NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1716 14TH ST. NW, STE. 200 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 http://www.nealrgross.com 

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

141st Meeting

Thursday, August 19, 2021

The meeting convened at 1:00 p.m., Eastern Time, 

via video teleconference, Henry Anderson, Chair, 

presiding. 
2 

Members Present: 

Henry Anderson, Chair

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

R. William Field, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member

Phillip Schofield, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer, Member

Registered and/or Public Comment Participants: 

Roberts, Rashaun, Designated Federal Official

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

Barrie, Terrie, ANWAG

Barton, Bob, SC&A

Buchanan, Ron, SC&A

Calhoun, Grady, DCAS 

Cardarelli, John, DCAS

Carroll, Stephanie, Atomic Worker Advocacy, 

Inc.

Chalmers, Nancy, ORAU Team

Cook, Maddie, DCAS

Fitzgerald, Joe, SC&A

Gheen, Angelica, DCAS

Gogliotti, Rose, SC&A

Guido, Joe, ORAU Team

Hicks, Steve

Hughes, Lara, DCAS

Lewis, Greg, DOE

McCloskey, Pat, ORAU Team

Mercer, Jack

Naylor, Jenny, HHS OGC

Nelson, Chuck, DCAS

Quinn, Trish, CPWR

Rutherford, LaVon, DCAS

Sharfi, Mutty, ORAU Team

Sheanshang, Daniel, ORAU Team

Taulbee, Tim, DCAS
3 

Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 141st Meeting 

Thursday, August 19, 2021 1

Welcome 4

SEC Petitions Status Update 6

Y-12 SEC Petition #250 Addendum Update 

(Oak Ridge, Tennessee; 1987- 1994) 11

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (X-10) Update

41

Adjourn 57
4 

Proceedings

(1:00 p.m.) 

Welcome

Dr. Roberts: Okay. My clock says 1:00 p.m. Eastern, 

so I'll officially open the meeting. 

Good afternoon and welcome, everybody. I'm 

Rashaun Roberts, I'm the DFO for the Advisory Board 

on Radiation and Worker Health, and welcome again 

to the second and final half day of Board Meeting 141. 

Like yesterday, we'll just go over a few preliminary 

items. 

If you are participating by telephone line only, know 

that all of the materials for today, including the 

meeting agenda, presentations, and other 

documents are all posted on the NIOSH website for 

this program under scheduled meetings for August 

2021. 

You can go there and find and follow along with all 

the presentations and materials, and just for your 

information, the materials were provided to the 

Board members and to other staff prior to the 

meeting.

If you take a look at the agenda for today, or the 

agenda on the website, there's a Zoom link which will 

enable you to hear, speak, and watch the 

presentation through Zoom.

If you are on Zoom, you want to be muted at all times 

when you're not speaking, and the mute for Zoom is 

near the bottom left-hand corner of your screen, if 

you hover over it. 

And I'm hearing that someone's off mute. 

If you're participating by phone, I ask that each of 

you please mute the phone, of course unless you're 

speaking. 
5 

If you don't have the mute button, press *6 to mute. 

If you need to take yourself off, press *6 again.

Also, because we may be unable to see you for the 

meeting, please identify yourself before your 

comments or questions.

So now we just need to address conflict of interests 

for the Board for today's agenda. 

And as you can see for the session for today, there 

will be presentation and discussion of the Y-12 and 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, their X-10 site. 

Dr. Jim Lockey has a conflict of interest for both sites, 

but I don't believe he's going to be joining the 

meeting today, so this is moot. 

Dr. Paul Ziemer is conflicted for the X-10 site, so 

Paul, when we come to that item in the agenda, 

please disconnect from Zoom, and your telephone 

line, if you're on it. 

And I don't think we'll have to be concerned with 

coming back to the meeting, as X-10 is really the last 

agenda item.

Okay. So with that important piece of business 

squared away, let's go ahead and move into roll call, 

and I will start with the Board members in 

alphabetical order, starting with Chair Anderson.

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay, I'm not hearing anyone else, so 

again thank you. And welcome again, and let's go 

ahead and prepare to move further into the agenda. 

Again, please periodically check your phone or check 

Zoom and make sure that you're on mute, unless 

you're speaking. 

So with that, I will turn the agenda over to Dr. Henry 

Anderson, who's our board chair. Henry?

Chair Anderson: Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, 
6 

Rashaun. 

I think first off is Chuck to give us an update on SEC 

petition status. 

SEC Petitions Status Update

Mr. Nelson: Okay, I will sure do that. Let me try to 

share my screen here. Let me know when you can 

see it, please.

Chair Anderson: Yep, we got it.

Mr. Nelson: Okay. Let me get started here. 

My name is Chuck Nelson. I'm going to be doing the 

SEC update. We do this every Advisory Board 

meeting.

So moving down here, if I can get this thing to move. 

There it goes. 

Okay, we do this update at every Advisory Board 

meeting to give the petitioners, public, and Advisory 

Board an update of the petitions and qualifications 

under evaluation. 

In addition, this update provides evaluations 

currently under review with the Advisory Board, as 

well as any 83.14s, which are NIOSH-initiated 

petitions. 

And this update can help the Advisory Board 

members prepare and plan for future Advisory Board 

and Work Group meetings.

Okay, today we have 258 petition submittals. We 

currently have no petitions that are in the 

qualification process. 

We do have two petitions in the evaluation process, 

and that is Pinellas and Lawrence Livermore. 

We'll touch on these two evaluations in the next two 

slides.

And currently we have 11 SEC petitions that are 
7

under review and with the Advisory Board.

Okay. So, NIOSH is currently evaluating the Pinellas 

Plant in Clearwater, Florida, for the time period of 

1957 to 1990. This is SEC-00256, and this evaluation 

includes all employees. 

NIOSH is currently expected to complete the 

evaluation in September of 2021, so that would be 

next month, and we also plan to present this 

evaluation report in the December Advisory Board 

meeting.

The second SEC petition under evaluation is the 

Lawrence Livermore National Lab. That's in 

Livermore, California.

The current time frame under evaluation is 1990 to 

1995, which covers the remaining years of the SEC 

Petition 221. 

Now this was a reserved period, so this will be an 

addendum to SEC 221 Evaluation Report. 

We have a need to get to the site to complete a data 

capture and perform some interviews to address 

some of the issues that are outstanding.

However, due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, we've 

been unable to get to the site.

So this time we have a placeholder completion date 

of December 2021. 

Okay, next we have SEC petitions under Advisory 

Board review. We'll start with Hanford, that's SEC00057. 

All the SEC issues are closed except those related to 

the current ongoing co-exposure modeling effort. 

So that's going well, and we're in pretty good need 

of that right now. Next is Savannah River, SEC00103. 

As many of you are aware, a new SEC class was 
8 

recommended by the Advisory Board for SRS, and as 

Grady mentioned yesterday, we're currently awaiting 

action from the HHS secretary. So, that should be 

coming here soon. There are still some remaining 

issues open with SEC-00103, so the Advisory Board 

has not closed out this SEC.

Next up is Los Alamos National Lab. That's SEC00109. 

NIOSH is working to resolve issues raised by SC&A. 

That's Sanford Cohen & Associates and the Work 

Group, and we are expecting to send two reports to 

the LANL Work Group in late September or early 

October for this effort. 

I think Bomber touched a little bit on that yesterday. 

And then we have Sandia National Lab. That's SEC0188. 

NIOSH completed response to SC&A's review of 

Sandia Addendum 2 this past June of 2021.

Okay, up next we have Idaho National Lab. That's 

SEC-0219. And again, we're working on issues raised 

by SC&A raised in the Work Group. 

And issues that currently are being worked on is 

reactor reviews and looking at OTIB-0054, to see if it 

provides an adequate bounding approach for internal 

doses, and NIOSH is also working on responses to 

the Work Group and SC&A on the burial grounds.

Moving on to Argonne National Lab West, that's SEC0224. 

Again, we're working on issues, and specifically 

looking at the use of general area air sampling for 

internal does assessments. 

That's related to RPRT-097. We have a new report 

that will be specific to this site, it'll be RPRT-089. 

Moving on, Area IV Santa Susana. At this time, we're 
9 

still waiting on records to be released from our record 

center here in Cincinnati. 

We're developing a response paper to issues raised 

by the Work Group, and to complete this, a data 

capture for BZ air data is needed. 

In addition to that, NIOSH is working on developing 

an approach for assignment of dose for americium 

and thorium during the remediation period. 

And again, we're experiencing some delays in data 

capture due to the pandemic.

Next step is Metals and Controls, SEC-0236. NIOSH 

is working to resolve issues by SC&A and the Work 

Group. 

Of note, there was an interview discussing the Mound 

site dust-loading study. And this was recently 

finalized, and I believe it was provided to the Work 

Group. 

Correct me if I'm wrong there, LaVon. I also 

understand SC&A is currently performing final 

reviews of dose reconstruction methods for Metals 

and Controls. 

Mr. Rutherford: Chuck, this is LaVon. The interview 

was not provided to them but will be sent to them 

today. 

