STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTING 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

WORKING GROUP MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

HANFORD

 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 

Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held telephonically on March 6, 

2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

March 6, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 6 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO 

PURPOSE OF MEETING 6 

DR. JIM MELIUS, CHAIR 

OVERVIEW 9 

DR. ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A 

NIOSH UPDATE 12 

DR. SAM GLOVER 

ACTION ITEMS 17 

URANIUM INTAKE ISSUES 20 

FUTURE PLANS 32 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 38 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

 

 

MEMBERSHIP

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

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

5 Director 

6 New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 

7 Albany, New York 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

 
5

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS

DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 

GLOVER, SAM, NIOSH 

HINNEFELD, STU, NIOSH 

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

NETON, JIM, NIOSH 

WHITE, ROSEMARY 
6

P R O C E E D I N G S

1 (1:00 p.m.) 

2 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO

3 DR. BRANCHE: We’re now on the record. 

4 Anything else, Liz? 

5 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, that was it. Thank 

6 you. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Melius, now it’s yours. 

8 PURPOSE OF MEETING

9 DR. MELIUS: Okay, let me first start off, 

10 well, first thank everybody for taking the 

11 time to participate either this morning or 

12 this afternoon, depending on where you are. 

13 And let me just give a little background on 

14 this call. 

15 Given the scope of the Hanford site 

16 and the scope of the SEC petition for the 

17 Hanford site, what we’ve tried to do is to 

18 organize our review of the Hanford site by 

19 SC&A, the site profile document as well as the 

20 SEC evaluation report in a way that we can be 

21 able to evaluate sort of discrete sections of 
7

1 that report rather than trying to do one large 

2 review and then have to, you know, which could 

3 take a long time and then would take a long 

4 time to try to resolve. 

5 We’re trying to look at this as sort 

6 of discrete areas within the report and trying 

7 to prioritize what we will review so that we 

8 can keep the process moving as efficiently as 

9 possible. NIOSH is still in the process of 

10 collecting records there and developing 

11 certain parts of the site profile and those 

12 have relevance to the SEC petition, the 

13 evaluation of that petition, so we’re taking 

14 that out. 

15 The area for the SEC petition that we 

16 thought was the best place to start was the 

17 part of the petition that NIOSH was 

18 recommending be added to the SEC class. So we 

19 have focused on the thorium and americium 

20 issues in the initial report review that SC&A 

21 did. And that report has been shared with 

22 many people as of December 2007, so their 

23 review (sic). 

24 I will add because there were 

25 difficulties with access to documents from the 
8

1 site due to some DOE budgetary problems this 

2 is sort of labeled as a draft report because 

3 not all the information that they needed or 

4 wanted access to could be accessed at this 

5 time. We’re still working on getting that 

6 taken care of. However, to the extent that we 

7 can move along with the process and at least 

8 get an initial evaluation done and possibly 

9 approve part of the SEC petition we thought it 

10 would obviously help the claimants involved in 

11 this as well as try to move this process 

12 along. 

13 So the main purpose of this call today 

14 is focusing on that part of the NIOSH/SEC 

15 evaluation report and the review by SC&A. 

16 After we’ve talked about that, we will 

17 probably spend a little bit of time talking 

18 about some sort of organizational issues like 

19 what will be the next steps involved. 

20 So to focus on the thorium and 

21 americium issues, like Chris asked is if, 

22 Arjun, you could give a brief summary of your 

23 review of the SC&A report focusing on that. 

24 Then we’ll ask NIOSH to sort of respond to 

25 that and discuss and see where we stand and 
9

1 then see what we need to do to be able to move 

2 forward on this petition. 

3 So, Arjun. 

4 OVERVIEW

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: I’d be happy to do that, Dr. 

6 Melius. 

7 The basic area covered by the report 

8 focused on the two radionuclides as you 

9 mentioned, Thorium-232 and Americium-241. And 

10 we focused on that because NIOSH had already 

11 identified that they could not do dose 

12 reconstruction for those two radionuclides for 

13 certain buildings and certain periods. As for 

14 thorium, it was up to the end of 1959 and for 

15 americium it was up to the end of 1968. And 

16 there were certain buildings identified. I 

17 won’t name them all. 

