THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

THIRTIETH MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

DAY ONE 

 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held 

at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel, Cedar 

Rapids, Iowa, on April 25, 2005. 
2

C O N T E N T S

 

April 25, 2005 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 9 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES, MEETING 28 17 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

IOWA ARMY AMMUNITION PLANT TECHNICAL 

BASIS DOCUMENT: 18 

PRESENTATION BY NIOSH, MR. TIM TAULBEE 18 

PRESENTATION BY SC&A, DR. JOHN MAURO 85 

BOARD DISCUSSION: IAAP TBD 135 

PUBLIC COMMENT 146 

ADJOURN 209 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 210 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND 

The following transcript contains quoted material. 

Such material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

In the following transcript (off microphone) 

refers to microphone malfunction or speaker's neglect 

to depress "on" button. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

 

 

MEMBERSHIP

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D. 

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health 

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H. 

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental 

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee 

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Espanola, New Mexico 
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GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 
6

AGENDA SPEAKERS

(in order of appearance) 

 

Mr. Tim Taulbee, NIOSH 

Dr. John Mauro, SC&A 

STAFF/VENDORS

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

 
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AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

AMENELL, MARY 

AMENELL, PAUL 

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 

BLOSSER, FRED, NIOSH 

BRAND, ANSTICE, CDC 

BROCK, DENISE, UNWW 

BUCH, CATHRYN JOANNE, IAAP 

CHANG, C., NIOSH 

DEEP, HEIDI, NIOSH 

DEHART, JULIA 

DETHERAGE, DEBBIE, IAAP 

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH 

FAIRCHILD, FRAN, IAAP 

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 

FLEMING, LEEANN 

FUORTES, LAURENCE, UNIV. OF IOWA 

GILDS, S. 

GRAHAM, PAULA, IAAP 

GREENE, ELLEN 

GREENE, GARY 

HALLMARK, SHELBY, LABOR 

HEISTER, MELANIE, NCRP 

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 

HORGAN, TOM, SEN. BOND 

IVERSON, SI 

KATZ, TED, NIOSH 

KOTSCH, JEFFREY L., DOL 

LEON, BETTY L., IAAP 

LOVING, ANITA, IAAP 

LOWRY, LORI, IAAP 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MCKEEL, DAN, MD, WASHINGTON UNIV. 

MILLER, RICHARD, GAP 

MOORE, RON 

NESVET, JEFF, DOL 

NETON, JIM, NIOSH 

PORTER, DIANE, NIOSH 

PRESLEY, LOUISE S. 

RIDER, MARLENE, IAAP 
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ROESSLER, CHARLES 

SCHAUER, DAVID, NCRP 

SHELTON, JAMES L., IAAP 

STONGER, JANE, IAAP 

TAULBEE, TOM, NIOSH 

THOMSON, KATHY, IAAP 

TOOHEY, R.E., ORAU 

VORHICS, DAN, IAAP 

WEBB, E.D., IAAP 

WEINREICH, REBA, IAAP 

YERINGTON, LASCA, IAAP 

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
9

P R O C E E D I N G S

1 (1:12 p.m.) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, everyone. This is 

the 30th meeting of the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health. We're pleased to 

be here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for this 

particular meeting. 

 I would ask, if you haven't already done so, 

would you please register your attendance with 

us today in the registration book that's near 

the doorway. Also, individuals who wish to 

make public comment later in the meeting, 

there's a place for you to sign up there, as 

well. 

There are copies of our agenda, as well as a 

number of other documents relating both to this 

meeting and other activities of the Board, and 

they are on the table down by the side wall. 

Please avail yourselves of those, as well. 

 At the meeting of this Board in St. Louis 

February 7th to 9th, member Tony Andrade was 

not present with us. Shortly thereafter the 

Board learned that Tony died on February 10th. 

I would like to read and enter into the record 

of this meeting a memorial resolution for Tony 
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 Antonio "Tony" Andrade, acting leader of the 

Quality Assessment Office for the Weapons 

Engineering and Manufacturing Directorate, Los 

Alamos National Laboratory, died suddenly 

Thursday, February 10th, 2005. Tony had a 

distinguished career at Los Alamos and was 

recognized nationally as an expert on worker 

safety and radiation issues. His associate 

director, Dave Beck, said we will all miss Tony 

and his steady counsel and keen insights here 

at Los Alamos. 

 Tony Andrade began his work at the Laboratory 

as a graduate assistant in 1979 and became a 

technical staff member in 1981 as a member of 

the thermonuclear applications, or X-2 group. 

Later he led the former radiation protection 

group, ESH-12, and was group leader for 

Radiation Protective Services at the time that 

he was appointed to this Advisory Board, his 

appointment following his nomination by Senator 

Pete Dominici. 

 While at Los Alamos Tony had been a member of 

the National Security Program support team. He 

had also been a technical assistant to the 
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Associate Director for Defense Research and 

Applications, as well as nuclear reactor 

project specialist and director of the Omega 

West Reactor. 

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 A native of El Paso, Texas, Dr. Andrade was a 

graduate in mechanical engineering for the 

University of Texas at Austin. He earned a 

master's degree in nuclear engineering and a 

doctorate in plasma physics, both from the 

University of Michigan. Tony Andrade is 

survived by his wife, Rosemarie, of -- who also 

works at Los Alamos in the nuclear materials 

technical division, and by four sons. 

 I would ask that the Board and those assembled 

please rise and let us observe a moment of 

silence in memory of our departed colleague. 

 (Pause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Board 

members, you have received a large stack of 

materials since the subcommittee session this 

morning. I'm going to ask Lew Wade if he can 

review what has stacked up here before you in 

addition to your regular Board book, and Lew, 

any other introductory comments you may wish to 

make at this time would be fine. 
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 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. As you know, we're 

going to begin this afternoon to discuss the 

Iowa TBD and then tomorrow will continue on 

with a discussion of the Iowa SEC petition. 

You have a number of materials that have been 

provided to you, some in your workbook and some 

given out during the lunch break, and I'd just 

like to walk you through those materials so 

that we all realize what we have. And I'd also 

solicit, if there's any additional information 

you might want, if you would let me know, I 

could get that information. 

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 But if you'll start with your workbook under 

the tab that says “IAAP TBD, Technical Basis 

Document,” the first thing you'll see under 

that tab is the presentation that's going to be 

made by NIOSH concerning the revised Technical 

Basis Document. 

Second you'll have a document signed by John 

Mauro dated April 18th, 2005. What this is is 

the report prepared by your contractor 

reviewing the Technical Basis Document. This 

was an unclassified review. It did not involve 

the Q-cleared individuals. This is something 

that was prepared by John and submitted to all 
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 In the stack that I've handed you -- that you 

received over lunch there's another document 

from John dated April 23rd, 2005. This is an 

addendum to the report that I just mentioned. 

It contains some additional thoughts and 

deliberations that John wanted to share with 

you, so that's an addendum to the April 18th 

document. 

Also handed out is something from John dated 

April 22nd. This now is the report prepared by 

the Q-cleared representatives of SC&A. This 

document was prepared by them early last week 

and was cleared by DOE the end of last week and 

was sent to you on Friday. We're giving you a 

copy here on the likely possibility that you 

didn't have an opportunity to print that 

document out. 

So in all there are three documents that your 

contractor has provided, two related to the 

unclassified review and one related to the 

classified review. 

 If you go then to the next tab in your book, 

the IAAP SEC petition, the only tab (sic) there 

is a supplement to the SEC petition evaluation 
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 A handout was given to you in the form of a 

PowerPoint presentation. This is the 

presentation that Larry Elliott will make 

tomorrow to you. This is NIOSH's presentation 

to the Board with regard to the Iowa petition 

evaluation. 

And then lastly you have a document with the 

letterhead of the University of Iowa. This is 

material that was provided to us under the 

signature of Dr. Field. It's information that 

he wanted to share with you. 

 So those represent the materials in your 

possession as it relates to this two-pronged 

discussion of Iowa that we're going to have, 

first the TBD and then the SEC petition. If 

any Board member would like me to make 

available to them additional materials -- the 

original SEC petition evaluation, all of those 

materials were made available to you. If 

anyone has any needs, just slip me a note and 

I'll get those materials to you as quickly as 

possible. 

 So that represents an accounting of the 

materials that you have relative to these 
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 The one additional thought I'd like to leave 

with you -- again, we're going to have an Iowa 

TBD discussion leading to an SEC petition 

discussion tomorrow. I'd like to remind you 

that the SEC -- excuse me, the SEC rule -- and 

I'll read from it -- the Director of NIOSH will 

propose a decision to add or deny classes of 

employees to the cohort. This proposed 

decision will take into account one, the 

evaluations of NIOSH; two, the report and 

recommendations of the Board; three, 

information and -- presented or submitted to 

the Board; and four, the deliberations of the 

Board. 

 I point out number four to you now. The 

deliberations of this Board are terribly 

important as they will create a record that 

will support your recommendation. I encourage 

you to -- to deliberate fully and to make that 

record as complete as possible as you undertake 

the issues surrounding Iowa. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lew. And I note, Board 

members, there also is a handout from John 

Mauro which is his PowerPoint presentation. 
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Did everybody get that, as well? I found that 

in my stack and that's -- that deals with the 

Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. That will be our 

contractor's presentation. Make sure you have 

that. 

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 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then I call the Board's 

attention to a draft which we will address 

probably tomorrow, but this is a draft letter -

- I don't believe it's available yet to the 

public, maybe it is -- so far we just have 

copies for the Board. We will make copies for 

the public. This is a letter which was -- the 

Board requested at its telephone meeting last 

month that deals with the Iowa situation and 

the Board's action or sort of no action in the 

intervening period, and deals with the issue of 

what happened with regard to our previous 

recommendation. So this will be in the form of 

a letter, which will be considered and will be 

directed to the claimants, and Mike and Rich 

were tasked to prepare that letter on behalf of 

the Board, so that -- you have that draft, too. 

 (Pause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I'm sorry. I'm the only one 
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that has this. This is a secret draft and I'm 

not letting you see it. 

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make sure the Board members have it, and also 

it'll be available for the public. It's not in 

final form, but basically expresses some 

regrets about the situation. 

8 REVIEW OF DRAFT MINUTES

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let us proceed then. I call 

attention to the draft minutes in your booklet 

and you probably discovered by now that there 

is -- there's something missing in it. It 

revolves around pages 14, 15 -- well, 14 and 15 

of those minutes. The -- you will -- you will 

see as you look at that that there's a large 

gap in the minutes in terms of content, and we 

are trying to retrieve the appropriate pages, 

so without objection we'll defer action on 

those minutes till later in the meeting, 

probably tomorrow or even the next day 

depending on how soon we get these. You can 

make sure everything else is okay in the 

meantime, but we will not take action until we 

have the full set of minutes before us. 

25 IOWA ARMY AMMUNITION PLANT TECHNICAL BASIS 
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 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to proceed now with 

the materials relating to the Iowa Army 

Ammunition Plant. This will be initiated by a 

presentation by NIOSH, followed by a 

presentation by SC&A, so we'll begin with the 

NIOSH presentation on the Technical Basis 

Document, and Tim Taulbee is going to make that 

presentation. Tim? 

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 MR. TAULBEE: Can everybody hear me okay? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ladies and 

gentlemen of the Board. I appreciate this 

opportunity to talk to you about the revision 

to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant Technical 

Basis Document. 

 Before I get started I want to recognize one of 

my colleagues, Mark Rolfes. He's another 

health physicist. Mark and I worked on this 

revision together. Mark is primarily 

responsible for the internal dose changes to 

the site profile or the Technical Basis 

Document, whereas I worked on the external dose 

reconstruction components. Next slide, please. 

Little bit of an overview of what I plan on 
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talking with you today about is a background of 

this revision, a little bit of the history of 

how we got to where we're at today with this 

revision. I'll specifically go through the 

changes with site description, onsite ambient 

dose, internal dose reconstruction and external 

dose reconstruction, and then wrap up with a 

quick summary. Next slide, please. 

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 The main purpose of this revision was to 

address worker comments and concerns that we 

had heard through a series -- or a couple of 

public meetings -- or one public meet-- one 

public meeting and one worker meeting. And the 

second purpose was to extend the coverage 

period. Rev. 0 of the Technical Basis Document 

only covered from 1957 to 1974, and part of 

that reason was our uncertainty with the 

materials that were handled and the work 

practices from that early time period. So we 

knew with Rev. 0 we were going to have to try 

and do more work to understand those earlier 

exposures, and so that part was reserved. The 

new revision goes from 1949 to 1974. Next 

slide. 

 Specifically, some of the worker comments and 
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concerns that we heard dealt with internal 

dose, the handling of bare pits, depleted 

uranium exposures and how that -- the exposure 

potential occurred during disassembly. 

Probably the largest thing that we heard was 

the use of Pantex data, and specifically for 

tritium exposures, radon. And then also the 

use of Pantex data under external dose with the 

neutron to photon ratios, and also again the 

handling of bare pits and workers not caring -- 

or not wearing dosimeters all the time. 

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 What I'm going to do through my presentation is 

kind of hit on each one of these to go through 

the changes that we made to the site profile 

and how we revised it to incorporate these 

particular comments. Next slide. 

 So a little bit of the revision time line. 

About a year ago, in April 2004, was the first 

Technical Basis Document for Rev. 0, and this 

was developed by the Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities team and it was reviewed by NIOSH. 

And kind of the fundamental basis of that 

initial site profile was using a lot of Pantex 

data. With both Iowa Army Ammunitions Plant 

and Pantex assembling nuclear weapons, we felt 
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at that time that the work practices would have 

been similar. They were operated by the same 

company. We felt that that was a good 

surrogate. 

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 In June 2004 Mr. Elliott and Dr. Neton came out 

to Iowa and discussed that site profile or 

Technical Basis Document -- pardon me if I'm 

using those two words interchangeably -- and 

the purpose was is to discuss it with the 

public and with workers. And during that time 

numerous comments and concerns were raised, and 

they came back to NIOSH sharing those concerns 

with the rest of the team. They asked Mark and 

I to look into these comments or look into 

these questions that workers had raised because 

they really posed potentially major problems 

with our initial assumptions of using some of 

the Pantex data and that applicability. 

 So in July of 2004 Mark Rolfes and I came out 

here and we had the privilege of meeting with 

workers -- some of them I see in the audience 

and it's good to see them again -- to discuss 

their concerns in more detail, in more depth, 

so that we could gain an understanding of that. 

 Following that meeting we came back to 
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Cincinnati and began to come up with our 

strategy of how we were going to review and 

incorporate their concerns, and we quickly 

realized that we needed access to more 

information. We needed to know what the source 

terms were, what were the early work practices, 

because at that time all we had reviewed was 

non-classified information. 

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 We went to the National Archives and Records 

Administration, as well as to the Department of 

Energy in Germantown, in order to gain this 

additional insight as to -- to try and address 

some of these concerns. 

 In November of this year is when we began 

revising the site profile or the Technical 

Basis Document. We -- as part of the expanded 

time period we needed to conduct some 

calculations, some dose recalculations. These 

were conducted by Pacific Northwest National 

Laboratory under contract to Oak Ridge 

Associated Universities. 

In January we submitted the revision for 

classification review. Because we had used 

classified information in our review, we were 

concerned of how much of that information would 
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get translated into the document, and we needed 

to get this reviewed by the Department of 

Energy to make sure that we weren't divulging 

anything or disclosing anything that we 

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 We received a non-redacted document back from 

DOE on February 14th. Unfortunately that was a 

week after your last Advisory Board meeting is 

when we actually got that document back. 

 And then in March we released the revised site 

profile. Next slide. 

 So now I'm going to try and go through some of 

the changes to the site profile and start with 

the site description and fissile materials. 

Well, when did fissile materials first arrive 

on site? And what I'm talking about with 

fissile materials, they're the most radioactive 

component from an external and internal dose -- 

dose reconstruction effort. 

 We looked at lots of different sources -- 

interviews with weapons experts, review of 

courier service history, multiple literature 

notations -- and we really don't have a good 

answer for this particular question. We've got 

a general guideline of what time frame that we 
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believe these materials were on site. But 

since we can't rule out that early time period 

-- and I'll talk a little more about that in 

just a second -- we've used the claimantfavorable assumption that they've been on site 

since March of 1949, which is when the first 

weapons were assembled at Iowa. Next slide. 

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 But some of the information that we do have 

that we can share is that the early weapons 

were what was called in-flight-insertable, thus 

they were a ball and capsule design and the 

capsule was kept separate from the weapon. The 

capsule was what would contain the fissile 

material, the uranium or plutonium. And this 

was kept separate from the rest of the weapon 

until the time of use. 

 We know that the first sealed pit assembled in 

Iowa was the W-25, and this was in December of 

1956. 

 We know from the Line 1 project history reports 

that prior to the assembly of the W-25 that 

non-radioactive model pits, or capsules, were 

used in mockups during assembly. 

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about the Mason-Hanger Company, we have an 
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annotation that in 1956 the company recorded 

two more firsts at the Burlington AEC plant, 

and this is when they first began to assemble 

nuclear warheads for guided missiles, and in 

doing so handled the fissionable material for 

the first time. 

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 In October of 1957 was the assembly of -- or 

the construction of Gravel Gerties, and the 

purpose of the Gravel Gertie is to marry, 

basically, the fissile material with the high 

explosives in a safe type of environment. What 

they were concerned with was an off-site 

release should the explosives go off 

prematurely, therefore there could be a 

dispersion of fissile material. So they 

constructed these Gravel Gerties and the first 

time that this occurred was in October of 1957. 

 So all this data together still doesn't give us 

a definitive date, unfortunately, as to when 

the fissile materials were on site. And the 

primary reason is is we know they weren't 

assembled, but there was surveillance activity 

that went on during the assembly process, and 

surveillance would be bringing a weapon out of 

the stockpile and teardown and then reassembly. 
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And during that time period we can't rule out 

that the capsules didn't come back out of the 

field. We don't believe that they did, but 

since we can't rule it out, we've gone with the 

claimant-favorable assumption of assuming 1949. 

Next slide. 

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 Another worker comment and concern that we 

heard -- that Mark and I heard out in -- down 

in Burlington back in July was that our 

exclusion of onsite ambient dose -- that there 

would be some low level exposure to workers not 

on Line 1 and that -- you know, around 

transportation gates and that type of thing. 

 Initially the Rev. 0 used the Pantex data to 

justify this dose would be very low. What 

we've done is we've gone back and we've looked 

at the area dosimetry from with inside the 

assembly cells -- non-storage areas but 

assembly cells -- and determined from that data 

that there's a dose rate of around 37 millirem 

per year. So this purpose of this onsite 

ambient dose is to assign it to non-Line 1 

workers. Next slide, please. 

 So moving on to internal dose reconstruction, 

one of the concerns we heard was workers 
27

handling bare pits, and this caused us a great 

deal of concern when we first started our 

reviews because this affected both internal and 

external dose reconstruction. From an internal 

dose reconstruction, we were very concerned 

about the material oxidizing or something along 

those lines and being available for workers 

from an inhalation standpoint. 

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 What we verified through a review of classified 

information is that all the fissile materials 

were encapsulated at the site. I can 

understand why workers would indicate the bare 

handling of pits. To workers this would 

actually seem as if they were handling bare 

metal, bare uranium or bare plutonium, but 

there was a cladding material. There was a 

material surrounding the actual fissile 

material, encapsulating it. 

 So following along with the internal dose 

reconstruction, I'm going to go through the 

tritium, depleted uranium and radon changes. 

This did not constitute a change in the 

Technical Basis Document. This was further 

confirmation of -- of Rev. 0. Next slide. 

So with the tritium dose estimation -- again, 
28

this was a reliance on the Pantex data, and 

some of the reason for the Pantex data -- not 

to make any excuses here, but it was more 

readily available at the time, at the initial 

time of the writing of the site profile, and we 

did rely on it too heavily. We should have 

gone more with the Iowa data. 

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 Again, in Rev. 0 the basis for the dose 

estimation was Pantex coworker data. In the 

revision we used tritium measure-- Iowaspecific tritium measurement data. This was 

new data that we had collected. And then also 

process knowledge, and some of this comes from 

our interviews with workers, and this was a 

really -- very interesting component and we 

were very fortunate. When we sat down with 

workers back in July, we went through and they 

described to us how the materials would be 

handled onsite or arrived and how they would be 

tested and inspected. And then when we 

reviewed the AEC health and safety reports, we 

found that in fact same description of how 

these materials would be handled, how they 

would have been checked, and so we had two 

corroborating evidence. When we compared that 
29

to the tritium measurement data, all three were 

telling the same story, so we're very confident 

that we've got an idea or that we know what was 

going on with the tritium in that time period, 

even though to date we have not been able to 

locate any tritium bioassay data. Next slide. 

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 So our tritium exposure model is based upon the 

purging of the headspace gas that's in the JP 

containers. These would be tritium shipping 

containers. And basically before these would 

be allowed to be released to production for 

assembly, they had to be purged to make sure 

the concentration was below 90 microcuries per 

cubic meter. Based upon this type of allowable 

concentration, we've estimated that the maximum 

annual intake would be about 4,900 microcuries 

per year, and this results in a dose of about 

331 millirem per year. 

Now this dose level would be easily readily 

detectable in bioassay. This dose level is 

higher than the typical or average value that 

you see at Savannah River, which is where these 

containers would have been packaged together. 

 What we have is an AEC review in 1969 

indicating no positive urinalysis. That was 
30

according to their report in 1969. Now we 

don't know what they're referring to as what 

was positive. It could have been five 

microcuries per liter. But we do -- we also 

interviewed an Iowa laboratory staff person who 

analyzed the bioassay. And he indicated that 

there were a few positives; however, nothing 

abnormally high. He indicated that the vast 

majority of the data was zero, that it was 

below detection limit. And again, four 

microcuries per liter would have been readily 

detectable at that time period. 

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 So with this revised model, the Iowa assigned 

exposure is approximately three times higher 

than what the maximum recorded annual dose at 

Pantex is. And the reason for this is we're 

using an exposure model instead of bioassay 

data. As you'll see with -- when I get later 

into the external dose reconstruction, any time 

we use a source term model to do our dose 

estimations, we end up compounding claimantfavorable assumptions and so our estimates of 

exposure increase quite significantly. Next 

slide. 

 Another concern that we addressed in the 
31

revised site profile was dealing with the 

disassembly and depleted uranium exposures. 

From our review of classified information we 

determined that the original exposure source 

term from Rev. 0 was appropriate. However, as 

workers pointed out to us during our meetings 

that the frequency of disassembly and the time 

period certainly needed to be modified. Our 

initial assumptions were that Iowa primarily 

did assembly type of operations, not 

disassembly -- not assembly and disassembly. 

From our review of information, they clearly 

did more assembly than disassembly, but with 

the surveillance activity thrown in there, 

you've also got weapons coming out of the 

field, being torn down, which could be 

considered a disassembly operation, as well. 

