We recognize that 1.2 cubic meters 


per hour is the recommended and ICRP. 


However, at the same time one of the 


concerns that we raised -- and this came up on 


a number of occasions when we deal with AWE 


facilities -- and OTIB 004 is basically 


dealing with uranium facilities. Where our 


understanding is, this is pretty hefty, heavy-


duty work. They’ve lifting, moving uranium 


logs and billets and rolling. So I guess this 


is a general observation regarding that class 


of work. 


AWE facilities that are doing uranium 


metal working. The physical activity is 


intense and so as a general comment whether or 


not that default assumption is, in fact, a 


good one when it comes to this class of 


workers. That’s the concern. I think it came 


up before. On Bethlehem Steel I think we went 


with 1.7 cubic meters. Now whether or not you 


want to make it universal, that was our 


concern. 


DR. NETON: I think what happens here 


though, how much of an overestimate do you 


want. This is an overestimating technique. 

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We’ve already acknowledged this is an upper 


bound exposure, upper bound chronic exposure 


that requires an overestimate. How many 


layers does one want to put on top of these 


already overly estimating techniques. 


DR. MAURO: Let’s step back. What OTIB-004 


does, the really important heart of it, is 


what you want to do is you want to place an 


upper bound on what AWE worker might 


experience for the purpose of denial. I 


believe that’s still the case. And when all 


is said and done what’s done is they reviewed 


the literature on AWE facilities and how much 


uranium is in the air. 


And they said, well, you know, looks 


like chronic exposure at 100 MAC is an upper 


bound, and we agreed with that. That’s a good 


number. So I don’t want to leave the 


impression that we didn’t have a serious 


problem with this one. The commentaries are 


almost like what I would say, by the way, you 


may want to take a look at this. So with 


regard to inhalation though, 100 MAC we 


consider to be a solid value. 


The other thing that’s, that’s very 

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important in OTIB-004 is that we’re worried 


about external exposure. And what was done 


there is that they were assuming that, okay, 


here we have an ingot of uranium. And we’re 


going to assume a person is standing one foot 


away from it 2000 hours per year. As far as 


we’re concerned that is off the charts. 


So I want to make sure that everyone 


here understands that when it comes to the two 


fundamental pathways by which workers are 


exposed. That is airborne dust floating 


during the uranium metalworking operation and 


the external exposure from being working 


adjacent to uranium. The methods used in 


OTIB-004 we consider to be valid. 


Now we have the second order, that are 


commentaries. Given that context we can 


quickly go through, the first one had to do 


with the breathing rate. Jim, I hear what 


you’re saying and I understand, and I have no 


problem with that. 


DR. NETON: Probably just a little more 


because if you think about these 100 MAC 


values, it’s more than likely these are 


already at the 95th percentile of a possible 

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range --


DR. MAURO: In fact, we did an analysis. 


It’s about the 90th percentile. 


DR. NETON: It’s in the upper range. So if 


then if one is superimposed on top of that 


what we consider the best estimate of their 


inhalation. We’ve got this range of values of 


huge, I mean, way out there in the number of 


standard deviations involved with probably 


what would be the best estimate. When you 


look at it in that context these other 


modifiers are trivial corrections, John, in 


the overall --


DR. MAURO: I agree with you. 


DR. NETON: If you go from 1.2 to 1.7 to 


modify the oronasal breathing pattern. The 


second order correction on something that’s 


already been out there. 


DR. MAURO: I agree with you. 


But there are places where we do have 


some concerns on OTIB-004. Some are more 


important than others. One has to do with the 


recycled uranium. Embedded in OTIB-004 is, 


okay, at some of these facilities I’m going to 


have recycled uranium after 1952 or ’53, 

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whatever the date is. 


And again, we didn’t give this a high 


rate, but the basis for the recycled uranium 


composition. Parts per million is not cited. 


I believe there was limited discussion, and I 


can see by your response you’re currently 


looking at that. That is, I could see. 


We leave the breathing area and go 


down, I guess, toward the bottom of the page. 


I see an OTIB on recycled uranium is currently 


under development. So I guess what I’m 


hearing is that any questions we have related 


to the basis for the value selected in OTIB004 as a default composition of recycled 


uranium. The basis for this is under 


development or has been developed since we did 


this review. That may be the case. 


MR. HINNEFELD: It is under development. 


DR. MAURO: It is under development. So 


that’s where we are on that. Since it’s under 


development I guess then the question becomes 


once that’s done there needs to be a level of 


assurance that, yes, the values in OTIB-004 


are, in fact, compatible and consistent with 


what one would consider to be an upper bound. 

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I told Jeff I recently looked at some of the 


plutonium recycled numbers on ten parts per 


billion. In other words, no AWE facility ever 


received any uranium that was greater than, I 


believe, ten parts per billion of uranium. 


That was sort of like a spec. Now that’s not 


with Paducah or anything like that but AWE’s 


that big metalworking. And so I’ve since 


learned that. Now I haven’t gone back to 


check to see if that’s the number you have 


here. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t even know. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But 10 ppb is in TIB-004, 


but I have a question. Was TIB-004 restricted 


to metalworking only and not the chemical 


facilities where you might have had the 


raffinate problems and concentrations and outof-spec plutonium? 


MR. HINNEFELD: It was at one time. Joe 


Guido’s on the line. He might be able to shed 


some more light on this. 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): Yeah, we’re not 


the, there’s uranium ore raffinates that’s not 


being used. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, it wasn’t about ore 

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raffinates, but would it be --


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): Uranium ore or 


raffinates? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Would it be used at some 


facility where any chemical processing of 


uranium was happening? Any for other than 


metal was present? 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): There’s a matrix 


in the back of OTIB-004 that shows the 


facilities, and it’s applicable to, and we can 


look through those and see. I’m not sure what 


you mean by other processing. 


DR. NETON: It must have been. It had to be 


pure uranium I think because otherwise the 100 


MAC for uranium wouldn’t apply because, you’re 


right. 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): It’s a uranium 


facility, but I’m not sure --


DR. MAKHIJANI: I don’t know these well 


enough to be able to say --


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): -- uranium metal 


facilities --


DR. MAURO: Well, I can say this. When I 


reviewed the literature that stands behind the 


100 MAC, amongst the literature was, for 

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example, Harshaw Chemical Company which did 


have levels well above 100 MAC, and Harshaw 


was refining uranium. In other words it 


wasn’t limited to just metalworking. So it 


wouldn’t be bounding. 


DR. NETON: We kind of looked at these. 


There was an upper tier called the Big Five or 


Seven. And there were a number, and they were 


big producers, Mallinckrodt, Harshaw, but we 


know immediately below there was a whole 


second tier that didn’t fall under that 


category at all, and that’s where the intent ­

-


DR. MAURO: And within that context I would 


agree that 100 MAC is the right number, but --


DR. NETON: They’re higher than 100 MAC air. 

DR. MAURO: But this time we have an average 

now. 

 MR. SHARFI: But Harshaw’s not one of the 


listed sites. 


DR. NETON: It’s not. It wouldn’t be. I 


think it’s even discussed somewhere in that 


TIB that the rationale was that they were 


second tier, called mom and pops, minor 


players in the uranium cycle there. It would 

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apply to the original producers. 


DR. MAURO: That was my understanding also 


when I looked at it, and that’s why I came 


down with 100 MAC as being certainly a 


reasonable upper bound for the purpose of 


denial. 


So to go back, we’re up to the part of 


the bottom of page 15 dealing with recycled 


uranium. And the bottom line on that is as 


long as, the way we see it, as long as the 


selected values in OTIB-004 for default do, in 


fact, represent a plausible upper bound, a lot 


might be contained in the recycled uranium at 


metalworking facilities. That’s fine because 


right now when I looked at it, I wasn’t able 


to make that judgment. Since doing this 


review which was, I believe, about a year ago, 


I have learned a bit about recycled uranium. 


And I guess the question is if they used ten 


parts per billion of it, that’s probably the 


right number. So that solves that. So maybe 


we solved the problem. It’s covered. Ten 


parts per billion. Now I don’t know about the 


others. I don’t remember the neptuniums and 


the techniciums where they came in. But 

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plutonium was always the driver anyway because 


we’re dealing with the inhalation pathway 


here. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that’s not entirely 


true, John. And neptunium could be sometimes. 


It depends on the circumstances. Would that 


be right in your experience? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, okay. 


DR. NETON: It’s not a huge dose 


contribution. We limited it to ten parts per 


billion. I think it’s what, like ten percent 


of the total dose or something like that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s correct. 


DR. NETON: That was the basis for that ten 


parts per billion. 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): This is Joe. The 


numbers in there is based on ten ppb 


Plutonium-239. It’s in Table 3-1. It gives 


you the ppb and the fraction. 


MS. MUNN: So to try to wrap this up the 


only real outstanding issues of major 


significance of 004 have to do with TIB-0053 


currently under development. When that 


occurs, when that’s done, do you have any feel 


at all for what the timeline looks like? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t, no. 


MS. MUNN: When OTIB-0053 is done, it will 


be made available to all of us, and SC&A will 


take a look at it to see if it resolves the 


issues that we have listed here, all of them 


with respect to TIB-004. Is that the correct 


action? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, there’s an issue of 


oronasal breathing in here which is --


DR. NETON: I think that falls into the same 


category as breathing, you know. In fact, 


we’re going to discuss this at the Board 


meeting coming up time permitting, the 


oronasal --


DR. ZIEMER: As a practical matter, for 


example, on heavy breathing, it can’t 


practically be carried out on a chronic basis, 


can it? There’s some limit as to how long a 


person --


DR. MAURO: You hyperventilate. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, do we have a similar 


figure on even moderate or what’s the 


intermediate? I mean, the light breathing 


includes some heavy and moderate, but as a 


practical matter I’m not sure a person can 

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engage a moderate level for --


DR. NETON: That’s correct. 


DR. ZIEMER: -- eight hours a day or ten 


hours a day or whatever it is. 


DR. NETON: I’ve got a report that’s in 


draft form where we’ve gone through and looked 


at a number of these global issues. I’m kind 


of getting ahead of the agenda, but it is true 


that in the literature you cannot breathe at a 


heavy rate for a sustained pace otherwise you 


hyperventilate. And that’s the data on that. 


DR. ZIEMER: But those workers have to stop 


and rest if only to get their breathing back 


to normal. 


DR. MAURO: Before they pass out. 


MS. MUNN: Hopefully, we’ll hear a lot about 


that after lunch, right? 


DR. NETON: One or two sound bytes more than 


that. I could talk more about the oronasal 


than the ingestion pathway. 


DR. ZIEMER: Even if you could do moderate 


breathing eight hours a day, that’s not going 


to change the final number by more than a few 


percent anyway. 


DR. NETON: It would be pretty much 

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proportioned to the breathing rate if you had 


an air model. Now, this, of course, is not 


relevant when you have a bioassay-driven 


calculation. It’s only in the air models 


where it becomes a possible problem. But it 


could change the numbers now 20 percent, 30 


percent. But again, I could talk about that 


when we get into the other issue I think. 


MS. MUNN: I think we should because looking 


at the time, I had hoped we would be able to 


get through the OTIBs. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m just gong to add a 


request about this particular one. Could we 


confirm that we’re only dealing with metal 


facilities in this TIB? Because otherwise I 


think --


DR. NETON: Yeah, I agree with you. If it’s 


being applied to facilities that process 


(unintelligible). Now it could be a facility 


that processed pure uranium materials and 


dissolved it and --


MR. HINNEFELD: Unless it was recycled. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Because if it was recycled 


there’s another complication. 

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DR. MAKHIJANI: Just to clear up that 


potential, it doesn’t look like non-metal 


facilities, but just to confirm that. 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): The document 


mentions, I mean, the Sections 3.0 is uranium 


metal handling facilities, I mean, it’s all 


here in forged uranium metal handling 


facilities. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s one 


of the two. I can’t think of anybody outside 


the big original ones that actually did any 


ore processing. 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): I was looking for 


a caveat in it that says, I mean, I think it, 


I’m trying to read through to see what exactly 


it says that you can’t do it. I know all the 


sections it’s talking about uranium metal 


facilities. That was the understanding; 


that’s what this was for. 


MS. MUNN: But the current wording 


identified metal --


DR. MAKHIJANI: My only question was does it 


exclude, that it should, with these numbers, 


it should exclude chemical processing of 


uranium. And I haven’t read the whole thing 

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recently, but maybe that caveat should be in 


there if it’s not in there. 


MR. GUIDO (by Telephone): That’s what I’m 


looking for, an exclusion. 


DR. NETON: Well, I mean, the list is there, 


and by definition, and it’s excluded if none 


of those are chemical facilities. We’d have 


to look through and make sure. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s the only request that 


I have. 


 DR. WADE: We captured. 


MS. MUNN: So NIOSH is going to look at it 


to assure that it’s metal only. 


 DR. WADE: And excludes chemical processing. 


MS. MUNN: All right. 


DR. MAURO: There are a couple of additional 


issues related though that we would probably 


want to close out because we’re almost there. 


MS. MUNN: Good. 


DR. MAURO: On page 16 of the matrix, 


starting on the one, two, the third row from 


the bottom, there are two concerns that are 


raised. One has to do with the medical X-


rays. In effect, what’s happened here is we 


expressed concern that, and this is a cross­
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cutting issue, the approach that is used right 


now for doing dose reconstructions for medical 


surveillance programs where workers get their 


initial X-ray, and then every year they get an 


X-ray. 


We have a standing concern regarding 


the protocol in, I guess it’s OTIB the work 


that he did. I forget the number. We’re very 


much in agreement with the default set of 


numbers that are being used for her 


examination. In other words there’s a 


coworker table that says her examination for 


breast, lung or whatever, here’s the dose. 


And it gives it for chest X-ray, lateral and 


also fluoroscopic. So the unit exposures, we 


looked at that. We had one of our 


specialists, a fellow named Harry Pettingale*. 


We looked very carefully at that. 


The overarching concern we have though 


is that there are issues related to retakes 


whereby multiple measurements are made. And 


then there’s a general philosophy I believe 


that has been embraced, and maybe you’ve 


already resolved it your satisfaction, that 


there’s a lot of other opportunities for 

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workers to receive X-rays during the course of 


his employment that were not taken into 


consideration. 


And in our review, I guess it’s OTIB009, I think its, no, it’s not OTIB-009. Our 


review of OTIB-0060, 61. Procedure where 


we’ve identified the particular issues or 


questions that we’ve raised. So anyway, it 


emerges here again because for all intents and 


purposes in this OTIB you’ve adopted that. In 


other words this OTIB-004 when it comes to a 


medical section adopts that procedure. So 


thereby the comments we have on the medical 


procedure carry over to this also. 


Whether or not it’s appropriate to 


discuss here, I just want to alert the Board 


that that, there are a series of questions and 


concerns we have related to medical X-ray dose 


reconstruction and them already delineated in 


our review of the applicable OTIB that also 


have applicability here. And maybe we’d leave 


it at that. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I think Procedure 61 is on 


the --


DR. MAURO: It’s on the agenda. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: It’ll go beyond OTIB-004 --


DR. MAURO: It’ll go cross --


MR. HINNEFELD: -- so we can address that --


DR. MAURO: -- we’ll address that later. 


Finally, there are a series of 


concerns we have that after you shut down, 


okay, you finish doing your metalworking 


operation, and you’ve got residual 


radioactivity on surfaces and then there’s 


going to be exposure to the residual 


radioactivity. There’s a method that’s been 


adopted here that has in the end it comes out 


with a good number. 


In other words the dust loading that 


the person is chronically exposed to from 


resuspension after he goes, what in effect is 


done here by the way, they said, listen, we 


know we’re going to go with the 100 MAC during 


operations. But then once operations stop, 


we’ll assume that what’s in the air the next 


day when you stop work is at 50 MAC, and then 


it declines at one percent per day. 


Then you’ve got time-integrated 


exposure. That goes away. But from 


resuspension, here’s the amount that you 

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inhale. I’m thinking back now that that ended 


up with a result that seems reasonable because 


we looked it. We came at it from another 


perspective and checked some numbers. 


And Bob Anigstein’s probably on the 


line. He’s the one who checked it and said in 


the end you come up with a time-integrated 


intake from the residual radioactivity that 


seems to be appropriate, reasonable and 


bounding. 


But mechanistically, taking 50 MAC as 


your starting point and then the one percent 


per day sort of, the way we look at it, 


fortuitously ended up with a result of the 


time-integrated intake during the residual 


activity period was a pretty good number. I 


would say that the fundamental assumption upon 


which it’s based really did not have a basis, 


you know, the 50 MAC and then the one percent 


per day. And so in a funny sort of way we 


agree with the outcome, but the method to get 


there was troubling to us. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I think residual is one of 


those issues that’s now one of our global 


issues. 

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DR. MAURO: This is different than the way, 


in all the other the residuals is across the 


board. In fact, I’m looking at TBD-6000 right 


now, and it’s addressed there. In fact, it’s 


addressed everywhere. And by and large the 


method that keeps being used is this method is 


one that was used. 


There’s another method that’s used at 


again cross-cutting is this idea that you have 


dust in the air at some level, and that it’s 


falling. And the reason why surfaces get 


contaminated is the dust is falling at its 


terminal settling velocity for five micron 


AMAV particles which is 0.0075 meters per 


second. 


Now one of our recurring problems is 


that the activity -- and I think you solved 


the problem at Bethlehem Steel. In other 


words you abandoned that approach and have 


come up with an empirical relationship that 


works. And what we keep seeing over and over 


again in so many different places that 0.0075 


deposition rate that’s still everywhere. So I 


guess --


DR. NETON: Stu’s right. That’s an 

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overarching issue that was identified at 


Bethlehem Steel. We dealt with it within 


Bethlehem Steel, but we committed it might be 


in the wrong place. It was committed in the 


Bethlehem Steel closeout that we would go back 


and look at this issue at other sites. And in 


fact, we haven’t addressed it here. So it’s 


still here. 