Mr. Nelson: Okay. All right. Well, I'm glad I asked. 

Thanks for that clarification, LaVon. 

Okay. Moving on. De Soto Avenue Facility is SEC0246, and NIOSH is working on providing some 

clarifications on a few remaining issues. 

Dr. Lara Hughes, who will be up next presenting the 

Y-12 addendum, is working on a -- developing a 

response paper to address those issues raised in the 

Work Group discussions, and in addition, she needs 

to do some more, or we need to do some more data 

capture to resolve some questions about the mass 

spec lab operations.
10

And again, we are currently waiting on the record 

center here in Cincinnati to release some information 

for us.

Moving on to Y-12, that's SEC-0250. 

Following this presentation, Dr. Hughes will be 

presenting an addendum to the evaluation report, so 

I won't go into detail on that. 

And finally, we have Reduction Pilot Plant. That's 

SEC-0253. 

NIOSH did provide some responses to the Work 

Group in May of 2021, so a couple months ago, 

regarding a couple observations.

I know it was discussed back in the April Advisory 

Board meeting that the remaining issues would 

probably be moved to another established Work 

Group. 

I think it might have been TBD-6001 Uranium 

Refinery AWE Work Group, and you know, the 

remaining issues are Site Profile issues, so that's 

what the discussion was on that. 

And finally, just provided a summary of sites with 

evaluation periods awaiting actions with their 

corresponding time period. 

So the next few slides will be on Hanford '84 to '90, 

Savannah River Site '72 to 2007, Los Alamos National 

Lab, '96 to 2005, Sandia National Lab 1997 to 2011, 

and Idaho National Lab 1949 to 1970, Argonne 

National Lab West is 1958 to 1979, and Area IV of 

Santa Susana is 1991 to 1993, and we have Metals 

and Controls for the residual period of 1968 to 1997, 

De Soto Avenue 1965 to 1995, and Y-12 is 1987 to 

1994. 

Then Reduction Pilot Plant is 1976 to 1978.

Now, the potential 83.14 SECs include the West 

Valley Demonstration Project. There was an SEC 

class already added for this, but this time we're 
11 

evaluating data from 1966 to 1968.

The evaluation process is still underway, and we had 

quite a large number of documents that were 

received from the data capture, and that review is 

not yet completed, so the review is still ongoing.

And that's it for the SEC update. Are there any 

questions?

Chair Anderson: If there are no questions, thank you 

very much, and shall we move on to Bill? Want to 

take over for Y-12?

Member Kotelchuck: Bill?

Mr. Taulbee: If you're speaking, Bill, we can't hear 

you.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

Y-12 SEC Petition #250 Addendum Update (Oak 

Ridge, Tennessee; 1987- 1994) 

Member Field: That's funny, I hit it once and it went 

back to mute, but okay, sorry about that. My 

ventriloquism, I guess, practice. So, our main thing I 

think we're going to discuss today is Lara is going to 

give us a report. This is sort of a background. 

The folks on the Y-12 Committee are Clawson, 

Roessler, and Valerio. 

And we have this addendum, which come out a little 

over a month ago that the committee hasn't met yet 

to discuss. 

We thought we would hear about in this meeting and 

decide whether or not -- or not whether or not, but 

when our next subgroup or Work Group meeting 

would be.

The other thing that NIOSH should provide to the 

Work Group and to the petitioners was the response 

to comments, so there was about a 39 page response 

that included the questions from the petitioners that 
12 

was provided June 29 of 2021. 

So, those are the major activities, but we haven't met 

as a Work Group -- I think we last met September 

24, 2020. 

So the information that we're hearing today will be 

the latest we have, so the Work Group will be hearing 

this for the first time since we haven't met since last 

September.

So Lara, I'll turn it over to you for the presentation.

Dr. Hughes: Okay, thank you, Dr. Field. 

So, you had asked for a Work Group update. Would 

you like that first? I don't have any slides for that, 

but --

Member Field: That's fine.

Dr. Hughes: I mean, you kind of summarized it, and 

that -- since that -- the last Work Group meeting was 

in September 2020, at which point NIOSH presented 

an update of the status of all Y-12 activities to work 

on the SEC 250 addendum, the SEC 250 evaluation 

report, and the SC&A review of that.

There's also some co-exposure modeling efforts 

going on and the review of the Y-12 issues matrix, 

and the post evaluation report submission by the 

petitioner, so that was all discussed. 

And during the meeting, NIOSH was tasked to 

provide a formal response to items submitted by the 

petitioner. 

This was a paper, as well as a presentation, and then 

NIOSH prepared a response paper to those items 

submitted by the petitioner, and that was sent to the 

Work Group July 21 of 2021, and it's dated June 29. 

We're kind of looking at a lengthy approval process 

right now due to our computer issues. 

So, and as you said, the Work Group has not met 

since then, so this paper, I assume, will be discussed.
13 

Member Field: Okay.

Dr. Hughes: Before the Work Group at some point in 

the near future.

Member Field: Yeah. Yep.

Dr. Hughes: Okay, let me try to share my screen 

here. All right. Okay. Okay, so my Zoom just went. 

Hold on. Do you see a full presentation screen? Hold 

on. 

(Pause.)

Dr. Hughes: Do you see the full presentation or do 

you see the presenter notes?

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Dr. Hughes: Okay, good. I can never figure out 

which. Like, it tells me which one is which, but it 

doesn't always work. 

Okay. So, thank you, Dr. Field, Dr. Anderson. 

This is the NIOSH presentation of the Y-12 evaluation 

report addendum for petition 250.

I'm Lara Hughes. I'm with NIOSH. I'm a health 

physicist.

I did not do this work alone. A lot of this work was 

done by our contractor, the ORAU Team, especially 

Joe Guido, who did a lot of work on this, so I'd like to 

acknowledge the help of this team, the Y-12 

Evaluation Team that did most of this work. I'm 

mostly presenting (audio interference) when it's all 

finished.

So, this is a little bit of the Y-12 -- sorry, I'm having 

some screen issues here. 

This is an overview slide of the SEC history for Y-12, 

so there are seven previous SEC classes that added 

a class to SEC. 

So the last one was -- actually no, not the last one, 
14 

but the ones shaded in gray are the ones that are 

completed. 

The last one was SEC-00251 that added a class for 

1958 to 1976, and this was related to an infeasibility 

to reconstruct doses from thorium and plutonium241. 

So, including SEC-00256, we look at the SEC class up 

until 1976 at Y-12. 

The currently active SEC petition is SEC-00250, and 

this was evaluated in 2019, exactly two years ago 

this was presented. 

And in this petition NIOSH recommended a class to 

be added to the SEC from 1977 to the end of July of 

1979, and also did not recommend a class for the 

period of August 1979 through 1986. The class was 

recommended due to infeasibility to reconstruct 

doses from thorium, and the period where there's no 

classes recommended, it was determined that the 

thorium data that was available was sufficient to 

bound the dose for that period,.

And also, in this petition, we reserved a period from 

1987 through 1994, and this was because we had 

not, at that point, collected, or were able to collect all 

the data from Y-12, and evaluated it.

So, and this is the reason we're here today. 

This is the addendum to the SEC-00250 petition 

evaluation, and this is for the period 1987 through 

1994. 

And at this point, NIOSH does not recommend a class 

to be added to the SEC based upon this evaluation.

A little bit of background of the petition, SEC-00250. 

This was received in November 2018. 

The proposed class was all workers who worked in 

any area of Y-12 where uranium was fabricated or 

processed from January 1, 1980 through December 

31, 2000.
15

NIOSH reviewed all the material that was submitted 

with the petition, and also NIOSH reviewed previous 

documentation issues related to the dose 

reconstruction at the site, and finally qualified a class 

that encompassed all employees who worked at the 

Y-12 plant from January 1, 1977 through December 

31, 1994. 

And the reason these dates were chosen over the 

ones that were petitioned was that the previous SEC, 

SEC-00251, had ended at the end of 1976, and since 

the SEC-00251 was added because of the thorium 

infeasibility.

NIOSH felt that we should continue to evaluate the 

feasibility of the thorium because of the issues that 

persisted before that. 

And the cutoff in 1994 was because the plant was 

placed in a stand-down mode in September of 1994, 

and that kind of presented the end of routine 

processing operations at Y-12.

NIOSH did not recommend to add a class to the SEC 

from August 1, 1979 through December 1, 1986, and 

that was because doses can be reconstructed with 

the available data, and that is outlined in the SEC00250 evaluation report. This was presented two 

years ago.

The current report that we're talking about is the 

addendum to the SEC-00250 evaluation report, and 

that is again, January 1, 1987 through December 31, 

1994, during which thorium doses can be 

reconstructed with the available data.

This is a little overview of the Y-12 claim numbers as 

of January 2021. We have about 6,869 total numbers 

of claims. This number will be a little higher by now, 

but this is the last time I had actually pulled the data, 

and as you know, I can't really get to the total stats 

at this point, so this is a little dated.

So, we have workers that worked during this period 

that's the subject of this addendum, 2,763, and we 
16 

completed about 2,600 dose reconstruction during 

this period. 