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 So in Rev. 0 the frequency of disassemblies -- 

and this would be one worker -- what they're 

involved with was initially two disassemblies 

per year, and this was very, very low. Rev. 1 

we've changed that to 100 disassemblies per 

year. And from our interviews with workers, 

they talked about that there would be a 

production schedule, that at times there would 
32

be periods of assembly and then there would be 

periods of disassembly and then periods of 

surveillance. And so it was kind of a cycle 

that was going on and they stuck very close to 

that particular schedule. This is what we 

gained back in July. 

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 What we learned also is the time period. 

Initially Rev. 0 only considered from 1950 to 

1957. With the revision we've expanded that 

from 1949 to '74, and again this is due to that 

surveillance activity that workers would have 

been doing of the teardown of the particular 

weapons. Next slide. 

 Another internal dose exposure to change within 

this new revision was at Firing Site 12. 

During our review of the Iowa specific air 

sample data from FS-12, Mark noted that some of 

the positive air samples for depleted uranium 

were during regular HE tests. And we knew 

initially during the hydroshot tests that we 

would -- that we would see depleted uranium 

increases, and that was accounted for in Rev. 0 

of the Technical Basis Document. However, 

these non-hydroshot tests or regular HE tests 

was a surprise to us. And in -- through 
33

interviews with people familiar with the 

hydroshot operation and then subsequent HE 

testing -- this is likely the resuspension of 

contaminated soil following the hydroshot 

activities. Some of the uranium would be 

deposited on the ground and you'd detonate a 

regular HE charge and that -- some of that dirt 

would be resuspended, and that was resulting in 

the positive air samples. 

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 Again, this exposure was not considered in Rev. 

0. With the help of information from workers 

and so forth, we've added this as a chronic -- 

chronic intake model based upon the air sample 

data to account for exposures over the whole 

time period from hydroshots starting around 

1965 to 1974. Next slide. 

Another concern we heard was the use of Pantex 

data for radon estimation. And again, this was 

when we went and we looked back at the data 

that we had, and the Iowa radon measurement 

data was lower than the Pantex data that we 

had. Since this was lower, we didn't make a 

change to the Technical Basis Document. The 

geometric mean was lower than the Pantex data, 

and so we viewed this as being more claimant-
34

favorable; therefore we left this particular 

exposure alone. Next slide, please. 

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 Now I want to talk a little bit about the 

external dose reconstruction and kind of go 

through the monitoring time line and 

specifically talk about photon dose and neutron 

dose. 

 What I'm not going to talk about is skin dose. 

I'm going to talk about that right here 'cause 

this is still reserved in the site profile. 

And the reason that the skin dose is still 

reserved at this point in time is due to a 

description that we heard from -- from workers 

and from Dr. Laurence Fuortes, who indicated 

that some workers discussed an exposure of 

reaching back into what -- what they referred 

to as the pit and wiping it out, the inside. 

Well, it wasn't the pit. It was -- this was of 

the ball and capsule design weapon, so they'd 

be reaching back into the ball and doing 

potentially some cleaning or something along 

those lines. In that type of an exposure 

scenario, at worst case the exposure would be 

depleted uranium. Therefore there could be a 

significant beta dose rate to the hand and to 
35

the forearm, and at this time we can't estimate 

what that particular exposure is. However, 

it's non-penetrating radiation. This would be 

beta dose to the skin at this time. So until 

we develop that particular model, this skin 

dose is still reserved within the site profile. 

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 So now talking along the monitoring time line, 

what you will find in looking at the data -- 

and I hope to walk you through it here -- is 

from 1949 to 1974 there's really four periods 

or eras of dosimetry monitoring. And era one 

would be from 1949 to 1955, and this is where 

there's no personal monitoring data. This is 

also during the time period of in-flightinsertable weapons. Therefore, we don't really 

have an indication that they were on site. If 

they were on site, then this would clearly be a 

gap in personal monitoring type of protection. 

If they were not on site, there wouldn't be any 

exposure and you wouldn't expect any -- any 

personal monitoring data during that time 

period. 

Is this better, if I just stand back? We'll 

try it this way. Sorry. 

 Era two would be from 1955 to 1962, and here 
36

all that we have is intermittent monitoring 

data. Typically what we have is one quarter of 

monitoring data per year, and it's important to 

note that we're not sure that they weren't 

doing more monitoring at that time period. We 

only have primarily the Landauer badge 

information. We know that they were using 

Tracer Labs, as well. And so from our data 

gaps, it could be where they're switching 

between vendors. We just simply don't know at 

this time. 

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 We do know that this was the time period of the 

first sealed pits, that this is where we do 

have definitive evidence that the fissile 

materials were on site. We also know that at -

- during this time period was the establishment 

of the Rad-Safe Program, or the radiation 

protection program, which included monitoring 

of individuals, both personal monitoring as 

well as air sampling. There was training that 

was conducted on all Line 1 workers for the 

safe handling of radioactive materials, as well 

as the development of emergency response 

capabilities, both on site and off site. All 

of this is in the Project One history reports 
37

that are -- that were available from the 

University of Iowa and from the Department of 

Energy. 

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 Era three is from 1963 to 1967. This is again 

routine monitoring data -- or this is the first 

time period when we had routine monitoring 

data. And the badging was of workers with the 

highest exposure potential, and specifically 

radiographers, assembly/disassembly workers and 

inspection workers. And I'll get to a slide a 

few down from now where I'll discuss this a 

little bit more. 

During this time period was the first 

implementation of neutron monitoring data using 

NTA film, as well as the routine monitoring of 

fissile material storage areas. This would be 

area monitoring, area badges placed within the 

storage vaults. Next slide. 

 The final era is from 1968 to 1974. This is 

where there's extensive routine monitoring of 

the work force. They were using the Landauer 

Gardray badge. This was a J-type badge which 

was four-window film badge. It had an open 

window, a plastic window for beta 

determination, an aluminum window for low 
38

energy photons, and then a lead/tin alloy 

filter for high energy photons. 

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 There was also the badging of multiple types of 

workers. People generally entering any of the 

controlled areas were badged. We also see the 

first extremity -- routine extremity dosimeter 

monitoring. This was for people handling the 

more radioactive -- the actual pits during 

their inspection process. 

 Also we have continued neutron monitoring there 

in this time period, and then there's also 

extensive area monitoring of the fissile 

material storage areas as well as each assembly 

cell. At Iowa there would be a dosimeter put 

into each assembly cell. It was read on a twoweek basis, and those results were recorded. 

 So what we have from an external dose time 

period is from era three and era four we have 

routine monitoring data that is available. 

Prior to this time period, all we have is -- 

well, we had no monitoring data, and then we 

had some intermittent data where sometimes 

there'd be a period of a few months that would 

be together, and then we don't have any more 

data for that particular year. 
39

 So we have two different types of dose 

reconstruction that we do here. One would be 

using the routine monitoring data and the other 

would be development of a source term model, 

and this is where the generic pit and the work 

factor come into play. 

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 So what I would like to do is focus on this 

last time period first because this data is 

actually used back here in our model for 

estimating the earlier work -- or earlier 

doses, and so I want to try and explain this 

component first. 

 So one of the worker concerns that we heard 

with this latter period where dosimeters were -

- were worn was that there was a looselyenforced practice mandating radiation 

dosimeters be worn at all times. Some workers 

during our interviews indicated that they 

always wore their badge, others did not, that 

they didn't always wear their badge. 

 Well, what this does to the data is introduce a 

negative bias in the monitoring data, so 

there'd be too many zeroes within the dataset. 

Rev. 0 we didn't account for this. We only 

accounted for the missed dose based upon 
40

1 readings below the limit of detection. 

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 In Rev. 0 (sic) we incorporate this by applying 

a correction method of eliminating the zeroes, 

and let me go through that right now. The red 

line here is the original data. This would be 

from 1965 at -- at the Iowa Army Ammunition 

Plant. If you were to fit a distribution -- a 

lognormal distribution to this dataset, you end 

up with a geometric mean of about 6.6 mR per 

month that a worker would be exposed to. 

 Well, in this period of -- this 60 percent 

zeroes, we have three populations of people. 

One would be workers who wore a badge and were 

not exposed, so they are true zeroes. Another 

would be workers who wore a badge but the 

reading was below a limit of detection, 

therefore they were exposed but their badge 

reading would be zero. And now we've got this 

third group of people who did not wear their 

badge, even though they were supposed to and 

the rad protection group really didn't enforce 

the practice. 

 So we looked at how could we partition that 

across here, should we take the number of 

zeroes and partition it, 33 percent across each 
41

one. Should we assume half of the zeroes were 

false zeroes. We looked at different ways that 

we could try and do this and realized that any 

way that we tried to partition this was going 

to not be giving the full benefit of the 

(unintelligible) or the uncertainty to the 

claimants, therefore we eliminated all of the 

zeroes. 

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 So effectively what ends up happening is for 

our geometric mean we're now sampling up here 

at around 17.4 mR per hour. This would be 

about the 83rd percentile of the original data. 

So now we bias all of the monitoring data that 

we had. By eliminating the zeroes we moved it 

up to where we're only analyzing that top 

portion of the dataset. So this does introduce 

a slight bias to the data, but we don't really 

see any other way around estimating these 

zeroes. Next slide, please. 

 From this data the geometric mean of an annual 

dose is calculated -- these were monthly doses, 

actually four-week, so there's going to be 13 

badge exchange cycles per year. And so in 

order to estimate this, you'd simply multiply 

by 13 by those values that are in Appendix F of 
42

1 the site profile. 

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 Some of the claimant-favorable assumptions that 

introduce this bias is that we're assuming an 

exposure every -- every cycle, every badge 

exchange cycle. We're not taking any credit 

that some people would be monitored but not 

exposed, nor that there are values that are 

actually below a limit of detection. So we've 

eliminated the limit of detection, we've 

eliminated true positive zero. 

 So these are the new annual dose distributions, 

and in specific this particular column here, 

and this would be the uncertainty in the upper 

95th percentile. I've included in this 

particular slide the number of workers 

monitored. After we released the site profile 

-- this is one of the quickest comments that we 

got back, that we had taken out that number of 

workers and what was NIOSH trying to hide. I 

wasn't trying to hide anything. I simply 

didn't use it in my data analysis. What I was 

using here was the positive dosimeters, and 

that was why that particular information was in 

there. I apologize if anybody was under the 

impression that -- that I was actually trying 
43

to hide this information, but it certainly 

wasn't. In a revision of the site profile I 

will include it back in. 

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 What we have here is the actual number of 

positive dosimeters, by year, and this is what 

we used to develop those particular 

distributions. And as you can see, we have 

several hundred per year, totaling up to about 

6,000 total positive dosimeters measuring 

radiation dose at Iowa. This is out of a total 

of about 22,000 dosimeters over this time 

period. Next slide. Oh, I'm sorry, go back 

for just a second. 

 What I want to do is -- because of this concern 

about the number of workers monitored in this 

early time period, I took 1965, which was 46 

workers, and went back and determined where -- 

who were those workers during that time period. 

Next slide. 

And in going through my assessment, what we 

found is that of the 40 workers within a single 

dosimeter cycle in 1965, 15 of them were from 

the production department, nine were from the 

inspection department, six from the X-ray 

department, and these were the workers who were 
44

the most highly-exposed on the site. These 

were the people handling the pits directly and 

directly working with the fissile materials. 

Safety and the AEC also were included in this 

population. Most of the zeroes that you see in 

the dataset are from these two pop-- from these 

two particular groups. So by discarding the 

groups or discarding all of the zeroes, what 

we've got is a sampling of the highest exposed 

workers. 

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 Other of the other interesting things in 

looking at the particular datasets was 

following our discussions with workers out here 

in Iowa where they were very -- very helpful in 

describing their work practices and the work 

activities, I was able to go back to Cincinnati 

and look at the dosimeter reports and look at 

the names, and I saw several of the same people 

that I had just interviewed, that I had worked 

with, that were describing these exposures to 

me. So I'm very confident that we have the 

highest exposed workers in this -- even though 

this is a small population, we've actually 

included them. 

 The other thing to consider within this 
45

population is that in 1963 the AEC put out 

standards for radiation protection, and this 

would be AEC manual 0524. In that they 

required individual monitoring for all workers 

likely to exceed ten percent of the quarterly 

limit. The quarterly limit at this time period 

was three rem per quarter. So they were 

required to monitor everybody who had the 

potential of exceeding 300 millirem. If you'd 

go back a slide. 

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 What you'll see here is during this time period 

-- this is the upper 95th percentile of our 

modified distribution. All of these doses are 

well under the 1.2 rem per year that would 

trigger that particular type of monitoring. 

And this is why only a sampling was done. This 

is -- this is compliance-based monitoring. We 

see this across multiple Department of Energy 

sites where they only monitor the workers that 

they feel are the highest exposed to ensure 

compliance with the AEC regulations. As the 

doses began to expand, so did the number of 

people being monitored and the number of -- the 

issuance of dosimetry really increased, almost 

-- well, three -- four-fold. So as things -- 
46

as materials would begin to increase dose rate, 

you end up with a higher monitoring percentage. 

Next slide. No, the next one. 

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 Another worker concern that we heard was the 

handling of the bare pits. Even though the 

pits would be encapsulated, there was concern 

of the low energy photon dose. For Rev. 0 

(sic) this is where we used the generic pit. 

 And some of the claimant-favorable assumptions 

here that we use is that all pits were 

plutonium without cladding. And there's only 

so much that I can say about cladding -- that I 

can disclose about cladding materials, et 

cetera. In fact, it's very little, so to 

ensure I don't say anything that I'm not 

supposed to, let me read something out of here, 

out of the site profile, because I know this is 

approved text. 

 (Reading) It's important to note that not all 

components had a significant low energy photon 

dose. There are three basic types of pit used 

in assembly and disassembly at Iowa. One, 

enriched uranium pits; two, plutonium pits; 

three, composite pits, or a combination of 

plutonium and enriched uranium. Since the low 
47

energy -- or, I'm sorry. In the composite pits 

the plutonium always had an outer shell of 

enriched uranium. 

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 So when they were composited they would be 

surrounded by enriched uranium, and enriched 

uranium doesn't have much of a low energy 

photon dose compared to plutonium. 

 (Reading) Since the low energy photon dose from 

enriched uranium is negligible, only the 

plutonium pits had a potential for significant 

low energy photon dose. 

So what we've assumed from the generic pit 

standpoint, and for all time periods, is that 

all of the pits were plutonium. So we've 

eliminated all of the others in an effort to 

overestimate. We've assumed that there's no 

cladding. We've also assumed that all the pits 

were 15-year aged plutonium, and this could be 

typical of a disassembly type of an operation. 

As plutonium ages, over time you get more ingrowth of plutonium 241 converting to 

americium, therefore the dose rate actually 

increases over time from fissile materials. 

 Another overestimating assumption that we've 

used is that all dosimeter badges could only 
48

measure a fraction of the americium 241 

photopeak. This is the predominant dose 

component from -- from the plutonium pits, 

especially the aged ones. 

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 When we initially wrote this revised site 

profile, this was our assumption 'cause we were 

quite confident that as we gained more 

information about their photon monitoring that 

we would find that their dosimeter probably 

could have measured this dose -- the full dose, 

not just a fraction. But at the time when we 

wrote this back in November, December and 

January, we didn't have that information yet 

and so we put this in as a claimant-favorable 

overestimate. Since then we've found out that 

clearly the use of the Landauer Gardray J badge 

could measure the full photopeak, and so this 

is really an overestimate. All of these 

maximize the low energy photon dose. Next 

slide. 

 So the changes to post-1963, what we've done is 

we've corrected for the potential negative bias 

of workers not wearing their dosimeters by a 

reanalysis of the dosimetry data. We've 

incorporated the low energy photon dose from 
49

specific pits, and these are the adjustment 

factors that I've got here. When you total 

these up, this comes out to about a factor of 

two that we would be multiplying their 

dosimeter dose by in order to account for this 

low energy photon dose. 

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 I guess I should back up a little bit there. 

With the concern on the low energy photon dose, 

the initial Rev. 0 of this site profile 

indicated that all of the pits were -- would be 

of sufficient -- the cladding would be 

sufficiently thick such that there wouldn't be 

any dose. During our review we've determined 

that that is generally the case, but not 

always, and this is why we used the plutonium 

over the whole time period. Next slide. 

So now let me talk about the changes for dose 

reconstruction prior to 1963. Prior to 1955 we 

don't have any monitoring data. We expected 

the exposures would be low due to the absence 

of fissile material, and if they were present 

at all it would be during these surveillance or 

modifications, retrofits that would be 

conducted, so it wasn't a routine type of an 

exposure, as it was in latter years. 
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 Starting around 1955 we have intermittent 

monitoring data, but since we -- to fill in 

those gaps, we decided to go with the source 

term model using a generic pit and a work 

factor. And again, any time we use source term 

type of model, we end up compounding claimantfavorable assumptions on top of each other and 

this over -- tends to overestimate the dose. 

Next slide. 

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 So when we first talked about the generic pit, 

what we needed to do was find out what the 

source term was and be able to talk about it, 

and our goal was to try and be as transparent 

as we could at the time. And so through a 

review of the classified literature and with 

the assistance of the Department of Energy, we 

developed parameters to describe a generic pit. 

And the goal of this was to come up with a 

bounding -- a bounding pit. With these 

parameters, and these are identified in 

Appendix D of the site profile or TBD, what we 

have is the result of an upper bound of the 

photon dose rate from all pits at Iowa. With 

these parameters, with our modeling, this is 

the upper bound. This would be the maximum 
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dose rate a worker would be exposed to from 

handling one of these materials. 

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 These calculations were conducted by Pacific 

Northwest National Laboratory by Dr. Rick Traub 

and Dr. Bob Sherpells*, who ran MCNP codes in 

order to calculate what this dose rate would 

be, and then this was compared with measurement 

data. 

 The purpose -- go back, I'm sorry. The purpose 

of the generic pit, again, was to establish an 

upper bound. So with this generic pit we could 

come up with -- if a worker were to hold one of 

these pits for 2,000 hours of a year, this 

would be a true upper bound for the particular 

worker. What we wanted to do was come up with 

is a more reasonable dose, 'cause the purpose 

was to put this and assemble this object into a 

-- into a weapon. This is where the work 

factor came in. Is there a way we could use 

the latter monitoring period to estimate what 

the relative time or proximity or shielding 

they would have been exposed to from the 

earlier time period. Now next slide. 

 So again we're using the routine monitoring 

data here in trying to estimate what the dose 
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1 would be back in this time period. Next slide. 

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 So again, the work factor is a relative 

occupancy, proximity and shielding factor. It 

was not intended to be maximized. It was never 

intended to be the 95th percentile. The 

combination of the generic pit, which is an 

upper bound, a maximum dose rate, and the work 

factor is an overestimate of the dose. And 

this is where you basically take -- you can -- 

you can prove this to yourself by looking at 

normal distributions and multiplying one by the 

other. If you take a maximum, like a 99th 

percentile of the normal distribution, and as 

long as you're multiplying your second 

distribution by at least the mean, or something 

slightly positive, then you're going to end up 

with your final distribution being an 

overestimate of the combination of the two. 

Okay? 

 So it was never intended to be maximized. It 

was the combination of these two would result 

in an overestimate of the dose. 

The work factor was calculated by taking that 

modified annual distribution times the 

correction factor to make the units work 
53

between exposure and personal dose equivalent, 

divided by what we call the era dose rate times 

2,000 hours. 

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 Now unfortunately, here's where transparency or 

disclosure becomes an issue because I can't 

really describe to you what the era dose rate 

is or how we calculated it. So this is an area 

where I was able to explain it to Mr. Presley 

and Mr. Griffon and Mr. Fitzgerald and Ms. 

DeMers in Germantown, but in this scenario I 

can't disclose how we actually calculated this 

particular dose -- this dose rate. Next slide. 

 To calculate the work factor, though, what we 

took was the modified Hp(10), the era dose rate 

times 2,000 hours will give you the simulated 

annual dose, and we calculated a series of work 

factors. And you'll see we've divided those 

between era three and era four, and the reason 

we did that was we knew that there was a change 

within monitoring -- where is that; here it is 

-- where in this later time period we're 

looking at thousands of dosimeters being 

issued. And so we wanted to know was there 

going to be a change in the work factor during 

this time period, and our initial intent was to 
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take the maximum of the two. What we found is 

we got basically the same answer. 

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 So we're very confident that what we're 

predicting here is the actual exposure 

potential, because it tracks along with our era 

dose rate changes. Next slide. 

 So in estimating the pre-1963 dose, we take the 

generic pit -- which again is an upper bound. 

We have a claimant-favorable central tendency 

of the work factor, and I've got this as a 

small arrow because it's a slight bias; it's 

nothing like what the generic pit bias is. 

Times 2,000 hours, and then we get into a 

little bit of a problem with the americium and 

the 15-year assumption -- claimant-favorable 

assumption, and then in 1949 there was no such 

thing in the AEC as 15-year plutonium. So we 

ramped this up, assuming that plutonium was all 

made in 1945 up to a maximum in 1960. Overall 

this is a -- this results in an overestimate of 

the annual dose. Next slide. 

And this is illustrated by this graph. This is 

our model dose, and you can see that the value 

peaks out here about four -- about four rem, 

four and a half rem, and this is before you 
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apply any adjustment factors. This is before 

you apply that additional dose -- or not 

additional dose but the correction for the low 

energy photon response. So effectively these 

values would all be multiplied by two. And 

what you'll see -- this is where the model dose 

and uncertainty and compounding claimantfavorable assumptions ends up overestimating 

what the actual dose would be. 'Cause within 

this parameter here -- these arrow bars, by the 

way, are the fifth and 95th percentiles. 

They're not one standard deviation. So 

effectively here in this early time period we 

have the fifth percentile equating about the 

95th percentile later time period monitoring. 

This is how much of an overestimate some of 

this modeled dose that we have is. 

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 Again, because we have intermittent monitoring 

data here and we have no monitoring data here, 

using a source term model's going to introduce 

uncertainty, going to introduce compounding 

claimant-favorable assumptions and you end up 

with a dose that is -- is quite large. The 

true dose is somewhere between zero and up in 

here (indicating). Okay? 
56

 Another worker comment concern that we heard 

was the Pantex neutron to photon ratios. And 

again, this initial assumption of using the 

Pantex data was out of -- out of convenience 

from the early time period of Rev. 0 in that a 

lot of the Iowa data had not been coded yet so 

it hadn't been put into a format such that we 

could easily analyze it. Since then we've 

coded it. We also used MCNP to determine the 

under-response of the NTA dosimeter. NTA film 

has a problem below about 800 keV neutrons in 

that it really can't measure them, so we used 

MCNP to model what fraction of the dose would 

be below 800 keV, and it comes out to about 40 

percent. So from a claimant-favorable 

standpoint, we doubled the actual dose. It 

would be like 50 percent. 