DR. MAURO: I think that concludes the 


concerns that were raised on OTIB-004. 


MS. MUNN: All right, we have action items 


recorded for it, and I’ll get them out to you. 


Right now it is lunch time. I had 


hoped to be able to get at least a few words 


in about all of the OTIBs and any comments 


that have been made for the PROCs. But as 


stated before, we have more on our plate than 


we can possibly handle today. And some of the 


items that we have listed for the afternoon 


are really crucial for us to at least touch 


on. 


It’s my suggestion that at this 


juncture we stop for lunch, and that we try to 


follow the rest of the agenda that we’ve laid 


out following lunch with the expectation that 

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the next time we meet, we will, in addition to 


the action items we’ve listed, attempt to 


begin where we stopped here which is at the 


end of OTIB-004, pick up with OTIB-0018 and 


follow through the matrix from that point at 


our next meeting. Does anyone have any real 


grief with that? 


MR. HINNEFELD: It won’t compound that too 


much if we continue to generate responses 


those document findings we haven’t generated 


responses for. 


MS. MUNN: Au contrare, the more responses 


that we have the better. 


Is that okay with everybody? 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: All right, let’s plan on doing 


that. Those of you who have action items for 


our period after lunch may want to take a look 


at them because we do want to try to go there 


if we can. And we already know that 52 is 


going to be a long discussion, probably 


requires more time than what we have here. 


But we want to make sure it is addressed. 


It’s on everybody’s to-do list right now so 


let’s make sure we get to that. We’ll talk 

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about global issues first. I don’t think 


there’s much to say about the ERs either. 


 DR. WADE: TBD-6000, that’s on the agenda 


for next week’s call so it would be good so it 


would be good if we could get a sense of where 


SC&A is. 


How long are we breaking for? 


MS. MUNN: We are adjourned for lunch. We 


will resume at 1:45. 


 DR. WADE: So we’re going to break the line 


and at 1:45 or a little bit before we’ll be 


back so dial in then. Thank you. 


(Whereupon a break for lunch was taken from 


12:35 p.m. until 1:45 p.m.) 


NIOSH REPORT ON GLOBAL ISSUES
 

MS. MUNN: The first item of business that 


we have following lunch is a NIOSH report on 


global issues. Jim, I do not, or Stu, who is 


going to do this. 


MR. HINNEFELD: We’re going to tag team 


this. 


DR. NETON: We’re going to tag team. 


MS. MUNN: All right, that’s good. I don’t 


even have in front of me a list of what we’ve 


identified as global issues that you’re 

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currently addressing. 


DR. NETON: Well, that was my question. Do 


we want to speak to global issues as reflected 


in procedure reviews or there’s an entire list 


which I’m not, frankly, prepared to talk about 


today. 


MS. MUNN: Only as is applicable to the 


charge of this particular working group. 


MR. HINNEFELD: There were three specific 


topics, residual contamination, ingestion and 


then the third was internal dose from fission 


products. 


MS. MUNN: One more time. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Residual contamination, how 


to reconstruct that, doses from ingestion, and 


then internal dose reconstruction from fission 


products intake. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I sent shortly after the 


telephone meeting I sent to the work group, 


and I hope I sent a copy of the ORAU TIB, ORAU 


TIB-0054, which describes internal dosimetry 


from mixed fission products in the 


(unintelligible). I sent it without any 


commentary. And I in the interim have gone 


through it, and I can briefly describe what 

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the approach describes. 


The authors essentially ran a computer 


simulation program that would simulate the 


burn up and activation of the fuel elements in 


the fuel and the housing, for lack of a better 


word, that was wet for exposure in something 


like four or five or a few designs of 


reactors. Hanford Reactor was one. FFTF* was 


another. 


Anyway, a selection of reactors with 


the thought that the reactors that were 


selected and were simulated in this fashion 


would represent essentially all of the 


reactors that you would encounter in the DOE 


system. They all fit into this grouping. The 


simulation with a code, I believe it was 


called origin, and it essentially simulates 


the burn up of the fuel and activation of the 


other elements in the production of fission 


products for runs at particular power levels 


for particular (unintelligible). 


Having completed that the arrived at 


inventories of fission products and activation 


products which as you can imagine are very 


extensive. And then through a series of 

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assorted screening and evaluation techniques 


narrowed that number to worry about down to 


smaller and smaller groupings. The first 


value you take off, you take off the ones that 


have essentially inconsequential half life and 


don’t have a radioactive daughter. 


You don’t worry about radioactive 


daughters. Worry about how much of it was 


generated. Some of the fission products 


there’s not very much there. And then to, 


some of them have fairly, I won’t say benign, 


but a fairly low dose. And then finally worry 


about dose conversion factors to find the 


handful or so that are dosimetrically 


significant. And then once you have that 


handful of radionuclides that you’re actually 


going to analyze, you’re going to apportion 


the total activity that the person took in, 


you know, as quantified by gross beta or gross 


gamma bioassay for instance, quantify the 


total activity and spread among those 


dosimetrically significant radionuclides. 


Now in so doing you build in a lot of 


favorability and no raffinating because you’ve 


taken the activity that was really associated 

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with the less dosimetrically significant 


radionuclides, and you attribute it to the 


dosimetrically significant ones. So you’re 


building quite a lot of favorability in doing 


that. And eventually you arrive at an 


essentially a suite of a handful or 


radionuclides and a marker radionuclide that 


you kind of feel it’s your one. 


And you can say, okay, if I’ve got so 


much Cesium-137, that means I have 50 percent 


of that other nuclide and 30 percent of 


(unintelligible). And then that’s how you 


interpret and ascribe that beta or gamma 


radioactivity from the bioassay or premiere 


sampling into a selection of radionuclides for 


dose reconstruction. 


Briefly, that’s what it does. There’s 


a lot, there are a lot of numbers and table in 


the TIB, and I think it would take quite a lot 


of review probably by SC&A or whomever you, 


whoever’s assigned to do it to kind of follow 


through and interpret. It’s not something, I 


don’t think we can talk about it in any 


meaningful fashion. But if there’s, you know, 


in order to deal with that issue of fission 

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137 

product dose, yeah, dose from fission products 


since it’s on the table, I think that’s the 


way we would have to go. Is to say is this 


technique, is this a suitable technique. 


And then further than that this 


document was prepared after some dose 


reconstructions were done at Savannah River 


because the issue originally surfaced in 


Savannah River dose reconstruction reviews. 


That’s where it originally surfaced. And 


Savannah River was done before this TIB was 


prepared, but it’s the technique and the 


thought process is the same. You take a 


dosimetrically significant radionuclide, 


ascribe the activity to that radionuclide, and 


then you have essentially provided at least a 


favorable aspect of what the intake was. 


So the whole thing is wrapped up not 


in a review of OTIB-0054, but also in did 


those dose reconstructions from Savannah River 


use a suitable analog or a bounding analog of 


that approach although not quite as 


complicated. 


Did I do it okay? 


MS. MUNN: The attachments certainly appear 

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to be well presented in depth. 


MR. HINNEFELD: The document’s like 77 pages 


long, but almost 50 pages of that are just 


tables. 


DR. MAURO: Stu, how is it intended, I know 


we have the OTIB-0018, the 33 that we’re 


talking about. Where does this protocol fit 


into the grand scheme of coworker? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this would be for 


bioassay data that was recorded as total beta 


or gross beta, for instance, or total gamma. 


And there’s even a way, there’s apparently at 


one of the sites, I believe it was at Hanford, 


there was a certain chemistry that was done on 


bioassay samples that would eliminate some 


debate and keep this other suite -- yeah, 


chemical separation data. And so this even 


does that, and so if that’s the data you have, 


you use one suite of numbers. If it’s a gross 


beta number, you use a different suite of 


numbers. And if it’s at total alpha number, 


you use a different suite of numbers. So you 


have the bioassay measurements which would 


give you an indication of what was being 


excreted, which model you use on, you know, 

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which model you use, I think, gets wrapped 


into which, you know, the select suite. 


DR. MAURO: I know when I was looking at, I 


didn’t review this document. I did get a copy 


of it. Transportability, I recall when I was 


looking at issues like that in a different 


context there certain radionuclides enter 


primary cooling, for example, of a reactor 


whether it’s light-water reactor had greater 


propensity to escape. For example, as I 


recall Cesium-137 moves more rapidly than 


Strontium-90. 


So the different radionuclides have, 


notwithstanding the differences in dose 


conversion factors and the differences in 


fission yield quantity after a certain amount 


of burn-up, there’s another dimension which is 


the degree to which it’s likely that that 


radionuclide is going to escape with the fuel, 


enter the primary coolant and become airborne 


through some leakage or by some means. And 


that’s another sort of filter that could have 


to play here that may not make your approach 


even more conservative or less conservative. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I believe it is addressed. 

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I only really, frankly just read this this 


week, and I believe it is addressed in a sort 


of a release fraction. Whereas, a volatile 


like iodine or tritium would have a one as a 


release fraction. Certain elements would have 


a 0.5 and some might have 0.1 or something 


like that. I believe it is. 


MS. MUNN: Well, you impressed me by the 


sagacity shown by including 5.2.2.2. Any time 


you include the FSTF in your analysis, I find 


it --


MR. HINNEFELD: We got some brownie points 


on that. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you so much. Is this one 


of the procedures that we have on your list, 


John? 


DR. MAURO: No. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t believe so. 


MS. MUNN: It is not. I’m assuming then in 


order to fulfill our requirement of this work 


group it is incumbent upon us to suggest that 


this be included on the list. Is that the 


feeling of the other members of this body? 


DR. ZIEMER: This just came out this year. 


MR. HINNEFELD: It’s pretty recent. It’s 

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pretty recent. 


MS. MUNN: It’s brand new, yes. 


 DR. WADE: Are we approaching a new year to 


assign procedures to SC&A? 


MS. MUNN: I believe we are. We’ve already 


looked at most of what you’re going to be 


looking at next year. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, we have delivered all the 


procedures that we owe you people. 


MS. MUNN: For this year. 


DR. MAURO: This year, and in fact we’ve 


even tacked on this TBD-6000 as sort of an 


add-on because we have the resources to do it. 


Now this would be like the first of perhaps 


another set of 30 that might come in the next 


year. 


 DR. WADE: October first is not so far off. 


DR. MAURO: Or we can try to work it in, but 


I am getting a little concerned that we might 


be straining the resources of Task Three. 


Because we were fortunate to have Task Three 


came in within budget, well within budget, 


which allowed us to add in the TBD-6000. To 


add this in also, you know, it’s hard to say 


whether we can handle it. 

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142

 DR. WADE: If it’s the work group’s 


preference, we could negotiate that. If you 


can wait until October 1st, we can do that as 


well. 


MS. MUNN: I wouldn’t expect that it would 


require being done in this fiscal year, but --


MR. HINNEFELD: In order to work on it 


though, you have to task them to it even 


though most of the work would occur next 


fiscal year. 


MS. MUNN: That’s probably the case. Paul, 


what’s your feeling? 


DR. ZIEMER: It seems to me we could, we’re 


close to the starting fiscal year. You’re not 


going to --


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the fiscal year starts 


the day before the next work group meeting. 


We’re meeting on October 2nd . The fiscal year 


starts October 1st . 


MS. MUNN: That’s correct. 


MR. HINNEFELD: So you could make the 


assignment. You can make the tasking on that 


day at that meeting. 


 DR. WADE: Or we could do it now. I mean, I 


can handle it contractually. If you tell me 

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you want this to be done next year, then we 


could have the Board, if you like, react to 


that on the call next week, and we could be 


ready to go. 


MS. MUNN: My preference would be to have 


this group recommend to the Board that this 


particular, that OTIB-0054, be on the list for 


the coming fiscal year. Is that --


DR. ZIEMER: I agree with that. Is this 


OTIB actually being used now? Or what’s its, 


has it been approved for use? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: Then we need to get it in the 


list. 


 DR. WADE: And it’s OTIB-0054. 


DR. ZIEMER: And this is going to be used 


where you have gross beta bioassay or worked 


in reactor facilities --


MR. ELLIOTT: Or worked with fuel. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Right, reactor source terms, 


right. 


MS. MUNN: Fission and activation product 


assignment for internal dose-related gross 


beta and gross gamma analyses. Very good, we 


will make that recommendation to the Board. 

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144

 DR. WADE: We have work group reports next 


Tuesday, so if you would include that, I will 


capture it as an action item. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is a minor addendum to 


what John said about status quo this year. We 


have two reports coming within this whole 


year. One is the typesetter, and the other 


one is not yet written, but it will be here 


before the first of October. 


MS. MUNN: Very good. 


Next item. 


DR. NETON: The remaining two issues we 


spoke about the fission product are ingestion 


and residual contamination. I’ll start with 


the ingestion pathway. We have undertaken a 


pretty extensive literature search. I think 


I’ve briefed the Board on this several 


meetings ago, but just to summarize where 


we’re at did a literature search to look at 


all potential pathways where one could ingest 


material. 


Specifically we’re focusing on the 


workplace and looked at transfer factors from 


surface to mouth, peri-oral to mouth, that 


sort of thing, and developed what I guess I’d 

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call a kind of model, you know, all these 


pathways connecting together and coming up 


with distributions on each of those parameters 


based on the literature search. 


We haven’t finished this. I mean, the 


research is done. The model’s developed. 


What remains to be done is to edit the 


document that was written describing how we 


did this, and then to do some test runs with 


this model to look, to evaluate how well our 


current approaches in dose reconstruction 


model or account for the ingestion pathway. 


I think we think right now it looks 


like that we’ve been fairly generous in doing 


claimant favorable in our approaches. This 


model I think will end up validating that. If 


not, then the model would have to be used to 


modify the procedures accordingly to account 


for what was deemed to be ingested in the 


workplace. 


It’s not done yet though, but the bulk 


of this is done. It’s a draft. We had a 


contractor helping us work on this. So that 


needs to be tidied up, edited and the 


validations run, done before we can finalize 

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it. 


MS. MUNN: We hope for it by next work group 


meeting? 


DR. NETON: In October? Probably not. 


There’s a lot of computing and conflicting 


things going on right now that would be hard 


to --


MS. MUNN: The work group meeting which 


probably will occur between October and 


January. 


DR. NETON: No, it’s months. It wouldn’t be 


October, but after October I think there’ll be 


more time available to finalize this. 


DR. ZIEMER: Jim, what are you modeling? Is 


it transfer from hands to --


DR. NETON: Surface to hands, hands to 


mouth, cigarettes to mouth --


DR. ZIEMER: -- coffee cups to licking your 


lips --


DR. NETON: -- as much as we could find out 


DR. ZIEMER: -- in a contaminated 


environment, licking your mustache. 


DR. NETON: It turns out a fair amount of 


that was available in the industrial hygiene 

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literature which I had. I guess I was always 


thinking the rad literature is much more full 


of things like that, but there’s been some 


studies done, specifically in the workplace to 


the extent where we could develop some 


distributions about those parameters. But 


anyway, I can’t give you firm date, but it 


won’t be October. 


MS. MUNN: But you’d be more comfortable 


with saying by the January meeting you’ll have 


an opportunity to have something. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I think we learned from our 


experience in the TIB-6000 modeling effort, 


too, test the model. That’s the biggest piece 


here, I think, left to do. Right, Jim? 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. ELLIOTT: That takes more time than we 


anticipate, at least generally anticipate. 


DR. MAURO: I just happened to review the 


TIB-6000 section dealing with ingestion, and I 


happened to have hit on one spot that I’m 


looking at right now. And are you using the 


RES-RAD 2.4 ten to the minus nine --


DR. NETON: I think that’s what’s in there. 


DR. MAURO: -- per meter squared. It’s a 

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fraction? Because we’re researching that at 


the same time. So interestingly enough, a lot 


of the work we’re doing on TBD-6000 probably 


is going to have a lot of applicability here, 


too. And we’ll have that work very soon. 


We’re -- I know we’re going to talk about 


this, but there’s --


DR. ZIEMER: What do you test it against? 


DR. NETON: We’re just looking at it against 


what we can find in the current site profiles 


just to look to see how --


DR. ZIEMER: If it would change 


significantly. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


DR. ZIEMER: Are there any real-world 


datasets that you can test against? 


DR. NETON: I had hoped actually this was my 


DR. ZIEMER: I mean, where do the transfer 


numbers come from? 


DR. NETON: There are some field 


measurements out there. For example, in the 


early fall-out days people were working on a 


contaminated aircraft. And they actually did 


some measurements item by air-type 

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measurements. Those sort of things. There’s 


some Oak Ridge studies about transfer to 


cigarette, people smoking on break, that kind 


of stuff. We gleaned as much as we could from 


the literature on that. 


What I hoped to do, which didn’t pan 


out, my thought was that a lot of uranium --


and by the way, this was mostly relevant to 


uranium because it’s where the AWE’s where we 


don’t have bioassay data. If you have 


bioassay data, this is not an issue. Where 


you don’t have bioassay data at the uranium 


facilities, I thought that we could take a 


place like Fernald, for example, and just look 


at what’s not being screened in the urine of 


these workers. 


People who weren’t exposed and working 


day-in/day-out in the plant, and one could put 


an upper limit on the amount that is ingested 


based on that. You would assume a certain 


amount would come out in the urine if they 


were ingesting. And at one time SC&A and 


NIOSH were debating whether it’s 100 


milligrams a day. 


I always thought that was high, and I 

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thought, well, surely if you ingested 100 


milligrams of uranium per day it would come 


out in the urine of the workers who were 


monitored routinely. Well, that didn’t work 


out for a number of reasons, you know, the 


solubility issues and those sort things, 


missed dose. It just was not a practical 


approach. I thought we were going to have 


this great publication on that, but it just 


didn’t work out. So we ended up going with 


sort of the (unintelligible). 