18 And we focused basically on seeing 

19 whether within that period there were other 

20 buildings or workers who moved between 

21 buildings who were involved in thorium and 

22 americium work. And that was the basic 

23 purpose of this particular short report. 

24 And we found that there was thorium 

25 exposure within the identified period by NIOSH 
10

1 in buildings other than those that were 

2 identified. Specifically, there were 

3 buildings in the 300 Area that were not within 

4 the NIOSH identified buildings where thorium 

5 work seemed to have gone on. There were also 

6 areas of dumping, waste areas and so on, where 

7 workers may have been exposed. 

8 And there was also the question of 

9 within a particular area workers seemed to be 

10 able to move between buildings and those 

11 workers did not have to log in and log out of 

12 those buildings every time they went in and 

13 out. So there was a question of roving 

14 workers and how they might be identified and 

15 how the exposure potential to thorium might be 

16 defined by the buildings named by NIOSH. 

17 And we did a number of interviews 

18 including with the petitioners and any 

19 workers, Kathy and I did, and we found the 

20 same in the 200 Area for americium. And we 

21 identified -- you have the report, and there 

22 are tables both for thorium and for americium 

23 where exposure potential beyond the areas 

24 listed by NIOSH was identified. 

25 In the case of americium we also 
11

1 identified exposure potential in Building 325. 

2 And we also had some discussion in the report 

3 about the tank farms and exposure potential at 

4 the tank farms. So broadly -- and so sorry, 

5 and the last point is that there may have been 

6 thorium exposure in parts of the 100 and 200 

7 Areas, but we haven’t nailed down all the 

8 findings definitively because, as you 

9 mentioned, we have had some difficulties in 

10 accessing the documents we wanted. But for 

11 the 200 Area for americium and the 300 Area 

12 for thorium we did find that exposure 

13 potential was beyond the buildings identified 

14 by NIOSH. 

15 DR. MELIUS: Anything else, Arjun, or -- 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I guess I didn’t say 

17 what the relevance of this is. The relevance 

18 basically is since NIOSH has said that they 

19 don’t have the data to do the internal dose 

20 reconstruction for these two radionuclides for 

21 the specified period, the main sort of 

22 immediate question that you and NIOSH and SC&A 

23 had agreed on for an initial focus in order to 

24 move matters along was to see what the NIOSH, 

25 how well the NIOSH description actually fit 
12

1 the exposure potential so far as our review 

2 went. And that was the purpose of it, and 

3 that report was presented to the working group 

4 and NIOSH some time back for their own review. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Thanks, Arjun. 

6 Sam, do you want to comment? Or I’m 

7 not sure who, I believe it’s you speaking on 

8 behalf of NIOSH? 

9 NIOSH UPDATE

10 DR. GLOVER: Yes. This is Sam Glover. 

11 Yes, Jim, Dr. Melius, NIOSH reviewed 

12 SC&A’s report, and also as you mentioned, 

13 access to some data has taken some time, 

14 thorium and americium. We conducted 

15 additional research and in looking at how the 

16 class would be administered and with the 

17 additional research we’ve done regarding 

18 employees, NIOSH has agreed or we put forth 

19 that we would revise the ER report in time for 

20 the next Advisory Board meeting in support of 

21 the following change to the class definition. 

22 That change would be -- let me read 

23 the original class definition and then you can 

24 hear what the revision would be. The previous 

25 definition was for internal thorium 
13

1 radiological exposures for September 1, 1946 

through December 31st 2 , 1959, in the following 

3 facilities: the 300 Area including the metal 

4 fabrication building, 313; the reactor fuel 

5 manufacturing pilot plant, 306; 300 Area 

6 maintenance shop, 3722; and the radiochemistry 

7 laboratory, 3706. Or, for number two, 

8 internal americium exposures from January 1 of 

1949 through December 31st 9 , 1968, in the 231Z, 

10 242Z and the plutonium finishing plant, the 

11 234, 5Z plant. 