And again, or of a little greater interest is the number 

of people who have internal dosimetry records for 

this evaluation period, is about 1,341, so about 49 

percent, and I think it was about 86 percent of those 

workers have external dosimetry records with this 

evaluation period.

Sources of available information that we looked at, 

we collected more data from Y-12. 

We also took a data capture trip to the DOE 

operations center in Germantown. That was done 

December 2019, that was right before COVID shut 

everything down. We added about 500 documents to 

the Site Research Database, just general data 

capture-related item or internal dosimetry related 

items, other items, as well.

We looked at electronic databases and we did 

additional interviews, so 23 interviews with former Y12 employees were reviewed. 

Six of those had already been done before, and those 

were done in the course of the evaluation of SEC00251. 

And four additional interviews were done, were 

specifically targeted by NIOSH towards workers who 

worked at the Y-12 or K-25 in vivo facility. 

So, four of those, four interviews were done. 

And then in addition to that, the petitioners contacted 

NIOSH with a suggestion of names or a list of names 

of former Y-12 workers who wanted to share their 

work experience, so we did 13 additional interviews 

with former Y-12 workers based on the suggestion of 

the petitioners. 

As you know, we review any available data that might 

help us evaluate scientific publications, and of course 

existing claimant files. 
17 

A little bit of Y-12 history. So this is my slide. I have 

one every year for these presentations. 

The site is about 811 acres, .67, so a little over a half 

a mile wide, 3.2 miles long. 

Peak employment was 22,000 workers at the roughly 

down to 5,700 by 1998, so probably a little more than 

that during the current evaluation period. 

And the EEOICPA covered period is 1942 to the 

present. 

Generally the site history, we kind of divided it into 

three eras or time periods where operations changed. 

The first era until 1946, Y-12 mainly conducted 

uranium isotope separations using calutrons for 

uranium enrichment, and the second era -- and this 

is where we are with this addendum -- until roughly 

1994, they manufactured Cold War nuclear weapons 

components. 

They produce and test key components of nuclear 

weapons, stockpiling highly enriched uranium, and 

the technology development for new weapons 

designs. 

And the third era after 1994 consisted of multiple new 

missions, such as storing highly enriched uranium, 

environmental and waste management operations, 

and continued weapons part production on a smaller 

scale.

So let's talk a little bit about the thorium parts 

production piece. 

Thorium metal parts were produced to be used in 

nuclear weapons, and the main process that was 

used to create thorium metal components was a 

process called arc melting, and this started in 1959. 

They used thorium pellets that were pressed into 

electrodes that were then arc melted into ingots. 

Ingots are like chunks of metal. 
18 

And those ingots were press-rolled machines, scrap 

recycled depending on the need of the program. 

During this arc melting, which involves heating the 

metal up and melting it, the radium and other 

thorium progeny are volatilized and get into the air 

and are potentially available for inhalation. 

So this was the major thorium processing, and also 

the process that posed the highest exposure 

potential, and that ended in the mid-1970s. 

And all thorium arc melting ended in 1994. 

There were some smaller projects related to parts 

refurbishment and small scale special project until 

1999, but this did not involve arc melting. 

The entire Y-12 plan was in a stand-down mode from 

1994 through 1998, and all special project ended in 

1999 after a depleted uranium incident with an arc 

melter, so that was the end of all arc melting.

However, the thorium arc melting already ended in 

1994. 

The buildings. There were seven buildings where 

thorium was processed. They are listed here, and 

also two buildings where thorium was stored. 

This is the data that we collected from the DOE 

facility in Germantown. That's the thorium inventory 

data for the addendum period, 1986 through 1995, 

so we added a year there.

And you can see that the inventory is relatively 

consistent over this period, and then we have a bit of 

a jump here in 1995, but some additional research 

showed that this increase really was due to what they 

called weapons awaiting disassembly, which consists 

of storage operations.

Regarding the thorium exposure potential, thorium is 

the beginning of a decay series which contains 

multiple radionuclides. 
19 

So, the number of separations that are done to the 

metal before this process affects the total dose 

potential because it affects the number of decay 

products that are in the metal. 

The radionuclides that are of particular concern 

regarding internal dosimetry on thorium-232, 

thorium-228, and radium-228. 

The arc melting is the thorium process of most 

concern, as I mentioned, because of airborne 

contamination and the disruption of the thorium 

decay chain. 

Especially the radium that is contained in the metal 

is vaporized and released into the air because of its 

lower boiling point.

And also, the ingots from the arc melting has a 

radium enriched outer layer, which again, once this 

goes into like a pressing or machine process, it can 

again cause volatilization of the material.

So let's talk about the internal thorium dose data that 

is available for this period.

In general, Y-12 lung counts exist for 1959 through 

1994, and actually past 1994, but that was not part 

of the evaluation. 

For the beginning period where thorium data is 

available, these results are available in units of mass, 

milligrams of thorium in the lung in these reports, 

and we have not been able to find any information 

how this was derived from the counting data. 

So, in using the in vivo lung counter, and they -- of 

counting data, but the in vivo reports only list 

milligrams.

And if we don't have the actual counting data, we 

cannot use it to count the dose. 

To bound the dose, we need thorium results that 

contained the progeny activity of the thorium decay 

chain, and those data is available starting in August 
20 

1979 to 1994.

So for the current period, NIOSH has obtained usable 

thorium in vivo count data for 1987 to 1994 from 

three systems. 

The first system is the sodium iodide detector at the 

Y-12 in vivo facility from 1987 to the end of 1990. 

The second one is the low energy germanium 

detector at K-25, and that was used from 1992 to 

1994. 

And also the low energy germanium detector at Y-12 

from 1992 to the end of 1994. 

And as you can see here, so you have one detector 

at Y-12, then K-25, and then Y-12 again, and what 

happened was that Y-12 was updating their facility 

there, in vivo counting facility, so they got rid of the 

sodium iodide detector and installed the low energy 

germanium system, and in the meantime, workers 

that needed to be in vivo counted went over to K-25. 

So these are the thorium records that we showed in 

the SEC-00250 evaluation report. 

Again, we're looking from '79 to 1986, a total of 

about 1,000 actinium measurements. 

These are the thorium decay chain radionuclides that 

are needed to bound the thorium dose. 

And this is what we have for the current addendum. 

We have the Y-12 sodium iodide detector lung counts 

on the left column here, a total of about 3,460, or 

3,459 to be precise -- data points, then about 200 

data points for the K-25 lung counter, and then 

another 2,200 data points for the low energy 

germanium lung counts of Y-12 in the left column. So 

we have a fairly respectable number of thorium 

counts here. 

So, one reason this evaluation took a little while is 

because the data pedigree evaluation. 
21

This is something that is done, this is standard 

process for all SEC evaluations. 

In this case, we needed to do some additional 

research, so generally data pedigree looks at how 

consistent the methods are and whether or not 

different data sources match, things like that. 

So, in the case of the Y-12 data, we have data stored 

in two separate data repositories for this evaluation 

period, and one is the Delta View Imaging System, 

which contains scans of raw data reports. 

These are the printouts that they have from the 

system, or even handwritten filled in sheets that we 

used to record counting data. 

This is also what we would see for individual claims 

responses. 

And then we also have the Electronic Record System, 

which is a database where these counting results are 

tabulated and recorded, and when Y-12 sent this to 

us for evaluation, this would be in the form of just 

like an Excel spreadsheet. 

So when those two sources were compared, there 

were some discrepancies, there were some 838 

records missing in this electronic database when 

compared to the Delta View system. And those were 

mostly from the 7000 to 9000 series departments. 

So, we felt like we needed to contact Y-12 for some 

clarification. 

And then, Y-12 provided an updated ERS file based 

on updated search criteria because it turned out that 

the search criteria that we used to extract from the 

database was a little too restrictive, and we had not 

been aware of that. 

So once that had all been sorted out, Y-12 provided 

another 568 data points in the updated file, and also 

declared that 132 of those were declared invalid 

measurements. And there were some 128 were not 
22 

in the ERS because of a data migration error. 

However, they pointed out that we have a copy of the 

Delta View imaging file, which is the copy of record, 

and that's also what we receive for NOCTS claims.

And so, we found that the pedigree issues were 

satisfactorily resolved, and that the data is of 

sufficient quality to use in bounding the thorium 

dose.

So, since we're saying that we can bound the dose 

for thorium dose reconstruction, the approach that 

we're using is that thorium doses can be bounded 

using the gamma spectral data from the in vivo count 

for actinium-228 and lead-212. 

Those are both nuclides in the thorium decay chain. 

To do this, NIOSH developed OTIB-0076 in 2014, 

which details how this dose reconstruction is done 

using these decay chain nuclides to calculate intakes 

for thorium, and in a nutshell, the lead-212 result I 

used to estimate intakes of thorium-232 and 

thorium-228, and the actinium-228 results I used to 

estimate intakes of radium-228. 

And then those intakes are used to assign internal 

doses from thorium using the available software. 