DR. MAURO: The EPA did a lot, you know, the 


EPA has their 50 milligrams per day number, 


and I remember reading that literature. A 


fellow named Calibresi* that did a lot of 


work. What he did was he measured, I think it 


was how much silicone is in the feces of 


people that were working in gardens. In other 


words, know much milligrams per gram of dirt 


of silicone is in the dirt. And the only way 


you’re going to get silicone coming out the 


other end is because you ate some of the dirt. 


DR. NETON: Now, I disagree with that. I 


think that study is flawed because they didn’t 


account for the amount that was ingested and 

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subsequently swallowed. So he’s got both 


pathways he’s measuring --


DR. MAURO: So the breathing it in is 


swallowing, too. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I think there’s a flaw in 


that study. But anyway, this is where we’re 


at. 


The residual contamination we’re not 


nearly as far along as this. We developed, as 


John talked about earlier, a model for 


Bethlehem Steel where we actually took 


residual contamination, inhalation of material 


that’s suspended from residual contamination 


that we’re talking about here. 


At Bethlehem Steel we actually took 


some air sample data, silicone data. But at 


Simonds Saw & Steel where the plant was, where 


they were not rolling any uranium, just had 


air sample data which presumably would be 


anything in the air at that point would be a 


result of people just walking around, doing 


their normal path without blowing uranium into 


the air from rolling it. We developed some 


pretty good ratios there we thought that we 


could apply to places like Bethlehem Steel. 

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SC&A’s comment on that was that looked 


okay. It was probably applicable to a 


Bethlehem Steel. It would transfer down to 


that type of facility, but they weren’t 


convinced that it was generically applicable 


at all these different sites. So we’re in the 


process of looking for more data to support 


this, and if need be, modify the values to 


account for different operations, that sort of 


thing. 


The data are fairly sparse. It’s very 


rare where you have data where it’s really not 


in operation. They’re taking air samples to 


document the resuspension factors. We are 


working on this, but we’re not as far along as 


we were with the ingestion model. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, the issue of room 


clearance was discussed this morning as one 


percent per day. Does that arise in this 


context, too? Are you looking at settling out 


or those kind of factors or is this just 


resuspension? 


DR. NETON: This is resuspension material 


that is I can pretty much assume once they 


shut down operations we knew that the air 

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clears pretty quickly at uranium facilities. 


So what you’re left with is a blanket of 


uranium. 


There’s two issues. One is how much 


is re-suspended from what was deposited and 


how much is actually removed from the plant 


over time due to just cleaning operations and 


such. And that’s the more difficult of the 


two, yeah, the dilution factor. 


DR. ZIEMER: Particle distribution of a resuspended material might not be the same as 


the original, but the heavy stuff come back up 


into the breathable air? 


DR. NETON: That’s a good question. I don’t 


really know. We believed it was empirical. 


We took air sample data that was generated at 


Simonds Saw and Steel. But you’re right --


DR. ZIEMER: Well, if the air sample data’s 


got the full spectrum of heavy stuff down, I 


would think re-suspended, intuitively, I’m 


feeling like it ought to be a much smaller 


aerodynamic particle size. 


DR. NETON: That’s a good point. We did 


take the air that was re-suspended. We 


presume it’s re-suspended because the plant 

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operations have been shut down for some time 


yet they were still continuing to monitor the 


air in the plant. So we had pretty good 


confidence that this was just based on 


resuspension plant activity. But you do raise 


a very good point is that is the re-suspended 


aerosol a finer aerosol. 


DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and therefore likely to 


get to the deep lung or something. 


DR. NETON: This is probably one of the 


difficulties. It’s not easy to come up with 


some concrete numbers. 


DR. MAURO: Has (unintelligible) literature 

health. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, we’ve looked at that sort 

of stuff, too. You have used a Bethlehem 


model at some point. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, we did. 


DR. NETON: I can’t recall the mechanics of 


that model now, but it was a pretty 


complicated model. 


MS. MUNN: But all three items are working 


in progress. No timeline possible for any of 


them right now. 


 DR. WADE: Or we’re going to hear by 

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January. 


MR. ELLIOTT: We’ll come back to where we’re 


at status-wise --


MS. MUNN: Thank you. 


MR. ELLIOTT: -- but can’t predict today. 


MS. MUNN: Anyone else have any comment on 


global issues before we move on to PERs? 


 (no response) 


PERs
 

MS. MUNN: Apparently not. Who’s going to 


tell us where we are with P-E-Rs? 


MR. HINNEFELD: I guess I am. I think the 


context here was the discussion is this topic 


or another set of documents or procedures for 


the work group to concern themselves with. 


Just done a little bit of evolution in the PER 


process because of our conversation with the 


Department of Labor. And if a PER was as 


envisioned, it would allow us that when we 


adopt a change in dose reconstruction 


techniques, it would allow us to consider the 


universe of claims that may have been 


completed using the old, no longer used, and 


to provide to the Department of Labor a 


listing of that population. 

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Here are the ones that could 


potentially change outcome because of this 


dose reconstruction. And the idea was that 


the Department of Labor would be sending a 


bunch of letters to people whose cases were 


closed and tell them that it was going to be 


reopened just to have another denial come 


back. 


Well, we’ve not been very effective at 


getting these turned out and over to the 


Department of Labor. And they feel like they 


have a lot of liability with changed 


techniques out there with dose reconstructions 


from old techniques that the dose 


reconstructors go out there and do what has to 


be done. They are pretty assertively now 


returning those cases to us for rework. So we 


have a larger population of reworked dose 


reconstructions to do. 


So there is still a little bit of work 


that we do get to do up front, to do that 


screening and winnowing of that approach, of 


the numbers. Dave Allen’s the guy who’s in 


the middle of that. And so there is still a 


certain few things you can do. For instance, 

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if the change is the maximum of four rem a 


year, it’s the highest increased dose you 


could get out of the change. 


And you take a dose reconstruction if 


you give this person four rem a year extra to 


their target organ, and they still don’t look 


compensable, then I think they probably will 


go along this, okay, this one can drop out and 


doesn’t have to be reworked. So there’s very, 


there’s a far more limited kind of screening 


we’ll be able to do today. 


So with respect to a PER and whether 


it’s good fodder for the working group, what 


it would look like would be, what the document 


would look like would be, it would a 


description of here’s the dose reconstruction 


technique change that we’re evaluating, Super-


S plutonium. 


Based on this, you know, and here are, 


we might say this is the maximum change it can 


make to a non-respiratory organ. And based on 


that anybody with a non-respiratory organ 


cancer whose probability of causation was 


below, what, 20 percent or something because 


maximum change could only bring them up to 45 

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percent, and doesn’t need to be done. I mean, 


there may be some analysis like that. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I have to say something at 


this point. The charge of this working group 


to look at procedures and I think is fully 


appropriate to applied to PERs. However, I 


would ask that you treat this as you do in the 


subcommittee and Board’s review of completed 


dose reconstructions. 


By that I mean that you would need to 


examine a completed PER, not pick up a PER in 


progress where we’re -- like Super S the 


example Stu just gave you, where we are 


working through about 3,400 claims right now. 


We need to get through those 3,400 claims and 


say that we’re done. And then I think it’s 


your ample opportunity to examine how we 


performed our work under a PER. 


I don’t know if Emily will chime in 


here or not, but I think these claims are 


still in, even though they’ve had, in some 


cases, a recommended decision, in other cases 


a final decision, once they’re remanded back 


to us for rework, then they’re still in the 


adjudication process. And we need to treat 

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these as a non-adjudicated claim until the PER 


is completed. 


And so right now I think we’ve only 


got maybe two, maybe three PERs we could point 


you to. The other thing to consider here is 


that right now as we’re, with the advent of 


all of the PERs that we’re working on, we’re 


examining the claims against changes other, 


that were made that might affect the claim 


besides just the PER that is facing the claim. 


So there’s that going on. Very 


complicated process right now for us and those 


that support us. So that would be my 


commentary that I needed to leave you with. 


MS. MUNN: The interpretation of the Chair 


of this group that we really cannot look at 


PERs in any depth until they have, in fact --


MR. ELLIOTT: Until we show that the last 


claim has been examined against the PERs. 


MS. MUNN: They’re done. I think it’s 


incumbent upon us as a work group to maintain 


some sense of where we are with the, and how 


pervasive they become. But aside from that, 


that’s the only expectation that I have. Does 


anyone else in the work group have other 

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expectations of this? 


MR. ELLIOTT: We certainly would commit to 


get back to you as soon as, with a list of 


completed PERs, we’ll add to that as we 


complete them. 


MS. MUNN: That I think is precisely what we 


need to look at in this group until we reach a 


point where there’s something other to be done 


than that. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I’d like for the working group 


and the Board to understand that there’s 


different, in these claims that have had a 


decision there’s a unique category that Stu 


referred to earlier that DOL feels they have a 


strong liability with, and that is the 


category where there’s a recommended decision, 


and there’s a timeframe of, I think it’s one 


year, that they have to come to closure, to a 


final decision. And so in our priority of 


work under PER, that category is given a 


higher priority. We’re working those first 


within each PER. 


MS. MUNN: Very good. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I’m sorry. Did you have 


something you wanted to --

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161 

DR. NETON: I was just going to say they’ve 


actually become very much less interesting 


based on our new approach because we are 


requesting most of them back for rework. Part 


of that reason is because DOL requires some 


pretty good stringent standards to be placed 


on our proof that they weren’t affected. 


And what’s happened is we’ve had a 


number of simultaneous changes to the point 


where we can’t have, isolate one change at a 


time anymore. There might be one change you 


could say won’t affect it, but there may be 


six other changes that affect the same one. 


So for instance with the Super S, I think we 


just asked for 4,000 cases back for complete 


rework. 


We’re just going to work them from 


square one and apply every change, treat them 


like the novo dose reconstructions. 


Everything we’ve done today will be done 


against that case. So the ones that we screen 


out are the very simple screening tools like 


there was no plutonium at that facility. 


There could have been Super S. Those are the 


kind of simple screening tools we apply now. 

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There aren’t these elaborate tools to try to 


figure out change to two percent or --


MR. ELLIOTT: We can certainly look on our 


website and see the PERs that are presented 


there. And there are different screening 


mechanisms outlined in each. And of course 


the first screen is was the claim completed 


before the change was instituted. And if it 


was completed after that, then we don’t have 


to look at it because the change was applied 


to it. But as Jim says there are other levels 


of screens that can be applied beyond that. 


 DR. WADE: At some point when a change or a 


series of changes results in a series of 


reworks of dose reconstructions, will that be 


reported in some document? Will that be a 


PER? 


DR. NETON: The reworks themselves won’t be 


because they’ll be treated as the novo dose 


reconstructions and sent -- novo’s not the 


right word -- but complete reworks, and 


they’ll be sent through, the claimants 


notified, claimant gets another close-out 


interview. That whole process takes place. 


MR. ELLIOTT: But I think to answer, to your 

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point though in your question, Lew, we need to 


be ready to identify when we’ve analyzed that 


last claim under that particular PER for the 


purposes of the working group. 


 DR. WADE: What form would that take? Is 


this will be a newly generated document that 


you would prepare that would list the dose 


reconstructions and make them available? Or 


how would --


DR. NETON: Well, the PER itself would 


identify, for instance in the case of Super-S 


that there were 7,000 cases potentially 


affected by Super-S. And then we’ll say that 


there were 4,000 that we believe Super-S 


really had the potential to exist then we need 


to send those cases back for dose 


reconstruction. 


 DR. WADE: Would it go beyond to say of 


those 4,000 the decision was changed and there 


is --


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we are interested 


ourselves in how many cases flip. And DOL’s 


also interested in knowing how they flip 


either way. We’re more interested in making 


sure that we don’t miss one that flips from 

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non-compensable to compensable. But they want 


to know how many went the other way, too. 


So I think we’re going to have to 


provide some level of reporting about that. 


And right now there are a few completed PERs 


that have that information in them, but you’ll 


see a majority of our PERs don’t have that 


because we haven’t finished it. We need to 


come forward with some kind of reporting 


mechanism. 


 DR. WADE: Once it’s finished then it’s very 


interesting for this work group to look at 


that and decide what it wants to do with it. 


It is business that we’re doing now that the 


Board needs to have the ability to review. 


DR. NETON: I don’t disagree. I guess the 


problem is though when you have multiple 


changes affecting multiple dose 


reconstructions, it’s hard to identify which 


change was the one that might have flipped it. 


I think reporting raw numbers as to how many 


were changed, that’s not --


 DR. WADE: The work group will have to 


struggle with that. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we will have a tracking 

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system that we’re working on, too. And that 


might be the vehicle to aid the working group 


with. 


DR. NETON: The other, just to close it out, 


is just because we asked for it back from the 


Department of Labor doesn’t necessarily mean 


we’ll get it. There may be other things like 


SEC, certain cases have got to SEC or the case 


has no eligible survivor. I mean, there’s a 


number of issues that we don’t control. We’ll 


tell them that these cases need to be 


reworked. It’s up to them to send them back 


to us for rework. But a good percentage of 


those, so for instance at Rocky Flats have 


gone SEC. We’re not going to see them. 


 DR. WADE: This is a great positive 


evolution from my point of view, and I think 


it’s important that in some way if the 


collected together and the Board had the 


opportunity to look at it if it wishes. 


Larry, when you said you’d provide a 


list of completed PERs to the work group, when 


would you first do that? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, I think at the next work 


group meeting we can give you a list of those 

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that have been completed. We can give you 


another list of those that are underway. That 


should be straightforward. 


MS. MUNN: That’s really all we need in my 


view at this juncture. 


Anyone else have anything to say about 


PERs? 


MR. ELLIOTT: It would be the PERs 


themselves, and then if the Board wants a list 


of the claims under a PER that’s been 


completed, we could provide that. 


 MR. SHARFI: Some of the ones that were put 


in the previous PERs are now in the new PERs. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, they are. 

 MR. SHARFI: That claim back up? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Right, we’ll have to. That’s 

why I say this not straightforward. It is 


going to be very complicated for us to --


MS. MUNN: We have another living document. 


 DR. WADE: Well, with any document though 


that goes to the value added by review and the 


fact that there is a commitment to serve the 


claimants in this program. 


MR. ELLIOTT: And there’s an end point here, 


too. It’s not like, you know, we have a bulk 

 

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of these that we’re faced with right now and 


once we work through those, yes, we’ll still 


have PERs in our future but not the volume, 


not the magnitude --


MS. MUNN: Not like this. 


MR. ELLIOTT: That’s right. 


MS. MUNN: We appreciate that. We’ll look 


forward to seeing the list at our next 


meeting. 


DISCUSSION OF OTIB-0052 AND SC&A REVIEW “PARAMETERS
 

TO CONSIDER WHEN PROCESSING CLAIMS FOR CONSTRUCTION
 

TRADE WORKERS”
 

And now, everyone take a deep breath. 


OTIB-0052, parameters to consider when 


processing claims for construction trade 


workers. Who wants to lead off here? Have we 


even discussed this? 


DR. NETON: I would think SC&A would present 


their findings of their evaluation. 


MS. MUNN: I would like to hear that, and I 


believe SC&A is prepared to do that. John? 


DR. MAURO: This is Steve Marschke who is 


the author of the document along with Arjun. 


Steve, if you want to kick us off? 


MR. MARSCHKE: Yeah, I was given the task to 


review TIB-0052, and we in somewhat more 


detail than what we usually perform our 

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reviews of the procedures and the other 


documents. And the end result was the Task 


Three Supplement Four report that you all were 


given. I guess it was issued back in July. 


Generally, I think we like what we saw 


in OTIB-0052. Most of our comments that we 


made are, I think are geared towards making a 


stronger document. Making it more 


bulletproof, if you will. But in overall I 


think the, well, the approach that we kind of 


took was kind of a two-pronged approach. One 


was we did try to look at the analysis that 


was done and duplicate the analysis that was 


done by using the data files that were made 


available to us on the O drive. 


And then we also took it a step 


further, and we ran some sample cases. And a 


number of sample cases to Jim Neton mentioned 


this morning when we were talking about TIB0020, the proof is in the pudding. And so we 


tried to show what would happen if we had 


some, if we treated some construction workers 


who had monitoring data as if they did not 


have monitoring data. 


And we applied the OTIB-0052 

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methodology to these construction workers and 


compared those results to their actual 


monitoring data just to get a feel for how 


conservative the OTIB-0052 or is the OTIB-0052 


methodology conservative. Generally, we found 


out when we did that, we did that mostly at 


three sites: Savannah River, Rocky Flats and 


Hanford. 


And generally when we did that, we 


found that the OTIB-0052 methodology was 


conservative. When we took a ratio of the 


OTIB-0052 methodology divided by the measured 


dose doses. And these are integrated over the 


working life of the individuals that we looked 


at, the sample workers that we looked at. 


Generally, we found a ratio greater than one 


implying that the OTIB-0052 methodology was, 


in fact, conservative. 


There were a few outliers and a few 


exceptions. The other thing that we did look 


at was or one of the questions that came up 


was do different construction occupations 


have, you know, higher exposures than other 


occupations. And this was really not 


addressed in OTIB-0052, but we tried to look 

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at that somewhat. 


And we found that, yes, there is a 


range or seems to be a range by occupation 


with people like pipefitters, boilermakers and 


so and so forth, they receive doses which are 


higher than, generally higher than the 


construction worker average. Teamsters, 


electricians and painters, they seem to 


receive doses which are lower than the 


construction average. 


So when we took our samples to test 


the OTIB-0052, we kind of tried to select our 


individuals. It wasn’t quite a random test. 


We tried to bias our individuals from those 


occupations that received the higher doses 


like pipefitters. If you look at the Savannah 


River, you’ll see we have, out of the 20 


workers that we sampled, we have ten 


pipefitters. And even in that case we found 


that the OTIB-0052 methodology generally was 


conservative. Generally overall, we are happy 


with it. Now the -- at least I’m happy with 


it. I don’t want to speak for everybody. 