12 We recommend proposing the change 

13 class to be the following: from September 1 

of 1946 through December 31st 14 , 1961 in the 300 

Area or January 1, 1949 through December 31st 15 , 

16 1968, in the 200 Area. So it greatly 

17 simplifies the administration based on what we 

18 find in the files and how the class will 

19 actually be administered. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. Can I ask a 

21 question, Sam? Could you relate that now to 

22 the remarks that Arjun made? It sounds like 

23 what you’re covering is all inclusive of the 

24 areas that Arjun described. Am I 

25 understanding that correctly? 
14

1 DR. GLOVER: That’s correct. The class 

2 definition extends, we recommend that we 

3 extend it for two additional years beyond what 

4 our original discussion had with thorium where 

5 we went through ’59 before, and now we’re 

6 saying through ’61 based on the bioassay data 

7 that we’ve observed. And that is the 300 Area 

8 and for the 200 Area for the americium 

9 exposures. So those would be, I believe, 

10 inclusive of what Arjun described. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: And, Arjun, you also had some 

12 additional areas in the 100 Area also in the 

13 thorium. Is that correct? 

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Dr. Ziemer, it wasn’t 

15 quite clear what the exposure potential was in 

16 the 100 Area. I mean, there were reactors 

17 that were using thorium slugs, but information 

18 -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: But possibly not internal 

20 exposure then. 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, since we didn’t kind 

22 of conclude one way or another since there 

23 were slug failures in numbers of them, and we 

24 don’t know what the exposure potential might 

25 have been during the slug failures. I mean, 
15

1 these are areas that we had some difficulty 

2 investigating in terms of not being able to 

3 fully research the documents. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Is that still an open question? 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I believe it would be, 

6 but it wouldn’t interfere with what NIOSH is 

7 saying because workers actually, so far as we 

8 could determine -- 

9 -- Kathy, correct me if you have a 

10 different kind of summary of all our 

11 interviews -- 

12 -- because when they went from the 300 

13 Area, say, to the 100 Areas, and they were 

14 assigned originally to the 300 Area, they 

15 actually had to log in. They had to get 

16 permission. There was a whole procedure, and 

17 there’s a paper trail generally associated 

18 with that. So so long as the definition is 

19 being extended to the 300 Area where the 

20 primary thorium work took place, I think it 

21 wouldn’t interfere with the later 

22 consideration of other issues in other areas. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

24 DR. MELIUS: Anybody else on the working 

25 group have questions or comments? 
16

1 (no response) 

2 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: So the bottom line is now that 

4 both NIOSH and SC&A are in agreement on the 

5 extent both in time and in areas where the 

6 thorium and the americium exposures occurred. 

7 Is that correct? 

8 MS. DeMERS: This is Kathy DeMers, for the 

9 designated time period. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I mean, that is a 

12 caveat. This paper is limited to those 

13 timeframes. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

15 DR. MELIUS: So the next steps would be is 

16 that NIOSH would be able to, would revise 

17 their, I guess you would amend your SEC 

18 evaluation report to include the new 

19 definition and the justification for that. 

20 And do you think you can get that done prior 

21 to our April Board meeting? 

22 DR. GLOVER: It is our intent to get you a 

23 revised ER report prior to the Board meeting, 

24 you know, in time that you guys can take 

25 action. 
17

1 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, because I think what we 

2 would be able to do is, if we had that on the 

3 agenda for the April Board meeting which is 

4 the sixth, seventh and eighth, something like 

5 that, in early April. 

DR. BRANCHE: It’s April 7th, 8th and 9th 6 , and 

7 I have the SEC petition status update for 

Hanford for the afternoon of April 8th 8 , but 

9 that’s tentative. 

10 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Good, well then we’d be 

11 able to take action then on this. And then 

12 also obviously give time for everybody to 

13 review the language and so forth. 