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 And when we finished doing this, the Pantex 

data still indicated a higher ratio, and this 

is likely due to the contemporary use of lead 

aprons. At Pantex they use lead aprons to 

block some of the photon dose that would be 

delivered to a worker. In the use of a lead 

apron you're going to be blocking the photon 

dose, but the neutrons it's pretty transparent 
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to. So the end result was no change to the 

Technical Basis Document. And on the next 

slide let me show you what the actual values 

were. 

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 The original Iowa data, neutron to photon 

ratio, was .15. When we corrected based upon 

MCNP, it raised this to about .3. The Pantex 

ratio is .79, so it's about a factor of two and 

a half higher than what the corrected Iowa data 

would indicate. Since this was a claimantfavorable assumption, we already had it in the 

Technical Basis Document, we didn't try and 

revise it in order to do -- make any changes. 

Next slide. 

So in summary, the major purpose of this 

revision was to incorporate worker comments and 

concerns. The second part was to expand the 

dose reconstruction methodology into that early 

time period. The initial site profile was 

truncated at 1957; we needed to expand it back 

to 1949. 

 As you can see from the presentation, 

transparency and the disclosure of information 

from '49 to '62 -- I really can't tell you all 

that there is about the work factor and the 
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details of how that was calculated. From '63 

to '74, with the release of the generic pit 

dose cal-- dose rate calculations we can now 

discuss what that full dose rate would be, and 

there is no issue with disclosure in that time 

period. 

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 And finally, while disclosure is an important 

program value for us at NIOSH, it's not an 

overriding limitation on the scientific conduct 

of our dose reconstructions for compensation 

purposes. 

And with that, I'll be happy to answer any 

questions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Tim. Let's begin with 

Wanda Munn, and then Gen Roessler. 

 MS. MUNN: Since there's no indication of any 

fissile materials on site prior to 1955, I have 

forgotten why we felt it necessary to begin our 

overview at 1949. 

 MR. TAULBEE: 1949 is when they did the first 

assembly of nuclear weapons. After -- once you 

start an assembly operation and you start 

sending weapons off into the stockpile, they 

would come back occasionally under surveillance 

type of mode where they would be torn down and 
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then put back together again. We can't rule 

out that the capsule didn't come back at this 

time with those weapons during the 

surveillance. We know that they were not 

assembled -- the capsules were not assembled 

into the weapons 'cause we have evidence of the 

use of mockup pits for that purpose. So it's 

that early time period of that potential for 

exposure. We haven't been able to rule it out 

is the simple reason. 

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 MS. MUNN: I see. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Clarification here, perhaps, too. 

Identify for the recorder, please. 

 DR. FUORTES: Hello, this is Laurence Fuortes 

and a couple of statements have gone by that I 

would like to take issue with, but just this 

one about the lack of evidence of fissile 

material prior to 1955 is not evidence of no 

fissile material prior to 1955. That is a 

statement regarding the availability of data to 

NIOSH confirming fissile material after 1955, 

not absence, not confirming absence there of -- 

prior to -- we have workers who worked as early 

as 1950 describing no mockup pits at that 

period, so I'd say if you want to ask Mr. Webb 
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or one of the other workers, we can try to 

clarify for you that concern, but this speaks 

very, very, very strongly to a concern I have 

about the availability of data to NIOSH to 

corroborate certain things. So I hope that 

philosophical point makes sense. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. I think Gen 

Roessler and then Jim Melius. 

 DR. ROESSLER: My question has to do with the 

radon estimations that you pointed out. It's 

on page seven in the slide. And you say that 

based on the information you have, the levels 

were lower in the -- this area than in Pantex. 

Well, that's really -- for those of us who live 

in the upper midwest, that's contrary to what I 

would think because Iowa is a high radon state 

and I think this is pointed out quite 

dramatically in a letter which you probably 

haven't seen yet, but from Dr. Field. So I 

don't know how much data that was based on. I 

guess I'd like a little more evaluation of that 

situation, that natural radon. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. Well, we can certainly do 

so. Part of the reason that we did not use the 

Iowa-specific data was, one, it was less than 
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what the Pantex data was. Number two, we 

couldn't tell where those measurements were 

taken on site, whereas with Pantex we had 

building identification so we could tell where 

they were being -- where they were taken and -- 

you know, in the Gravel Gerties, et cetera. At 

Iowa we just had a collection of data, so we 

didn't have exact information of where the 

buil-- where those measurements were taken. So 

as a result, between the two, when you don't 

know, we went with the Pantex data. We could 

certainly try and evaluate that further. I 

don't know that we've gone back to the Army 

recently to see if they actually have 

measurements, you know, within the past year. 

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 DR. NETON: Tim -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton, could you add to that? 

 DR. NETON: I'd just like to add a little bit 

of clarification on that point. I believe 

there was something on the order of about 380 

measurements taken by the Army, but they were 

taken fairly contemporary -- in a fairly 

contemporary time frame, about 1989, so -- and 

we -- we don't know which buildings -- they 

weren't identified as being associated with any 
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particular building. We do feel that we need 

to go back and take another look at that. For 

example, they may not have been -- since they 

were taken by the Army, they may not have been 

placed -- measurements may not have been taken 

in areas that were underground, representing 

the higher potential exposure levels in those 

areas. So we -- we are willing to go back and 

certainly feel we need to go back and take a 

look at that -- that data -- those data. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have some questions about 

the data availability issue. I believe in your 

presentation, Tim, you made a reference to when 

the original ORAU site profile was produced 

that at that time, quote/unquote, the Pantex 

data was more available and therefore they used 

it, and since then you -- you being NIOSH or 

whoever's been involved in this effort -- have 

gone and obtained more data. But is there 

other data available that you have yet to 

examine? I mean it would certainly appear from 

what we've been hearing about both the radon 

and about some of the other data that -- that 

we're continually finding new sources of 
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information about this site. And could you 

give us some sort of overview on that? 

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 MR. TAULBEE: Certainly. Any time we're 

developing a site profile -- site profiles are 

designed inherently to be revised and updated 

as we get new data. At some point you have to 

put an end to the -- to the research and issue 

a Rev. It doesn't mean that you actually stop 

looking for data or stop continuing to collect 

data. It just means at this point in time we 

needed to get a revision out so that we could 

start doing dose reconstructions. The actual 

research could go on effectively for years in a 

sense. And so from that standpoint, we need to 

start doing dose reconstructions. So it's a 

balance between how much data digging do we do, 

and then how much do we feel we've got enough 

to bound some of the dose estimates. 

 To give you a perfect example here, I really 

believe once we get the tritium measurement 

data, we will have sufficient evidence to go 

back and revise the site profile such that the 

tritium doses that we're assigning now are -- 

are much higher than what the actual exposures 

were. The bioassay data I believe is out there 
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somewhere. It could be at Pantex. It could be 

in Iowa Records. We have looked extensively 

for that. But that's an example of potentially 

other data sources that are out there that 

could affect the site profile. However, our 

goal in this particular revision was to come up 

with upper bound estimates such that any new 

data that we found would basically confirm that 

our estimates were in fact overestimating. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think you misunderstood my 

question. 

 MR. TAULBEE: I'm sorry. 

 DR. MELIUS: I'm not really concerned about 

your philosophy in doing this, though I 

appreciate that explanation. But rather what -

- what do we know about what data is out there 

that has not been examined? There's a lot of 

references in your report and I believe some of 

the other reports to a lot of data from Iowa 

being shipped to Pantex, being stored there. 

Has NIOSH ever done -- gone in and tried to do 

an inventory of what's available and examined 

that information and -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: We received from the Department 

of Energy an inventory of those records that 
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are down at Pantex. There's about 120 boxes of 

records that are down there. We received some 

description about those particular records. 

Based upon those descriptions we requested some 

of those records from Pantex. An example would 

be the Iowa tritium measurement data. That was 

something that we found through that records 

retrieval and review process. So yes, we are 

aware that there are records down at Pantex. 

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 DR. MELIUS: But -- but you've never gone and 

examined those -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: We have not -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- records directly. 

 MR. TAULBEE: We have not individually gone 

down there. We have reviewed those summaries 

of what the records were and requested samples, 

and based upon that methodology we were able to 

retrieve both air sampling and -- both air 

sampling data for tritium and depleted uranium. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so about how much of that 

proportionally -- I mean is that -- you think 

you've examined all the data there or is -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Certainly not. 

 DR. MELIUS: No. So it's a small proportion of 

it. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Thanks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Additional questions or 

comments? Mark Griffon? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can -- looking at this pie chart 

-- I'm trying to find the page -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Page 13 is -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- page 13, yeah. This is for 

1965, the question of the jobs that were 

monitored. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I know -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Those are departments. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Excuse me? 

 MR. TAULBEE: They're departments. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Departments, okay. 

 MR. TAULBEE: That those workers came from. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Do you -- do you have 

department information for all time periods or 

is this a -- how -- how did you come -- how did 

you -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Well, this information came from 

-- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- construct this table, I guess? 

 MR. TAULBEE: -- the University of Iowa, from 
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their records that we captured a couple of 

years ago. The best summary that we have is 

really from about 1965 forward, from a 

department standpoint. I believe, and please -

- if Dr. Fuortes knows more about those records 

holdings -- I believe the Army has individual 

employment cards over all time, but I am not 

that familiar with that standpoint. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, and -- and as far as the -- 

the dosimetry records that you used post-'63 to 

'75 or so, those didn't have job titles on 

them, did they, or... 

 MR. TAULBEE: Not all of them have job titles. 

We do have some job titles, but it's certainly 

not comprehensive at this point in time. 

 MR. GRIFFON: On the -- on the follow-up slide 

on that, the discussion of the bare pits, I 

just wanted to -- a clarification on the 

assumption of the bare pit is claimant-friendly 

on the low energy photon doses. It's also 

claimant-friendly on the overall photon dose 

received? I just wanted to -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- you didn't say that, I just 

wanted to -- 
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 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think we can say that. 

Right? Right. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes. Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have additional follow-up? 

Go ahead, Dr. Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- back to the pie chart, 

I think you may have answered this indirectly, 

but do you have num-- sort of the denominators 

for those department -- how many people worked 

in those departments at that time so -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: No, I don't, not for 1965, sir. 

Although we could -- probably could develop 

that by coding all of the information, all of 

the annual summaries that we had. But where 

this information came from was a tally of 

workers, their summation of their occupational 

history -- I'm sorry, occupational dosimetry. 

This would all be put onto one form with the 

department listed on that particular form. And 

there's about -- I believe around 800 of these 

particular forms and we have not coded all of 

them to give you a proportion -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 
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 DR. MELIUS: And a related question, as you get 

back into that earlier time period of 

monitoring, I believe you -- yeah, one of your 

slides here for era three, and actually I think 

going back into era two, but for the monitoring 

that was done you refer to it as being done to 

workers with the highest exposure potential. 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: Is that based on an evaluation of 

whether those people have the highest exposure 

based on data that was subsequently collected, 

or is it based on what sort of the philosophy 

of the program was at the time? 

 MR. TAULBEE: It's a combination of -- of 

things. One is from our interviews with actual 

workers out here in Iowa last year and then 

going back and looking at the dosimetry records 

and seeing the people that I was talking to, 

seeing their records. And listening to them 

talk about what their exposures were, they were 

clearly the ones doing the assembly, the 

disassembly, the inspection that was going on. 

That's one component. 

 The other component comes from CATIs. The 
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third component does come from monitoring 

philosophy at that time. So it's a combination 

of things that have given us this picture. 

It's not one particular piece of information. 

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 DR. MELIUS: But there's been no systematic 

verification of that, going back through and 

looking at people by department or -- or where 

they worked to try to get a sense of who might 

have been missed based on -- you know, whether 

-- what high exposures might have been missed 

based on subsequent data that became available 

about that department and so forth during years 

when there was much more comprehensive 

monitoring. 

 MR. TAULBEE: That is correct. I would like to 

-- that -- that's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, maybe systematic isn't the 

right -- I may -- that may be -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's not the word. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- exaggerating it with the way 

you -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: What I would like to indicate is 

that there is other information that we do have 

that I'm sorry I can't disclose dealing with 

source term that also helps us make this 
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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. TAULBEE: I'm sorry. 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- but -- you don't have to 

apologize for that. But you wouldn't 

necessarily know, based on that other 

information, you wouldn't know everyone that -- 

all the -- who was -- might have been exposed 

in a similar situation that wasn't monitored. 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct, yes, sir. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, because it's very -- I mean 

it's -- I'm just trying to get an understanding 

of how robust that -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: I understand. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- that conclusion is. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tim, could you help us understand 

a little further -- I'd like to go back a 

minute to the -- the boxes at Pantex, and you 

made a decision to look or to request certain 

things. Tell us a little more about the things 

that you did not request. On -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: On what basis would you have said 

we don't need these now or these may not be 

nearly as important or -- and sort of follow 
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that -- I think sometimes we're left with an 

uneasy feeling that there's 100 boxes out here 

and we've gotten a few files, but what's in the 

rest of those? And this Board is, in a sense, 

under pressure -- time pressure, as a minimum, 

and to make a decision with a lot of boxes only 

examined by titles or file names or something. 

Help us understand that whole business. 

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 MR. TAULBEE: Certainly, and I apologize for 

not expanding more on this earlier. What we 

had was -- we have the boxes, we also have the 

description. In many of the boxes, especially 

the dosimetry records and rad protection type 

of monitoring and incident reports along that, 

what was accompanied in there was a copy to the 

University of Iowa. Back a couple of years ago 

we sent a team out to the University of Iowa to 

Dr. Fuortes's shop and captured all of those 

records. So when we saw that particular label 

on a particular box, then we didn't try and 

request more information from that because we 

knew we already had that, that (unintelligible) 

-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: And give us a feeling for what -- 

is that a big fraction of the total or... 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Significant figure -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: -- my guess is probably 25 

percent type of a scenario, maybe -- let me go 

through what some of the other boxes are that 

we made the decision not to, and this would be 

like a box labeled the Mark 30 program logs, 

for instance. And what this would contain 

would be all of the specifications and so forth 

for that particular weapon. And so it wasn't 

related to dosimetry. 

 When we went through and we saw something that 

would be related towards occupational exposure, 

that was where we asked for sampling of 

records. Some of our sampling of records did 

not return what we thought that they might 

have. For instance, there's several boxes of 

smears or swipe data, and so we asked for 

sampling from that, hoping that that would be, 

you know, uranium or radioactivity smears. 

What they were was smears for beryllium, and so 

-- or for -- there's also other boxes labeled 

as bioassay and so we asked for a sampling of 

those records, hoping that they would be the 

tritium records. And it would be bioassay for 
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MOCA, a high explosives that they were doing 

monitoring for. So that was our process of 

going through and eliminating which boxes that 

we would want and which boxes that we didn't. 

And I would probably say 50 percent of them or 

more were clearly a group of production type of 

records related to specific weapons 

assembly/disassembly. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just to follow up on that, Tim, 

were those boxes classified, any of those boxes 

classified or... 

 MR. TAULBEE: Any time that we request a set of 

records out of the Pantex and Iowa holdings, it 

undergoes a classification review. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, no, I meant of the 130-box 

inventory at Pantex -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: I don't know which ones are 

classified. 

 MR. GRIFFON: On your index you couldn't tell, 

right? Okay. 

 MR. TAULBEE: They're all stored in a 

classified vault. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, they're all in the classified 

vault, right? 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. But you don't know 

because you weren't there -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- whether there was something -- 

right. I mean I guess part of our experience 

doing this work is that oftentimes there's some 

very valuable health and safety information 

amongst those production records, so I'm not 

sure that that's just -- sometimes those titles 

can be deceiving. 

Having said that, I have one other topic I 

think that wasn't covered in the presentation, 

but it was brought up by worker testimony at 

past meetings and maybe in letter form. I 

forget where I've seen it. This question of 

the potential for fissile materials to come off 

the pit and have potential internal exposures 

from plutonium in that manner. And I know that 

this was -- was not considered an issue, but in 

Appendix E -- I'd point the Board to this 

section in Appendix E of the TBD, if you have 

it with you, you point out that it couldn't 

happen, and then in this next paragraph it 

states that it actually happened a few times at 
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Pantex. Although you go on to say that these 

incidents were well-documented, my question 

would be that, you know, is there a -- I mean 

it certainly could have happened at Iowa and 

you just didn't retrieve those incident 

reports. That's one fear I have, maybe. Are 

you -- I mean it seems like you're pretty 

certain that no plutonium exposures could have 

occurred at this site. Are you ready to make 

that kind of statement here or where do you 

stand on that? I know we had a little followup in some of the subcommittee meetings, as 

well. 

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 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct. And this is 

something that we are trying to track down more 

along the lines of the plutonium waste that you 

had pointed out to us a couple of weeks ago in 

a relatively small quantity. Due to the 

magnitude of those particular accidents, we see 

at Iowa very similar types of accidents where a 

pit would be dropped or something. We do have 

incident reports for Iowa, and we see where the 

workers evacuated the cell or the room when 

this would occur -- when this occurred and the 

rad safety group coming back in and checking 
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the materials. So we see the similar type of 

incidents occurring. The difference is is that 

at Pantex one of them actually broke open -- or 

it actually didn't break open, it cracked. It 

had a fracture in the particular pit following 

this incident and it contaminated the whole 

cell. And there was bioassay and follow-up 

along those lines. 

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 Based upon the monitoring practice and 

monitoring program that was going on, the 

routine smears and the care of the workers in 

the handling of their materials, I'm fairly -- 

I'm very confident that there was not any of 

the catastrophic incidents that we saw at 

Pantex. There was certainly the potential, by 

far, and concern of when a very similar 

accident happened. It just simply didn't break 

open at that time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry Anderson. 

 DR. ANDERSON: Just trying to get a handle on 

some of the data, do you -- do you go through 

and sort of grade the information by its 

utility? I mean for instance, there may be 

measurements like there was for radon, but it's 

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there and there's some other -- now it's 

measurements, but one might question, as you 

did; you decided not to use that and use radon 

in another part of the country. Do you go 

through that with some of the other data? For 

instance, we've heard that in some of the 

measuring -- or the badges, you have the badge 

data, you can do some of the laboratory issues 

of limits of detection and things like that, 

but it might be less useful because you don't 

know who they were on or what the people were 

doing, and then you start to make assumptions. 

Do you have any kind of a qualitative any way, 

assessment of the quality of the information 

you have? We've continually heard that well, 

this is claimant-friendly. At what point does 

claimant-friendly become very divorced from 

data? I mean it may be claimant-friendly, but 

just saying everybody has the highest -- we'll 

just make up a dose is even more claimantfriendly than some of these others. So that's 

kind of a -- the first part of it, do you -- do 

you do that? 

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 And then my second question is, there's been a 

number of site profiles that we're reviewing or 
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that we have reviewed. Where would you place 

this one as far as quality, data and 

information compared to the other site profiles 

that have been done? 

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question. We do go through a process, and the 

purpose of the site profile is to describe the 

methods that we would use for dose 

reconstruction. It doesn't detail all of the 

data that we have used or looked at or 

analyzed. 

 For example, at Iowa there is a large volume of 

pocket ionization chamber data, particularly 

among radiographer workers, that we didn't even 

use in this particular analysis. We also have 

within that same dataset times of them entering 

into the radiography cell and leaving, so we 

have time measurements, as well -- they were in 

this particular cell for a half-hour type of 

thing. We didn't use that data, as well. We 

didn't discuss it in the site profile because 

we don't -- we're not using it, from this 

particular standpoint. So there is some data 

quality review that we go through. We know 

pocket -- or dosimeters, film badge dosimeters 
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are of higher quality than pocket ionization 

chamber data. Therefore, since we had the film 

badge dosimeter during the same time period, we 

decided to use that instead of the other 

dataset. Okay? So there is a data review and 

quality that we do as we're developing the site 

profile. 

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sorry, I just forgot what it was. 

 DR. ANDERSON: Basically how does the quality 

and the extent of the data used in this site 

profile preparation compare to some of the 

other sites, so we can do kind of quali-- 

qualitatively get a sense of -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Sure. 

 DR. ANDERSON: -- how confident are you that 

you've actually estimated doses rather than 

just make -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

 DR. ANDERSON: -- the policy decisions of, you 

know, protectiveness. 

 MR. TAULBEE: And I think Jim wants to speak to 

this, but let me start it. When you compare 

Iowa to atomic weapons employer, we have a 

large volume of data compared to what we do 
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dose reconstruction with from AWE sites. When 

you compare it to some of the larger 

facilities, in that early time period prior to 

1963, it's much lower than what we see at other 

-- other facilities. But it's certainly not -- 

I guess I should just leave it at that. It's 

not as much lower than what we see -- the big 

part that we don't see is the actual bioassay 

data. We do see -- we have sufficient 

information I believe to estimate that 

particular dose, but for Iowa we have yet to 

find any bioassay data. Film badge monitoring 

is about the same. They were following the AEC 

manual 524 as to who would be badged and who 

wouldn't. So it's very common across other 

facilities to see this gap or this limited 

amount of monitoring data. Y-12 is another 

prime example for that, and that would be prior 

to 1961 at Y-12. 

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elaborate on that? 

 DR. NETON: I'd just like to elaborate a little 

bit. I think Tim's right on with his response, 

but I think -- it's hard to compare these 

different sites. Each site is very different, 
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and what we find here in Iowa is that the 

potential for internal exposure we believe was 

fairly low because of the encapsulated nature 

of the material. There were no grinding 

processes going on with these pits, et cetera. 

Whereas a place like a Bethlehem Steel, it's 

the opposite. Fairly low external dose 

potential but huge potential for internal based 

on the processes involved. So each site stands 

by itself. I mean you can't really compare the 

quality of one dataset with the other, I don't 

think. It really depends on the processes that 

were employed at the site and what we can do 

with that as far as a source term calculation. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: I have a few more questions. One 

is I guess a request for information if you 

have it on that revised table you put in your 

slides, the work factor development, where you 

added the number of workers that were 

monitored. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir. 

 DR. MELIUS: Will you also have available -- I 

wouldn't expect from memory, but the data on 

the number of workers that had positive 
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 DR. MELIUS: I mean you have the number of 

positive -- I can't -- it just might be helpful 

to get a sense of relatively what that 

proportion is. I don't expect you to have it 

in your head. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir. Unfortunately I've not 

gone through and done that type of a tally yet, 

so I'm sorry -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, if you could or if it is 

available somehow -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Oh -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- it would be useful to have. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Secondly, along this line 

of sort of how do you go about doing this, and 

this gets to the area of -- of classification 

and so forth. I guess I'm trying to understand 

that in this process that you're going through 

that -- I assume you're always, in doing a site 

profile you're always looking for what's the -- 

the best data is to characterize the exposure. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir. 

 DR. MELIUS: So though, you know, a source term 
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type of information may -- along with other 

information may be adequate, it's not 

preferable, so you're looking for what is 

preferable. Detailed individual monitoring 

data I guess is sort of eventually the -- what 

you're trying to get at, and what I'm trying to 

understand, one, is does the secrecy issues 

related to the site prevent you from accessing 

or utilizing better data that might be -- that 

might be used in evaluating or describing 

someone's exposures at the site? 