But there were some concerns. I mean, 


one of the reasons why the OTIB-0052 

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methodology is conservative is because we are 


integrating over the working life of the 


individual. So if you had an individual in 


there who basically was only there one year or 


a very short period of time, there is the 


distinct possibility when you look at some of 


the graphs that are actually in OTIB-0052, you 


can see that the construction workers’ doses 


are much higher than the 1.4 multiplier. 


So the OTIB-0052 methodology over a 


short duration may not be conservative. And 


we kind of, I mean, how do you address that? 


I’m not sure how to address that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Can I just interject that 


the short period of time would generally be 


less than three-to-five years. 


MR. MARSCHKE: Yes. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: And the sort of long period 


of time that we examined was like ten years. 


So it would be ten years or more. 


MR. MARSCHKE: That’s a good way to capture 


it. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Just to put some numbers on 


where these uncertainties are, and where it 


didn’t appear to be a significant issue. 

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MR. MARSCHKE: The other thing I, later I 


got from reading OTIB-0052, again, it’s kind 


of like OTIB-0020 that we talked about this 


morning. It’s more of a guide for the 


writers, the site experts when they are 


developing their coworker models and their 


coworker OTIBs. They put a table in the 


coworker OTIB which is for construction 


workers, and I get the impression from that 


and from looking at OTIB-0052 itself that this 


guide is more for those people than it is for 


the dose reconstructors. 


And so we do have some concern if you 


have dose reconstructor who happens to get a, 


be trying to reconstruct a dose to, for 


example, a pipefitter whose only been there 


for three years, a short period of time, then 


this methodology may not be favorable under 


certain sets of assumptions that could be 


populated. And so again, I’m not sure how to 


ensure claimant favorability on a individual 


claimant’s claimant basis. 


Overall, you know, if you looked at 


the whole population of claimants, 


construction workers, I think OTIB-0052 is 

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favorable. You know, if you look at it 


percentage wise it’s probably in the 95 


percentage or definitely greater than 90, 


probably 95 percent of the time it’s a 


claimant favorable one. 


The question is there are certain, you 


know, that leaves five percent of the 


claimants out there who basically how do you 


get claimant favorability for those 


individuals? And I’m not sure how that can 


be, you know, is incorporated into OTIB-0052. 


MS. MUNN: I had a question with respect to 


the specific items on the matrix. I don’t 


know whether NIOSH has had an opportunity to 


look at that matrix and to address those 


questions or not, but I have not heard any 


rumblings that there are responses to any of 


those. 


MR. CHEW: They’ve been out already. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, we sent them out. 


MR. CHEW: Yeah, we sent the responses to 


everyone. 


DR. NETON: When did they go out? Monday? 


Probably while you were traveling. 


MS. MUNN: While I was in the air. 

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 DR. WADE: There’s a thought, too. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you. 


DR. NETON: We did have an opportunity to 


(unintelligible) some reaction to these 


things. Mel Chew --


MR. CHEW: Do you want me to grab a copy? 


DR. NETON: We’re prepared to go over them 


individually. 


MS. MUNN: Does everyone want copies? 


DR. NETON: This document came out in July 


sometime so we’ve had a short time period to 


address a hundred-page document. But we were 


somewhat gratified to see that we aren’t that 


far apart really. 


MS. MUNN: I was pleased to see the matrix 


wasn’t any larger than it was. 


DR. NETON: It was 37 pages. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: May I add a couple of 


criticism just to supplement Steve’s summary 


there. That there is a, well, it will come up 


in the matrix, there’s an item, well, a number 


of items one about neutrons, for instance, has 


a gap in that regard. It didn’t cover 


neutrons. And so maybe we can just pick that 


up. 

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MS. MUNN: Yeah, as we move down it. 


If NIOSH is ready to address those 


matrix items, I would be very pleased to hear 


that now. We’ll have hard copies. You can go 


ahead. We don’t have to wait for the hard 


copies. Whoever’s going to do that. 


DR. NETON: We’re going to rely on Mel to do 


the heavy lifting with encouragement from me. 


MR. CHEW: We can do a couple things. As 


you see, we did respond to the matrix. 


And Steve, thank you very much for 


your comment about the overall -- I’d like to 


reinforce what Steve said -- for as you said, 


pretty much 95 percent of the cases here at 


the 95th percentile, the correct adjustment 


factor was. This is really, we need to focus 


what we’re trying to do. 


This is for the unmonitored 


construction worker, unmonitored construction 


worker and not to be confused with the person 


who was monitored. And so where do we get 


unmonitored construction workers and all of 


their missing data that’s possibly from their 


data. And did they happen to have basically 


on their claim that you can show that they 

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should have been monitored. So we need to 


make sure we’re focusing on the unmonitored 


workers. 


I think we’re very fortunate and just 


give a little background. This was quite an 


interesting assignment for the team that we 


put together. We had to go to observe and get 


some data across the complex that was 


representative. Certainly, we went to the 


site as number one, certainly, where we can 


now separate information that we can identify 


construction workers versus the all monitored 


workers. 


Remember clearly what we’re trying to 


do is to say are there circumstances where 


there are construction worker who was 


unmonitored and we had to go to a coworker 


study that the coworker study was not 


necessarily claimant favorable to that 


unmonitored construction worker. So that’s 


what really the basis of involving the 


adjustment factor. 


I could go on, and we could go right 


down the matrix one item at a time, but we 


want to maybe for the sake of saving some 

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time, I would like to address the issue that 


we brought up directly about the example of 


the pipefitters and things like this where we 


think we have applied the proper adjustment. 


MS. MUNN: My preference would be that you 


address the question that’s been put on the 


table and questions that are out there. And 


then if there are other remaining significant 


items from the matrix that we look at those 


afterwards. If any of the matrix items are 


not of significant importance that it would 


make differences that we should be concerned 


about with respect to dose reconstruction, 


then those are issues which we can easily, I 


would think, resolve offline. What we want to 


look at is what is significant. What’s been 


brought to us as being significant. Let’s do 


that first. 


MR. CHEW: I’m not sure everybody has a 


copy. This is directly comes out of the table 


that you people put in the response, and it’s 


in the SC&A report. 


I’d like to make a very quick comment. 


When we, this was not a simple data gathering 


exercise in just putting information on a 

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spreadsheet and come up with certain 


percentages, right:. We went to specifically 


the site to clearly look at when we saw 


exposures, and we clearly explained by either 


operationally or reasons why exposures were 


high for a particular year. What things that 


happened at that particular site. What 


operational things happened at that site that 


cause, for example, certain categories that 


people could get more exposure. 


And the one that is in your report 


that is in pretty color -- and unfortunately, 


we didn’t print this out in color. It would 


probably be easier to see -- is a very good 


one. This is Savannah River. Fortunately, 


Savannah River had kept very good records of 


exposures to their categories of construction 


workers broken down by construction worker. 


And that’s even better than we even expected. 


You know, we can pick out electricians. You 


can pick out pipefitters. You can pick out 


millwrights. You can pick out carpenters and 


painters. 


I’d like to make another comment. 


Like the pipefitters and electricians by about 

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a factor of four or five times more at 


Savannah River than almost all of the other 


categories. And then there’s a little 


anecdotal story that I’ve been share a little 


bit here if you don’t mind. 


We were wondering why there, because 


we understand the pipefitters to be a large 


number because as you well know if you’ve been 


down to Savannah River, especially the canyon, 


it’s really a plumber’s nightmare. Everybody 


can relate to that one there with plumbers. 


And then certainly some of the cement 


finishers have high exposure, too, because 


they have to make the chases so they could put 


the plumbers in. 


Well, we often wondered why there was 


about equal number of electricians as there 


were pipefitters which is certainly an 


anecdotal story, and I appreciate the time to 


tell it. It appeared that in the early years 


one member of the DuPont family owned an 


electrical company. And so the electricians 


were of the higher paid category, billing 


category there. 


And so you can just relate to your own 

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thoughts in telling you why there were more 


electricians than anyone else because we did 


go down to talk to some of the workers 


directly so we can relate to exactly what 


happened at Savannah River. And they said, 


oh, yes, there was a lot of electricians and 


some of them were not necessarily always doing 


electrical work. 


I’ll leave it there with that one. I 


think we can all smile at that recognizing 


that DuPont operated Savannah River for a 


dollar a year. I think we need to understand 


that. 


If you don’t mind looking at the graph 


that I just showed you, probably the key one 


that rightly point out, Steve, there are some, 


a few years, that the some specific categories 


of worker would have been hired in the 1.4 


multiplier that we suggested. And so if you 


look at the date here, it happened in about 


the late 1960s and again in about the mid1970s were example pipefitters got a 


significantly higher exposures than what you 


considered the all monitored worker. 


I think Jim and I were discussing 

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181 

that. Remember, this is an important piece of 


information for the very fact that these 


people were monitored. And how do we know 


that they were monitored? Well, going back to 


look at that particular timeframe, there were 


two canyons, the F Canyon, which people call 


F, and H Canyon, was going through some fairly 


major modifications and to the improve the 


particular processes. 


And so pipefitters were brought in for 


those particular periods. This is under, the 


canyons were classified area, Q cleared area 


and a badge. So we need to examine ourselves 


in saying, well, is it reasonable to say that 


we’re going to have an unmonitored worker that 


if we multiply his, we’re taking all monitored 


worker exposure, multiply that times 1.4, do 


you think that’s a reasonable, that that 


really happened? That he would receive a 


significant exposure that he wouldn’t be 


monitored. 


And I think that’s a judgment for this 


discussion here, but I think it’s a plausible 


reason for saying, okay, yes, I can multiply 


that. I did a very quick job. I did a 

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calculation here. We looked at the high peak 


of a pipefitter versus the all monitored 


worker, the multiplier was 1.8 for that one 


year, for that one year. One point two for 


the high peak and another one down the lower, 


the multiplier to be 1.5. 


Is it plausible -- and, Arjun, you 


mentioned could there possibly a third period 


of time for that person that were only working 


for those few years. Probably so because they 


brought in a lot of people. You know, they 


didn’t work any place else. But again, is it 


plausible to say that person wouldn’t be 


monitored. And this is the 95th percentile. 


And we would multiply an all monitored worker 


dose which includes, which includes the 


construction worker dose multiplied times 4, 


would we be adequately claimant favorable for 


that particular claim? 


And I think that’s probably a 


discussion that I’d like Steve to talk about 


the particular categories of people. And the 


Savannah River data is a very, very good one 


because it has the ability to separate out. 


Now, in add to that do we look at some of the 

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other facilities to see the same thing 


happening here? Wherever we had, especially 


Oak Ridge National Lab, we went through some, 


working with some of their reactors when they 


did some modifications. I think you know 


about those, John. Hanford, you know, when 


some of the separation processes. The Chem 


Plant in Idaho is a very good one. 


So all along the way when we’re 


looking at exposures, we just didn’t take the 


all monitored worker. Wherever we were able 


to separate, and in many place we were able to 


separate each of the different types of 


construction workers. We were trying to make 


sure that some particular group would not 


stick out consistently that would now 


invalidate the issue about is the multiplier 


valid across this exposure record. So I want 


to let him comment on what I just said. I’ll 


stop everything. 


MR. MARSCHKE: My comment would be I didn’t 


find that information in the OTIB. And if 


that information could be, you know, if I’m 


correct, and it’s not currently in the OTIB, 


that information I think would be very 

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enlightening to put, you know, because it 


seems like you’re selling yourself a little 


short here in the OTIB with all the thought 


processes behind your selection and so on and 


so forth. And that’s why when I say making it 


harder, making the OTIB more bulletproof, I 


think that’s, a lot of our comments are geared 


towards that aspect of it. 


MR. CHEW: I would make a comment. Jim and 


I were at the meeting when we first met with 


the Council for Protection of Worker Rights. 


At that time I was able to have only at that 


time, only at that time, to have particularly 


the Savannah River information. I think Jim 


will recall I was able to separate out five 


different categories of workers compared to 


the all monitored worker. And I even had 


that, I brought my slides that I used, and I 


can show that to, I’ll just turn it around. I 


know you folks cannot see that, but this is by 


construction worker only. 


What this shows, the graph shows 


interestingly by certain years, certain 


construction workers clearly got higher. A 


labor category had much higher exposure. This 

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is just compared to each other. So it was not 


always consistent that pipefitters were always 


the highest. 


MR. MARSCHKE: No. 


MR. CHEW: You knew that, too. So I think 


if you really looked at the overall effect of 


the multiplier that will be applied to the 


unmonitored worker for all year, for all year, 


you’re going to be pretty well convinced that 


you are pretty much with the claimant 


favorable. 


Arjun, this is the slide I used in the 


Council for Protection of Worker. I did not 


make a copy. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think you can e-mail it if 


you have. I was going to say, Mel, you made a 


very cogent argument. I haven’t seen 


information, but we have somebody from CPWR 


here who would be useful for us to hear his 


reaction to what you’ve just said. 


MR. CHEW: Are you talking to Mr. McGowan? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


 MR. McGOWAN: I’m much better at 


interviewing workers and doing exposure 


assessments than I am in all this mathematics 

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that most of you folks enjoy. I do know that 


there are a number of instances in which 


construction workers had security badges 


issued, but they were not radiation monitoring 


badges. So I think you have to be somewhat 


clear in your analyses of information is what 


kind of badge you’re actually talking about 


and did that person actually have a radiation 


badge. 


Also, in many instances, not 


necessarily at Savannah River, where 


individuals, construction workers, were 


pulled. They had to take their badge off 


before doing certain things or they would be 


laid off. You either take your badge off and 


go and do this task or you’re laid off, and 


you’re not coming back. So people were 


working under circumstances that would have 


given them a very high exposure but could 


never be recorded. So those are the kinds of 


things you see when you talk to the actual 


worker and that may be off what we’re talking 


here, but that’s the kind of thing that you 


see. 


MR. CHEW: Would you, in our interviews 

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occasionally we would hear some kind of 


anecdotal referencing about asking to remove 


badges. There’s been no clear evidence that 


this was a consistent habit or even anything 


that we would know how to work with. I’d like 


to mention that we weren’t short of data. 


I think Jim knows that I delayed as 


much as I can because we had a team out there 


trying to gather as much data at that time. 


And many of the coworker studies hadn’t been 


done even or since, so in order to do OTIB0052 we basically went out and derived the 


data. Surprisingly enough, I think you saw 


from the OTIB itself, we have just external 


for all monitored workers over a million data 


points, and for construction workers we have 


216,000 which represents 20 percent. And 


that’s probably not unreasonable thinking 


about the amount of construction worker versus 


other workers. 


And also similar kind of numbers for 


internal exposures, too. That was probably 


the hardest thing to get. The Oak Ridge 


complex because of the work that was done with 


Donna Cragle and the studies with the CEDR 

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database, the OTIB has fairly good records on 


construction workers. But we had to go down 


to the level of detail of finding employee 


numbers, job code numbers, department heads, 


the department numbers to be able to pull out 


the right construction so we can always be 


clear that we are clearly pulling up 


construction worker data. 


DR. NETON: Can you maybe clarify something? 


Early on the thrust of this project was to 


look at building trade workers who were not 


primes. The thought was that the prime 


contractor or trades workers probably were 


monitored or it was thought that they were 


monitored better than maybe the subcontractor 


building trade that was brought in to fill in 


the gaps so to speak. And I’ve forgotten. 


It’s been a long time since I looked at that. 


You were not able to tease that out at all the 


sites because the data just weren’t there. 


But where you were able to tease out the 


exposures for the prime contractor building 


trades workers versus the ones that were the 


subcontractors did you notice any differences 


in their exposure patterns? 

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MR. CHEW: I think where we probably -- and 


that’s a good question -- probably the Oak 


Ridge complex was the easiest way to pull that 


out. And I’d like to add one thing in going 


back to the interviews. Many of the 


construction workers would -- and I’m going to 


exaggerate this here -- one day they’ll be 


working for a subcontractor, the next day 


they’ll be working for a prime. So it almost 


didn’t make any difference here. And 


especially it was the way that they were able 


to receive their badging and getting into the 


fenced areas. By and large I would say in 


general what we were now looking at the data 


with the question you asked, the people who 


worked for subcontractors were probably, the 


doses were probably smaller actually --


DR. NETON: My thought was --


MR. CHEW: -- and it would be expected to 


see that, yeah. Because once they brought 


them in. There was a couple of comments in 


your --


 MR. McGOWAN: I’d like to comment on that if 


I can. 


MR. CHEW: Sure. 

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190

 MR. McGOWAN: There are a number of 


individuals, for example I know at Oak Ridge, 


who spent their entire working careers at Oak 


Ridge as construction workers even though they 


were considered to be transient employees. 


You have some people that had many, many years 


of work there that would not have been thought 


of in that fashion. You probably have a 


bigger dataset at Savannah River from the 


Fayerweather data than you would have, say, at 


Oak Ridge. 


And at Oak Ridge, we know that there 


are individuals like the supervisor of the 


work crew would bring in a whole busload in a 


bus with the windows painted black of 


individuals and bring them to a particular 


location to work. None of them had security 


clearance. None of them had badge, whatever. 


They did the work in that location, were 


trucked back out by that person. There’s no 


record of that. 


MR. CHEW: And I appreciate what you’re 


saying here. I’d like to address that. We 


actually did work at the coworker data. As a 


matter of fact we actually had looked at the 

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analysis, and the Fayerweather data really 


does not give us the breakdown of what we 


looked at. As a matter of fact I noticed in 


your report you even mentioned that the 


Fayerweather data really has no additional 


contribution or make any significant 


difference than in the SC&A report. 


MR. MARSCHKE: We looked at the Fayerweather 


data which we got from the center. There was 


no breakout by construction worker versus non-


construction worker so we couldn’t break it 


out that way. But what we did was we compared 


all the workers to the HPAREH data, and we 


found, you know, we have a plot in here in the 


report which kind of shows that the 


Fayerweather data tracks the HPAREH data but 


it’s lower. 