Specifically for this addendum period for Y-12, the 

results from the sodium iodide in vivo facility from 

1987 to 1991, those doses can be bounded using 

established procedures, as explained in OTIB-0076 

and also the SEC-00250 Evaluation Report. 

The thorium results from the K-25 facility, we're 

looking at a period from January to May 1992, can 

actually not be used because they have no actinium228 or lead-212 reported. 

Those results are reported in nanocuries of thorium, 

I believe. 

So at this point we cannot use it unless we find the 

extra count data, which we have not located yet. 
23 

The thorium results from the Y-12 low energy 

germanium in vivo facility after they switched over 

from the sodium iodide detector, starting in June '92 

to the end of 1994. 

Those results only contained the actinium-228 

results.

So, this kind of threw a wrench into things when we 

were evaluating this, but then we determined that 

the doses can be bounded using available chest wall 

thickness data, as outlined in DCAS-RPRT-008. 

So this is another reason, this evaluation took a 

while. 

We developed DCAS-RPRT-008 to address this issue 

of how to do thorium dose reconstruction, to bound 

the thorium dose for Y-12 during this period, when 

only actinium-228 measurements are available. 

Now, these records are very detailed. We have 

spectral data, so channel data counts per energy are 

listed on these Delta View scans, so it was actually 

possible to take the spectral data of the -- not only 

the lead-212 because that's not available, but the 

other gamma energies, and to derive the detection 

efficiency in the region of the lead-212 PMI region. 

Using that, and also deriving the background in this, 

the lead-212 energy region, it was possible to direct 

the MDA for lead-212, even though it was not 

reported on the counting data. 

And since the MDA for lead-212 for the detection 

efficiency, rather all of these data, or all of these 

results are a function of the chest wall thickness 

measurement. And if you think about it, it kind of 

makes sense. The thicker a person's chest wall, the 

lower your detection efficiency will be to detect the 

gamma in the lung. 

So, we actually managed to derive the MDA as a 

function of the chest wall thickness, and that can then 

be used as an upper bound to bound the dose, which 
24 

would then be applied as a triangular distribution, 

and this would be assigned in a similar manner or in 

the same manner as the prior data using OTIB-0076, 

and I'd like to point out that the DCAS-RPRT, the 

analysis for DCAS-RPRT-008 was done by Dr. Neton, 

our former associate director of science who was also 

an expert in in vivo counting. 

So in summary, available monitoring records are 

sufficient to complete internal thorium dose 

reconstruction for the proposed class of employees 

from January 1, 1987 through December 31, 1994. 

So, from 1987 through the end of 1991, we used 

available actinium and lead-212 data to bound the 

dose using the methods described in OTIB-0076. 

June '92 to December of '94, we used the available 

actinium-228 data and the chest wall thickness 

information as outlined in DCAS-RPRT-008, and the 

data from the K-25 in vivo counter at this point is not 

used. However, this period we feel can be 

interpolated by the existing co-exposure data on 

either side of this very short period.

And that is the end of this presentation, the internal 

thorium feasibility. 

NIOSH determined that the dose reconstruction is 

feasible for internal thorium for the addendum of 

SEC-00250. 

And that concludes my presentation, and I'll be 

happy to answer any questions.

Member Field: Thank you, Lara. So, Henry, at this 

point, do you want to get questions from board 

members? 

And I think we have time for petitioner comments, as 

well. 

Chair Anderson: Right, yeah.

Member Schofield: Hey Lara, this is Phil. I've got a 

question. 
25

On the cards of microfiche, whichever you have, do 

they actually measure the chest wall thickness every 

time they take a measurement, or not? 

Dr. Hughes: The chest wall thickness is reported on 

the record, yes. 

Member Schofield: Okay, thanks.

Member Roessler: Lara, this is Gen. I'm trying to sort 

through all of this. You got the actinium-228 results 

and you have them electronically, I assume? 

You said you didn't have results for thorium, but do 

you have the lead-212 results electronically?

Dr. Hughes: We have the lead-212 results for the 

period from '87 to 1991, yes. And then for the period 

'92 to '94, we derived the lead-212 value MDA from 

the existing spectral data. 

Member Roessler: Okay, so you're getting it from the 

spectral data, but is that data available electronically, 

or how do you get it? 

Dr. Hughes: It's a scan from a printout, but the 

channel data is available, so it's printed and scanned, 

but it's available, and, well, I'd be happy to send you 

the SRDB, our Site Research Database link.

It's a very large PDF file really, and that has gone 

through optical character recognition so we could 

search for channel information and do an analysis 

that way. It is detailed in DCAS-RPRT-008, and it's a 

somewhat complex analysis. 

And I'm afraid I probably didn't do a very good job 

making it very clear. It's kind of complex. 

Member Roessler: Okay, so it's --

Dr. Hughes: Sorry.

Member Roessler: Go ahead.

Dr. Hughes: No, I said, it's something that we 
26

definitely could discuss in the Work Group if that is 

desired, or I could, you know, present it in a more 

detailed manner.

Member Roessler: I was just wondering how much 

work was involved in extracting all that information? 

Dr. Hughes: It was somewhat labor intensive. I didn't 

do it, it was Dr. Neton who did it, but I'm not sure 

how much time was spent on it. 

Member Roessler: Okay, thank you.

Member Ziemer: I have one question, Lara. This is 

Paul Ziemer. 

The slides indicated there has been something like 

2,600 dose reconstructions completed for this time 

period already. 

Was all of this data available when those were done, 

or is this newer captured data?

Dr. Hughes: Well, it's my understanding that the data 

was available because you know, when we do these 

SEC analyses, and we're kind of keeping an eye on 

the potential co-exposure model, we kind of want to 

collect the entirety of the available data. 

But since the Delta View system, that has been 

around, and that is Y-12, those records or any claim 

that is filed, it is my understanding that an extract of 

that will be sent to NIOSH for dose reconstruction. 

Member Ziemer: Thank you. 

Member Beach: Lara, this is Josie. I have a question 

for you on that new report, the DCAS-008. 

I know that's a fairly new report. I think it was written 

or released in April of last year. 

Has that been reviewed at all by SC&A, or is it on 

SC&A's radar at all to review that? Dr. Hughes: I'm 

not aware that it was reviewed by SC&A and I'm not 

sure. 
27

It has not been discussed in detail before the Work 

Group. 

It's probably on SC&A's radar, I would presume, but 

I do not think they have been tasked. They --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Barton: Yeah, this is Bob. Yeah, we haven't done 

a formal review of that paper. 

It seems like it's really directly tied to this SEC review 

that we're kind of discussing for the first time today, 

so I think that's certainly something that would have 

to be part of the Work Group discussions going 

forward, as it sounds like a very novel method. 

But it does make sense. On the surface, I think it 

certainly needs to be looked at and due diligence 

performed.

But, you know, thorium is not a new topic in the SEC 

world under this program, and a lot of discussions 

have already occurred about how we can measure 

thorium with the in vivo systems that were developed 

in Y-12 and used at numerous other sites.

But there is certainly a lot to unpack here, and I think 

this RPTP-008 would probably be a good thing to 

include as part of the Work Group review. 

Member Beach: Yeah, and I'm curious if you should 

wait -- and I guess this would be directed at you, Bill 

-- if you should wait for a Work Group call to task 

that, but I'll leave that of course to your expertise. 

So that report, it seems to me like it would've been 

part of the SEC without that report for the thorium. 

The thorium's up until then, and you developed that 

report, take care of the thorium. Is that correct?

Dr. Hughes: Well, I can't really answer to that. I 

mean, this is the way --

(Simultaneous speaking.)
28

Dr. Hughes: Oh. Sorry, please go ahead.

Member Beach: No, I said that was probably too base 

of a question, as it's quite a huge topic, so sorry 

about that. I'll let you go ahead. 

Member Field: Any other questions?

Member Clawson CLAWSON: Yeah, I do, Lara. This is 

Brad. You're looking at the thorium, and you have the 

thorium inventory. 

Can you explain to me, do you know how much 

thorium was processed through the facility per year?

Dr. Hughes: I do not have that data at this point.

Member Clawson: Okay, because now this is covering 

all aspects of this thorium process, not just the strike 

arc, or whatever this was called. 

This is the machining of the parts, and everything 

else like that that people were covered, correct?

Dr. Hughes: Yeah, so during the addendum period, 

really what we're looking at is what they call parts 

refurbishment. 

It's not so much the arc melting, as taking in existing 

parts, and I'm not exactly sure what the process is. 

A lot of this is classified. It's taking things apart and 

---

Member Clawson: Refurbishing them?

Dr. Hughes: Refurbishing them, yes.

Member Clawson: Yep, okay, I understand. That's 

what I was wondering. 

So this inventory that you have here is of parts and 

raw material, or is it just thorium to put into the

process? 

Dr. Hughes: No, my understanding is that that is the 

thorium inventory at the time, everything.
29 

Member Clawson: Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Hughes: So please correct me if I'm wrong on this 

one. That's the ending of it.

Member Field: Lara, this is Bill. I know we're looking 

up through '94 for what's been presented as far as 

lung counts, but with that high inventory in '95, were 

there lung counts from '95?