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 MR. TAULBEE: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: And then along that same line, 

it's just getting a sense as to what extent the 

classification impedes our ability to -- for 

you to present, I guess, this information to us 

and for us to -- who are not -- don't have the 

appropriate clearances to understand the 

scientific basis for this, so I guess they're 

sort of two separate but related questions. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. With regard to the issue 

of do we have better data such that we could 

estimate the doses more accurately, yes, we do. 

The problem is is that if we were to do so, all 

we would be able to give you is the annual 
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 MR. TAULBEE: There wouldn't be other 

information associated with anything else, and 

that's as transparent as it would be. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have a follow-up on that? 

 DR. MELIUS: No, that's... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions or comments from 

the Board? 

10 PRESENTATION BY SC&A

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DR. ZIEMER: If there are no further questions 

or comments, we're going to continue with our 

review by our contractor. John Mauro's going 

to make a presentation which -- this represents 

a summary of the review that they've done, 

pretty much on an accelerated basis now, since 

our last meeting. John, look forward to 

hearing from you here. 

 DR. MAURO: Good afternoon. My name is John 

Mauro. Many of us have met before. Before I 

get into my presentation, this may go on -- 

maybe it doesn't need to be said, but when I'm 

in a situation like this I ask myself the 

question, okay, let's say I'm a worker. I've 

come down with a cancer and I worked at this 
86

facility for some time period, whether it's 

pre-'63 or post-'63, and as a health physicist 

who's read all this material, listened to a 

very impressive presentation and been giving a 

lot of thought to this particular problem over 

the last month, I say to myself -- and I'm -- 

but I'm a, you know, a -- a claimant -- am I 

convinced? And what do I say, well, what do I 

need to be convinced that I feel as if I've 

been treated fairly, especially since I have 

this background in this area? And right now, 

as we stand here today -- and now speaking for 

myself -- is that I've got a lot of questions, 

and I'm not entirely convinced that if I were 

denied on the basis of the information that I 

heard here that I would feel as if I was 

treated fairly. Okay? 

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 And I think it's -- it's sort of really common 

sense, but -- and I'm going to try to give you 

my reasons and our reasons, and I'm going to 

ask several of our folks to come up because, 

you see, right now what we have here is we have 

a crew of four people that have written the 

report -- the reports that you have before you, 

and it was very much a collaborative effort. 
87

I'm here before you to speak because I was sort 

of the point man, carrying the flag. In fact, 

I took the first run at writing the report that 

you have, and then we went through a loop, a 

iterative process, and everyone has very, very 

strong feelings and brings to the table lots of 

talent that's -- that complement each other. 

But I'm going to sort of get the ball started 

and then I may pass the baton to some of the 

other folks who have deeper insights into 

certain issues. 

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 So with that as an introduction, I'd like to go 

to the next slide. 

 As you all know, the Rev. 0 came out quite some 

time ago, April 16, 2004. This is sort of my 

excuse table. Okay? This is my -- we started 

work -- we got the green light on March 14th. 

Okay? And we said John, hit it. We put 

together our team and we started to read 

everything, and -- and we try to digest as much 

of this materials as we could, and then we -- 

what you see is a very intense schedule where 

we had people mak-- performing interviews of 

workers. We're reading, we have people getting 

their Q clearance in this time period. As soon 
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as the Q clearances come through, we have 

people that went, along with other members of 

the Board, to read as much material as they 

could in about a two-day period. 

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 During this process we're holding conference 

calls with the Board and representatives of 

NIOSH and gathering information, so we're on 

the sprint, and then on April 18th we deliver 

the report you have. And then of course -- and 

the interesting thing about this whole process 

is, I really didn't have a chance to talk to 

Joe Fitzgerald and Kathy DeMers until the very 

end of the process because they were locked 

away from us. And in fact, the report -- 

relatively brief report that you received, 

about the 20-page report which represents our 

recently-cleared document, it wasn't until 

Thursday of last week that Joe and I finally 

had a chance to talk to each other. And all 

sorts of lights start going off, we start to 

realize things and learn things. So we're in a 

very intense process and today I'm before you 

to try to communicate places where we feel 

NIOSH's case is really tight and they did -- in 

other words, I'm convinced, as best I could be 
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convinced, given what we've went through -- and 

other areas where I'm not so convinced, or 

perhaps we're not so convinced. 

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 And first and foremost, normally we would take 

at least two months to go through -- to get to 

the point where here -- or maybe even three, 

given that we're dealing with classified 

documents. The product you have right now in 

front of you is what we normally would have 

called a preliminary working draft for the 

purpose of delivering to NIOSH for factual 

accuracy review. Then normally what we would 

have done is have a -- an open meeting that 

would have been recorded where we all had a 

chance to ask each other questions, discuss 

some of the issues. So really what's happening 

now is we really have accelerated the process. 

And in fact I'm very anxious to get feedback on 

some of the factual accuracy issues that 

perhaps we missed, or places where we might 

have got these right. But right now I'm going 

to communicate to you where we are right now at 

this point in time, given that we really 

haven't read every document we wanted to read 

and we did not have full and unencumbered 
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access to information. There's still a long 

list of documents we would like to look at. 

There's a -- we've learned that there are a lot 

of records out there over and above the records 

that were looked at by -- by NIOSH that would 

be a pretty good idea for us to look at. There 

are a lot more people we want to talk to. 

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 I haven't seen the results of the interview 

record. I don't know if you're aware of this, 

but when we had our team of people interview 

many of the workers, they took notes. And 

normally I would have -- we would have access 

to all those notes. But what happened was 

those notes were confiscated and had to go 

through a clearance process, so -- which is -- 

so we don't -- we are just now getting access 

to that information. So what we are -- we're 

sort of stepping in the middle of a process and 

what I'm going to give you now is a -- a 

picture of what we see. I'm trying to make it 

as clear as we can, and in some places we're 

going to be right or strong and in some places 

we're going to be weak, but it's -- my intent 

is to be as helpful as I can to understand what 

do we have here. Next slide, please. 
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 All right. When you read the Rev. -- by the 

way, I did not read Rev. 0, so I didn't have 

the benefit of Rev. 0. We hit the street 

running. On the 17th we jumped right on Rev. 

1. Okay. 

 What we -- what I've done -- done here is 

simply say well, this is the report. The 

report basically is divided into these 

different sections, and what I -- what I'm 

going to do is give you a first -- initial 

impression, after one month's worth of work, 

where -- where I think each section lies. And 

the first chapter that's of -- you know, that's 

important to talk about is the occupationallyrelated medical X-rays. 

 Well, it turns out that evaluation was your 

standard section. We've seen that section 

before. We've seen that approach before and 

the way in which they did their -- they do 

their dose reconstructions. And like many of 

our other reviews of that section, the major 

concern we have with that section is it leaves 

out the possibility of fluoroscopic 

examinations whereby the -- so I would say if 
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there's any significant concern that we have, 

observation with regard to the first chapter on 

occupationally-related medical X-rays is that 

it treat-- it does the posterior/anterior dose 

reconstruction for chest X-rays, but it -- 

given the time periods we're talking about, we 

were surprised that there was no discussion of 

fluoroscopic examinations, which as you know, 

per examination it gives a much higher dose 

than a typical chest X-ray. But that's our 

first impression of first item. 

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 Now we're going to talk about the occupational 

environmental doses. When you think about the 

operations at this facility's -- the way it -- 

the little -- the model you build in your head 

about -- you know, as you're reading and you 

start almost trying to visualize, what I 

visualize is that there were people who are 

what we call Line 1 workers. We're going to 

put them aside for a minute. I'm going to get 

to them because that's where I think the real 

issues are, but there are all these other 

people that were working at the site, working 

outdoors, doing a whole array of things where 

they were exposed to both external exposures 
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and potential internal exposures. And that's 

the chapter that they call occupational 

environmental dose. 

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 Within that category it's convenient to think 

of two different kinds of groups of workers. 

This is how I've done it for myself. That 

group of workers that were really -- had very 

low potential to experience very much exposure 

and -- because they did not -- were not up 

close and personal and visiting on a periodic 

basis these storage areas, I think they call 

them igloos, because here's where perhaps 

hundreds of these pits were stored. If you go 

inside one of these pits, that's -- they're 

calling that an environmental dose. So I find 

that -- if there's any place where there is a 

problem with regard to wow, somebody could have 

gotten some pretty high doses, it -- in the 

chapter called occupational environmental dose, 

it's what I call -- you see the -- notice 

underneath that heading, the second bullet 

heading, I have a -- I bolded "External 

exposures, non-Line 1 workers". I bolded that 

because within that chapter, that's the place 

that drew my attention and drew all of our 
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1 attention especially. 

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 Now we've heard a lot of discussion about 

tritium exposures, internal exposures to 

tritium. And the way in which the tritium 

exposures may have occurred for the 

occupational environmental doses is people are 

working outdoors and these various facilities -

- these Gravel Gerties, they were handling 

tritium and it was being vented, so it's going 

up into the atmosphere and being dispersed, and 

then there might -- there are people outside 

that could be exposed and inhale the tritium. 

 Well, there's no doubt in my mind that the way 

in which they modeled that -- those exposures 

were grossly conservative. In other words, 

they didn't underestimate those tritium 

exposures, I'm positive of that, as long as the 

source term that they used, the number of 

curies per year going out, was -- were 

reasonable. We did not check to see if in fact 

the number of curies per year being vented out 

of these units into the atmosphere was in fact 

a reasonable upper bound. But one thing for 

sure, the way in which they modeled the release 

of the material, its dispersion in the 
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environment and then exposure of a receptor, 

was extremely conservative, by perhaps two 

orders of magnitude. So I'm not worried about 

that tritium exposure. I'm -- I'm convinced. 

If I was -- if I worked there and someone told 

me that well, the only exposure, you know, that 

I knew I was outdoors and the only time I got 

exposed was to this tritium, well, I got to 

tell you, I would buy it. I'm saying there's 

no -- I don't have a problem. 

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 Let's move on to the occupation-- no, no, I'm 

sorry, we'll stay with the slide for a while 

'cause I'm going to set the stage 'cause it'll 

eventually -- going to zero in on where the 

action is. 

 DU exposure. Another thing that went on 

outside is they -- there was a -- they burned -

- a burning pits. They burned these explosives 

which has commingled with them some depleted 

uranium. They ran -- they ran some models and 

-- and from what -- what I read, what I saw 

there, the way in which they treated that 

problem was -- was reasonable, science -- 

scientifically sound and claimant-favorable. 

In other words, given that the quantity -- see, 
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what they did is said all of the uranium that 

was being commingled with the explosives 

outdoors, when that was burning, all of the 

uranium became airborne, vaporized, became 

airborne and it was a -- they -- in a very, 

very fine form that was highly respirable, and 

then they did a atmospheric dispersion 

calculation. They said let -- to calculate 

what the dose would be to this guy outside who 

might be exposed to this airborne plume. I 

have to tell you, I'm okay with that. Okay? I 

-- I find that approach to what they did 

reasonable, scientifically sound and claimantfavorable. 

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 We had a couple of minor comments. For 

example, well, we noticed that they used a 

certain particle size distribution that could 

have been a little bit more claimant-favorable, 

but you know, given the fact that they did not 

take credit for -- for example, when you have a 

burning pit -- not pit, but a burning area, you 

get plume rise. Okay? They didn't take that 

into consideration. Plume rise from the heat 

will increase dispersion. So I walk away from 

that -- now remember, we spent one month. We 
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had to say what are we going to look at closely 

and what are we going to say well, this looks 

okay. I would say that this exposure to DU 

from burning sites, probably okay. Move on. 

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 Ingestion of DU in drinking water. Notice 

we're still under occupational environmental. 

Well, one of the things that they addressed in 

the report was that well, listen, you've got 

all this uranium that's being burned with 

explosive all over the ground everywhere -- 

garage areas -- and it's raining and there's 

runoff, and the runoff is carrying the -- the -

- is running off to a nearby drinking water 

source called Mathis Lake and this -- and they 

say well, listen, is it possible that there's 

some uranium finding its way to Mathis Lake at 

a concentration that's unacceptable. They took 

a number of samples over the years from Mathis 

Lake and they -- they -- they measured the 

amount of uranium in that water and they found 

out that the concentrations that they've been 

looking at in the drinking water from Mathis 

Lake is really no different than it is in 

background levels anywhere in the United 

States. I walked away from that. I accept 
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that. I said I'd buy that. There really was 

not mu-- if there's a problem with this site, 

it's not that. Okay? Let's keep going. 

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 All right. Now we're going to go to the next -

- the last item under occupational 

environmental, external exposures, non-Line 1 

workers. Bing, here's our first problem area. 

Now I want you to visualize this. 

 You've got this building -- large building, and 

I don't -- I don't know exactly what it looks 

like, but apparently they stored hundreds of -- 

of pits, nuclear warheads, inside the building. 

Okay? And apparently there were film badges 

that were hung inside the -- this building and 

collected data. Every two weeks they took the 

film badge out and they read it out to see how 

much dose over that two -- two-week period each 

film badge experienced. And the data show that 

the doses or the exposures of the film -- those 

film badges -- there were a lot of them -- ran 

from about 100 millirem over a two-week period, 

two week being continuous two week, up to over 

two rem over that two-week period. 

 Now not much is said about that in the report, 

and here -- now -- now I say to myself, if I 
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were a security guard and I worked at that site 

-- now I don't know if this went on -- and I 

was inside there with my gun, securing that for 

eight hours a day -- I don't know if this 

happened, far as I can tell, the report is 

silent on this particular issue -- but all of a 

sudden, what we're saying is oh, so in theory I 

could have gotten two -- over a two-week 

period, I -- remember that's two contin-- 

that's two weeks continuous or -- which -- 

whatever number of hours that is, but if I'm a 

worker, I'm there eight hours a day. So in 

other words, some fraction of -- of two rem. 

Okay? I don't know what the numbers go -- 

Hans, do you know off-hand what we're talking 

about? If we're -- instead of being -- what -- 

instead of being a full two weeks it'd be there 

about one-third the time? 

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 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) It's 0.2374. 

 DR. MAURO: About .23-- 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. MAURO: -- point -- 230 millirem. 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) About 

(unintelligible). 

DR. MAURO: Okay, about a quarter of that dose. 
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Okay. Now -- now, so he's in -- let's say he's 

in there, okay? And he gets that photon dose 

from the -- what's coming off the -- these 

pits. But then you have to remember -- now he 

-- we're -- those film badges are missing the 

low energy photons. We've got to multiply that 

by something like 2.2 because we're missing 

that americium component, so the dose all of a 

sudden goes from 200 millirem to maybe 400, 500 

millirem in that two -- in that two-week 

period. 

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 We're not done. We're saying but wait a 

minute, he's also getting hit by neutron 

exposures, and we know that the -- that the 

neutron to photon ratio that they used is .79 -

- by the way, I buy that. I mean I'm -- as a 

health physicist, I looked at what they did. 

We modeled everything like they did and we came 

up with neutron to photon ratios ourselves from 

this generic pit. We looked at what -- the 

data they had and as far as I'm concerned, they 

picked a good number there. That .79 is pretty 

good. 

 But what this means, though, is beside that 500 

or so millirem per two-week period, this 
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person's also getting -- you multiply that by 

.79 and so you're getting another 300 millirem 

on top of that. And then you've got to 

multiply that neutron dose by 1.9 to convert it 

to, you know, effecti-- you know, the -- the 

quality factor, you know. In other words, this 

-- this -- you know, a rad of gamma then to a 

rem of neutron, so you multiply by what -- this 

1.9 factor. 

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 Bottom line is this. Now I don't know if this 

happened there or not, but again, think of it 

like this. I'm -- if I was a worker and I knew 

that I worked there and I was a security guard 

and I spent a lot of time inside that building, 

what do you get -- Hans, you ran the numbers. 

What -- what kind of doses would this guy get 

at the end of a year of work? 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) 27,000 to 54,000 

millirem -- 

DR. MAURO: Okay. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- (unintelligible). 

 DR. MAURO: Right, which is much bigger than 

any number that's anywhere in the report. Now 

I don't know if it's true. Now I -- you know -

- you know, we'll talk -- I'll talk to Jim. 
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Jim, this the first time you're hearing this 

and -- at NIOSH. Now I don't know, maybe these 

guys didn't stay inside these -- didn't go 

inside -- maybe they stayed outside. There was 

a locked door and they just stayed outside the 

locked door. That will be -- it's a different 

story, but -- so my first concern is that. I 

said -- bam, I think -- this one is the one I'm 

nervous about because thi-- now we're talking 

about doses that are substantial -- if in fact 

that scenario that I just invented actually 

occurred. Or even if it occurred only 

partially, where a person maybe didn't spend 

eight hours a day inside, but maybe three hours 

a day. We're talking about big doses now. 

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 I'm going to leave that section on occupational 

environmental doses now, and we're going to 

move into internal exposures of Line 1 workers, 

the internal exposure again. My only criticism 

of this part -- now -- now we're at -- see, now 

we're Line 1 workers. We're no longer outside. 

We're inside this Gravel Gertie and we're doing 

our thing inside the Gravel Gertie with the 

pits. Okay? And -- and a person could 

theoretically -- the question is could he be 
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exposed. Now one of the things he could have 

been exposed to is tritium -- remember we had 

the tritium going out the vent. Well, he's in 

the building now handling the containers that -

- where they're opening the bottles, whatever 

these thing -- these JP containers, and there 

could be some airborne tritium there where he's 

working. 

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 We looked at the assumptions that were made to 

predict what the exposures might have been to 

the Line 1 workers inside that were handling 

the tritium. And given that their -- the 

characterization that NIOSH presented of the 

quantity of tritium -- in other words, that 

were inside the headspace of these containers 

was in fact 90 microcuries per cubic meter and 

the number -- and they opened two of these a 

day, I believe. What they assumed is all of 

that activity becomes airborne in this -- the -

- this Gravel Gertie over -- and a year's 

worth. It's never vented. It never leaves -- 

never leaves the building, and it just keeps 

accumulating over the course of a year and it 

stays there. 

Well, let me tell you something. You can't get 
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more conservative than that. I mean to the 

point where it's unrealistic. That does not 

happen, but that's the assumption they use, so 

they bound -- they bound that tritium exposure 

indoors to the Line 1 workers, as far as I'm 

concerned right at the -- right at the -- you 

really can't be higher than that, so I'm okay 

with that one. In other words, I walk away 

saying they're really putting upper bound -- 

given that -- we have to take on face value 

that they opened two of these JP containers a 

day, given that the JP container headspace 

contained no more than 90 microcuries per cubic 

meter, and given the volume of the headspace, 

which is small. Given that, the assumpt-- the 

model they used to predict what the exposures 

might be was certainly conservative. Okay. So 

I'm okay with that. 

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 We move on to DU and other radionuclides. Here 

-- internal exposure, Line 1 workers. Picture 

the workers -- they're doing stuff with this 

pit. I can't even imagine what I -- that -- 

the action doing that kind of work, but -- and 

-- and -- the question is, is it possible for 

there to be some internal exposure. What we're 
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told in the report, Rev. 1, that they took some 

wipe samples -- okay? -- and very rarely did 

they ever really see anything on the pits. 

There was not much contamination of any 

plutonium or -- or uranium or deple-- you know, 

so the amount of -- so the argument is that 

well, there was very little likelihood of 

internal exposure. I -- I would have liked to 

have seen the results of the wipe samples. In 

other words, the box of data that was mentioned 

earlier by Tim, apparently there's a lot of 

data in there on what swipe samples -- I'd like 

to know what samples they took, what was the 

lower limit of detection, what they were 

looking for, so I could put an upper bound on 

what might have been on the outside surfaces of 

these naked and not naked pits so that I could 

at least get an upper bound and convince 

myself. But I have to say my intuition tells 

me it's probably right. But it's hard to say 

something here -- as a health physicist, you 

know, we're -- with limited time and limited 

data, I -- I look at the arguments being made. 

I would like to look at that data, though, and 

do some calculations and convince -- you know, 

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based on the swipe samples what do they see, 

how many do they take, how many did they see 

detectable levels, what their lower limit of 

detection was, what were they looking for, and 

put this one to bed. But right now I have a 

question mark there. 

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 Radon, I have a real problem with the way they 

approached radon, and I think Jim would agree. 

(Unintelligible) agrees. You know, they 

actually came up with a -- (unintelligible) 

didn't do a radon concentration in the report 

that was something like 1.3 picocuries per 

liter. That's what I've got in my basement. I 

have a standard, wood frame house in New 

Jersey, which is a fairly high radon area. I 

can't imagine with it now being in a structure 

that it sounds like it was underground or 

partially underground or largely underground. 

The radon levels could easily -- I mean I'm 

very familiar with radon levels throughout the 

United States, I've been looking at it for 

years -- could easily have been 100 times 

higher than that. So I'm not at all happy with 

the radon part. Okay? I'd want to do a lot 

more homework on indoor radon. And we're 
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talking about some substantial doses to the 

lungs. 

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 Now, by the way, that has nothing to do with 

the op-- what they were doing. It's just that 

they -- it's a NORM, naturally occurring 

radioactive material, that they happened to put 

themselves into a situation in a structure 

that, because of the very location and nature 

of the structure, there's a real good 

possibility that there were elevated levels of 

naturally occurring radon. It wasn't because 

of any radium 226 that we're handling. It's 

just -- the radium in the soil is generating 

radon, and especially if they vented this -- in 

other words, if this Gravel Gertie had a vent, 

was venting air out, what you do is you create 

a delta P between the indoor and the outdoor 

and that just sucks the radon right in. That's 

what happens in anybody's house. And if it 

happens to be you're in a naturally high radon 

area, you could have a pretty high 

concentration of indoor radon in a situation 

like this, another item that I'd be interested 

in looking at. 

 But now we're going to get to the real -- the 
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next bullet, external exposures of the on-line 

radiation workers. Here's where 

(unintelligible) -- where the real issues are, 

as far as I'm concerned. By the way, the last 

one, shallow doses, we all know that's on hold 

so we're not going to even talk about that. 

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 So let's go to the next slide. Now, when all 

is said and done -- when all is said and done, 

visualize you're a worker. Okay? You worked 

any -- any one of those years. What the 

guideline says -- what the -- what the -- the 

TBD says -- we're going to use this -- if we 

don't have data for you -- in other words, we 

don't have a full year's worth of film badge 

data, we're going to go in, try to say -- and 

if we don't have it, we're going to use this 

table as a default surrogate for you. Okay? I 

have to say it's a very interesting approach, 

some of which is -- I'm not too comfortable 

with, and let me explain why. 

 Let's start off with the left-hand column. 

