July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 1 of 9 

Completeness of INL Chemical Processing Plant (CPP) 

Badges for SEC Class Definition 

T.D. Taulbee and W.M. Findley 

Introduction 

During the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH) meeting in March 2015, several 

board members questioned the completeness of the dosimetry badge records to be used to identify 

Chemical Processing Plant (CPP) workers for inclusion in the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) class. The 

proposed SEC class definition distinguishes workers for inclusion in the class based on the use of 

external dosimetry. Specifically, workers who (a) were monitored for external radiation at CPP with an 

least one film badge or TLD between January 1, 1963 and February 28, 1970 or (b) were monitored for 

external radiation at INL with at least one film badge or TLD between March 1, 1970 and December 31, 

1974 for an aggregate of at least 250 work days. Because the class definition relies on external 

radiation monitoring records it is essential that the external dosimetry records are complete. NIOSH 

committed to evaluate the completeness of the records by comparing the total number of badges 

listed on CPP dosimetry records with the total number of badges listed as processed on the monthly 

Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports that were routinely provided to management and the Atomic 

Energy Commission (AEC). 

During this evaluation, several additional issues were identified and resolved. The first issue was that 

construction trades workers at CPP were listed under a separate location designation (CX) from 1964 

through 1970 although the physical location was still at CPP. As a result these records were also 

reviewed, the results totaled, and compared to the monthly reports which listed the number of CX 

dosimeters separate from CPP. 

At an INL Work Group meeting on November 10, 2015, the CPP and CX dosimetry comparisons were 

presented and both illustrated excellent agreement between the CPP dosimetry records and the 

monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports. At this time a new issue was raised about the 

completeness of the subcontractor records who were not routinely badged but listed on visitor or 

temporary badge reports. The issue stemmed from the following excerpt from IN-12056, A General 

Summary of Personnel Monitoring Systems Utilized at the National Reactor Test Site. 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 2 of 9 

Figure 1: Excerpt from IN-12056 (1966) pertaining to dosimetry record keeping (SRDB 08130, page 25). 

NIOSH committed to evaluating the completeness of the monitoring records, although it was pointed 

out that the monthly Dosimetry Activity Branch Reports available at that time only extended through 

1965 so a full comparison of all years might not be possible. 

In January 2016, during a follow-up data review and capture to address three open cases from the 

review of 881 INL claims for CPP dosimetry, NIOSH discovered that the temporary badge reports at INL 

were not complete after 1967 because of a practice to not include non-positive readings from visitor 

(temporary) badges into the worker’s dosimetry records. However, the original badge inserts and 

results had been retained and archived. NIOSH identified the pertinent CPP visitor badge cards and 

scanned them during that data capture. NIOSH also met with Department of Energy Idaho Operations 

Office (DOE-ID) personnel and informed them that not all of the dosimetry monitoring records were 

being reported in current claims due to this discovery. DOE-ID committed to scanning and indexing all 

of the visitor cards as well as the temporary badge reports. 

In March 2016, SC&A and NIOSH conducted a joint data review and capture effort. During this review, 

monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity reports from 1965 through 1974 were located and captured. These 

reports were the “missing reports” identified above that enable NIOSH to evaluate the completeness 

of the visitor or temporary badge reports. 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 3 of 9 

Methodology 

The goal of this white paper is to address the completeness of the dosimetry records to be used to 

identify workers at CPP for the proposed SEC class definition. There are three important types of 

dosimetry records that are used to place various types of workers at CPP. The main CPP dosimetry 

reports, which list primarily operations workers (but construction workers are included for some 

years), utilized the area codes 05, 53, and 55. The CPP construction area was known and designated by 

the INL Dosimetry Branch as CX and utilized the area codes 11, 113, and 115. The third group of 

dosimetry records are the visitors and temporary badge reports. These do not have a numerical code 

designation; however, the area was listed as either CPP or CX on the temporary badge report or the 

visitor card itself. 

In this evaluation NIOSH and the ORAU Team tallied the number of workers listed on the temporary 

badge reports and visitor cards by month for the years 1963 through 1970. These totals were 

compared to the total number of temporary dosimeters reported as having been processed on the 

corresponding monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports. The monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity 

Reports were compiled each month to serve a summary document to senior management on the 

volume of work the Dosimetry Branch was conducting. The reports contained data on the total number 

of workers monitored by month, number of workers within reported dose ranges, total number of 

workers by area, and total number of temporary badges by area. These reports are considered a 

reasonably accurate baseline as they were written at the time of dosimetry processing. These reports 

were also used to benchmark the costs of dosimeter processing for budget planning purposes for each 

subsequent year. 