Dr. Hughes: Yes, there are, I believe. 

Member Field: Okay. 

Dr. Hughes: We did not evaluate it, but I mean, they 

did not stop doing lung counts. I mean, going into the 

modern era, they might have modified, you know, 

some things like who was counted and when, but 

there definitely are lung counts. 

Member Field: Right, I assumed so, I just had to ask. 

Any other questions?

Mr. Fitzgerald: This is Joe.

Member Clawson: Hey, Bill, I have a question for you. 

Who's all on the Y-12 Work Group?

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Field: Yeah, so it's Clawson, Roessler, and 

Valerio.

Member Clawson: Okay, that's what I wanted to 

make sure, because I wasn't sure there, so. Okay, 

thank you.

Member Field: Yep. So I think -- you know, this is my 

opinion. 

You know, obviously we haven't had a Work Group 

meeting, but I think because of the complexity of the 

analysis, I think it would be worthwhile to task SC&A 

now, unless you think there'd be some benefit to 

specify what the tasking would be based on Work 

Group discussion.
30 

Member Clawson: I think that we should get SC&A 

started on this now, especially with this report that

just came out, give them time to be able to review 

that process and go into this.

Member Field: Because I can imagine a Work Group 

meeting would be helpful for us to know SC&A's view 

as we discuss some of these issues.

Member Clawson: Exactly. Instead of going into it 

and bringing up a bunch, they may be able to satisfy 

some of our questions in their review. 

Bob, I guess that'd be the question that I'd ask to 

you, is what would you need formally to start into 

this?

Mr. Barton: Well, it's certainly complicated by the 

access restrictions that are imposed by the cyber 

security update that's happening. We don't have 

access to the SRDB. 

And if you've noticed, in the report it says NIOSH was 

able to go out and capture a lot of additional data 

that we simply don't have access to. 

Now, we might be able to do some of that, based on 

those discussions with Grady yesterday that we may 

be able to request, you know, specific SRDB 

references. 

But typically when SC&A does a review, we don't just 

go through the reference list of an SEC report. 

You know, we usually have access to do our own 

searches through all of the captured documents that 

are out there, so it's difficult for me to speculate on 

a time frame on what we would need until really we 

get the SRDB back to be able to do a lot of these 

types of research. And --

Member Clawson: Well, I really don't see that a Work 

Group would be beneficial until actually you guys get 

the SRDB back and are able to have time to be able 

to process and go through this.
31

So, I think, Bill, that we've just got to sit back a little 

bit, but I just want to make sure that SC&A knows 

that this is on their list of to-do items.

Member Field: Right. I think we agree to your 

thoughts there.

Member Clawson: So --

Member Beach: Hey Bill, this is Josie again. Has SC&A 

been tasked to review the addendum report that we 

just viewed today?

Member Field: No, they haven't.

Member Beach: Okay. So, it would be -- go ahead.

Member Field: It'd be worthwhile to do that, as well. 

Member Beach: Yeah. Okay, thanks.

Mr. Barton: Hey, I just would throw out the caution. 

You know, we sort of have this, we'll call it the clock 

once we're tasked with something, and so we really 

have to get it out in six months, and I'm just a little 

hesitant being able to commit to that without 

knowing when we might necessarily get access to all 

these files that we really want to take a look at to be 

comfortable sitting down and putting forth any sort 

of technical position on -- it's complex. 

There's a lot to unpack here, so. 

Member Field: And what's the timeline for getting 

that available again? About.

Mr. Barton: I'm not sure anybody knows.

Member Field: No, no?

Mr. Barton: No. 

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah. This is Grady, and we think that 

probably in two or three weeks, we'll be able to get 

selected documents available.
32

As far as the actual search tool, I'm not sure about 

that. 

We don't have it available yet for ourselves either, 

so, if there is a desire to look at it, if it would be worth 

your while to look at specific, known SRDB 

references, I think probably in a few weeks we can 

get that done, and somebody is actually going to be 

contacting you and showing you how to access that 

virtual volume when we get that available. 

Member Field: So would it be worthwhile then to have 

a short Work Group meeting and stay a month, or 

whenever the date is available again, to do the 

tasking, or we need a Work Group meeting for that? 

I guess is what I'm asking, so that the clock doesn't 

start right away.

Mr. Barton: Well, I mean, I think that's kind of a fluid 

situation. I don't think we need to necessarily have a 

Work Group. 

I mean, the tasking can be done via email, just so 

long as it's understood what our restrictions are on 

bringing this thing to completion. 

Member Field: Okay.

Chair Anderson: You have --

Member Field: So Andy, how do you want to proceed?

Chair Anderson: Bob, you have a copy of 08 and 

these other documents that you could look at and get 

a sense of how much searching you have to do, 

rather than just looking at the references, and that 

might be one way to get a handle on how much time 

you'll need, and so you can kind of do some pre-work 

without having been totally tasked with the review.

Rashaun, is that doable?

Mr. Barton: Well, I mean, I think absolutely we can 

get started, and it is probably a good way to say -- I 

wanted to qualify that that I'm not quite sure when 
33 

we'll be able to finish it just based on the access 

issues that we have.

Like I said, and as Grady indicated, we can go 

through it and look at these documents and request 

certain references that are in the reference list, 

essentially, so that we can get started taking a look 

at those, but normally when we do these types of 

reviews, we don't restrict ourselves to that, and we 

want to have access to everything that's available, 

and that's just not quite clear when that will happen.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Roberts: Right. 

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: And Dave, I think the Board can 

authorize, and I would say we should authorize Bill to 

review and talk with you and decide on behalf of the 

Board -- we don't have to go through another 

committee meeting. 

We can authorize him to start the tasking when he 

sees fit after conversations with you, and as you said, 

we don't need another meeting. 

I think the Board itself now is acting as a whole to do 

this ---

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Dr. Roberts: Can you hear me now? I think I've been 

having some problems coming up mute.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So yeah, I think it's fine for Bob 

to take a look at the -- or whomever at SC&A is going 

to take a look at, you know, what's been presented 

here today and kind of see what kind of access is 

needed, but I do, as Bob was saying, want to caution 

with when the tasking was actually put forward 

because like he pointed out, the clock starts ticking. 
34 

So we really don't want to put SC&A in a bind if they 

do not have full access to the documents that they 

feel they need.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Sounds good.

Member Clawson: This is Brad. 

And Bill, what I would basically do is just put it into 

SC&A's hand to notify us when they want the clock 

to start because they're going to have to see how the 

process works, how they're able to get through it, 

and everything else like that. 

Would that work with you, Bob? I know that these 

are unusual circumstances that we're dealing with 

right now, but my main thing is that I want to be able 

to get the review of this process going. 

Mr. Barton: I certainly appreciate that. There's no 

reason just to sit on our hands when there is some 

things that we can absolutely start to look into and 

get a better idea. 

I wanted to caution everybody because of these 

unusual circumstances, and I think that's a perfectly 

reasonable path forward. 

Member Field: So I'll stay in touch with Bob, and then 

we'll get that done, but I wanted to thank Lara for all 

the work that she and her team did for the 

addendum. You know, it sounds like it was a 

tremendous amount of work. 

And I also want to than Lara for the response to the 

petitioners, and thank you, the petitioners, for 

contributing those detailed questions that make it 

much easier to respond to. I think that's been a lot 

of work that her and her team's done, and I want to 

thank you for that, but I also want to make sure we 

leave time today for the petitioners. 

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Anderson: Yeah, let's move there.
35

Member Field: They can discuss things. 

Chair Anderson: I think we have a way forward here. 

Just a caution on formal tasking, but we sort of know 

what the tasking's going to be.

Member Field: Right.

Chair Anderson: It's just that the available materials 

that go into implementing are not necessarily 

available yet, so I think you can, Bob, look at what's 

currently in these reports, get the sense of, you 

know, what your game plan will be once we get ready 

to move. All right?

Member Field: Sounds good.

Chair Anderson: So Bill, are any of the petitioners on 

that want to speak?

Member Field: I don't know, but we'll find out, I 

guess. Any petitioners for Y-12?

Mr. Hicks HICKS: Yes, this is Steve Hicks.

Chair Anderson: Go ahead.

Mr. Hicks: I got a summary to read to you, a letter. 

Okay, I'll start off saying good evening, Dr. 

Anderson, and members of the Board. 

Member Field: Steve, can you spell your last name 

just so we have it just for the record?

Mr. Hicks: H-I-C-K-S.

Member Field: Right. Okay, thanks.

Mr. Hicks: Okay. And I'm the petitioner for the Y-12 

Petition Number 250. Thank you for giving me the 

opportunity to offer my thoughts on the addendum, 

and the response to our concerns raised during the 

Work Group meeting last September. 

First, let me tell you how much of a disadvantage the 
36

petitioners are in this process. I'm losing my voice, 

hold on. We do not have the same access to 

documents that NIOSH and SC&A have. 

Yes, SC&A can review these records at the Board's 

direction, but they are the Board's contractor, not the 

petitioners.