You'll notice that the total number of 

monitored workers, 1962 -- you can start seeing 

-- it's 29, 41, 36 -- let's talk about 1962 for 

a minute. In effect what's -- they're -- 
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what's being said is -- well, no, let's -- 

let's go to '63, I'm -- we're going to get to 

'62 in a minute. Let's go to '63. It's my 

understanding of reading the TBD that from 1963 

onward they're going to use the actual data, 

film badge data that people had, and if the 

person didn't have any measurements -- and 

apparently 95 percent of them did not have any 

measurements -- so in other words, what we have 

is -- there were 41 people in 1963 that had 

measurements. Whether or not they were full -- 

a year's worth -- in other words, that have a 

measurement taken every two weeks for the 

entire year so I can reconstruct his dose, but 

-- but the odds are most likely the guy that's 

going to show up who was exposed in 1963 -- 

well, only five percent were measured at all, 

so what we're saying is most of the time, for 

someone exposed in '63, we're going to have to 

do something as a surrogate, to fill in for 

this guy. And the approach that they decided 

to use was to say okay, we're going to go with 

two -- the number is 2.9 rem. Okay? As being 

the -- so we're going to fill in for that year. 

So if we had no data on that guy -- and this is 

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my understanding of the report -- we're going 

to say he received that year 2.9 rem. 

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 Am I -- do I feel comfortable about that? That 

is if I was that person. The -- and by the 

way, that 2.9 rem reflects the following: They 

took -- notice that there were 295 

measurements. You see -- if you'll follow 

across on the 1963 row, there were 295 film 

badges where they took out the zeroes, so these 

are the non-zero badges. And then they plotted 

it on a -- on a lognormal -- (unintelligible) 

paper and they got a straight line, and -- and 

they come up with a geometric mean, a geometric 

standard deviation, and what they're going to 

assume is that the exposure I got that year was 

the geometric mean of that distribution. Well, 

that means that I have a 50 percent chance of 

being less than that and a 50 percent chance of 

being higher than that. Don't like that. I 

don't feel as if you've given me the benefit of 

the doubt. 

 I would have much preferred two things. One, I 

would have preferred if I was sure that the 41 

measurements that were -- I'm sorry, the total 

number of people, the 41 people -- that those 
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41 people represented me. In other words, 

those were all the guys that worked with -- 

that stood right next to me doing the same 

exact thing I did, maybe on Line 1, working 

with one or two pits or whatever they did, that 

those 41 people were a good surrogate for me. 

I don't know if they were or not. 

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 Now for the first time Tim presented the bar 

chart that -- and Mark, you had a lot of 

questions about -- not the bar, the pie chart, 

very important chart because you see, if we 

have really good, rock solid information on the 

different categories of workers and we know we 

have a good databa-- even if it's only a 

partial -- that is, let's say only some of the 

workers, but we have a good cross-section that 

we could use as being a surrogate. So I would 

say to you I would be -- I would accept -- if I 

was a 1963 guy and you told me yeah, we've got 

-- we've got 41 people that came out of -- they 

all did the same job you did, and we come up 

with -- and a geometric mean of 2927 of the 

dose to those 41 people, I still wouldn't be 

happy because I wouldn't want you to use 2927. 

I would want you to use 95 percentile value. 
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Then I would say all right, you gave me the 

benefit of the doubt. 

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 So I have two problems with the approach that 

NIOSH has adopted. One is the presumption that 

those 41 (unintelligible) of people represent 

me or -- you know, I'm -- they are surrogates 

for me. I don't know that. If they are, 

great. I'm ha-- then I'm halfway home. 

 My second problem is, given that they are a 

good surrogate for me, then I don't want you to 

use the geometric mean and standard deviation 

to represent my exposure that year. I want you 

to use the 95 percentile (unintelligible). 

This is me and this is what I would want to 

see. 

So -- so in effect, my problem with the -- with 

the post-'62 time period is those two issues. 

One, we have to be confident that when you're 

doing a real person that you have no data for 

that when you decide to pick a surrogate that 

you pick a surrogate that represents him. And 

not only that, once you have that, that you 

have enough data about him and the people that 

were like him, then I would want you to pick 

off the 95 percentile. Then I'd be okay. 
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Right now I don't know if that's -- I don't 

think so. 

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 You know, maybe in the later years, you know, 

to get -- another way to look at it is well, 

wait a minute, hold it, let's go to 1972. 

We've got 312 people were monitored. Well, you 

know, out of those 312, it might be possible to 

sort them out into the different work cate-- 

worker categories. And if it turns out the 

kinds of things they did in 1972 were more or 

less the same kind of things they did in 1963, 

well -- well, maybe we could build a surrogate 

from the 1972 data to serve as a representative 

of the early data, but I don't know that 'cause 

I don't know if the things they were doing in 

1972 bore any resemblance to what they were 

doing in 1963. There's no way to tell from 

reading that report. Okay? So -- so my -- so 

-- so if -- if NIOSH said well, we're going to 

use later data to construct -- to do -- to 

reconstruct earlier data because we have a lot 

more data, I would say great, but you've got to 

make a case that -- that the later data is in 

fact a good surrogate for the earlier years. 

 Now -- so that -- that's my concern with the 
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post-'62 dataset and how it's being offered in 

the Rev. 1 TBD. 

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 Let's go to the pre, and things get a little 

bit more interesting and a little bit more 

difficult to appreciate. What we're saying 

here is if it's pre-- if it's 19-- well, if 

it's 1962 or earlier, it's a given. This is 

your Hp(10) -- see the list of numbers starting 

from 1949 right up to 1962? That's the dose -- 

the geometric mean of a dose, Hp(10) dose, that 

we're to assume you got. All right? A pretty 

big dose. And on face value, as a health 

physicist, I said well, one of two things. One 

of two things. Either there was some very 

strange things going on be-- from going from 

here to here that they did a lot -- and I have 

no idea, I'm not -- you know, what -- what 

happened, that mean -- if that's a realistic 

treatment of the problem, my God, what was 

going on in 1949 to 1962 that was that much 

different, a factor of ten different than after 

that. So right after that, that makes me 

wonder if -- make -- you can argue well, that's 

proof that it was very conservative what they 

did, the generic pit you would argue is very 
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conservative. But I have to say I'm a little 

more skeptical of that, and now we're going to 

talk about the generic pit for a minute. 

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 My understanding is -- is the following: That 

NIOSH looked at all of the pits, and from that 

they constructed a generic pit that is -- 

doesn't represent any real pit, but it's a pit 

that would deliver the higher -- a very high 

dose rate at one meter away. Joe Fitzgerald 

and Kathy DeMers, our two Q-cleared people, 

went in, spent two days, and one thing they 

walked away with. Without a doubt in their 

mind, that's a conservative pit. In other 

words, it turns out the 33 millirem per hour, 

which the generic pit represents, the naked 

pit, that dose rate's -- as far as our -- Joe 

and Kathy are concerned, they buy it. They -- 

they are convinced that that is an upper bound 

representation of what the dose rate might be. 

 But what they're not comfortable with is the 

work factor. Okay? In effect, the work factor 

is a way to adjust down. In other words, they 

multiply that dose rate, that 33.3 millirem per 

hour by .153 and say -- 'cause that's like your 

-- the -- NIOSH explains it well, we -- we 
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really don't believe these people were exposed 

to 33.3 millirem per hour eight hours a day, 

2,000 -- 2,000 hours a year. It was something 

less. And they went through this 

(unintelligible) era description, which I don't 

understand, so we have to take that on face 

value that there's some secret stuff there that 

we don't know about. But -- but in the end, 

what it really means is effectively what 

they're telling us is that it's -- for all 

intents and purposes, what this means is that -

- that the person that's exposed effectively 

worked one hour or so a day one meter away from 

this generic pit. We -- we are ready to get 

behind and say that generic pit's a good pit, 

for two reasons. One, Joe looked at it and, 

based on the design, he says that bounds it. 

We ran -- given that design, we ran MCNP and we 

came very close to that. We actually came up 

with 45 millirem per hour instead of 33, but 

given the uncertainty, we -- so we're convinced 

that that's a good number, but I have to say we 

are not prepared to get behind the work factor. 

We don't know if that's a good number or not. 

So -- so that's one of our first and more 

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1 important concerns. 

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 Also, a lot of our concern is that it seems 

like there's a lot more data out there, and -- 

and they -- and they -- and they went into this 

model. From my understanding of the 

regulations is you exhaust your data as best 

you can before you go to models. It seems like 

that they leap to models pretty quickly. I 

would have spent a little bit more time looking 

at the data, so that's like one of our 

observations. 

 But anyway, so you -- in the bottom line, this 

is your handy-dandy look-up table on how to do 

dose reconstruction, and a -- our two concerns, 

this -- the key points we're making is for 

post-'62 I'm a little concerned about whether 

or not you can actually come up with surrogate 

data because of the limited number of 

measurements. And I'm a little bit concerned 

that they used the geometric mean as opposed to 

some higher end value for the distribution to 

reconstruct my dose. 

 For the pre time period, I'm concerned that I 

don't understand that work factor and I can't 

get behind it and know for sure. Although I've 
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got to tell you, those are pretty big doses, 

you know. So you've got to say -- you know, 

you have to accept that. 

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 Let's go -- last slide -- next slide. All 

right -- and that'll get to the bottom line of 

what we found out. One, the generic pit is 

likely to bound external doses to Line 1 

workers. We're good. 

 Oh, by the way, this is -- one of the points 

that we're -- that's in here that Joe pointed 

out and -- basically -- in effect what this 

says, number two, is that there's actually 

newer dat-- remember I talked about this 

neutron to photon ratio where they got that 

ratio from the Pantex, well, apparently there 

is more data out there that Joe is aware of -- 

became aware of, and apparently -- now I don't 

know if anyone has looked at that data yet, so 

one of our -- one of -- and Joe, correct me if 

I'm wrong -- right now I'm prepared to buy in 

on the .79 neutron to photon ratio, but 

apparently there's more data out there that's 

worth taking a look at which would help to 

further convince us that that's a good neutron 

to photon ratio. 
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 Number three, this is the work factor issue. 

We cannot verify that as claimant-favorable. 

We were -- we just did not have enough time to 

dig into it and understand it fully, that in 

fact it is reasonable, if not somewhat 

conservative term in that equation. 

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 Number four, the exposures associated -- and 

this is what I mentioned earlier -- with the -- 

that might have occurred associated with the 

pit storage areas, we're -- we're -- we're not 

su-- we think that that might be an important 

source of exposure that has not been properly 

explored. 

We talked about the adequacy of the post-'62 

film badge data. You know, very little -- very 

few measurements were made '62 to '67. Can you 

do very much with that by way of reconstructing 

doses to people who don't have any data, we're 

concerned with that. 

 Another general concern is that excessive use 

of models when apparently, from our interviews, 

there's a lot more data out there. Based on 

the interviews with -- with workers, apparent-- 

and some of the work we've done so far, sounds 

like there's more data that -- especially like 
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these swipe samples, that could tell us some 

more -- that we need to look at and -- and the 

way we look at it, the way we interpret the 

regs is that you're supposed to go -- your 

first priority is to the real data before you 

jump to models. 

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 Number seven, this is a ve-- this is almost a 

philosophical question. Now this is what came 

out in the letter that was sent out on Saturday 

to you all. I don't even know if you had a 

chance to look at it, but it's a very 

interesting -- almost a policy question. What 

-- what's happened here is for pre-'63 a model 

was built, a very conservative model, by the 

way. We don't know whether that model is 

scientifically valid. We believe it's 

conservative, but is it a reasonable upper 

bound representation of what transpired pre-

'62. So the question is, is that -- is that 

appropriate. You know, when you read the regs, 

when you go to a surrogate approach, when you 

go to a model, it's my understanding that you 

just can't pick any -- a very bounding design, 

upper bound, 'cause you could always make it 

worse. And -- and -- and then I was thinking 
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about why is that a problem? Well, I picture 

two people, one -- let's say we have this 

bounding pit, very, very conservative and is -- 

and is based on -- let's say let's make sure 

it's conservative, and then based on that pit I 

get compensated. Okay? And the guy that's 

next to me, though, he doesn't. And he says 

well, listen, well, why didn't you make it a 

little more conservative? If you made it a 

little bit more conservative you'd have covered 

me, too. So it seems to me, and this is an 

interesting thought -- NIOSH sort of has an 

obligation to, when they build a generic 

surrogate to deal with a situation -- this case 

happens to be the -- the classification issue, 

they had to do that because of classified -- 

but I could see the same situation arising with 

-- let's say falsification of data. Let's say 

oh, we can't use that data, it's been 

falsified. Well, you know what we'll do, we'll 

build a surrogate (unintelligible), you know, 

that we're sure is bounding. Well, you know, 

when you start to do that, how conservative do 

you get? It seems to me you have an obligation 

to make it conservative, but it has to have 

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some scientific validity, that is there some 

statistical basis that you placed an upper 

bound in a reasonable way. Because otherwise, 

if it's -- if it's a little bit arbitrary, you 

could always say well, let's be a little bit 

more arbitrary and then give the ben-- even 

more benefit of the doubt so that even more 

people get compensated. So you're going down a 

path that's kind of strange. And do you -- I 

don't know if you understand where I'm going 

with this, and I -- and I -- it's a very 

thought-provoking piece. 

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 And finally, we -- we feel that all potentially 

relevant records, classified and unclassified, 

we really have not had a chance to review to 

the extent that we normally would have reviewed 

them. 

 And I think that's the end of my story. Joe, 

Arjun, Hans, please -- you know, 'cause -- you 

know... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Joe Fitzgerald doing follow-up 

here. Joe? 

 (Pause) 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you. I'm Joe 

Fitzgerald. I led the team that spent some 
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time looking at the classified information in 

Germantown, Maryland for a couple of days. And 

we also had the extra advantage of having 

basically worker interviews that were conducted 

rather extensively by my colleague, Kathy 

DeMers, who I'm sure a lot of the workers 

certainly know. And we certainly have a 

perspective that's probably overlaps but is 

decidedly different than the one John is 

referring to, and that was done, you know, 

rather purposefully given the time frame that 

we have. And I just want to really accentuate 

some of the issues that John certainly outlined 

here. 

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 You know, we went into the review certainly as 

a first priority to -- to validate the 

technical adequacy of the models that were 

being presented. And given the time frame, 

that was probably our first order of business. 

And I won't go into too much detail, but just 

to say it was a rather exhaustive review 

because certainly there was a lot of questions 

and a lot of concerns over the parameters of 

the bare pit represented and we certainly 

wanted to spend time doing that. And the 
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report that documents this portion of the 

review is available. It's out there. It's 

about 20 pages long, the actual review portion 

is about ten or 11 pages. That was 

intentionally kept short to clear the 

Department of Energy reviewers, classification 

reviewers. But you know, we, again, very 

purposefully wanted to nail this thing. And we 

looked at the parameters. Okay? We looked at 

mass. We looked at the radioactive components, 

the pit geometry, looked at the cladding issue, 

the isotopic composition, impurities. You 

know, we asked all the questions I think a lot 

of the workers certainly had and a lot of the 

questions that we, as a review group, certainly 

had. So, you know, certainly we spent a great 

deal of time -- in the day and a half that we 

had, a good portion of the time trying to 

validate that the models themselves were 

conservative and ultimately upper bound. 

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 But in doing so, and I think the report's 

clear, I think we felt that in going through 

that rather detailed analysis that in fact we 

felt it represented a conservative model, we 

were troubled in a sense that this is the first 
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opportunity that we have had to get into the -- 

I guess the classification issue, the notion 

that one will have to deal with classified data 

as part of the process that all of us are 

working with. And I'm very familiar with 

classified information having spent a great 

deal of time in Department of Energy. But in 

this particular context it's particularly 

troublesome because in a sense it represents 

this extra scientific -- a factor X, if you may 

-- that one has to accommodate. And in doing 

so -- and I think this was raised a little 

earlier -- it's unavoidable. And first of all, 

it's -- let me just first say it's very 

legitimate, very important that this be done. 

And I think there was a great deal of care 

taken in doing this. But in doing so there's 

uncertainties introduced. There's certain 

uncertainties introduced that have to be 

accommodated, and this is something that puts 

the process into sort of unknown territory, in 

a way. It's not something that is defined in 

the Act, not clearly addressed by the 

procedures. And so when we're looking at this 

and trying to figure out, you know, were these 

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best estimates and trying to answer our charge 

to the Board, it was pretty clear this was 

something outside of that. But yet 

accommodations -- and I would say significant 

accommodations were being made which provided 

an influence, a perturbation on the final 

answers, on the models that I think raises what 

I would say some pretty significant policy 

questions about how that plays out in the final 

answer. And I -- I want to be rather opaque 

about this because to go into any further 

detail would be -- would be probably kind of 

dangerous in the sense it'd be hard not to 

inadvertently trip into it, but we did identify 

that issue as, if you may, a sidebar policy 

question that there were certainly 

uncertainties that -- that could not be 

articulated and yet were very important to the 

final answers, the ones that you in fact and we 

in fact have looked at in terms of these 

models. 

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 So yes, they do represent upper bounds -- we -- 

we thought, and I think certainly the Board 

members who were with us can corroborate, as 

they -- they may, that they -- that they were 
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technically valid, but yet we have this big 

issue. 

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 We went further than that. We had certainly 

the benefit of extensive worker interviews, and 

I'm sorry Kathy couldn't be here, my colleague, 

but we spent a great deal of time with the 

workers over the very limited time that we had. 

We only had a few weeks, but I think she 

probably covered -- I heard this from some of 

the workers -- more ground than one could 

imagine. And in that process we were troubled 

again, and I -- again, this is not a long time 

to go through the paces, but we were troubled 

because in looking at things like the work 

factor we could not marry up what we were 

hearing from the workers -- and these are -- 

more than one workers, this is corroborated 

across five or six or seven or eight workers, 

so this is a pretty significant sampling of the 

people that had first-hand knowledge of the 

operations. And we found this for the other 

reviews, as well. But we could not 

corroborate, couldn't marry up their experience 

with a number of these parameters, and I think 

fundamentally the work factor that we had the 
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most trouble with. But when we talk to the 

workers, we hear that, you know, it was 

commonplace to in fact be in proximity with 

one, two, (speaker moves away from microphone) 

in some cases with some of the people that were 

familiar with the (unintelligible), multiple 

arrays of pits, (speaker returns to microphone) 

yet the work factor focuses on one pit at a 

time. Okay? Felt that was not an 

insignificant inconsistency, one that -- you 

know, we don't have anything else to go by. 

There's no (unintelligible) of procedures. 

There's -- you know, procedures could not be 

located. There's nothing hard. What we really 

do have is the body of the worker (speaker 

moves away from microphone), remembrances, 

recollections, and the actual experience 

(unintelligible), and that did not match up. 

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 (Speaker returns to microphone) We had this 

experience about the proximity, the distance to 

the pit, and we very pointedly asked them 

(speaker moves away from microphone) well, 

what's the -- what's the handling of a pit, 

what happened day in and day out, same 

questions I would certainly expect NIOSH to ask 
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and we sort of expected answers that would 

(unintelligible) with what we were seeing as 

work factors. 

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 DR. WADE: Stay close to the microphone. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, I'm sorry. 

 And what we were hearing was, you know, no, it 

-- a lot of direct contact. Certainly an hour 

a day -- I had a couple of workers almost laugh 

in my face about the notion that it was limited 

to such a small fraction. And looking at 

Pantex experience where in fact one had to go 

to lead aprons because the exposure got to be 

considerable at the trunk level, you know, it 

sort of struck me that yes, there was some 

resonance in the fact that, you know, this 

question of the parameter of proximity, the 

duration of time, the numbers of pits -- these 

are all very important questions. These are 

very influential issues. 

Now it was one question to say, you know, the 

bare pit is conservative. You know, that was 

sort of the primary we went into looking at. 

And I have to say it was well thought out. A 

lot of homework was done with DOE and, you 

know, it was a creative solution to it. But 
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when we went further and got into the work 

factor, you had to go to the workers for that. 

There just isn't anything harder, nothing 

that's probably more important, and we really 

couldn't marry that up very well. So again, 

that -- that issue was certainly one -- and I 

want to emphasize, it was a very important 

issue, and one that we sought to substantuate 

(sic) further with the additional workers that 

we talked to and we could not substantiate 

those parameters that are associated with the 

work factor with any of the workers. Okay? 

And that -- that really I think was a 

troublesome issue. 

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 And certainly going further than that, you 

know, we saw the area monitor data for the 

storage areas. And some of you may be familiar 

with the experience at Pantex when the Cold War 

ended and you start piling up pits in the 

storage areas at Pantex. One of the biggest 

issues is increasing ambient level of exposure 

that was taking place in the igloos and the 

storage areas and what to do about that. That 

was sort of in the late -- early '90's that 

that issue had come up. And so it's a very 
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significant issue in terms of -- of -- of both 

understanding and also reflecting what the high 

level of exposure means. And I think in the 

case of IAAP we didn't get any disagreement 

that there was a likelihood that in fact this 

multiple array of pits being stored in various 

locations did represent a substantial source of 

exposure if in fact the worker -- in this case 

a guard, unmonitored guard -- was in the wrong 

location. Okay? And I think it was pretty 

clear that, depending on the time of year, that 

worker might very well be indoors than 

outdoors, or be closer to the multiple pits 

than the area monitor itself, which is 

positioned on a wall in the storage area is. 

Now recognize that the -- this -- the area 

monitor is our best measure of what the 

radiation field was in that storage area, and 

we're getting fairly high measurements. I 

guess it was something like as much as 18 rem a 

year, which is a couple millirem an hour, but 

if you're a security guard and you're 

positioned at a location in fact closer to that 

array than that area monitor, in fact your 

exposure may be very well higher. So we're 

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seeing these degrees of uncertainty that 

frankly we could not find a way to explain it 

out. Okay? So we're really -- given the time 

we had, it wasn't very long, we wanted to test 

these -- these postulates, the assumptions, to 

see if we could in fact either substantuate 

(sic) or unsubstantuate (sic). Some we did and 

some we did not. I have to tell you, we did 

not substantuate the work factor. 

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 Other issues that gave us pause -- and again, 

it's not a question that you can't come up with 

a solid upper bound model. I think, again, 

that was pretty clear that that was not only 

possible, had been accomplished. But what we 

really had problems with was the question of 

data. This was raised earlier, that there was 

a -- you know, unlike some sites -- we went 

through Bethlehem Steel. This site we know 

there was a spectrum of records that were 

available in 1974 that apparently, you know, at 

that point had been either burned -- in some 

cases, if they were operational data, which is 

I think standard procedure -- but most of them 

were boxed up and actually shipped to Pantex. 

Okay? That much we know. And in that -- in 
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that shipment were some very important health 

and safety procedures, there were swipe sample 

data, we think bioassay data, what have you. 

And clearly that data was not in fact used. 