Generally, the Fayerweather, at the 


95th percentile, the Fayerweather data is 


slightly lower than the HPAREH data. And also 


at the average, and this is for all workers 


because the Fayerweather data does not 


identify the occupation of the workers. But 


what we did, when you look at the figure in 


here, you’re three, two, four, you see that 

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the Fayerweather data, when each HPAREH data 


goes up for a year, the Fayerweather data goes 


up. But it’s always a little bit less than 


the HPAREH data. 


DR. MAURO: Page 33 of the report. 


MR. MARSCHKE: So basically, that 


information, or any discussion of the 


Fayerweather data is missing from OTIB-0052 


and in that, you know, I think something 


should be said about it. Whether or not it 


changes the end results, you know, or if it 


does the end results, it may change the 1.4. 


It may drive the 1.4 down as opposed to 


increasing it. 


MR. CHEW: Well, we didn’t go to that level 


of analysis. I appreciate your doing that, 


when I saw that. We abandoned it fairly early 


because we weren’t able to break it out by 


construction, and we needed, that was clearly 


what we needed to do. So if we didn’t do that 


then we wouldn’t be doing (unintelligible). 


That was the whole point here. 


I’d like to just go back to a little 


discussion about the Savannah River data. I 


mentioned about the canyons being where the 

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two areas, but also remember people working in 


those particular canyons would show high doses 


for those particular years. Clearly, we asked 


the question, they had to be Q cleared, and 


they had to have security badges along with 


their film badges. 


So I think just to reinforce the 


likelihood of an unmonitored person falling in 


a grouping of less than 95 percent would be 


highly unlikely. 


DR. MAURO: So the point is that if, in 


fact, all the construction workers, trade 


workers including all the pipefitters were, in 


fact, all monitored, and all of a sudden that 


data showed up, you’re expectation of their 


distribution would be lower than that because 


the ones that we happen to have are the ones 


that were monitored. And the reason they were 


monitored was because they had job 


responsibilities that were putting them in 


greater harms way from a radiological point of 


view. So what I’m hearing is that this, 


they’re coming in high because they were given 


jobs which were unusually more radioactive. 


DR. NETON: Mel was saying for that 

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particular event, not universally. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


MR. CHEW: Right, if you track the average 


pipefitter through a majority of the years, 


they were below the unmonitored workers. 


DR. MAURO: I understand that, but it goes 


to particular years. 


MR. CHEW: Sure. Sure. 


When I think of, that was the first, 


we’ve already had this discussion because I 


think that was one of the key points that you 


would like to have this explained. The other 


part of the matrix, do you feel there is any 


other one that you’d like me to tell some 


detail? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Before we move on from 


Savannah River I think the example you gave is 


a good one and you make a very plausible case 


that if they were going into the canyon area 


and doing work on the piping there, that they 


would likely be monitored as well as have 


security badges. 


But the counter example to that would 


be something like the tank farm in the 1950s 


and early ‘60s. There are a lot of leaks in 

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the first, I think nine of the first 16 tanks 


leaked at Savannah River. And then when they 


built the next generation of tanks it’s much 


better. So they have a lot of workers who 


were kind of digging up stuff, cleaning up 


stuff. They had a lot of subcontractors at 


Savannah River site. 


This is one of the reasons that I kind 


of tried to insist on that tank farm database, 


they didn’t record all of the incidents. I 


mean, in the databank itself it says we didn’t 


record everything that we considered 


significant, but it got not criteria. And in 


those kinds of circumstances, I kind of wonder 


how much of this analysis actually applies, 


especially if you don’t address incidents in 


TIB-0052. 


So you have an unbadged worker who’s 


kind of doing clean up, and who is a 


subcontractor, and he’s there as a day laborer 


brought in by some company, not tracked by a 


union, especially the Savannah River site. 


And so you’ve got multiple levels of problems 


in how you apply this. 


MR. CHEW: I’m glad this, Arjun, I’m glad 

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this morning we had the discussion about OTIB0020 and it also was ancillary leading up to 


it because that’s really important. Remember, 


we’re focusing on the unmonitored worker 


that’s talked about. And now we’re going to 


be assigning -- I hope I say this correctly as 


a dose reconstructor -- we’re going to be 


assigning that unmonitored worker the 95 


percentile of the all monitored worker data 


which this data supports, and multiply that 


time 1.4 to find that. 


Which I’m now going to come back to 


you, Arjun, and is it plausible that you’re 


going to find an unmonitored worker if that’s 


a scenario that you can describe that that’s 


not claimant favorable. Well, we feel it is 


claimant favorable. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so. I think when we 


looked at Y-12, and we tried to subject it to 


the test to see whether workers were widely 


monitored in the 1950s fell into the high dose 


categories when they started being monitored 


in the 1960s. We did find them. 


So here we’re talking about non-prime 


contractor workers. Here we’re talking about 

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prime contractor workers. Here we’re talking 


about deliverers who are there for temporary 


jobs who might be doing clean up in radiation 


fields that were quite high. Sometimes they 


were ten R per hour, per hour. That’s 


documented in the databank, and to the extent 


that I reported it accurately when I did the 


study, you have those numbers. And in those 


kinds of circumstances with the special kinds 


of geometry that you have, I think at least 


that the case needs to be made that this is 


adequate for those kinds of circumstances. 


Because I think that in the ‘50s especially, 


because you make the case that in the ‘50s 


construction workers would be working on 


cleanup jobs, and I’m not sure that that’s --


DR. NETON: No, no, I don’t --


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s somewhere in the 


matrix. That’s there somewhere in the matrix. 


That would generally be the case. You don’t 


have to worry. But I don’t think that’s 


necessarily the case. 


MR. CHEW: But we still have in those early 


years, too, a significant number of exposure 


assigned to the all monitored worker. And 

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that’s where --


DR. NETON: There are exposures here being 


assigned in the 1950s, about 1,000, 1,500 per 


year to these workers. Now you’re suggesting 


there were unmonitored construction workers 


working in Ten R fields, no badging 


considerations at all. I’ve just not heard 


that anywhere else before. I’ve never heard 


that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m not suggesting that they 


were not badged. I’m pointing out that there 


are, in the ‘50s, we know of situations where 


there were workers in relatively higher 


exposed categories not deliberately not 


badged, but people were learning things. 


People were, at least that was my 


impression from having, that was my conclusion 


going away from White, having looked at the 


White data a lot. They were trying, and they 


were learning things, and they were finding 


the people to badge. And often they were 


right, and sometime they were not. And that’s 


the kind of, if that was the situation with 


prime contractor workers, I’m raising a 


question rather than making a statement. 

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DR. NETON: This is no different than the 


discussions we’ve had on monitored versus 


unmonitored prime workers because what you’re 


saying is we have an example here where 


there’s a clear dichotomy between monitored 


workers and building trades workers. Building 


trades workers are much lower on average than 


the prime contractors. And what you’re 


suggesting is that they didn’t, the 


preferentially only monitored the lower 


exposed --


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I didn’t say that. 


DR. NETON: Well, that’s what would have to 


happen for that comparison to be invalid, that 


they would not be monitoring workers that were 


more highly exposed. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think they did not monitor 


some workers who were highly exposed and 


didn’t monitor some workers who were highly 


exposed, yes. I’m not saying that they 


systematically excluded highly exposed 


workers, of course not. We know that that 


isn’t true. But we do also, at least I feel 


from having looked at the data, that there 


were cases in higher exposure categories that 

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weren’t monitored in the ‘50s. 


DR. NETON: We’re using the 95th percentile 


distribution as well so --


MR. CHEW: But, you know, Arjun, we also 


remember that we’re talking about claims that 


came in, coming in, that somehow we identified 


that that person probably should be monitored. 


And so now you have to look at that particular 


individual claim to see where the data, 


whether the specific TBD or TIB explains how 


by his or her job description we’re able to 


assign that unmonitored exposure to him. 


Arjun, I’m going to send this 


particular graph down to you to show you some 


of the history by year. And so clearly, some 


of this beginning in the 1940s, people were 


monitored. And so we have information on 


people both construction workers and all 


monitored workers dating back. And if you 


really look at the graph itself, it’s very 


interesting. It’s going to tell us a story 


about the development of the weapons program 


like I started talking about this morning. 


And we tracked, the exposures were 


tracked to see how the development occurred. 

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201 

In the early years obviously zero 


reconstructing and it started to build up, you 


know, some of the early work at Atomic 


Laboratory, the Hanford, you know, the 


separation processes. And then DuPont was 


involved with the early separation processes 


at Hanford. And then they took it down to 


Savannah River some of the separation 


processes were better well defined. And so 


they were able to build for their system. 


Now to answer some of your questions 


here, you’re basically coming up with is it 


really plausible, can I develop a scenario 


like you just described? You know, I have a 


person who worked in high radiation field for 


a significant amount of time who really was 


unmonitored. So will you have a way to get, 


find exposures to that particular claimant by 


taking the 95th percentile times 1.4. And do 


you think we have bounded it? You think? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Two things, if you look at 


the 2007 Inspector General report that just 


came out about bioassay not external dose. 


DR. NETON: Current exposures. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Current exposures but under 

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current rules. Are the rules being followed? 


Are the workers being separated according to 


low and high exposure categories by current 


criteria? Which would also be, you know, 


you’re doing the best --


DR. NETON: I found it convincing that the 


highest exposed workers were monitored in the 


Inspector General report. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But are the workers --


DR. NETON: I thought that was the 


conclusion. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s not the point. You 


don’t know among the people who were entering 


radiological areas who were not monitored 


that’s part of the point and studied the 


report. I’ve scanned it --


DR. NETON: I looked at it, Arjun, and I 


don’t see that you’re making a point by citing 


that report. Go ahead. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe not. And maybe you 


studied it better than I have. But I think, 


at least in the ‘50s and ‘40s, to step away 


from the report which you read and I have, I’m 


not saying that -- I think Steve put it well 


when he gave an overview that there’s no claim 

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in our review that this isn’t broadly claimant 


favorable to the vast majority of workers that 


we’re talking about. We’re not, that’s not 


the claim. 


I think that overview statement was 


right, and we agree with TIB-0052 on that. 


The question is are the categories of workers, 


not just random people in the table, are there 


categories of workers that TIB-0052 would not 


pick up who are unmonitored construction 


workers. And I think that for certain times 


and certain types of workers that this is at 


least plausible, and this idea should not be 


rejected out of hand. 


DR. NETON: I think it’s speculation. We 


can’t live on speculation. If you look at the 


comparison in the data, there’s a factor, by 


eyeball here, of at least a factor of four 


difference between the construction workers 


and the all workers. And we’re comparing the 


95th percentiles that are a factor of four 


different, I have trouble believing that that 


does not indicate that we’re providing a 


generous margin of dose to those workers who 


were not monitored. And probably for the most 

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part many of them didn’t need to be monitored. 


But we’re giving this to the people who 


probably should have been monitored a factor 


of four higher than what their counterparts 


were receiving. 


MR. CHEW: And the upshot of that is that 


the unmonitored worker based on this process 


is going to get more exposures than the 


monitored worker. 


DR. NETON: No, what I’m saying --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I recognize it’s --


MR. MARSCHKE: If you look at 152, if you 


look at the Oak Ridge data, I mean, from 1972 


on basically the ratio of construction worker 


to all monitored worker is greater than, it’s 


1.5 or greater. And so how do you, if you 


look, one of the questions is how did you 


settle on 1.4? 


MR. CHEW: I’d like to answer that. It’s a 


very good question. There was a considerable 


amount of discussion when 1.4 was arrived at. 


You pointed out some very good information 


that especially in the latter years, most 


people were monitored and construction 


workers. They worked multipliers even much 

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greater than 1.4, 1.5, 1.8, 1.9. As you can 


see here we even listed them. 


But why we did not include that in the 


1.4 is you really looked at the exposure 


itself, exposure itself. Then the value of 


the exposure at the 95 percentile, they are 


down in the hundreds or less than a hundred 


millirem. And we thought it that no matter 


what you did it would probably be not in the 


compensable category. So we focused in on 


where the exposures were of a higher value in 


the rem categories --


DR. NETON: There’s also the monitoring all 


the workers. We’ve got the entire workforce 


monitored. Badges were handed out very 


readily to all workers at that point. 


Construction workers who were brought in maybe 


for specific jobs would be higher at that 


point, but they’re monitored. 


MR. MARSCHKE: See, there’s a lot of stuff 


that went into the selection of OTIB-0052. 


And one of the selections is 1.4. A lot of 


thought processes went into this is not really 


reflected in the document itself. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, well, that’s the problem. 

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We’re writing documents for our own guidance. 


MR. MARSCHKE: So when we look at it we have 


these questions, and again, we looked at it. 


We could see that, you know --


MR. CHEW: Steve has a very good point. 


When we first, actually for all the years for 


all the sites we studied, we actually took the 


ratios for every year. Most of them were 


below one. And you know that already. Well, 


I said, well, is that the way to present the 


information. 


Let’s really step back and take a look 


at it. How many of them are above 1.1, 1.2 or 


1.3? Where are we going to see the trend of 


what a reasonable coworker adjustment factor 


would be? And we looked at all the numbers 


and the exposure itself in consideration. And 


then 1.4 was consensus-wide, the reasonable 


adjustment factor here. 


MR. MARSCHKE: The selection of 1.4 to me is 


very much subjective and that’s why we did 


this proof in the pudding type where we ran 


the samples to see how robust the 1.4 was. 


And we were, I guess one could say pretty well 


pleased that for most of the samples that we 

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ran -- I think we ran about 60 samples. 


Twenty at each of the three sites that we 


looked at. And we only had a handful or so 


that basically the OTIB-0052 methodology 


produced lower results than the measured 


results, and then not more than a factor of 


two lower. So it seemed to always produce 


either doses that were very close to or above 


what the measured doses were. So but again, 


there’s a lot of questions, I know there’s a 


lot of questions out there from the meeting we 


had with the center as to how the 1.4 was 


decided upon. And because there are a lot of 


numbers out there which are greater than 1.4. 


DR. MAURO: When you say they’re greater 


than 1.4, is for the ten year, for duration of 


the --


MR. MARSCHKE: No, that’s just for --


DR. MAURO: I think the interesting problem 


is this. You have a worker, and what we have 


seen here is that it’s possible that in a 


given year, a given worker who was not 


monitored may very well, it’s possible, have 


gotten exposure more than 1.4 times, that is, 


if you use this method for that year. Because 

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you’re operating at the 95th percentile the 


probability that ten years in a row --


DR. NETON: No, I understand that. 


DR. MAURO: -- that’s not going to happen. 


So there’s no doubt when you’re looking at a 


stretch of time for a worker where he’s there 


for every year, and we’re going to assign him 


every year not the 95th percentile year after 


year, 1.4 times year after year. So I have to 


say when I look at that I say I buy that. But 


the dilemma then becomes what about the person 


that was just there for one year. 


And you apply this, and he’s a 


pipefitter. It seems to me there’s a very 


real possibility that he’s just -- and this is 


going to be a rare occasion -- and he was 


unmonitored, and so it’s almost like when are 


we conservative enough. From reading the 


report and asking questions just like we’re 


asking now, I am convinced that over a stretch 


of time, the methodology as you’ve developed, 


the chances that one person year after year 


after year after year who’s unmonitored go the 


upper 95th percentile times 1.4 for every one 


of those years, the probability of that 

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occurring is zero or approaches some 


astronomically small number. 


But for any given one year, I would 


say there’s a very well possibility it could 


have happened to some people. It might have 


been just for one year. Is that good enough? 


And that becomes almost like a judgment call. 


DR. NETON: The question is though Mel has 


pointed out a couple of instances where those 


couple years are high because it was a point 


where we believe that they would have been 


monitored so that kind of goes away. 


MR. MARSCHKE: They were doing specific 


tasks. 

DR. MAURO: They were doing specific, that’s 

where --

DR. NETON: -- job and we can account for 

that at the Savannah River site. But I’m not 


sure how many --


DR. MAURO: Well, that person never existed. 


In other words, that person doesn’t --


DR. NETON: Those people probably don’t 


exist. 


MR. CHEW: And, John, look at this tail 


here. Remember, if you look at the DOE 

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complexes in the graph it’s kind of 


interesting, the exposures here and tailing 


off because the Cold War ended here, and then 


the breakdown. These doses, even though where 


we talk about numbers, are low. Even though 


you can multiply times two or 1.81.9, whatever 


number you want. That’s why we just kind 


of... But we presented in the graph because 


it was there so that’s our actual data. We 


did focus in clearly on this particular period 


of time where the exposures are significant 


enough that it would make a difference. 


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Mel, this is 


Mark Griffon. Been listening in to this. The 


one question I had, in the overview Steve 


mentioned this concern that SC&A has about 


the, and I think John just sort of highlighted 


again, the sort of category for less than 


five-year period or three-to-five or whatever 


the cutoff there was. 


And that’s what John was sort of 


raising where when, would be conservative in 


that regard. I just wanted to, I wondered if 


you assessed what the magnitude of that 


population could be because if I’m looking, I 

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have some numbers for a couple sites. And it 


seems to me for some of the construction 


workforce you could have a fair percentage of 


workers that fall into that less than five 


year category. It’s not that unreasonable. 


I mean, the Nevada Test Site for 


instance in the medical monitoring program I 


just looked up some numbers. It was like 850 


out of 2,700 that reported less than five 


years work. So it’s not like all these guys 


have ten, 15 years at the site, so a little 


more, at least for some of the sites. I 


wondered if you assessed that at all in your 


analysis in TIB-0052. 


MR. NETON: Well, I don’t think we did, Jim, 


I don’t think we that we looked at it in those 


narrow brackets, but the example you used, the 


Nevada Test Site, it comes to my mind that 


most of those people were monitored after a 


certain year. We have very good monitoring --


MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yeah, and they 


could have been, yeah, I didn’t crosswalk that 


with whether they were monitored or not, 


that’s true. 