I believe in order to be totally transparent and fair, 

that NIOSH should provide all producers with every 

declassified document they have used to develop 

their position, redact it for privacy issues, of course.

NIOSH can start this process early by automatically 

sending the documents to DOE for review. 

As an example, NIOSH states on page 22, it's a 

response document, that they obtained a list of 2,849 

occurrence reporting and process system reports.

And they reviewed 74 of them. The public does not 

have access to the ORPS database, unless they have 

a need-to-know.

Well, I think I have a need to know what is in these 

reports. It's unlikely that DOE will agree. 

I have questions about why NIOSH reached the ORPS 

database, and they said they used this database to 

determine whether any of the 19 issues outlined in 

the 1999 DOE memo would affect the ability to 

reconstruct dose.

For example, would ORPS have reports from Y-12 

that admitted that they had inconsistent applications 

of bioassay requests for similar work activities. 

And why did they only look at reports from 1990 to 

2019? Is it because ORPS didn't collect this 

information before 1990? I don't know the answers 

but would appreciate hearing them. 

I have a similar question about NIOSH research and 

DOE's noncompliance tracking system. 

I looked at records from 1996 through 2019, and 
37 

identified only one reportable problem, but the 

problems occurred in 2019, way out of the scope of 

the proposed plan. 

I'd like to understand why they didn't look at the 

years 1977 through 1994.

NIOSH also contends on page 17 and 18 of the 

response document that DOE's memo does not 

impact the validity and availability of the site 

personnel radiation monitoring records, and that 

dose reconstruction is feasible.

How do we know that? Is it truly possible that Y-12 

did not find any deficiencies during the 120 day 

suspension? 

How far back did Y-12 go when doing these test 

assessments? Did the test assessments include the 

years of the proposed plan? 

Page 4 through 23 of the 1990 Tiger Team report 

mentions a previous widespread radiological 

protection program appraisal probably done in 1989, 

and it identifies that. 

There were problems with radiation records, and a 

non-routine bioassay program. Did NIOSH research 

that 1989 assessment? 

Did they look for any reports for Y-12 or DOE that 

summarizes deficiencies during this 120 day 

suspension?

NIOSH addressed the concerns raised in a White 

Paper. 

I want to comment on their response on the assertion 

that the test Y-12 used to monitor thorium did not 

meet ANSI N13.30.

On page 6, NIOSH responded that Y-12 was 

committed to implementing the standard and did so 

in May 1992. 

That was just two years short of the proposed class, 
38 

which ends in 1994. Additionally, further research 

shows that the draft standard was published 

according to a LANL document, the Health Physics 

Society in 1987.

Is this true, then, that Y-12 really was out of 

compliance? As we contend from at least 1987 until 

1982. 

And if so, wouldn't this prove that NIOSH is unable to 

reconstruct dose with sufficient accuracy for these 

five years?

NIOSH says they have access to nearly 400 bioassay 

samples, and they had mine. 

The reason I submitted this petition is because of the 

document I have, that I didn't need to be monitored.

Y-12 decided that I, a machinist who carried uranium 

parts on my chest, didn't need monitoring.

NIOSH admits the assumption that particle size 

impacts the evaluation of bioassay data, and thus the 

termination of internal dose, but they don't think it 

will affect their ability to reconstruct dose. 

They've been using the same model for almost ten 

years. They didn't realize until we pointed it out to 

them. 

They said they will address it during the future 

meeting. 

Is this fair? We found this issue two years ago, and 

was one piece of evidence used for the petition. 

Will the Y-12 petition be dragged out like the SRS 

petition? 

Again, I thank you for your opportunity for the 

petitioners to offer their perspective and I will provide 

a written copy of the comments, which will include 

the links to the documents referred. 

And that's the end of my statement. 
39

Member Field: Thank you, Steve. Any other 

petitioners that would like to talk at this time? 

Ms. Barrie: This is Terrie Barrie, and I want to thank 

Steve for that report, and he will send it off to 

everyone involved. 

I just have a concern about this pause. 

This petition is, what, over two years old, or close to 

two years old, and it's going to be another two or 

three years old, and I know Mr. Calhoun has been 

updating the Board, but claimants are in limbo right 

now, and something really needs to be done.

And so, I appreciate all the Board is doing and the 

Work Groups and everything, but I just want to keep 

that in everyone's mind. Thank you.

Member Field: Thank you. Is there anyone else that 

would like to comment?

Okay. Well, Andy, I guess I'll turn it over to you. 

Chair Anderson: Okay. Well, we're ahead of schedule. 

Rashaun, do you need to wait until 3:15 for Oak 

Ridge, or could we move into Oak Ridge and end the 

meeting earlier?

I can't hear you, Rashaun.

Dr. Roberts: Can you hear me now?

Chair Anderson: Yes, I can.

Dr. Roberts: Yeah. I'm not sure why I'm having this 

kind of trouble. 

Now, so my understanding is that we need to start 

that agenda item about when it's scheduled.

So, obviously we would need a pretty big break.

Chair Anderson: Yeah.

(Simultaneous speaking.)
40

Mr. Rutherford: Rashaun, this is LaVon Rutherford. 

There are no active petitions right now for Oak Ridge 

National Lab, so there will be no petitioners to listen 

if that's what you're thinking the holdup should be.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Well --

Mr. Taulbee: Rashaun, that's exactly what I was 

going to say as well --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Taulbee: Is that we generally only wait when 

there are petitioners who are online.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. And yeah, this is just an update. 

So it sounds like we can move forward with it, thanks.

Member Ziemer: If that's the case, I will sign off, 

Rashaun, and I wish everybody well. 

Chair Anderson: Yeah, right.

Dr. Roberts: Yeah. Thank you, Paul. Yes, please go 

ahead and sign off.

Member Ziemer: This is the first time having a 

conflict is advantageous.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Anderson: So, the question would be, do board 

members want a ten minute or 15 minute break, or 

should we just move right on to Gen and her Oak 

Ridge update, and Lara back on to talk?

Member Kotelchuck: I'd say move on.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Anderson: So, I'll turn it over to Gen, then.

Member Roessler: Okay, I'm ready to go.

Chair Anderson: Okay.
41 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (X-10) Update

Member Roessler: Especially since this is the last day 

and the last item on the agenda, so I think 

everybody's ready to go. Grady promised me he'd 

share my slides, and while he's there, it's better if I 

don't touch the screen. 

What I'm going to do is try and make this exciting so 

that it won't seem like late in the day.

What I'm going to do is do the update on the Oak 

Ridge National Laboratory X-10 Work Group work. 

The Work Group consists of myself as chair, Josie 

Beach, Bill Field, and Loretta Valerio. 

Working on this also -- or no, I shouldn't say also --

doing all the work on this is NIOSH and SC&A. 

The NIOSH lead is Dr. Lara Hughes, and Lara, since 

you're there, why don't you mention the names of 

your team who's been working on this? 

Dr. Hughes: Hey Gen. Yes, absolutely. 

So this is again Joe Guido and his team who have 

been working on the ORNL X-10 report, RPRT-0090, 

and the responses as well, and there's some, you 

know, other teams that do the co-exposure and 

issues matrix items, but they're not of discussion at 

this point, so.

Member Roessler: Okay, and SC&A, I think the lead's 

been Bob Barton, and Bob, I know you've had Joe 

Fitzgerald and Ron Buchanan working with you.

Should I mention any other names?

Mr. Barton: Well, I think technically, Joe Fitzgerald is 

the lead on this subject, but yeah, those two, and 

then we have them on the line right now if we need 

to weigh in, but I think we've seen the presentation 

and we agree absolutely with the direction that it's 

headed, and I think we had a very productive 

meeting, but I'm sure you'll get to all of that as we 
42

get through the presentation. 

But Joe Fitzgerald and Ron Buchanan, they're the 

ones who really deserve the credit.

Member Roessler: Okay, I wanted to mention the 

names because I no doubt will have to call on you 

later on. 

Well, we'll go to the next slide then. The Work Group, 

we held our, actually, first meeting in June. 

At that meeting, Dr. Hughes gave an overview for us, 

and she took us back to a September 2012 

presentation by Dr. Taulbee. 

At that time he was presenting the X-10 SEC-00189 

-- which by the way was approved for all X-10 

employees for the years 1943 to 1955 -- but during 

his presentation which was very fascinating, he gave 

the backgrounds on X-10 and he used, I think it was 

58 slides or something like that to do that, and I just 

wanted to point out at the beginning of that, and also 

present this slide which he used because this is a very 

complex site, as I'm sure you all know. 

And then we have also the overlap with Y-12 and this 

diagram that Tim used shows that.

Fortunately, I think that our Work Groups overlap, so 

I hope we come through this and make them mesh 

well. 

Okay, next slide.

I actually copied another one of Tim's slides, which 

was called exotic radionuclides, and I've always been 

fascinated by this. 

I think this is kind of an interesting terminology. 