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Right. In the course of this review we just 

conducted we got some information from a worker 

that actual neutron dose rates and neutron to 

photon -- I'm sorry, neutron dose rates and 

neutron spectral data had been collected back 

in the early '70's from the production line at 

Iowa by Battelle, the national lab, and that 

data in fact was reported back and was 

available. And this is written up in our 

report, but I guess we had two reactions to 

that revelation. This came from the workers 

themselves. One, it sort of gave us a question 

regarding how complete the document review was, 

because clearly this had not been picked up. 

And second, this has tremendous implications to 

this point of conducting a realistic estimate 

of neutron dose at Iowa. 

 A good reason why we're going to the model, the 

neutron/photon dose rate model, is because 

there certainly isn't a lot of confidence in 

the NTA-based neutron dose information at Iowa. 
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But here's a case where the actual measurements 

have been taken, report isn't available yet, 

but clearly there's implication that maybe a 

modeling isn't necessary. In fact, we actually 

have fairly decent information that would be 

available. 

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 In general I think there's a number of issues, 

and I guess the Chairman's beginning to signal 

me that haven't been covered very well, but I 

think our conclusion is that there's a large 

field of information that hasn't been accessed, 

that still needs to be looked at, both 

classified, unclassified. There's neutron dose 

rate measurements that needs to be reviewed, 

included, made available. And certainly I 

think the work factor represents a -- a 

significant shortcoming, a gap in what 

otherwise is a -- you know, a fairly complete 

model, at least on the external side. And 

without that gap being filled and frankly 

addressed by comparing it to the worker 

experience, I think it's a -- it's a -- it's a 

substantial problem. 

 Is there any questions from the -- 

 DR. WADE: No. 
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1 BOARD DISCUSSION: IAAP TBD

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 DR. ZIEMER: We are running very tight on time, 

but maybe we have time for a few questions, 

then we're going to take our break. We have a 

public comment period starting at 4:15. We 

want to have a break before that, so -- and we 

of course will be returning to this topic -- we 

have a full morning of discussion ahead of us, 

but a few questions right now perhaps, either 

for John or for Joe -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is probably for John -- 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Arjun, as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, this is probably for John. 

In the -- I'm noting on your -- your -- I think 

it's two overheads before this or -- I'm not 

sure where it is -- that one, that one right 

there -- 1965 total monitored people is 35. I 

know this is details, but I think there's 

important details here. In the pie chart that 

NIOSH presented, there's 40. Can someone 

explain to me what the difference is? And it 

says 40 workers from a single dosimeter cycle 

in '65, so... 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct, the -- this is 
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Tim Taulbee with NIOSH. The data that John has 

presented there in the total monitored came 

from summary sheets that were filled out by the 

site from their -- these were things that they 

had to report to the AEC. The data that I used 

is the actual dosimetry reports. They 

monitored more people than what is indicated 

there in that particular table. 

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used, Tim, is it consistent with the 

spreadsheet that you provided to me? 

 MR. TAULBEE: That's correct. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right, 'cause I tallied up 

31, but we can -- I can talk about that later. 

I'm assuming thi-- is this 40 all the people 

that were monitored or greater than zero? 

 MR. TAULBEE: For like 1965 that was from one 

dosimeter cycle, there were 40 names on that 

particular cycle. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Forty names, so it could include 

the zero data. Okay. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I stand corrected. Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that was my question. I 

think it does include the zero. I was trying 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Richard? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: My question goes to both NIOSH 

as well as SC&A. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You need to get closer to the mike 

there. 

 MR. ESPINOSA: On the findings on number eight, 

all potential relevant records, classified and 

unclassified, hasn't been reviewed, and it kind 

of goes to your document, the April 22nd, 2005, 

page 12 of 20, the third paragraph, were 

generated during the operation of IAAP and were 

transferred to Pantex in 1974. A number of 

these were identified, requested -- were not 

identified, requested or reviewed. I'm just 

kind of wondering what percentage was reviewed 

or what's missing, was a percentage omission 

and if there's anything at Pantex still that's 

been identified today that hasn't been reviewed 

-- as far as the mis-boxed at Pantex. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think that was a 

question that -- I think it was Tim that had 

answered that before, and we had a lot of 

discussions about to what extent the Pantex 

database had been accessed and actually walked 
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through and catalogued and inventoried in terms 

of what was there and to what extent it was 

relevant to the overall review. My concern 

there is -- and we put this in the report -- 

that we understand that boxes were mislabeled, 

some of the records are mis-boxed at Pantex so 

that the -- that the categories and the 

information that perhaps NIOSH might be using 

as a guide may not actually jibe with what the 

records actually are. Some of the missing 

records which are essential to coming up with a 

conclusion on a number of these issues, such as 

bioassay data, which would give us a handle on 

internal; some of this swipe information that 

isn't available which is essential to, you 

know, confirming this notion of no internal 

dose; and certainly some of the other issues we 

feel might very well be in a lot of those 

records and -- just beyond us how that has not 

been inventoried and we do not have a good feel 

of what some of those records are. Now some of 

them are clearly operational records and 

probably will turn out not to be particularly 

useful, relevant, whatever. But certainly some 

of these other records in terms of the safety 

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information, terms of the radiological 

information, we think will be very essential 

and there's just no clear idea of what's there. 

I think it's a -- it's a plane ticket to 

Amarillo, it's a walk-through for a couple of 

days and you -- and you're going to have a 

pretty good handle on what you're dealing with, 

but it has to be done. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Does that answer your 

question, Rich? 

 MR. ESPINOSA: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think Mark has another one here. 

Oh, Jim, yes. Go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, my -- actually this will be 

brief and it refers to this slide that's up on 

the -- up there now. Your finding number four 

in your report basically says -- talks about 

the statistical significance or 

representativeness of the data that's presented 

up here, and you use 196-- for 1963 to '67. 

I'm just curious why and what basis '67 is the 

cutoff. I mean I can see from here, but is 

there some other analysis that would say that, 

you know, that that is -- data got -- suddenly 

got so much better or so much more 
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 MR. FITZGERALD: No, and I think NIOSH would 

need to answer this more, but I think we were 

looking at the numbers of workers, and it's 

pretty clear the badges began to rise and that 

-- that was certainly obvious. But the numbers 

of workers, in terms of the workers involved, 

that number didn't appreciably change much at 

all for the few years beyond that point. And 

in looking at the records and interviewing the 

workers, it just wasn't clear to us what the 

break point was at that point. The -- 

certainly the TBD speaks to continuous 

monitoring, but I think what we could glean 

from the data is that the continuous monitoring 

was the -- in fact those workers being 

monitored more often and the badges being 

presented more often, didn't represent a 

wholesale expansion of monitored workers. So -

- you know, and there's just not an elbow on 

this thing. It certainly was a gradual rise, 

but we didn't see substantial difference in era 

three. 

 Now that's strictly going by the data, and I 

think the data's all you have at this point. 
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 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) answer a little bit. 

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 I'm Arjun Makhijani. These -- the break point 

in '67 is actually more -- more significant if 

you remember that the statistical analysis of 

uncertainties really has to be done by job 

category. So you cannot -- the -- NIOSH's 

charts in Appendix F where they plot all the 

non-zero data get at part of the problem by 

omitting the zeroes and not wearing the badges, 

only a part of that, but really in order to go 

from here to the individual worker, you do have 

to know which of these badges are 

representative of that work type. This is very 

transparent in the Mallinckrodt thing -- site 

profile which we're going to discuss later on, 

but there's no comparable data here. There's a 

little bit presented by Dr. Taulbee in his 

presentation, but it's evident that there are a 

number of categories and if you -- if these 

include zero data, you only got a couple of 

dozen total non-zero film badges, if that in 

some of these years. In some it may be a few. 

And by the time you get down to individual work 

categories, you may not have very much for a 
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statistical analysis. So '67 is not a bad 

breaking point, although we don't know how many 

zeroes we have there. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I just wanted to -- 

and I'm -- I'm going to ask Tim this question, 

probably. I wanted to know what you might be 

able to say -- 'cause I was going to offer 

something, but I don't want to put my foot in 

it -- on the -- on the era dose, 'cause I think 

that's an important factor in calculating the 

work factor, the denominator. Can you say 

anything more about it that might describe -- 

well, I'm going to -- I'll leave it at that. 

Can you say anything more to shed some light on 

what that value is? 

 MR. TAULBEE: Unfortunately, no, we can't. But 

you know, as we did discuss in Germantown, 

there are some -- some reasons and some things 

that are going on with that era dose rate. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. All right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Roy DeHart. 

 DR. DEHART: Both groups referred to classified 

data and were unable to explain properly in 

answering some questions. My question is, if a 
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dose reconstruction was done, I happen to be 

the claimant, could I do a reconstruction 

without access to classified data? 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Tim, can you -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- respond? 

 MR. TAULBEE: All of the data of what we use to 

do the dose reconstruction would be in the 

Technical Basis Document. How we developed the 

work factor is unfortunately not fully detailed 

in the site profile or in the Technical Basis 

Document. But all the numbers, everything that 

would be crunched, everything that would be 

used to develop the dose reconstruction is in 

the Technical Basis Document. It's the how we 

got to some of those numbers that's not. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Was your question whether you 

could do the dose reconstruction with the 

actual data, not the model? 

 DR. DEHART: Correct. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, that's what -- I thought 

so, and I guess, Tim, if you did not use the 

model, could you in fact use the -- or actual 

exposure data to do a dose reconstruction or 

would you have to bump into classified 
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 MR. TAULBEE: If we were to do a -- basically 

if you were to discard the generic pit, the 

access of the data that we have to go back to 

the actual source term materials and 

reconstruct the doses, we do have access to 

that. But all you would end up with is an 

annual dose and therefore there would be -- we 

wouldn't be able to describe to you at all how 

we got to that dose. Does that answer your 

question? 

 DR. DEHART: Yes, it does. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, did you have an additional 

question? 

 MR. GRIFFON: You know, just to follow up on 

that same line of questioning, is there any -- 

and I -- this came up on our conference call. 

Is there any reason -- I guess other than 

overestimation techniques -- any reason for 

this drop-off in '62 to '63 dose estimates? 

 MR. TAULBEE: The only reason there is the 

change between using a source model -- source 

term type of model in which we compound the 

uncertainty and compound claimant-favorable 

assumptions versus when we actually had routine 
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something -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, please. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- about the no data gaps, Dr. 

Ziemer? One of the concerns that we had that 

is listed in Attachment 6, both in item one and 

item 23, is that there are actually data -- 

there are probably some data gaps in the nonzero doses in the film badge dose records from 

'63 onwards because workers have testified that 

they didn't always wear their film badges. And 

that would likely also apply to at least some 

of the non-zero film badges. So there are 

missed doses in the non-zero film badges that 

are not accounted for in NIOSH's model post-'63 

and pre-'63 'cause it enters into the work 

factor. So we've got a very significant issue 

because there's no real way to do a claimantfavorable analysis with -- with all the data 

that we have because we're missing a piece of 

the data and we don't know for how much 

proportion of the time each class of workers 

was not wearing their badges. That's a very, 

very significant data gap that needs to be 
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filled, and we do not know whether the data is 

out there to fill it, whether the information 

can be recovered from workers or otherwise. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We're going to take a 

recess for 15 minutes, after which we will 

begin our public comment period. We -- the 

Board will return to the broad discussions of 

issues of the Iowa Ammunition Plant Technical 

Basis Document and our related reports again 

tomorrow morning, as well. So let's take a 

recess. Please come back promptly at 4:15. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:00 p.m. 

to 4:20 p.m.) 

14 PUBLIC COMMENT

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 DR. ZIEMER: Let us reassemble and we will 

begin our public comment session. 

 (Pause) 

 The Board would like to particularly focus this 

afternoon on commenters from IAAP, and so we're 

going to give those commenters preference in 

the comment period in terms of the sequence of 

comments. If in -- if, before we run out of 

time, we run out of IAAP commenters, we will 

then open it up to commenters from other 

facilities. But for example, there will be an 
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opportunity tomorrow, particularly, for 

Mallinckrodt individuals -- although we're not 

going to exclude them necessarily today, but we 

want to focus and give priority to the Iowa 

commenters first. So -- and I do have separate 

lists here, so I'm going to begin with my Iowa 

list and I'll just take them in the order that 

they signed up. 

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 First we have James Shelton. James, if you 

would approach the mike there in the middle. 

And if I don't pronounce someone's name 

correctly, please give us the correct 

pronunciation. Thank you. That mike may need 

to be turned on. We're not hearing you. 

 (Pause) 

There may be -- make -- there's a power switch 

-- here we go, is it going? 

 MR. SHELTON: Can you hear me now? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, there you go. Good. Thank 

you. 

 MR. SHELTON: Okay, very good. My name is Jim 

Shelton and I worked at the Army Ammunition 

Plant from the first working day of 1953 to 

July of 1992. And during that time I was part 

of the AEC operations from 1956 to 1975 -- 
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excuse me, I have emphysema -- which involved a 

production operator and supervisor on Line 1, 

and I worked in all areas. And also as a 

security guard and security supervisor, and was 

in these areas sometimes for eight hours a day. 

And I received a questionnaire for site expert 

interviews. I'm not an expert. I just worked 

there. And here's one of the most important 

answers I feel is of concern. 

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 During the time -- during the times that I and 

others were assigned to areas that work was 

performed assembling or disassembling the 

weapons, this would be for the duration of the 

8-hour shift each day. Work was performed on 

or within one meter of the pit, uranium, 

plutonium, radioactive material, and this was 

during the major part of the shift. 

 I was never issued or a film badge, a ring, 

wrist or dose meter or a pocket ionization 

chamber at any time. I don't even know what a 

dose meter looks like. And I never 

participated in any time-keeping where safety 

department kept track of time that I or others 

spent in a area recording the time and the dose 

rates, never told or shown what level of 
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radiation exposure that I received. Never had 

a chance to review my radiation history. I was 

not aware of radiation protection outside of 

the radiation monitors which went off every so 

often and we had to get out of the building. 

And safety would say -- come down, check it and 

we would go back in. 

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 And best of my knowledge, urine and blood 

samples were never taken until after the 

1970's, and these were samples that were taken 

during our annual physicals. The urine samples 

were for drug tests to see if we'd taken any 

drugs or not, and the blood samples were for 

our cholesterol and our good well-being, et 

cetera, not for radiation. 

 I never had a whole body count or a lung count 

to detect the amount of radiation dosage. I 

never used any type of instrument to detect 

radiation before leaving the plant at any time 

during the shift. As far as I know, no one 

else did, either, when they left. 

Production people -- personnel were never 

allowed to eat in the buildings containing 

explosive, hazardous materials or in areas 

containing radioactive material. Smoking was 
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permitted in designated areas only. Security 

guards assigned to areas where the buddy system 

was in place. This is where two guards have to 

be together. They carry two keys. One carried 

a key -- one carried a key and they locked 

themselves in the areas and they were allowed 

to eat their lunch in the buildings that 

contained radioactive material as they were not 

allowed to leave their tour until relieved by 

the oncoming shift guards for the oncoming 

production shift. They were within one meter 

of the radioactive material quite often each 

day, each shift. Also the guards wore their 

uniforms home each day. We never had lockers 

or showers until the late '70's. That's when 

we got a new building. 

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 Mrs. DeMers had called me a couple of weeks ago 

and she was asking me about the amount of time 

that personnel spent working on this material, 

and she said that NIOSH was under the 

impression that personnel worked one hour a 

day, which would amounted to 365 hours in a 

year. This is not true, and somebody led them 

on somewhere. Okay -- okay, I'm not sure where 

they got their information from. We normally 
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worked on or within one meter of the 

radioactive material most of the 8-hour shift, 

including ten-minute breaks and a 30-minute 

lunch break. And when a push was on, we could 

work ten to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 

and we could be on this for seven -- for 

several months at a time. 

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 And the guard department -- get back to the 

guard department -- they was never issued any 

other special type of equipment that when they 

went into these areas, and they was in these 

areas for 8-hour period of a time and the buddy 

system, each one checked on the other one, 

checked all the material that was in there to 

be sure there was no tampering. And this was 

checked every few minutes. And this also 

included the yard C -- C, where the material 

was located, where they stored it. And guards 

was I believe more acceptive (sic) to this 

material than anybody else. Thank you for 

listening to me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for your 

comments. 

 Next we'll hear from Laurence Fuortes. Dr. 

Fuortes? 
152

 DR. FUORTES: Thank you. I just want to make 

some comments regarding Mr. Taul-- Dr. 

Taulbee's presentation. First I'd like to kind 

of apologize to Larry and the NIOSH people for 

getting emotional during that presentation, but 

I think that's evidence that we all take our 

work rather seriously and the products rather 

seriously, and we have to take ownership for -- 

for those things we -- we produce. 

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 Tim made some statements that I really had to 

react to -- maybe not as emotionally as I did, 

but some of those statements were things like 

I'm confident that these were the workers who 

were most highly exposed. I don't know, I -- I 

come from this from a very different 

standpoint. I had a -- I had a meeting of -- 

excuse me, a conference call between my staff 

and Larry's staff a week or so ago and we tried 

to go over these same sorts of assumptions that 

we make and where we're coming from. Coming 

from the same problem from a different set of 

assumptions, obviously. 

 But my set of assumptions is that we don't 

know. I mean I try to teach my students when I 

teach science that ignorance is the first step 
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towards enlightenment, and you don't come to 

the process of discovery of truth from a set of 

assumptions. We talked about this grand 

illusion when we talked about the optical 

illusion of the arch. It's still the same 

issue. 

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 I don't understand how a scientist could look 

at this and say I know that these are the most 

highly exposed workers when they're told there 

were quite a few workers who were not exposed -

- or excuse me, were not badged. And we have 

histories from workers that what, 140 workers 

were working in the bays themselves, but we 

have in these years only 15 on the pie chart 

you showed, 15 workers labeled as production 

workers and we don't know where they worked. 

We just know they were production workers, and 

of the 800 or so production workers at a period 

of time, that's what the major title was in the 

bays. So 15 out of 140 people who worked in 

the bays badged. 

The guards who were working in the Y yards with 

the highest area exposures never badged. The 

workers who were doing disassembly, by their 

own history, never badged. The workers who 
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were receiving the pits from the igloos, 

shipping them back and forth, never badged to 

our knowledge. So I'd say there is a certain 

degree of uncertainty in my reading of workers' 

histories, which I don't recognize in the Rev. 

0 or Rev. 1. I certainly don't recognize it in 

the statements made by the scientists who say 

I'm confident that this is the highest exposed 

work force. 

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 Just a moment ago Dr. Taulbee said the reason 

that we have a different criteria post-'62 than 

pre-'62 is because this is the period in which 

we have no data gaps. I don't come from this 

situation of worker histories and observation 

of the badge data with that same assumption. 

That's -- that's an a priori assumption made by 

the scientists that will certainly affect their 

interpretations of the data they see. 

 Another observation is the confidence with use 

of surrogate data. At a certain point I was -- 

smoke was coming out of my ears, I'm told, when 

one of you asked about the confidence of use of 

Pantex data for radon exposures. And the 

explanation was well, the Pantex data is more 

claimant-friendly. It's more claimant-friendly 
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because the Iowa data was much lower. Whereas 

we had discussed the fact that the Iowa data is 

not only from 30 years later, but it's from a 

totally different work setting. It's from 

above-ground wooden barracks. That's -- those 

are ambient levels from Iowa whereas as the 

SC&A folks told us, you know, John Mauro said 

you could have ten-fold -- you could have 

hundreds of picocuries in underground areas and 

in -- in these high -- high geologic strata for 

radon. 

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 So actually those are the only observations I 

wanted to try to point out to you, that there 

have been some -- some statements made as if 

they are fact, very strongly, which I would 

have to try to -- to introduce some element of 

doubt in -- in your minds. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for those 

comments, and next -- 

 DR. WADE: He has another comment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, continue. 

 DR. FUORTES: I was told I was supposed to get 

up here and make one statement and I made three 

unrelated statements -- had to do with the 

chart, I'm sorry, that -- that was shown and -- 
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and the job titles. I'm trying to work through 

this with the SC&A consultants. The job titles 

that we have for this facility are only based 

on termination records, and they are not 

exclusive job titles. So when you see that pie 

chart, please understand that people could have 

had multiple job titles. Radiation technicians 

typically have only one job title and task. 

However, all of the other job titles we are 

truly unable to attribute exposures to the job 

titles. It's a very complicated problem based 

on our -- our lack of -- our lack of those 

sorts of personnel data and IH data, sorry. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think we all understand 

that. In fact, a good point because probably 

none of us here have had the same job title all 

of our life, you know. We -- we do change. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can I just ask one -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: A comment here from our -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- follow-up -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- or a question here for -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Lars (sic), one -- one follow-up 

question, if I could, on that. The pie chart 

was presented as a -- as departments. Is that 

what the data was? Was it job title 
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 DR. FUORTES: They are actually job titles at 

termination. We don't have department data. 

The only department data we have are area data 

from the storage yards. Otherwise we have 

individual badge numbers. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So I'm -- I'm confused. I 

might need a clarification, not now, but -- 

 DR. FUORTES: Well, there may be difference in 

perspective how to look at these data, but the 

data that we have were the Landauer badge data, 

and we matched those codes to individual pers-- 

personal identifiers and those to the job codes 

at termination. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. E.D. Webb. 

 MR. WEBB: I'm going to try and explain a few 

things to you people. Before I start, I want 

to tell you, you have my condolences. They 

expect you to make an honest decision that 

affects a lot of people, out of a bunch of 

hearsay. They don't give you the facts. They 

haven't give you the chance to get the facts. 

I heard a man stand there and talk about dummy 

pits a while ago. He never saw a unit. He 

never saw a unit in construction. They never 
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saw a standard operating procedure outline for 

how to build these units. I worked 25 years at 

that installation and I get a little bit 

perturbed at some of the information that's 

been thrown at you people. 

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get too close to an item that could possibly be 

putting out radiation. They don't know what 

they're talking about. When that pit is 

brought into production, it's brought into 

production. When it's immersed in cast 

explosives that had been properly machined, 

that's a stage of construction. The further 

that item goes, the more sophisticated it 

becomes and the more critical becomes the 

inspection of the construction stages. Those 

stages are inspected by two people, production 

inspection and AEC inspectors. 

 Another thing they have told you that we could 

not be exposed for over one hour. One item 

would make that a lie if they knew what they 

were talking about, the assembly of a Mark-34. 

That has to be dry run. It has to be shimmed 

to make sure that you've got the proper glue 

gaps. Then it has to be disassembled, every 
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piece -- including the shims -- laid in 

progression on a mortician's cart so that they 

go back in the order they were taken off, and 

it's -- after it's assembled around the center 

piece, then you go around there with a rubber 

glove and you feel for a step. This thing's 

put together in a cage. There are long brass 

rods about an inch and 3/8ths in diameter with 

tension clamps to hold that HE in close to that 

center piece and to put them in there at 

different degrees of tension so that you have 

no step. When the glue gaps are cleaned off, 

they get gone over with an eyepiece with a 

micrometric reading in the bottom of it and -- 

and it's got to be in spec or it's no good. 