14 ACTION ITEMS

15 Rosemary White (ph), do you have any 

16 comments or questions? 

17 MS. WHITE: Thank you. Yes, I do have a 

18 concern, and that is for at the July meeting 

19 in Richland, Washington, NIOSH discussed 

20 creating a supplement for the first part of 

21 the set, and that never happened. So I would 

22 like to know, I think that a lot of this could 

23 have been avoided had they followed through on 

24 their word that they were going to do a 

25 supplement and expand the areas, include all 
18

1 of the areas and not list the individual 

2 buildings. That was discussed at the July 

3 meeting, and I think that should have 

4 happened. 

5 I’m also concerned that this has the, 

6 NIOSH accepted the report for evaluation, the 

7 petition for evaluation in December of 2006. 

8 And here we are in 2008, and it’s still not 

9 complete. And there are still obstacles. 

10 There are still many obstacles. There are 

11 still access obstacles. These need to be 

12 resolved. 

13 DR. MELIUS: One of the obstacles though has 

14 been access to data from the site, and we’ll 

15 discuss that in a moment. 

16 Is everybody in the working group 

17 comfortable with this approach or... 

18 DR. ZIEMER: It appears to me that it’s a 

19 practical approach given the circumstances. 

20 DR. MELIUS: I think the thought was, you 

21 know, again, given some of the circumstances 

22 here, given the delays, the most important 

23 thing and the one we could reach the quickest 

24 resolution on, we hoped, was this. The part 

25 that was this, the part that I think everybody 
19

1 was in agreement should be in the special 

2 exposure cohort class, and we just sort of 

3 resolved, refined that and resolved how to 

4 best implement that. 

5 So I think that’s good, and then we 

6 can move on to some of the other issues that 

7 have to be dealt with. Though again, that may 

8 take some more time, and I don’t think it’s 

9 something we’ll have to wrestle with also. I 

10 don’t think the work group needs to take 

11 action, official action, here with this. I 

12 think we’ll review the language and then deal 

13 with it at the Board meeting coming up unless 

14 anybody feels otherwise. 

15 MR. CLAWSON: Jim, this is Brad Clawson 

16 speaking. I have no problem that we’re going 

17 forth with it in this way. I just wanted to 

18 make sure that there still are several 

19 outstanding issues that we need to take care 

20 of. But with time restraints and so forth we 

21 need to keep pressing forward. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Thanks Sam and the 

23 people, Stu and the others at NIOSH, Larry, 

24 for working with us to get this issue resolved 

25 in the way that it has been. 
20

1 URANIUM INTAKE ISSUES

2 I’d like to move on to sort of what we 

3 think is the next issue that we need to 

4 discuss. I think within the past three weeks, 

5 couple weeks, SC&A has produced a sort of a 

6 second chapter -- I don’t know what to call it 

7 -- the second report in their review of the 

8 SEC issues that have to do with uranium intake 

9 issues. And I think what we would be asking 

10 is that for NIOSH to review that report and 

11 then I’m not going to ask you to necessarily 

12 commit now, but if you can sort of give it to 

13 us at some point soon a timeframe for that, 

14 then we would schedule another conference call 

15 to discuss that report. 

16 DR. GLOVER: Dr. Melius, are you talking 

17 about the uranium report that was recently 

18 released, correct? 

19 DR. MELIUS: You’ve just, I think just 

received it as of February 14th 20 , but I’m not 

21 sure exactly when it was transmitted. It was 

22 probably after that at some point. 

23 DR. GLOVER: As far as the value in it and 

24 getting access to the references and doing so 

25 we agreed to work on the americium and 
21

1 thorium. I don’t know if you want to, I 

2 notice in the recently released not publicly 

3 released matrix there’s still some open areas 

4 on the americium and thorium. 