I tried to look up to see what does exotic really mean 

maybe more in terms of science than perfume or 

whatever else, but it means strange or intriguing, 

which doesn't really help us too much.
43

So I tried to look up the origin of this terminology and 

I couldn't find it, but I think what I really want to do 

is pertinent here for X-10, is that exotic radionuclides 

are anything that wasn't plutonium, thorium, 

uranium, tritium, or mixed fission and activation 

products. 

And these things of course can be produced by 

reactors and cyclotrons.

So, in 2012 then, NIOSH stated that due to their 

resource overlap, they decided to reserve the exotic 

radionuclide evaluation at ORNL, and combine it with 

the Y-12 effort, and you see that that's happening, 

and now we're getting some results. 

Okay, so now let's go to the next slide.

So specifically what I'm going to report on is the 

update on RPRT-0090. 

The title of RPRT-0090 is monitoring feasibility 

evaluation for exotic radionuclides produced by ORNL 

Isotopes Division.

And there are two words in there which I don't have

written on the slide, but will come up in the 

discussion as I go on. 

One of them is feasibility and the other phrase is 

Isotopes Division. So as I mentioned, our Work Group 

had our first meeting June 2021. 

Because there was a long time between the 

beginning of the work on this and the meeting, we 

had a lot to cover.

We had four relevant documents under discussion. 

First of all, of course, the important RPRT-0090, 

which was produced March 28, 2018, dealing with 

assessing doses from isotope production at ORNL 

from 1955 to 1988. 

Then following that, SC&A reviewed RPRT-0090 and 

came out with their report in October of 2018. 
44

Then, NIOSH responded to the SC&A review of RPRT0090, and that report came out in June of 2020.

And then SC&A reviewed NIOSH's response to 

SC&A's review of RPRT-0090, and we got that in 

January 2021. 

So you see, really, the bottom line is there's a lot of 

material here. 

In our Work Group meeting, we dealt with SC&A's 

seven findings and six observations. 

On the findings, three are open, pending NIOSH 

action, four are closed. Under the observations, two 

are open, pending NIOSH action, and four are closed. 

And that's what we're going to talk about then for the 

rest of the time today. 

So I'm going to get into the findings first. 

We'll go to the next slide. 

I think we have time, especially since we're way 

ahead of schedule, but my talk is not going to take a 

full hour that has been assigned, so I think we'll have 

time for questions as I go along.

So I tend to go full speed once I get going, so just 

jump right in and just stop me and ask your 

questions.

So, on Finding 1, SC&A asked that the scope of RPRT0090 needs to be clearly defined. 

An answer to this, NIOSH clarified that they should 

remember that it's only the activities, the ORNL 

Isotope Division, that or the scope of the report, and 

probably what prompted SC&A to bring this up is they 

were wondering about activities with the waste 

management construction and maintenance, and 

those activities are not included. 

SC&A accepted this clarification in the Work Group 

and they recommended that the finding be closed, 
45 

and the Work Group agreed. So, Finding 1 was 

closed. 

Okay, Finding 2. Next slide.

SC&A said that there was an incomplete radionuclide 

and radioisotope facility inventory in the report.

Specifically, they said they found several 

radionuclides missing from Table 7-2, which in the 

report is a listing of radionuclides. 

NIOSH responded and explained that the discrepancy 

is due to the focus of the document being on 

radioisotope production only. 

In other words, again concentrating only on the 

Isotopes Division. NIOSH said that they would in the 

next revision make sure that they explain that.

SC&A accepted this clarification, the Work Group 

then accepts SC&A's recommendation to close the 

finding, so Finding 2 was closed. 

Those were fairly straightforward and easy, which is 

not going to be the case for a few here.

So Finding 3. 

Finding 3 and 4 actually are two important related 

findings, and I want to point out that we need to keep 

in mind the purpose of RPRT-0090, and this, I think 

Dr. Taulbee tried to clarify during our Work Group 

meeting, is that it's not an evaluation report. 

And he can go into that more if you have more 

questions on that, but instead, it's an initial 

evaluation of what radionuclides were produced and 

what bioassays were available. 

So we should keep that in mind then, and going on 

to Finding 3, SC&A said that the in vitro bioassay 

methods lack information about actual 

implementation.

Specifically, they said that the report does not 
46

discuss actual implementation of methods, as 

required by DCAS Implementation Guide 6, 006. 

However, NIOSH reminded us that DCAS 

Implementation Guide 006 was issued after RPRT0090, after the first version of RPRT-0090 came out.

So, the question is, how to handle that. 

The Work Group agreed that the findings should 

remain open pending NIOSH action, so what NIOSH 

is going to do is to develop co-exposure models for 

exotic radionuclides, and also update the language in 

RPRT-0090 related to feasibility.

And that may bring about some questions, but really 

what was under discussion here is what really is the 

meaning of feasibility? 

Well, what is capability? And there was a lot of back 

and forth between NIOSH and SC&A on that. 

So NIOSH's action will be to straighten that all out, 

we hope. So Finding 3 stays open. 

Okay, like I said, just jump in if you have questions. 

Finding 4, SC&A said that the feasibility of monitoring 

28 radionuclides was not adequately addressed, 

specifically they were talking about the radionuclides 

in Table 7-6 and said there was no sufficient detail. 

Again here, there was a lot of discussion. NIOSH 

responded that the approach that they expect to be 

used is the source term approach, which by the way 

is an accepted procedure for bounding dose. 

SC&A said, well, this approach needs a better 

explanation in the next revision, and then I think 

also, one of the members of the Work Group 

mentioned that a lot of the kind of problems here 

have to do with wording, and that attention should 

be paid in the next revision to careful wording.

So, the Work Group agreed that RPRT-0090 needs to 

be updated with more suitable wording. We just did 

that. 
47

I don't know what that noise is, but it's not coming 

from here. 

Remove the language regarding insignificant intakes, 

and right at the moment I can't remember what that 

had to do with. If you have questions about it, 

perhaps somebody can help us on that.

Anyway, the NIOSH action will then be to update the 

report with more detail on the dose reconstruction 

approach for the 28 listed radionuclides, so this 

finding remains open. 

Any comments or questions, or straightening out that 

I need on that one?

Okay. We'll move on then to Finding 5. Now we get 

into the really exciting part. 

Finding 5, by the way, and Observation 6 are related, 

and we'll talk about that. 

In Finding 5, SC&A had quite a bit of concern about 

iodine, in particular, the 1955, 1956 intakes that 

might not be bound by earlier co-exposure data.

This all has to do with reconstructing iodine doses, 

and actually we should keep in mind here that there 

are two source terms, two processes that have to be 

evaluated. 

One is the actual radioiodine production, and the 

other one is the radioactive lanthanum iodine byproduct release. 

And as I mentioned, SC&A found many issues with 

the approach that NIOSH proposes for figuring out 

the exposure for unmonitored workers. 

In fact, it covers about 30 pages in the transcript, so 

that gives you an idea of what needs to be covered. 

The Work Group agreed with SC&A that the finding 

needs to remain open, pending NIOSH action. 

NIOSH agreed that they need to revise the -- or well,
48

the Work Group agrees NIOSH needs to revise the 

iodine approach based on standards of IG-006 after 

SC&A concerns have been evaluated in detail. 

And actually, at the meeting, NIOSH said that they 

are developing this, so this finding remains open. 

And we'll talk a little bit more about it in Observation 

6 later because it's really pretty much the same 

thing.

Okay, Finding 6. SC&A addressed the adequacy and 

implementation of in vivo bioassay program, well, 

and said that NIOSH had not addressed this. 

It said that the implementation is not sufficient in the 

report. 

Actually, this was covered under Finding 3, or will be 

covered under Finding 3, so this particular finding 

then in our terminology is subsumed under Finding 

3, so this one we said could be closed.

Finding our last finding, it's Finding 7. 

SC&A said that there's unclear treatment of post1988 monitoring capability during abandonment, 

deactivation, and D&D phases. 

Well, actually, if you remember back a few minutes 

ago, we dealt with this specific thing under Finding 1, 

and in that one, NIOSH clarified the scope of RPRT0090, saying that the report only includes the 

production operations of the Radioisotope Division, 

and these areas are not included.

So, Finding 7 is closed.

So we end up with three findings, open and four are 

closed. And I will move on into the observations if 

there are no questions.

Okay, Observation 1. These observations probably 

are less exciting because by definition, observations 

have minor or no effect on things, but nevertheless, 

we do pay attention to them.
49 

SC&A pointed out that there was an inventory 

discrepancy between Table 7-2 and the X-10 

inventory spreadsheet, and NIOSH clarified this and 

said, well, there are actually two reasons for that. 

One is that they have found some additional data in 

logbook, and then they also pointed out again that 

the scope of the document, of RPRT-0090, is the 

Isotopes Division only, and that might account for 

some of the discrepancy.

So, SC&A recommended -- they said okay, we can 

close this one. The Work Group accepted that, so 

Observation 1 is closed.

Okay, Observation 2. SC&A pointed out that specific 

alpha-emitting radionuclides need to be identified for 

dose reconstruction. They said that the X-10 

database does not always list the specific

radionuclide needed for dose reconstruction. 