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 The people that are talking about these dummy 

pits, I would suggest to get ahold of an SOP, 

probably from -- from Amarillo, and go through 

it and get some facts. I wish there was some 

way you people could have stopped at Fort 

Madison or Burlington and talked to more of the 

veteran people that worked there. There's a 

lot of them couldn't come up here because 

they're physically unable. And because of the 

expense of their ailments, they can't afford 
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the cost of coming up here, and you're hurting 

yourselves if you don't give them every 

opportunity to tell you what went on. 

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 But don't listen to these people that's getting 

this out of the air. That's a pipe dream. 

Anybody sitting here that worked in Division D 

can tell you after listening to that man, he 

never saw a unit constructed. I doubt that he 

ever saw a unit completed. And thank you for 

your time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And thank you, Mr. Webb, for those 

comments. 

 Next we'll hear from Jane Stronger. 

 MS. STONGER: That's Stonger. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, did we -- is that 

wrong? 

 MS. STONGER: It's stronger without the first 

R, Stonger. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yes, I see that now. 

 MS. STONGER: I'm different from a few of these 

people because I wasn't working there back in 

the '60's. But I'm the youngest of ten kids 

with a father that worked there and died. Many 

of my friends has parents that has cancer or 

died of cancer, and one question for NIOSH, 
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back in March of 2004 they sent us a letter 

stating that they was ready for the dose 

reconstruction. They had all the information, 

they was ready for a go. Then in January of 

'05 they sent us another letter stating that 

oh, we don't have enough information after 

reviewing your file. So... thank you... 

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and -- there are NIOSH people here today if 

there are additional questions on that case 

that perhaps can help. 

 Debbie Detherage? Debbie? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) That's my -- 

one of my sisters. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Anita Loving? 

 MS. LOVING: First off I want to say that I'm 

not a public speaker, so I apologize. I'm not 

used to this. But my father and my mother both 

were employees of Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, 

my mother from 1952/1953 until two months till 

-- before I was born in 1959. My father worked 

from 1958 until they closed the line in 1974. 

However, after talking to one of his coworkers' 

wives, I discovered that he actually started in 

1949. 
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 But what I wanted to draw attention to, I don't 

know how many of you saw, but there was an 

article in yesterday's Des Moines Register in 

the opinion section, and that all started from 

an e-mail I received from Paula Graham telling 

me of your telephone conversa-- or telephone 

conference that was to be held. She -- she emailed me -- it was April 10th, and I wrote 

back a response to Paula that said (reading) 

Hello, Paula, thank you for your e-mail. I 

want to help with this fight all that I can. 

My father, Wendell D. Pirtle, passed away last 

Sunday night, April 3rd. Monday, March 23rd -- 

or March 28th, excuse me, we were told that his 

cancer had come back and there was a large mass 

in his pelvis area and it had spread to his 

lung. He didn't even last a week. I had 

prayed so much that this compensation would go 

through in time that he could get to see some 

good from it. I am so extremely angry right 

now that I want to put that anger into some 

good use and get these people to wake up and 

realize how many lives have been ruined by 

their exposures. I have to go back to work 

tomorrow after being off a week for my dad's 

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funeral and preparations. I don't know how 

much of the phone conference I can listen to, 

but you can bet your boots I will go to the 

Cedar Rapids meeting. 

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 And then the e-mail continued on with a few 

personal things (unintelligible), but this past 

Monday night I received a phone call when I got 

home from an Andy Dominick who is a reporter 

for the Des Moines Register, and we e-mailed 

and talked on the phone several times during 

the week, but she asked me to write a letter of 

the things -- what I would like to tell the 

Board, and that appeared in yesterday's paper. 

There's a copy up there to see and I would be 

more than happy to bring photocopies tomorrow 

for anyone that wants to see it. But this is 

what the -- what the letter said. 

 (Reading) Members of the Board, I was asked 

what message I would like to convey to you, and 

the first thing that comes to my mind is the 

sacrifice of health and life by hundreds of 

unsuspecting workers at IAAP. They were 

serving their government and country, all the 

time trusting their government and country to 

keep them safe during their employment. They 
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were deceived. While they did make an adequate 

wage, by no way -- by no means did they receive 

the amount of compensation it would take for a 

person to knowingly destroy their health, day 

in and day out. 

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 My father was a very proud American, and he 

served his country well both in the Air Force 

during World War II and then at IAAP. I feel 

the government has done him and all the other 

former workers a great injustice. I am so 

angered by the time and the money spent on 

trying to recreate radiation exposure, a task 

probably impossible. You are spending millions 

of dollars when that money could be spent 

paying the claims to those who truly deserve 

the compensation. 

 My father will not ever get to see the 

compensation he deserved because he died last 

week from cancer, cancer caused by exposure to 

hazardous materials during his career at IAAP. 

His illness dramatically affected his quality 

and length of his life. After having surgery 

for colon cancer, he never again felt 

comfortable going out in public. He withdrew 

from society. Due to lung problems he was no 
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1 longer able to take his one-mile daily walks. 

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 I beg you all to consider granting this Special 

Exposure exemption Cohort to all the former 

workers with the 22 cancers, and to do so 

before it is too late for the remaining ones to 

see the benefit of it, as is the case for my 

dad. Before my father died he made me promise 

I would not give up the fight for the 

compensation he felt he was entitled to. I of 

course do not feel that the $150,000 

compensation in any way whatsoever compensates 

for the loss of my father's health and 

certainly not his life. 

When I think of the average compensation 9/11 

victims received, settlements in the millions 

for their casualties, it really angers me and 

saddens me. These 9/11 victims, while -- while 

these 9/11 individuals, while were victims 

also, were not blatantly neglected and deceived 

by their own employer, United States 

government. 

Some have said that dose reconstruction can be 

done using the records obtained from Pantex. I 

know my dad always told me that there was no 

comparison between Pantex and IAAP. Pantex 
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housekeeping on how the materials were handled 

was far superior to IAAP methods. It's not 

comparing apples to apples. 

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 As for records of national security, if they're 

being based on tests of classified documents, I 

darned well want to be able to go over and have 

copies of this information. They cannot use 

evidence without making it public to families 

and the workers involved. 

 Please stop the deception and do what is right. 

Respectfully submitted, Anita A. Pirtle Loving, 

daughter of Wendell D. and Mary Frances Pirtle, 

both former employees of Line 1, IAAP, and both 

died from one of the 22 cancers. 

 Then I have just a few questions that I wanted 

to point out. First off, you know, all the 

research numbers and all are really impressive, 

but it comes down to this. You're dealing with 

human lives and the families involved, not the 

numbers. 

And second off, members of the Board and NIOSH, 

I ask you to stand and look me in the eye, and 

all the other workers, and tell me that you 

would do any one of those jobs on the line of 

IAAP for as long as those workers did, and you 
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could honestly tell me that you would do it and 

-- and accept the radiation exposure that they 

did, tell me honestly that you would do it. 

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 And number three, there was an article in the 

paper here back in November in the Hawkeye that 

said since the law was enacted in October, 

2003, the Energy Department has expended $95 

million on administrative costs, but has 

rendered determinations by physicians panels on 

fewer than eight percent of its claims by 

October, 2004, and has only secured payments 

for a mere 31 workers as of August, 2004. Now 

just looking at this today, I can see where a 

lot of that money's going, and it's not going 

to the ones that deserve it. 

 Then I wanted to ask how the Special exemption 

-- or Special Exposure Cohort would affect my 

mother's employment, because the way I read it, 

it was to anybody after 1962, while my mother 

worked from 1952 or early '53 until 1959. And 

to file a claim I had a heck of a time getting 

records. They had no proof she ever worked for 

them. She was on the government side and I 

finally tracked down a coworker and friend of 

hers in Davenport who had to fill out a special 
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1 form stating that my mother did work with her. 

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 Second of all, they keep as-- they keep saying 

that there's no physical evidence of the -- of 

the radioactive fissile material before 1955. 

I want to reference a letter that a coworker of 

my father received from -- his name was James 

(unintelligible) and the letter was dated 

December 28th, 1962, and there were nine -- 

nine individuals that trans-- that tran-- that 

traveled to -- it says here (reading) Work 

involved necessary training at Sandia 

Corporation to become proficient in assembling 

and testing of material produced by the 

contractor for the United States Atomic Energy 

Commission. Those were nine inspectors and my 

dad was one of those and her husband -- her 

late husband was also one of those, and they -- 

they -- they trained in September of 1949 on 

how to assemble and disassemble and the 

testing, and then they came back and started at 

IAAP. So that was in 1949, so I don't know why 

they would have been trained and -- and -- to 

be proficient in this in 1949 when it didn't -- 

if they say it didn't start till 1955. That 

doesn't add up to me at all. 
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 I guess the biggest thing I want to say is that 

you really need to think about who it's 

affecting and not the numbers. I mean it's -- 

it's affected a lot of lives. I'm an only 

child and I was extremely close to my parents, 

and my mom's been gone ten and a half years and 

my dad three weeks. And as far as the dose 

reconstruction goes, I don't buy this and I'm 

not okay with this, and when I told my last I 

love you to my dad that night and he kept 

telling me don't give up on the fight, that's 

what I'm doing. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Anita, thank you for your remarks 

at a very difficult time in your life, I'm 

sure. 

 Incidentally, there's a -- Board members, 

there's a copy of the newspaper that Anita 

referred to here on this table, so if you want 

to peruse it after the session here, you can do 

that. I think Anita wants to take it back with 

her, but you can have a chance to take a look 

at it. 

Next we have Gary Greene -- Gary? 

 MR. GREENE: Just an initial comment -- for 

someone that didn't -- doesn't do a very good 
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job of public speaking, I thought she did a 

nice job explaining that. 

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 I'm here also on behalf of my parents. My 

mother and father both started working at the 

ordnance plant in World -- during World War II 

in the early 1940's. They subsequently met, 

married, and I guess I'm the result of that 

marriage. In 1951 my mother went to Line 1 

till 1954, and at that particular point in 

time, within two years -- I guess it was three 

years, 1957, she contracted -- of cancer, 

rapidly-growing brain cancer, operated, removed 

an extremely large tumor out of her right brain 

and she died in 1961. I was 13 years old. 

 So during that time period, as I was growing up 

during that period, when both my parents would 

come home -- I don't remember much out of those 

first 13 years. I do remember one comment that 

was made one time -- because all of this was 

classified at that particular time, extremely 

top secret. My father ended up staying at the 

ordnance plant till 1974, didn't talk about 

those days at all. But I do remember one 

comment they made, the two ladies that worked 

on Line 1, was boy, our watches are really 
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going to glow tonight. I never really 

understood what that meant until about four 

years ago in 2001 when this started. 

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 So during that time period then there's some 

things that have happened since 2001 and I 

guess today when our two senators were here -- 

or at least their comments were here, if 

nothing else, and I unfortunately couldn't be 

here, it's -- it's odd that we have two 

senators from the opposite side of the aisle in 

Washington, D.C. coming up with the same 

scenario of really pushing this Board into 

taking a look at quick action, early action, 

and what you're going to take a look at 

tomorrow is the petition, to take a look at all 

of these workers that are here today. Some of 

them are still with us, and thank God they are. 

Some we lost just three weeks ago. My parents 

have been gone -- my mother's been gone 45 

years, my father's been gone since I was 33. 

He died in 1981. 

 Now this is hard for all the people sitting 

here, and I understand the scientists' point of 

view. My background is science. I'm -- was a 

high school chemistry and biology teacher, so I 
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kind of understand where these things are 

going. However, now in private business I'm 

doing some other things, and when we go to a 

state university, for example, to get 

information leading towards research, we -- we 

always go in for unbiased opinions when we do 

that, and that's how we present that to 

companies that we work for. But you know we 

pay those people to do the work. Do you 

suppose they would give you other -- results 

other than what they're looking for? Please 

bear that in mind, and I hope that our 

government's not doing that. I do not like the 

term "cover-up," but I do know in the '50's and 

'60's this was high profile, top secret, very, 

very classified information. We were at war in 

the 1940's, the 1950's and early part of the 

1960's. So I appreciate your time and I thank 

you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Gary. I do 

not have any more names on the Iowa list, but I 

want to open the mikes if there are other 

comments from Iowa folks. Yes, please, sir. 

 MR. IVERSON: My name is Si Iverson. I worked 

at the -- on Line 1 from 1952 to 1954, came 
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back in 1957 and worked till 1975. You just 

heard what Ed Webb said about dry running the 

HE with the pits. This is true 'cause I did 

the same thing at one time. 

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 Also I want to get into the idea of pits, also. 

I received them and -- in this one area and 

they were -- when I was there we had -- had two 

inspectors that done the job, but what I had to 

do, safety would come down every morning and -- 

and select ten pits and say open them. So I 

would open these ten pits, take the tops off of 

them, and they would swipe them, and then -- 

they was two to a cart. Okay? Then I'd take 

these two to the inspectors and they'd lift one 

of them into a scale and close a door -- it's a 

glass door. Okay. Then they'd take some kind 

of measurements and weighed them. I don't know 

what they did for sure 'cause I didn't care, 

but there was two of them and one guy was 

taking measurements. When they get done with 

it, then they put it back on the cart and start 

over again with the other pit and so the same 

thing. This is done day in and day out. And 

when they got done with those two pits, I 

wheeled another two in; and sometimes I would 
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cap them right away, sometimes I would not. 

When I got down to only about two pits left, 

I'd open ten more. That's what -- and day in 

and day out. And the radiation badges was 

behind me, way up behind me and I was down here 

handling the pits, all the time, day in and day 

out. 

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 Lunch break, yeah. No other breaks because we 

couldn't go nowhere. Once in a while I may 

walk up to the (unintelligible) or something 

like that, but generally -- once in a while my 

foreman called me into another area. But this 

-- I've tried to be quiet, but I'm to the point 

where I think something should be done. I've 

seen too many people go for various reasons, 

and I try not to make this a personal issue. I 

firmly believe in this program and I firmly 

believe that it should be resolved. How? I 

hope in our favor. I've seen too many get up -

- people get up here that are, you know, all 

broken up. I mean I never lost my parents 

because of this. My dad did work out there, 

but he was never -- well, he might have been 

'cause he was on Line 1 rare occasions. But 

something's got to be done. We keep hearing 
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all the money that's being spent. I mean I 

just hope -- it's got to end. I mean these 

people are -- I've lost too many friends, too 

many people I went to church with, too many 

people that I sat down in the nearest bar and 

drank with, and all things like that. It's got 

to come to an end, folks. We've got to do 

something. There's nothing left to do. I mean 

that's about all I got to say, but doggone it, 

let's do something, and let's hope it's the 

right thing. I thank you very much. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Yes, another hand 

here. Just a moment. Ms. -- oh, Ms. Graham? 

No. 

 MS. YERRINGTON: I'm Lasca Yerrington and I'm 

like Mr. Harkin this morning. Here's this 

chart about unmonitored workers, and it wasn't 

put in the new revised version of the site 

profile. We have both that were sent to us, 

and this was left out where they had like 1,030 

not monitored and total monitored was 29, which 

meant that 97 percent were not monitored. And 

this is from 1962 through 1973, and the least 

percentage not monitored was 72 percent. And 

that is -- that is bad. And I couldn't 
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understand why this was left out of the new 

site profile. 

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 And another thing, I want to say this to start 

with. Prior to the onset of the IAAP in 1941, 

this area did not have or use the household and 

farm chemicals that we use today. On farms we 

used manure and lime. Our housecleaning 

supplies were soap, soda, vinegar and good old 

muscle power. So where were these workers 

exposed to the radioactive materials, 

explosives, solvents, other chemicals and 

metals? It evidently was during their work 

days at the IAAP. We never heard of cancer 

prior to IAAP except one woman in the last few 

weeks before she died, and she lived on the 

highway -- close to the highway -- they 

diverted traffic several blocks away so she 

would not be disturbed. This diversion of 

traffic was done by the Iowa Highway Commission 

because it was so rare, cancer was so rare. 

That's how rare it was for us to have cancer 

around. 

 Another thing I'd like to say, my sister and I 

-- Paula -- we received the report from ATSDR, 

and we found some incorrect information in 
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that, because we had seen at one of our 

meetings with the DOE and the DOD -- 'cause 

we're on the DOD advisory board -- we had seen 

a slide that showed machinists working in their 

-- their clothing. And in the ATSDR it said 

nobody worked in their clothing. So we had 

them -- from the Iowa City -- we tried to send 

it, or Paula did, through her computer which 

she couldn't get it to go right so she called 

up to Iowa City, and I don't know whether it 

was Howard or -- I think it was Howard sent it 

down to them. So we talked to them and asked 

them if they would change this in the ATSDR. 

And Catherine Hanks said no, that she would put 

it in a file drawer and if anyone ever asked 

about it, she would dig it up. And my sister 

said to her, you could print a paper correcting 

this and could send it out to everyone that had 

the ATSDR report, and she said no, she couldn't 

do it. 

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 But it showed them working not only in their 

street clothing, but it showed them work-- with 

their lunch boxes open, their thermos bottle's 

there, and they were probably machining 

beryllium alloy. 
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 The last thing I want to bring up is this. I 

received a letter from NIOSH April 20th 

concerning individual dose reconstruction, and 

to be at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel. 

This was for my husband and mother, who both 

died of cancer. I want to read that paragraph 

to you. It says (reading) On Sunday, April 

24th, 2005, NIOSH will be at the hotel 

mentioned above to discuss individual dose 

reconstruction status information between 3:00 

o'clock and 7:00 o'clock p.m. If you have 

questions about the status of your claim and 

are unable to attend on Sunday, NIOSH will also 

be available during the Board meeting. 

Appointments are accepted but not required. 

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 I came here believing NIOSH had some important 

information to give to me. I even thought they 

were going to say my husband's dose 

reconstruction was finished and they were 

getting ready to compensate people to show that 

dose reconstruction really worked. I really 

thought that since my sister and I were 

activists concerning the IAAP that they were 

going to pay the claims so that we would not be 

so vocal and go on being activists. 
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 In talking with NIOSH -- with a NIOSH 

representative, we found out no more than we -- 

than we learned from the reports we received 

from -- every few -- every -- every quarter for 

the last two years. Nothing there changed. I 

understand that Denise Brock's mother was the 

first to be compensated at Mallinckrodt. 

Denise is a vocal advocate for the Mallinckrodt 

workers. We need a Special Exposure Cohort for 

all these people, like Anita Loving and the 

others that have spoken up. Ed Webb, he's on -

- he's on oxygen so much of the time, and he 

came here and I -- as I was sitting here 

watching Ed Webb speak, I thought is he going 

to fall over for lack of oxygen, because I saw 

his body jerking back and forward that he's 

tried to breathe. We need something done. 

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taking all this into consideration. Thank you 

very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Are there any others 

from the Iowa group that wish to address the 

assembly? Yes, Paula? 

 MS. GRAHAM: I'll try and keep this brief 

'cause I have a tendency to talk a lot. That's 
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because I was a teacher of eighth-graders, you 

have to talk a lot. 

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 Anyway, I -- there's a lot I could talk about -

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 DR. ZIEMER: For the record, give us your name, 

then -- 

 MS. GRAHAM: Paula Graham. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Paula Graham. 

 MS. GRAHAM: Yeah, Paula Graham. And my sister 

and I, Lasca, have been doing a lot of research 

in the basement of the Lee County Health 

Department in Fort Madison, Iowa. And we've 

been researching the work plan for supplemental 

remedial investigation for Line 1, including 

the historical site assessment for the Iowa 

Army Ammunition Plant at Middletown, Iowa. And 

those records are very dusty, and they say 

we're the only people been there ever to look 

at them. And we found some interesting things. 

One thing we found was that in the 1960's, so 

this reference says, there was an airplane 

crash and an atomic bomb dropped out of the -- 

involved in the crash, and it was brought to 

the Line 1 to be disassembled. 

Well, I got on the phone and I called Dr. 
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Fuortes and I said Dr. Fuortes, did you ever 

hear about this? He said yes, a worker told 

him about it. But the story was -- the true 

story was that this plane was taking off and 

the atom bomb dropped out of the plane, skidded 

along the cement runway, was damaged. A fire 

occurred and they say the bomb was brought in 

all blackened to be disassembled. I'm 

surprised that this was never in the site 

profile. My question is, were they exposed to 

radiation? They had this damaged atomic bomb 

that was blackened, damaged, a fire that 

occurred. And then I wondered how many more 

were brought in there through the years. So 

that's just something that -- that -- that I 

wanted to point out here, and I have a few 

other things to point out, but I can't point 

out all the things that I've found, it'd take 

too long. 

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 You want him to talk? It's okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, you -- are you finished or -- 

 MS. GRAHAM: No, I'm not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, you finish first and then 

we'll -- 

 MS. GRAHAM: I want to talk a little -- 
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 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well, you'll need to approach the 

mike, but let's let her finish and then you can 

address the question, yeah. 

 MS. GRAHAM: I want to talk about safety. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MS. GRAHAM: And I did not work on the atomic 

energy line, but I was security cleared to go 

there and decided not to go. My sister did and 

of course you know she died in 1956 after 

working there. But I can really testify to -- 

to safety on the Army side. I worked there 

during the Korean War and the Viet Nam War, and 

so you know, same contractor, Mason Hanger, 

Silas Mason Company, ran both sides. Of course 

the AEC was involved in the -- in the atomic 

side. During a period of I think from about 

1951 to in the '80's sometime, there were 

numerous people killed in explosions and 

injured in accidents. And I remember one story 

-- one situation, wasn't a story. I was 

working on Line 9 in about '67 or 8 and we had 

a big explosion of a building that wasn't right 

on Line 9, but I think it was a storage 
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building, and we had had -- we'd all had a 

potluck dinner 'cause the women about once a 

month would bring in dishes and here was this 

young safety man and he had a tour of duty in 

Viet Nam and survived that. And he just 

enjoyed that meal, I tell you, how young men in 

their latter twenties can eat a lot of food. 

He just kept going back and going back and I 

thought boy, he's really enjoying that meal. 

Well, then they left, several of them left to 

go down to the storage building and we went 

back to our work, and I was inspecting. The 

production supervisor came in, she said Pa-- he 

said Paula, did you hear that explosion? I 

said yeah, where was it? And he told me, he 

said they've sent for the -- for the plastic 

bags, body bags to pick up the pieces, and that 

safety man was killed, so even a safety man was 

killed in an accident. 

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 And there were -- during the Viet -- the Korean 

War I carried powder out of a powder house -- 

they call them rest houses where the powder 

dries. And it was so hot inside that building, 

when I would go outside -- it was winter -- I 

would get a headache from the difference in the 
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temperature. And I told my mom and dad it 

wouldn't surprise me but what that powder house 

will blow. It did that next shift and killed a 

girl. 