5 One of the reasons I bring this up is 

6 that we have been working with DOE to get key 

7 word searches done for americium and thorium 

8 and the next issue would be uranium. So we 

9 need to work with them to, they have been 

10 very, their budget issues have been very 

11 difficult and so we certainly will, we’ll take 

12 a look at those, but we may have to take that 

13 into account. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Well then, I guess I was going 

15 to do that, talk about that next and -- 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Melius, before you do 

17 that could I make a clarification -- 

18 DR. MELIUS: Sure. 

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- about Sam’s last remark? 

20 This is Arjun. The matrix just went out, but 

21 the matrix was produced in parallel with these 

22 two reports. And one of the things I think I 

23 would propose, Dr. Melius, is that we go back 

24 and re-label the items that have been resolved 

25 by this NIOSH proposal so that there’s no 
22

1 misunderstanding about what’s in the past and 

2 what remains to be addressed. 

3 Because I think many of the issues in 

4 the matrix have to deal with some of the areas 

5 that have been covered today if I remember 

6 correctly. And so we can label them as 

7 resolved and maybe issue a revised matrix in 

8 the next week or two. That might clear up 

9 most of, or at least some of what Sam is 

10 referring to. 

11 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: And that would also help us 

13 identify what is left in terms of gaps on 

14 thorium and americium. I think we want to, we 

15 do want to close those gaps and not leave them 

16 there and move on to the uranium without 

17 making sure we’ve closed the gaps on the 

18 thorium and the americium as well. 

19 DR. MELIUS: I think the other, I guess my 

20 caveat on that is that we need to see about 

21 the access issue and whether we will have 

22 access to the, you know, which one will we 

23 have adequate access both for NIOSH and SC&A 

24 to be able to address. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: We’ll have to go with what’s 
23

1 available obviously, right. 

2 DR. MELIUS: Exactly, and I think maybe this 

3 -- Sam, correct me if I’m wrong, but the way 

4 I’m thinking about it would be to look at both 

5 those issues. Let’s sort of figure out 

6 priorities for access. Where are the 

7 different ^ responses for ^ stands. I don’t 

8 know if NIOSH has had a chance to see, look at 

9 the uranium report from a perspective of in 

10 order to respond to what SC&A’s concerns. Do 

11 they need to access additional records or not 

12 or is it more efficient to go back and try to 

13 finish up on the americium and thorium issues 

14 in terms of extent and timeframe and so forth. 

15 And I don’t know if you can answer that now, 

16 Sam, or think about it or what. 

17 DR. GLOVER: I think we will have to 

18 evaluate the report. It certainly has been 

19 looked at. We haven’t formulated an 

20 appropriate plan on how to. I think part of 

21 what we want to do today is prioritize. 

22 Certainly, we could talk about how to finish 

23 up the thorium and americium since we have 

24 some active things dealing with that. And 

25 what is it going to take to get the uranium 
24

1 done. 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Melius, this is Larry 

3 Elliott. I’d like to make a comment on a very 

4 general, broad context here that goes to what 

5 you were just speaking about, our coordination 

6 of data requests in front of DOE. 

7 And just so everyone knows, we are 

8 working with the Department of Energy and with 

9 SC&A to coordinate and prioritize our requests 

10 for information. And so we certainly, you 

11 know, this working group discussion will help 

12 I think inform better how to prioritize and 

13 structure the requests that we need to make. 

14 And so I just want that out there so everyone 

15 knows that this is going on with us, SC&A and 

16 the Department of Energy. 

17 Also, I’d say that I think everybody 

18 needs to understand that as we understand it, 

19 the Department of Energy is not cutting funds, 

20 but they, in this fiscal year, they were not 

21 provided enough funds to accommodate all of 

22 the requests for information that we have 

23 placed before them. And so they’re running 

24 out of those funds that were allocated. I 

25 know that they’re trying to do what they can 
25

1 to see if they can replenish that or better, 

2 through efficiency measures, utilize the funds 

3 they have. 