NIOSH clarified that and said that only the actual 

bioassay cards that are used for dose reconstruction 

and that they contain this information. 

SC&A said okay, this is okay then to close this 

observation, the Work Group accepted that, and 

Observation 2 is closed.

Observation 3 -- I mean, 3, yes. I skipped one 

almost. 

Okay. SC&A stated that trans-plutonium 

radionuclides may need further analysis, and NIOSH 

explained that americium-241 is used as a default 

and that assigning this is a reasonable default 

assumption.

I think I got a little confused there. 

SC&A asked whether assigning americium-241 as a 

default was a reasonable assumption.

NIOSH responded to that and added to this that 

actually, the bioassay cards, if they had the actual 

radionuclide on them are the ones that are used. 
50 

So, all are in agreement. SC&A agreed with this and 

this observation was closed. 

Then Observation 4. 

SC&A said that the use of gross beta or gamma count 

data could result in underestimate of the dose, and 

specifically, that if one uses gross count data without 

knowledge of the counting system -- for example, 

important things like calibration and counting 

efficiencies, correction factors and so on, this could 

lead to an underestimate of the dose. 

NIOSH said that the specifics of the dose 

reconstruction approach are outside the scope of 

RPRT-0090, but they will be added to the revised 

report, so this information will be included, and SC&A 

agreed that as long as NIOSH does as they say 

they're going to, that they would accept that.

However, we decided to keep this observation open.

Then Observation 5. The results in Table 7-6 depend 

on the inventory used. SC&A pointed out that the 

spreadsheet used for X-10 data is incomplete, and 

actually this is the same as Observation 1. 

And NIOSH then added that they will address the 

revision. 

In the revision of RPRT-0090, they'll address this and 

in the next revision of TKBS-0012-5, and they said, 

in fact, they have already done this, had taken care 

of this in 2020. 

I'm not sure if they meant in a report or what, but 

we agreed that this observation could be closed. 

Observation 6. Additional radioactive lanthanum 

information should be provided. 

This probably sounds familiar to you because we 

dealt with this in a subsection of Finding 5. 

And we mentioned that there are different exposure 

potentials between the commercial iodine 
51

production, one of the source terms in the radioactive 

lanthanum process.

So since it was already discussed and already agreed 

upon, well, we didn't close it. I checked on this. 

I kind of thought it would be, but we decided to leave 

this one open until we get the results from NIOSH. 

So, in the observations then, two are still open and -

- or closed. 

I haven't had any questions yet, but I will invite 

them. 

I'd also think that it would be useful to all of us if 

NIOSH would be able to give us some idea of the path 

forward here. 

There's a lot of work to be done. I wonder if we can 

get some idea of how much time will be needed to 

follow through, and at that point, just what would be 

the next step?

Any comments from NIOSH? 

Dr. Hughes: Yeah, so --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Hughes: This is Lara Hughes. Can you hear me?

Member Roessler: Yes.

Dr. Hughes: Okay. The little thing didn't come up. 

So, I think the first thing you would expect is a 

revision of RPRT-0090. 

I do not have a timeline at this point, but that would 

definitely be the first paragraph that you would see.

Given the current situation, I'm not sure, and as you 

know, the co-exposure model developing based on 

the current IG-6 guidelines. 

It's a lengthier process, so we're looking at a 
52 

substantial amount of time until that would be 

addressed. 

So, given the current situation, or in general, I can't 

really give you an exact timeline, but I know that 

RPRT-0090 is being worked on right now, and that 

will be coming out in the near future. Let's leave it at 

that.

Member Roessler: So at the point you have 

addressed the issues then, I assume we will get 

notice of that, and then we'll convene another Work 

Group meeting?

Dr. Hughes: Yes.

Chair Anderson: Do you think it'll be by December? 

Mr. Taulbee: This is Tim. There's no way for us to say 

right now. 

I mean, some of this development is being wrapped 

up into the cyber security modernization initiative, 

and so, you know, I mean, we will as soon as we can, 

but we really just don't have any way of knowing. 

Sorry.

Chair Anderson: Yeah. Well, always worth an ask. 

Right, you know, right?

Member Roessler: Hey, are there any other questions 

or discussion? If not, then I think our Work Group 

report is complete.

Chair Anderson: Well thank you for putting that 

together. That was very helpful. It's just frustrating 

with the cyber security issues to not be able to move 

forward.

So, any other issues people want to raise, or 

questions on this for Gen or Lara? 

Rashaun?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. Can you hear me?
53

Chair Anderson: Yep.

Dr. Roberts: So, this is our last agenda item. 

So, I don't know if there's more that you wanted to 

raise or cover, Andy, but that's the end of the 

agenda.

Chair Anderson: No, I don't have anything, and if 

others don't either, I'll accept the motion to adjourn.

Member Beach: Seconded.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: So moved.

Member Beach: Or so moved, I should say.

Chair Anderson: Well good, you get a little extra 

time, so.

Member Kotelchuck: All right.

Chair Anderson: We'll wait for advancement on the 

cyber security update, then move forward. 

And we do have one Work Group that'll be meeting 

in September, Dave, so.

Member Kotelchuck: I know. Yes. Okay. 

Member Beach: So, I have a quick question, Dave. 

Can we meet without --

Chair Anderson: Go ahead.

Member Beach: Access to -- because I can't get on 

anything, and normally we use the O drive for our 

dose reconstruction meetings.

Chair Anderson: Yeah. 

Member Kotelchuck: Right. I figured that by then, we 

would -- that's always been the assumption by then, 

we could get in the materials. 

In fact, I don't know if Rose is still on the line, but --
54

-

Ms. Gogliotti: I'm here.

Member Kotelchuck: I thought we had access to 

those materials now.

Ms. Gogliotti: We don't at the moment. Grady is 

working on a workaround, or at least that's what he 

told us yesterday.

Member Kotelchuck: Oh okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: But he can't guarantee us. I told ---

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Calhoun: I am still -- this is Grady. This is Grady, 

I am still working on that. 

And gosh, I really thought that maybe something 

would've happened by today, but what we're doing is 

trying to transfer the actual whole files that you need, 

so I should hear something about that any day here, 

and then we're going to have to schedule a meeting 

with one of our folks with you to teach you how to 

access it. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah, I'd appreciate that. 

If you guys can handle that workaround over the next 

two, three weeks, that will give us plenty of time.

We actually deferred a meeting this summer 

precisely because we couldn't get the records, and I 

felt like we could not go ahead without the members 

of the subcommittee being able to access the 

records.

So, given that you're working on it, let's figure that 

you'll be able to do the workaround, sir, by then, and 

that we'll be able to go ahead with the meeting.

So, I'm hoping that the problem you are raising, 

Josie, will be resolved soon.

Member Beach: Sounds good. 
55 

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. 

Ms. Gogliotti: Grady, for clarification, your training, 

is that for the subcommittee, the full board, for 

SC&A? What are you thinking? 

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah, this, what we'll do first is we'll 

just do it the way it makes the most sense, so we're 

going to try to get access to the people who need it 

first, and then we will have Lori probably call you 

guys and show you how to access it. 

So, we're not going to try to get everybody access, 

just you guys first that need it, and then we'll move 

forward from there.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay, I appreciate it. 

Mr. Calhoun: That'd be easier for everyone that way.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah, and we're going to be 

working on Set 29. So, that's really what we need for 

our meeting.

Chair Anderson: Okay, any other business?

Oh, Rashaun, you --

Mr. Calhoun: Hey Rose, just since I've got you on the 

phone here, we've got the numbers for 29. 

Is that all you need, Set 29, or do you need them for 

30 as well?

Ms. Gogliotti: I just need all of the files for Set 29.

Mr. Calhoun: Just for 29?

Member Kotelchuck: Just 29.

Mr. Calhoun: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah, good, okay, I thought you 

had them -- would be yes. Good. 

Yes, that's what we need, we finished up the other -

- virtually finished them up, and we can come back 
56 

to the ones from earlier sets at a later time. 

There are not many, they're just ones that require 

work or other subcommittees looking things over.

Ms. Gogliotti: The other ones will have to wait, Dave, 

because we don't have the BRS, and that's how we -

--

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: That's right, yeah. Yeah, Set 29, 

and then we're ready to go, at least for this next one.

Chair Anderson: That sounds good.

Member Kotelchuck: Set 29 for the 29. Just 

remember that, subcommittee members.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Anderson: And Rashaun will begin to put 

together an agenda for the next meeting as that 

comes up, and let's see what happens with cyber 

security, and we'll keep everybody informed, and I'm 

sure NIOSH will as they move forward on selecting 

new members.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Beach: Sounds good, Henry, thank you. 

Good job.

Chair Anderson: Yeah, well, we got to keep ourselves 

busy and going so hopefully, you know, we got 

enough on the agendas. 

If you look at the long list of the SECs that we're 

working on, we need to close out some of those as 

soon as we can. And Bob, thanks for all your work on 

all of this, too, so. 

Okay, with that, I guess we can adjourn the meeting, 

and thank you all.
57 

Adjourn

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 2:52 p.m.)