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 And there were accidents, a lot of accidents 

happened. But one big story during the Viet 

Nam War -- now to me, when you're having safety 

inspection, it's surprise inspection. The 

workers don't know about it. And so we were 

told one day that there was going to be an 

inspection, safety inspection. And all the 

bays in the buildings had load limits for how 

many people worked in the bay for safety's 

sake. You didn't want to lose too many people 

if there was a big explosion. And the bays a 

lot of times were overloaded with workers, more 

workers than were supposed to be in there. And 

so there was a phone outside in the ramps that 

joined buildings, and the phone rang and a 

production worker went out there and answered 

it, and he said they're coming down from 

another building -- whatever building it was. 

Well, he gave everybody -- if there were five 

extra people there, he gave them push brooms, 

sent them out on the ramps, be sweeping the 
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ramps when the inspectors came so the bays 

would not be overloaded. When -- when the 

inspectors moved on, you put down the brooms, 

you came back in. So that's some ideas of 

safety when you were there. 

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 And they lacked a lot of the equipment -- the 

things that we needed, like -- we called them 

powder coats 'cause they were all made of 

cotton. I remember one winter they never had 

enough coats for us. I worked out on a loading 

ramp and I was inspector, and they gave me 

permission to wear my own coat, and whenever I 

had to touch anything I'd take it off and lay 

it down, and that was a cold operation. 

 One other thing here, in this -- this 

historical site assessment -- and by the way, 

this was done by TM and Associates for the U. 

S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District. 

And this is 1972, and of course they moved out 

in 1974 or 5, and this is an interoffice memo, 

annual review of all radiation safety operating 

procedures administration building, and this is 

what it says. This memorandum was to J. E. 

Shannon from the Division Manager of 

Manufacturing B, request that a system 
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implemented to comply with the annual review 

requirements of (unintelligible) all these 

numbers, be followed, that this annual review 

should be followed. This system -- this 

requires that Manufacturing B engineering and 

safety jointly determine which procedures are 

to be considered radiation operating 

procedures. Why are they waiting so long to 

decide what is a radium operating procedure. 

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 And there were just other things, too. And 

then -- on the safety, then I'll sit down -- 

March, 1972, this was production survey, Mason 

and Hanger, Silas Mason Company and so forth, 

and under the heading of findings and 

recommendations, operating procedures 

pertaining to radiation safety are not reviewed 

annually. They're saying they were not 

reviewing these operating procedures pertaining 

to radiation safety annually, as they're 

supposed to. 

 The second -- the contractor does not have a 

formal procedure to assure through analyses 

adequate quality of bottled or line-supplied 

breathing air. And they went on to say -- I'm 

short of breath, too -- a formal procedure to 
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assure breathing air quality should be prepared 

and published. This procedure for air quality 

should also include an assurance that breathing 

air line couplings are not compatible with 

other gas line outlets throughout the whole 

plant. So there wouldn't be a mix-up and 

somebody would get gas. 

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 All right, the third thing, automatic 

conductivity measurement and control systems 

have not been provided for all cooling towers 

to control loss of chromate with the subsequent 

to effluent watercourses with chromate ions. 

Of course that would go into the atmosphere, 

too. 

Next, the medical department has not conducted 

biological calibration tests on the audiometer. 

 Under headings and discussions, it says the 

contractor has no formal mechanism to assure 

annual review of the radiation safety 

procedures as required by Albuquerque 

Operations Office. A statement requiring 

annual review should be added to the component 

parts manual or similar document. 

These are just a few of the things that we 

found -- there were many, many more -- that I 
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think -- I don't know if NIOSH has reviewed 

this, but it sure has a lot of pertinent 

information in it, and I would urge them to. 

And another place I would urge them to look is 

the Rock Island Arsenal at Rock Island, 

Illinois. They have an archive there, and they 

sent me things, you know, that I have sent on 

to other people. 

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 And I want to thank you people for listening to 

us, and I guess what I want to say is, like 

these other people, that I urge you -- you 

passed a Spe-- you approved a Special Exposure 

Cohort on the 9th of February this year, and I 

urge you to stand by that. Enough time has 

went by, enough lives have been lost, people 

are suffering and dying, and I don't know, we 

could probably go on forever and maybe never 

come up with the ideal dose reconstruction that 

people seem to want, all but the workers and 

ones that are suffering. And I do thank 

everybody for all the hard work they have done. 

I just wish I had more time to present more of 

this information that I've found. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Paula, very much. Mr. 

Webb perhaps has a response or some comments on 
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the issue of the weapon accident that Paula 

referred to, I think. 

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 MR. WEBB: She mentioned a unit come out of the 

bomb bay doors and skipped down the runway 

exposed to fire. That was a Mark-25. My buddy 

and I took that apart. There was no danger of 

radiation. It was a sealed pit. The tube was 

bent. It wasn't kinked or flattened. There 

were two of those units. The first one, the 

shift supervisor come to my buddy and I because 

we worked together in a lot of different stages 

of different units in a press operation, and he 

said if you guys'll take this apart for me, 

when you're done, you're done. So we decided 

we'd go down and do it. Then, he wasn't a too 

highly respected or thought-of supervisor. We 

did it. We finished it about 9:30, 20 minutes 

to 10:00, started out of the ramp. The 

inspectors had checked it. It was all right. 

We put it in the good case and ready to go 

again. We got to the ramp junction and there 

he sat. He said where are you guys going? We 

told him well, you said when we was done, we 

was done and we thought we'd slip over to the 

equipment room and see if we could con them out 
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of a cup of coffee. He said ain't no way you 

can leave the area. So what are you going to 

do? We went back to work. 

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 Wasn't a week till the second one showed up. 

He didn't have any luck begging that time. He 

took a young fella by the name of Todd from 

West Point, Iowa, production foreman, down 

there with him at the start of the second shift 

and had a guard standing outside of the cell. 

The rest of us went home at midnight. He's 

still down there tinkering with it, but there 

were two, not one. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. WEBB: And they were Mark-25s. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. WEBB: (Off microphone) And 

(unintelligible) no radiation damage from the 

first one. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Appreciate that added 

information. 

 I have a couple more who have signed up to 

speak. Dan McKeel from Washington University. 

Dan -- 

 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: You can defer till the session 
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 MR. MILLER: Thank you -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: GAP being Government 

Accountability Project. 

 MR. MILLER: Which means I don't work for the 

government. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

 MR. MILLER: Good day, my name is Richard 

Miller. I would like to offer briefly five 

points and set of questions. 

One, Si Iverson's comment, to me, had some 

significance given the number of years that he 

worked at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant 

because what he raised in terms of the 

discussion of taking say ten weapons at a time 

and working through them in a systematic 

fashion seems to cast some doubt on the .153 

work factor that's been proffered. And again, 

because we don't have access on the outside to 

know exactly how they got at that .153, at 

least his statement -- and I would add that Mr. 

Iverson is not a claimant under this program. 

He stands in no particular personal way to 

benefit from that statement. He works on the 
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former worker medical screening program, I 

think -- is that right? -- and -- but he has no 

way, shape or form -- and I just think it's 

useful if some weight can be given to worker 

testimony from Mr. Webb or from Mr. Iverson on 

that. But I do think that's a very significant 

point about -- and again, it's a pre-'63 point, 

but it's a significant point. 

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 I think the second thing that struck me of the 

statements today was Dr. Fuortes's statement 

that the job codes were from termination 

reports. Now it's not just all -- that we have 

lots of different jobs in our lives, but the 

assumption that was proffered by NIOSH, both in 

the SEC evaluation supplement as well as in the 

presentation today, is that there was a very 

high confidence level that they have a 

representative dataset for those years, by job. 

And if -- and one of the things that's 

interesting about and the Landauer badge 

reviews as it's been -- and I had the 

opportunity actually to go look at some of 

these binders at U. Iowa, was that people 

worked in multiple jobs, so that you -- your -- 

what you were terminated from isn't necessarily 
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all of what you did during the course of your 

employment. It is only a snapshot on that day. 

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 Thus the question arises, given the way in 

which the photon dose badges are used, 

particularly for the post-'63 period, they 

leverage a great deal of this site profile. 

They leverage the work factor and a year of 

dose calculations going backwards prior to '63, 

as well as serving as a geometric mean going 

forward and the basis upon which you then 

multiply for neutron and -- and -- and the 

subsequent correction factors -- or quality 

factors. What -- the question that comes to my 

mind, it's sort of like building a house, you 

know. If you -- if -- you've got a thin reed 

here and you're really not sure how flimsy or 

how sturdy that particular support is going to 

be for your argument, and here it seems that 

there's some substantial doubt cast on how 

robust that dataset is in the '60's upon which 

to base so many multiplying and -- multiplying 

factors in both directions, back and forward. 

And I -- I guess that if -- at this point, 

where do you -- where is the comfort level -- 

where is the -- where is the weight of evidence 
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that says that one has a high confidence level 

if it's all based on termination reports. 

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 Now one of the things that was raised by the 

Sanford Cohen report was they asked a question 

to NIOSH in a list of -- I think it's an 

attachment to the -- to the letters that were 

submitted to the Board. They asked 

(unintelligible) how many records and can you 

get an inventory of what's down at Pantex. But 

what I've been struck by is another question, 

which is what was shipped from Iowa to Pantex 

in 1974 and is there an inventory of what was 

shipped, because that's the first question that 

has to be asked. Then the second question is 

what have they found now some 30 years later 

down at Pantex -- right, Bob? What is the 

ratio of this. And I'm going to get to -- to -

- to an indicator in a second. 

 If -- if -- if -- even if they reviewed five or 

ten or 15 or 20 percent -- and not that I'm 

confusing quantity and quality here, but if 

you're only looking at a small percentage of 

what's there, and you don't even know if that 

percentage is representative of what was 

originally shipped or whether it's, as -- as 
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was indicated, potentially mis-boxed or lost, 

what was the universe that one was going to 

start with that you don't have today? In other 

words, could somebody please explain on the 

record sort of the math, what was inventoried 

and shipped that are health physics records or 

related production records that are necessary 

for this work to do dose reconstruction, and 

how many can be even identified in the 

inventory at Pantex today. 

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 One of the reasons it's puzzling is that in 

reading through the site profile, there are 

only 15 incident reports that were spotted. 

And for those of us who've been around heavy 

industrial production operations, 15 incidents 

in a 25-year period is a pretty remarkable 

accomplishment. And I'm unpersuaded, again, 

that we've found the boxes of the incidents or 

we've found -- that there's something missing 

here. And it may not -- maybe it made it from 

Iowa to Pantex, but it sure hasn't made it into 

this analytical process. 

The other thing that was interesting was that 

in the course of the Sanford Cohen report they 

had an attachment which indicated that lo and 
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behold, beyond the early NTA film measurements 

which were deemed generally unreliable for 

neutron, Battelle came in in the '70's and did 

some neutron monitoring. Well, where are the 

Battelle neutron monitoring results and are 

those classified, as well? There's an e-mail 

attachment to the back of the Sanford Cohen 

letter, and I for one would like to know will 

those neutron measurements ever be made public 

or are we simply going to get someone's 

recollection of what they were when they were 

taken some 30 years ago. But this is 

indicative that if Sanford Cohen just got in 

there and in four weeks started digging and 

found neutron dose badge data collected by a 

Battelle person -- and Battelle was brought in 

to work on this site profile -- it begs the 

question does the right hand know what the 

right (sic) hand's doing? 

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 The other question that is sort of a policy 

question about this is the statute prescribes 

up front that -- in the purposes section of the 

Act, that the goal is to provide timely, 

uniform and adequate -- and I never know what 

the word "uniform" meant, you know. I just -- 
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and when I -- I mean how many times have I read 

this law and I never figured out what uniform 

meant, and today it dawned on me. When we saw 

the representation in the chart that was 

presented by both Sanford Cohen -- that the '49 

to '62 time period had roughly 25, 26 rem of 

exposure per year for external penetrating 

dose, but from '63 to '74 it was somewhere 

between one and a half to three rem, round 

numbers, and you saw a ten-fold reduction in 

dose between 62 and '63, but we also 

understand there was no change of work 

practices between '62 and '63, can one consider 

this to be uniform? Is this a uniform approach 

and is it going to provide a uniform result? 

Well, obviously not. Then the question is, at 

what point and where and how did the equities 

about how similar situated workers are treated 

under the Act are addressed through this 

document, that's -- beyond the provocative 

questions that were raised by Sanford Cohen 

about whether you're dealing with extrascientific questions in terms of introducing 

uncertainty, which I think is a very 

provocative point, this also raises the 

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question does this meet the statutory test of 

uniformity. 

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 The last question I would like to just put on 

the record and hopefully someone can answer 

this before this Board meeting is over, we see 

in the presentation that is going to be made 

tomorrow by Dr. (sic) Elliott on the Special 

Exposure Cohort, two slides dealing with the 

Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel 

proposing what would be a very interesting 

perspective that the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services cannot grant a Special Exposure 

Cohort predicated on information which is 

classified. And we've seen a change in policy 

at this meeting for the very first time. 

Transparency has always been held out as a 

hallmark of this program, but in Dr. (sic) 

Taulbee's presentation today we saw for the 

very first time hedging on that. Now 

transparency's a desirable but not a necessary 

goal of the program. 

 I don't know whether the Board has deliberated 

on this question about whether it's necessary 

or whether it's merely desirable, but I would 

just like to draw your attention to that, 
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because this, to me, is a huge undebated shift 

in policy in this program, and I am not aware 

that Congress has weighed in in any way, shape 

or form. I have not seen any policy papers on 

this. And most remarkably that Dr. (sic) 

Taulbee's paper encompassed that -- that 

particular statement, that it is a desirable 

but not necessary goal of the program, in 

presenting his rationale for the -- for the 

site profile today. I would like to know who 

requested that Justice Department opinion. I'd 

like to know the name of the person. I'd like 

to have it on the record. I think it should be 

on the record for this particular meeting. I 

would like to know which agency and what 

position and who authorized them to do so. I 

would like to know what meetings were held in -

- with which agencies that developed this 

policy. Was -- did this originate in the 

Department of Health and Human Services? Did 

this question arise in the Department of Labor? 

Did this Depart-- did this arise in the Office 

of Management and Budget? Did the Justice 

Department just wake up one day and scratch 

their head and say let's look at the Energy 

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employee comp program -- gosh, I hear there's a 

meeting in Cedar Rapids; we've got to get there 

and drop some kind of new information and 

perspective. 

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 I haven't seen in the Executive Order any role 

for the Justice Department playing in NIOSH's 

program. They're to administer the RECA 

program, not this program. I haven't seen the 

Justice Department mentioned in any authorizing 

legislation that suggested that they should be 

setting your policy or that of the Department 

of Health and Human Services. 

Now I'm not questioning the authority of the 

office of legal counsel. Did this opinion come 

from the White House? Was there -- were there 

meetings at the White House which discussed 

this? If there were meetings at the White 

House, who were at those meetings? When were 

those meetings held? And if there's an opinion 

with respect to the office of legal counsel, 

has it been made available to this particular 

Board and this particular body? What is the 

legal basis for concluding that due process is 

not necessary in order for claimants to be able 

to have their rights fulfilled under the Act? 
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I'm unaware of any such proscription, and so I 

guess I would like, as part of the Special 

Exposure presentation, if NIOSH or if the 

Department of Labor or if the Department of 

Justice is here or they can be brought in, 

could somebody please explain how this 

descended from outer space into this process? 

Thank you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Richard. And 

let me tell you that I don't know if -- I 

personally had no knowledge of whether or not 

anyone in this meeting has the answers to those 

questions. I honestly do not. The Board 

learned of this as we came to the meeting about 

this particular -- I don't know if it's a 

ruling, decision or just a -- somebody's 

opinion. I have no knowledge -- may be we will 

learn more about it, but I do want to point out 

that deliberations on the Iowa information, the 

report of our contractor and the report from 

NIOSH will continue in the morning, so many of 

the questions that you raised perhaps will be 

answered in that context as we look further 

into the reports of both our contractor and 

NIOSH. 
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1 This last question, I'm as curious as you are. 

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 MR. MILLER: Well, at a very minimum I -- I 

hope that at least Dr. (sic) Elliott can tell 

us where he got the bullet points to put in his 

view graphs for tomorrow, and maybe that can 

begin the investigative trail back to its 

origin. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, certainly -- Larry can 

certainly share that part with you tomorrow, or 

with the group. Yes, a question or comment 

here? Paula? 

 MS. GRAHAM: It's just something I forgot I 

wanted to mention. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Paula Graham, for the record. 

 MS. GRAHAM: Paula Graham. Okay. It seems to 

me that -- you know, we fill out these 

petitions, the workers do, for Special Exposure 

Cohort and then they go to NIOSH. And then 

NIOSH I think looks them over -- if I've got 

this procedure wrong, tell me -- they look it 

over and then they decide send it to you, to 

the Board for -- for -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: NIOSH does an evaluation of the 

petition -- 

 MS. GRAHAM: Then sends it to you. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- and we review their evaluation, 

yes. 

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 MS. GRAHAM: Okay, so I've got that pretty much 

-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MS. GRAHAM: -- down pat. It seems to me that 

to avoid something like this in the future, I 

don't know whose job it would be, whether it 

would be Congress or the Board or who, it might 

be Congress, that we need to get some rules 

down, that once a Special Exposure Cohort is 

sent to the Board neither side brings any more 

in. You decide what we've got. So each side 

should be prepared. The one -- what is -- 

fills out the -- the workers that fill out the 

Special Exposure Cohort that goes to NIOSH, and 

NIOSH be prepared, too, and then that's it, you 

know. You people decide and that would be it. 

It would avoid a lot of confusion and 

everything, and it would save money. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MS. GRAHAM: Thank you a lot. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Paula. Keep in mind 

that actually this Board does not make the 

decision. We make a recommendation that goes 
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to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

NIOSH also makes a recommendation that goes to 

them. There are some time constraints in the 

process in terms of NIOSH reacting to a 

petition and in terms of the Secretary of 

Health and Human Services reacting to a 

recommendation from this Board. So there are 

some constraints in there on time, as well. 

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 MS. GRAHAM: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

recommend. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MS. GRAHAM: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

agree. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there further comments? Yes, 

sir, in the back. 

 MR. MOORE: My name is Ron Moore. I worked 

security, Line 1 at the Burlington facility. 

You've got a lot of questions about film 

badges, so I thought I'd give you a little 

history about film badges. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. MOORE: The first people that died in the 

Cold War were experimental troops put in Nevada 

and at Bikini Test Atoll. They were U.S. 

troops. They set off nuclear blasts. They 
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died by the hundreds. The doctors studied them 

for years till they were all dead or mostly 

dead. Joe Kelley started the Atomic Energy 

Association in Burlington, Iowa, which is a 

funny place 'cause this is where most of this 

mess started with, Burlington, Iowa. 

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 Well, those people died and that didn't seem to 

bother them 'cause they didn't have film badges 

and radiation still killed them. 

 Then we go to the first nuclear reactor 

accident in the United States in Idaho. The 

three men that was running the reactor were 

killed. The seven firemen that went in to find 

their bodies died approximately four years 

later, or three. They didn't have film badges, 

but they died of radiation. 

Now we go to Philadelphia where the five 

doctors were asked by the Atomic Energy 

Commission to find 300 people they could 

experiment on with radiation, and they did. 

Now they didn't give these people film badges, 

but they experimented on them with radiation 

and they all died, too. They're in a book. 

 Now if you go to every AEC facility in this 

organization, I'm talking Los Alamos, I'm 
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talking Sandia, I'm talking Rocky Flats, I'm 

talking everything you can think of, they have 

a problem because not only are the people in 

those plants dying -- that had film badges -- 

the people outside the plants are dying, too, 

that never worked there and they didn't get 

film badges. 

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 Now this has been a consistent problem ever 

since the AEC started and was formed. But the 

old AEC philosophy was we're run by the old 

boys' group, the Manhattan Project boys started 

it, playing around, and if you weren't in the 

clique, you didn't go up the ladder much, and 

they controlled and run this thing for years. 

And this is the problem you still have. 

If you would have watched C-Span about a month 

ago when the good ol' Berkeley people brought 

in a new man to manage Los Alamos because 

they've got critical problems all over the 

place, and they had people running their labs 

not to SOP and they were told they would have 

to run to SOP, they said to hell with you; this 

is my lab, I'm a doctor, I'm a scientist, I'll 

run it the way I want, so they fired him. 

Well, he didn't lose a paycheck because the 
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good ol' boy club sent him right down to NASA. 

And this is the way the good ol' boy club 

works. 

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 Now the way it worked at the Iowa Army 

Ammunition Plant was, you don't make waves, you 

don't talk, you keep your mouth shut, you do 

not turn in incident reports, you hide things, 

you falsify records and papers. This is 

documented through people that worked there if 

you would listen to them. This ol' boy club 

has operated for years. People are still dying 

and they will continue to die. They are not 

addressing the problems that got out of these 

plants to the other general population. We 

need film badges for them people. That's how 

you find out, isn't it? 

 Apparently film badges is not the answer 'cause 

people are dying from radiation that had film 

badges, and people are dying from radiation 

that didn't have them. This is the system. 

This is the way this organization works. This 

is your government at its best. 

 When we signed the National Secrecy Act we sold 

ourselves into slavery for life. There are 

things we still cannot tell you, things that we 
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will take to our graves. We cannot tell 

anybody, even our senators, with fear of either 

your choice of Leavenworth for life or a firing 

squad. Take your pick, guy. 

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 They've hid stuff, they've lied, they've 

cheated, they've done things for years and 

covered this up. It's a damned disgrace and it 

should be abolished. When you have -- the 

Department of Energy can go to any facility, 

and those people get sued, they pay their 

lawyer bills. Not the company in charge of 

that facility, the government. That's a 

disgrace, absolute disgrace. 

If you ever read the book that they wrote about 

Rocky Flats and what they done, and the United 

States government actually shut down a Federal 

grand jury that was going to prosecute them. 

Rocky Flats is the only AEC facility that was 

ever raided by the FBI. There has never been 

one since. There never will be another one 

because of that. The Ambushed Grand Jury is 

the name of that book. It will also show you 

how much of that exposure got out, how much it 

spread all over Denver, Colorado. How come 

people have so much thyroid cancer out there 
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and types of melanomas? They burnt plutonium 

and uranium in a smokestack that blew all over 

hell. 

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 Now gentlemen, film badges and this stuff is 

not going to solve the problem. We're still 

going to die until you break up the ol' boys' 

club. And like we used to say on Line 1 when 

engineering used to come down and tink (sic) 

with a unit, there's an old expression that was 

said -- sometimes they're educated beyond their 

intelligence. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for those 

provocative remarks. Any other commenters? If 

not, let me thank you all for being here with 

us today. We will continue tomorrow morning 

with discussions on the Iowa facility and then 

in the afternoon move on, hopefully, to the 

Mallinckrodt facility. We are recessed till 

tomorrow morning. 

 (Whereupon, at 5:40 p.m. the meeting was 

adjourned until Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 

8:00 a.m.) 
210

 

C E R T I F I C A T E OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of April 25, 

2005; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

6th day of March, 2005. 

_____________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102