4 I don’t know if anyone’s on from DOE 

5 or not, but I just felt that that needed to be 

6 heard by those who are attending this work 

7 group discussion. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Larry, if I can ask a question, 

9 and I don’t know if you can answer, but 

10 somehow I had the impression that it was a 

11 fiscal year 2008 issue, and that once the 

12 budget got passed for 2008, which is just took 

13 place before the first of the year, that they 

14 would be able to sort of resolve the resource 

15 issue and that things would start moving 

16 along. And I guess I’m a little concerned 

17 that it doesn’t appear to be resolving or 

18 maybe it’s just taking more time than we had 

19 heard and figure out how to resolve it and how 

20 to allocate for this year. 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I, too, thought like you 

22 that it was a continuing resolution issue and 

23 as soon as their fiscal year funds were 

24 appropriated, then they could start infusing 

25 the money in the proper way to the right 
26

1 folks. But now I learn that it’s evidently 

2 not that. I’m sorry DOE has not got a 

3 representative on the call today. I asked for 

4 them to participate in this discussion this 

5 morning, and unfortunately, they’re not here. 

6 But, you know, I think it is important that we 

7 all correctly understand this, and I think 

8 only DOE can give us the proper insight to 

9 what’s really going on. 

10 DR. MELIUS: We requested that they have 

11 somebody at the April meeting of the Board? 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

13 DR. MELIUS: Okay, because I think that 

14 would be helpful to the extent that it can’t, 

15 unless it’s resolved by then, but it sounds 

16 like it’s going to take some time. And at 

17 least so we have, you know, on public record 

18 that, what’s going on and what the 

19 implications of it is for dealing with this 

20 site as well as other sites that the Board has 

21 to address and that NIOSH is trying to 

22 address. 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: Absolutely, and right now we 

24 are faced with this situation at Hanford and 

25 we also are seeing it at Nevada Test Site. I 
27

1 want claimants to understand though that the 

2 priority data information request that we 

3 have, the top priority, is for any claim4 related information that we request of DOE. 

5 And as far as I can discern or tell, those 

6 types of requests are still being processed 

7 even in Hanford, even at Nevada Test Site. 

8 It’s the kind of request that we have put 

9 before them in large and broad depth here 

10 about site profile and SEC evaluation pieces 

11 that they hadn’t evidently accounted for or 

12 anticipated in their budgeting process. 

13 DR. MELIUS: Those also do affect claims. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Absolutely. 

15 DR. MELIUS: It may not directly, but -- 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: They do affect claims, yes. 

17 DR. MELIUS: Okay, well, thanks, Larry, for, 

18 appreciate the update. 

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: And then, Dr. Melius, may I 

20 ask a question? 

21 DR. MELIUS: Sure. Go ahead, Arjun. 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: In regard to the outstanding 

23 thorium issues versus the uranium issues and 

24 the priorities might it be helpful to have a 

25 technical working call especially in view of 
28

1 the document restrictions? I’m, personally, I 

2 haven’t been personally reviewing the 

3 documents with NIOSH. Kathy’s been doing 

4 that. I think it might be useful to have a 

5 technical call if Sam agrees, and then report 

6 to you and sort out whether we should go after 

7 the thorium remaining issues and the uranium 

8 first and give Sam a little bit more time also 

9 to address that question. 

10 DR. MELIUS: I think that’s a good idea, and 

11 such a good idea I’m going to tell you that I 

12 was just thinking of suggesting the same. 

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry to jump the gun on 

14 you. 

15 DR. MELIUS: No, no, it’s fine. I think 

16 that’s probably the best and not to resolve it 

17 here on the phone today and understand that 

18 we’ll be able to report back certainly 

19 possibly at the April meeting about where we 

20 stand and have a new schedule and so forth. 

21 So is that agreeable to the other 

22 members of the working group? 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. Yes, I agree. That would 

24 be probably a wise step. 

25 MR. CLAWSON: That sounds good to me, Jim. 
29

1 MR. SCHOFIELD: Jim, I’ve just got one quick 

2 question. Before we have that technical call, 

3 this is actually probably a question for 

4 Larry, if there’s going to be any chance 

5 they’re going to have any more data on the 

6 internal exposures and bioassays for the 

7 americium and thorium? 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: Sam or some of the technical 

9 support folks are going to have to answer 

10 that. I don’t have that answer, Phil. 