DR. NETON: This doesn’t make a difference 

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in the dose reconstruction. The thought comes 


to mind if a person only worked a year or two 


the chance of their dose becoming high enough 


to be compensable is pretty slim. But that’s 


probably not a good argument to make. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: We actually have a number 


here for Hanford from Eula Bingham. I mean, 


we have independently verified it, but she 


brought this up. You know, the short-term, 


long-term thing came up during our interview 


with CWR, and I just, so we asked, you’re 


expressing the concern that workers who were 


there for shorter periods may have been there 


when the factor of 1.4, when 1.4 factor may 


not apply. So we asked her that and Eula 


said, yes, some worked for short periods, some 


not. At Paducah construction workers average 


length of employment was about three years. 


At Hanford it was 15 years. Oak Ridge was 17 


years. So it’s all over the map, and so you 


actually, if the average length of employment 


for construction workers is three years, then 


you have a problem for some groups of workers. 


DR. NETON: Only if they were unmonitored. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Then you have this whole 

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thing about, you know, the other thing that 


came up is that DOE has even lost track of the 


subcontractors let alone knowing where workers 


are. So the whole question of whether you 


call it your records, who was monitored, and I 


think especially for the early years, I don’t 


think that they can be dismissed saying that 


we knew who was being monitored. Well, at 


Rocky Flats we have documentary evidence that 


even though the Health Physicists in the field 


knew that the people who were exposed to 


plutonium tetrafluoride were at risk of 


neutron exposure, they decided not to monitor 


the people in Building 71 for neutron exposure 


until 1956. And that is in the history of the 


Rocky Flats site. So it’s not necessarily 


that the Health Physicist didn’t know what was 


going on, but it was management decisions how 


to do certain things. And when we have that 


documented for secure workers in the ‘50s at 


Rocky Flats, I think the burden of proof in 


the way I read the regulation, had to be, at 


least for the ‘50s, on the government to say, 


okay, we know that everybody with high 


exposures were monitored and this is going to 

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cover it because I think --


DR. NETON: Well, you’re challenging the 


entire coworker approach. This just goes 


beyond, this is the entire coworker model 


approach then you’re challenging. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, for a certain period ­

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DR. MAURO: Short term. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No --


DR. NETON: For any period really. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I think, no, the reason 


I’ve said that if you’re adding 95th
 

percentile, then a factor of 1.4 over ten-year 


periods, first of all it’s a very long period, 


then the probability that you’re going to be 


on the short side is very low. 


DR. NETON: Well, I don’t follow that 


argument, Arjun. I mean, you’re saying that’s 


okay, but then just before that you said that 


we don’t even know who was monitored and when 


and why. I mean, you’ve got two extremes you 


just pointed out to me, and one is right and 


one is wrong. I mean, I don’t understand 


that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think that my statement is 

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a little more nuanced than you hear them. 


DR. NETON: I don’t know. We don’t know who 


was monitored at Rocky Flats. They purposely 


didn’t monitor them, and they just ignored it 


because for whatever reason they made a 


management decision not to. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I made a more careful 


statement about what’s in the history of Rocky 


Flats about who was monitored. Now, this is 


not Arjun Makhijani waking up one day and 


making a decision about what happened over 


there. We do know that in Building 71 neutron 


monitoring started in 1956. 


MR. CHEW: And we’re not here to argue about 


Rocky Flats again because we’ve done that for 


two years here. I would like to say I would 


highly unlikely that a construction worker 


would be working in front of plutonium 


fluoride. I just want to discuss that point, 


and let’s dismiss that. Let’s focus in on 


really construction workers. 


And I have the categories here, and 


what are the likelihoods of them really being 


exposed to a significant level above the all 


monitored worker which is now the coworker 

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study here multiplied times 1.4. That’s 


really the bottom line here, and we need to 


focus on that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Let us focus on that because 


just now or twenty minutes ago, the argument 


was made that if they are in a secure area, 


they’d have a security badge and a badge. And 


therefore, and everybody who went in there, 


therefore, by analogy construction workers 


would also have been badged. 


Now I’m saying that you’re in a secure 


area in the ‘50s. We have in an area where 


there were known to be neutrons we had 


unmonitored workers in the most secure area at 


Rocky Flats. So I’m just picking up your --


 MR. SHARFI: SEC issue versus a --


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, no, it’s not an SEC 


issue. 


DR. NETON: Why were they not monitored 


though, Arjun? You didn’t finish the story. 


Because they were judged to be below a certain 


monitoring threshold. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No. 


DR. NETON: Yes, they were. They were 


judged to be below a certain monitoring 

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threshold. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I have the history in my --


DR. NETON: Well, they didn’t not monitor 


because they were the most highest exposed 


workers. I mean, that’s the point is that 


they were judged to have an exposure that 


didn’t meet a certain monitoring threshold, a 


criteria. And so when you start badging the 


higher exposed workers, these studies are even 


more generous because you’ve got a subset of 


higher exposed workers, and we’re taking the 


95th percentile of that. I don’t think that 


they just deliberately didn’t monitor the 


workers in the plutonium facility because they 


were high. It was a rational decision made 


why they weren’t monitored, and that’s the 


rest of the story. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I don’t think that the 


history of Rocky Flats represents a rational ­

-


MR. CHEW: They came and measured it and so 


they know what the exposures were, and so they 


made their decision. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, my recollection was that 


there was a 500 millirem cutoff or something 

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like that for monitoring. 


MR. CHEW: Where the MDA film can --


DR. ZIEMER: Mel, on the histories, to what 


extent can you identify these individuals? 


Were they keeping lifetime histories in the 


‘50s for these folks? 


MR. CHEW: Yes, yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: It wasn’t required until the 


‘60s. So most of these are actually 


identifiable people. 


MR. CHEW: Yes, they are. Every one of 


these working points are identified people. 


We did that, it’s a very intelligent point. 


No, that was the only way we can get the 


construction worker --


DR. ZIEMER: Because I know at Oak Ridge, 


and this goes back to the ‘50s now, you 


always, you determined on the construction 


workers by job whether you monitored them 


beyond even a film badge. And typically you 


had HPs with stop watches and survey 


instruments because you were really interested 


in daily and weekly limits. 


And in the early days the limits were 


not life. There were no lifetime limits. 

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They were basically weekly limits and daily 


limits for administrative purposes. But even 


if you didn’t know the identity of a person, 


you could pretty well guarantee that they’re 


not going to get more than a certain amount a 


week if they’re working in a high dose area. 


It perhaps was different in other facilities, 


but I couldn’t imagine any worker, say at Oak 


Ridge, coming in and working in a high dose 


area and not being monitored. 


MR. CHEW: That’s our point. 


DR. ZIEMER: It would be equivalent of a 


work permit. You had to have --


MR. CHEW: I know I’m being redundant here, 


but we are focusing on the person who is 


unmonitored or would have information that’s 


missing in his monitoring record, that’s fair, 


right? And we are going to be assigning that 


particular (unintelligible) would be without 


the information the 95th percentile of the all 


monitored worker where I think that shows 


clearly through all of the sites except for 


the few years that we discussed about. 


And wherever, as a matter of fact in 


our study, when we did the study, every time 

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we saw that the construction worker data was 


above potentially the all monitored worker, 


even at ten percent of the 1.2 times, we 


clearly tried to identify and go back to know 


what operations that we know of and try to 


identify what they did and were the people 


monitored. And so what was the likelihood of 


unmonitored? 


We’ve got to also look at some of 


these particular sites, and the important 


ones. If you look at Hanford; you look at 


Idaho; you look at Savannah River, these are 


the very large sites. And so people can come 


in and out of all those sites including the 


deer as you well know. And so there are 


fences around those particular sites that have 


the separation and materials here. And so 


there’s clearly a control point where people 


would come in. And also in the early days 


both areas were classified and secured area, 


they would have been monitored. 


Anyway, I think, Wanda, if SC&A has 


any other points on the matrix that we 


responded that they are still lacking 


clarification, we have no problem. I think we 

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discussed the subject maybe to their 


satisfaction I hope. 


MS. MUNN: In skimming down the NIOSH 


response column to the matrix, it seems to me 


we’ve covered in our discussion most of the 


items fairly well that are mentioned here in 


one way or another. 


MR. CHEW: I’m just kind of curious, I’d 


like to say something, Wanda. Item number 2­

8, you asked us to go look at the HPAREH, I 


mean, basically all the external doses are 


from HPAREH. Needs to evaluate other doses 


like Fayerweather, ABST. Why did you want to 


put that issue in because you thought yourself 


it was an issue? I’m just kind of curious why 


that was in there. 


MR. MARSCHKE: Again, to make the document 


harder. To make the document more, you know, 


to somebody picking up the document and 


reading the document who has a knowledge of 


Savannah River, they know that HPAREH is not 


the only data source of data out there. So I 


would think a statement to that effect that we 


have looked at Fayerweather and so and so 


forth is basically, that type of statement. 

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MR. CHEW: Well, see, we happen to know when 


our initial view graph to Savannah River at 


the meeting, we also mentioned we had looked 


at the Fayerweather data. And so a year later 


after we put the document together, we just, I 


apologize. We didn’t put that in. 


MR. MARSCHKE: If that, in fact, is the case 


when you do look at it, you get results which 


are similar to what we got. 


MR. CHEW: I certainly hope so. 


DR. NETON: One issue that we -- I’m sorry. 


MS. MUNN: Go ahead. 


DR. NETON: I’d like to bring up that we 


didn’t talk about is this finding about that 


we didn’t do the modification that we had 


discussed with CTWR. I feel like we do owe an 


explanation for that. It is true that Mel and 


I and I think Justin Conoyer met with CTWR in 


Silver Springs and had a very engaging 


conversation with the folks there including an 


expert exposure assessors. Primarily an 


industrial hygiene background, but they 


brought to the table some very good expertise 


in exposure assessment particularly when 


you’re dealing with air sample data. 

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And we discussed a number of options 


as to how we could move the internal dose 


assessments forward. And after looking at a 


lot of air data, we decided, well, maybe it 


would be more appropriate to increase the GSD 


on our, geometric standard deviation, on our 


values for internal and apply them that way 


and take a 95th percentile and reconstruct 


doses that way. 


And as it turns out when went back, 


and we tried to apply that to our dataset, we 


ended up with implausibly large values. I 


mean, just tremendously high intake values 


that made no sense in light of what we know 


about the general exposures at the plant. And 


that’s when I started having discussions with 


other folks, Mel included, to say, hey, we 


have internal dosimetry bioassay data where we 


can differentiate just like we did with 


external construction workers, non-


construction workers. 


And that’s where we ended up, using 


the real data which the nice feature is that 


it takes care of the, you don’t have to 


extrapolate from air sample data any more, 

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these extremely large potential geometric 


standard deviations. You have bioassay data 


from people that tightened up the distribution 


substantially and gave us what we felt a much 


better representation of the exposure of this 


cohort that we’re dealing with. That’s the 


nutshell explanation for that. 


MR. CHEW: I would like to add one more to 


consider. That was quite a discussion at the 


meeting. It also eliminated by using actual 


bioassay data any issues about different 


breathing rates and things like that. 


DR. NETON: Right. Breathing rates go away, 


and the oronasal breathing goes away. The 


number hours worked in a week goes away. All 


the correction factors that we were talking 


about went away. The bioassay data is an 


integrated sample during the activity no 


matter how long or how hard you breathe. 


MR. CHEW: But it forced us to spend a 


considerable amount of time --


DR. NETON: We put in a lot of effort. 


MS. MUNN: As long as you can get it. 


Getting it there is the important thing. 


John, is SC&A okay with OTIB-0052? 

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DR. MAURO: Steve, are there any other items 


in here that you think need to be raised? 


MR. MARSCHKE: We haven’t talked about 


neutrons yet, and OTIB-0052 is also quiet on 


neutrons. And we do have one comment and one 


finding in the matrix where we basically, we 


raise the neutron issue. And you have a 


response here, and I guess you’re applying the 


same 1.4 multiplier to neutrons --


MR. CHEW: To the total exposure. 


MR. MARSCHKE: To the total exposure which 


would include the neutrons as you would apply 


just a straight gamma dose. I don’t know. Do 


we want to get any more into that or --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Steve, just a memory 


question. You wrote the report so I don’t 


remember. Didn’t you find that in some sites 


neutrons were included and some sites they 


were not? That’s my memory. 


MR. CHEW: That’s true. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: So I think it’s not 


consistent that the 1.4 is being applied. Am 


I wrong about that? 


MR. CHEW: No, because if you compare site 


to site construction worker or all monitored 

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worker, that individual site stands alone 


here. So if neutron doses were applied, it 


would be applied both the all monitored worker 


and the construction worker for that 


particular site. Now, I think Savannah River 


was the only one we really found that had 


neutron doses. And we really did not find 


much neutron dose exposure to construction 


workers. There’s another claimant 


favorability because the all monitored worker 


had more neutron exposure. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But you’re not applying the 


1.4 to neutron doses. I didn’t understand. 

It’s just a question. I don’t have a 

statement about it. 

MR. CHEW: You apply the 1.4 to the total. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Including from all sources. 


 MR. SHARFI: The deep dose and the neutron 


dose, not the shallow. 


MR. CHEW: Right, not the shallow. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it goes in the 


analysis that in developing the 1.4 that in 


some cases only the deep dose was counted, and 


in some cases the neutron dose was counted. 


There’s some finding there that I’m not 

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remembering correctly now because I totally 


read the report from end to end recently, from 


beginning to end I should say. 


MR. MARSCHKE: The Rocky Flats data the data 


that was used in the Rocky Flats analysis, I 


think had the neutron data --


 MR. SHARFI: In that which would be the 


gamma plus neutron. 


MR. MARSCHKE: And if you look at the Rocky 


Flats coworker OTIB as I recall, there are two 


or there is a construction worker table that 


has columns for both for gamma and separate 


columns for neutrons. So that’s clearly 


they’re applying the 1.4 to both. 


MS. MUNN: To total dose, total dose. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But we only found that at 


Rocky Flats, right? 


MR. MARSCHKE: I think that was only at 


Rocky Flats where really the neutron 


(unintelligible). At Savannah River I think 


they, each (unintelligible) characterized the 


doses as penetrating dose. 


 MR. SHARFI: I think they’re separate. They 


have an open window, a shallow and a neutron 


report. 

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MS. MUNN: Regardless, you’re still 


comparing site worker to site worker not site 


worker to some other site worker. So you’re 


still comparing badged at this site with 


unbadged at this site. So you’re covering the 


same ground no matter what. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s right. 


MS. MUNN: With that let’s take a quick 15­

minute break and then we will come back and 


address TBD-6000 briefly. We’ll have a wrap 


up of action items, and we’ll talk about one 


or two other things that we may not have had 


an opportunity to touch on this morning. 


 DR. WADE: We’re going to take a brief break 


so we’ll mute the phone. We’ll be back in, 


what did you say, five or ten minutes? 


MS. MUNN: Ten minutes. 


 DR. WADE: Ten minutes. 


(Whereupon, a break was taken from 3:40 p.m. 


until 3:50 p.m.) 


MS. MUNN: As we reconvene there’s one item 


which we did not have an opportunity to touch 


on before lunch which I had hoped we might 


have some discussion on. And that’s where we 


were on the few items that were still 

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outstanding on the first matrix. But we won’t 


address that right now. I’ll just postpone 


that a little bit until we have addressed the 


couple of immediate issues that we have before 


us, the first one being a discussion of TBD6000. 


DISCUSSION OF TBD 6000
 

That’s recently, as you know, out and 


operating. And I think John touched earlier 


on one of the actually administrative issues 


that are before us with respect to Appendix 


BB. I believe that you all received a copy of 


the memo that John sent out asking about our 


authorization for them to continue their 


expectation in pursuing a review of the 


appendix to TBD-6000. 


John, would you like to expand on that 


just a little? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, right now based on the 


marching orders given to us what we’re doing 


well along is reviewing TBD-6000. TBD-6000 by 


the way is the generic guideline for all 


metalworking AWE facilities. It doesn’t 


include refining, but simply the metal that’s 


being worked. 

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And it’s a generic model that was 


developed by Battelle and is intended to be 


used where you don’t have site-specific 


information. Accompanying TBD-6000 are, I 


believe, about 15 appendices each one dealing 


with site-specific information. That sort of 


sets the stage. Now where are we? 


We are performing an in-depth review 


of TBD-6000 which in effect says here are the 


default airborne radionuclide concentrations 


of uranium, of thorium, recycled uranium and 


its composition that we believe represents a 


plausible upper bound for different categories 


of workers for different time periods at these 


AWE facilities. And all of this data was 


gathered basically from a review of work by 


Kingsley and Harris. It’s one of the 


definitive pieces of work on this subject. 


As of this date we’ve carefully 


reviewed Kingsley and Harris and affirmed that 


the numbers that have been adopted represents 


the upper end of the numbers there for 


airborne exposure, inhalation exposures, but 


we have also determined that there are other 


sources of very comprehensive data in addition 

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to Kingsley and Harris that are not cited in 


that TBD that we are looking at also. 


Of particular relevance is the report 


that we’ve talked about in the past that I 


referred to as the Adley, A-D-L-E-Y, Report, 


and also there’s a lot of data from Simonds 


Saw that is very valuable. So there are other 


source documents beside Harris that we’re 


using to evaluate the airborne dust, default 


airborne dust loadings contained in TBD-6000. 


We’ll be reporting on that. 


From the point of view of external 


exposure, there are default values for if a 


person were working with uranium, enriched, 


recycled, depleted, whatever form of uranium 


and at different geometries, there were 


billets, rods, ingots, there’s a wide variety. 


And in the TBD they have a long list of these 


different types of geometries of uranium that 


could represent a source of external exposure. 