Results 

In this section a series of plots is presented to demonstrate the comparison results of not only 

temporary badges at CPP but also CPP area dosimetry, CPP area TLDs, and CX area dosimetry to the 

data in the monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports to provide an overall perspective on the 

completeness of all forms of dosimetry at CPP between 1963 and 1970. Figure 2 provides the month by 

month comparison of the main CPP dosimetry records to the monthly report totals. Figure 3 provides 

the month by month comparison of CPP TLDs to the monthly report totals. Figure 4 provides the 

month by month comparison of the CPP construction worker (CX) dosimetry records to the monthly 

report totals. Please note that the CX dosimetry area code was not used from 1963 through April 

1964. Figure 5 provides the month by month comparison of the CPP temporary badges to the monthly 

report totals. 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 4 of 9 

Figure 2: Comparison of CPP Area Dosimetry Reports to monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports

Figure 3: Comparison of CPP Area TLD Reports to monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 5 of 9 

Figure 4: Comparison of CX Dosimetry Reports to monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports 

Figure 5: Comparison of CPP temporary badges to monthly Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 6 of 9 

There are small monthly variations between the dosimetry reports and the Dosimetry Branch Activity 

Reports. The primary reason for this is believed to be either dosimeters being returned after the 

dedicated wear period or that dosimeters were not processed in time to be included in the monthly 

reports. One other confounding problem with the temporary badges is that, as previously discussed, 

the temporary badge reports after 1967 were not complete. Because of this, the wear period for each 

individual visitor card was determined from the “end date” written on the visitor card itself and not 

from a temporary badge report which typically used a “reported date.” To account for these variations, 

composite plots by year were generated to demonstrate correlation without the “noise” from the 

monthly comparisons. Figure 6 provides the comparison of the annual totals from the main CPP 

dosimetry records to the annual totals from the monthly reports. Figure 7 provides the comparison of 

the annual totals from the main CX dosimetry records to the annual totals from the monthly reports. 

Figure 8 provides the comparison of the annual totals of CPP temporary badges to the annual totals 

from the monthly reports. 

Figure 6: Comparison of CPP Area Dosimetry Reports annual totals 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 7 of 9 

Figure 7: Comparison of CX Area Dosimetry Reports annual totals 

Figure 8: Comparison of CPP temporary badge annual totals 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 8 of 9 

The data used to generate the plots in Figures 6-8 are provided in the table below.

Year Mo Rpts 

CPP

Mo Rpts 

CX

Mo Rpts 

CPP Temp 

Mo Rpts 

Totals

Dos Rpts 

CPP

Dos Rpts 

CX

Dos Rpts 

CPP Temp 

Dos Rpts 

Totals

1963 7966 0 6173 14139 8031 0 6364 14395

1964 6722 588 5414 12724 6943 585 6003 13531

1965 6230 852 5148 12230 6303 852 5435 12590

1966 5761 1157 5263 12181 5825 1157 5773 12755

1967 2255 1594 5714 9563 2223 1687 5767 9677

1968 2416 863 5241 8520 2394 859 4892 8145

1969 2620 1037 4364 8021 2618 1034 4373 8025

1970 2063 829 3428 6320 1891 837 3559 6287

Sum 36033 6920 40745 83698 36228 7011 42166 85405

Discussion 

The following observations were made from the data completeness evaluation: 

 There is excellent agreement on a month by month basis across CPP, CX, and CPP temporary 

badges. 

 Overall, there are slightly more (2%) more badge results identified than reported on monthly 

reports. 

 The longest wear period for CPP temporary badges was approximately 1 month but the vast 

majority range from one day to one week. Thus a minimum of 12 temporary badges would be 

needed to get to 250 days of exposure. 

 TLDs were not issued as temporary badges during this time period, thus there was no possibility 

of a temporary badge being worn for a full year (250 days). 

A single badge, as specified under the proposed SEC class, is considered sufficiently claimant favorable 

for inclusion in the class. This methodology was developed to cast the inclusion net wider to admit 

more claims than were exposed with the goal to prevent an inadvertent exclusion of someone with 

250 days exposure at CPP. Based on this review, NIOSH believes that the temporary badge records are 

complete. However, if one temporary badge was missing or illegible, this should not be a significant 

issue since temporary badges were only worn for a maximum of one month and no annual TLDs were 
July 19, 2016 

This is a working document prepared by NIOSH or its contractor for use in discussions with the ABRWH or its Working 

Groups or Subcommittees. Draft, preliminary, interim, and White Paper documents are not final NIOSH or ABRWH (or their 

technical support and review contractors) positions unless specifically marked as such. This document represents 

preliminary positions taken on technical issues prepared by NIOSH or its contractor. 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed to identify and redact any information that is protected by the Privacy Act 5 USC 

§552a and has been cleared for distribution. 

Page 9 of 9 

issued as temporary badges. Thus NIOSH considers the probability of missing someone with 250 days 

of exposure at CPP between 1963 and 1970 to be highly unlikely. 

Conclusions 

The ABRWH requested that an evaluation be performed on the completeness of temporary badge 

records for CPP for the years 1963 through 1970. NIOSH has demonstrated that it has access to all CPP 

dosimetry records for that time period. NIOSH has not identified any gaps that would inadvertently 

exclude anyone from the SEC class that had a potential for 250 days of exposure. 

References 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1963, SRDB 125924 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1964, SRDB 124926 (Jun-Dec) and SRDB 154467 (JanMay) 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1965, SRDB 125927 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1966, SRDB 125928 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1967, SRDB 153683 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1968, SRDB 153684 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1969, SRDB 153686 

 Dosimetry Branch Activity Reports for 1970, SRDB 153687