11 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, thanks. 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Sam, I don’t know. Do you 

13 have an answer? 

14 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. I don’t think 

15 Sam quite heard the question. But, Phil, as I 

16 understand your question, you were asking with 

17 the additional data captures that are being 

18 pursued, is there any chance they would find 

19 additional monitoring data related to internal 

20 exposures to thorium and americium that might 

21 affect what we’re doing today? 

22 MR. SCHOFIELD: Correct. 

23 MR. HINNEFELD: Is that your question? 

24 MR. SCHOFIELD: That is correct. 

25 MR. HINNEFELD: My understanding, and Sam 
30

1 I’m sure will correct me if I’m wrong, is that 

2 we don’t anticipate finding additional 

3 bioassay or bioassay for thorium or americium 

4 that would affect what we’re doing today. 

5 This is more, I think the research is more 

6 extent of use and extent of potential exposure 

7 and potential exposures associated with those 

8 uses outside the 200 Area or the 300 Area 

9 depending on which radionuclide you’re talking 

10 about. Those are the kinds of things we have 

11 to research, not so much the expectation we’re 

12 going to see any more bioassay data for these 

13 two radionuclides. 

14 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, I was just hoping I 

15 could narrow down a little bit by -- 

16 MR. HINNEFELD: We didn’t hear that last 

17 comment. There was some static. 

18 DR. MELIUS: I think it was a background to 

19 discussion. 

20 DR. GLOVER: That is correct. What Stu 

21 said, that is correct. 

22 DR. BRANCHE: There was another speaker 

23 trying to speak. 

24 MS. DeMERS: This is Kathy DeMers, and I’ve 

25 got a question. I’m running into problems 
31

1 getting data released that I’ve already copied 

2 because of the official use only issue that 

3 apparently hasn’t been resolved to Hanford’s 

4 satisfaction. 

5 Larry, do you know anything about the 

6 progress they’re making on that? 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: I know that there was a 

8 discussion today about OUO. Have not had a 

9 discussion back to DOE yet; it’s just been our 

10 side discussing the issue. But we’re close to 

11 being ready to go back to DOE and pose some 

12 arguments about this. 

13 MS. DeMERS: Okay. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: I’ll keep you posted. 

15 MS. DeMERS: Thanks. 

16 DR. MELIUS: For those of us on the phone 

17 who aren’t always up to date on that jargon 

18 could someone explain it? 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: OUO is official use only, and 

20 it goes in -- well, there’s no, it’s labeled 

21 and is attached to certain documentation that 

22 some people would consider to be business 

23 confidential. Others might look at it and say 

24 I don’t understand how it could be business 

25 confidential, but that’s what it’s used for. 
32

1 DR. MELIUS: Okay, that’s helpful. 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: And so when we see these pages 

3 stamped OUO, we question whether or not the 

4 intent in so designating the document as such 

5 is based in a competitive advantage or is it 

6 based in someone’s interpretation of how the 

7 document should be used or can be used. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and I understand. 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: Very nebulous, tricky, mucky 

10 stuff. 

11 DR. MELIUS: Even worse than Privacy. 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 

13 FUTURE PLANS

14 DR. MELIUS: Then what our plan will be is 

15 that NIOSH will do the supplement or whatever, 

16 the evaluation report with the new definition 

17 and justification for that. That hopefully 

18 will be ready before our April, and circulate 

19 before our April Board meeting. And we should 

20 be able to take action at the April Board 

21 meeting on that definition. 

22 Meantime Arjun will be talking to Sam 

23 and try to resolving these issues, the 

24 technical issues, regarding documents and sort 

25 of what, how do we, what next steps to take 
33

1 and Arjun will also revise the issues matrix 

2 and update that in the context of all that we, 

3 discussions that we’ve had here today. And so 

4 I think that before that time is, we’ll have 

5 an update hopefully a discussion with the 

6 Department of Energy at our next Board meeting 

7 regarding this, the overall, delays or 

8 slowness in releasing records and accessing 

9 the records on the site. 