We have already in the past ran our MCNP 


calculations to see what the radiation fields 


are for some of those uranium chunks and where 


we’ve matched their numbers. So for the ones 


we’ve looked at so far, we’ve confirmed that, 

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yes, we agree that these are, in fact, the 


radiation fields you would get if one foot 


away. 


MS. MUNN: They’re tracking well. 


DR. MAURO: They’re tracking very well. 


So right now the status is that the 


external so far is tracking well, but we’re 


doing more work. We’re still looking at other 


geometries. The internal, we confirmed that 


they used the Harris Report, very sound source 


document for the early years which is 


especially important. 


But we’re also right now in the middle 


of that as we also comparing those data 


against other important source documents which 


are not cited in the TBD. And where they’ll 


have all of the TBD-6000 evaluations, all the 


work, completed in time for an oral 


presentation for the September 4th full Board 


meeting. 


MS. MUNN: Full Board call, September call. 


 DR. WADE: Full Board call. 


DR. MAURO: Did I say call or meeting? 


 DR. WADE: You said meeting. You’re right. 


It’s a meeting, but it’s a phone call. 

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DR. MAURO: But more important than that 


from our perspective because TBD-6000 in many 


respects is an aggregate, a compendium of 


information that we’ve already, that we’ve 


looked at in the past as part of the work 


we’ve been doing all along on AWE sites. What 


is new, and I think of great importance when 


we last met, when Senator Obama’s, when one of 


his staffers read a letter, was Appendix BB, 


which is the General Steel, GSI. Isn’t it 


General Steel Industries? 


MS. MUNN: Correct. 


DR. MAURO: And that is a new problem. What 


I mean by a new problem is General Steel 


Industries, its job was to do nondestructive 


testing of large metal components which 


included uranium. But at the same time that 


was only a small part of what they did. They 


also did nondestructive testing using a 25 meV 


data chart of a whole broad array of 


components made of different alloys. So what 


we’re in the middle of doing is evaluating 


that, and at that point I’d like to pass the 


baton to the fellow that’s doing the work, 


who’s on the phone, is Bob Anigstein. He’s 

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our physicist that runs MCNP which is the 


definitive model. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Excuse me. I 


don’t run MCNP --


DR. MAURO: Okay, that runs the program that 


our MCNP program because we have other people 


than help us. With that, Bob, could you tell 


us where you are on that part of the 


evaluation? 

DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Sure --

MS. MUNN: Bob? 

DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Yes. 

MS. MUNN: Before you begin this is Wanda. 


It wasn’t clear to me that all of the 


different types of alloys and components that 


were being looked at were, in fact, materials 


that were covered by the program. Are we 


talking about, I know General Steel did both 


types of work, public and private, and are we 


looking, I trust we’re looking only at 


materials and components that were included 


under DOD programs or DOE programs. 


DR. MAURO: Perhaps I should answer that, 


Bob. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Yes. 

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DR. MAURO: We’ve been operating under the 


premises very similar to what we did under the 


Dow investigations. That is, if an 


organization, private sector organization, is 


given a contract to provide a service to the 


weapons complex similar to the way Dow was 


given a contract to roll some uranium, it at 


the time of that contract there were other 


activities going on within that facility 


involving radioactive materials, such as at 


Dow at the time they were rolling uranium they 


were also making thorium alloy. 


Any exposures that workers would 


experience during the covered period would be 


included. So even though it was, for example, 


the thorium operations at Dow were not AEC 


operations. They were occurring at the same 


place at the same time that the AEC operations 


were taking place, but as a result. 


MS. MUNN: So we can segregate them? 


DR. MAURO: So now swing over to General 


Steel Industries. We’ve been operating on the 


premise that at the time that people were 


performing nondestructive testing of uranium 


slices, billets, that came from I believe 

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Mallinckrodt, they were also, that was just 


one more piece of metal that was undergoing 


nondestructive testing. So what we’ve been 


doing is evaluating the radiation. 


So what we see is well, we have a 


worker here. His job is to use the Betatron 


to irradiate and get a picture of the 


imperfections in a uranium slab. Well, right 


behind that there may come a component, a 


steam generator, a pressure vessel or some 


other large component. He just moves it in 


and does it, and then another uranium may come 


in. So the operation, the way we’re looking 


at it, the operation was an ongoing operation 


where components were moving in and moving out 


getting X-rayed. 


So what we’re doing right is 


evaluating what the -- and Bob will describe 


what he’s doing -- what the radiation field is 


due to the photoactivation. That is, when you 


use a 25 meV Betatron, the energy is so high 


that you cause activation unlike, you know, 


neutron activation would occur at low 


energies, but I think the threshold -- Bob, 


let me pass it back to you at this point. 

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The answer to your answer is, yes, 


we’re looking at not only uranium but 


everything else. 


MS. MUNN: All right, thank you. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Let me start 


by clarifying my role in the project. My 


background is in nuclear physics, and I am 


familiar with MCNP. I haven’t taken a course 


in it; however, the actual runs are being done 


by someone who is an expert who’s been doing 


this for many years, and who can do this more 


efficiently and more competently. 


We work to together as a team. This 


is a man by the name of Dick Ulsher*, who’s an 


associate of SC&A, and I pass on the 


specifications for the runs. He sends me back 


the MCNP results. We discuss the significance 


and just to clarify that. I don’t want to 


pretend that I’m and MCNP expert. 


What we’re planning to do. So far 


we’ve done, as John said, we verified this 


uranium billet because that’s a generic case, 


and, yeah, we agree with it. Actually, our 


results were slightly lower so we’re in the 


same ballpark. We also verified the gross 

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exposure rate from uniformly contaminated 


floor. We’re going to do some further work on 


that, but the preliminary results show that 


we’re in the same ballpark as the rates that 


are published in TBD-6000, which are applied 


also to General Steel. 


Further than that we did a preliminary 


run on photoactivation to get that, to do a 


definitive work on, I should really say 


photofission of uranium, required the use of 


the MCNP X, version 2.6, which is actually a 


beta release. It’s not available for general 


use, but it is available to beta testers, but 


there’s a large number of them. 


So obviously, NIOSH has someone with 


access to a code, and they can, our associate, 


Mr. Ulsher, has access to that code. And the 


reason is that there is a version, MCNP X 2.5 


that is publicly available. It came from Oak 


Ridge, at Oak Ridge. However, that does not 


do delayed gammas. So with the MCNP X 2.6, 


you can run it for any designated period of 


time, and it will give you the exposure or 


dose rate or whatever tally one wishes to use 


as a function of time following instantaneous 

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irradiation of the, during the very short 


period of time, picoseconds or something like 


that. 


And then how it gets activated and 


then how you get the decay, you know, usually 


there’s radioactive decay, and also possibly a 


build up of fission products. It does 


activation and fission products, but for 


uranium the fission product would far outweigh 


the activation. For the lighter elements the 


activation would be important because one is 


photo induced fission, the other one is the 


high energy photons knocking neutron out and 


create a new isotope. We are planning to do 


those runs. 


Right now I’m studying the material we 


got from Los Alamos at Los Alamos Declassified 


Report which gives a little bit of information 


about techniques, radiography techniques used, 


and probably more important is the worker 


reports, basically worker interviews as to how 


it was really done. 


And finally, basically we can simply 


set up the exposure parameters based on the 


fact that you have a film. You have a slab of 

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uranium. You have to get a certain amount of 


radiation through that uranium to expose the 


film. Typically, it’s one rad is a typical 


number for film exposure. So that tells you 


how much radiation is coming in at the front 


end to get the desired exposure at the back 


end at the film. 


So this is all, we did one preliminary 


run, but this is still in the planning stage 


to do more once we get definite, because it 


takes quite a, these runs themselves on a 


high-speed machine can take days. So we want 


to get all our ducks lined up and make sure 


we’re using the right parameters so we don’t 


have to repeat it too many times. 


And right now we need some more 


information because based on the ORNL surveys, 


there are apparently two, at first glance they 


look similar. They look like the same 


diagram. When you look more closely there are 


two different Betatron buildings, and they, 


where I’m at right now is just giving you a 


snapshot. 


What is a puzzlement is what is called 


the old Betatron building has two circles, and 

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it says Betatron One, Betatron Two within that 


building. So it seems that both Betatrons 


were located in the same building. What is 


the role of the new Betatron building I’m not 


sure at this point. I have to do some more 


investigation. 


When ORNL did it’s surveys, both 1989 


was the initial survey which resulted in that 


location being declared a FUSRAP site, needed 


remediation, even though it was really 


borderline. There were just a few spots where 


there was high uranium activity or at least 


above the DOE action levels. 


But then they surveyed the new 


Betatron building and found no elevated 


activity both in smear test, in surface 


contamination studies, in gamma exposure 


rates, basically it was clean. So we need to 


delve into that history and possibly a couple 


of us might make a site visit out there in the 


near future to see if we can get more 


information. 


And that’s approximately where this 


stands right now. It does not seem to be, 


it’s not clear whether you had two Betatrons 

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operating in two separate facilities in which 


case it was suggested that workers in one 


facility might be getting irradiated when the 


Betatron was on in the other facility. 


But for the both Betatrons were in the 


same room, clearly, the room would be cleared 


when either or both machines were on. So in 


terms of finding out what the exposure rates 


might be outside the room to workers outside, 


we still need to collect more information 


before we can do any definitive analyses. We 


can do the analyses on the shapes. 


The other puzzling thing is that they 


talk about ingots 18 inches in diameter. 


There is no way you can penetrate an 18-inch 


ingot with a 25 meV Betatron. I mean, you 


would be, your exposures would run for days, 


and the film would be blurred by scatter. So 


with the practical limit for radiography 


according to the Los Alamos report for the 22 


meV Betatron was three inches. 


According to some scoping calculations 


that I did based on the fact that there is a 


current Betatron facility at the Letterkenny 


Army Depot in Pennsylvania, and they claim 

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they can do 20 inches of steel. Well, to 


simply take the absorption, you simply say, 


well, 25 meV Betatron let’s say, the photons, 


the peak energy of the photon would be like 20 


meV. They’d be a little less than 20 meVs is 


the right number. 


And taking the absorption coefficient 


and the density of uranium and steel, the same 


photons would penetrate four inches of 


uranium. This seems to be about a practical 


upper limit. So I’m not sure how they do and 


18-inch ingot. We’ll have to look into that 


further. You can do the edges of the ingot by 


rotating it or if you can get different 


angles, but you still won’t get the core. 


Then in terms of addressing the 


different alloys of steel the simplest way to 


do that, we would simply look at the 


composition of the alloys, and there’s 


hundreds of steel alloys, which just simply 


using different concentrations of the various 


metals that go into it, so the simplest thing 


to do would be to first just do pure metal. 


We can do pure iron, pure nickel, pure 


cobalt, pure manganese, whatever else goes in 

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there, and see which of these give you a 


serious problem, which of these leads to 


activation products. According to the NISOH 


report the only activation product they found 


was Iron-53 I believe it was. 


So we’ll investigate that and see, 


confirm that and see whether, in fact, there 


are any others. And if there are, we might 


run two or three representative alloys, but we 


don’t have to run every single mixture. 


MS. MUNN: That’s certainly an interesting 


academic exercise no matter how you look at 


it. If it were occurring a couple of decades 


later, I would suspect that we might have a 


problem with units and metric as opposed to, 


perhaps not. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I’m sorry. 


I’m not following that. 


MS. MUNN: Oh, I’m sorry. I was just 


thinking about 25-inch diameter ingots and 


wondering if it might be 25 centimeters, but 


I’m being facetious when I shouldn’t be, 


sorry. 


DR. MAURO: I wanted to add a new twist and 


get some guidance from the working group. I 

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got a phone call from John Ramspott the other 


day. He said he had some additional 


information. I said, okay, whenever you have 


any additional information please send it to 


Larry Elliott and to us at the same time so 


that I’m assuming you’ve received the sequence 


of e-mails that I received related to 


basically the full range of different kinds of 


materials. 


He sent some photographs of the, in 


any event, information is flowing in. And I 


guess I’m assuming that we’ll take a look at 


it and use our judgment on what other kinds of 


analysis might be in order in order to address 


an issue that might be raised. So what I’m 


concerned about, I’ll give you a very good 


example. 


One of the, I found out is when you 


take a shot, a picture, maybe take multiple 


shots. They take a big component. They make 


little squares out of it. And they take a 


shot, then they move it, take a shot, move it, 


take a, and then when they’re done, they look 


at the X-ray, and they may see some flaws. 


And this may be metal not the uranium, and 

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they go repair it. 


And repairing as I understand it is 


when they take an acetylene torch and cut it 


open, and the using a welding fill in the 


voids or the imperfections so that, that tells 


me that, okay, so not only is it, and it’s 


done shortly thereafter. The X-ray is taken. 


They finish. 


Now we’re finding out that when you 


do, whether it’s activation products that’s 


being produced, and they’re decaying pretty 


quickly, but still a person’s pretty up close 


and personal if they’re doing some repair 


work. There’s also the question that, well, 


if you’re using an acetylene torch, that means 


you’re generating fumes. So there you have 


all of a sudden something we didn’t even think 


about. We have an aerosol. 


Now, the first reaction was, well, if 


it’s an aerosol, we have information on what 


the concentration is for fumes when you’re 


using an acetylene torch. It turns out 


there’s data on that so we could come up with 


milligrams per cubic meter, and will know 


what the activity is in the activated metal, 

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so in theory we could do some internal dose 


calculations. 


MS. MUNN: And hopefully, you can identify 


early on whether this will be significant or 


not. If it’s not significant, then it’s not 


worth pursuing. If it’s significant, then we 


need to know that. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): But 


basically, it will depend on is the half life 


of these isotopes because if they go away in a 


few minutes or even a few hours, even though 


they could give an external dose, they’re 


powerful gamma emitters, they just won’t be in 


the body long enough to give any significant 


internal dose. 


MS. MUNN: True. 


DR. MAURO: But I want to give you a sense 


of the scope. So in other words, the scope is 


expanding, and we want to make sure that 


everybody’s comfortable with that. Starting 


from just taking a look at a uranium, in other 


words, that’s how it all began. Someone 


sending a uranium slab for nondestructive 


testing using the Betatron, now we’re dealing 


with other metals, other alloys, and also now 

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we’re about the repair work that goes with 


that, so things are expanding. 


And right now our plan is to look at 


all of these issues and report back on 


September 4th on where we are. I still expect 


to be able to deliver our report in a timely 


fashion. I think we said about we needed 


about, I forget how long, how much time, 


something like six weeks. I forget the time 


period we gave for getting this work done. 


MS. MUNN: You said about six weeks. 


DR. MAURO: Six weeks to two months, right. 


I think, so we’re still, notwithstanding the 


change in the somewhat expansion in scope, I 


think we’d still be able to stick with that 


timetable and deliver our report. 


MS. MUNN: The potential expansion in scope 


has been my concern which is why I did not 


notify other members of the working group and 


simply asked the question is there any problem 


with this. I wanted it to occur at this 


meeting because clearly scope is important. 


We don’t want to miss something that is 


significant for our dose reconstructors, but 


at the same time we cannot go on indefinitely 

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looking at every alloy that may have ever 


passed through General Steel. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): We wouldn’t 


do that because as I said, we’ll just use the 


individual metals and see which ones, because 


there’s a very large number of alloys but a 


very small number of metals actually used in 


the alloys. So the alloy just behaves as the 


sum of its components. So if we look at the 


individual components, we’ll have covered 


everything. 


 DR. WADE: And let’s talk about the two 


issues. In terms of the expansion of scope at 


a minimum you need to contact me and let me 


know. I would suggest that you contact the 


Chair of the work group, and if she deems it 


appropriate, the entire work group, because 


the Board has given the auspices of this work 


to the work group. But I don’t see issues in 


this, but I think before you would undertake a 


significant expansion of scope, you should 


contact me, contact Wanda, and then we can 


decide on a path forward. 


DR. MAURO: Right now Bob is really --


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Okay, also --

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can I make a point, John? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, sure. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): In terms of 


the internal there’s really very little work 


involved because once we’ve identified which, 


what are the activation products, which short-


lived radioisotopes or perhaps not so short 


lived, get created, as John said, we have the 


information on fume concentrations inside the 


welders mask. Actually we used that in the 


report that was prepared and published by the 


NRC so we have sort of a pedigree on that. 


And then it’s just a matter of looking 


up the dose conversion factors for coming up 


with the dose. So that’s really, we’re 


talking about for any individual isotope, 


we’re talking about a few minutes, an hour’s 


work if that much. 


 DR. WADE: And that’s fine. I think, John, 


you need to contact me. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): We’re not 


talking about a large man-hour effort. 


 DR. WADE: The other issue I’d like to talk 


about before we lose the currency of this is 


that the situation was that the Board got a 

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letter from Senator Obama asking for an SC&A 


review of TBD-6000 and the appropriate 


appendix. The Board accepted that, assigned 


that work to its contractor. The Board also 


asked that I schedule an update from the 


contractor on the September 4th call. 


I notified John of the fact that that 


had happened, and he’s prepared to do it. 


Again, this is all done under the auspices of 


this work group. So whether or not that 


update happens really depends upon the 


pleasure of the work group. So I need to know 


if you’re comfortable with John giving the 


update as the Board had originally asked based 


on what you’ve heard today. 


MS. MUNN: It’s still my understanding that 


this is being performed under this year’s 


contract. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, we will be able to perform 


this work under the current budget that we’ve 


allocated to Task Order Three because it turns 


out we’re coming in under budget on Task Order 


Three, and we have some extra resources there, 


so we’re able to do that work under Task Order 


Three and within that six weeks, two months 

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time period including the expanded scope that 


we just were talking about. 


MS. MUNN: This doesn’t sound like a problem 


to me. Do either of you see a problem? Mark, 


are you still there? 


 (no response) 


MS. MUNN: Mark doesn’t seem to be there. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Can I ask a 


question regarding this? We may not be 


finished though by September 30th so there may 


be some expenditures of effort past the 


current fiscal year. 


 DR. WADE: That’s fine, not a problem. 


So the work group now is okay with the 


work group with SC&A giving this update next 


Tuesday, and that’s fine. That’s all we 


needed to know. 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


DR. ZIEMER: A couple questions, Bob, can 


you say anything at this point about the 


photofission process? My impression is that’s 


a pretty inefficient process, but I don’t know 


much about it beyond that. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): For uranium 


you have something a giant quadruple cross­
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section resonance that’s between, just off the 


top of my head remembering, something like 14 


meV. And since we have copious photons in 


that energy range coming out of the 25 meV or 


24 meV Betatron, you do get significant 


photofission, much more so than 


photoactivation of neutron emissions. 


DR. ZIEMER: Well, these are relative terms. 


The photoactivation is pretty inefficient 


also, and I think you can look at the medical 


literature. They used Betatrons in this 


energy range, and they used alloys for shields 


to shape the fields, and they get activation 


of those materials. And so there’s a 


literature on that, but it’s very inefficient. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Well, the 


point of the MCNP X analysis is --


DR. ZIEMER: I know you want to find that 


out. I was just trying to get a feel how does 


photofission order of magnitude compare with a 


neutron-generated fission? Is it like six 


orders of magnitude less? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I can’t 


answer that. 


DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Well, we’ll find out 

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I guess. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I mean, 


certainly, you’re not going to get a 


criticality. 


DR. ZIEMER: Oh, no, no, no, I’m not even, 


no, I’m just --


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Neutrons you 


can get criticality. 


DR. ZIEMER: No, no, I’m talking about the 


activation products or the fission products. 


MR. CHEW: But what is the relative cross-


sections. 


DR. ZIEMER: That’s why I’m sort of asking. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I’m sorry. I 


didn’t hear that last comment. 


DR. ZIEMER: What are the cross-sections for 


photofission compared to the --


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I have them. 


I can’t quote them. I don’t have them at my 


fingertips. They’re in the documentation for 


the MCNP X 2.6, and I have it in my computer, 


but I don’t like looking things up while I’m 


on the phone because I get, I can’t do two 


things at once. 


MS. MUNN: John, do you feel like you have 

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the answer to your question? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, the answer is, yes, we 


should continue down the pathway. And if for 


any reason anything other evolves in terms of 


new material comes in that changes the scope 


again, I will certainly let you know 


immediately. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you. 


DR. MAURO: But so far I feel comfortable 


that we can take care of this given the time 


and budget that we originally discussed. 


MS. MUNN: We’ll continue on the path that 


you have established. 


REPORT ON STATUS OF SECOND MATRIX, RATINGS
 

AND OF “CROSSWALK” TIB/PROC TABLE
 

And one last item as I mentioned 


earlier prior to our wrap up and a review of 


action items has to do with the Table 1 


summary of first set of procedure reviews. 


You may recall that from long, long ago. 


Kathy Behling, are you still there? 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’m still here. 


MS. MUNN: Bless your heart. Thank you. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’ll be brief. 


You should have received two tables from me 


somewhere around July 8th of 2007, and what I 

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was trying to do in response to the request 


from the previous work group on Table 1 is 


providing you. I went through the matrix, the 


first matrix for the first set of procedures 


that we reviewed, and I summarized all the 


documents that we reviewed, what revision they 


were and identified the total number of 


findings and then the total number of 


outstanding findings. 


And let me just define outstanding 


findings. Those are findings that we had 


agreed upon that the resolution was for NIOSH 


to either revise their procedure or replace 


that procedure. I also included on that table 


what procedures have been revised by NIOSH and 


whether SC&A has reviewed those procedures. 


And the bottom line of Table One is 


that there’s still outstanding findings on 


five procedures that NIOSH has not, at least 


based on my current knowledge, has not revised 


so we’re still dealing with the procedure we 


had reviewed initially. And there are three 


procedures that NIOSH has revised and SC&A has 


been given the authorization to review. 


And those three procedures would be 

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OTIB-0008, OTIB-0010 and those have to do with 


overestimating procedures for film badges and 


TLD monitoring. They’re not used as 


frequently I don’t think anymore because we’re 


dealing more with best estimate procedures. 


And then lastly, the procedure we have not 


reviewed is PROC-90 which actually -- and 


correct me if I’m wrong here -- but it 


replaces three of the interview-type 


procedures. I believe it replaces the 


scheduling telephone interviews, the 


performing of the telephone interviews and 


also receiving telephone interviews. 


So those are the three procedures that 


NIOSH has issued revisions to that we have not 


looked at yet. 


MS. MUNN: And so PROC-90 supposedly 


replaces four, five and 17, right? 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Four, five and 


17. 


Okay, and then Table 2 --


MS. MUNN: Well, before you go on though, 


Kathy, did you not say that there were, what 


number did you say had not been addressed yet? 


Before you said there were those three, you 

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said there were five that NIOSH had not yet 


addressed? 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, and, Stu, 


maybe you can confirm this for me. I have 


listed that there’s still outstanding findings 


from OCAS IG-002, that’s our internal dose 


limitation guide, and I don’t believe there’s 


been a revision to that limitation guide. 


Also showing OCAS TIB-006, that there’s been 


no revision to that. That’s the 


interpretation of external dosimetry records 


at the Savannah River site. 


Also I’m showing no additional 


revision on OCAS TIB-007, which is neutron 


exposures at the Savannah River site. OCAS 


TIB-008, which use of the ICRP-66 to calculate 


respiratory tract doses. I don’t show a 


revision there. And finally, this is an ORAU 


OTIB-0001, which is Savannah River claims, no 


revision on that as far as I know. 


MS. MUNN: Kathy, you got squeaked out by 


something just on that very last item. Would 


you repeat that? 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): The last 


procedure that I don’t believe there’s been a 

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revision to is ORAU OTIB-0001, and the title 


is Maximum Internal Dose Estimates for 


Savannah River Site Claims. And that’s the 


high five. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I believe that’s accurate, 


the accurate. 


 DR. WADE: Kathy, might I ask you to repeat 


again the three that have not yet been 


assigned? 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): The three that 


have not been assigned are ORAUT OTIB-0008, 


and I’ll give you the title. It’s the 


Standard Complex-Wide Conversion Correction 


Factor for Overestimating External Doses 


Measured with TLDs. 


The second procedure we have not been 


asked to look at is ORAUT OTIB-0010, which is 


the same title except it’s film badge 


dosimetry. It’s the Standard Complex-Wide 


Conversion Correction Factor for 


Overestimating External Doses Measured with 


Film Badge Dosimetry. 


And then finally, is ORAUT-PROC-90 


which replaces three of the interview 


procedures. 

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 DR. WADE: Thank you very much. 


MS. MUNN: I have one last question how you 


and Stu both with respect to the five that you 


gave us that you said no revision had come out 


yet by NIOSH. Are those all, with the 


exception of PROC-90, obviously. That’s sort 


of taken care of itself. But are the others 


procedures which in your view were expected to 


have revisions? 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Well, based on 


a resolution that was stated during the 


original review of these documents, I believe 


that the resolution was that NIOSH would 


address the findings or the issues in a 


revision or a replacement document. 


MS. MUNN: All of them do have a number of 


outstanding issues, outstanding findings I 


see. 


So, NIOSH, are any of those in process 


right now, those five? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Not, we can put them in 


progress pretty quickly, but, no, there’s no 


real active work going on on them, but we can 


get started. We can give Tommy like three of 


them. 

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DR. NETON: He’s coming back Tuesday. 


MS. MUNN: Our earlier discussions were 


indicating how nice it would be to close this 


table and have it complete. If we can 


possibly do that without putting undue strain 


on your staff’s schedule, it would certainly 


be helpful. 


MR. HINNEFELD: We’re used to putting undue 


strain on our staff. 


DR. NETON: We wouldn’t know how to work 


otherwise. 


MS. MUNN: You’ve had a week of vacation. 


Now you’re ready to jump back in. 


Thank you, Kathy. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, do you 


want me to just briefly explain what’s in 


Table 2? 


MS. MUNN: Yes, please. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): What I did in 


Table 2 is for those procedures where there is 


a revision, and we have been asked to review 


the procedure, I’ve listed all of the 


outstanding findings and where we are in 


resolving those outstanding findings. Now as 


you’ll see, the first item on Table 2 talks 

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about the external implementation guide, OCAS 


IG-001. And that I actually have reviewed in 


Supplement 3 of our Task Three. And has 


Supplement 3 been submitted at this point? 


I’m not sure. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay. What 


you’ll see in that along with, if you go down 


through this table, I’ve identified where we 


have re-evaluated this, whether it’s in 


Supplement 1, which you were looking at 


earlier today, or Supplement 3. And, in fact, 


if you go to your Supplement 1, Rev.1 that we 


were working with earlier and go to somewhere 


around page 105, you’ll see that OTIB-0003 has 


three outstanding findings. 


That OTIB was replaced with OTIB-0011, 


and when I looked at OTIB-0011, I included a 


table in there which becomes Table 1 and in 


our checklist becomes Table 2. And that Table 


1 identifies each of these findings and 


whether or not we feel that they were properly 


addressed in the replacement document. And I 


did this as an example and hoping that the 


Board would agree with that approach. My 

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feeling is that I think to make it as easy as 


possible for the work group is if we are able 


to say, and in this particular case all the 


issues from the previous OTIB-0003 were 


addressed in OTIB-0011. 


However, in some of the other 


procedures that I looked at such as OTIB-0004, 


I didn’t feel that they had properly addressed 


all of the items. And in some cases you’ll 


see a no, whether it’s been resolved and a no 


or it’s partially been resolved. And I would 


just suggest that for those items that are a 


no or partially resolved that they get 


incorporated into the matrix associated with 


either that, with our current matrix of 


Supplement 1 or Supplement 3 so they can be 


taken off of this original matrix. If that 


makes sense. 


MS. MUNN: I think it makes sense. And the 


question that I have right off the bat is why 


we don’t have under the Resolved column for 


OTIB-0003, why we don’t say it’s been replaced 


by OTIB-0011 and thereby eliminate that from 


this --


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, if you go 

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to page five under the Table 2, under revision 


re-evaluated I did put OTIB-0011, and I 


identified it there. I should have made maybe 


a little bit more clear that this replaces the 


OTIB-0003. 


The other thing that I did not do, I 


just ran out of time here, I didn’t fill in 


the Resolved column for all of these which I 


am in a position to do that now. I just 


didn’t go back to this. 


MS. MUNN: Good. That seems like, now that 


you go over it again, I see what you’ve done. 


And if we had yes in the resolved column, I 


think that would probably --


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That would 


clarify it for you, and I realized today when 


I went back and I picked up this table that I 


meant to go back to this. I was working in 


the Supplement 1, and I got that out the door, 


and I never went back to this table, but I 


will. I will update this and send it out to 


everyone. 


MS. MUNN: That would be helpful, and unless 


some other members of the working group 


object, her solutions for moving them off this 

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table is certainly okay with me. Is that fine 


with NIOSH and with work group members? 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: Kathy, you have nodding heads 


here. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Very good. 


MS. MUNN: Your approach seems perfectly 


viable here. 


MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, very 


good, thank you. 


MS. MUNN: All we can do is keep pushing at 


this until we finally get this table closed 


out. 

 DR. WADE: Keep on keeping on. 

MS. MUNN: Keep on keeping on. Thank you 

very much. 

DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): This is Bob 

Anigstein. I do have an answer about the 


cross-section 


MS. MUNN: Oh, do you? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Yeah, it just 


took me a few minutes to find it. While Kathy 


was talking I was looking for it. For U-235 


at about 14 meV you get a P cross-section of 


about 330 millibarns, if that means anything 

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to the person asking the question. 


MR. CHEW: Sure. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, it does. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Probably non-negligible. 


MS. MUNN: Non-negligible but pretty hard to 


get, I wouldn’t want to 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I can’t hear 


this. 

 DR. WADE: There’s nothing substantive being 

said. 

MS. MUNN: We’re just saying pretty hard to 

get but not negligible. 


MR. CHEW: Two thirty-five, isn’t the 


material 238? 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Well, it’s a 


mix. It’s natural uranium. 


MR. CHEW: Yeah, natural, I just --


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): So natural 


uranium is about --


MR. CHEW: I’ve been looking it up on the 


site, too. It says an interesting result is 


the absence of any gamma to and cross-sections 


for U-238. 


DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): The MCNP X 


code does have those cross-sections. I just 

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have to be looking at a published paper about 


this, and they just, they only have a few 


nuclides that they happened to show here. 


 DR. WADE: So you guys can take this up. 


MS. MUNN: We appreciate your taking the 


time and effort to look it up. 


And thank you, Mel, for your 


contribution. That’s wonderful. 


WRAPUP AND REVIEW OF ACTION ITEMS
 

Unless there are other really pressing 


items that anyone has right now, I propose 


that we continue with our wrap up and review 


of action items. From my perspective we’ve 


gone as far as we could go with Supplement 1 


Table. Not nearly as far as I had hoped we 


would be able to go. 


It’s my expectation that we will pick 


that activity up exactly where we left it with 


hope that by that time, by the time we meet 


again NIOSH will have had an opportunity to 


respond to a significantly larger number of 


those items than are currently responded to. 


If anyone has any objection to that process, 


speak now or forever hold your peace. That’s 


the way it’s going to be unless you tell me 

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otherwise. 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: With that being said, I would 


appreciate it, Lew, if you could wrap us up 


and read us the action items so that we all 


understand what is expected of us between now 


and our next meeting which --


 DR. WADE: I have 14 action items, and I’ll 


refer where I can to the page in Supplement 1 


if you want to be able to ground yourself in 


the --


So starting on page six relative to 


finding OTIB-0020-03, there are two findings. 


The work group will ask the subcommittee to 


continue to keep the utility of this OTIB in 


mind as it reviews individual dose 


reconstructions. 


Second finding, NIOSH will consider if 


more specific guidance within this OTIB would 


add value to the development of site-specific 


TIBs. 


Finding three which relates to page 


13, OTIB-0028 two and three, findings two and 


three, NIOSH is to provide SC&A with the 


output files from Keith Eckerman’s analysis. 

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Finding four on page 14, OTIB 0019, 


which if you recall deals with the 


interpretation of regression data, NIOSH and 


SC&A will discuss, hopefully resolve and 


report to the work group on this issue. This 


is where the statisticians are going to have a 


stimulating discussion with each other. 


On findings five and six, this relates 


to finding OTIB-0033-01 on page 15. NIOSH 


will review the title and contents of OTIB0033 and modify as necessary. 


Finding two relative to this issue, 


NIOSH will review OTIBs-0018 and 0033 to see 


if they are being consistently applied and 


appropriately used and then report that to the 


work group. 


Finding number seven relates to OTIB0004, and that’s on pages 15 through 17. 


NIOSH will complete OTIB-0053 and then the 


work group will ask SC&A to review OTIB-0053. 


Finding number two, NIOSH will confirm 


that the OTIB deals only with uranium metal 


facilities and excludes chemical processing of 


uranium. 


Then we move to some findings that 

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relate to the global issues. On global issue 


related to the internal dose from fission 


products, the work group will recommend to the 


Board that OTIB-0054 be reviewed by SC&A 


during next fiscal year. And they’ll make 


that recommendation to the Board during the 


September 4th call. 


Relative to the global issue on 


ingestion, NIOSH will report at/or before the 


January 8th Board meeting on the status of 


their work towards resolution of that global 


issue. 


Concerning the PERs, NIOSH will 


provide to the work group a list of completed 


and in progress PERs, and this will take place 


before the next work group meeting. 


With regard to this issue of following 


up findings to closure, NIOSH will move to 


complete revisions to the following five 


documents: OCAS IG-002, OCAS TIB-006, OCAS 


TIB-007, OCAS TIB-008 and ORAUT OTIB-0001. 


Next to last action item, SC&A will 


update its Table 2 to show a more definitively 


the status of the completed items 


And then lastly the work group will 

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continue to work on the issues in Supplement 1 


when next it meets. 


And I think that’s all the findings 


that I’ve captured. 


MS. MUNN: Those agree with mine although 


mine are considerably less articulate than 


that. It would be --


 DR. WADE: They pay me the big bucks for 

something. 

MS. MUNN: I know, and thank goodness. 

It would be helpful for me if you 


would send me your list electronically so that 


I can compare it with mine. And there were 


one or two items that I had worded slightly 


differently. I’ll communicate with you on 


those. 


Is anyone else aware of action items 


that were not covered? 


(no audible response) 


MS. MUNN: Are we all aware of our next 


meetings, when we’re going to be where we’re 


going to be? 


 DR. WADE: It couldn’t hurt to remind folks. 


I think the plan is that on October the 2nd , 


which is the Tuesday of the week that contains 

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the next face-to-face Board meeting, this work 


group will meet at a time to be, I think 10:00 


a.m. we’re looking at. 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. WADE: Ten a.m. central daylight time. 

MS. MUNN: Ten a.m. central, yeah. And we 

will, unless we have unusual expectations 


during the month of September, this work group 


will not have any formal calls or meetings. 


It’s my expectation that we probably will have 


some kind of formal meeting between the 


October meeting and the January meeting since 


we have a considerable body of materials here. 


And it’s clear that we can’t handle it in a 


single day’s session. 


So we’ll probably try to complete the 


material that we did not cover sometime after 


the October meeting. Hopefully, before we get 


too far into December, more than likely after 


Thanksgiving but before Christmas at a time to 


be announced. 


Is there anything else for the good of 


the order? 


 DR. WADE: I think this probably ranks in 


the top five most productive work group 

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273 

meetings. I think everyone did a fine job in 


terms of preparation and execution, and you’re 


to be complimented. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you all. We will see you 


in Chicago, Naperville to be precise. 


(Whereupon, the work group meeting was 


adjourned at 4:45 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

274 

1 

2 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 Aug. 29, 


2007; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


14th day of Oct., 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102