10 Does that correctly capture what we’ve 

11 talked about? 

12 DR. GLOVER: Yes. All right, so right now 

13 we have a revised report due to you? We’re 

14 going to have a technical call, and we can 

15 work out a date to be sometime before the 

16 upcoming meeting. And then OUO and data 

17 access, was it -- 

18 DR. MELIUS: The fourth one was Arjun’s 

19 going to revise the issue matrix. And I will 

20 confess that the delay in getting the issue 

21 matrix was mine. Arjun had sent it to me some 

22 time ago, and in doing all the e-mails trying 

23 to schedule this work group call, I sort of 

24 was ignoring that e-mail from him. And I 

25 didn’t notice it until I asked him about it 
34

1 earlier this week. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Jim, this is Christine. I 

3 just want to make sure there was an additional 

4 item that you would like to have DOE speak to 

5 this data access issue at the Board meeting in 

6 April. Is that right? 

7 DR. MELIUS: Correct, yes. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: We’ll see what we can do about 

9 that. 

10 DR. MELIUS: Okay. I had the impression you 

11 had already invited them but -- 

12 DR. BRANCHE: No, they were invited, but we 

13 often confer with them about any specific 

14 issues. 

15 DR. MELIUS: This would be an issue that, 

16 you know, Pat Worthington discussed it last 

17 Board meeting and we thought it was taken care 

18 of. It doesn’t appear to be, and I think they 

19 need to understand that. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, thank you, Jim. 

21 DR. MELIUS: If not, if no more, then that 

22 should conclude this work group call. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Very good, thank you. 

24 DR. BRANCHE: One second. This is 

25 Christine. I just want to make certain that 
35

1 everyone who, Jim said everything is cool. 

2 You have your next items, and we will 

3 officially close the call now. Thank you 

4 everyone. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Can we just say one thing as 

6 clarification for the, certainly for the 

7 petitioners that the next, this will be 

8 scheduled on the next Board meeting. And 

9 there’ll be also opportunity for the 

10 petitioners to comment at that time. And 

11 certainly we will get the supplementary report 

12 and so forth will be made available to them 

13 and will be posted on the website. So that 

14 should be widely available to everybody as 

15 will the timing of the call and so forth. 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Jim, this is Christine. I 

17 would simply suggest, I would add one slight 

18 addendum. The generous time that’s made 

19 available for petitioners or anyone else to 

20 comment on any of the Board’s issues would be 

21 during the two public comment periods. That 

22 will be the afternoon of the first day of the 

Board meeting on April 7th 23 , and in the evening 

24 beginning at 7:30 on the second day which is 

April 8th 25 . Those are the times that best 
36

1 accommodate comments from the public because 

2 we build in the time. I just want to make 

3 certain that people understand that that’s the 

4 time that’s most generously accommodating for 

5 them. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. Christine, I 

7 do want to point out though that if we do have 

8 the petition before us for action, we do need 

9 to accommodate the petitioners at that time 

10 during the meeting as well. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: I agree. I was about to say 

12 that we would accept those comments then, but 

13 if people wanted to be loquacious, they could 

14 do it earlier rather than later. But thank 

15 you, Dr. Ziemer, you’re absolutely right. 

16 All right, then this concludes the 

17 call. Thank you very much. 

18 MR. CLAWSON: Hey, Jim, this is Brad. 

19 You’re going to get out to the rest of the 

20 work group when they have this technical 

21 discussion. I’d just kind of like to be a 

22 part of that and just kind of listen in. 

23 DR. MELIUS: We will work something out on 

24 that, yes. 

25 (Whereupon, the working group meeting 
37

1 concluded at 2:00 p.m.) 

2 
38

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that Shane Cox, 

Certified Court Reporter, reported the above 

and foregoing on the day of March 6, 2008. I, 

Steven Ray Green, transcribed said proceedings, 

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 

1st day of November, 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102